Obama playing Obama....spoof for new Spielberg movie

 

 

 

 

President Barack Obama poked fun at himself and his adversaries at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington.

He tickled his audience - who included actors Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Claire Danes and South Korean singer Psy.

The president ended his speech playing a taped piece with Hollywood director Steven Spielberg who did a spoof claiming his new project would be a movie on the president called "Obama" starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Mr Obama then appeared acting as if he were Day-Lewis preparing for the role.

Video courtesy of the White House


5 living Presidents gather for dedication of George W. Bush Library

 

 

Published on Apr 25, 2013

Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter and their wives all attended the opening of the newest presidential library. 

To whom does Wounded Knee belong?

 

The burial ground is part of a property for sale for $3.9 million dollars

 

The battleground site Wounded Knee is up for sale. Should it be developed as a landmark or left in peace out of respect for the Sioux people who died there?  Almost as soon as the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee was over, the battle to define what happened on that bleak December day began.

For decades afterwards, the official line from Washington was that the actions of the 7th Cavalrymen were heroic.  The White House and its allies in South Dakota had invested much political capitol in seizing tribal land for US use, and using the army to quell Native American resistance.

What happened at Wounded Knee was promoted as a definitive end to these so-called "Indian wars", a final victory for the US government. The administration of President Benjamin Harrison praised the military tactics used by the 7th Cavalry and awarded 20 of the soldiers Medals of Honor. The New York Times told a different story, writing contemporaneously that the Native Americans had been "robbed when at peace, starved and angered into war, and then hunted down by the government."

At Wounded Knee, as many as 300 unarmed men, women and children were killed. And official reports from some in government criticizing the massacre were simply buried. For the Sioux descendants still living in the Pine Ridge reservation, who remember first-hand accounts of the atrocity, the news that a key part of that painful history could be sold outside the tribe has come as a shock.

A 40-acre parcel of land that's part of the massacre site is up for sale, and its owner has given the tribe until 1 May to come up with the $3.9m asking price. If they don't, land owner James Czywczynski says he will be forced to accept one of several offers he has already secured from commercial buyers, who may attempt to capitalize on the land as a tourist attraction.

  Many Lakota Sioux say it is a greedy act of blackmail, for land that is worth less than $10,000 on the open market.  The owner claims he was told by a government expert to start with a price of $100,000 per acre, based on the land's historic significance. Mr Czywczynski, who has held the deed since the late 1960s, says he is exasperated that the tribe hasn't taken him up on earlier offers to sell, saying they've been indecisive for years. Now he's ready to move on.

"They want me to give them the land. Some say I should sell it reasonable," he says, speaking near his home in Rapid City.  "We're going to take the money, and distribute it to the family. Pay off some debts."

Standing on the desolate, snow-covered hilltop where the victims of the event are buried in a mass grave, tribe member Nathan Blindman says he could "still feel the anxiety" of his ancestors.  He, like most other living relatives of massacre victims, believe that developing the land in any way is simply wrong.

The dead being buried in a mass grave at Wounded Knee

But you only have to be on the Pine Ridge reservation for a short time to realize there is passionate disagreement over the issue. Brandon Ecoffey, managing editor of the Native Sun News and a member of the tribe, speaks for some in the younger generation, who think rigid sentimentality is a mistake.

 

The burial site today

He believes that the Oglala-Sioux tribe at Pine Ridge needs to grasp the opportunity to buy the land and then generate income by creating responsible tourism at Wounded Knee. Currently, there is no official memorial at the site.

A memorial or museum would draw people to the area and generate jobs. If the tribe don't have the money to buy the land, they should accept help from outside sources to do so, he says.
"There are a number of memorial sites across the world, where people have created museums…that do justice to the people who died there," he said. "Not profiting from our history does a disservice to both our community and our ancestors, who I feel would like to see us a little better off than we are right now."

 

 Land owner James Czywczynski says he has tried to negotiate in good faith with the Sioux-Lakota

But it is not only the tragic killings of 1890 that give the land in this impoverished corner of South Dakota, which used to make up one tiny part of the Great Sioux Nation, historic significance.
In 1973, several hundred locals, together with radical activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM), poured into the nearby village of Wounded Knee to protest government abuse.  The protest resulted in a violent stand-off with federal agents that went on for 71 days.

The siege galvanized Native Americans throughout the continent, but left deep rifts locally, even within families, and led to murderous retribution on both sides. At his headquarters in Minneapolis, one of AIM's founders, Clyde Bellecourt, a non-Lakota, says practical concerns should take precedent.

 

 

US troops at the battle of Wounded Knee

With often squalid-housing conditions, and outsized addiction and suicide rates, he argues, how can tribal government think about wasting resources on a piece of land, regardless of its history?

Many locals wonder why the land doesn't belong to the tribe already - a view echoed in a recent New York Times opinion piece by the youngest leader among the Sioux family in recent memory, Joseph Brings Plenty.  The former chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe believes that President Obama could use an executive order to make the site a national monument. That is the logical thing to do in this case ...it treats everyone's sensibilities and rights with respect and preserves the site for prosterity.

Amanda Knox ...Court fails to grasp statistics and probability

 

As an Italian court prepares to try Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for a second time on charges of killing Meredith Kercher, an expert says a judge failed to grasp the concept of probability involved in the case - and that courts often struggle when it comes to statistics.

British exchange student Meredith Kercher was found stabbed to death at the house she shared in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007.  Kercher's housemate, US student Amanda Knox, and the American's boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were accused of her murder, along with a third man, Ivorian drifter Rudy Guede.

Guede was convicted and jailed for 16 years. Knox and Sollecito were convicted of murder and sexual violence in December 2009 and jailed for 26 years and 25 years respectively. But in October 2011, the pair were freed on appeal after doubts were raised about the forensic evidence against them.

