The former National Security Agency contractor is expected to land in Moscow at 5 p.m. Sunday, a Foreign Ministry official told the Los Angeles Times on condition of anonymity.
The next flight to Havana is Monday afternoon so Snowden most likely will spend his time in the transit zone of Moscow Sheremetyevo airport, he said.
“Snowden doesn’t have a Russian visa, and he can’t get outside the transit area of the airport,” the official said. “Even if there is an Interpol warrant for his arrest, of which we are not aware, our law enforcement agencies won’t be able to do that in the transit area.”
The official said Snowden is traveling in the company of at least one lawyer associated with WikiLeaks.
The Kremlin is not aware of Snowden’s plans, said Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. “We know nothing about [Snowden’s] plans, whether he is coming to Moscow or not,” Peskov said.
Snowden – the man who violated his oath to secrecy and blew the whistle on the United States Government’s NSA program – once said that he cannot allow the U.S Government to destroy privacy and basic liberties. He is now running to a country where the Government destroys citizen’s privacy and basic liberties as part of their governing strategies.
If you own an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S, a free iPhone 5 is just a car ride away for the next week.
On June 1, Best Buy offered a one-day deal: bring in your old iPhone 4 or 4s and trade it for a brand new iPhone 5. The offer was so successful, that the retailer has decided to give it another, longer run.
For the next nine days, you will be able to bring in those iPhone models and trade them in for the newest Apple phone. The offer ends Saturday, June 29.
A teacher in New York stooped to disgusting lows to have sex with his 10-year-old student. According to reports, 5th grade teacher, Anthony Criscuolo deceived the parents of the 10-year-old girl, who was a student in his class.
Criscuolo told the girl’s parents that she won an academic award and was taking her to the ceremony. However, there award ceremony did not exist. On June 17, Criscuolo left his wife and took the the girl to an empty parking lot at a school in Queens, New York. He parked his truck and raped her.
The girl’s mother found sexually explicit emails sent to the student and discovered that the teacher bought the child an iPad Touch and a diamond ring. Students who were interviewed revealed that the teacher passed notes to the girl and slow danced with her during a Valentine’s Day dance.
Criscuolo, who earned $73,000 per year was arrested on June 19. He will be terminated by the school system.
Paula Deen, the self-proclaimed queen of Southern cooking and a sugary mainstay of the Food Network, was dropped by the network on Friday, following a bewildering day in which she failed to show up for an interview on the “Today” show and then in two online videos begged her family and audience for forgiveness for using racist language.
A network spokeswoman said it would not renew Paula Deen’s contract when it expires at the end of June. Ms. Deen has faced a volley of criticism this week over her remarks in a deposition for a discrimination lawsuit by a former employee. In the document, she admitted she had used racial epithets, tolerated racist jokes and condoned pornography in the workplace.
The Food Network statement did not elaborate on its reasons for dropping her, but a person close to the network said its shows featuring her sons, Jamie and Bobby, would not be affected. Ms. Deen currently has three regular shows on the network, including “Paula’s Best Dishes.”
In her first video on Friday, posted on YouTube and later removed, Ms. Deen, near tears, said: “I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong that I’ve done. I want to learn and grow from this. Inappropriate and hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable.”
In a longer video posted later in the afternoon, Ms. Deen appeared more composed. “Your color of your skin, your religion, your sexual preference does not matter,” she said, adding, “ I was wrong, yes, I’ve worked hard, and I have made mistakes but that is no excuse and I offer my sincere apology to those that I have hurt, and I hope that you forgive me because this comes from the deepest part of my heart.”
FBI: N.Y. state men developed X-ray system capable of emitting deadly radiation
The men were charged with conspiracy to provide support for the use of a WMD
One man, a member of the KKK, said he would use the device to kill Muslims
The FBI arrested two men for wanting to kill people, including the president, with a ray gun. They say the men tried to create a device that would zap out invisible and lethal x-rays, radiation powerful enough to kill.
Pierre thomas has the file on this bizarre arrest. Reporter: We’ve seen death rays in science fiction movies but today the fbi charged two upstate new york men, eric fight and glen crawford, a self-described engineer and clan member with building a workable death ray. This particular device would be capable of emitting x-ray radiation, this device would have been capable of doing that and killing people.
With one scandal after another plaguing the halls of Washington these days, it may seem hard to keep track of each riveting controversy while trying to parse what the crises mean for the nation. And as new political outrages come to dominate the 24-hour news cycle, government scandals that at one point seemed like catastrophic disasters quickly start to fade into the background, appearing less and less relevant each day. This at least seems to be the fate of May’s IRS scandal, which at one point looked to be destined to bring down the Obama administration, or at least tarnish the president’s legacy. But now that the fiasco has been obscured by the NSA spying allegations and the resulting national dialogue over the role of whistleblowers, the once threatening IRS outrage slowly appears to be dripping into the history books. With one notable exception: the Tea Party organizations at the center of the ordeal, which look to be making a comeback thanks to the brouhaha.
