My name is Ezra Grant and I like Candy Crush. But apparently I’m not the only addict in this candy store.
Candy Crush went on the stock market today as a publicly traded company with shares valued at $22.50 a share, making the candy game a $7.1 billion company.
The public offering of King marks the largest of its kind for the mobile gaming industry, beating out Zynga, which was valued at $7 billion, but lost half of its value after its 2011 IPO.
“Scandal” actor Columbus Short and his wife, Tanee McCall-Short are making headlines again, but this time it’s not for their withdrawn divorce petition.
According to TMZ, the 31-year-old actor was involved in a bar fight that left his opponent hospitalized with a broken nose. The way the story is being told, Short and his alleged victim were at an engagement party at Gabe’s Bar and Grill in Los Angeles when he found himself in a confrontation with another partygoer.
“You might be richer than me but I get my girls to buy me everything I want including your wife,” the other guy reportedly told Short.
An eyewitness claims the comment set Short off and prompted him to sucker punch the man. The witness adds that the blow was so impactful that it rendered the man unconscious for several minutes and left him with a broken nose. Following the alleged assault, Short reportedly left the bar. An ambulance later came and transported the 37-year-old alleged victim to a nearby hospital.
According to reports, the “Cadillac Records” actor is now being investigated for criminal battery. This wouldn’t be the first time Short’s temper has landed him on the wrong side of the law. He was also involved in a March 2010 scuffle at a Los Angeles gym that left his victim with a bloody mouth and missing teeth. Apparently March isn’t great time of year for him.
We’ll continue to keep you posted as this story develops.
– See more at: http://madamenoire.com/413538/nasty-comment-columbus-shorts-wife-reportedly-triggers-ugly-bar-fight/#sthash.qOhm6RVR.dpuf
Artefacts: German soldiers sent pictures like this one as postcards from the front line. This man sits next to this ammunition from 1916.
Treasure trove: Pictures like this one show the London Scottish regiment on a troop train before battle at Messines in 1914
Horrifying: This salvaged image shows the terrible conditions from the First World War, where this trench is strewn with bodies and rubbish while servicemen watch on
Remarkable treasure trove: Dustman Bob Smethurst spent 36 years saving World War One pictures thrown away as veterans of the conflict passed away
He believes as soldiers from the conflict grew old and died a lot of their remarkable memorabilia was often thrown out, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
But over three decades he made it his mission to try and save anything he spotted which otherwise could have been lost forever.
Mr Smethurst, from Sussex, said his collection is not just photographs – it contains medals, letters and even a handkerchief with a bullet hole found in the rubbish.
‘I found the majority of the photographs on the “dust” during the 70s and 80s when those who fought in World War I were probably passing away,’ he said.
‘Probably the boys working today will find them from World War II.
‘In the early days we used to carry the bins on our shoulders. Therefore, when we emptied the bins you used to see the paperwork coming out, and the photographs.
‘You didn’t find them all the time because the only time you were aware of some was when they started to be mashed up.
‘We had relatives that died in both the First and Second World War and of course it means something to keep these memories alive.
Read more: MailOnline
Although her son eventually confessed to the crime, her execution is scheduled to happen on Thursday.
If Mississippi executes Michelle Byrom, 57, on Thursday, she would be the first woman executed in the state since 1944. A motion to approve that execution date is pending before the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Jackson attorney David Voisin, a consultant for the defense, said the state is moving “to kill a horribly battered and abused woman who did not do what the state said she did.”
In her capital murder trial, her son, Edward Jr., testified against her, saying she hired his friend, Joey Gillis, as a “hit man” to kill his father, Edward Sr., in 1999 for $15,000 — money she would pay from life insurance proceeds.
Jurors never saw the two letters that Junior wrote his mother in which he detailed how he killed his father and never heard from a psychologist who says Junior described killing his father.
Junior, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit capital murder, is now free on earned supervised release.
The Blue Line train derailed at the end of the platform and barreled towards the entrance of the terminals shortly before 3am.
Passengers were taken to three hospitals in the area to be treated for minor injuries following the eight-car derailment. Most of the injured were being treated for neck and back pain, along with bumps and bruises.
At least 32 adults were injured after a train derailed at 2.50am on Monday at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois
The Blue Line train ploughed through the end of the platform and stopped just short of the terminal entrance. Police are now working to determine the cause.
A police officer stands near a Chicago Transit Authority train car that derailed at the O’Hare Airport station early on Monday leaving 32 people injured
Maintenance workers start to repair the damaged train following the derailment in the early hours of Monday at O’Hare Airport
Chicago Transit Authority workers direct travelers at the CTA’s O’Hare International Airport station to where they can board shuttle buses.
The Blue Line service to O’Hare Airport was suspended after Rosemont station. Passengers trying to reach O’Hare Airport from this direction were using shuttle buses.
Chicago Transit Authority investigators, fire fighters and police were reviewing security footage and interviewing the driver and other CTA workers to determine the cause of the accident around 2.50am.
It is unclear if the driver had a medical emergency but he appeared to be walking and talking after the collision and was able to answer questions, investigators said.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been notified.
