Meteorologist: 'Stronger winds trumps the snow'

The first winter storm of the season is moving in fast and has hit the north and western suburbs with a fury as downed power lines were reported in McHenry County. 

Around 5 p.m., ComEd officials said more than 24,000 people were without power, most of those in the western Illinois region, like Rockford , Freeport and Dixon. At 5:35 p.m., less than an inch of snow was on the ground in Elburn.

A spokeswoman with ComEd said a few customers from Woodstock were powerless, but there weren’t any “significant” outages in that area.

Snow first hit Chicago around 5:30 p.m., when O’Hare airport reported seeing flurries, according to the National Weather Service. The snow will continue on throughout the evening, with a possible uptick around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., meteorologists said.

Also, 30 to 40 mph winds have been reported with gusts as high as nearly 60 mph, said Ed Fenelon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“That trend is going to be continuing and some of the stronger winds will work their way“ to Chicago, Fenelon said. “That probably really trumps the snow as far as what kind of impact you can have.”

Hundreds of flights were canceled at O'Hare and Midway airports on the eve of the busiest travel day of the holiday season. Southwest Airlines scratched all of its flights scheduled after 4:30 p.m. today at Midway. People are being warned to stay off highways because high winds could whip up near blizzard conditions.

Delays at O’Hare were averaging 30 to 90 minutes, according to the FAA. Midway-bound flight delays were about 15 minutes or less.

At 6 p.m., a few crashes had been reported on roadways including I-290 at St. Charles Road and the inbound Edens Expressway at Tower Road.

The heaviest snow is expected to fall from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Three to 7 inches is expected in the far northwest suburbs, 2 to 4 inches in Chicago and 1 to 3 inches in the south and southwest suburbs.

The weather service says the winds will be the real problem. "We may not get a whole lot of snow but the potential for snowing, drifting and poor visibility is very high," weather service meteorologist Mark Ratzer said.

In its storm warning, the weather service said the greatest chance of near white-out conditions is near the shoreline in Lake and Porter counties in Indiana. The storm warning is in effect for those areas until 3 a.m. Friday.

In western Illinois and Wisconsin, a blizzard warning is in effect with as much as a foot of snow forecast. Snow could fall 1 to 2 inches an hour around Rockford, the weather service said.

To the south, a high wind advisory has been issued for Kankakee County.

The storm ends a record stretch of 290 days without snow in the Chicago area. This will also be the latest the city has seen its first measurable snowfall.

"It's going to be a shock to the system," said weather service meteorologist Ed Fenelon. "It's coming in with a bang."

ComEd said it was bracing for power outages due to the weather. The company said it was preparing additional crews and equipment and asking for help from other utilities to respond quickly to outages.

ComEd Vice President Terence Donnelly said the storm was “expected to be especially damaging” to the company's power system because of the combination of wind, snow and ice.

The Illinois Toll Highway Authority urged motorists to stay off the highways.

"This weather event is expected to impact most of the tollway system – from Rockford to Chicago – resulting in rapidly deteriorating driving conditions across the entire region,” tollway executive director Kristi Lafleur.  “We urge everyone to stay off the roads this afternoon and evening, if possible, but if you must drive, slow down and allow plenty of extra time for the commute home.”

Illinois Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider also said that “motorists should think twice before venturing onto roadways” Thursday night and urged drivers and their passengers “to buckle up, slow down and allow plenty of extra time to reach your destination. And, please don’t crowd the snow plows.”

IDOT was mobilizing more than 550 snow plows responsible for roads in northern Illinois while the Illinois Tollway was preparing its full fleet of 182 snow plows to try and clear the 286-mile network of toll roads in 12 counties in northern Illinois.

If conditions become extreme, the Illinois State Police is urging drivers involved in minor accidents where no one is injured to exchange insurance and driver information.

The agencies also provide multiple ways to receive updates electronically. Non-tollroad information can be found at www.gettingaroundillinois.com. Real time conditions on tollroads are available at www.illinoistollway.com. Drivers also can sign up for Tollway Tweets at the website or at www.twitter.com.

