WebProNews

Author: Lacy Langley

  • Lauryn Hill Released from Prison, Releases Song

    Lauryn Hill was released from prison yesterday after serving almost three months for tax evasion. According to Forbes, she will now begin serving a three-month house arrest sentence which will be immediately followed by nine months of supervised release. Her defense team had originally requested that she serve no prison time for her crimes, since she is the mother of six young children, but she received a reduced sentence instead.

    The sentence came after Hill pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion for failing to file tax returns for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007. At the time of her plea, she posted on social media that she had gone “underground” in order to live without “being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.”

    Her lawyer, Nathan Hochman, said Hill has since fully paid her taxes. He said Hill got out several days earlier than planned due to various factors, “including good behavior”.

    CNN reports that shortly after her release from a low-security all-female facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the Grammy-winning artist posted a new single on Tumblr . The track had been quickly thrown together before she entered prison because she felt it had “relevance”.

    Besides spending time with her six children, Lauryn hasn’t made a public statement about her plans moving forward, but Chris Schwartz, the CEO of her record company, Ruff House Records, seems to have an idea of what would go on. Schwartz said simply, “Ms. Hill is ready to get back to work.”

    That sounds like the sensible thing to do for the single mother, since her punishment for evading taxes isn’t quite wrapped up just yet. In addition to the payment of taxes, interest and penalty due, Hill was also charged with a $60,000 fine. Better get back to turning out those hits, Ms. Hill!

    Image via youtube

  • Siri Voice Revealed: Susan Bennett Talks About Siri

    Susan Bennett of Atlanta has revealed herself as the the voice of Siri. In an interview with CNN, she recalled, among other things, how she got to this point in her long career and how she found out what her voice was used for.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An60PkztD8U

    Bennett has done voice work since the 1970s. Her first job in the voice over business was as the voice of Tilly the all-time teller, which was the first ATM machine. Down the line, she lent her vocals to GPS devices, automated telephone systems and even Delta airlines terminals. However, this gig is the only one that has led to international fame.

    For four hours a day, every day, in July 2005, Bennett sat in her home recording booth. Hour after hour, she read nonsensical phrases and sentences so that the “ubergeeks”, as she affectionately calls them, admitting they leave her awestruck, could work their magic by pulling out vowels, consonants, syllables and diphthongs, and playing with her pitch and speed.

    When asked why Siri sounds a little…um, snippy, sometimes, she said, “There are some people that just can read hour upon hour upon hour, and it’s not a problem. For me, I get extremely bored … So I just take breaks. That’s one of the reasons why Siri might sometimes sound like she has a bit of an attitude,” Bennett said with a laugh. “Those sounds might have been recorded the last 15 minutes of those four hours.”

    Susan wasn’t told about how her voice was going to be used. She assumed it would probably be for a company telephone system. The surprise came in October 2011 after Apple released its iPhone 4S, the first to feature Siri. Bennett didn’t have the phone herself, but people who knew her voice did.

    “A colleague e-mailed me [about Siri] and said, ‘Hey, we’ve been playing around with this new Apple phone. Isn’t this you?’”Bennett went to her computer, pulled up Apple’s site and listened to video clips announcing Siri. The voice was unmistakably hers.

    “Oh, I knew,” she said. “It’s obviously me. It’s my voice.”

    Image via youtube

  • Madeleine McCann: New Theory Linked to Thefts

    Six years after Madeleine McCann went missing in Praia de Luz, Portugal, Scotland Yard has a new theory, according to the Daily Mail. They now think that Madeleine may have been taken after disturbing burglars at The Ocean Club, where they were staying. They have a theory that her disappearance could be connected to a series of thefts at The Ocean Club and elsewhere around Praia de Luz.

    Therefore, Scotland Yard said they would like to hear from anyone that was on vacation and was burgled around Praia de Luz prior to Madeleine’s disappearance. Any information would be helpful to the investigation into who took Madeleine.

    Detectives have also been collecting an extensive list of phone records for calls made and received in the area, in order to be able to tell who was around. As detectives continue to pour over these phone records, Scotland Yard has said anyone that was around Praia de Luz on May 3, 2007 could receive a phone call from them. From this new line of investigation, that has gone on for two years, came the information about the break-ins and also began the phone record blitz. The new inquiry has yielded 41 new “people of interest“.

