Hollywood-style sting nabs alleged pirate kingpin

BRUSSELS (AP) — The alleged pirate kingpin thought he was going work in the movies. Instead he landed in jail.

In a sting operation worthy of Hollywood, Mohamed Abdi Hassan was lured from Somalia to Belgium with promises of work on a documentary about high-seas crime that would "mirror his life as a pirate," federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle said Monday.

But rather than being behind the camera as an expert adviser, Abdi Hassan ended up behind bars, nabbed as he landed Saturday at Brussels airport.

"(He's) one of the most important and infamous kingpin pirate leaders, responsible for the hijacking of dozens of commercial vessels from 2008 to 2013," Delmulle said.

Abdi Hassan — whose nickname, Afweyne, means "Big Mouth" — was charged with hijacking the Belgian dredger Pompei and kidnapping its nine-member crew in 2009, Delmulle said.

The Pompei's crew was released after 10 weeks in captivity when the ship's owner paid a reported $3 million ransom. Belgium caught two pirates involved in the hijacking, convicted them and sentenced them to nine and 10 years in prison.

But prosecutors still wanted the ringleaders.

"Too often, these people remain beyond reach while they let others do the dirty work," Delmulle told reporters.

Malaysian authorities almost captured the reclusive Adbi Hassan in April 2012, but a document from the Somali transitional government let him slip back home, according to a U.N. report last year that called him "one of the most notorious and influential" leaders of a piracy ring that has netted millions in ransom.

So Belgian authorities decided to go undercover to get him, because they knew he traveled very little and that an international arrest warrant would produce no results in unstable Somalia.

They approached an accomplice known as Tiiceey, dangling a fake job as an adviser to a fake movie about piracy, Delmulle said.

The two men took the bait. Tiiceey was also arrested Saturday.

The prosecutor refused to divulge any more details of the sting. The two Somalis were to appear in court Tuesday in Brugge.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hollywood-style-sting-nabs-alleged-pirate-kingpin-173109688.html
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Bristol Speedway unveils plan for Vols-Hokies game

BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee and Virginia Tech will finally play a football game at Bristol Motor Speedway and expect to set a single-game football attendance record in what is being billed as the "Battle at Bristol."

Track and officials from both universities formally announced the plans Monday amid confetti and fireworks during a festive news conference at the 52-year-old racetrack. The game is scheduled for Sept. 10, 2016.

"I full well believe we'll play in front of the largest crowd to ever watch or have watched a football game — that's college and pro," Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver said.

Bristol Motor Speedway general manager and executive vice president Jerry Caldwell said seating capacity for the game would be in excess of 150,000. The track sits nearly halfway between the campuses of the two schools, off Interstate 81 in Tennessee.

The NCAA-recognized attendance record for college football of 115,109 was set last month at Michigan Stadium for Michigan-Notre Dame.

Bristol's proximity to both campuses made this event a rumored possibility since the 1990s. Weaver remembers discussing it with former Volunteers athletic directors Doug Dickey and Mike Hamilton.

Caldwell said track officials explored the feasibility of a game again early this year. He then approached Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart and Weaver.

After all that talking and speculation, the game's finally going to happen. Weaver said the game is "a reality that's as big as anything that's happened in the world of football."

"It's a chance and opportunity to be part of something extremely special that will live with you for a lifetime," said Tennessee coach Butch Jones, who was grand marshal of the Food City 500 at the Bristol speedway in March.

Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer drove on the Bristol speedway as part of a charity celebrity race in 2009 and remembers sitting in the Bristol bleachers watching races as a high school student.

"Next to Lane Stadium, this is my favorite sports venue, I promise you," Beamer said.

The game was announced amid great fanfare, though a scheduling conflict prevented BMS track owner and president Bruton Smith from attending. Beamer, Weaver, Jones, Hart and track officials sat on a giant stage on the racetrack's infield. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam offered videotaped messages.

