Here is a news article: For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal airport screeners will allow passengers to carry onto a plane small knives, as well as golf clubs, hockey sticks and pool cues.

 The policy change, which will take effect April 25, was immediately criticized by flight attendants, who say the move will create an unnecessary risk and further crowd the already limited space in the overhead bins.

 "While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club or hockey stick poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin," said Stacy K. Martin, president of Southwest Airlines’ flight attendants union, TWU Local 556.

 In a statement, the Transportation Security Administration said the change will help align the list of prohibited items on U.S. flights with those of international carriers and cut the time passengers spend going through security screening.

 "This change allows TSA to focus on the threats that can cause catastrophic damage to an aircraft," the TSA said.

 The change will remove from the TSA list of prohibited items small knives -- with blades less than 2.36 inches or 6 centimeters long -- as well as sporting equipment, including golf clubs, billiard cues, ski poles and hockey and lacrosse sticks.

 The TSA pointed out that other security measures are already in place to protect U.S.-based planes, including hardened cockpit doors, armed federal air marshals, armed pilots and crew members with self-defense training.

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 [View the story "TSA to allow small knives in airplane cabins" on Storify]

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 The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will still prohibit some knives,... Read More

 The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will still prohibit some knives, including those with locking blades or molded handles. Close

 The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will let people carry small pocketknives onto passenger planes for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, along with golf clubs, hockey sticks and plastic Wiffle Ball-style bats.

 The agency will permit knives with retractable blades shorter than 6 centimeters (2.36 inches) and narrower than 1/2 inch, TSA Administrator John Pistole said today at an aviation security conference in Brooklyn. The change, to conform with international rules, takes effect April 25.

 Passengers will also be allowed to board flights with some other items that are currently prohibited, including sticks used to play lacrosse, billiards and hockey, ski poles and as many as two golf clubs, Pistole said.

 The changes attracted criticism from labor unions representing flight attendants.

 “This policy was designed to make the lives of TSA staff easier, but not make flights safer,” Stacy Martin, president of the Transportation Workers Union local that represents Southwest Airlines Co. flight attendants, said in a statement.

 “While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club or hockey stick poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin,” Martin said.

 ‘Shortsighted Decision’

 Pistole’s announcement reflects “a poor and shortsighted decision by the TSA,” the Flight Attendants Union Coalition, representing five labor groups, said in a statement. “We believe that these proposed changes will further endanger the lives of all flight attendants and the passengers we work so hard to keep safe and secure.”

 Changes removing items like sporting goods from the prohibited list are based on recommendations from a TSA working group that’s trying to weed out commonly confiscated items that don’t present a security threat, agency spokesman David Castelveter said.

 “These are popular items we see regularly,” Castelveter said. “They don’t present a risk to transportation security.”

 Pistole, the former No. 2 official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has stressed the use of intelligence and “risk- based” security during his tenure leading TSA. The agency is moving away from uniform procedures that apply to every passenger and toward efforts to perform background checks on passengers before they arrive at an airport.

 Speeding Checkpoints

 Besides conforming with international rules, the TSA policy changes will keep U.S. checkpoint officials from spending time confiscating objects that don’t present a risk, Pistole said. The changes will let more passengers go through screening lines more quickly, he said.

 “The idea that we have to look for, to find and then somehow resolve whatever that prohibited item is -- that takes time and effort,” Pistole said. “That may detract us from that item that could lead to a catastrophic failure on an aircraft.”

 The greatest threat to U.S. travelers is currently small, non-metallic bombs, not knives or sporting equipment, Pistole said.

 Overseas passengers will no longer have to check the qualifying knives as they pass through the U.S.

 The agency will still prohibit some knives, including those with locking blades or molded handles, like those used by hunters for skinning, Pistole said. There’s still concern about knives clearly intended for use as weapons, he said.

 Box Cutters

 Box cutters, like those used by the Sept. 11 terrorists, and razor blades will still be banned.

 “The sensitivity to those who were attacked on 9/11 still resonates strongly,” Pistole said. “There’s just too much emotion associated with them, particularly the box cutters.”

 The agency also is carving out two exceptions to its ban on most baseball and softball bats. It will allow souvenir, novelty baseball bats less than 24 inches long and will permit lightweight plastic bats even if they’re more than 2 feet long (61 centimeters).

 To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Plungis in Washington at jplungis@bloomberg.net

 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net |||||
A summary of this is?

– The TSA is loosening up a bit on what passengers can carry with them onto planes. Starting April 25, it will once again be OK to bring small pocketknives (with blades no more than 2.36 inches long and a half-inch wide), along with some kinds of sports equipment—including golf clubs, hockey and lacrosse sticks, pool cues, and plastic wiffle bats, reports Bloomberg. The federal agency says those are among the items commonly confiscated that are no longer perceived to be a security threat. It wants to focus instead on items that can cause "catastrophic damage." The rationale isn't sitting well with flight attendants, reports the Los Angeles Times. "While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club or hockey stick poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin," says one union leader. The only thing this change does is make things easier for TSA screeners, she adds.


Here is a news article: The play, ironically, started with defense, a hand extended into the passing lane. It was midway through the second half of that Final Four game between Houston and Louisville. Benny Anders, a shoot-first-pass-maybe swingman for Houston, reached in and stole the ball near the free throw line.

 This is an article from the issue

 The play that followed took place 30 years ago this month, but it's etched in my memory. Anders slalomed through traffic and headed upcourt, his spectacular Jheri curl trailing him like tails on a kite. He passed half-court, picking up speed. A defender from Louisville (I had to spark up YouTube to I.D. Charles Jones) tried to cut off his angle to the basket. No matter. Anders elevated for what looked to be a conventional layup.

 Except that Anders always seemed to have a deep-seated grudge against convention. He splayed his thick legs, sausaged into a comically tight pair of shorts, cocked his arm and threw down a vicious dunk, nearly beheading Jones.

 Though Michael Jordan was a sophomore on the North Carolina team that had won the previous NCAA championship, Houston was the It Program that season, a traveling road show whose aerial performance art took on mythical dimensions. The Cougars, led by future top 50 alltime NBAers Clyde Drexler and Akeem (the H came later) Olajuwon, had been nicknamed Phi Slamma Jamma, a nod to the quantity and quality of their dunks. But none was as extravagant as this particular throwdown by Anders.