Meredith Kercher

• 1 November 2007: Leeds University student Meredith Kercher, 21, stabbed to death - Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito held five days later
• December 2009: Knox and Sollecito found guilty, Ivorian Rudy Guede convicted at an earlier trial
• October 2011: Knox and Sollecito cleared on appeal and Knox returns home to Seattle

Then, last month, Italy's highest court overturned this acquittal, so Knox and Sollecito face a re-run of the appeal. One of the key pieces of forensic evidence that helped to convict the pair in the first place was a kitchen knife found in Sollecito's kitchen, which was said to have Kercher's DNA on the blade. But the DNA sample was tiny, and the appeal judge thought the evidence was unreliable, so he rejected a forensic scientist's suggestion to have it tested again.

"The sum of the two results, both unreliable… cannot give a reliable result," he wrote.

This was a mistake, according to mathematician Coralie Colmez.

"The thing with statistics and probability is that people feel it's intuitive," she says. "But actually the mathematics tells you that if you have an unreliable test, you do it again and you can be a lot more certain of that answer. And it's not intuitive but a simple calculation will tell you that it's true."

Why are two tests better than one?  You have to view the two forensic tests as not separate from one another, but as one big test, says Colmez. She compares it to an experiment to find out whether a coin is biased.

"You do a first test and obtain nine heads and one tail... The probability that the coin is fair given this outcome is about 8%, [and the probability] that it is biased, about 92%. Pretty convincing, but not enough to convict your coin of being biased beyond a reasonable doubt," Colmez says.

"You do a second test, and this time you throw eight heads and two tails. Now the probability for a fair coin is about 16%, for a biased coin about 84%."

"So the naive thought might be that you haven't gained any certainty from this second test.

"But if you think about it differently, what you've really done is throw the coin 20 times and get 17 heads and three tails." This means there's a probability of 98.5% that the coin is biased.

"So what this means in the case of the knife in the murder is that if it were tested again, and once again the DNA was Meredith's profile we could be a lot more certain that the DNA on the knife is indeed Meredith's," Colmez says.

And if the knife were tested again and the DNA did not match Meredith Kercher's profile? That would be good news for Knox and Sollecito, she says.

"This would mean that this major piece of evidence against them would be discredited."

In Colmez's view this isn't a one-off. She says numbers get used and abused in court rooms all the time, and more use should be made of proper mathematical and statistics experts. Another recent example she draws attention to is that of a Dutch nurse, Lucia de Berk, who was first arrested in 2001 after the death of a baby in her care at a hospital in The Hague, apparently from poisoning.

Afterwards, investigators found what they thought was a trend of suspicious deaths among 13 patients treated by De Berk in the previous four years. Five others almost died in what investigators said were suspicious circumstances.

In 2003, she was convicted of four murders and three attempted murders, and sentenced to life in prison.  Part of the evidence against her was the testimony of a statistician, who said the odds were 342 million-to-one that it was a coincidence she had been on duty when all the incidents occurred.

In 2004, an appeals court convicted her of three additional counts of murder and upheld the life sentence.

Lucia de Berk spent six years in prison

And in prison she might have stayed, if it hadn't been for the amateur statistical sleuthing of a doctor called Metta de Noo-Derksen, the sister-in-law of one of the doctors at the hospital where De Berk had worked. She had become suspicious of the reasoning used in the case and, along with her brother Ton, began a campaign to prove there had been a miscarriage of justice.

De Berk had been accused of causing some deaths, which she had later managed to prove had occurred when she hadn't been present in the hospital.

"But these deaths were just forgotten about in the trial and never spoken about again. And they never recalculated the probabilities," Colmez says.  "What the brother and sister team did was they went through all the deaths she was accused of, struck off the ones she had proven she wasn't even there for, and they recalculated the probability."

The probability of her being present for all the unexplained deaths was still enough to raise questions but if you consider the number of nurses at work in the Netherlands, you'd expect to see some unusual-looking - but innocent - clusters of unexplained deaths on some of their watches.

"Out of some 250,000 nurses, one would expect a couple of hundred to be involved in a set of circumstances similar to those of Lucia," Colmez says. "It definitely wasn't proof that she was a murderer."

After six years in prison, Lucia de Berk was acquitted in April 2010.  "It's a horrible, horrible story," says Colmez. "But it's uplifting that it was just some members of the public who went through a lot of work - and freed her."

What ?

E.coli can produce synthetic diesel fuel

 

The oil that the bacteria produced had a near-identical composition and chemical properties to conventional diesel

A strain of bacteria has been created that can produce fuel, scientists say. Researchers genetically modified E. coli bacteria to convert sugar into an oil that is almost identical to conventional diesel. If the process could be scaled up, this synthetic fuel could be a viable alternative to the fossil fuel, the team said.

Professor John Love, a synthetic biologist, said: "Rather than making a replacement fuel like some biofuels, we have made a substitute fossil fuel. The idea is that car manufacturers, consumers and fuel retailers wouldn't even notice the difference - it would just become another part of the fuel production chain."

There is a push to increase the use of biofuels around the world.  In the European Union, a 10% target for the use of these crop-based fuels in the transport sector has been set for 2020. But most forms of biodiesel and bioethanol that are currently used are not fully compatible with modern engines. Fractions of the substances (between 5-10%) need to be blended with petroleum before they can be used in most engines.

However, the fuel produced by the modified E. coli bacteria is different. Prof Love explained: "What we've done is produced fuels that are exactly the chain length required for the modern engine and exactly the composition that is required. "They are bio-fossil-fuels if you like."

