Dorner Confirmed Dead in Autopsy on Cabin Remains

Christopher Dorner, the ex-Los Angeles police officer who declared himself on a killing spree against his former law enforcement colleagues, is dead.

Authorities this evening confirmed that remains found after a fiery standoff at a California mountain cabin Tuesday were, in fact, Dorner's.

"The charred human remains located in the burned out cabin in Seven Oaks have been positively identified to be that of Christopher Dorner," the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Office said in a written statement. "During the autopsy, positive identification was made through dental examination."

FULL COVERAGE: Christopher Dorner Manhunt

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

In a 6,000-word "manifesto," Dorner outlined his anger at the Los Angeles Police Department for firing him, and made threats against individuals he believed were responsible for ending his career with the police force five years ago. Dorner was fired after filing what the LAPD determined to be a false report accusing other cops of brutality.

Dorner is suspected of killing four people, including Monica Quan and her fiance, who were found shot to death Feb. 3. Quan was the daughter of former LAPD Capt. Randal Quan, who was mentioned as a target of Dorner's fury in the manifesto.

Christopher Dorner Hostages: 'He Just Wanted to Clear His Name' Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Believed Dead After Shootout With Police Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Believed Dead After Shootout with Police Watch Video

Dorner is also suspected in the shooting death of Riverside, Calif., Police Officer Michael Crain, whose funeral was Wednesday.

San Bernardino Sheriff's Deputy Jeremiah MacKay, 35, a 15-year veteran and the father of two children, was killed in Tuesday's shootout at the cabin.

A second San Bernardino County sheriff's officer had to undergo multiple surgeries after he was wounded in the cabin shootout, and other officers also were wounded in earlier alleged encounters with Dorner.

After Crain's death, police tracked Dorner to the Big Bear Lake area of Southern California, where his burning truck was found in the mountains late last week.

A couple with a cabin in the area were some of the last people to see Dorner before his final encounter with police. Their 911 call to police triggered a chase that concluded with the fiery standoff at the nearby cabin.

The couple, Karen and Jim Reynolds, said at a news conference Wednesday that their ordeal lasted a few minutes but seemed like hours.

The Reynolds believe Dorner, 33, was holed up starting Friday in their unoccupied cabin in Big Bear, Calif., only steps from where police had set up a command center.

"He said four or five times that he didn't have a problem with us, he just wanted to clear his name," Jim Reynolds said. "He said, 'I don't have a problem with you, so I'm not going to hurt you.'"

Dorner tied their arms and put pillowcases over their heads before fleeing in their purple Nissan, the couple said.

Before he fled, the couple said Dorner told them that he had been watching them before he took over their cabin. Dorner told the couple he could tell they were "hard working, good people."

"He had been watching us and saw me shoveling the snow Friday," Jim Reynolds said.

They say they may have left the cabin door unlocked and that could have been the reason Dorner was able to enter undetected.

Dorner remained "calm and meticulous" throughout the harrowing ordeal, the couple said.

The Reynolds walked into their cabin around noon Tuesday when they came face-to-face with Dorner. There was no question in their minds who he was -- the suspected cop killer at the center of one of the largest manhunts in recent memory.

Read More..

Obama urges a move away from narrow focus on politics of austerity

Just about every argument in Washington since the 2010 midterm elections, which returned control of the House to Republicans, has centered on reducing the federal deficit. On Tuesday night, President Obama leaned into his second term by declaring that a single-minded focus on deficit reduction would jeopardize the nation’s future. And he sounded an urgent call to rebuild.

Reelected by an ascendent coalition, the president spoke from a position of strength in his fourth State of the Union address. The economy is improving. The Republican Party is in disarray. The time has come, Obama indicated, to pivot away from the politics of austerity.

“Most of us agree that a plan to reduce the deficit must be part of the agenda,” he said. “But let’s be clear: Deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan. A growing economy that creates good middle-class jobs — that must be the North Star that guides our efforts.”