 One reason was aesthetic. But another was the blithe disregard that Anders, a sophomore reserve, had betrayed: for the defender occluding his path and fouling him, in turn making the dunk all the more remarkable; for the rules of physics and geometry that should have served as discouragement; for the fact that his team was trailing in this, the most important game of the season and of Anders's career. And I wasn't the only one struck by that Anders dunk against Louisville. In his 2009 book, Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman recalled the moment perfectly as "a midair shark attack."

 Galvanized by the play, Houston eventually pulled away, but Anders wasn't done yet. His team ahead by eight points in the final 30 seconds, Anders was at half-court with no defender in his path and a teammate ahead of him. Anders declined to pass or dribble out the clock. Instead he achieved cruising altitude, cuffed the ball with his right hand and threw down a nasty reverse dunk.

 The move may have been imprudent—"the most selfish play I've seen in all my years of basketball," his teammate Reid Gettys would later tell ESPN—but it was the essence of Anders. Here was a player who summed up his game as "Take it to the rack and stick it on them." Which was not even his best line that season. For years his admonishment to Olajuwon—"When I drop a dime to the big Swahili, he got to put it in the hole"—endured as the gold standard for sports quotes.

 But that's all that endured. Despite his athleticism and flair, Anders never made as big an impact again. He floundered at Houston and failed to ascend to the NBA. Then he disappeared. Not metaphorically disappeared, as in, fell out of the public eye and now leads a life of pleasant seclusion. He literally disappeared, as in, whereabouts unknown. Vanished. Evaporated. Gone. A Jheri-curled Yeti.

 "Where in the world is Benny Anders?" became a parlor game in the hoops ecosystem. Mention Anders's name to Drexler, and he whistles, smiles and says, "Benny Anders is a mystery. Probably the '90s is the last time anyone heard from him." The University of Houston's sports information department claims it's been at least that long. As Michael Young, another Phi Slamma Jamma alumnus, told the Houston Chronicle in 2011, "Nobody knows where Benny Anders is. We've been trying to find him for years." Other former teammates joke about his having entered the witness protection program.

 A decade ago Grant Wahl, covering college basketball for SI, was asked about what ever happened to Anders by a reader. Grant called the only Anders listed in the directory of Bernice, La., Benny's hometown. He reached Anders's grandmother, who could only lament, "If you find him, tell him I'd love to hear from him." How could an athlete with such staggering presence leave behind such a staggering absence?

 And thus began a ... well, what? I wouldn't dramatize it as an obsession or white whale or even personal quest, but maybe as something closer to an abiding interest in finding Benny Anders. He had to be out there somewhere, right?

 Anders was the kind of figure I gravitated toward as a journalist, the embodiment of all those c words: charismatic, colorful, combustible, candid. But in 1983, as a kid in elementary school, I thought of him as the avatar of another c word: cool. He had subversive appeal, a funkadelic soulfulness. If Olajuwon and Drexler were the polished performers who played the big stage, Anders was the alterna-band rocker, all authenticity. He was a cowboy baller, with a personality to match. And I didn't even know the half of it.

 In high school, known as Bennie Anders, he was a star in tiny Bernice and played on the same AAU team as Joe Dumars, Karl Malone and John (Hot Rod) Williams. "Benny always had a big personality," says Dumars. "He was the most spirited guy on our teams." While the other three players were content to go to smaller, in-state colleges—McNeese State, Louisiana Tech and Tulane, respectively—Anders was hell-bent on playing for a big-time program. On his recruiting visit to LSU, however, he showed up wearing a shirt that read THE OUTLAW, his high school nickname. When LSU's coach, Dale Brown, asked about the phrase, Anders embellished. "I'd go from town to town, causing disturbances." LSU passed.

 Two days after Anders helped Houston defeat Louisville, he was on the floor in the waning seconds of the championship game against North Carolina State. Anders gambled for a steal at half-court. Of course he did. He missed, freeing Wolfpack guard Dereck Whittenburg to throw up a long jump shot, which ended in the hands of teammate Lorenzo Charles, who dunked the ball at the buzzer, consummating one of the great upsets in college hoops history. Jim Valvano's scramble to find someone to hug? It doesn't happen without Anders's unbridled nature.

 The next season Anders, and his comparably eccentric teammate forward Braxton Clark, quit the team after clashing with the coach, Guy Lewis, over their banishment to the bench. "Heavy pine time," Anders called it. When Alex Wolff of SI visited the campus for a story and took Clark and Anders to the local Bennigan's, the players thought nothing of ordering drinks. As they stewed over their Long Island iced teas (Clark) and Heinekens (Anders), they couldn't resist issuing gems like this one from Clark: "There are two fraternities. There's Phi Slamma Jamma on the court and Phi Slamma Clappa on the bench. And once you're in Phi Slamma Clappa, you're finished."

 But Anders wasn't. He rejoined the team a few weeks later. Drexler had departed to the NBA, but the big Swahili was still receiving dimes. With Olajuwon dominating, Houston again reached the NCAA final. Again, the Cougars lost, this time to Georgetown. Again, Anders solidified his cult status. He showed up in Seattle wearing a pink bow tie and cummerbund. He didn't play in the semifinal game against Kentucky because, he told reporters, he'd worn "the wrong brand of sneakers." He played sparingly in the final. "How can [Lewis] forget the athletes he has on the bench?" Anders wondered aloud. "I could have scored at will."

 According to a story by Mark Bradley in the Hendersonville Times-News, a Kentucky fan named John Gambill had become enamored by Anders, and at the final game he and some pals held up a sign reading BENNY ANDERS FOR PRESIDENT. Afterward Gambill and crew went to the Cougars' hotel and found Anders, who invited them to the Houston team party. Wrote Bradley, "The night ended with Gambill and a friend riding around Seattle in a Jaguar with Anders and teammate Reid Gettys." A week later Gambill received a package in the mail. It contained Anders's Phi Slamma Jamma warmup.

 Anders missed the following season with a knee injury. That spring he argued with a classmate at the campus field house. The other student threw a sprinter's starting block at Anders, who went to his car and, as self-proclaimed outlaws are wont to do, returned with a gun. Anders was sentenced to three years' probation after pleading no contest to possessing a firearm on school property. He was kicked off the team. He played briefly in the Philippines and South America, and that was it. He was gone.

 The first stumbling block to finding Benny Anders was a simple SEO annoyance. Benny Andersson, a founding member of ABBA and executive producer of the Broadway musical Mamma Mia!, kept intruding on searches. While that was easily corrected, I was having no success in my quest. A search of the usual databases did not turn up a Benny Anders born in October 1963 and living in the U.S. There was a Benny Anders living in Sweden. When reached by phone, that Benny quickly grew confused. When I mentioned Phi Slamma Jamma, he responded plaintively in a heavy Scandinavian accent, "I don't speak the good English."