To create the fuel, the researchers, who were funded by the Shell oil company and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, used a strain of E. coli that usually takes in sugar and then turns it into fat. Using synthetic biology, the team altered the bacteria's cell mechanisms so that the sugar was converted to synthetic fuel molecules instead.

By altering the bacteria's genes, they were able to transform the bugs into fuel-producing factories. However, the E. coli did not make much of the alkane fuel. Professor Love said it would take about 100 litres of bacteria to produce a single teaspoon of the fuel.
"Our challenge is to increase the yield before we can go into any form of industrial production," he said. We've got a timeframe of about three to five years to do that and see if it is worth going ahead with it."

The team is also looking to see if the bacteria can convert any other products into fuel, such as human or animal waste. Biofuels are considered to be a greener alternative to fossil fuels.  The European Union has set a target that 10% of transportation fuel should be made from biofuels by 2020.

 

While gasoline and diesel release carbon dioxide that has been stored deep within the Earth, biofuels are said to be carbon neutral because they release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as the plants they are made from absorbed. However, the energy it takes to grow and process the crops needed for biofuels also should be taken into account, as this adds to their "carbon footprint".

According to Geraint Evans, a biofuel consultant at the NNFCC (formerly known as the National Non-Food Crops Centre), these issues would need to be taken into account for a bacteria-produced fuel too.
"It widens the potential sources you can use to make diesel," he said. But we still need to consider that this is coming from the land and the sustainability needs to be carefully considered."

"It's not a magic bullet - but it is another tool in the toolbox."

Earth's core far hotter than thought

 The Earth's solid inner core is surrounded by a fast-moving liquid core, giving rise to the planet's magnetic field

New measurements suggest the Earth's inner core is far hotter than prior experiments suggested, putting it at 6,000C - as hot as the Sun's surface. The solid iron core is actually crystalline, surrounded by liquid. But the temperature at which that crystal can form had been a subject of long-running debate.

Experiments outlined in Science used X-rays to probe tiny samples of iron at extraordinary pressures to examine how the iron crystals form and melt. Seismic waves captured after earthquakes around the globe can give a great deal of information as to the thickness and density of layers in the Earth, but they give no indication of temperature.

That has to be worked out either in computer models that simulate the Earth's insides, or in the laboratory. Measurements in the early 1990s of iron's "melting curves" - from which the core's temperature can be deduced - suggested a core temperature of about 5,000C.
"It was just the beginning of these kinds of measurements so they made a first estimate... to constrain the temperature inside the Earth," said Agnes Dewaele of the French research agency CEA and a co-author of the new research. Other people made other measurements and calculations with computers and nothing was in agreement. It was not good for our field that we didn't agree with each other."

 

 Iron samples were subjected to enormous pressures before being probed with a spray of intense X-rays

 

The core temperature is crucial to a number of disciplines that study regions of our planet's interior that will never be accessed directly - guiding our understanding of everything from earthquakes to the Earth's magnetic field.
"We have to give answers to geophysicists, seismologists, geodynamicists - they need some data to feed their computer models," Dr Dewaele said.

The team has now revisited those 20-year-old measurements, making use of the European
Synchrotron Radiation Facility - one of the world's most intense sources of X-rays. To replicate the enormous pressures at the core boundary - more than a million times the pressure at sea level - they used a device called a diamond anvil cell - essentially a tiny sample held between the points of two precision-machined synthetic diamonds.

Once the team's iron samples were subjected to the high pressures and high temperatures using a laser, the scientists used X-ray beams to carry out "diffraction" - bouncing X-rays off the nuclei of the iron atoms and watching how the pattern changed as the iron changed from solid to liquid.  Those diffraction patterns give more insight into partially molten states of iron, which the team believes were what the researchers were measuring in the first experiments.

They suggest a core temperature of about 6,000C, give or take 500C - roughly that of the Sun's surface. Now all scientists have come to the same conclusion and agree.

Appointment With Death....Assisted Suicide



Susan Griffiths kept her appointment with death on Thursday.
The 72-year-old Winnipeg woman who went to Zurich, Switzerland to seek final relief from a horrifying disease that was slowly enveloping her like a shroud, died after drinking a drug cocktail prescribed by a Swiss doctor under the country's guidelines for assisted suicide.

Griffiths suffered from multiple system atrophy, a rare degenerative neurological disease that robs victims of movement and bodily functions such as eating and bladder control. The disease mainly strikes men and women in their fifties. The cause is unknown and there is no cure, no treatment even to delay its progress.

It made life increasingly hard to bear, Griffiths told CBC News. She used a wheelchair much of the time and had trouble eating because the muscles in her mouth are weakening. She was in constant pain.
"It hurts to wear my clothes," she said. "Against my skin, wherever it touches me, it hurts."
Griffiths did not want to ride her illness to its painful and inevitable conclusion. She opted to commit suicide but her debility has meant she needed someone's help, which remains against the law in Canada despite legal challenges. 

So she went to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is permitted under strict guidelines. Swiss law required she meet with a physician twice over three days to ensure she really wanted to die.
The first meeting Tuesday went well, she told CBC News.
"Even the doctor that we met today and other people in the medical profession have said the same thing,” said Griffiths. “If they had my disease that I have they would do what I am doing. Interesting."

The first meeting was short, with the doctor providing an initial assessment and arranging for a followup meeting to ensure Griffiths does not have second thoughts. If satisfied Griffiths really is prepared to die, the doctor will prescribe a fatal dose of drugs, which are sent to Dignitas, a non-profit group that aids both Swiss citizens and foreigners to commit suicide.

Griffiths then got the final go-ahead to keep her scheduled appointment at Dignitas. Her brother from England, her sons who live in Germany and Switzerland, and her daughter and grandchildren from Winnipeg joined her for her final days. It was a poignant week, sharing memories and laughing, but sometimes sharply realizing why they're there.
"Every now and then my granddaughter Emma gets upset," Griffiths said. "We'll be laughing about something and then she'll start to cry."

