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US President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

AP

October 9, 2009

5:10am

OSLO – The Norwegian Nobel Committee says U.S. President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

OSLO (AP) — Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba and Chinese dissident Hu Jia are among the favorites to win the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Norwegian national broadcaster NRK reported Friday.

French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and Afghan woman's rights activist Simi Samar also are possible candidates for the prestigious prize, NRK said, about an hour before the Norwegian Nobel committee was set to announce the prize at 11 a.m. (0900GMT).

As always, the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee has remained tightlipped about its decision, which it made earlier this week, but will unveil its choice Friday. A record 205 nominations were received this year.

"We've had all the meetings we're going to have, and done what we needed to do," the committee's nonvoting secretary Geir Lundestad told The Associated Press Thursday.

British bookmaker Ladbrokes and its Irish counterpart, PaddyPower, give the best odds to imprisoned Hu, Cordoba, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, and Samar.

Hu, a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, was sentenced last year to a three-and-a-half-year prison term for "inciting subversion of state power" ahead of the Beijing Olympics. He also was a favorite for the prize last year, when the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award went to Finland's ex-president Martti Ahtisaari for decades of work as a peace mediator.

Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, said he favored Cordoba, who leads Colombians for Peace, an organization whose aim is to facilitate peace negotiations between the government and the country's leftist FARC guerrillas.

Cordoba is a polarizing figure in Colombia owing to her close relations with Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, and her criticisms of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's government as an illegitimate "mafia state" that came to power with the help of right-wing death squads.

Despite that polemical status, she has been at the forefront of efforts to peacefully end her country's half-century-old conflict, which is rooted in deep social divisions. She was nominated by Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine who won the peace prize in 1980 and is a fierce critic of Uribe.

Guesses from the Peace Research Institute — an annual ritual — have become the cornerstone of world Nobel Peace Prize speculation. However, institute officials admit they have no inside information, and they rarely predict the winner.

Harpviken also mentioned bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who advocates interfaith dialogue in the Middle East, a region shot through with sectarian violence, and Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur.

He said he thought this year's award would go toward making "an impact on evolving processes" — such as armed conflict resolution — with the hope of encouraging their continuation.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.

The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change. Some experts believe the committee will turn to human rights this year, because it hasn't picked a human rights activist since tapping Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi for the prize in 2003.

"Twenty years since Tiananmen Square? Maybe a Chinese?" said Dan Smith, of the London-based International Alert peace group.

Emerging superpower China remains deeply sensitive about criticism of its bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square. And awarding dissidents would be a major poke-in-the-eye in the year the communist regime, established 60 years ago, celebrates its diamond jubilee.

The committee is famous for making grand symbolic gestures aimed at influencing the world agenda, as in 1989 when, in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre, the prize went to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Although most of the buzz this year surrounds Hu, another candidate could be Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system. He now lives in the United States.

Harpviken told journalists last week that he was skeptical of suggestions that a dissident of any nationality might win the prize this year. He noted that Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland, who just ended a four-year term as president of Norway's parliament, was elected secretary general of the Council of Europe on Sept. 29.

Harpviken said he believes Jagland's connection to both the Norwegian government and a major pan-European organization will make the committee "careful" about who it chooses, hoping to avoid a public debate about its political independence. He also suggested that Jagland might want to avoid complicating his five-year term at the helm of the Council of Europe.

"It would be hard to think that it hasn't had an impact" on the deliberation process, Harpviken said.

Jan Egeland, director of Oslo's Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, said he nominated Denis Mukwege, a physician in war-torn Congo who opened a clinic to help rape victims.

"He is working for the people in the biggest war," he said. "Sometimes the committee has to address the biggest wars."

 

 

 

World Reacts to News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nobel_world_reaction

 

 

Analysis:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_nobel_analysis

 

Myths concering Nobel Peace Prize:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nobel_peace_myths

http://meview.metro.co.uk/Video.aspx?id=47030

Scaredy-cat postmen to blacklist Magic?

The Western Mercury
08 October 2009

 Magic, with Sam.

PETRIFIED postman are threatening to halt mail deliveries to a Weston couple - because they are afraid of being attacked by their CAT.

Mailmen say they have been mauled by Magic so often they are considering blacklisting the fearsome feline's Waverley Road address.

