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All information shared is credited to the owners, and if you re-share any of it please credit the owner as well. We will have first hand interviews, photos and other media by the end of this weekend.
Find out where to go, “Protest Do’s and Don’ts”, what to bring, how you can help if you are Occupying or at home, and other helpful information and media.
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The demonstration was an outgrowth of a New York event focused on what the protesters called social and economic inequality and corporate greed. It began at 8:30 a.m at Market Square Park with about 150 protesters — many carrying placards and chanting — who then marched to the J.P. Morgan Chase Bank Tower before moving on to City Hall.
The crowd grew to more than 200 by midmorning, according to a police officer at the scene.
“We have officially occupied Hermann Square Park,” a speaker told the crowd, referring to the reflecting pool area on the east side of City Hall. “We are not going anywhere until the people are heard.”
A movement of what exactly is the question many are asking. Change is on the plate for sure but those changes seem to vary depending on who you`re talking to.
The protesters were well prepared, with Houston Police Department escorts to block traffic, legal observers in fluorescent caps prepared to help if anything got out of line, and an Ustream channelbroadcasting the march for those who couldn’t make it in person.
The group marched first to theJ.P. Morgan Chase tower, directed by mounted police at every stop light and encouraged by honking downtown drivers. On the plaza outside of the skyscraper, the protesters yelled and complained about corporate greed, explaining instances in which it says the company spent dollars stolen from the people of the United States.
The dozen or so Chase employees sipping coffee outside of the glass doors didn’t seem phased by the hundreds of angry protesters.
We will add more as time goes on, so check back soon…
STEPHENSON – The sudden appearance of a 150-foot, 4-foot-deep crevice in Menominee Township remains a mystery and is causing a great deal of speculation.
The crevice appeared after landowners heard a loud boom between 8 and 9 a.m. Monday, followed by the ground shaking for a few seconds. The landowners later found a large crevice south of their Menominee Township home Tuesday.
Residents are speculating what could have caused the mysterious occurrence.
Eileen Heider, who owns the property where the crevice first appeared earlier this week, said Michigan State Police were attempting to locate an expert to come in and determine what caused the crevice.
“I have heard some people mention it appearing due to the amount of rain we received this year, but if that was the case, then there should be water in it, and the crevice is bone dry,’ said Heider.
She said there have been other theories offered, including a lightning bolt that may have struck the ground.
Other theories Heider has heard range from fissures, which with the high water table may have caused collapse, to a pocket of methane gas that exploded under pressure.
“It’s not a straight line; it’s crooked like it was made by someone who may have been drinking,” said Heider, referring to the crevice.
She added the crevice is not only in the wooded area where it was first discovered, but it also runs into a field near the Heider home.
“We don’t know if the crack started in the field and runs into the woods or if it started in the woods and runs into the field,” she said.
Heider said in some areas of the crevice, rocks can be seen, some of which have been split due to the earth’s pressure in those areas.
Whether or not the two are connected, I do not know. However, I find it extremely interesting that an event like this took place within a couple months of this executive order. The Great Lakes have been subject to many debates over the years within our government. These debates include, however are not limited to, drainage, pollution and even emptying the lakes.
Jose David Figueroa Agosto’s salt-and-pepper hair was covered with a similarly colored long wig. He hadn’t been in the sun much and appeared younger and slimmer than the man in the old mugshots.
Still, the high-living alleged drug kingpin and prison escapee wasn’t coy when he was caught Saturday after a high-speed chase in Santurce, a neighborhood in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“Everybody knows who I am,” he told federal agents when they asked him his name, according to Antonio Torres of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Better known in the region as Jr. Capsula, Figueroa Agosto, 46, was arrested with two others about noon Saturday after he tried to escape from officers conducting surveillance, DEA special Agent Waldo Santiago told CNN.
“Figueroa was the most-wanted fugitive by Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic authorities,” Santiago said.
“He has been described as the Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean,” he said, referring to the notorious Colombian druglord who was killed by Colombian police in a 1993 gunbattle.
According to federal authorities, Figueroa Agosto has a history of catch-and-escape.
He originally went to prison on murder charges, but escaped a San Juan jail in 1999, according to Harry Rodriguez of the San Juan FBI press office.
Figueroa Agosto fled to the Dominican Republic, where he continued drug trafficking, Rodriguez said. He was arrested “some time ago” but was released for an unknown reason. He was re-arrested in the Dominican Republic and was caught with close to $4 million in cash. He managed to escape and return to Puerto Rico, the FBI said.
Figueroa Agosto has been charged by U.S. authorities with passport fraud and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Dominican authorities have sought Figueroa Agosto for multiple violations including kidnapping, money laundering, drug trafficking and murder. He also has been linked to criminal activity in Colombia and Venezuela, according to federal authorities. Read More/Video
He has a love for numbers, but not if they come with a dollar sign attached.