Griffiths would have preferred to go through all this at home in Winnipeg but Parliament has been reluctant to change the law banning assisted suicide despite decades of lobbying. Lawmakers are concerned that even with safeguards similar to those in other countries like Switzerland, sanctioning assisted suicide would lead to euthanasia, with the elderly and infirm pressured to end their lives.

The Council of Canadians with Disabilities actively opposes the legalization of assisted suicide with its "Help to Live, Not Die" campaign.
"Sadly, we as people with disabilities are viewed as living lives of suffering," the council says.
"Some consider our lives not worth living and believe we would be better off dead. Rather than being singled out as the only group deserving physician-assisted suicide, we need to know people want us alive, not dead."

The Supreme Court of Canada in 1993 upheld the ban 5-4 in a case involving Sue Rodriguez, a B.C. woman suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease). She would later defy the law and commit assisted suicide. The B.C. Court of Appeal now is considering the case of Gloria Taylor, another ALS sufferer, who with others is demanding the right to die with help. In a rare move, Taylor was granted a special exemption from the law but she died last October from complications related to her disease.

No matter what the Appeal Court rules, the case is bound to go back Canada's highest court. Will the 20-year interval since the Rodriguez decision change anything? The Toronto Star's ethics columnist thinks it should. Ken Gallinger, writing earlier this month as Griffiths prepared for her trip to Switzerland, said opposition to assisted suicide is grounded more on emotion than reason.
" People end their own lives, despite our best efforts and whether or not we approve. The real question about the medically-assisted version is not whether it’s good or bad, but rather, who gets to make the final decision about a particular life — the person or the state."

The able-bodied have a legal right to kill themselves, but someone like Griffiths can't avail themselves of that right without help, Gallinger observed.
"Isn’t it cruel to deny a person the help they need to perform a perfectly legal act, especially when that act is the only option available to end their suffering?" he asked.

In the moments before she died Thursday, Griffiths walked, talked and sang with family members in the garden of the Dignitas property outside Zurick. In an interview with CBC News just before her death, Griffiths said she had had "the most fantastic few days" with friends and family. She also pleaded with Parliament to change the law so people like her can make decisions about the end of life without leaving Canada.
"I just don't want to see people uproot themselves to come such a long way. The worry about getting here was major for weeks. Could I make it? Could I not make it? And thank goodness, I did make it."

A little later, Griffiths settled into a chair and took the first of two drug-laced drinks. It was bitter, so she ate chocolate to temper the taste. A half-hour later, she took the second drink and died about 20 minutes later, her family said.

"It was beautiful," said Griffiths' daughter, Natasha .

Canada is slowly coming around to the idea of assisted suicide. They are not too sure how to legislate it yet but I think most people are in agreement that those who are suffering terribly have the right to die with some dignity. They have the right to  compassion.

Story ...courtesy of Yahoo

Ask Maxy

Dear Maxy ,
My daughter received an invitation to attend her high school's junior prom and I as a mother, have a few reservations about this . My daughter has performed poorly in school, and I don't think it would be a good idea for her to go . I told her the bad news and she was disappointed . I explained why she can't attend her junior prom and she accepted the lecture . Do you think I was too hard on my daughter ?
Momma Knows Best
Dear Momma Knows Best ,
I understand wanting to take away privileges when your child is not performing well in school, though I am not sure that this is an effective choice at this moment . One option could have been for you to use the prom as an enticement for her to attempt to perform better . You could have negotiated terms with her for attendance based on behavioral and / or academic improvements .
Additionally, you may want to investigate her poor performance more thoroughly to find out the root of her problems . Meet with her guidance counselor and teachers to figure out why she is not doing well . She may need a tutor or a psychologist . Solving challenges at school is rarely simple . Taking away a desireable activity may seem to be a solution, but it may be touching only the surface of her issues .
Maxy

Dear Maxy ,
The other day , we invited a couple out to lunch as our guests . However, my wife and I were upset when they ordered appetizers without asking us . We never order appetizers, because we watch our diets and feel the dinner provides plenty of food . Also, since we were paying for it, why should they order something we ourselves didn't order .
We Kept our thoughts to ourselves but would like to know whether this was proper .
Feeling Exploited
Dear Exploited ,
Guests should always take their cues from the hosts . If you did not suggest appertizers, they should not have ordered them on their own . However, as hosts, you cannot insist that your guests share your food preferences in a restaurant . It would have been gracious of you to ask whether they would like to order appetizers .
Maxy

Dear Maxy ,
I'm a 23-year-old woman graduating with my MBA this May . I've paid my way through college and grad school with no assistance . As a graduation present to myself, I'm having a party . I'm financing this party all by myself . Since this is a major accomplishment, I wish my family would ask or offer to help me plan, buy decorations or if there's anything I need .
I feel they don't care. When I speak to my grandmother about the party, her response is "I don't care what you do, just don't make it here !" Not to have family support makes me upset, and I'd think they'd want to do all they can to help me celebrate. Maxy , how do I let my family know my feelings ?
Needs my Family
Dear Needs Family ,
You need to lower your expectations . You may also want to take a different approach . There is a chance that your family feels like you do not need them since you have done it all on your own . If they are not as highly educated as you, that could also be a source of strain on some . Yes, you would hope that they would be proud of your accomplishments ... and they may be . They just may not know how to engage you about it . Instead of looking for enthusiasm, plant some enthusiastic seeds . Ask your mother if she would like to help you decorate . Ask your grandmother if she would like to invite any of her friends . Ask things in bite size nuggets, small enough that they can feel comfortable responding without feeling overwhelmed . Coax them into being a part of your celebration . Some of them may come around . Be sure to keep your good friends close, though , so that you will have emotional support .
Maxy.