Read More..

Twitter post offers clue to The Civil Wars’ future

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — While there still remain questions about the future of The Civil Wars, there’s new music on the way.

Joy Williams, one half of the Grammy Award-winning duo with John Paul White, said Thursday during a Twitter chat that she was in the studio listening to new Civil Wars songs.

It’s a tantalizing clue to the future of the group, which appeared in doubt when a European tour unraveled last month due to “irreconcilable differences.”

At the time, the duo said it hoped to release an album in 2013. It’s not clear if Williams was referring Thursday to music for a new album or for a documentary score they have composed with T Bone Burnett. They’re also set to release an “Unplugged” session on iTunes on Jan. 15.

Nate Yetton, the group’s manager and Williams’ husband, had no comment — though he has supplied a few hints of his own by posting pictures of recording sessions on his Instagram account recently. The duo announced last summer it would be working with Charlie Peacock, who produced its gold-selling debut “Barton Hollow.” The photos do not show Williams or White, but one includes violin player Odessa Rose.

Rose says in an Instagram post: “Playing on the new Civil Wars record… Beautiful sounds.”

Even with its future in doubt, the duo continues to gather accolades. Williams and White are up for a Golden Globe on Jan. 13, and two Grammy Awards on Feb. 10, for their “The Hunger Games” soundtrack collaboration “Safe & Sound” with Taylor Swift.

Williams’ comments came during an installment of an artist interview series with Alison Sudol of A Fine Frenzy sponsored by The Recording Academy.

___

Online:

http://thecivilwars.com

___

Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Twitter post offers clue to The Civil Wars’ future
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Illinois jobless rate falls to 8.7%

Illinois' unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in November. (Bloomberg file photo / December 20, 2012)

Associated Press

12:30 p.m. CST, December 20, 2012

Illinois' unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in November as the economy added 16,400 jobs.

Preliminary data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security indicate the largest monthly job gain of the year. There still are 574,600 Illinoisans out of work. The rate does not reflect unemployed people who've quit looking for work.

IDES Director Jay Rowell says November's job growth is encouraging and "reinforces the trend of positive economic momentum."

But he says progress will slow if Congress and the president fail to come to a resolution on the so-called fiscal cliff.

November's seasonally adjusted rate is one-tenth of a percentage point lower than in October and 1.1 percentage points lower than November 2011.

Most job gains last month were in professional and business services and manufacturing.

Read More..

Unions offer to pay more on pensions if state adds new taxes

A coalition of public employee unions Wednesday blasted legislation to address the state's underfunded worker pension systems and offered instead to make increased contributions — if the state guarantees its share of retirement payments and raises $2 billion by ending corporate tax benefits and imposing new taxes.

Appearing at the James R. Thompson Center, members of the We Are One Illinois coalition said plans backed by Gov. Pat Quinn and another proposal supported by a bipartisan group of lawmakers would violate the state constitution by reducing pension benefits guaranteed to workers. They predicted such a change would be overturned by the courts.

The unions said the primary problem is the state's failure to regularly fund its annual required contribution. The offer to require state workers and teachers to pay 2 percent more toward their retirement was conditional upon getting an "ironclad guarantee" in state law that government would fund its share of pension obligations as workers have done over the years.

To help fund those obligations, the unions proposed eliminating several corporate tax benefits as well as imposing new taxes on auto trade-ins, satellite TV service and downloaded digital entertainment. The new money also could be used to help offset cuts in other public social services, the group said.

But even with a new General Assembly soon to be sworn in, the prospect of closing so-called corporate tax loopholes — many of which have been on the books for decades — as well as imposing new taxes remains politically unpopular.

The proposal was the first comprehensive offer on the pension crisis from the union coalition, which includes the state's two major teacher organizations and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The unions also called for a summit with Quinn and legislative leaders when the new General Assembly convenes Jan. 9. Quinn has asked that lame-duck lawmakers consider pension legislation in the days before new lawmakers are sworn in.