The president rejected the fiscal brinkmanship that defined the past two years. Instead, he framed future fiscal debates as opportunities to shape a “smarter government” — one with new investments in science and innovation, with a rising minimum wage, with tax reform that eliminates loopholes and deductions for what the president labeled “the well-off and well-connected.”

Second-term presidents have a narrow window of time to enact significant change before they become lame ducks, and Obama, while echoing campaign themes of reinforcing the middle class, made an urgent case for a more pragmatic version of populism, one that emphasizes economic prosperity as the cornerstone of a fair society.

Over and over, he noted that the time to rebuild is now.

The “Fix-It-First” program that Obama outlined to put people to work on “urgent repairs,” such as structurally deficient bridges, bore echoes of President Bill Clinton’s call in his 1999 State of the Union address to “save Social Security first.” Clinton’s was an effective line, one that stopped — at least until President George W. Bush took office two years later — a Republican drive to use the budget surplus to cut taxes.

Although Obama’s speech lacked the conciliatory notes of some of his earlier State of the Union addresses, he did make overtures to Republicans and cited Mitt Romney, his presidential challenger, by name.

He combined tough talk about securing the border, which brought Republicans to their feet, with a pledge to entertain reasonable reforms to Medicare, the federal entitlement program that fellow Democrats are fighting to protect.

“Those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms,” he said.

Obama also pledged to cut U.S. dependence on energy imports by expanding oil and gas development. And he singled out one area where he and Romney found agreement in last year’s campaign: linking increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living.

Obama set a bipartisan tone at the start of his speech, quoting from President John F. Kennedy’s address to Congress 51 years earlier when he said, “The Constitution makes us not rivals for power, but partners for progress.”

Read More..

Athletics: Paralympic day to top off London Diamond

LONDON: London's Olympic Stadium will stage three days of athletics in July, including one devoted solely to Paralympic competition, British Athletics has announced.

The London Anniversary Games, which will take place from July 26-28 and in the process mark a year since the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, will incorporate the annual two-day Diamond League meeting on the Friday and Saturday, but also, for the first time, a day of purely Paralympic competition on the Sunday.

Sebastian Coe, who chaired the London 2012 Organising Committee and is now chairman of the British Olympic Association, said it was terrific news.

"I am delighted that the London Anniversary Games has been confirmed as three days of international athletics this July.

"London 2012 was an amazing year for British sport and what a way to celebrate its success by welcoming the world back to London once more to watch the biggest names in athletics."

British middle distance great Coe, the Olympic 1,500 metres gold medallist at both the 1980 and 1984 Games in Moscow and Los Angeles respectively, added he hoped this July's event would build on the success of London 2012.

"It is an important part of the London 2012 legacy that as many people as possible experience world class sport in the world class facilities at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and I'm sure the London Anniversary Games will go a long way to inspiring the next generation of track and field fans."

Former Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu, who grew up in Stratford, added: "The London Diamond League has always been one of my favourite meets so it's fantastic that it's retaining its two day format.

"The atmosphere in the stadium was phenomenal last year and I'll never forget it -- it was very special for me as a local girl."

Officials had already announced the London Diamond League meeting would move to the Olympic venue in the eastern district of Stratford from Crystal Palace in south London.

But on Wednesday they said in addition to the usual track and field meeting on the first two days, the weekend would be topped off by a day of Paralympic competition in the Olympic Stadium, that will come soon after the International Paralympic Committee World Championships in Lyon, eastern France.

Earlier in July, two rock music concerts will see the 80,000-seater Olympic Stadium used for the first time since the Paralympics closing ceremony in September.

Although the Olympic Stadium is due to stage the 2017 World Athletics Championships, doubt remains over its long-term future.

English Premier League football club West Ham have been named as the preferred bidder for the tenancy and a final decision on their bid is expected before April.

The £292 million ($463 million, 348 million euro) complete transformation of the Olympic Park, which began when the London 2012 Games ended, is set to take 18 months.