 Often when there's no residential address for someone, there's a good chance he's in prison. But there was no recent record of Anders in the Louisiana criminal justice system, nor in those of surrounding states. Though his arrest record from the campus gun offense showed up in databases, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported no Benny Anders incarcerated in a U.S. facility. Another records search revealed that in March 1997 Anders took out a personal loan of almost $21,000 from the Community Trust Bank in Bernice, which he has yet to repay.

 Talking to those who once knew Anders left only a cold trail of rumors. Benny Anders was a truck driver. He was living in Asia. He was living in Louisiana but going by his middle name, Michael. It was even suggested that he had undergone a sex change. There is an @BennyAnders on Twitter, but the profile reads: "17, lifeguard, waiter, studying at south devon, Living the devon dream!"

 When I told a friend about my search, he referred me to a friend of his, a private investigator in New York City. The gumshoe had recollections of Anders at Houston, and he offered to help. A day later he called me back, impressed: "Not much on this guy at all. He knows how to hide!" He did find a record indicating that Anders had worked in the late '90s for a security firm, J.R. Nell & Son Security, in Flint, Mich. There was, however, no current record of a B. Anders, a Benny Anders or even an M. Anders living in Flint. Nor was there a record of J.R. Nell. The Michigan Department of Licensing claimed to have no information showing that the firm ever existed.

 A poster on Coogfans.com, the Houston athletic message board, had a lead on Anders: "I found this on Google: Prison Ministry. Every Monday and Thursday we have groups that serve at the Clifton Prison teaching Bible Studies, leading Worship Services, and serving Family Outreach. If you are interested in more information or in volunteering, please contact Benny Anders or the church office." A follow-up revealed that this Benny Anders was not African-American.

 Even in his absence, the legend of Anders grew. When the 2011 Final Four was held in Houston, it triggered the typical "Where are they now?" chatter about Phi Slamma Jamma. Inevitably Anders's mysterious disappearance came up. A story that Gettys earlier recounted to the journalist Robert Weintraub made the rounds: "An agent who places players overseas told me ... he had set up a tryout camp in Louisiana a few years ago. He started with 150 players, narrowed it to 75, then down to 15, then held a full-court scrimmage. So one dude, he's about 300 pounds, is just killing guys. Just busting them up. The agent knew he was too heavy to interest anyone but had to know more about this guy, and asked him his name.

 "'I'm Benny Anders,' the guy said.

 "The agent was shocked. 'The Benny Anders? What do you weigh?'

 "'Two ninety-two.'

 "Shaking his head, the agent asked, 'What are you doing weighing 292 pounds?'

 "'I'm down from 350,' Benny said."

 It was another classic tale in a compendium so, well, fat that it could be serialized. But it was of little help. No one could recall the site of the tryout camp, the name of the agent or even the league auditioning the players. I sympathized with Charles Jones, the hapless Louisville defender in the '83 Final Four. I thought I had an angle on Anders; he remained one step ahead.

 About a year ago, I had a speaking engagement in Little Rock and finagled a side trip to Bernice. Driving the single-lane roads that thread the Louisiana countryside was a little like traveling back in time: cell service was sporadic, women sold vegetables out of the backs of their trucks, roadside motels advertised FREE HBO.

 Pulling into town, I steered my rental car down the main drag and turned onto a dirt road. I found the address of Anders's boyhood home. No one currently resides there. At the Bernice Town Hall a woman in charge of records thought she had recently seen Anders and called a friend for more intel. My pulse quickened as she nodded with the receiver affixed to her ear. Then she made a sour face. She'd confused Anders with Willis Reed, who lives a few towns away and is, supposedly, Anders's distant cousin.

 I drove by Bernice High, where the Outlaw had been based. It's now an elementary school, though Anders's name still adorns the gym wall. But no one had seen Anders.

 Finally I ventured to the address listed for the only Anders in the directory that seemed like it could have a link to Benny. A mobile home rested on bricks several feet off the ground, a bedsheet hung over the door. An elderly woman who emerged claimed not to have seen Anders in years: "Ya'll keep looking for him, but he ain't here!" I presumed that this was Anders's Aunt Gracie but could not confirm it because in the most unambiguous of terms she asked me to leave the property.

 Maybe a month later I came upon an old blurb on thecabin.net, a newspaper's website in Conway, Ark., noting, "Ethel and James Lewis McClure Sr. are celebrating their 11th wedding anniversary this weekend with a trip to Sam's Town in Tunica, Miss. They were married April 12, 1993, at the Faulkner County Courthouse." The item mentioned that "the McClures have seven children," among them "Benny Anders of Flint, Mich."

 Aha! Not only did this support the private investigator's assertion that Anders was living in Flint, but it also gave the name of Anders's father, which had been elusive. A records search revealed that McClure was born in 1946, which meant he would have been young when he fathered Benny in 1963, but it was possible.

 When I called James McClure, he spoke genially, if nervously, but denied being Anders's father. He was "more like an uncle," he said, and besides, he hadn't seen Anders in years. I left my phone number, and maybe an hour later I received a call from a blocked number. The woman on the other end would not identify herself but wondered why I had just called Mr. McClure. When I explained my search to find Anders, she shot back, "Benny don't want to talk to nobody."

 "But he's alive?" I said. "He's doing O.K.?"

 Click.

 Now I had multiple references to Anders living in Flint. And in Bernice, a resident provided a name for Anders's biological father that matched with an address in Flint. I thought it was somehow fitting that Anders might be living in a city that was strong in another era but now deteriorating, a shell of its former self.

 So it was that last Wednesday I flew to Detroit and drove an hour north. The Flint home corresponding to the address is a brick ranch house on a main drag, not far from a GM plant and not far from a golf course. There was a dark blue H2 in the driveway and an old Lincoln shrouded in a tarp. A basketball rim, rusted and bent upward, was affixed to the garage. The house appeared to be divided into two residences. A light was on in one kitchen. So far, so good. But my knocks went unanswered.

 I wondered if Benny was playing hoops, so I ventured to the Flint YMCA. Jeff Grayer, a former NBA player, was there finishing a pickup game. He smiled when asked about Anders. "Benny Anders! We used to see him around, but that was a long time ago," said Grayer. "When you find him, let me know."