They say mail dropping through the letterbox prompts the three-year-old moggy to burst from his cat-flap and launch an attack.

Royal Mail's Weston delivery manager Peter Floyd visited Magic's stunned owners Sam Enan-McKinnon and husband Tariq to break the news of the ban on Monday.

Sam, a 25-year-old nurse, told the Mercury she was amazed to learn her peaceful pussy was being accused of postman persecution.

She said: "We're stunned. The head of the delivery unit came to our house yesterday to tell us mail services will be suspended if we don't 'address the problem'.

"I told them my cat wouldn't hurt a fly. We carried out an experiment where the man from Royal Mail pretended to post something, but Magic didn't do anything at all.

"Their solution is for us to block the cat-flap, but I'm a nurse and work odd hours, and we can't leave Magic locked in the house all day.

"He's a soft cat, we've never seen him attack someone, and we've never heard of him hurting anyone before. I can't believe they are saying this."

A letter to the couple from Mr Floyd confirmed the terrifying tabby's aggressive antics are being blamed for the mail ban.

It says: "I am writing to let you know that our post person, while delivering mail to your address, was menaced by your cat. This has happened for the last three days.

"I believe that your cat, as soon as it hears the letterbox, is straight out the cat-flap and attacks the post person.

"Animal attacks are a major cause of injury to Royal Mail staff.

"If any further incidents of this nature are allowed to take place, I shall have no alternative other than to consider suspending the delivery of mail to your home.

McRage over wrong size french fries 

 

Oct 08, 2009

03:57 PMLast update Oct 08, 2009 @ 05:09 PMQUINCY —

 

Aaron Gouveia

Cape Cod Online

October 08, 2009

FALMOUTH – An East Falmouth teen attacked several of his family members after his mother punished him by taking away his cell phone, according to police reports.

Brandon Turner, 18, drew his mother’s ire on Monday night when he hit his 15-year-old brother. But when Kimberly Turner took away her son’s cell phone as punishment for the fraternal spat, police said Brandon’s aggressive behavior escalated and then exploded the next day.

Brandon laid down on the bottom part of his bunk bed and began kicking the top bed until it collapsed on him, police said. His mother tried to lift the bed off her son, but Brandon kicked her in the throat

During the struggle, police said Brandon threw a glass baking dish at his mother, head-butted his brother and struck his mother in the leg with a metal pooper scooper.

John Turner, a corrections officer at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility, eventually had to use handcuffs to subdue his son.

When police arrived, they found a handcuffed Brandon chasing his family members around the yard and yelling “just shoot me.” Police had to use leg shackles to get Brandon under control.

Brandon Turner was arraigned in Falmouth District Court on three counts of assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, malicious destruction of property over $250, threatening to commit a crime, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

He was held on $1,000 bail at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility and is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on Nov. 4.

Nobel Prize: ten most important winners

As the 2009 Nobel Prize winners are announced, we look at ten of the most influential laureates in the history of the awards.

 

Nick Collins
4:24PM BST 08 Oct 2009

Professor Marie Curie working in her laboratory at the University of Paris in 1925 Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

1. Marie Curie

The leading light in a family that between them amassed a remarkable five Nobel Prizes in the fields of Chemistry and Physics. She became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903 when she was recognised, along with her husband Pierre and Antoine Henri Becquerel, with the Physics award for their research into radiation.

 

She later became the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes when she was given the Chemistry Prize in 1911 for her discovery of radium and polonium, and her further research into radium. She is among a select group of people to have won prizes in two different fields.

2. Martin Luther King Jr.

The American civil rights activist was the youngest person to be recognised by the Nobel foundation when he won the Peace Prize in 1964, at the age of 35, for his work to end racial discrimination through non-violent means.

Even after his death in 1968 King's legacy lived on, and his image is still used today as a symbol by human rights groups around the world.

3. Albert Einstein

Arguably the world's most famous scientist, Einstein was given the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his services to physics, especially his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

During his career he made significant contributions to the world of theoretical physics, among them his famous theories of relativity.

4. Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins

These three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for their discovery of the "double helix" structure of DNA nine years earlier.

The award was deemed controversial because of the death of Rosalind Franklin, a collaborator with Wilkins, four years earlier. Nobel foundation rules, which state the prizes cannot be given posthumously, meant her work was not recognised.