Bangladesh Dhaka building collapse leaves 87 dead

 

 

At least 87 people have been killed and many others trapped after an eight-storey building housing garment factories collapsed outside the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. Firefighters and army personnel are leading the operation to rescue those caught beneath the debris in Savar. More than 1,000 people were injured. One official put the death toll at 127.

Cracks had been found in the building prior to the collapse, but owners told workers not to worry.
Building collapses are common in Bangladesh but this was one of the worst. Speaking at the scene, Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir said the building had violated construction codes and "the culprits would be punished".

Bangladesh has one of the largest garment industries in the world, providing competitively priced clothes for major Western retailers which benefit from its widespread low-cost labour.

Grieving relatives have been anxiously waiting outside the collapsed building in Savar. Rescue teams have been working frantically using concrete cutters and cranes digging through the rubble to pull people out.  It is still not clear how many people are trapped inside, although local media say there are hundreds.

The reason for the collapse is not yet known. The latest incident has once again raised questions about safety standards in the country's thriving garments industry. However, factory owners say safety standards have improved significantly in recent years.

Tessel Pauli, a spokeswoman for the Amsterdam-based Clean Clothes Campaign, said activists at the scene had identified labels from European and US high-street brands.

"Immediate relief and long-term compensation must be provided by the brands who were sourcing from these factories, and responsibility taken for their lack of action to prevent this happening," she said in a statement .

Primark, a clothes retailer with a large presence in Britain, confirmed that one of its suppliers was on the second floor of the Rana Plaza. It said it was "shocked and deeply saddened by the appalling incident" and that it would work with other retailers to review standards. The Rana Plaza building contained several clothing factories, a bank and a market.

Police told local media that the rear of the building had suddenly started to collapse on Wednesday morning, and within a short time the whole structure - except the main pillar and parts of the front wall - had caved-in, triggering panic.

Only the ground floor of the building remained intact after the collapse, officials said.  Sohel Rana, a local who rescued several people, told Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star that he had heard cries for help coming from under the rubble. Lengths of fabric were used to pull survivors from the wreckage. Hundreds of people, anxious for news of friends and relatives, have gathered at the scene. Others are moving rubble using their bare hands.

"Already we've rescued three to four hundred people... Now we are cutting through the concrete walls and trying to get inside with the help of sniffer dogs," the fire brigade chief stated.

Parents agony as they wait for confirmation....Sunil Tripathi missing since March 16

 

Falsely accused: Sunil Tripathi, 22, was wrongly fingered as the Boston marathon bomber on Reddit and now police believe they found his body. He is seen here with his mother and sister. He has been missing since last month. He left his cell phone and wallet when he walked out the door

A Rhode Island family is anxiously awaiting news from authorities on whether the body they pulled from Providence River. Police found the body around 6 p.m. and said they think it is 'very possible' that it is Tripathi, who was wrongly accused of being one of the Boston Marathon bombers.

 

Tripathi, 22, has been missing since the middle of March.  Authorities are hoping to reveal the identity of the body today, but police lieutenant Joseph Donnelly told The Boston Globe that 'it's very, very possible' that it is Tripathi. 

The body was discovered on Tuesday evening around 6 p.m. in the river near the Wyndham Garden Providence Hotel, but it is not yet known when the person died.
The hotel is a little over a mile from Tripathi's apartment on Angell Street where he was last seen on March 16. His cell phone and wallet were left in his apartment.
The body was discovered by the coach of the Brown University crew team during practice.
As news spread that his body had possibly been discovered, tributes to the student poured in through his family's Facebook page, 'Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi.'

Discovery: The body was discovered by the coach of the Brown University crew team during practice

Location: This is where the body was discovered on Tuesday evening around 6 p.m., in the river near the Wyndham Garden Providence Hotel

 

The discovery comes just one day after a Reddit moderator put out an apology to Tripathi's family after internet commentators falsely accused him of being one of the bombers.
'I'd like to extend the deepest apologies to the family of Sunil Tripathi for any part we may have had in relaying what has turned out to be faulty information,' the moderator of the FindBostonBombers subreddit wrote in a statement.
'We cannot begin to know what you're going through and for that we are truly sorry.
'Several users, twitter users, and other sources had heard him identified as the suspect and believed it to be confirmed. We were mistaken.'
The apologies didn't stop there, as Erik Martin, the general manager of Reddit, also sent out an email 'to apologize personally and on behalf of all our employees.' 

It is not clear exactly how Tripathi went from being a missing person to wrongly becoming the prime suspect in the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers. But it appears speculation started on social news site Reddit, with several users claiming on the forum last Thursday evening that he was being sought by thousands of police and SWAT team officers over the attack.

 

Some claimed his name had been mentioned between officers on the police scanner and one woman who said she went to school with Tripathi alleged CCTV images of one of the real suspects 'looked like him.'
Then, after the suspects engaged in a raging gun battle with police, some Twitter users began circulating the police scanner claims, setting off a storm of further storm of speculation.

But with the story gathering pace on social media, many users began to celebrate how they had found the suspect in the 'white hat' - a reference to the fact one of the images showed alleged bomber Dzhokar in a baseball cap of that colour.
Yet all chose to ignore the fact Tripathi had not been named by police as a suspect.
Within hours, vile messages began cropping up on Sunil's Facebook page and about a dozen news vans camped outside the family's home in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

 

By dawn on Friday, the suspects had been formally named - brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose family is from the breakaway Russian region of Chechnya. The only consolation that his family took from the incident was that perhaps the internet sleuths may use the energy that they applied to sending vicious emails and threats after the false accusation to help find the missing student.

