iNews Briefs
Taylor Swift spotted in Cayman Islands
Super duper star singer songwriter Taylor Swift was seen enjoying a meal in a restaurant in East End on Grand Cayman last Monday (5).
She arrived by private jet but it was only a fleeting visit as she returned to the USA the same day.
Swift is a seven time Grammy-winning artist.
CFU & UWI MOU signed at Congress will benefit Caribbean football
The Caribbean Football Union (CFU) President Gordon Derrick and University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus Head Coach Mr. Roland Butcher signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the XXXVII Ordinary Congress held in Sao Paulo Brazil on 9 June, 2014.
During the staging of the inaugural MLS/CFU Combine held in Antigua and Barbuda in January this year, the leadership of both entities commenced discussions to expand on existing developmental opportunities and the creation of new programmes to further broaden the educational scope for players from across the region. With this innovative collaboration, players at the University level will now have the additional opportunity to pursue a sports administrative programme at the University’s Cave Hill Campus.
The MOU which has an initial three year period will include principles on joint developments such as developing a new or utilize an existing sports administration programme at the UWI Cave Hill that can be used as certification for CFU Member Associations’ administrators. Facilitating the awarding of academic and/or athletic scholarships to qualifying students who wish to pursue any sports administrative programme at the UWI Cave /Hill.
It will also collaborate with the publication of material including books, research findings, journal articles, policy documents, et al on sports management and administration in general and football specifically.
The CFU President Gordon Derrick received resounding endorsements on this announcement from the thirty (30) of the thirty one (31) Member Associations represented at the Congress, which was another milestone for the current Executive Committee.
SOURCE: http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/sport/news/cfu-uwi-sign-mou-at-congress.aspx
Cayman Islands HSA to host free HIV testing every Tuesday
Free HIV tests
The Cayman Islands Health Service Authority (HSA) will host free and confidential HIV testing every Tuesday, starting January 13.
The tests will be conducted between 9:00 and 10:00 am at the Cayman Islands Red Cross.
Lionfish in the Eastern Caribbean by Owen
From S/V Strider “Not all who wander are lost”
When I got to Deshaies on Guadeloupe, my dad and I saw three lion fish swimming around the mooring block we tied onto. But those were not the first I have seen on my trip aboard Strider. The first one I saw was when I went to Barbuda, when I was exploring a reef off of Spanish Point. The lionfish that I saw was in a crevice in the coral. I was so exited that I yelled, “lionfish”! As soon as I said that word, my sister screamed. I was so exited about the fish that I gave it a name, Spike. The reason I named him that is because I was so impressed with his fins and I thought his spikes were really cool. A lionfish is a type of fish that you don’t want to startle or touch. Their bodes are dark red with white zebra stripes, and they are covered with a layer of point like fins. These fins have venom in them, which ejects when touched. They are also not as slow or clumsy as they look. They are actually quite fast. But they are only fast for a short distance, which makes them easy to keep up with. When they swim fast, it is more like they are darting than swimming. These types of fish live in deep crevices in coral and rocks, which makes them difficult to spot.
Lionfish are an invasive species and we should do something about them. This type of fish was originally found in the Pacific Ocean, but it has spread, and they are now found throughout the Caribbean Sea, into the Gulf of Mexico and all the way up the East Coast as far north as Chesapeake Bay. They have also found a few of them in Connecticut and Rhode Island! The reason we need to do something about them is because lionfish have no natural predators and they eat any other fish up to 2/3rds of their own size. Since they have no predators, their populations is expanding and they are out competing other fish in the contest for food. If this continues, the lionfish will break the food eating world record, and other fish species will go extinct. I feel bad for the lionfish because people have been asked to kill them whenever they see them. If you are trying to kill one, I recommend going up quietly and using a long weapon. I would not advise trying to kill one with a weapon like a dagger. And most importantly, look out for the spikes. Would you like me to tell you what happens when you touch them? Ok, when touched, the spikes are not the only thing that causes injury. The venom also can cause nausea and breathing difficulties, but it is rarely fatal.
In the end, we know what will happen. Either lionfish will take over, or we will stop them. Since I am living on a boat, my family and I go out and explore lots of different reefs. And every place we go, when we go to a reef, I always look for lionfish and enjoy them because they look so much different from most of the fish I’ve seen. But I also think this…. It will be very hard to do something about them with so many and since they are hard to spot. But with the right gear and the right strategy, I know that there might be a way.
Here is a picture of lionfish that looks like Spike
For more: http://svstrider.org/2014/12/30/lionfish/
Cayman Islands beauty pageant to take place Jan 31
The 2015 “Miss Cayman Beauty on Ice Pageant” has been scheduled for 7 p.m. Jan. 31 at the Lions Centre.
This will be the first Miss Cayman beauty pageant staged in the Cayman Islands for two years.