Kathy Griffin, vice president of the Illinois Education Association, said teachers and the vast majority of workers covered by the state's pension plans are not eligible for and do not receive Social Security, meaning their state pensions represent their retirement income.

"Illinois' pension problem is a revenue problem, and it is crucial that we have a revenue solution," she said.

At an appearance in Cicero, Quinn said he has made the state's full share of pension payments as chief executive, unlike previous governors. But the Democratic governor, who has received sharp criticism from traditional Democratic allies in organized labor, stopped short of backing a guaranteed pension payment.

"We want to work with the labor unions and the employee groups as far as we can, but ultimately the taxpayers come first, and that's what we have to do," Quinn said.

Illinois has the nation's most troubled state public employee pension system, with an unfunded liability of $95 billion.

Quinn has tried to bring public attention to the problem, notably through an online video featuring Squeezy the Pension Python, to demonstrate how the growing amount of tax dollars devoted to pensions threatens to overwhelm funding for education and other services.

The governor has backed a Senate-passed proposal that would require state workers to forgo an automatic compounded 3 percent cost of living increase in their pensions in exchange for accessing state-subsidized health care. Those keeping the cost-of-living increase would lose access to state health care in retirement. In addition, their pension benefits would be capped at their current salary level even if their paychecks went up.

Union officials said Quinn's plan was a "no-win" choice for workers who would see a significant loss of purchasing power as they grew older in their retirement years.

A more recent plan offered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers is also problematic, the unions said, including its cuts in cost-of-living increases and increased retirement ages.

Both bills would be subject to lengthy and costly lawsuits "and we think ultimately the courts will find it unconstitutional, which means all the work that they're putting into those bills will have been for naught," said Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31.

The unions said their offer of increased employee contributions of 2 percent of income would generate about $350 million a year toward pensions, or about $10 billion if amortized over 30 years.

At the same time, the unions proposed the end to more than $1.5 billion worth of tax exemptions. They include repealing recent tax breaks for CME Group Inc. and the Chicago Board Options Exchange, a tax break for for-profit hospitals, lowering the size of estates subject to taxes and curbing spending on economic development incentives for business.

The group also proposed a 5 percent tax on satellite TV service; requiring sales tax to be paid on the entire price of a new car rather than just the remaining balance after trade-in; and imposing the sales tax on e-books, movies, music and games digitally downloaded to smartphones and other electronic devices.

The new-car sales tax would raise an estimated $300 million, the group said; it pegged revenue estimates for the satellite tax at $75 million and the digital tax at $10 million. Quinn already has suggested the new-car sales tax as a way to plug a $300 million hole in repaying bonds used to fund public works projects.

rap30@aol.com mcgarcia@tribune.com

Read More..

Leah Remini sued by former managers over “Family Tools” commissions

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Leah Remini‘s new TV gig is already giving her a headache, months before it even starts. Former “King of Queens” star Remini is being sued by her former managers, the Collective Management Group, which claims that it’s owed $ 67,000 in commissions relating to her upcoming ABC comedy “Family Tools,” which debuts May 1.

In a complaint filed with Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, the Collective says that it entered into an agreement with the actress in November 2011 that guaranteed the company 10 percent of the earnings that emerged from projects that Remini “discussed, negotiated, contemplated, or procured/booked during Plaintiff’s representation of Remini,” regardless of whether the income was earned after she and the Collective parted ways.

According to the lawsuit, that would include the $ 1 million that it says Remini will earn for the first season of “Family Tools.” (The suit allows that it isn’t owed commission on a $ 330,000 talent holding fee that Remini received from ABC prior to officially being booked on the show.)

Remini, pictured above wearing the self-satisfied smirk of someone who just might stiff her former managers out of their commission, terminated her agreement with the Collective “without warning or justification” in October, the suit says.

Alleging breach of oral contract among other charges, the suit is asking for an order stipulating that it’s owed the $ 67,000, plus unspecified damages, interest and court costs.