    Because of these new findings, the Kate and Gerry McCann are going on T.V. with the new information to make another plea to the public for help in finding Madeleine. The McCanns will appear live in the studio during an episode of BBC Crimewatch on Monday next week, which will also feature a reconstruction. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, of the Metropolitan Police, described the program’s content as “substantially different. It’s not just a bland ‘can you help us’ appeal, there is some different material and a different understanding to be presented,” he said.

    Image via youtube

  • Brooke Shields Doesn’t Spare Andre Agassi on “Today”

    On Wednesday’s episode of the Today Show, Brooke Shields got in a pretty good zing on ex-husband of 14 years, tennis star Andre Agassi. The show was running a segment called “Dealing with Divorce: How to Move On”.

    The segment featured Brooke Shields and Willie Geist speaking with celebrity lawyer Laura Wasser, who worked with Kim Kardashian and is the author of “It Doesn’t Have To be That Way: How To Divorce Without Destroying Your Family Or Bankrupting Yourself”, a book about caring for yourself, and especially children during a divorce.

    While the trio were speaking about the concept behind the book, Brooke interjected, “I am divorced, and mine was very quick and relatively easy but it’s a very interesting thing because he — quote, unquote — did say to me, ‘Be happy that we don’t have children or I would not have made this easy for you.’”

    She added with a laugh, “And therein lies why I’m not there anymore.”

    Burn!

    Agassi also opened up about their divorce in and autobiography titled “Open” The book, written in 2009, discussed his failed marriage. During an interview, also with the “Today” show in November of that year, to promote his book, Agassi explained, “I think at that time in my life I couldn’t be married to anyone. I think timing is really important. You need in a marriage, two people who understand themselves … and I certainly didn’t understand myself.”

    Double Burn!

    Brooke Shields did find “happily ever after” in her 2001 marriage to television writer Chris Henchy and they have two daughters together, Rowan, 10, and Grier, 7.

    Image via youtube

  • Meg Ryan Liberated by Scandal, Living Quiet Life

    Meg Ryan hasn’t been on the big screen for quite some time, and frankly, she likes it that way. After being the Hollywood queen of the RomCom, she has decided to leave Los Angeles and settle down into a quiet existence with her daughter, Daisy, who is 8, and her boyfriend, rocker John Mellencamp.

    Well, as quiet as it gets, anyway. The paparazzi still consistently follow them around to get pictures of them, and, unfortunately, they probably always will.

    In her interview with People magazine, Meg reveals the unexpected liberator that led to her decision. It was her affair with hunk Russell Crow, who she met on the set of the movie they worked together on, “Proof of Life”, in 2001. She was married to Dennis Quaid at the time, who is father to her son, Jack. This revelation broke up the already faltering marriage, wherein it turns out, both of them were allegedly being unfaithful.

    She says to People that it was unbelievably hard to go from being America’s Sweetheart to the Scarlett Woman, but it was also incredibly liberating.

    “So this is what it feels like to be the scarlet woman. Oh! I’m having that experience now!,” she told the magazine. “It was also incredibly liberating. Now I was utterly free. I didn’t have to care about what people thought. I have gotten to do what I guess I secretly wanted to do. Be totally under the radar and live my life.”

    So, why New York City? “Los Angeles is just about movies. New York is about so much more than that, and so is Meg,” her friend, writer Delia Ephron told People. Hopefully Meg, John and Daisy can live that quiet life they hope for.

    Image via youtube

  • Capitol Suspect Had Post-Partum Depression

    The woman who caused chaos on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. yesterday has now been identified as Miriam Carey, a 34-year-old dental hygienist from Stamford Connecticut. She was shot dead by police after leading them on a high speed chase through downtown. Carey had a 1-year-old daughter named Erica. Police confirmed that a 1-year-old girl was taken from the car and put in “protective custody.”

    Now, perhaps investigation into the incident has led to a cause for this apparent lunacy. ABC reports that Carey suffered from post-partum depression following the birth of her daughter last August.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xB6zhu_ck

    “She had post-partum depression after having the baby”, said the woman’s mother, Idella Carey.”A few months later, she got sick. She was depressed. … She was hospitalized.”

    Carey said her daughter had “no history of violence” and she did not know why she was in Washington, D.C. She said she believed Carey was taking the little girl to a doctor’s appointment today in Connecticut.

    Her boss of eight years, Dr. Steven Oken, described Carey as a “non-political person” who was “always happy.”