Peaks and Losses
The Tea Party wave reached its peak in 2010, when voter discontent over the polarizing Obamacare legislation propelled several young, conservative lawmakers backed by the populist party into Congress during that year’s midterm elections. Since then, though, the anti-taxation coalition’s prestige and influence has waned, with less of their candidates earning government seats in the 2012 vote. As pundits proclaimed the end of the era of riled-up conservative activists, it looked like the once powerful Tea Party was doomed to political extinction.
And then the scandal hit. In mid-May, an audit conducted by the US Treasury showed that an IRS office in Cincinnati specifically targeted conservative organizations that had sought tax-exempt status. This revelation led to government inquiries, Congressional hearings and plenty of resignations as investigators and the media tried to figure out who ordered the extra scrutiny and which DC politicians were aware of it. Since then, Tea Party–affiliated groups have seen an uptick not just in media coverage, but in popular support and even funding.
Back on Track
Soon after the scandal hit, some Tea Party groups saw attendance to their meetings increase threefold. Organizers and leaders of the movement attribute this to the spotlight once again being flung at their non-government-intervention ideologies, especially since the debacle gave them a perfect illustration of Big Brother–like government overreach. Organizers also hope their message will now appeal to more centrist, moderate voters, who they hope are now made aware of the impact big government can have on their everyday lives.
And of course, there’s the money situation. Outrage over the targeting has led conservative donors to pump more cash into local grass-root Tea Party groups, as well as funds from national super PACs. Tea Party groups all over the nation have been more than happy to receive this sudden surge in corporate gifts. With the influx of cash, the Tea Party is looking to once again tackle head-on their big Washington white whale: health care legislation. Websites linked to the group have already popped up trying to link Democratic politicians who voted for Obamacare with the IRS scandal. Because the tax agency will be in charge of enforcing such Obamacare rules as penalties on people who don’t get health insurance under the individual mandate, Tea Party leaders are hoping that associating the seemingly bungling agency with vulnerable politicians will slow down (or maybe even halt) the state-by-state implementation of Obamacare.
Big Changes
The most obvious and talked-about consequences stemming from the IRS scandal is what will happen to the IRS itself. With Tea Party groups long calling for either a change in the agency’s tax policies or its outright abolition, the added scrutiny now being placed on the government service will have to result in some sort of transformation. Influential politicians such as Ohio’s Republican Senator Rob Portman have publicly berated the IRS for targeting groups based on their political beliefs while at the same time acknowledging that system as it currently stands is not working. These politicians have called for a review of policies affecting nonprofit status for political groups, if not the direct elimination of such status. Long-debated practices such as the amount of funds nonprofits can receive from super PACs and how much nonprofits can contribute to political causes will all now be under discussion. And in the end, these are the exact sorts of debates the Tea Party has been pushing for since its inception. So where analysts and pundits may see a scandal, the anti-taxation group has instead seen this fiasco for what it really is: a major political gift.
For Anne Belanger, it was completely unacceptable. Her son, Miles, was pushed off to the side and confined to his wheelchair while his classmates gathered on the bleachers for their class photograph.
The heartbreaking photograph went viral this weekend, sparking accusations that the photography company, Lifetouch Canada, Inc., were being discriminative to Miles and his spinal muscular atrophy disability.
“I couldn’t comprehend how the photographer could look through the lens and think that this was good composition,” Miles Ambridge’s mom Anne Belanger said. “This just boggled the mind.”
The New Westminster, British Columbia, native said she refused to show her 7-year-old the photo — “Look at the angle that he was in. He wants to be part of the gang so much,” — but did post it on Lifetouch’s Facebook page to bring the injustice to the company’s attention.
“This was not a malicious act,” Belanger acknowledged. “I don’t think it was done on purpose. I just don’t think there was any rational thinking behind it.”
“For some reason it makes me feel even worse that he’s so happy in the picture,” said Miles’ dad, Don Ambridge. “I think it’s because he’s still innocent…He’s still naive to how other people can treat him.”
The photography company agreed that the photo was a mistake and have arranged a re-shoot with Miles sitting on the bench beside his classmates.
But that will be the last shoot Lifetouch Canada will do for the school – Herbert Spencer Elementary School said it would no longer be employing the company’s services.
Where does the line of respect for one’s privacy begin and end? It seems that the Internet has no recollection of the meaning and any regard for boundaries. As a matter of fact, I won’t blame the Internet, I will blame the insensitive people behind the keyboards. It is them whom are the deciding factor on what is and not posted via their outlets.
This morning, a popular celebrity site (the same site who broke the story that Micheal Jackson was dead and that Lil Wayne was on his deathbed) repeated an indecent crime against domestic violence survivors. The first offense came when they aired the horrific photos of Rihanna–bruised and beaten after being attacked by her then boyfriend Chris Brown. Today, it is Evelyn Lozada who feels the embarrassment of having her vulnerable disfigured face on the cover of the news.
INDIANAPOLIS — A woman who was sentenced to death at age 16 after she confessed to her part in the torture and murder of a 78-year-old bible studies teacher has been released from an Indiana prison after spending a quarter century behind bars.