 I returned to the home and, in stinging cold, stood on the doorstep, feeling pathetic and somewhat guilty intruding on the privacy of a man who hadn't been heard from in a quarter century. When my knocks again yielded no answer, I was almost relieved. I left a note and a business card in the mail slot, but the gesture was pro forma.

 It's entirely possible that Benny is alive and well, that there's a simple explanation for his disappearance. His family's concern? His teammates' cracks—which have become less funny through the years—about witness protection? It might all be a misunderstanding, and he's teaching gym in Birmingham or running a Subway franchise in the Chicago suburbs or working in a cubicle in Bangkok. But someone else will have to find him. I failed. And now I'm done looking. Benny Anders remained a step ahead.

 Perhaps, ideally, he should remain there. As it stands, Benny exists as a series of brazen quotes, a flash of pink cummerbund, and astounding dunks, one in a pivotal game—a fleeting vision of athletic perfection and personal cult. Out, out brief candle.

 A man named Benny Anders, once the Phi Beta Kappa of Phi Slamma Jamma, is now outside the reach of social media, geocoding, voting records and satellite maps. Outside the hazy memories and unquenched desires of people like me. The Outlaw persists, and I'm O.K. with that.

 Follow @jon_wertheim

 ANDERS WAS THE KIND OF FIGURE I GRAVITATED TOWARD AS A JOURNALIST: CHARISMATIC, COLORFUL, COMBUSTIBLE, CANDID.

 THE GUMSHOE HAD RECOLLECTIONS OF ANDERS AT HOUSTON AND OFFERED TO HELP.

 A MOBILE HOME RESTED ON BRICKS OFF THE GROUND, A BEDSHEET HUNG OVER THE DOOR.

 PHOTO Photograph by PETER READ MILLER FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED HIGH POINT Anders soared for a tip-in against N.C. State in the 1983 NCAA final, but his signature dunk—an audacious breakaway move—came in a win against Louisville in the semis.

 PHOTO ERICK W. RASCO/SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (CARD)

 PHOTO HOUSTON ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS ROLE PLAYER Anders, a 6'6" forward, came off the bench and averaged 5.9 points per game during Houston's '83 run to the title game, but his contribution to the Cougars' on-court identity was greater than the stats imply.

 PHOTO HOUSTON ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS [See caption above]

 PHOTO F. CARTER SMITH/AP DREAM TEAMMATE Olajuwon (left) lobbied to get Anders reinstated to the team after clashes with the coach made him walk away in '84. With Anders, the Cougars again made the NCAA final. ||||| There he is, endearing as ever. He’s not in the Philippines or Switzerland or Swaziland (much less in prison or dead) as had all been rumored. No, he’s on the sidewalk in suburban Detroit, on his way to work at a restaurant. He looks good, too, weighing far less than 350 pounds, as was rumored. He still has a knack for the one-liner. Sitting in all black, his face shrouded by sunglasses, he says at the end of the new documentary, Phi Slama Jama: “A brotherly love is a very powerful thing.”

 A dutiful account of the endearing, anti-gravitational Houston Cougars of the 80s— who dunked their way to three straight Final Fours—Phi Slama Jama is a forthcoming “30 for 30.” And it succeeds as a piece of filmmaking. Aided mightily by recollections from the program’s former PA announcer, Jim Nantz, the film’s director Chip Rives gives the viewer plenty of backstory about this unlikely dynasty. (Discussion for another time: can a team that won zero NCAA championships still be dynastic? We think this qualifies as an exception.) We get the Phi Slama Jama fraternity history, an explanation for how this collection of mostly local recruits—a 7-foot Nigerian notwithstanding—came to prominence. We end up with a heightened regard for Guy Lewis, a twanging proto-Tarkanian, who gambled with talent and tactics and usually won. Until he didn’t.

 Still, the documentary’s great revelation is the existence of Anders, thereby solving one of college basketball’s enduring mysteries, a conundrum that had confounded everyone from Anders’ former Houston teammates to his own family. (And yours truly: more on this later.)

 If Clyde Drexler and Hakeem (then Akeem) Olajuwon were the Otter and Boon of Phil Slama Jama, Anders was Blutarsky, the ungovernable life of the party who added so much color to this cast. A heroic dunker, Anders also had flamboyance to cast. He was peerless as a quote. (His warning to Olajuwon—"When I drop a dime to the big Swahili, he got to put it in the hole"—set a gold standard for sports lines.) This was a guy who showed up to the 1984 Final Four wearing a pink tux.

 Anders was called the Outlaw. It was even the personalized license plate on his new Camaro. And it was less a cute nickname than an accurate characterization. He operated on the margins, under his set of rules. Relegated to Houston’s bench in 1985, he complained that he didn’t “want to play for no Phil Slama Clappa” and quit the team. While he was eventually allowed back, his career effectively ended when he pulled a gun on a classmate after a pick-up game dispute.

 After that, he disappeared. Not it the way we usually discuss it in sports. He didn’t retreat to his hometown to reinvent himself outside of sports. He vanished. His whereabouts were unknown. Among his teammates. Among his relatives in is hometown of Bernice, La. In basketball circles. He was a jheri-curled version of a phantom. As a former Houston teammate puts it in the film, “It’s like he turned the lights out on his existence.”

 This was remarkable on a number of levels. For one, it’s a feat to remain anonymous in a time of geotagging and IP addresses and status updates. Also, if you were going to pick an athlete to seek utter anonymity, Anders would have been your last choice.

 I know this firsthand. Having recalled Anders from when I was a kid, I wondered a few years ago what had happened to him. When I realized that “Where is Benny?” was already a parlor game, I joined in. And then got sucked in, venturing to multiple states in search of the guy.

 F. Carter Smith/AP

 After I published a story on Anders in Sports Illustrated in March, 2013, I received various tips. Benny was using the name “Michael.” He was living in Europe. He had facial reconstruction surgery so no one would recognize him. I also had various middlemen contact me about Anders, claiming they could furnish him. The hitch: there was a request for payment. In one recent case, having explained that paying a source violates a cardinal rule of journalism, I was approached with a counter-offer. In exchange for an audience with Anders, could SI barter a page of advertising for an AAU team Anders was looking to launch? Ah, the Outlaw.

 Rives and I talked about his project a few years ago and he went through a similar drill. Rightly, Rives reached the conclusion that finding Anders was a pre-requirement for a Phi Slama Jama documentary. (Full disclosure: I spoke with Rives on camera and appear periodically in the film.)