    “I would never in a million years believe that she would do something like this,” he said. “It’s the furthest thing from anything I would think she would do, especially with her child in the car. I am floored that it would be her.”

    However, Miriam’s neighbor, Erin Jackson, was asked if she believed Carey suffered from a mental illness, and she said “absolutely.”

    Jackson said she believed Carey lived in the Stamford home with the baby and the girl’s father. She recognized the black Infinity sedan seen on television from the incident as resembling Carey’s car and said the woman’s tires recently were slashed in an incident in Connecticut.

    Miriam Carey was the only fatality in the incident in Washington D.C. yesterday, but two officers, one from Capitol Police and one from Secret Service, were injured. Could this shed new light on the dangers of post-partum depression?

    Image via youtube

  • Britney Spears: Hard to Play Sexy Mom

    The stir this week caused by Sinead O’Connor’s letter to Miley Cyrus about the music industry “pimping” out stars for money has caused some controversy over whether or not this could be true. Well, the camp that says it is true now has more evidence. Britney Spears, in an interview on The TJ Show on AMP 103.3 in Boston, said that her image is a lot racier than she would have it, if things were up to her.

    The most intriguing part of the interview is when asked by the DJ if she’s being pushed further than she would like, she said, simply, “Yes.”

    “A lot of sex goes into what I do, but sometimes I would like to bring it back to the old days when there was like one outfit through the whole video, and you’re dancing the whole video, and there’s like not that much sex stuff going on.”

    In her “Work B***h” video, she says that she finally had to draw the line somewhere (wow, where?), to protect her conscience as a mother and a decent person. “Oh my god, we showed way more skin and did way more stuff for the video than what is actually there. Like, I cut out half the video because I am a mother and because, you know, I have children, and it’s just hard to play sexy mom while you’re being a pop star as well,” Spears told AMP 103.3.

    Remember the good ol’ days?

    “It’s about the dance and it’s about being old school, it’s like keeping it real and just making it about the dance. I’d love to do a video like that,” Britney said.

    So is Sinead O’Connor on to something here? It just seems wrong for ANYONE to be pushed beyond what they are comfortable with. Or is it just me?

    Image via youtube

  • Aurora Borealis Make Spectacular Show in North U.S.

    Aurora borealis or Northern lights made a spectacular appearance in the skies of Northern Montana and Minnesota last night, and could possibly make another appearance tonight. This video was taken over Ontario, Canada on Tuesday night, as the aurora borealis made their appearance there.

    The phenomenon is caused by solar particles entering the earth’s upper atmosphere. Variations in color depend on the type of gas particles colliding with each other. The particle collisions happen between 50 and 400 miles above the earth’s surface. Bob King of universetoday.com explained it this way:

    “The arrival of a powerful solar wind in excess of 375 miles per second (600 km/second) from a coronal mass ejection shocked the Earth’s magnetic sheath last night beginning around 9 p.m. CDT. The sun’s magnetic field, embedded in the wind, pointed sharply southward, allowing eager electrons and protons to worm their way past our magnetic defenses and excite the atoms in the upper atmosphere to glow. Voila! Northern lights.”

    According to aurora-borealis.us, auroras occur in both hemispheres, and the aurora in the northern hemisphere is called the aurora borealis, or northern lights. The aurora borealis gets its name from the mythical Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas. The aurora borealis can often be seen on the northern horizon; it frequently appears as a reddish glow, as if the sun were rising in the wrong direction. The aurora borealis is most often seen during the months of September, October, March, and April.

    So, where can you get a piece of aurora action? While obviously the northern U.S. is sometimes lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this natural wonder, Fairbanks, Alaska, is known as one of the best places in the world to see the aurora borealis. It usually appears in the sky as light green, light yellow, and pink wisps, curtains, pillars, pinwheels, and haloes of light that seem to wave and vibrate. Amazing!

    Image via youtube

  • Italy Shipwreck Draws Attention to Immigration Issue

    Mourning began today in Italy and in the countries left behind by 300 refugees that are feared dead in yesterday’s shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy. These include the known dead and the ones that were swept out to sea in the strong currents around the island, and are therefore feared dead.