Read more: DailyMail/a>
More than 100 rescuers with dogs, aircraft and sonar equipment scoured the remnants of the steep hillside in the remote town, 50 miles north of Seattle looking for the nearly 200 people – some using chain saws and their bare hands to to dig through the mangled wreckage.
The death toll so far stood at eight on Monday morning, but the tragic discovery of six bodies in the evening was announced via Twitter hours after emergency management officials expressed doubt anyone else would be plucked alive from the muck that engulfed dozens of homes.
More than 100 properties were hit in the massive landslide when a rain-soaked hillside near Oso, Washington, collapsed on Saturday morning.
Mammoth: The search for survivors grew desperate on Monday, raising fears that the death toll could climb far beyond the eight confirmed fatalities
Read more: DailyMsil
De Morgen, known as a progressive newspaper, claims that the cover and accompanying article were attempts at satire meant to skewer racism, not perpetuate it.
That didn’t work out too well for them.
News.Be translates the apology below:
“When you consider the fragment apart from its context, which is a properly worked out satirical section, then you don’t see the joke but just a picture evoking sheer racism. That was a risk we didn’t consider enough beforehand”, the statement goes.
“We wrongly assumed that racism is no longer accepted, and that in this way it could be the subject of a joke”, De Morgen continues. The editors say that overlooked the fact that in the United States, the comparison between blacks and monkeys is still something that pops up regularly today.
De Morgen therefore apologises to everyone who may feel insulted by the cartoon. “In this case, we plead guilty of bad taste. We continue to be on the side of those that are battling any form of racism. Don’t hesitate to contact us if we would go too far on a different occasion.”
The “joke” was supposed to be that the image was submitted by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in light of the Cold-War relationship currently growing between the United States and Russia.
Obama traveled to the Netherlands this morning in an attempt to gain support for stiffer sanctions against Russia, making the timing of the “satirical” piece even more startling.
Nigerian-born journalist Chikwa Unigwe tweeted the image and explained it in context of structural and interpersonal racism in Belgium, sparking swift and sharp social media reaction.
h/t – tvone
While the search for 14-year-old Avonte Oquendo didn’t return with the results his family had been hoping for, the older brother of the deceased autistic teen, Danny Oquendo, recently penned a heartfelt letter thanking New Yorkers for their support in the search to bring Avonte home.
“New York City; the City of Dreams. With a reputation for being the hardest place on Earth to succeed, it is frequently described as a cold, unforgiving, cut-throat Metropolis. New Yorkers are labeled as rude, impatient, aggressive, and unsympathetic. I’m writing to tell you that this reputation the rest of the world assumes is far from the truth,” Oquendo expressed in an open letter for Autism Speaks titled “A City Behind Us”.
“Although the daily New York experience may feel like one of isolation amongst crowds, any true New Yorker will tell you that when it matters most, this city comes together in larger numbers than any other community on the planet as proven after the tragedy of 9/11. This tendency for New Yorkers to come together also held true during the city-wide search for my younger brother, Avonte Oquendo.”
His letter continues:
“Avonte went missing last October from his school in Long Island City, New York. While transitioning between classes in the middle of the school day, my brother Avonte, a non-verbal 14-year-old boy who suffered from a developmental disorder called autism, was able to run out of the building undetected. Generally speaking, children that suffer from autism have issues in brain development that are often characterized by difficulties in communication (both verbal and non-verbal), repetitive behaviors, and problems with social interaction. They are also known to be runners and often flee from authority, teachers, friends, and even family – a behavior that makes it imperative that some be supervised 24 hours a day. For this reason, special needs staff, both professional and paraprofessional are required to supervise them at all times.
While the details of the events that transpired are not 100% known, on the particular day that Avonte went missing, for whatever the reason, Avonte was not supervised. His ability to put a smile on the faces of those around him was only rivaled by his tendency to run – and run he did. He sprinted straight out of one of the unlocked exit doors of the school only to be spotted by a surveillance camera and a security guard. The guard claims to have told him to stop, unaware that Avonte did not have the ability to communicate verbally. On any other day it might have been safe to assume this was just an unruly teen attempting to play hooky from school. This turned out to be an assumption that will haunt my family for decades to come.
Our biggest fear was escalating. Picture in your mind having a loved one who does not possess the ability to communicate effectively. Now imagine this loved one lost in the biggest city in the world, alone, cold, hungry, afraid or worse. How you’re feeling right now is just a fraction of the pain we endured for the months following Avonte’s disappearance. Not knowing whether we would see our beloved Avonte again ate away our souls. Every minute we spent in the dark about his whereabouts felt like years of torture. With our backs against the wall we knew we could not sit back and do nothing in hopes that my brother would eventually be found by the New York Police Department. We recognized that we had to be proactive and do everything within our power to find him.