-AFP/gn

Read More..

Terror groups in Pak vow to avenge Afzal

ISLAMABAD: In a show of strength in the Pakistani capital, several banned anti-India militant groups, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, on Wednesday vowed to take "revenge" for the execution of Afzal Guru and step up their "jihad" in Jammu and Kashmir.

Scores of members of the groups gathered at the National Press Club for a conference organized by the United Jihad Council to pay tribute to Guru, who was hanged in a Delhi jail on Saturday for his role in the 2001 terror attack on the Indian parliament.

Chanting anti-India slogans, leaders of the LeT, JeM, Al Badr Mujahideen, Jamiatul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the United Jihad Council made fiery speeches in which they pledged to continue their jihad in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India.

This was the first time in the past four years that the banned groups organized a public gathering in the Pakistani capital though they have held low-key meetings in Rawalpindi and Lahore that were opened to sections of the local media.

Senior JeM leader Mufti Asghar said his group would take revenge against the Indian government and security forces for Guru's hanging. "We know how to take revenge and we will take revenge," he said.

United Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin, who also heads the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, claimed in his address that Pakistan was silent on events in Kashmir and the hanging of Guru. The mujahideen leadership, Salahuddin claimed, believed that the Kashmir issue could be settled only by jihad as talks with India were a waste of time.

Read More..

Are Honeybees Losing Their Way?

A single honeybee visits hundreds, sometimes thousands, of flowers a day in search of nectar and pollen. Then it must find its way back to the hive, navigating distances up to five miles (eight kilometers), and perform a "waggle dance" to tell the other bees where the flowers are.

A new study shows that long-term exposure to a combination of certain pesticides might impair the bee's ability to carry out its pollen mission.

"Any impairment in their ability to do this could have a strong effect on their survival," said Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England and co-author of a new study posted online February 7, 2013, in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Wright's study adds to the growing body of research that shows that the honeybee's ability to thrive is being threatened. Scientists are still researching how pesticides may be contributing to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a rapid die-off seen in millions of honeybees throughout the world since 2006.

"Pesticides are very likely to be involved in CCD and also in the loss of other types of pollinators," Wright said. (See the diversity of pollinating creatures in a photo gallery from National Geographic magazine.)

Bees depend on what's called "scent memory" to find flowers teeming with nectar and pollen. Their ability to rapidly learn, remember, and communicate with each other has made them highly efficient foragers, using the waggle dance to educate others about the site of the food source.

Watch as National Geographic explains the waggle dance.

Their pollination of plants is responsible for the existence of nearly a third of the food we eat and has a similar impact on wildlife food supplies.

Previous studies have shown certain types of pesticides affect a bee's learning and memory. Wright's team wanted to investigate if the combination of different pesticides had an even greater effect on the learning and memory of honeybees.

"Honeybees learn to associate floral colors and scents with the quality of food rewards," Wright explained. "The pesticides affect the neurons involved in these behaviors. These [affected] bees are likely to have difficulty communicating with other members of the colony."

The experiment used a classic procedure with a daunting name: olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex. In layman's terms, the bee sticks out its tongue in response to odor and food rewards.

For the experiment, bees were collected from the colony entrance, placed in glass vials, and then transferred into plastic sandwich boxes. For three days the bees were fed a sucrose solution laced with sublethal doses of pesticides. The team measured short-term and long-term memory at 10-minute and 24-hour intervals respectively. (Watch of a video of a similar type of bee experiment.)

This study is the first to show that when pesticides are combined, the impact on bees is far worse than exposure to just one pesticide. "This is particularly important because one of the pesticides we used, coumaphos, is a 'medicine' used to treat Varroa mites [pests that have been implicated in CCD] in honeybee colonies throughout the world," Wright said.

The pesticide, in addition to killing the mites, might also be making honeybees more vulnerable to poisoning and effects from other pesticides.