    According to AFP, there was a moment of silence at schools today, and flags flew at half-mast as the island tries to recover from the worst immigration tragedy to ever happen on the Mediterranean. Immigration charities estimate between 17,000 and 20,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach Europe over the past 20 years, crossing on rickety fishing boats or rubber dinghies. Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano called for more assistance from the European Union to deal with the sharp recent increase in refugee arrivals, calling it “a European tragedy”.

    This tragedy is bringing attention to the immigration issues plagueing Europe. The EU’s Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has said she will travel to Lampedusa and has called on European countries to take in more refugees through legal international channels, which she said would help reduce the number of perilous Mediterranean sea crossings in rickety crafts.

    Most immigrants are from war-torn and impoverished countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In fact, the height of immigration came in 2011 during the Arab Spring Revolts. However many times, they either don’t make it, as in this case or the last one on Monday where another 13 men drowned off Italy’s southern coast when they attempted to swim ashore, or they are not treated very well when they get there. UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he hoped the Lampedusa disaster would be a “spur to action” to protecting migrants’ rights, and improving the public perception of immigrants.

    Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa in July to plead for more tolerance and attention to the plight of refugees, called for prayers. “This is shameful,” the pope said at a Vatican conference. “Let us join forces so these tragedies never happen again.”

    One big problem is that “Italy is not prepared for the surge of migrants on its coasts,” said Monica Frassoni, co-leader of the European Greens at the European Parliament. She added, “The EU as a whole has a responsibility to develop a more humane and robust system.”

    CNN reports that the head of the U.N. refugee agency, Antonio Guterres, praised the efforts of the Italian coast guard but said he was “dismayed at the rising global phenomenon of migrants and people fleeing conflict or persecution and perishing at sea.” The U.N. says it is working with countries in the region to find “effective alternatives” so people don’t risk their lives trying to make dangerous voyages across the ocean.

    Image via youtube

  • Sinead O’Connor Pens Open Letter to Miley Cyrus

    Sinead O’Connor seemed compelled to offer troubled star Miley Cyrus some girl-to-girl advice on the ins and outs of the music business in what I like to classify as a compliment sandwich. She wrote an open letter to Miley, the full version of which can be read here, at Entertainment Weekly.

    After viewing her latest antics capped off with her “Wrecking Ball” video, Sinead genuinely seems concerned for Miley’s well-being and her future, and is firm but encouraging in her guidance.

    “I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos,” Sinèad wrote. “It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether it’s the music business or yourself doing the pimping.”

    She also offered Miley a few choice words of warning about the music industry:

    “The music business doesn’t give a sh*t about you, or any of us,” she continues. “They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted… and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.”

    Sinèad also seemed to want to make clear to Miley, 20, that while the controversy-loving starlet tried to attribute inspiration for the “Wrecking Ball” video to O’Connor’s iconic “Nothing Compares to You” video, she clearly misunderstood the true spirit of it. She wrote,

    “The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age, which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0

    Yeah…I don’t see it. At all.

    And, the lovely Sinead O’Connor spoke for all of us when she gently advised her to PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!

    “As for the shedding of the Hannah Montana image… whoever is telling you getting naked is the way to do that does absolutely NOT respect your talent, or you as a young lady,” she wrote. “Your records are good enough for you not to need any shedding of Hannah Montana. She’s waaaaaaay gone by now.. Not because you got naked but because you make great records.”

    Miley generally doesn’t respond to her critics directly very often, but I’d be curious to see how she’d take some decent guidance from someone who’s already been there.

    Image via youtube

  • Daniel Radcliffe: A Talent Beyond Harry Potter

    Daniel Radcliffe is determined to distance himself from his Harry Potter persona, but he’s not going to go all “Miley” to do it. In an profile in the pages of the New York Times entitled, “Harry Who?”, Daniel, 24, opens up about his struggle to prove that he is a very serious and quite talented young actor, while still appreciating his magical childhood on the set of the various Potter movies.

    “I have a massive chip on my shoulder,” he explains. “When you fall into something at age 11 and get paid incredible amounts of money for your entire teenage years for doing a job anyone would want, there is a part of you that thinks everybody is just saying, ‘He got there because he fell into it; he’s not really an actor.’”

    Radcliffe has played some pretty heavy roles as of late, such as Allen Ginsberg in the movie “Kill Your Darlings” about the late Beat poet.