"We want to make this a huge, huge deal," Smith had told The Associated Press. "Our goal is to set a world record for the largest attended football game in the world."

To the left of the stage, numbers and yard markers were painted on the infield to create an asphalt football field, complete with artificial turf end zones featuring the Tennessee checkerboard on one side and Virginia Tech lettering on the other end. To the right were race cars in Virginia Tech and Tennessee school colors bearing the number '16.

"If you have an opportunity to play in a venue that's going to set the all-time record for football at every level — the largest crowd potentially to ever witness a football game — well, you can talk about that for the rest of your life," Hart said.

To accommodate a football field, the speedway will need modifications, some of which will happen as soon as next year, Caldwell said. A massive video board that sits atop a pylon in the middle of the infield will be taken out, Caldwell said.

"Screens will be added inside the facility so everyone can still see everything," he said.

Bristol is scheduled to host NASCAR races just two weeks before this football game. Only until after that's complete can the football field be installed, with 8,500 tons of rock as its base.

Then there is the matter of fans in the stands being close enough to the field to be able to tell what is going on down there. Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, which holds more than 102,000, would fit inside Bristol Motor Speedway.

"It's not a football stadium so it's going to be a bit different, but I think you'll see that the sight lines are great and are going to be very similar to what you would see in a college football program maybe within 10 to 20 yards from where you would be in a football stadium," Caldwell said.

There also were logistical issues involving the schools.

Tennessee had been scheduled to play Nebraska in 2016 as part of a home-and-home series that has now been pushed back to 2026 and 2027.

All those hurdles help explain why this game took so many years to become reality.

"There was a collective willingness to prioritize this and make it happen," Hart said. "It wasn't an easy trip that we took. There were times you said, 'Well, no wonder this has never happened.' But we got through those rough spots and this is a great day."

___

AP College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo contributed to this report

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bristol-speedway-unveils-plan-vols-hokies-game-152048739--spt.html
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Court Clears Way for Vivendi to Sell $8.2 Billion in Activision Blizzard Stock

Activision Blizzard's "Call of Duty"

Vivendi might proceed with a plan to sell $5.83 billion in Activision Blizzard stock to the video-game maker and another $2.34 billion in stock to an investment group led by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly, a court ruled on Thursday.

The plan stalled last month due to a temporary court injunction, though the Delaware Supreme Court said the deal can go through, and Activision Blizzard said later it expected to close the transaction by Oct. 15.

STORY: Court Blocks Activision Blizzard's Plan to Buy Stock From Vivendi 

The deal had been challenged by an Activision shareholder, who argued that it amounted to a merger that would give too much control to Kotick and Kelly, but Chief Justice Myron Steele disagreed.

"There is no reasonable possibility of success on the merits," Steele wrote of the legal challenge, according to Bloomberg. "The stock purchase agreement here contested is not a merger, business combination or similar transaction."

Kotick and Kelly's group includes Davis Advisors, Leonard Green & Partners and Tencent Holdings, a Chinese publisher of video games. The deal will make the group the largest Activision Blizzard shareholder with about 25 percent of the company, compared to the 12 percent that Vivendi will retain.

Shares of Activision rose 5 percent on Thursday to $17.05. The deal calls for Vivendi to sell its shares for $13.60 apiece.

Activision Blizzard's games include Call of Duty, Skylanders and World of Warcraft.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHollywoodReporter-Technology/~3/TSGhYbwDKPE/story01.htm
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Michael B. Jordan Confirms He Auditioned For 'Star Wars'

Speaking with the Associated Press, Michael B. Jordan followed the lead from Saoirse Ronan and admitted that he had read for a part in "Star Wars: Episode VII," a rumor started by Latino-Review a few weeks ago. Also like Ronan, Jordan downplayed the reading, saying that pretty much everyone in Hollywood has audition. "I mean, […]Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/10/10/michael-b-jordan-star-wars/
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Watch how Google brought Street View to the Burj Khalifa (video)

Street View's fine for navigation, but we're sure plenty more people use it just for their armchair tourism. Google has now turned its attention to giving thrill-seekers a chance to gaze out from the top of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. Using Trekker backpacks and trolleys, it took the Googlers three days to capture the images from both the viewing gallery on the 124th floor and the window cleaning gantry on the 80th. Curious to experience some of that vertigo for yourself? Video's after the break.