5. Jean-Paul Sartre

The French existentialist philosopher, writer and literary critic was the first person to turn down a Nobel Prize in 1964 when he declined the Prize for Literature.

Sartre is still recorded as the winner by the Nobel federation for his influential work which was "filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth".

6. Sir Alexander Fleming

Sir Alexander shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Ernst Chain and Sir Howard Florey for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect on infectious diseases.

The Scot made his discovery accidentally when he returned to his untidy laboratory from a holiday to discover a fungus had developed that destroyed the bacteria immediately surrounding it.

7. Hermann Muller

The American won the same prize as Fleming a year later, in 1946, for his discovery of the mutating effects of X-ray radiation.

His research and continued argument against nuclear war made him a figure of great political significance in later years as nuclear weapons became an increasingly controversial subject.

8. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Russian novelist and dissident, who spent time in a Soviet labour camp after writing letters that criticised the communist regime, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

His most famous novels, The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, for which he received the award, exposed the brutality of the Soviet Union's forced labour camps.

9. The International Committee of the Red Cross

The highest number of Nobel Prize wins goes to the International Committee of the Red Cross with three separate Nobel Peace Prizes.

In 1917 and 1944 the organisation was recognised for its work during the First and Second World Wars, and it was named as a winner again in 1963, along with the League of Red Cross Societies, to mark its 100th anniversary.

10. Sir Clive Granger

The Welsh economist won the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his methods of analysing economic statistics, which revolutionised the way economists interpret financial data.

His prize was shared with Robert Engle III, for his research in a similar area.

October 6, 2009

Mask-wearing inmate sparks his attorney’s swine flu fears

Jail policy aims to stem spread of illness; in this case, it led to delay in proceedings

Meghann M. Cuniff

Spokesman-Review

 

Mitchell A. Hardin’s attorney wanted nothing to do with him.

Set to enter a plea on a residential burglary charge in Spokane County Superior Court last week, the 21-year-old inmate was told he had to wait another day.

His lawyer, seeing a surgical mask Hardin was wearing, feared contracting the H1N1 virus and wouldn’t go near the jail inmate in court. Hardin said at the time he didn’t feel ill, but he had in the past few days and he shared a cell with sick inmates.

None appears to have H1N1, or swine flu, but Spokane County Jail officials aren’t taking any chances.

Under a new policy implemented in the past two weeks, inmates who show symptoms of flu or a cold – and anyone near them – must wear protective masks when they leave their cells. That includes court appearances.

But the reaction from Todd Porter, Hardin’s public defender, and subsequent delay of a scheduled court proceeding prompted Spokane County Superior Judge Maryann Moreno to call a meeting this Thursday with jail staff and attorneys to sort out what she predicted “is going to snowball into an issue.”

“Are we going to do this with all people who have the sniffles?” Moreno said in court last week, referring to Hardin. “This seems a little paranoid to me, with all due respect.”

Jail officials say they’re taking the extra precautions to prevent a widespread outbreak. About 20 inmates are affected, including one man whose transfer to Oregon was postponed last week because officials didn’t want to run the risk of spreading illness.

“Sometimes we’re taking these precautions when there’s no indication they have the flu,” said jail Lt. Dan Veloski. “We just wanted to nip it in the bud as quick as we could.”

Last week’s sentencing delay was caused by a misconception about H1N1 and the new mask policy, Veloski said.

“People still don’t understand what swine flu is,” he said. “A lot of people believe it’s airborne, and that’s not true. It’s the virus inside their cough or their sneeze.”

This week’s meeting should help clear that up. “We want to protect the people in that court,” Veloski said. “Things could spread very quickly in this type of environment.”

In the meeting, Veloski said, jail staff will explain to attorneys “what our protocol is and what certain individuals may be wearing masks when they come to court.”

The surgical masks are meant to catch contagious droplets in coughs or sneezes, which experts say is the most common way to contract H1N1.

“Are they 100 percent effective? No,” Veloski said. “But they’re better than nothing.”

No one else in the courtroom for Mitchell’s sentencing objected to proceeding, but Porter’s reluctance to sit next to his mask-wearing client was understandable, said David Brody, an associate professor at Washington State University and director of the Spokane campus’s criminal justice program.