    He’s also starring in “A Young Doctor’s Notebook,” based on a book by the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov which is already a success on British television. The first season began airing in the United States this month on Ovation, an arts television network.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSpSK5JLMVk

    In “A Young Doctor’s Notebook”, Radcliffe plays a young, morphine-addicted doctor who often appears alongside an older version of himself, played by Jon Hamm. The show is set in early-20th-century Russia and has been called at times, comically obscene and sometimes absurd.

    When Hamm approached Radcliffe about the project, showing him an outline of the script, he said yes right away. “The Master and Margarita,” Bulgakov’s best-known book, is one of Radcliffe’s favorite novels. He even treated himself to a trip to Moscow to visit the author’s home.

    One thing is clear, Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t have to work very hard for fans to take him seriously. He has already proven beyond doubt that he has what it takes to capture our hearts again, not as Harry, but as the distinguished Daniel.

    Image via youtube

  • Gina Gershon: Being Donatella Versace

    Gina Gershon almost flat turned down the role of Donatella in the new Lifetime TV movie “House of Versace”. It is based on Deborah Ball’s book “House of Versace: The Untold Story of Genius, Murder, and Survival”. The movie tells the story of Donatella Versace trying to keep her family and the family business together after her brother, Gianni’s murder in 1997. However, according to an interview she did with Katie Couric, the script won her over.

    “I think because I hadn’t read it (the script) yet, and they said, ‘Oh, you’ve been offered Donatella’, and I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m touching that’, just because I think, when we think of Donatella, you think, ‘Oh, she’s so flamboyant, she’s a bit of a caricature’, but then I read the script and I just thought, it’s really a family drama at the end of the day and I found it so compelling, her story, I almost wish it hadn’t been her. I was like, ‘I’ll play this no matter what’, because I love the rise and fall and rise…”

    The famous voice of Donatella Versace was not that easy to hone, according to Digital Spy. “They even tried to give me the fake cigarettes because they thought they would be better, but those just killed me. There’s so much oil in them. So I just started smoking a lot before I went into it, so I could work myself up to it. As soon as it was over, I was like, ‘Thank God!’, and then I smoked a little bit when I was doing the looping… but I wasn’t used to it and I got bronchitis.”

    The things we do for the work we love…

    Image via youtube

  • Rick Finkelstein, of “Movement” Documentary, Dies

    Rick Finkelstein, Universal Pictures executive and star of the documentary “The Movement: One Man Joins an Uprising”, died yesterday after battling cancer, according to the LA Times. He was 64. NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer told studio employees Wednesday in a memo, “He has been a dear friend to many of us and was an important part of the success of this company,” wrote Meyer. “He will be missed.”

    Finkelstein became well-known after the release of the documentary about injured athletes, which featured him and how he lived his life after a near fatal skiing accident left him paralyzed from the waist down in 2004.

    But that didn’t slow him down one bit. “I never thought I wouldn’t work again,” Finkelstein told The Times two years ago. He used a motorized wheelchair after the accident, and was worried about how a town that obsessed about appearances would see him. “I was really concerned about showing up in a wheelchair. That was my biggest concern — that it would make me look weak,” he said.

    He began his career in an unusual way, as well. As a youngster, Finkelstein was arrested in Tokyo for selling marijuana to a soldier. He was held in solitary confinement for weeks and faced the possibility of years of hard labor. He promised his family that he would make something of himself, if only he was given the chance. That chance came one day, when he was freed and sent back to the US.

    He made good on his word and became a big time lawyer and joined Universal in 1999 from PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, where he served as executive vice president, and helped integrate PolyGram into Universal Studios, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

    Former Senator and current CEO of the MPAA Christopher Dodd, said, “I was profoundly saddened to learn of Rick’s passing. Rick has been a member of the entertainment industry for 35 years, and his loss will be felt throughout our community. He was a valuable voice on the MPAA Board and deeply respected by his colleagues. Rick’s many contributions will not be forgotten, and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family at this very difficult time.”

    Image via youtube

  • Walrus Crowd Could be Result of Global Warming

    The 10,000 walrus party that gathered on a barrier island beach in Alaska could have an environmental cause for their unusual behavior. According to the AP, the walruses can’t find sufficient sea ice this year in the warming waters of the Arctic Ocean. The females use the ice to give birth, and they dive off the ice to find food, like clams and worms on the reef.