Paula Cooper, whose death sentence in 1986 enraged human rights activists and drew a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II, left the state prison quietly in a state vehicle and wearing donated clothing, Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison said.
The prison, about 60 miles west of Indianapolis, gave the now-43-year-old woman $75 to help her make a fresh start.
After 29 years in the classroom, and with a pretty savvy political sense, if I may be so bold, I consider myself a keen observer of most things educational, but this story about Philadelphia’s schools made me shiver with anger from the first paragraph:
Andrew Jackson School too agitated to eat breakfast on Friday, an aide alerted the school counselor, who engaged him in an art project in her office. When he was still overwrought at 11, a secretary called the boy’s family, and soon a monitor at the front door buzzed in an older brother to take him home.
Under a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, none of these supporting players — aide, counselor, secretary, security monitor — will remain at the school by September, nor will there be money for books, paper, a nurse or the school’s locally celebrated rock band.
I know that this kind of mindless budget cutting has been going on for years and real reformers, as opposed to the self-styled ones on the right, have been warning us thatchildren are in real danger, but somehow this story caught me. Or maybe it just represents the last straw on my particular camel’s back. Whatever. I have now officially had enough. If that’s the way that Philadelphia’s families are going to be treated, then we need an educational Tahrir/Taksim/self-immolating fruit-seller moment in this country. It’s that bad now, and it’s going to get worse.
Across the river, here in New Jersey, next fall is shaping up to be one of the worst for education since, well, four years ago when Chris Christie promised to destroy collective bargaining, and then made good on it, among other things. All of the polls point to a reelection win for the governor with a slight possibility that his coattails could enable the GOP to take over the state legislature. With a majority, even if it’s just the Senate, they can reshape the State Supreme Court, and with both houses they can further erode worker’s rights, eliminate seniority, impose radical cuts to public schools and stop funding for programs, like those in Philadelphia, that save lives, literally and figuratively.
What might save the state is a current challenge to the October U.S. Senate primary, forcing it to be held on the same day as the gubernatorial election. That would bring out more pro-education voters. Opponents of the separate election say they’ve found a clause that specifically addresses the issue. Let’s see if the State Supreme Court agrees.
And then, of course, there’s the new teacher evaluation system that’s set to go into effect statewide come the fall. Imagine a program that uses bad data in a manner that it wasn’t meant to be used, then include horse-trading politicians who have little idea what the legislation says, and put a Commissioner of Education in charge of the system who has little regard for anything other than his political standing and whether the State Board of Education supports him. Oh, wait…no need to imagine. New Jersey’s got it!
I’m all for teacher accountability, but this system was created by non-educators as a means of punishing state workers and unions, and making it easier to fire effective teachers who cost too much. If it was about education, then private and charter school teachers would be included in it. But they’re not, and that’s all you need to know about the intentions of its authors.
So enjoy your summer everyone. Let’s hope the shore businesses make lots of money and rejuvenate the towns and people who lost the most. Let’s hope that students and teachers find exciting ways to add to their knowledge, or to just forget about formal learning for a while and smell some flowers. In the fall, a new storm will be brewing, but it won’t be anything like Sandy. It will just be a lot of hot air.
Facebook has clarified its mastectomy photo policy after petitions from The Scar Project and Change.org/David Jay.
Facebook announced today that it will allow photos of mastectomy scars after a New York woman posted a petition that garnered 20,000 signatures on Change.org.
“We have long allowed mastectomy photos to be shared on Facebook, as well as educational and scientific photos of the human body and photos of women breastfeeding,” Facebook said in a prepared statement. “We only review or remove photos after they have been reported to us by people who see the images in their News Feeds or otherwise discover them. On occasion, we may remove a photo showing mastectomy scarring either by mistake, as our teams review millions of pieces of content daily, or because a photo has violated our terms for other reasons. As a reminder, our terms stipulate that we generally do not allow nudity, with some exceptions as laid out above and here, consistent with other platforms that have many young users.”
Facebook’s new written policy was hailed by cancer survivors who were outraged that women were not able to share their photos to support others with the disease.
The new policy was established after Facebook had conversations with Scorchy Barrington, a woman struggling with stage IV breast cancer, and photographer David Jay, founder of the SCAR Project.
In his new e-book, Robert Zimmerman Sr. blames black leaders for fanning racial flames.
George Zimmerman at the fifth day of jury selection for his trial (pool/Getty Images)
(The Root) — With his son on trial for murder in the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, the father of George Zimmerman has published an e-book criticizing the case and calling some African-American leaders who called for his son’s arrest racists. Robert Zimmerman Sr.’s book, Florida v. Zimmerman: Uncovering the Malicious Prosecution of My Son, George, was released on Friday at Amazon.com for $3.99.
Zimmerman writes at length about his background and his family’s multiracial identity, seemingly to counter accusations that his son, a 29-year-old neighborhood-watch volunteer, was racially motivated to shoot the unarmed black 17-year-old last year. Zimmerman is white, and his wife is Hispanic.
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