The Reddit contributor who started the forum dedicated to identifying the Boston Marathon bombers announced that he is quitting the community site.  The user, identified only by his screen name of 'Oops777' said that it was a mistake to do so, and is now facing a massive backlash following their incorrect accusations.
 

As the erroneous reports about Tripathi continued to spread online, his family, huddled around their computers in Providence, Rhode Island, felt helpless as Internet users leveled accusation after accusation against their missing relative.
‘Someone will tweet, then retweet, and completely unsubstantiated things can proliferate so rapidly and destructively,’ Sunil's sister Sangeeta Tripathi said in an interview on Friday.
'It seems this is just the ugly underbelly of viral social media,' she later told NBC News.

Searching: His family started a Facebook group soon after his March 16 disappearance

At a crossroads: Sunil Tripathi had taken a leave of absence from Brown recently and was volunteering at a library while deciding what to do next

 

Grainy images from a surveillance camera have come to light showing a figure believed to be Tripathi moments after leaving his home at 1.33am, just 20 minutes after he last used his computer, according to ABC News.  Police checked Tripathi's online activity and bank accounts, but reportedly found no leads. They did come across what they have characterized as a vague note in the student's apartment, but will not go into details. The missing man’s bicycle, which he used frequently to get around, was at the unit he shared with several other university students.

Tripathi's siblings, Ravi and Sangeeta, have been canvassing Providence and its suburbs in hopes of uncovering new clues leading to their missing baby brother.

Their desperate search took them to coffee shops, stores, homeless shelters, soup kitchens hospital and morgues.

 

Sensitive soul: The philosophy major, right, was described by his older brother, left, as a man who found pleasure in simple things like classical music

 

'Everyone's racking their brains to see if they can come up with places that he might be or where he might have gone,' Ravi Tripathi, 26, said. The student's brother described him as a quiet man who found pleasure in simple things like listening to classical music. He also revealed that his sibling suffers from depression.
The close-knit family last heard from Sunil, known to his loved ones as Sunny, the night before he vanished.
‘Between family and friends, we are in constant contact with him,’ Sangeeta, 30, told ABC News on Sunday.
‘We became worried when he didn't respond to many missed calls,’ she said.

Items left behind: Sangeeta Tripathi, the missing student¿s sister, says his wallet, ID cards, credit cards and cell phone were found in his room

 

Tripathi, 22, is a philosophy major at Brown and grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He has been living in Providence, Rhode Island, since 2008 and was on approved leave from the Ivy League school he is enrolled at.

According to his brother, Sunil had taken a leave from Brown recently and was spending his time volunteering at a local library. He was last seen in the campus area wearing a pair of blue jeans, a black Eastern Mountain Sports ski jacket, glasses and a Philadelphia Eagles wool hat, according to witness reports. It is unclear what if any identifying features the body found in the Providence River had on him to make police blieve that it is Sunil.

FBI Faces Questions About Handling of Bomber

The scene of the blasts has been cleaned and handed back to the city

US security officials are to face questions in Congress over whether they mishandled information about Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. They will brief the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed hearing, after some US lawmakers accused the FBI of failing to act on Russian concerns.

Tsarnaev was questioned in 2011 amid claims he had adopted radical Islam. He was killed in a manhunt after the attack but his wounded brother Dzhokhar has been charged with the bombings.
Federal prosecutors have charged him with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death. He could be sentenced to death if convicted on either count.

Anonymous officials have told US media that 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said he and his brother had planned the attack themselves without help from foreign militants. The officials say his written answers from his hospital bed to investigators' questions lead them to believe that the pair were motivated by jihadist ideology and that they devised the bombings using the internet.

QUESTIONS THAT WILL BE PUT TO THE FBI

• Why was no further action taken after the 2011 investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev?
• Why was he not identified as a threat based on links to radical websites?
• Why were the authorities unaware of his visit to Russia in 2012?

Members of Congress want to know why no further action was taken after Tamerlan Tsarnaev was investigated in 2011 at the request of the Russian government. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the intelligence committee, said that she and her colleagues would have to "sort it out" when they met FBI officials later on Tuesday. The full Senate is expected to receive a briefing later in the week.

The FBI has defended itself, saying in a statement on Friday that it had run checks on the suspect but found no evidence of terrorist activity. A request to Russia for further information to justify more rigorous checks went unanswered, and an interview by agents with Tsarnaev and his family also revealed nothing suspicious.

But Republican Senator Lindsey Graham questioned why the FBI was unable to identify him as a threat based on his alleged links to radical websites. He called for better co-operation with Russia and the amendment of privacy laws to allow closer scrutiny of suspects' internet activity.

Senator Graham added that the US authorities did not know Tsarnaev had gone to Russia in 2012 because his name was misspelled in travel documents. He spent six months in Dagestan, another mainly Muslim Russian republic bordering Chechnya. During the visit, he also reportedly spent two days in Chechnya itself.

A 10-page criminal complaint was filed against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Monday during a court hearing held around his hospital bed. According to a transcript of the hearing, he managed to speak once despite a gunshot wound to his throat sustained during his capture.

Mr Tsarnaev said the word "no" when asked if he could afford a lawyer. Otherwise he nodded in response to Judge Marianne Bowler's questions from his bed at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The next hearing in his case has been scheduled for the end of May.

Perhaps this whole tragedy could have been averted but for one small detail....Tsarnaev's name was misspelled on travel documents and so the authorities did not know that he was out of the country for six months being indoctrinated with jihadist ideology and zeal. Many historical events and even a few wars have hinged upon such small misunderstandings. The most sophisticated computers in the world are no help if a clerk or secretary, somewhere, misspells a name.

-------------------------------



On Tuesday, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced that a compensation fund for victims of the attack had received $20m (£13.2m) in the week since it was launched, with donations streaming in from Boston and across the world.