    We’ve become accustomed to tales of shrinking ice caps and rising seas, but the pictures make the evidence hard to ignore. Usually, temperatures warm in the summer, causing the edge of the sea ice to recede north. Females and babies ride the edge of the sea ice into the Chukchi Sea. However, in recent years, sea ice has receded north beyond continental shelf waters and into Arctic Ocean water 10,000 feet deep or more where walrus cannot dive to the bottom.

    Large numbers of walrus were first spotted on the U.S. side of the Chukchi Sea in 2007, and returned in 2009. In 2011, scientists estimated 30,000 walruses camping along one kilometer of beach near Point Lay. Remnant ice kept walrus offshore in 2008 and again last year. This year, there is no remnant.

    The walruses aren’t the only mammals in the Arctic Ocean being effected. The goal of the marine mammals survey that photographed the walrus gathering is to record the abundance of bowhead, gray, minke, fin and beluga whales plus other marine mammals in areas of potential oil and natural gas development, said NOAA Fisheries marine mammal scientist Megan Ferguson.

    “In addition to photographing the walrus haulout area, NOAA scientists documented more bowhead whales, including calves and feeding adults in the Beaufort Sea this summer compared to 2012,” said Ferguson. “We are also seeing more gray whale calves in the Chukchi Sea than we have in recent years.”

    Image via youtube

  • Zeljko Causevic: Wife Knew Screw Was Loose

    Zeljko Causevic: Wife Knew Screw Was Loose

    Any time there is a terror attack or attempted mass killing, or other psychotic wierdness, people are left wondering, “Did no one see this coming?”. The case this week of Zeljko Causevic, who is from Bosnia, begs the same question. One doesn’t simply go to the office one day, like, “Hey Jim, how’s the wife and kids? Did you see that game on Sunday? Good Gravy!” and the next day go berserk and try to take bombs on planes.

    In this case, it just so happens that Causevic’s wife, Vesna Orkic Causevic, knew something was up. According to First Coast News, a neighbor of the couple who calls herself “Bella” says that Vesna came to her house on Tuesday and told her she was worried about Zeljko.

    Vesna said Zeljko had taken her phone and was pacing around and that he told Vesna they’d be sorry. Vesna told Bella that she was taking their two children, 6 and 12, to a hotel to wait it out. Zeljko proceeded to get himself arrested at JAX airport for telling police he had a bomb in his backpack, which turned out to be a scale and batteries. Now, Causevic is facing charges of false report about planting a bomb.

    The Causevic’s had reportedly lived in the neighborhood for around a decade, and he owned his own private trucking company. A man who called himself ‘Mario’ said he never saw anything weird going on with the Causevics, but said that he heard they were having issues. He said it is a nice neighborhood where everyone gets along. So is everyone else’s. Think about that at the next block party.

    You may only think you know your neighbors….

    Image via youtube

  • I-40 Bus Crash: Church Members Comfort One Another

    The wreck on a Tennessee stretch of I-40 that killed 8 and injured 14 on Wednesday, is on its way to becoming just a horrific memory for friends of the seniors that were on the church bus, now that clean up is complete. The Front Street Baptist Church in Statesville, N.C. is trying to pick up the pieces after the unthinkable tragedy.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHX0XGRn_1w

    Inside the church today, people were crying and hugging each other, according to the Clarion Ledger. One woman whispered “It’s going to be all right” while hugging another woman. A service took place Wednesday night.

    As the investigation continues, the people of this small church are doing their best to comfort each other. They lean on their faith to help them get through these hard times. They began gathering at the church right after news broke that their bus, carrying a senior group known as Young at Heart, had been in an accident.

    George Stadfeld, who has been a member of the church for eight years, said he knew everyone on the bus. “We’re all shaken,” he said. “As bad as it is, they’re all Christians and I know where they’re at. I’ll join them later.”

    Jerry Wright said his brother, John, 73, and John’s wife were on the bus. He thinks his brother may have been driving the church bus since he had driven it in the past. A blown front tire is what police think caused the accident.

    “If he was driving, it’s going to be bad,” said Jerry Wright, 71. “I’ve been trying to ring them. I’ve been calling their phone, but it keeps ringing and ringing and ringing.”

    Fortunately, Jerry, George and all the members at Front Street Baptist Church have each other to turn to, as well as the community of Statesville for many shoulders to cry on. Brady Johnson, superintendent of the Iredell County-Statesville City Schools, said, “It hits the community as a whole when tragedy strikes. The whole community comes together.”