Stephen Buchmann of the Pollinator Partnership, who was not part of Wright's study, underscored how critical pollinators are for the world. "The main threat to pollinators is habitat destruction and alteration. We're rapidly losing pollinator habitats, natural areas, and food—producing agricultural lands that are essential for our survival and well being. Along with habitat destruction, insecticides weaken pollinators and other beneficial insects."

Read More..

Ship Stranded: Love Boat to Horror Honeymoon

A Texas couple's fantasy wedding quickly turned into a nightmare honeymoon when the fire-damaged Carnival Cruise ship carrying them became stranded in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rob Mowlam, 37, and Stephanie Stevenson, 27, of Nederland, Texas, got married on the Carnival Triumph on Saturday. The four-day cruise was meant to be back to shore on Monday, but was left disabled by an engine fire on Sunday.

The ship is being slowly towed to shore and is expected to dock in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday if weather permits. The vessel is without air conditioning, many working toilets and some restaurant service. Passengers, many who are sleeping in tents on deck, have told ABC News the smell on the ship is foul.

That is the honeymoon setting for Mowlam and Stevenson.

"[Rob Mowlam] had been with his girlfriend, or fiance, for a long period of time and they just took the next step," Mowlam's brother James Mowlam III told ABCNews.com. "The captain is the king of the world when they're on the boat and he hitched them up."

James Mowlam said he was shocked when he heard about the stranded boat and the increasingly dire conditions on the ship.

"It is an atrocious scene to be subjected to," he said.

Mowlam said he has not been able to communicate with his brother, but that his father has had sporadic communication with him.

"It would be my guess that this would probably not be on anyone's great list of memorable wedding experiences," Mowlam said with a laugh. "Although, my mom told him that she was hoping they had a memorable wedding and I think this would classify as a memorable wedding experience."

Lt. Cmdr. Paul McConnell/U.S. Coast Guard/AP Photo

Carnival Cruise Ship Making Its Way to Port Watch Video

Carnival Cruise Ship Stranded for Third Day Watch Video

Carnival Cruise Ship Stranded off Yucatan Peninsula Watch Video

The bride's brother, Justin Davis, told ABCNews.com that his sister works for a doctor's office and the cruise was a gift from the doctor to the staff.

Davis has not been able to speak to Stevenson but said that her two young sons are being cared for by her mother. He said his sister is tough and he guesses she's probably not scared.

"She might be a little aggravated at the situation, but I'd say she's [probably] handling it really well," he said.

Others on the ship do not seem to be handling the situation so well.

Elderly and disabled passengers aboard the ship are struggling to cope with the worsening conditions, according to at least one passenger.

"Elderly and handicap are struggling, the smell is gross," passenger Ann Barlow text-messaged ABC News overnight. "Our room is leaking sewage."

The head of Carnival Cruise Lines said the British-U.S.-owned company was working hard to ensure the thousands of passengers stranded on the disabled ship were as comfortable as possible while the vessel was being towed to a port in Alabama.

"I need to apologize to our guests and to our families that have been affected by a very difficult situation," Carnival Cruise Lines president and CEO Gerry Cahill said at a news conference Tuesday evening.

It was the first time since a fire erupted in Triumph's engine room Sunday, knocking out its four engines, that a company representative had spoken publicly. The Triumph, with roughly 4,200 people on board, was left bobbing like a 100,000-ton cork for more than 24 hours. Giant sea-faring tugboats then hooked up to the ship and began towing the nearly 900-foot-long ship to land.

Carnival spokeswoman Joyce Oliva told The Associated Press Tuesday that a passenger with a pre-existing medical condition was taken off the ship as a precaution. Everyone else will likely have to weather conditions such as scarce running water, no air conditioning and long lines for food.

Back on land, passenger Barlow's 11-year-old twins told ABC News Tuesday they are worried as more passengers continue to talk about living with limited power and sanitation.

Read More..