Tsarnaev Reveals Motive



Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev informed investigators that he and his brother were not directed by a foreign terrorist organization. Instead, they were “self-radicalized” and motivated to kill, in part, by U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 19-year-old also acknowledged his role in the attack while being questioned by investigators in his hospital bed, the report said. Tsarnaev, who has a gunshot wound to the throat and was sedated, responded in writing. He also suffered gunshot wounds in the head, neck, legs and hand during a late-night shootout in Watertown, Mass.

Meanwhile, Tsarnaev's condition is improving, the FBI said on Tuesday. The college student, who had been listed in serious condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center since his capture on Friday, is now in fair condition, the bureau said.

The update comes a day after Tsarnaev was charged with two federal counts of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, injure and cause widespread damage at the marathon. Tsarnaev was informed of the charges and read his rights in his hospital room on Monday morning, and placed in the custody the U.S. Marshal Service. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Favorite Oneliners and a Joke

2) "Last night me and my girlfriend watched three DVDs back to back. Luckily I was the one facing the TV."
3) "I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister."
4) "You know you're working class when your TV is bigger than your book case."
5) "I'm good friends with 25 letters of the alphabet … I don't know Y."
6) "I took part in the sun tanning Olympics - I just got Bronze."
7) "Pornography is often frowned upon, but that's only because I'm concentrating."
8) "I saw a documentary on how ships are kept together. It was riveting!"
 9)  Headline...Crime in multi-storey parking garage...." That's just wrong on so many levels".
 10)"I was playing chess with my friend and he said, 'Let's make this interesting'. So we stopped
 playing chess."
11)"I know a couple who get on like a house on fire. They both feel trapped and are slowly suffocating to death."

In the morning Tom calls his boss:
- Good morning, boss, unfortunately I can't come to work today. I'm really sick. I got a headache, stomach ache, my joints are swollen, my back  hurts and I'm dizzy, so I'm not coming into work."
The boss replies:
- You know Tom, I really need you at the office today. When I feel like that I go to my wife, and ask her to give me some sex. That makes me feel better, and I can go to work. You should try that.
2 hours later Bob calls:
- Boss, I followed your advice, and I feel great! I'll be at work soon. By the way, you got a nice house.

Thermal Imaging of Bomber in Boat Moments before Capture

 

 An aerial view over David Henneberry's home in Watertown, Massachusetts reveals his covered boat that would become the hideout by Boston bombing suspect #2, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19

  

Dramatic photographs reveal how breakthrough technology helped police home in on the second marathon bombing suspect 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The pictures reveal how state-of-the-art thermal imaging cameras helped police track the Chechen terror suspect while he hid on David Henneberry's boat for his final stand off in Watertown following a terrifying week of violence.

Henneberry called 911 after spotting blood and what he thought was a crumpled body in his boat, which was sitting in the backyard of his home. Authorities then used a helicopter equipped with a thermal imaging device to confirm that there was a body in the tarp covered boat and that the person was alive.

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In hiding: Dzhokhar was discovered by Massachusetts resident David Henneberry hiding in his boat. Police used thermal imaging to monitor his movements

 

Hovering over the area, the helicopter spotted the heat signature of a person, confirming Henneberry's suspicions..Our helicopter had actually detected the subject in the boat,' Col. Timothy Alben of the Massachusetts State Police told NBC News. 'We have what's called a FLIR — a forward-looking infrared device — on that helicopter. The chopper monitored the body in the boat for more than an hour before police moved in and took the bleeding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev into custody.

He remained in hospital today and was described as clinging to life as Gov. Deval Patrick said: 'I hope he survives, because we have a million questions.'

The secret service's top interrogators are now waiting to quiz him as he is treated in the same hospital where 11 victims are still recovering.

Thermal imagers are able to detect a body or other heat source inside a house, a vehicle, or in this case, a boat, because heat, unlike visible-light wavelengths can pass through walls. Police routinely use them to find out whether marijuana is being grown inside a house with heat lamps.  A nightmarish 24 hours came to an end in Boston at around 8:45pm yesterday as the 19-year-old suspect was taken into custody alive but injured after a gun battle with police and federal agents. It signaled the end of five days of terror set-off by the double bombing at the marathon finish line.

The mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, was quoted by the Boston Globe as exclaiming, 'We got him'.

'I have never loved this city and its people more than I do today. Nothing can defeat the heart of this city .. nothing.'

Relieved law enforcement officers began cheering and clapping after he was arrested and thousands of jubilant members of the public took to the streets to salute their hard work. Dzhokhar's older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, lay dead following a furious fire-fight alongside his younger brother with police on Thursday which left one officer dead. 

Hi-tech: Boston police deployed all the technology they have to track down Dzhokhar

Busted: The robotic arm pulls back the boat cover to reveal the hiding terror suspect

 

  

This image obtained April 19, 2013 courtesy CBS News shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing who was captured Friday night, April 19, 2013 after he was found hiding in a boat in a Boston suburb

Assisted: This striking picture shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lying on the ground of the property of 67 Franklin Street in Watertown after authorities apprehended him. He had to have medical assistance to breathe

Wounded: This still frame from video shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev visible through an ambulance after he was captured in Watertown on Friday

 

Security: Law enforcement officials stand guard outside the West Clinical Center, pictured, where Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being treated

 

David Henneberry became the day's unusual hero when he decided to check on his beloved boat moments after police lifted a Boston-wide lock-down believing they wouldn't find the younger suspect.
 

On spotting him inside Henneberry 'freaked out' and ran inside to call police - who dispatched the helicopter. Within minutes police, ATF, SWAT and K-9 units had descended upon 67 Franklin Street and engaged Tsarnaev in a vicious gun battle - over 40 shots rang out in the quiet suburban neighborhood.