    Image via youtube

  • New York City Opera Bankruptcy Official

    New York City Opera Bankruptcy Official

    The New York City Opera shuttered down after 70 years Tuesday, due to a failure to raise the $7 million dollars it needed to stay open. They used Kickstarter, a website that is used for fund-raising. Spokeswoman Risa Heller said about $2 million had been raised, plus another $301,019 was pledged from 2,108 donors in an online campaign.

    The City Opera’s endowment had shrunk from $48 million in 2008 to $5.07 million at the end of June 2012, according to tax records. Its staff had been pared to 25 and its inventory of sets and costumes had been sold, but it just wasn’t enough.

    “New York City Opera did not achieve the goal of its emergency appeal,” Heller said. “Today, the board and management will begin the necessary financial and operational steps to wind down the company, including initiating the Chapter 11 process.”

    According to AP, the New York City Opera, at its peak, presented 12 to 16 operas with about 130 performances in a season. But this was to be the third straight season limited to only four stagings. It appears its last season, the Opera was reduced to a final performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “Anna Nicole” on Saturday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

    It was reportedly a decline over many decades, a cocktail of bad hiring combined with bad decisions.

    “City Opera’s demise is the fault of people with a lot of money but no common sense, from Susan Baker’s absurd flirtation with Gerard Mortier to (board chairman) Charles Wall’s foolish support of George Steel when the singers and orchestra unanimously had no confidence in Steel’s artistic vision,” said Alan Gordon, who is the national executive director for the American Guild of Musical Artists that represents the chorus, stage directors and principal singers.

    The Opera was a fixture in the culture scene, and will be greatly missed.

    Image via new york city opera

  • Frank Sinatra May be Father of Ronan Farrow

    Mia Farrow admitted to Vanity Fair, in an article published today, that the father of her son, Ronan Farrow, could possibly be Frank Sinatra, according to AFP. With all the pictures posted all over the web with Ronan and Sinatra side-by-side, it’s going to be hard to convince anyone that the handsome 25-year-old is not Sinatra’s, but….Woody Allen’s.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1-IMIyGJ-E

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xHcUdIntfs

    “We never really split up” she told Vanity Fair of Sinatra, who she referred to as the great love of her life. They were married for only two years and divorced in 1968. She went on to have a relationship with Woody Allen and she had Ronan, technically Satchel Ronan O’Sullivan Farrow, in 1988, when Sinatra would have been 72.

    Mia Farrow left Woody Allen in 1992 after she discovered the sexual relationship between her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi, and Allen. The two later went on to marry, and are together still, over 20 years later. Ronan no longer speaks to his father.

    No DNA test has been administered, but Ronan is almost a blue-eyed carbon copy of Frank Sinatra. When Vanity Fair asked Sinatra’s daughter Nancy about her treating Ronan as part of her family, she replied: “He is a big part of us, and we are blessed to have him in our lives”.

    But Ronan took to Twitter Wednesday to distance himself from his mother’s reported remarks.

    From just the small side of Ronan Farrow that can be gleaned from public knowledge, his life certainly doesn’t resemble Sinatra’s swinging, wild existence. According to his Twitter presence, Ronan is a lawyer, journalist, and former U.S. Global Youth Issues Envoy.

    Let’s say there were a DNA test, and let’s say I am a betting woman. My money, without hesitation, would go straight on Sinatra as his biological father. Those eyes and that face really don’t seem to have come from Woody Allen or Mia Farrow. We shall see.

    Image Via youtube

  • Yosemite National Park Gets “Doodle” for Birthday

    If Yosemite National Park was a person, that person would be throwing a fit about having to spend their 123rd birthday alone. Nobody likes that! But that is exactly what is happening after yesterday’s government shutdown that took national parks, monuments, and zoos, including Yosemite, with it.

    Well, at least Yosemite National Park got to unwrap one gift from Google and their fantastic “doodle” team:

    I was beginning to wonder when the effects of having the national parks closed down would get some attention. As an avid visitor, it’s a little depressing. Our national parks are a symbol to other nations that, yes, our government can do something right.

    According to USA Update, “Yosemite” entered the language of American history in 1851 when Lafayette Bunnell, a doctor with a California state battalion hunting Native Americans in the US west, named an expanse of California land “Yosemite.” He wrongly believed that was the name of the local Native American tribe, when in fact, the tribe’s name was the Ahwahneechees, and the land was called Ahwahnee.