“I can understand everyone’s perspective,” Brody said. “My concern would be whether it impacts a defendant’s right to go to court. Will it get to the point where they’ll want to do sentencing over video?”

Hardin shrugged when Moreno asked him what he thought of the mask in court last week. Interviewed later, he called the policy “dumb.” He said he chuckled when Moreno told him he looked “pretty silly.” “I was sitting there smiling, but no one could see,” Hardin said.

 

LINK TO PHOTO AND STORY:

 

 

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/oct/06/mask-wearing-inmate-sparks-his-attorneys-swine/

Father, son arrested while trying to score heroin

Lucas Sullivan 

Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 09:40 AM

 

DAYTON - A father and son are in Montgomery County Jail on drug-related charges after they told officers monitoring drug activity Tuesday, Oct. 6, they were trying to buy some heroin.

 

Charles Rosenbaum II, 25

 Charles Rosenbaum Sr., 47

Charles Rosenbaum Sr., 47, and Charles Rosenbaum II, 25, were in the 2100 block of Benson Drive in a blue Chevy Monte Carlo that was pulled over about 7 p.m. by police for a license plate violation, according to a police report.

The Rosenbaums told officers they were in the area trying to buy some heroin, the report stated. Officers found the younger Rosenbaum with a needle and his father had a crack pipe in his possession, the report stated.

Both are being charged with misdemeanor loitering charges and possessing drug paraphernalia, the report stated.

Naked burglar tells Slidell police he has medical problem

Jeff Adelson

The Times-Picayune

October 07, 2009, 8:01PM

A Luling man who broke into a Slidell home while naked, made himself a meal and took a shower before fleeing has told police he was suffering from a medical problem during the bizarre break-in, authorities said Wednesday.

 

Slidell Police DepartmentThe naked burglar

cooked and took a shower while ransacking

a Slidell home early Monday morning, police said.

 

Slidell police planned to question the man, whose name has not been released, on Wednesday night and determine whether he will be booked with a crime, Slidell police spokesman Capt. Kevin Foltz said.

Police received a call Tuesday evening from a relative of the man who saw news media reports about the early Monday morning break-in, Foltz said. Investigators then spoke with the man, who agreed to come in for questioning, he said.

Police were told the man was suffering from a medical problem related to his diabetes during the break-in, Foltz said.

Video cameras at a house in the Country Club Estates subdivision captured the man striding up to the house naked on Monday about 1 a.m. He rinsed himself off with a garden hose in the driveway and knocked on the front door of the empty home before sitting covered in a garbage bag in the backyard.

The man then broke into the home and ransacked the place before making himself a meal and taking a shower. He then fled the home wrapped only in a sheet.

The 61-year-old homeowner, who was visiting her son on the West Bank all weekend, found out about the break-in after returning home Monday and gave police the surveillance video from her home security system.

The man had apparently left his car on a nearby highway before the break-in, Assistant Chief Jesse Simon said.

Mom, daughter accused in beating, choking of ‘snitch’

Lucas Sullivan 

Dayton Daily News

Monday, October 5, 2009, 11:02 AM

 

DAYTON - Three people are in Montgomery County Jail after a man said the three beat, choked and tried to kill him because the group believes he told police about their drug habits.

 

Debbie Sandifer

Lonnie Black

 

 

 Brandy McBeath

The 35-year-old victim was in his apartment in the 100 block of Central Avenue about 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4, when he heard a knock of his door, according to a police report.

 

He said Lonnie D. Black, 24, wanted him to come out so the two could fight. The victim said after Black left after he refused to come out of his apartment, the report stated.

 

Fearing that his car would get damaged, the victim went out to check on the vehicle, he told police. On the way to the parking lot, Black reappeared and confronted the victim.

 

The two men were about to fight when Brandy McBeath, 26, and her mother Debbie Sandifer, 51, arrived, the victim told police.

 

The victim said Sandifer tried four times to strike him with a club, while McBeath picked up a long piece of wood and struck him twice in the face, the report stated.

 

The victim hit McBeath with a club and the group fled the scene, the report stated. As the victim walked back to his apartment, Black came up from behind and choked the man with a shower curtain rod.