Authorities, using a bullhorn, had called on the suspect to surrender: 'Come out with your hands up.'

'We used a robot to pull the tarp off the boat,' David Procopio of the Massachusetts State Police said to CNN. 'We were also watching him with a thermal imaging camera in our helicopter. He was weakened by blood loss -- injured last night most likely.'
 

Applause: A police officer breaks into a smile as the crowd applaud him on the news of the arrest of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Friday, April 19, 2013, in Boston

Celebration: Crowd gathered to celebrate in the Boston Common after both marathon bombing suspects were found

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Tsarnaev was shot twice by law enforcement in the gun battle which raged until his capture at approximately 8.45pm. Law enforcement sources have suggested that Tsarnaev gave himself up voluntarily after realizing continuing resistance was fruitless.

President Obama praised the outcome after a 'tough week' but said the focus would now be on getting answers for the victims. He said: 'Why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence?'
'We've closed an important chapter in this tragedy,' added Mr. Obama said in his televised address.

Federal law enforcement officials are invoking the public safety exception to the Miranda rights. That means that Tsarnaev will be questioned immediately without having his rights read to him. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have called for Tsarnaev to be held as an enemy combatant, although the chances of that being permitted are slim.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick speaks during a news conference announcing the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing

 

President Obama said it was important justice was 'done right'.

'In this day of instant reporting, tweets, and blogs, there is a temptation to latch onto any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions, but when a tragedy like this happens, with the public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it important to do this right,' Obama said.
'That's why have an investigation, that's why we relentlessly gather the facts, that's why we have courts.'
'Whatever hateful agenda drove these men cannot, will not prevail,' he said, 'and whatever they thought they could achieve failed because the people of Boston refuse to be intimidated, and we as Americans refuse to be terrorized.'

The two suspects were ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Investigators still have given no details on the motive for the bombing.

 Early on Friday morning, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a ferocious gun battle and car chase during which he and his younger brother hurled explosives at police from a stolen car, authorities said. The younger brother managed to escape. During the getaway attempt, the brothers killed Sean Collier, an MIT policeman, and severely wounded another officer, authorities said.

Chechnya has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.

The older brother had strong political views about the United States, said Albrecht Ammon, 18, a downstairs-apartment neighbor in Cambridge. Ammon quoted Tsarnaev as saying that the U.S. uses the Bible as 'an excuse for invading other countries.' It has emerged that the FBI interviewed the older brother at the request of Russia in 2011 but dropped their surveillance after finding nothing they thought was worth following up. 

Members of the public cheer as police officers leave the scene where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, was taken into custody in Watertown, Massachusetts on Friday

Grateful Public Cheer police

Hundreds of Northeastern University students gather in Hemenway Street to celebrate the capture of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Boston on April 19th

 

 

 Frank McGillin, who has ran three Boston Marathons, waves a U.S. flag

 

Police officers high-fived each other and shook hands at the conclusion of the fire-fight ending in arrest. 'Thank you. Thank you. It was our pleasure,' members of the Boston SWAT team said over a loudspeaker to the relieved crowds who gathered to thank them. An estimated 1,000 law enforcement officers had been involved in the massive police manhunt.

Authorities are still holding  three people in custody in New Bedford, who are suspected of association or collusion with the bombers. New Bedford is 65 miles south of the city, the Boston Globe reports. It is unknown how they were connected to the case. At least seven IEDs were found, some in Watertown and some at a home in Cambridge, which police made safe.

It emerged earlier in the day that Dzhokhar had several active online profiles and even posted messages warning people to 'stay safe' after the bombings - an apparent attempt to cover his tracks.  The 19-year-old, who attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and was a registered student at University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth, was also a 9/11 denier and posted a chilling message on Twitter eight months ago where he wrote: ‘Boston marathon isn’t a good place to smoke'.

The tweet last August appeared on the micro-blogging site from user @J_Tsar - named in multiple reports as an alias for the man behind Monday’s atrocity. He also tweeted about his intent to grow a beard and how he ‘wanted out’ of American life.
The messages suggested the level of forethought and planning that the Chechen immigrants allegedly put into the devastating attack on Boston.

The tweets added to a picture of Dzhokhar which was emerging on Friday, as a young man who had hidden his sinister intentions beneath the facade of a party-loving but dedicated student who was captain of his high school wrestling team.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, emerged as the FBI's 'Suspect 2' on Thursday after he was seen on CCTV wearing a white baseball cap and dropping a backpack shortly before the huge blasts.
 
The older brother Tamerlan attended Bunker Hill Community College and was studying to become an engineer but took a year off to pursue boxing. He said in an interview with a Boston University student magazine in 2010: 'I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them.'

The 26-year-old had a profile on YouTube channel since August 2012. Five months ago, Tamerlan created a playlist dedicated to terrorism. Named simply ‘Terrorists,’ the playlist included a pair of videos, which are now no longer available. Although most of the clips in the channel are ordinary music videos, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s YouTube channel shows signs that he had been drawn to radical Islamism. Among the songs on his playlists was one called ‘I will dedicate my life to Jihad.' He also featured videos recorded by recent converts to Islam.

Many members of the family denounced the two men and the suspects' uncle Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Maryland, pleaded on television for Dzhokhar to give up.
'Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness,' he said.
The 19-year-old's father on Saturday pleaded for him to tell police 'everything'. 'Just be honest,' he said.

Fist Pump: A SWAT officer raises his fist in Watertown, Mass. Friday, April 19, 2013, after the manhunt for the second of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing was successful

 

On the move: Several different agencies including the Boston police, FBI and SWAT teams were working together

Constant danger: Scores of police and SWAT team members were surrounding the Boston suburb on Friday morning