Remini’s agent has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Leah Remini sued by former managers over “Family Tools” commissions
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Amgen Workers Helped U.S. in Aranesp Marketing Inquiry

“I hope no one is taping this,” the Amgen manager remarked at a company sales meeting in 2005.

The manager then boasted of how she had given a $10,000 unrestricted grant to a pet project of a doctor who was an adviser to the local Medicare contractor. In turn, she said, the doctor would help persuade the contractor to provide reimbursement for an unapproved use of Amgen’s anemia drug, Aranesp.

Someone, it turned out, was taping it. Jill Osiecki, a longtime sales representative at Amgen, was wearing a recording device under her clothes, transmitting the proceedings to agents of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The result of Ms. Osiecki’s undercover work, and information provided by other whistle-blowers, led to Amgen’s agreement this week to pay $762 million to settle federal investigations regarding the marketing of some of its top-selling drugs.

Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. of Federal District Court in Brooklyn accepted the settlement on Wednesday, clearing the way for 10 whistle-blower lawsuits to be unsealed.

Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, will pay $150 million in criminal penalties after pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count of marketing Aranesp for unapproved uses and in unapproved doses.

The rest of the money — $612 million — will go to settle civil false claims lawsuits filed by the federal government, states and whistle-blowers. These contain accusations that go well beyond the off-label marketing of Aranesp.

They include off-label marketing of other drugs like Enbrel for psoriasis and Neulasta, which increases the levels of white blood cells. Amgen is also accused of offering kickbacks to doctors and clinics to induce them to use its drugs. These reportedly came as cash, rebates, free samples, educational and research grants, dinners and travel, and other inducements. The government also accused the company of knowingly misreporting the prices of some of its drugs.

Except for those in the criminal count, Amgen denied the other accusations, though it did issue a statement on Wednesday acknowledging the settlement.

“The government raised important concerns in the criminal prosecution,” Cynthia M. Patton, chief compliance officer at Amgen, said in the statement. “Amgen acknowledges that mistakes were made, and we did not live up to our standards.”

Ms. Osiecki, 52, was one of the main whistle-blowers and will be entitled to a share of the settlement. The amount each whistle-blower will receive has not been determined or is being kept confidential, their lawyers said.

Ms. Osiecki worked as a sales representative for Merck for nine years before joining Amgen in 1990, soon after the biotechnology company won regulatory approval for its first product. The company, based outside Los Angeles, had “good science, good products, strong ethics,” Ms. Osiecki said in an interview.

But, she said, the corporate culture changed starting around 2000. That was when new management came in and Aranesp was approved, setting up a fierce marketing battle with Johnson & Johnson and its rival anemia drug, Procrit.

“It was more important to make your numbers than to follow the rules,” said Ms. Osiecki, who was based in Milwaukee and sold Aranesp.

In August 2004, with her concerns mounting, Ms. Osiecki called the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services and left a message. Within days, she was called back, and she went to see an agent, who persuaded her to secretly record meetings. She did that 13 times over about 15 months, mainly sales meetings.

Aranesp is used mainly in a hospital, clinic or physician’s office. It is bought by the medical practice, which can make a profit if the patient and insurers pay more for the use of the drug than the practice paid.

Ms. Osiecki said Amgen “marketed the spread,” trying to make it more profitable for doctors to use Aranesp rather than Procrit.

Such financial inducements could also spur greater overall use of a drug and can violate anti-kickback laws, said Ms. Osiecki’s lawyer, Brian P. Kenney of Kenney & McCafferty in Blue Bell, Pa.

Ms. Osiecki said the first sales meeting at which she wore the recording device, wrapped around her midriff under baggy clothes, was in October 2004 in a Milwaukee hotel. She could look down from the meeting room and see the car parked across the street containing the agent with the receiving device. She said she was not particularly nervous.

The speaker was a pharmacist from an oncology practice going through the numbers on how his practice could make a million dollars more a year using Aranesp rather than Procrit.

Ms. Osiecki said Amgen was careful to cover up such marketing. Spreadsheets showing doctors how much more money they could make using Aranesp were “homemade bread,” meaning they were created by each sales representative, not by the company. And representatives were told not to leave the presentations behind after showing them to doctors.