Peru archeologists find ancient temple

LIMA: Peruvian archaeologists have discovered a temple believed to be about 5,000 years old at the ancient archaeological site of El Paraiso in a valley just north of Lima, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday.

If the date is confirmed, it would be among the oldest sites in the world, comparable to the ancient city of Caral, a coastal city some 200 kilometres (125 miles) to the north.

The discovery, dubbed the Temple of Fire, was found in one of the wings of El Paraiso's main pyramid. It includes a hearth that experts believe was used to burn ceremonial offerings.

"The smoke allowed the priests to connect with the gods," said Marco Guillen, who led the team of researchers who made the find.

Archaeologists found the hearth in mid-January as they were carrying out conservation work at a set of 4,000-year-old ruins known as El Paraiso, located some 40 kilometers northeast of Lima in the Chillon River Valley.

The discovery shows "that the Lima region was a focus of civilizations in the Andean territory," Deputy Culture Minister Rafael Varon told reporters.

Archaeologists believe the ancient coastal civilisations raised crops including cotton, which they traded with coastal fishermen for food.

El Paraiso, spread across 50 hectares (125 acres), has 10 buildings and is one of the largest ancient sites in central Peru.

-AFP/gn

Read More..

Haryana Roadways staff stir may hit 3500 govt buses too

CHANDIGARH: The call for the roadways employees' strike may hit the government transport services in Haryana on Wednesday.

All Haryana Roadways Workers Joint Action Committee, an umbrella body of two trade unions, has given the call for the strike to press the workers' demand of regularization of contractual staff and stop the process of giving 3519 permits to private bus operators in Haryana.

A senior leader of the committee, Dalbir Kirmara told the TOI that the committee has appealed to roadways employees, including drivers and conductors of 3500 government buses to remain off the road on Wednesday.

However, the state government has urged the employees not to resort to strike claiming that government has already accepted most of their demands and the remaining were being examined.

Read More..

Your Shot: Blizzard Photos From Our Readers

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Boston Seals

  Photograph by Sarah Burke, My Shot

  Last weekend’s blizzard left parts of the Northeast covered in 3 feet (0.9 meter) of snow. As people dug out, many answered our call to submit photos from the storm.

  There’s still time to submit your photos to National Geographic’s Your Shot; editors review all entries for possible publication in National Geographic magazine. Your photograph may also be included in our editors' pick of the Daily Dozen.

  Sarah Burke sent in this photo from Boston. She ventured out after the storm and captured these seals in a tank surrounded by snow.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Sledding in the Park

  Photograph by Elena Solomon, Your Shot

  In New York City Elena Soloman snapped a bright spot in snow-blanketed Central Park: a young girl on her sled.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Up on a Rooftop

  Photograph by Kelly Pourde, Your Shot

  The blizzard, dubbed "Nemo" by The Weather Channel, left snow piled high on the roof of Kelly Plourde’s Connecticut condo. She wrote that the wind-carved snow reminded her of "waves against the bright blue sky."

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Shaking It Off

  Photograph by Ashley Thompson, Your Shot

  Ashley Thompson’s dog, Zeppelin, shakes off snow after the blizzard visited New Jersey.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Change of Plans

  Photograph by Scotland Willis, Your Shot

  Photographer Scotland Willis caught this snowboarder on a makeshift mogul behind a shopping center in Boston. The man’s planned ski trip had been canceled due to the storm.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Central Park Snow

  Photograph by Casey Gomez, Your Shot

  In New York’s Central Park Casey Gomez captured a peaceful moment by the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Snowball Fight!

  Photograph by Dan Squire, Your Shot

  Dan Squire caught this post-storm action in Somerville, Massachusetts. "Residents celebrated the aftermath of Nemo with laughter, hot chocolate, snow sculptures, and of course," he wrote, "a huge snowball fight."