 Rives gathered enough clues to conclude that Anders was in Michigan, where his father lived. With the help of Houston teammate Eric Davis, a former Chicago police officer, Anders was traced to a rental apartment in a neighborhood between Detroit and Flint. A stakeout led them to find and then confront Anders on his way to work. (Rives also confirms that Anders was paid an appearance fee after he was found.) Mystery solved.

 Questions still remain. We never learn precisely why one of college hoops’ great cult figures chose to live in the shadows for decades. Or what precisely he is doing now. Or what he recalls from his Phi Slama Jama days. Still, the appearance of Anders in the flesh—the confirmation that he’s alive—is the fitting capstone for a soaring film.

 As one of Anders’ associates joked to me the other day, “Y’all will have to find a new player from the 80s to go track down!”

 Fennis Dembo, you’re on warning, pal. ||||| Phi Slama Jama member Benny Anders found after hiatus

 Photo: Courtesy Of UH Athletics Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Image 1 of 4 Benny Anders Anders played in 76 games for the Cougars from 1981-84. Benny Anders Anders played in 76 games for the Cougars from 1981-84. Photo: Courtesy Of UH Athletics Image 2 of 4 04/02/1983 - The Houston Cougar bench, in their Phi Slama Jama warmups, reacts to a slam dunk during action agiainst the Louisville Cardinals Saturday in the NCAA game played at the University of New Mexico Arena in Albuquerque. Associated Press Laser Photo less 04/02/1983 - The Houston Cougar bench, in their Phi Slama Jama warmups, reacts to a slam dunk during action agiainst the Louisville Cardinals Saturday in the NCAA game played at the University of New Mexico ... more Photo: Associated Press Image 3 of 4 03/30/1984 - David Rufener displays some of the Houston Cougars souvenirs available for shoppers at the gift shop at the Sports Market Bar and Restaurant. 03/30/1984 - David Rufener displays some of the Houston Cougars souvenirs available for shoppers at the gift shop at the Sports Market Bar and Restaurant. Photo: Betty Tichich, HP Staff Image 4 of 4 UH's 1982-83 team: Front row, from left, Reid Gettys, Eric Dickens, Alvin Franklin, David Rose, Derek Giles and Renaldo Thomas. Back row, Benny Anders, Gary Orsak, Larry Micheaux, Dan Bunce, Akeem Olajuwon, David Bunce, Clyde Drexler and Michael Young. less UH's 1982-83 team: Front row, from left, Reid Gettys, Eric Dickens, Alvin Franklin, David Rose, Derek Giles and Renaldo Thomas. Back row, Benny Anders, Gary Orsak, Larry Micheaux, Dan Bunce, Akeem Olajuwon, ... more Photo: COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON Phi Slama Jama member Benny Anders found after hiatus 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

 Benny Anders, a member of the University of Houston's Phi Slama Jama basketball team who has eluded public scrutiny for 30-plus years, has been tracked down in the Detroit area by an Austin filmmaker and will appear in an upcoming documentary on the famed 1980s team.

 ESPN Films is expected to air the film, titled "Phi Slama Jama" and directed by Houston native Chip Rives, later this fall.

 Anders, one of the more flamboyant members of the flamboyant UH squad that played in three Final Fours, was found in Michigan by Rives with the help of former UH player Eric Davis, a former Chicago police officer, according to a story published Monday on Sports Illustrated's website.

 The only details about Anders' current circumstances mentioned in the Monday story is that he works at a restaurant in the Detroit area and that he "looks good."

 Filmmakers, understandably reserving much of the Anders material for revelation in the upcoming film, told SI that Anders ends the film with the line, "A brotherly love is a very powerful thing."

 SI also reported that Anders was paid for his appearance in the upcoming documentary. |||||
A summary of this is?

– In the 1980s, the University of Houston's Cougars basketball team—aka the Phi Slama Jamas—made their way into three Final Fours. The player described by the Houston Chronicle as "one of the more flamboyant members" has now been found in the Detroit area by a filmmaker, three decades after he disappeared from the public eye. Sports Illustrated reports on Benny "the Outlaw" Anders, the subject of an ESPN "30 for 30" documentary directed by Chip Rives to come out later this fall, and it's such a shocking development that the SI headline reads: "Benny Anders is alive!" Anders was one of college basketball's "enduring mysteries" after he was benched in 1985, quit the team, came back a few weeks later, and then fell off the map after whipping out a gun during a fight with a classmate; he was sentenced to three years' probation for that incident, per a 2013 SI article. And as the current SI article notes, he didn't go back to his hometown of Bernice, La., or keep in touch with teammates or relatives. Instead, he became what SI says was "a jheri-curled version of a phantom." "It's like he turned the lights out on his existence," an ex-Houston player says in the documentary. But Rives, with the help of former teammate and ex-Chicago cop Eric Davis, followed a bunch of leads until they tracked him down in a rental apartment outside of Detroit. The SI reveal doesn't tell much about Anders' current state of affairs, other than noting he works in a local restaurant and "looks good … weighing far less than 350 pounds, as was rumored." Fans will have to wait for the ESPN movie to find out more. (No good news for this former college basketball coach.)


– Miguel Rincon was trying to settle up a speeding violation Saturday on a highway outside Bisbee, Ariz., when things went in a totally unexpected direction. A car pulled up behind him, and the driver told Rincon that her granddaughter was about to give birth, the AP reports. But Courtney Benavidez couldn't wait for an ambulance—that baby was coming right there in her car. Rincon alerted medics and rushed back to his patrol car to get gloves and blankets, per KSAZ. But by the time he returned to the pregnant mom, she was no longer pregnant. Little Carter Jett—so named for his super-speedy entrance—had arrived. "I just knew there was no stopping him coming," Benavidez tells Tucson News Now, explaining that her husband was out of town because the baby wasn't due for another two weeks. "He made his debut … on the side of the road." As for Rincon, he tells the AP he's had no official training in birthing babies, but "I do have three kids of my own, so that kind of makes me a little familiar with the process." He also let the speeding driver go. (At least she knew the baby was on its way—this Massachusetts woman had no clue.)

Expand this summary.

“This is definitely No. 1 for me as far as surprise factor,” Trooper Miguel Rincon said. (Source: Arizona Department of Public Safety)

 A state trooper said he just happened to be in the right place at the right time Saturday, Nov. 14 when an expectant mother was about to give birth on the side of the road.

 A car pulled up behind Trooper Miguel Rincon on State Route 80 outside Bisbee and a woman ran up to him saying that she was rushing her granddaughter to the hospital.