Her 107-page complaint, filed in late 2004, contains many other accusations.

Other whistle-blowers made other accusations. Kassie Westmoreland, a former sales representative, said Amgen overfilled vials of Aranesp, essentially providing free drugs to doctors. They could then bill Medicare or private insurers for the use of that drug, making an extra profit.

“Amgen was offering a kickback in the form of extra product subsidized by the taxpayers,” said Robert M. Thomas Jr., one of Ms. Westmoreland’s lawyers.

Elena Ferrante and Marc Engelman, both former sales representatives, contended that Amgen promoted Enbrel’s off-label use for mild psoriasis when the drug was approved only for moderate or severe cases of the disease.

Lydia Cotz, one of their lawyers, said the two refused to go along with the off-label marketing. They are now pursuing wrongful termination claims against Amgen in arbitration proceedings that Amgen requires be kept confidential, she said.

“It’s been a very long heroic journey for my clients,” she said.

Ms. Osiecki is now also a former Amgen sales representative. She said that she was fired in December 2005 after she let slip that she had retained a company voice mail message that she thought provided evidence of illegal activity. Leaving the pharmaceutical industry, she moved to Amelia Island, Fla. She now works for a small business.

Mosi Secret and Barry Meier contributed reporting.

Read More..

Boehner: Blame tax hikes on Obama

US Speaker of the House John Boehner speaks on the "fiscal cliff" during press conference Wednesday. (Reuters / December 19, 2012)

Reuters

1:37 p.m. CST, December 19, 2012

President Barack Obama will be responsible for taxes rising on Americans if he does not "get serious" about a balanced deficit reduction plan or demand Senate passage of a Republican bill to prevent tax increases on all income below $1 million, House Speaker John Boehner charged on Wednesday.

"Tomorrow the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American," Boehner said in a short on-camera statement.

"Then the president will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."

Read More..

Chicago prison inmates used bedsheets to escape: official

The scene at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and in Tinley Park, where authorities were searching for two escaped prisoners on Dec. 18, 2012. (Zbigniew Bzdak & Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

Officials at a federal Loop jail discovered that two convicted bank robbers had escaped after employees arriving for work at about 7 a.m. today and saw a makeshift rope hanging from the outside of the high-rise facility, federal officials said in charging the two with escape.

Joseph "Jose" Banks and Kenneth Conley made good their escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center after last being seen for a head count conducted at about 10 p.m. Monday, authorities said.

The two are believed to have scurried down ropes made from bedsheets from the high-rise cell they shared.

Authorities also revealed that in their cell guards found numerous articles of clothing and sheets piled under a blanket in both their beds to make it appear they were asleep.

The window in the cell was broken and the makeshift rope was tied to its bars and hanging down the south side of the MCC, authorities said.

Prosecutors charged both with escape in a criminal complaint filed this afternoon in federal court a few blocks from the scene of the escape.

Authorities said the two are believed to be traveling together and were reportedly last seen this morning in the Tinley Park area.

A widespread manhunt is underway by the FBI with the assistance of numerous federal, state and locallawenforcement agencies.

Both Banks and Conley were awaiting sentencing for bank robbery convictions. If they are captured and convicted of escape, they would face up to an additional five years in prison.

“A rope was fashioned out of bedsheets,’’ said a spokesman for the MCC. “I would imagine that they saved them up."

Conley and Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit who was convicted just last week, were first unaccounted for during a 5 a.m. head count, but it's unclear they were still inside the 27-story Metropolitan Correctional Center at the time, U.S. Marshal's Service spokeswoman Belkis Cantor said.

The makeshift rope could be seen dangling along the south side of the MCC, 71 W. Van Buren St.

The MCC spokesman declined to say whether any guards were under investigation or whether anything was smuggled into them or how the narrow cell window was widened.

Hours after the escape, SWAT teams forced their way into a Tinley Park house where a relative of Conley is believed to live. But no one was found inside, and FBI officials said they believe Conley and Banks had been there hours earlier.