Grigory Perelman’s mathematical genius won the reclusive Russian a $1 million prize for solving what had been seen as the world’s hardest problem. On Thursday, he turned it down.
In 2006, Perelman was due to collect the equivalent of $14,000 in Canadian dollars as the recipient of the Fields Medal, considered math’s Nobel Prize. He turned it down.
In 1996, he was awarded a prize by the European Congress of Mathematicians. Yes, that’s right: He turned it down.
International Mathematicians Congress, AP Number genius Grigori Perelman, shown in an undated photo, has apparently left lots of cash on the table, refusing to pick up prize money for solving one of math’s most vexing problems.
He rejected the Clay Mathematics Institute’s $1 million because he thought it was unfair and “unjust,” saying that a U.S. mathematician deserved as much credit as he did, the Interfax news agency said.
The Cambridge, Mass., institute posted his rejection on its website and said it would wait until the fall before deciding what to do with the money.
Perelman’s fame is due to his solving a riddle that has had mathematicians scratching their heads since 1904, when the Frenchman Henri Poincare posited that a three-dimensional sphere is the only such space that doesn’t have holes.
The Russian attracted attention in 2003 when he posted papers on the Internet that later turned out to be proof of Poincare’s theory. But Perelman refuses to take all the credit, saying he had built on the work of a Columbia University professor, Richard Hamilton.
The president of the Clay Institute, James Carlson, said that he had spoken with Perelman by phone and that he was, “as usual, quite pleasant” but “firm in his decision” not to accept its prize, The New York Times reported.
According to Interfax, Perelman said, “To put it short, the main reason is my disagreement with the organized mathematical community. I don’t like their decisions. I consider them unjust.” Read More..
Rodolfo Torre Cantu, who was running for governor in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, was shot along with four of his supporters.
Police say he was on his way to a series of campaign rallies when his convoy was ambushed by hooded gunmen.
He was standing for the Todos Tamaulipas coalition in Sunday’s gubernatorial elections.
Mr Torre Cantu of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was attacked near Ciudad Victoria, where he was going to catch a flight to Matamoros for an end-of-campaign event.
His rival for the post of Tamaulipas governor, Jose Julian Sacramento of the National Action Party, cancelled his campaign meetings in Matamoros following the killing.
Mr Sacramento said he had known Mr Torre Cantu for years and respected him.
Tamaulipas has been the scene of a fierce turf war between rival drug gangs fighting over access to lucrative drug smuggling routes to the United States.
A self-proclaimed ”Muslim soldier” who bungled a plot to bomb Times Square promised Monday that others will succeed where he failed.
A remorseless Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty to the frightening scheme to blow up the Crossroads of the World on a busy Saturday night, when it was packed with New Yorkers and tourists.
“It’s a war,” Shahzad, 30, said in a hateful screed to Manhattan Federal Judge Miriam Cedarbaum.
“I’m going to plead guilty a hundred times over because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes … we will be attacking the U.S.,” he said. “And I plead guilty to that.”
He never once said he was sorry, even when Cedarbaum pressed him on the human carnage – including the death of many children – he could have caused if his bomb-packed SUV exploded the night of May 1.
“Did you look around to see who they were?” Cedarbaum asked him of his potential victims.
“Well, the people select the government,” Shahzad said. “We consider them all the same. …”
“Including the children?” the judge demanded.
“Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody,” Shahzad fired back.
“They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It’s a war, and in war, they kill people. They’re killing all Muslims.”
“One has to understand where I’m coming from,” Shahzad told the judge. “I consider myself … a Muslim soldier.”
“And it’s a war to kill people,” he coldly declared.
Wearing a white knit skullcap and a blue shirt and pants, the former Elizabeth Arden account analyst-turned-Jihad Joe calmly detailed how he learned to make bombs in the militant Waziristan stronghold in Pakistan last year.
He returned to the United States in early February, with $4,000 in Taliban cash. The terror group continued sending him money in two payments – $5,000 on Feb. 25 from a co-conspirator and $7,000 more on April 10.
He used the money to buy a Nissan Pathfinder off craigslist and parts to turn the vehicle into a crude rolling bomb. He parked the SUV near a packed theater in the Marriott Marquis hotel – and tried to ignite the bomb.
He says he still doesn’t know why the bomb didn’t explode – and waited up to five minutes for it to blow.
“I was waiting to hear a sound, but I didn’t hear a sound. So I walked to Grand Central and went home,” he said, adding that he carried a concealed 9-mm. rifle he had packed “for my self-defense” should he have to confront cops.
The gun was found in his car when he was caught two days later at Kennedy Airport trying to escape the U.S. aboard a Dubai-bound jetliner. MORE
Shahzad pleaded guilty yesterday to 10 federal crimes, including the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism.