 Courtney Benavidez said she called her grandmother for a ride to the hospital after her water broke.

 Adrian Borquez, her husband, was in Phoenix for the night because no one expected a baby for another two weeks.

 But that expectation changed once Benavidez climbed in her grandmother’s car on the way to the hospital.

 Baby Carter was on his way regardless of the setting.

 “I just knew there was no stopping him coming,” Benavidez said. “So he made his debut and came on the side of the road.”

 Rincon said he left the traffic stop he was tending to at the time and ran to his car to call for medics and grab some gloves and blankets. By the time he returned to the car, Rincon found Benavidez already holding her newborn.

 “Everything happened so quickly that there wasn’t really time to think about much,” he said.

 So quickly, in fact, that Borquez said it helped the family decide on a middle name for their son. Down to two options, Mom and Dad decided on “Jet” because of Carter’s speedy arrival.

 “I think Jet was very appropriate,” joked Benavidez.

 Rincon wrapped the baby boy in blankets and cared for him and his mother until medics arrived on scene.

 Both are doing fine and were discharged the next day from Canyon Vista Medical Center in Sierra Vista.

 A certified peace officer with DPS since 2008, Rincon said this is his best experience since joining the force.

 “You’re always thinking criminal activity,” he said. “This is definitely No. 1 for me as far as surprise factor.”

 Copyright 2015 Tucson News Now. All rights reserved. ||||| TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona highway trooper getting ready to cite a speeding driver instead wound up helping a woman in another car who delivered a baby boy on the side of the road.

 This photo taken Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015 and provided by Courtney Benavidez, Benavidez takes a selfie while holding her newborn after giving birth in a car on the side of the road near Bisbee, Ariz. Benavidez’... (Associated Press)

 In this photo provided by the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Trooper Miguel Rincon, left, holding Benavidez's newborn son Carter Jett, poses for a photo with Courtney Benavidez and her husband,... (Associated Press)

 Trooper Miguel Rincon was conducting a traffic stop Saturday on a highway near the southern Arizona town of Bisbee when a car pulled up behind him. The driver told Rincon that her granddaughter was about to give birth and that they needed an ambulance.

 But the baby couldn't wait.

 Courtney Benavidez gave birth in the car. The baby was out before Rincon even had time to run over to her.

 He let the speeding driver go.

 Benavidez named the boy Carter Jett, a reference to how quickly he was born.

 She was in labor for only about an hour and a half. He grandmother was driving her to the hospital, but Benavidez couldn't make it. The women pulled over when they saw the trooper's patrol car.

 "I was just in shock, and I couldn't believe it," Benavidez told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I think I went pale."

 Rincon, a seven-year veteran with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, said he stayed calm and handed Benavidez a blanket for the baby. An ambulance arrived and took mom and infant to the hospital.

 They were released the next day and are in good health.

 "I'm just absolutely thankful and blessed because things could have gone down south very quickly, and I'm just thankful that everything turned out OK," Benavidez said.

 Rincon said he doesn't have medical training to deliver a baby, but his instincts kicked in as he ran to get a blanket for the newborn.

 "The only training I can say is I do have three kids of my own, so that kind of makes me a little familiar with the process," he said.

 Benavidez, a third-grade teacher, said she was shocked by how quickly things moved. Her 4-year-old daughter was born after 12 hours of labor, and she wasn't expecting such a speedy delivery.

 "It's very surreal how it happened, but I'm so thankful that everything turned out OK and we're all OK," she said. |||||


Article:
Rescue workers stand at the wreckage site of a chartered airplane that crashed in a mountainous area outside Medellin, Colombia, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016. The plane was carrying the Brazilian first division... (Associated Press)

 LA UNION, Colombia (AP) — Colombia's worst air crash in two decades snuffed out a storybook run by a Brazilian soccer team, and authorities are digging in trying to figure out why a chartered jetliner crashed in the Andes, killing all but six of the 77 people aboard.

 The country's aviation agency said Tuesday that the British Aerospace 146's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder had been found among the wreckage strewn over a mountainside and were already being studied by experts.

 Initially, Colombian officials said the short-haul jet suffered an electrical failure, but there was also heavy rain when the crew declared an emergency and the plane disappeared from radar just before 10 p.m. Monday.

 Authorities also said they were not ruling out the possibility the aircraft ran out of fuel minutes before it was to land at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin, a report given to rescuers by a surviving flight attendant. Officials said they hoped to interview her Wednesday.

 Emotional pain resonated across the region over the loss of much of the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil, which just two years after working its way into Brazil's top league for the first time in decades had fought its way into the championship of one of South America's most prestigious tournaments.

 The aircraft, which departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was carrying the team to Wednesday's first game in the two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin. Twenty-one Brazilian journalists were traveling with the team.

 South America's soccer federation canceled all scheduled matches in a show of solidarity, while the Real Madrid and Barcelona clubs interrupted their training sessions for a minute of silence. Brazil's top teams offered to lend players to the small club for next season as it rebuilds, saying: "It is the minimum gesture of solidarity that is within our reach."

 In a moving gesture, Atletico Nacional asked that the championship title be given to Chapecoense, whose upstart run in the tournament electrified soccer-crazed Brazil.

 Three players were among the survivors. Alan Ruschel was reported in the most serious condition, facing surgery for a spinal fracture. Teammates Helio Zampier and Jakson Follmann also suffered multiple trauma injuries, and doctors had to amputate Follmann's right leg.

 A journalist also underwent surgery and two Bolivian crew members were in stable condition, hospital officials said.

 The aircraft is owned by LaMia, a charter company that started in Venezuela but later relocated to Bolivia, where it was certified to operate last January. Despite apparently limited experience, the airline has a close relationship with several premier South American soccer squads.

 Earlier this month, the plane involved in the crash transported Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and Argentina's national team from Brazil following a World Cup qualifying match. The airliner also appeared to have transported the national squads of Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela in the last three months, according to a log of recent activity provided by Flightradar24.com.

 Before being taken offline, LaMia's website said it operated three 146 Avro short-haul jets made by British Aerospace, with a maximum range of around 2,965 kilometers (1,600 nautical miles) — about the distance between Santa Cruz and Medellin.

 Hans Weber, a longtime adviser to U.S. aviation authorities, said the aircraft's range deserves careful investigation. He noted that air distance between cities is usually measured by the shortest route but planes rarely fly in a straight line, with pilots steering around turbulence or changing course for other reasons.