The SWAT officers left the home after about 20 minutes and walked down the street with dogs as neighbors followed, taking pictures with their phones. About two blocks down, the officers searched the Metra stop.

A woman who answered at the home of a relative of Conley said it was "very upsetting for everyone" and declined further comment.

Banks’ cousin, Theresa Ann Banks, pleaded for Banks to turn himself in.

“I just don’t want to see him get hurt or killed,” she said with a shaky voice. “(The family) is trying to hold themselves together. We just have to have faith in God and hope everything goes right.”

Theresa Ann Banks said she received a call about the escape from Banks' father, who heard about it on the news.

When Joseph Banks was arrested in 2008, Theresa Ann Banks said she visited him whenever she had a chance. “When I went to see him, he was calm, he was humble, he was happy to see me,” she said. “He was very positive every time I would go.”

Banks was described as black, 37, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds. Conley is white, 38, 6 feet and 185 pounds.

Read More..

Newsman’s disappearance largely kept secret

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC was able to keep the abduction of chief Middle East correspondent Richard Engel in Syria largely a secret until he escaped late Monday because it persuaded some of this country’s most prominent news organizations to hold back on the story.

Otherwise, the disappearance of Engel — probably the most high-profile international television reporter on a U.S. network — would have been big news.

Engel and three colleagues, producers Ghazi Balkiz and Aziz Akyavas and photographer John Kooistra, escaped during a firefight between rebels and their captors, forces sympathetic to the Syrian government. The journalists were dragged from their cars, kept bound and blindfolded and threatened with death.

NBC said it did not know what had happened to the men until after their escape. The first sign of trouble came last Thursday, when Engel did not check back with his office at an agreed-upon time.

The Associated Press learned of Engel’s disappearance independently and was asked to keep the news quiet upon contacting NBC, said John Daniszewski, the AP’s vice president and senior managing editor.

“A general principle of our reporting is that we don’t want to write stories that are going to endanger the lives of the people that we are writing about,” Daniszewski said. The first few days after an abduction are often crucial to securing the captive’s release.

CBS News also said that it had honored NBC’s request, but a spokeswoman declined to discuss it. ABC, Fox News and CNN were also contacted by NBC.

CNN, in an editor’s note affixed to a website story on Engel’s escape, noted NBC’s request. CNN said it complied to allow fact-finding and negotiations to free the captors before it became a worldwide story.

“Hostage negotiators say that once the global spotlight is on the missing, the hostages’ value soars, making it much harder to negotiate their freedom,” CNN said.

For similar reasons, the AP did not report its own news several years ago when a photographer was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip, securing his release within a day. In one celebrated case of secrecy, The New York Times withheld news that reporter David Rohde was kidnapped while trying to make contact with a Taliban commander in Afghanistan. Rohde escaped after seven months in captivity.

It wasn’t clear whether Engel’s abductors knew what they had at the time. That knowledge, CNN argued, could have greatly complicated any negotiations. In this case, the captors did not make any ransom demands during the time he was missing.

This isn’t simply a professional courtesy; the AP has withheld news involving overseas contractors in the past, Daniszewski said. For similar reasons, the organization does not reveal details of military or police actions it learns about beforehand if the news will put people at risk, and doesn’t write about leaders heading into war zones until they are safely there.

Still, it’s not a decision lightly taken by news organizations. “The obligation of journalists is to report information, not withhold it, except in exceptional circumstances,” said Robert Steele, a journalism ethics professor at DePauw University.

The news that Engel was missing was first reported Monday by Turkish journalists who had heard about Akyavas’ involvement, and was picked up by the U.S. website Gawker.com. In explaining why the news was reported, Gawker’s John Cook wrote that no one had told him of a specific or even general threat to Engel’s safety.

“I would not have written a post if someone had told me that there was a reasonable or even remote suspicion that anything specific would happen if I wrote the post,” Cook wrote.