The contestants are: Anika Conolly, Tonie Chisholm, Jenique Smith, Stephanie Scott, Latrese Haylock, Mahalia Seymour, Schilo Scott, Kamala Murugesu, Emily Bodden and Adrianna Christian.
Voting is open for the public’s favorite beauty queen in the People’s Choice Award category.
Visit www.misscaymanpageant.com, click “contestant profile.” and then click the voting link. Two voting categories are available.
The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be announced during the Miss Cayman pageant, and the winner will receive a prize and trophy.
Court lets stand injunction against Arizona abortion limits
By Marcia Coyle, From Supreme Court Brief
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to step into the legal battle over Arizona’s law regulating drug-induced abortions.
In Humble v. Planned Parenthood Arizona, the justices, without comment, refused to review the state’s appeal of a preliminary injunction blocking the medication abortion law enacted in April 2012.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, along with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, challenged the law in federal district court in March on behalf of Planned Parenthood Arizona and the Tucson Women’s Center. They argued that the law banned all medication abortions because it requires physicians to comply with the protocol on the labeling instructions approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The two drugs most commonly used in nonsurgical abortions are mifepristone and misoprostol. Only mifepristone has a medication abortion protocol; misoprostol does not.
Because the Arizona law requires all abortion-inducing medications to be used as described on the label “for that medication,” the challengers told the high court, “The law prohibits the use of misoprostol in medication abortion, thereby banning the procedure altogether.”
The federal district court denied a preliminary injunction, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted it in June, ruling that the law imposes an undue burden on women’s access to abortion.
In the high court, Arizona argued that there was a conflict among the circuit courts over the standard for evaluating abortion regulations. “Facing comparable substantive due process challenges to comparable medication abortion laws, the circuits have split based on their different interpretations of the undue-burden standard,” Arizona senior litigation counsel Michael Tryon wrote.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards said in a written statement Monday: “The court did the right thing today, but this dangerous and misguided law should never have passed in the first place. Politicians are not medical experts—but politicians have written this law with the ultimate goal of making safe, legal abortion hard or even impossible to access. We are pleased that the courts are recognizing that these unconstitutional laws hurt women and block access to safe medical care.”
In December 2013, the justices declined to review a similar law in Cline v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice. The Oklahoma Supreme Court had invalidated restrictions nearly identical to the Arizona law.
Caribbean Film Project call for submissions
By The Caribbean Film Academy (CaFA)
Caribbean-film.jpg
The Caribbean Film Academy (CaFA) and its partners – Groundation Grenada, Audiovisual Society of Dominica, ChantiMedia and SASOD Guyana – is set to launch Caribbean Film Project, an initiative which aims to showcase the talent of unknown and emerging writers in the Caribbean and Diaspora.
Through Caribbean Film Project, CaFA and its partners will not only tackle storytelling in films coming out of the Caribbean, but will provide an opportunity for Diaspora filmmakers to have their work included in a Caribbean film compilation. The initiative will focus on assisting in the production of films in countries which have mostly been absent from the current Caribbean filmmaking renaissance – Dominica, Guyana, Grenada, and St. Kitts & Nevis, as well as Caribbean filmmakers in the Diaspora.
Caribbean Film Project will be run as a script competition open for entries from January – February 2015. The winner from each country will be paired with a coach who will work with the writer to make their script production-ready. With the help of each producing partner, the films will then be produced. CaFA plans to raise the funds needed for the project through sponsorship, fundraisers and crowd-funding.
This focus on writing is long overdue, according to CaFA’s Co-Founder, Romola Lucas, who has led the effort to organize this new project. She says, “Spurred by the availability and increasing affordability of filmmaking equipment, the Caribbean is currently experiencing a surge in filmmaking. More and more people, who may never have considered filmmaking an option are making films encouraged by new opportunities to have their work screened at the growing number of Caribbean film festivals. Many of the films are excellent – well-written, professionally produced, and visually appealing. However, there are many others which suffer from technical issues and incomplete storytelling.”
“From our perspective, well-written stories underpin every sustainable film movement, and in order for Caribbean storytellers to be counted among the best in the world, specific focus and attention must be given to the development of great writers,” Lucas continues.
The Film Project competition is open to writers/filmmakers who are residents/nationals of Dominica, Guyana, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and to those of Caribbean descent/heritage living in the Diaspora and writing Caribbean stories. Submissions open on Friday, January 2, 2015 and close Friday, February, 28, 2015. To learn more about the Project and submit a script, visit www.caribbeanfilm.org or email us at [email protected]
Maker movement may be the cure for our disposable times
By Terrence O’Brien From engadtet
It’s no secret that we live in an increasingly disposable world. Where once we would spend hours or even days repairing and customizing our gadgets and home appliances, now we just replace them when something breaks or fails to live up to expectations. Danielle George, professor of radio frequency engineering at the University of Manchester, may sound like a bit of a crank when she complains that people under 40 expect everything to “just work,” but she has a point. If your Nexus 4 starts seeming a little slow, most people don’t wipe it out to get a fresh start or install a lightweight ROM. They just go out and buy the Nexus 6. If your laptop battery barely lasts an hour, you don’t crack open your MacBook Air and swap in a new one; you use it as an excuse to pick up the latest generation of Apple’s ultra-light machine.