 Given the model of the plane and the fact that it was flying close to capacity, "I would be concerned that the pilots may have been cutting it too close," Weber said.

 A spokesman for Bolivia's civil aviation agency, Cesar Torrico, said the plane was inspected before departing for Colombia and no problems were reported.

 Gustavo Vargas, a retired Bolivian air force general who is president of the airline, said: "We can't rule out anything. The investigation is ongoing and we're going to await the results."

 Moments before the plane took off, the team's coaching staff gave an interview to a Bolivian television station in which they praised the airline, saying it brought them good fortune when it flew them to Colombia last month for the championship's quarterfinals, which they won.

 "Now we're going to do this new trip and we hope they bring us good luck like they did the first time," athletic director Mauro Stumpf told Gigavision TV.

 The team, from the small Brazilian city of Chapeco, was having a breakout season. It advanced to the Copa Sudamericana finals after defeating some of the region's top teams, including Argentina's San Lorenzo and Independiente.

 The Chapecoense club is so modest that tournament organizers ruled its 22,000-seat stadium was too small to host the concluding match of the two-game final and moved it to a stadium 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the city of Curitiba. Some fans in soccer-mad Brazil were so enchanted with its magical run that they started a campaign online to move the final match to Rio de Janeiro's iconic Maracana stadium, where the 2014 World Cup final was played.

 "This morning I said goodbye to them and they told me they were going after the dream, turning that dream into reality," Chapecoense board member Plinio De Nes told Brazil's TV Globo. "The dream was over early this morning."

 ___

 Associated Press writer Fernando Vergara reported this story in La Union, Colombia, and AP writer Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota. ||||| CORRECTS TO REMOVE DEATH TOLL OF 75 AFTER NUMBER OF DEATH TOLL WAS LOWERED BY COLOMBIAN OFFICIALS - Fans of Brazil's soccer team Chapecoense gather outside the Arena Conda stadium in Chapeco, Brazil,... (Associated Press)

 CHAPECO, Brazil (AP) — Thousands squeezed into Chapeco's cathedral and even more packed a stadium to mourn the death of 71 people in a plane crash, 19 of them members of the Chapecoense club who had been on the brink of soccer greatness.

 "To lose (almost) all of them in such a tragic way, totally destroyed our city and each one of us," Carla Vilembrini said late Tuesday, standing outside Santo Antonio Cathedral. She was dressed like so many others — in the club's green and white jerseys.

 Chapecoense's fantasy season ended on a muddy Colombian mountainside late Monday when a chartered aircraft crashed south of Medellin. Only six of the 77 passengers and crew survived, three of them players.

 The club was having the best season in its 43-year history, heading to the first of two matches in the final of the Copa Sudamericana, the continent's No. 2 club tournament.

 Distraught residents of this southern Brazilian city of 200,000 people, an agribusiness center near the Argentina border, wandered the streets around the stadium — known as Arena Conda — in stunned silence.

 "The city is very quiet," businessman Cecilio Hans said. "People will only believe once the bodies start to arrive."

 On social media, haunting last photos showed the smiling players boarding the flight to Colombia for their match with Atletico Nacional.

 In one photo, the team celebrated a last-minute save by goalkeeper Danilo only a week ago against the Argentine club San Lorenzo. The save guaranteed Chapecoense a spot in the final — and ultimately cost Danilo his life in the crash.

 "I can't still believe it," Alan Heinz said inside the stadium, his body pressed against the fence that separates fans from the field. This time the field was filled by a religious service and prayers for the dead.

 "I was preparing for the best day of my life, and now I don't know what my life will be after this," he said.

 As recently as 2009, the club known as Chape was playing in Brazil's fourth division, but it won promotion to the top league in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s.

 Victories over San Lorenzo and Independente — two of Argentina's fiercest squads — as well as the Colombian club Junior took the team to the Copa Sudamericana finals, the equivalent of the UEFA Europa League tournament.

 Few of the players had an international profile, and none had any appearances with Brazil's glitzy national team. Most had played all over Brazil and Latin America. Only a few had ever reached Europe, like Cleber Santana, who played for Atletico Madrid in 2007-10.

 Chape strikers Bruno Rangel and Kempes, both 34, were among the top scorers in the Brazilian league, with 10 and nine goals, respectively.

 The only players to survive were goalkeeper Jakson Follmann, defender Helio Zampier, commonly known as Neto, and defender-midfielder Alan Ruschel.

 Coach Caio Junior is credited with Chape's quick rise, joining the club this year after guiding teams in the Middle East. Born Luiz Carlos Saroli, he coached numerous Brazilian teams, including Palmeiras, Flamengo and Botafogo.

 He was among the dead. His son, Matheus Saroli, escaped because he didn't make the flight, saying in a Facebook post that he couldn't board "because I forgot my passport."

 An Argentine player on the club, Alejandro Martinuccio, also missed the flight, because of an injury during a game, he told Argentina's La Red radio.

 "I feel deep sadness. The only thing I can ask is prayers for the companions who were on the flight," he said.

 Also among the dead were 20 sports journalists, including Mario Sergio Pontes de Paiva, a former player who worked as a commentator for Fox Sports. He played briefly for Brazil's national team in the early 1980s and had a long career as a midfielder and coach with many Brazilian clubs. He last coached Brazilian club Internacional in 2009 and Ceara in 2010.

 "This is a very, very sad day for football," FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement. "At this difficult time our thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends."

 Brazilian President Michel Temer declared three days of official mourning, while soccer great Pele called it a "tragic loss." Brazilian champion Palmeiras asked the country's football confederation for permission to wear Chapecoense's jersey in its last match of the season.

 Around the world, the sport paused to remember the victims.

 Barcelona and Real Madrid held a minute of silence before their practice sessions during the day, and France's top two leagues observed be a minute's silence at Tuesday night's games.

 Medellin-based Atletico Nacional said it was asking the South American soccer confederation to give the Copa Sudamericana title to Chape as a tribute to the players who died.

 Some of Brazil's top clubs said they wanted to lend players to Chape for the 2017 season. They also said the team should not be relegated to the second division as it recovers from the disaster.

 "The dream is not over. We will fight back when it's time," said Chape's acting club president, Gelson Della Costa.

 "Now it's time to take care of the families," he said.

 ___

 Associated Press sports writer Mauricio Savarese reported this story in Chapeco, Brazil, and AP sports writer Stephen Wade reported from Rio de Janeiro. ||||| The trip to Medellin, Colombia, was supposed to be a joyous one for the members Chapecoense, a soccer club from the small city of Chapeco, Brazil, and they were in the middle of a fairy tale season.