    “Yosemite” was actually how the tribe referred to the white intruders, as “killers.” Yikes.

    Since then, Yosemite has become an American favorite as families pour in by the millions every year to see the spectacular scenery and enjoy nature at its finest.

    Hopefully, this shutdown won’t last too terribly long. Not to worry, though. Those parks are not totally abandoned. According to The National Park Service Contingency Plan, the parks will be kept at minimum levels, allowing for upkeep and security. Happy Birthday, Yosemite! We hope to see you in all your glory soon. We just have to let our Congress get it together first. You understand, right?

    Image via wikipedia

  • Casey Kasem’s Wife Won’t Let Kids See Him

    Casey Kasem, the most widely-recognized voice on radio, and host of America’s Top 40 for many a decade, is in serious condition. The 81-year-old suffers from advanced Parkinson’s Disease, and is homebound, in the care of his wife of 33 years, Jean. But reportedly, Jean and her stepkids, if you can call them that as adults, have a long nasty history, and Casey’s children aren’t allowed in to see him at all, according to TMZ.

    Kerri, Julie, and Mike, Casey’s three oldest children, were with a group of Casey’s friends, family, and former co-workers outside his Holmby Hills (a swanky neighborhood in Los Angeles next to Beverly Hills) home. The small group of protesters were standing around, holding signs that read “Let Casey See His Kids,” and “Why?” when Jean called the police to have them driven off yesterday. Apparently Casey hasn’t been heard from in three months and his children are extremely concerned and agitated.

    Casey’s brother says that he hasn’t spoken to Jean in the 33 years that she has been married to Casey, and Kerri, 41, Casey’s daughter, says it’s not at all about the money. They knew long ago that they are not included in their dad’s will. They just want to see their dad and make sure he’s ok. She wants to send a message to her dad: “Your children are here for you. We have not abandoned you.”

    “Look, people fight and they don’t like each other, and that’s fine. But it’s cruel to keep us from seeing our dad,” she told the New York Daily News. “We don’t want any money from Jean. We don’t care about that. We were raised well, and we support ourselves.”

    “My dad is very sick, and we have been completely shut off from him for the last three months,” she said. “There is no money issue here, we just want to see our dad. We love him, and everyone knows his kids and grandkids are a source of joy for him.”

    Kerri believes that the isolation could be making her father’s condition worse. Will the family of the radio legend be able to make amends and get along while he is still alive so that when he dies, it can be in peace? That remains to be seen.

    Image via wikimedia commons

  • Genetic Testing: More Accessible in Obamacare

    Genetic testing is a new and important field of medicine, making early detection and prevention of breast and ovarian cancer even more possible. Genetic testing can determine if a woman has the BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 mutated genes, which put women at a much higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer. This year, 234,580 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. 40,030 will die from it.

    As it it, most insurance policies do not cover preventive genetic testing or even mammograms, and will fight hard not to. Women who earn at or below 200% of the poverty level could qualify for Medicaid, but whether they can get testing is sporadic. Genetic testing sometimes changes a course of action, says Pam Anderson, cancer services coordinator for the Georgia Department of Community Health.

    If a woman finds out she carries the mutated genes that put her at a higher risk for ovarian or breast cancer, she can be more aware of the situation she faces and it can make her doctor more aware of her risks. Testing can help them, together, to form a plan for prevention and early detection. She can also pass down that knowledge to her daughters so that they can be ready to take preventive measures.

    “The issue that really we have is not so much the uninsured as the underinsured,” Anderson said. “There are still insurance companies out there that don’t pay for mammograms. There are people that have high deductibles and they have to meet their deductible first.”

    In the case of the BRCA mutations, it is the increased risk of ovarian cancer that becomes critical, Anderson said. Ovarian cancer is apparently much more difficult to detect than breast cancer.

    “That’s the scariest part to me,” she said.

    Now, under the Affordable Care Act that took effect yesterday, preventive genetic testing will be more widely available to women, according to The Augusta Chronicle. Policies sold in the Affordable Care marketplace, or “exchange”, must cover preventive services like this with no co-pay. This is good news at the start of Breast Cancer Awareness month!

    Policies also have to cover mammograms for women over 40, as well as chemoprevention for women at a higher risk of breast cancer. Hopefully these new policies will help save lives and reduce the number of deaths for next year.

    Image via youtube