 

The victim hit Black with an object and was able to escape.

 

When officers arrived Black was armed with a “weighted club” wrapped around his wrist and telling at the victim, “I want to kill him,” the report stated.

 

The victim told officers he was attacked because McBeath and Sandifer were arrested on Thursday after officers found them with the drugs, according to a police report. McBeath and Sandifer thought the victim “snitched” or told police they were involved in drugs, he told police.

 

Officers found McBeath and Sandifer at their apartment at 628 Plymouth Ave. While searching the apartment, officers found 1.24 grams of crack cocaine, a crack pipe and a broken shower curtain rod believed to be used in the assault.

 

The apartment was labeled a nuisance, and Sandifer and another man living there were presented with nuisance abatement paperwork, the report stated.

 

Sandifer, McBeath and Black were taken to Montgomery County Jail each on one felonious assault charge. Their victim was treated for minor injuries.

Elementary student’s jaws pried from teacher’s forearm

Lucas Sullivan

Dayton Daily News 

Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 10:41 AM

 

DAYTON - A Patterson-Kennedy Elementary School student sent his 54-year-old teacher to the hospital after biting him in the forearm Monday, Oct. 5.

Police responded to the Dayton City school, at 258 Wyoming St., about 11:30 a.m. after school officials said they had to pry the child from the teacher’s arm, according to a police report.

The child was brought to assistant principal Jack Johnson’s office by teacher Stephen Green for being disorderly in the classroom, the report stated. The child began throwing things in the office and had to be restrained by Green.

While clutching the child, Green was bitten in the forearm, Johnson told police. The child would not release Green’s arm and Johnson had to pry the boy’s mouth open — with his hands.

Green went to the hospital to be treated for the bite, the report stated. The child was transferred to Kettering Hospital for a psychological evaluation.

The child is being charged with felonious assault, but was not taken to the juvenile detention center. A court date has not been set.

Pa. police say woman put stolen check in church offering and stole a wallet from a pew

 

NEW BRIGHTON, Pa. - Police said a woman put a forged $50 check in a church offering plate and stole a woman's wallet from a pew in the same western Pennsylvania church. New Brighton police Chief Charles Van Fossan said Tuesday that police were still searching for a 20-year-old woman. She allegedly committed the crimes at First Presbyterian Church in New Brighton on Sunday.

Police said the offering check was from a previously stolen checkbook.

The woman used a credit card from the stolen wallet to buy about $200 worth of merchandise from a dollar store and a convenience store. Police said the woman also tried to use a credit card stolen from another church to get a $16,000 cash advance that a bank refused to issue.

New Brighton is about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

San Anselmo police: Couple used boy, 13, as designated driver

Gary Klien

Marin Independent Journal

10/05/2009 08:03:24 PM PDT
     

 

A couple was arrested in San Anselmo on allegations they let a 13-year-old boy drive them home from a restaurant because they both feared getting another DUI, authorities said.

The incident occurred Sunday night after the couple and the boy, who is related to one of the suspects, had dinner at a downtown restaurant, said San Anselmo police Sgt. Rob Schneider.

The couple, who have several drunken driving convictions between them, had been drinking that night and did not want to risk a new DUI arrest, so they had the boy drive, Schneider said.

The boy started to drive home, but he soon stopped the vehicle in the middle of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard near The Hub.

Police came upon the stalled vehicle and stopped to investigate.

"The story that he gave was that it freaked him out, so he stopped and refused to drive anymore," Schneider said.

The 32-year-old woman and the 29-year-old man were booked into the county jail early Monday morning on suspicion of felony child endangerment and misdemeanor public intoxication. Bail was set at $50,000.

The boy was released to another family member at the San Anselmo police station.

The woman, a Mill Valley resident, was charged Monday with a misdemeanor count of child endangerment and a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, said Deputy District Attorney Charles Cacciatore.

She was also charged with allowing a minor to drive, an infraction. The vehicle, a Land Rover, was on loan to her while her own car was in the repair shop, Schneider said.

Her boyfriend, a San Rafael resident, was not charged.

Both were released from jail Monday night. The woman was scheduled to appear for arraignment next week.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6266528/Optical-and-audio-illusions-15-videos-to-keep-you-entertained-on-your-lunchbreak.html