Filed under: Cameras, GPS, Google

Comments

Via: Official Google Blog

Source: Google Street View

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/24/street-view-burj-khalifa/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Breast-Fed Children More Likely to Climb the Social Ladder

Children who are breast-fed may be more likely to reach a higher social class than their parents, a new study finds.

The researchers looked at about 34,000 people in the U.K., either born in 1958 or in 1970, and compared their social class at the age 33 or 34 with that of their fathers when they were children.? Among the study participants, those who had been breast-fed were more likely to have moved up the social hierarchy in adulthood, which the researchers defined as having a job of higher social status than their fathers.

The study found that while breast-feeding increased the chance of moving upward socially by 24 percent, it also reduced the chance of sliding downward by 20 percent.

The results suggest that breast-feeding improved children's neurological development, resulting in better cognitive abilities, which in turn helped them with their upward move in the society, the researchers said. ?

Breast-fed children in the study also had fewer signs of emotional stress, which could have contributed to their success later in the life, according to the study published today (June 24) in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Previous studies have suggested that nutrients in breast milk improve cognitive development. Similarly, skin-to-skin contact between mother and child has been linked to enhanced mother-child bonding, and reduced stress.

"Perhaps the combination of physical contact and the most appropriate nutrients required for growth and brain development is implicated in the better neurocognitive and adult outcomes of breast-fed infants," the researchers wrote in their study. [The Facts on Moms & Breast-Feeding]

For the study, the researchers asked mothers of two large groups of people born 12 years apart whether they had breast-fed their children.

They then compared people's social class as children ? based on the social class of their father when they were 10 or 11 ? with their social class as adults, measured when they were 33 or 34. Social class was based on different categories of occupations, from unskilled and manual, to managerial and professional jobs.

The researchers measured children's cognitive performance and stress response every few years. They found that cognitive abilities and stress scores accounted for about a third of the total impact of breast-feeding.

There is evidence that some constituents of breast milk, such as long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, are essential for neurological development of the child. The researchers said they suspect that there may be other nutrients in breast milk as well that support child's development.

The study also found that fewer children were breast-fed in 1970 than in 1958. More than two-thirds of children born in 1958 were breast-fed, compared with one-third in 1970.

The results suggest that there may be lifelong social benefits from breast-feeding, the study said. Such benefits may be even greater for more vulnerable children who are born preterm or with low birth weight.

Email Bahar Gholipour or follow her @alterwired. Follow?LiveScience?@livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/breast-fed-children-more-likely-climb-social-ladder-223721956.html

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Obama 'disappointed' over court's ruling

Holding signs with images of murdered civil rights workers, demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court??

President Barack Obama and his attorney general said they were "deeply disappointed" by the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, a cornerstone of the civil rights movement that helped dismantle decades of discriminatory voting restrictions in the South when it passed 60 years ago. The vote was split 5-4, with the court's liberal justices dissenting.

The decision drastically scales back the federal government's power to reject state laws it believes discriminate against minority voters, which include some efforts to tighten identification requirements and limit early voting hours at the ballot box. A wave of such laws swept 30 states over the past few years, and the Obama administration has aggressively fought them in court.

The president said he was "deeply disappointed" by the decision in a statement on Tuesday. "While today?s decision is a setback, it doesn?t represent the end of our efforts to end voting discrimination," Obama said. "I am calling on Congress to pass legislation to ensure every American has equal access to the polls."