He also noted that China’s Xinhua News Agency and the Breitbart website had also reported on Engel’s disappearance. Breitbart’s John Nolte attached a note to his report saying that he wasn’t even aware of any news embargo until after hearing that Engel had been released.

The news was also tweeted by a small number of journalists, apparently unaware of the embargo request.

Whether a disappearance has become widely known could influence a decision by AP on whether to withhold the news, Daniszewski said. In this case, it wasn’t clear that it had been widely circulated, he said.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Newsman’s disappearance largely kept secret
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Attackers in Pakistan Kill Anti-Polio Workers

Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Pakistani mother mourned her daughter, who was killed on Tuesday in an attack on health workers participating in a drive to eradicate polio from Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen shot dead five female health workers who were immunizing children against polio on Tuesday, causing the Pakistani government to suspend vaccinations in two cities and dealing a fresh setback to an eradication campaign dogged by Taliban resistance in a country that is one of the disease’s last global strongholds.

“It is a blow, no doubt,” said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, an adviser on polio to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. “Never before have female health workers been targeted like this in Pakistan. Clearly there will have to be more and better arrangements for security.”

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but most suspicion focused on the Pakistani Taliban, which has previously blocked polio vaccinators and complained that the United States is using the program as a cover for espionage.

The killings were a serious reversal for the multibillion-dollar global polio immunization effort, which over the past quarter century has reduced the number of endemic countries from 120 to just three: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Nonetheless, United Nations officials insisted that the drive would be revived after a period for investigation and regrouping, as it had been after previous attacks on vaccinators here, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Pakistan has made solid gains against polio, with 56 new recorded cases of the diseases in 2012, compared with 192 at the same point last year, according to the government. Worldwide, cases of death and paralysis from polio have been reduced to less than 1,000 last year, from 350,000 worldwide in 1988.

But the campaign here has been deeply shaken by Taliban threats and intimidation, though several officials said Tuesday that they had never seen such a focused and deadly attack before.

Insurgents have long been suspicious of polio vaccinators, seeing them as potential spies. But that greatly intensified after the C.I.A. used a vaccination team headed by a local doctor, Shakil Afridi, to visit Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, reportedly in an attempt to obtain DNA proof that the Bin Laden family was there before an American commando raid attacked it in May 2011.

In North Waziristan, one prominent warlord has banned polio vaccinations until the United States ceases drone strikes in the area.

Most new infections in Pakistan occur in the tribal belt and adjoining Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province — some of the most remote areas of the country, and also those with the strongest militant presence. People fleeing fighting in those areas have also spread the disease to Karachi, the country’s largest city, where the disease has been making a worrisome comeback in recent years.

After Tuesday’s attacks, witnesses described violence that was both disciplined and well coordinated. Five attacks occurred within an hour in different Karachi neighborhoods. In several cases, the killers traveled in pairs on motorcycle, opening fire on female health workers as they administered polio drops or moved between houses in crowded neighborhoods.

Of the five victims, three were teenagers, and some had been shot in the head, a senior government official said. Two male health workers were also wounded by gunfire; early reports incorrectly stated that one of them had died, the official said.

In Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, gunmen opened fire on two sisters participating in the polio vaccination program, killing one of them. It was unclear whether that shooting was directly linked to the Karachi attacks.

In remote parts of the northwest, the Taliban threat is exacerbated by the government’s crumbling writ. In Bannu, on the edge of the tribal belt, one polio worker, Noor Khan, said he quit work on Tuesday once news of the attacks in Karachi and Peshawar filtered in. “We were told to stop immediately,” he said by phone.

Still, the Pakistani government has engaged considerable political and financial capital in fighting polio. President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa have been at the forefront of immunization drives. With the help of international donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they have mounted a huge vaccination campaign aimed at up to 35 million children younger than 5, usually in three-day bursts that can involve 225,000 health workers.

The plan seeks to have every child in Pakistan immunized at least four times per year, although in the hardest-hit areas one child could be reached as many as 12 times in a year.

Declan Walsh reported from Islamabad, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Zia ur-Rehman from Karachi, Pakistan.

Read More..