 Now their journey will go down in history as a tragedy.

 Investigators will likely comb through the evidence for the next several months, hoping to discover why a charter flight crashed Monday night while carrying players, coaches, board members and journalists. The accident killed 71 people, officials said, revising the death toll from the initial figure of 75. Officials said six survived.

 Details are scarce, and it will take a significant amount of time for officials to determine the exact causes of the crash. However, information available soon after the crash point toward the pilots facing the worst of circumstances.

 The charter flight departed Bolivia on Monday just before 6:20 p.m. local time. A little over four hours later, the flight began what appears to be a holding pattern just south of the Medellin airport for about 13 minutes. According to flight data from FlightRadar24, the plane made three circles, descending from 21,000 feet to 15,550 feet for the last two minutes of available flight data.

 The flight's destination, Maria Cordova International Airport outside Medellin, is a notoriously difficult airport for pilots. The runway is at 7,000 feet, surrounded by mountainous terrain. Frequent adverse weather conditions can make visibility difficult.

 Approaching an airport at that elevation requires high approach speeds, creating an even greater challenge in poor conditions.

 Fotos de @AerocivilCol aeronave procedente Aeropuerto Viru Viru de Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia empresa Lamia matrícula CP2933 RJ 80. pic.twitter.com/ZKngqObQ5v — AERONÁUTICA CIVIL (@AerocivilCol) November 29, 2016

 There were scattered thunderstorms in the area at the time of the crash, and turbulence could have been present, according to ABC News meteorologist Melissa Griffin.

 The airport's official Twitter account confirmed the plane suffered an electrical failure before the crash.

 While the consequences of an electrical failure can vary greatly, if the pilots lost navigational aids on approach to an airport like Medellin at night in poor visibility, that could spell serious trouble.

 The limited evidence available at this time suggests some possible scenarios for the doomed flight. For insight into the incident, ABC News spoke with Col. Steve Ganyard — a former deputy assistant secretary of state, a retired fighter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps and an ABC News contributor.

 The holding pattern seen on flight data could indicate the crew was attempting to troubleshoot the electrical failure. So late in the flight, however, the plane may have been low on fuel, forcing the crew to make a quick decision in poor weather surrounded by high terrain. Such a combination could have been perilous.

 "An electrical failure under those conditions would challenge even the best pilots," Ganyard said. "And if there was a total electrical failure, the flight was doomed."

 #AEstaHora Carlos Iván Márquez Pérez, Director de la UNGRD, realiza seguimiento a operación de búsqueda y rescate en la zona del siniestro. pic.twitter.com/SsfOEBZDQt — UNGRD (@UNGRD) November 29, 2016

 Under those conditions, a visual approach would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. In such a case, a pilot would resort to the often used ILS, or instrument landing system.

 ILS allows the pilots to use radio signals to navigate the plane safely to the runway, even through poor visibility.

 A total electrical outage, although rare, would take this option away from the pilots.

 Investigators will surely look very closely at the reported electrical outage and why such an event may have occurred.

 Ganyard added that air safety in South America is relatively poor. "A Bolivian charter aircraft was not likely maintained or manned to U.S. standards," he said.

 As the recovery mission is ongoing, fans and surviving team staff are remembering those who died.

 In an early morning tweet on Tuesday, the team shared a video of the players celebrating a recent victory with a simple caption: “May this be the last image of our warriors. #ChapeStrength.”

 Que essa seja a última imagem dos nosso guerreiros.#ForçaChape pic.twitter.com/Q1ZxF5h4sV — Chapecoense (@ChapecoenseReal) November 29, 2016

 ABC News contributor Col. Steve Ganyard contributed to this report. ABC News' Paul Blake also contributed. |||||Summary:

– Colombia's worst air crash in two decades snuffed out a storybook run by a Brazilian soccer team, and authorities are digging in trying to figure out why a chartered jetliner crashed in the Andes, killing all but six of the 77 people now reported to have been aboard; 20 journalists were among the dead. The latest: The AP reports the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are already being examined in an attempt to get at the cause of the crash, which was originally attributed to an electrical failure. But a flight attendant who survived reported the plane ran out of fuel just before it was to land at Jose Maria Cordova airport outside Medellin. The British Aerospace 146 Avro short-haul jet had a maximum range of around 1,600 nautical miles—about the distance between Santa Cruz, where the plane departed from, and Medellin. An aviation expert tells the AP that air distance between cities is usually measured by the shortest route but planes rarely fly in a straight line, with pilots steering around turbulence, for example. There was also heavy rain when the crew declared an emergency Monday night. ABC News reports it may have been a "nightmare scenario": Flight data indicates the plane circled three times just outside Medellin. The airport it was headed to is an infamously challenging one, located in a mountainous region at 7,000 feet, an elevation that necessitates a high-speed approach. Three players from the Chapecoense team survived the crash but sustained serious injuries, reports Reuters: Goalkeeper Jackson Follmann has had his right leg amputated; defender Helio Neto suffered severe trauma to the skull, thorax, and lungs; and Alan Ruschel underwent spine surgery. A heart-wrenching final statement, per the AP: Moments before the plane took off, the team's coaching staff gave an interview to a Bolivian television station in which they praised the airline, saying it brought them good fortune when it flew them to Colombia last month for the championship's quarterfinals, which they won. "Now we're going to do this new trip and we hope they bring us good luck like they did the first time," athletic director Mauro Stumpf told Gigavision TV.


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– With its 1,000th issue (more or less) coming out this week, the Onion isn't just content to be America's top satirical newspaper: It wants a Pulitzer. It's not fussy at all about which Pulitzer—editors have submitted articles to the Pulitzer Board in categories like commentary and public service in the past—but the Onion's editors think its day has finally come, for real this time. “We’re spending all our capital on this,” the Onion's head writer, Seth Reiss, tells the New York Times of the paper's brand-new Pulitzer-focused multimedia campaign. To make its Pulitzer dreams come true, the Onion has enlisted the completely independent and not at all biased nonprofit group Americans for Fairness in Awarding Journalism Prizes, which declares: “Simply put, it’s time for the Pulitzer Board to stop the bias, stop the ignorance, and stop the neglect.” The Onion also claims such diverse supporters as Arianna Huffington (for real) and the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili (maybe not so real). And there's an online petition, if you care to add your voice to the cause.