He faces life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 5. He is likely to end up in a federal penitentiary in either Florence, Colo., or Terre Haute, Ind. The worst of the worst are sent to Colorado’s “administrative maximum” prison – known as Supermax.
Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, renounced Islam there. Other inmates are Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Al Qaeda thug Zacarias Moussaoui.
Attorney General Eric Holder said justice was served by the guilty plea. “Faisal Shahzad plotted and launched an attack that could have led to serious loss of life, and today the American criminal justice system ensured that he will pay the price for his actions,” Holder said.
Mayor Bloomberg warned the city is still in the cross hairs.
“The NYPD, FBI and federal prosecutors deserve enormous credit for cracking – and closing – the Faisal Shahzad case so quickly,” the mayor said, “but we know that our city remains a top target for terrorists, and we will continue doing everything possible to keep our city safe.”
WASHINGTON – If al-Qaida acquired nuclear weapons it “would have no compunction at using them,” President Barack Obama said Sunday on the eve of a summit aimed at finding ways to secure the world’s nuclear stockpile.
“The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama said. “This is something that could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come.” Read the full story
NEW YORK (Associated Press)– Officials say 13 people, including 10 firefighters, have been injured in a seven-alarm fire on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that burned for more than four hours before being declared under control.
Fire Chief Edward Kilduff said two elderly residents were hospitalized in critical condition with smoke inhalation and a third was being evaluated. He said 10 firefighters were hurt, including one whose hands were burned. Nine others suffered minor injuries. Read the full story
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – International troops opened fire on a bus carrying Afghan civilians Monday, killing four people, officials said, setting off anti-American protests in a key southern city where coalition forces hope to rally the public for a coming offensive against the Taliban.
NATO and Afghan authorities declined to identify the international forces involved by nationality, although numerous Afghans said they were American.
Elsewhere in the city of Kandahar, three suicide bombers attacked an Afghan intelligence services compound, but security forces who opened fire repelled them, said the spokesman for the government of the surrounding province, also called Kandahar. Four intelligence agents and six civilians, including a teacher at a nearby school were wounded in the attack, said the spokesman, Zelmai Ayubi. Read the full story
The Maryland Senate voted on Saturday to allow patients access to medical marijuana at state-licensed dispensaries. The bill now moves to the state’s lower chamber.
The bill was approved overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support and without objections or discussion, by a 35-12 margin.
Maryland would join 14 other states in legalizing medical marijuana. The neighboring District of Columbia legalized it in a 1998 referendum that was only recently allowed by Congress to go into effect. The District’s city council is writing rules to establish the city’s medical marijuana policy.
Current Maryland law allows defendants charged with pot possession to cite a medical necessity defense. If a judge deems the drug to be beneficial, a maximum hundred dollar civil fine is imposed. Read the full story
WikiLeaks to release video of civilians, journalists being murdered in airstrike
Whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is planning to release a video that reveals what it’s calling a Pentagon “cover-up” of an incident in which numerous civilians and journalists were murdered in an airstrike, according to a recent media advisory.
The video will be released on April 5 at the National Press Club, the group said.
They also noted their members have recently been tailed by individuals under State Department diplomatic immunity, and that “one related person was detained for 22 hours” while authorities seized computer equipment.
Young Sym decided to release some tracks before his debut album soon to come (date will be announced later). The tracks are hot and available for free download, so why not? Young Sym is a producer so if you hear anything you like, or would like to put something together, send us an email and we’ll be in contact. Enjoy.
The current rate of extinction is 100 to 1000 times higher than the average, or background rate, making our current period the 6th major mass extinction in the planet’s history.
Although fossil reconstructions or pictorial representations can sometimes be difficult to connect with, it’s impossible to ignore the experience of seeing a photograph of an animal on the brink of extinction.
Thus, what follows is a list of 11 extinct animals that were photographed while still alive.
Tasmanian Tiger
The last Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, known to have existed died in the Hobart Zoo, in Tasmania, Australia, on September 7th, 1936. Read the full story
Professor Michel Mayor, the scientist who led the team that identified the first extrasolar planet in 1995, believes a planet similar in size and composition to Earth will soon be found.
Prof Mayor, of Geneva University, said that the prospect of finding a planet habitable for humans had come a step closer through rapid technological advances allowing observation of planets outside the solar system.
Addressing a Royal Society conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme, he said: “The search for twins of Earth is motivated by the ultimate prospect of finding sites with favourable conditions for the development of life. Read the full story
WASHINGTON — Whistleblower website WikiLeaks has temporarily shut down because of financial difficulties.
WikiLeaks.org announced it was suspending operations in a message on its homepage that included an appeal to the public for donations. Read the full story
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