Overcome with grief and hopelessness, there was only one place we could turn to for help, the people of New York City. While Avonte’s mother and the family attorney led the media campaign to spread awareness about his disappearance, I opted to utilize my skillset and gather volunteers that could personally help with the search here in New York. In an attempt to reach out to as many people as possible, I asked the social media-sphere for help. I took our story to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, pleading for the community to join my family at Avonte’s Long Island City school where he was last seen on that heartbreaking October day. The first few days following his disappearance were very grim. We did not sleep, we barely ate and we felt we had nowhere to turn. With only a small number of volunteers there was no way we could possibly search the entire city
What happened next was one of the most inspiring events to ever occur in my lifetime. As word spread through social networks thanks to shared posts and retweets we began to see massive groups of volunteers coming from every corner of the tri-state area just to help us find our beloved Avonte. Word of his disappearance spread like wildfire and before we knew it there were masses of sympathetic volunteers ready to do anything in their power to aid us in our search. We went from a small family searching night and day for our loved one to a large operation with thousands of volunteers ready and willing to help in every possible way.”
Read Danny’s full letter here.
The captain of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 received a two-minute call shortly before take-off from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.
It was one of the last calls made to or from the mobile of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah in the hours before his Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur 16 days ago.
Investigators are treating it as potentially significant because anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card in Malaysia has to fill out a form giving their identity card or passport number.
Introduced as an anti-terrorism measure following 9/11, this ensures that every number is registered to a traceable person.
But in this case police traced the number to a shop selling SIM cards in Kuala Lumpur.
They found that it had been bought ‘very recently’ by someone who gave a woman’s name – but was using a false identity.
The discovery raises fears of a possible link between Captain Zaharie, 53, and terror groups whose members routinely use untraceable SIM cards.
Everyone else who spoke to the pilot on his phone in the hours before the flight took off has already been interviewed.
KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has informed families of passengers on board missing flight MH370 that the plane is assumed to have crashed with no survivors.
The airline said this in a message to the families on Monday night, ahead of a press conference by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
“It is with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” Mr Najib told a press briefing shortly after the news broke.
He said based on new analysis, it is concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, last position in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
The area is in a remote location, far from any land sites, he added.
He said MAS has briefed the families and Malaysia will hold another press conference on Tuesday.
The doctor traded prescription for Sex about 150 times with 16 different patients.
Joshua D. Baron, 40, pled guilty Friday in federal court to a charge of illegally distributing a prescription drug in exchange for sex in 2009. He was freed on his own recognizance as he awaits sentencing on June 30.
Baron faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $1million fine. Due to his plea, however, he will likely get between 9 and 11 years, according to federal sentencing guidelines.
Baron, a former pediatric neurologist who lives in Oak Park about 10 minutes from downtown Chicago, was first licensed by the state in 2006. He treated patients until 2011 at several Chicago hospitals, including the prestigious Rush University Medical Center.
He also gave up his medical license and Drug Enforcement Agency registration in 2011.
Perhaps it’s just me, but this time of year seems to be the boring period between the fun of a nasty winter and the beginning of a well-earned spring. And I’m not just talking about the weather. American politics is on hiatus at this moment because it’s too early to get too riled up by the prospect of electing another do-nothing Congress, and since the one we have now is essentially done for the year, what else is there to talk about? The Affordable Care Act? Boring. Marriage equality? Done. The lost Malaysian plane? Probably found and the story will make a great movie one summer. Ukraine? Potentially deadly and maybe the foremost threat to world peace presently in the news.
This is not to say that these stories are not important because they are, but there doesn’t seem to be any movement or progress or yes-we-canism alive at the moment. The Republicans are still trying to figure out what it believes in and how it can appeal to groups that have shunned its message so far. The House will most likely remain in their hands, which guarantees us another two years of bills that will not become law until a GOP president is elected (shudder). And the Senate will probably also go red, but I’ve already treated that scenario.
I am not, though, down in the dumps. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether religious companies can stop providing certain forms of birth control the ACA requires because it would be a violation of their religious rights. I’m thinking that Justice Roberts is aching to get back on the conservative horse he dismounted two years ago in the health care law case, but Justice Kennedy might be the wild card in this one. It is certain that Justice Scalia will lament the end of the republic if he’s on the losing side.
And the health care law will survive because about six million people will have signed up for insurance through the exchanges or Medicaid and throwing them off the rolls is just too mean for even today’s Republican Party. The law needs fixing and that’s where the focus is going to be in 2014 and 2016 and 2018 as companies and states decide that insurance is too expensive and want employees to sign up for the policies on the website. This will be revolutionary and the effect will be profound. I’m not surprised that neither party is really talking about this out loud, but it’s almost certain to come to pass sometime within the next five years.
As for Vlad the Invader, I’m not ruling out a bit of shooting in Ukraine or areas local to it. It will depend on whether he heeds the economic warnings his aides are no doubt giving him. My sense is that Putin will ask for something big in return, negotiate, and take something smaller that gives him a say in Ukraine, but not the whole country. In the end, Ukraine will make a deal with the EU, but will always need to watch its eastern back.
All of this is in the future, and you can feel free to pay attention to it since you’re obviously not winning $1 billion dollars on March Madness because nobody has a perfect bracket left. The best we can hope for is common sense and pride in a job well done. Some things never change.
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