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Snow Day

  Photograph by Kelly Pourde, My Shot

  A snow pile makes the perfect slope for a bundled-up sledder. Kelly Plourde snapped this photo in Connecticut.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  

');

---

 $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_saleprice_t +'';
} else {
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
}
html += '

';

$("#ecom_43331 ul.ecommerce_all_img").append(html);




o.totItems++;

}// end for loop
} // end if data.response.numFound != 0

if(o.totItems != o.maxItems){
if(o.defaultItems.length > 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage && !o.searchComplete){
o.doSearchPage();
} else if(!o.searchComplete) {
o.byID = false;
o.doSearch();
}
}// end if
}// end parseResults function

o.trim = function(str) {
return str.replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '');
}

o.doSearchPage = function(){
o.byID = false;

var tempSearch = window.location.search;
var searchTerms ="default";
var temp;

if( tempSearch.substr(0,7) == "?search"){
temp = tempSearch.substr(7).split("&");
searchTerms = temp[0];
} else {
temp = tempSearch.split("&");
for(var j=0;j 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage){
o.doSearchPage();
} else {
o.doSearch();
}

}// end init function

}// end ecommerce object

var store_43331 = new ecommerce_43331();





store_43331.init();

Great Energy Challenge Blog

Read More..

Officer Dies After Dorner Shootout; Cabin on Fire

The remote California mountain cabin in which fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner has barricaded himself in tense standoff with police is on fire, following a shootout with police in which one officer was killed and another wounded.

Once the fire started, a single shot was heard from inside the cabin and then flames and a large column of black smoke were seen rising above the snow-covered trees near Big Bear, Calif., ABC station KABC-TV in Los Angeles reported.

Dorner is a former Navy marksman and Los Angeles Police Department officer charged with murdering a police officer and suspected in the deaths of two other people, including the daughter of a former LAPD captain, earlier this month.

Dozens of local, state and federal authorities are at the scene in the San Bernardino Mountains, and have the the cabin surrounded. Dorner has sworn to kill police and their family members in a manifesto discovered online last week.

FULL COVERAGE: Christopher Dorner Manhunt

The search for Dorner, one of the largest manhunts in recent memory, took a turn this afternoon when police received a call that a suspect resembling Dorner had broken into a home in the Big Bear area, taken hostages and stolen a car.

Police said the former cop, believed to be heavily armed and extremely dangerous, took two women hostage before stealing a car just around 12:20 p.m. PT, police said.

Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Police Exchange Fire With Possible Suspect Watch Video

Fugitive Ex-Cop Believed Barricaded in Cabin, California Cops Say Watch Video

The two hostages, who were tied up by Dorner but later escaped, were evaluated by paramedics and were determined to be uninjured.

Officials say Dorner crashed the stolen vehicle and fled on foot to the cabin where he barricaded himself and exchanged fire with deputies from the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office and state Fish and Game officers.

Two deputies were wounded in the firefight and airlifted to a nearby hospital, where one died, police said. The second deputy was in surgery and was expected to survive, police said.

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

Police have sealed all roads going into the area and imposed a no-fly zone above the cabin, nestled in a wooded area that has received several inches of snow in recent days.

Four Big Bear area schools were briefly placed on lockdown.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department stopped all traffic leaving the area and thoroughly searched vehicles, as SWAT team and tactical units could be seen driving toward the cabin, their sirens blaring.

Authorities say they believe Dorner may be watching reports of the standoff and have asked media not to broadcast images of police surrounding the cabin.

"If he's watching this, the message ... is: Enough is enough. It's time to turn yourself in. It's time to stop the bloodshed. It's time to let this event and let this incident be over," said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Andy Smith, told reporters at a press conference.

Dorner faces capital murder charges that involve the killing of Riverside police officer Michael Crain, who was gunned down in an ambush last Thursday.

Since then a massive manhunt has been under way, focused primarily in the San Bernardino Mountains, but extending to neighboring states and as far away as Mexico.

A capital murder charge could result in the death penalty if Dorner is captured alive and convicted. Crain was married with two children, aged 10 and 4.

Read More..