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act?reauthorized by Congress for an additional 25 years in 2006?gives the federal government the ability to pre-emptively reject changes to election law in states and counties that have a history of discriminating against minority voters. The law covers nine states and portions of seven more, most of them in the South. The formula used to decide which states are subject to this special scrutiny (set out in Section 4 of the law) is based on decades-old voter turnout and registration data, the justices ruled, which is unfair to the states covered under it. States that had a discriminatory poll test in the 1960s and low turnout among minority voters must seek special permission from the federal government to change their election laws, even though many of these states now have near-equal voter turnout rates between minorities and whites.

"The coverage formula that Congress reauthorized in 2006 ignores these developments, keeping the focus on decades-old data relevant to decades-old problems," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion. "Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."

The Justice Department used Section 5 of the law to block voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina last year, and it also struck down early voting restrictions in five counties in Florida. (Minority voters are more likely than white voters to vote early in person, and they are less likely than whites to have a government-issued photo ID.) Some Democrats argued that these laws were intentionally trying to suppress minority turnout in order to benefit Republicans.

The court has effectively now put the ball back in Congress' court, writing in its decision that it is up to Congress to write a new formula that is based on current data. States or counties that fit the new formula could still be subject to federal "preclearance" of changes to their elections procedures. It remains to be seen whether Congress, which is now more partisanly divided than in 2006, would tackle the challenge of creating a new rubric to find and eradicate racial discrimination at the polls. The president called on Congress to pass legislation addressing the ruling in a statement on Tuesday.

In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes the "sad irony" of Roberts' decision is that it strikes down the key part of the Voting Rights Act because it has been so successful at preventing racial discrimination. "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet," she writes. Ginsburg also slams the court's majority for relying on turnout and registration rates "as if that were the whole story" and ignoring so-called second-generation laws and regulations designed to make it harder for minorities to vote. (One such Mississippi regulation sought to cancel a local election in 2001 because black candidates announced their intention to run.)

Civil rights groups warned that the decision will negatively affect minority voters who live in the covered jurisdictions. "This is a sad day for democracy," said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice advocacy center. "The Voting Rights Act is a needed and instrumental tool in our fight to eradicate racial discrimination, and the Supreme Court's decision today has made it much harder to utilize this tool effectively." Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement that Congress should act to draft another coverage formula. "We urge Congress to act with urgency and on a bipartisan basis to protect voting rights for minorities," Henderson said. Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman said Congress had a "duty" to update the formula. It's unclear what factors would go into a new formula, however, since voter registration and turnout data would not work.

"This decision represents a serious setback for voting rights?and has the potential to negatively affect millions of Americans across the country," Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday afternoon. "I am hopeful that new protections can and will pass in this session of Congress."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement that "as long as Republicans have a majority in the House and Democrats don't have 60 votes in the Senate, there will be no preclearance."

Discriminating against minority voters is still illegal under the act, but those who hope to challenge discriminatory actions would have to do so through the regular court process, which takes longer than the special?preclearance?pathway set up under the law.

Court watchers predicted the decision, given the conservative justices' comments on the law during oral arguments and in other cases. Justices in the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, including Roberts, expressed reservations that the nine Southern states covered by the law still required the same degree of federal oversight that they did 60 years ago. "Voter turnout and registration rates [between blacks and whites] now approach parity," Roberts wrote in a decision in 2009. "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."

Another argument against Section 4's constitutionality was that it's unclear whether minority voters in Southern states are more likely to face discrimination at the polls than they are in other states. Voter ID laws, for example, have passed in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Because those states do not have a history of voter discrimination?and are not covered by the act?their voter ID laws did not have to first pass federal inspection. That said, Southern states covered under the act were much more likely to pass a voter ID law than other states. Seven of the nine states covered in full under the act adopted such a law, compared with 12 noncovered states. Also, the law allowed counties to remove themselves from the preclearance list if they demonstrated they had not discriminated against minority voters in recent years.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-141205218.html

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