To be fair, many of our modern gadgets are either too complex for the average person to repair or were designed specifically to discourage users from servicing their devices. But this has led to a world drowning in a sea of discarded electronics. While governments, NGOs and companies have stepped up to try and fight the problem, consumers can help simply by repurposing their aging gear. And that’s where the ever-growing maker movement comes in. Professor George is giving a series of lectures at the Royal Institution in Britain encouraging people to breathe new life into their goods through good ol’ ingenuity.
The series is called, Sparks will fly: How to hack your home and includes lessons on building a projector with just a smartphone, a shoe box and a magnifying glass, as well as turning a water bottle into a lamp. Sure, it’s not quite as helpful as learning to replace a cracked iPhone screen, but it’s also less intimidating. (By the way, if you want to replace a cracked iPhone screen, iFixit is home to plenty of helpful guides.) The goal is not to convince everyone to suddenly stop buying new gadgets, but simply to help “young people to realize that that they have the power to change the world right from their bedroom, kitchen table or garden shed.” And maybe, once they realize they don’t need to drop several hundred dollars on a high-end projector, convincing them to turn that seven-year-old laptop into a perfectly serviceable home theater PC will be much easier.
IMAGE: E-Waste Market Stalls, Dumping And Household-Style Recycling [Image courtesy of Bloomberg via Getty Images]
For more on this story go to: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/29/the-cure-for-our-disposable-times/?ncid=rss_truncated
A hacker says he can recreate fingerprints from photographs
By Pierre Bienaimé From Business Insider
A speaker at a yearly hacking conference in Germany has claimed the ability to recreate someone’s fingerprints using just photographs of their fingers, as reported by the BBC.
This capability would highlight the compromised nature of replacing passwords with fingerprints, which is already seen by experts as far from fully secure.
In his talk at the Chaos Communications Congress — put on by Europe’s largest hacker organization — Jan Krissler said he used a high-profile target for his attempt: German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen.
Krissler, also known by the pseudonym “Starbug,” used several close-range photos from a “standard photo camera” of von der Leyen’s hand from a few angles before creating an image of her thumbprint via VeriFinger, a software program used to read fingerprints.
Krissler has poked holes in biometric security before, with demonstrations of facial recognition technology fooled by a subject’s photograph, and even by highlighting the possibility of reading PIN codes from the reflections in a phone user’s eyes.
German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen looks through a measuring device during a tour of Camp Shaheen in Afghanistan, on Dec. 13, 2014.
Brian Roemelle, a blogger who often writes about Apple’s Touch ID, applauds any hacker’s demonstrations of safety failures. “They bring attention to a lot of thing that move our society forward when it comes to security,” he told Business Insider.
But he also thinks it’s unreasonable to fear that fingerprint safety will be made obsolete (or that, as Krissler suggests, politicians might start covering up with gloves) simply because there are lots of photos of high-profile individuals floating around the Internet. “I think it’s more practical for me to get a fingerprint off the glass of some celebrity or some famous person,” he said.
More importantly, Roemelle thinks biometric technology will keep evolving as hacking opportunities arise.
“Technology will move forward as these hacks become more prevalent,” whether in the form of further refinements to fingerprint ID technology or to biometric solutions keyed to other parts of the human body, like one’s heartbeat.
For more on this story go to: http://www.businessinsider.com/hacker-says-he-can-recreate-fingerprints-2014-12#ixzz3Nb7F4n5m
See also iNews Cayman story “After hacker clones politician’s fingerprint, can we trust biometric security?” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/after-hacker-clones-politicians-fingerprint-can-we-trust-biometric-security/
After the hype: here’s what the Internet thinks of ‘The Interview’
From engadget
So you resisted the pressure to watch The Interview the second it became available, and you’re not willing to rely on one review to decide whether it’s really worth a download or theater trip just to stick it to hackers. No worries — we’ve rounded up some of the more prominent reviews to give you a sense of whether or not the North Korean adventures of Franco and Rogen are any good. You may already have a sense of how well this over-the-top comedy fares, but don’t be too quick to judge. You might find a few reasons to shell out some cash (or at least wait for that rumored Netflix release) to see The Interview, even if it’s far from a cinematic masterpiece.
Blu-ray.com: This “isn’t a dangerous movie,” but rather “a silly one” — while it does its best to relax you, it “deserves a sharper edge of satire” that jabs both the media’s hollowness and North Korea.
IGN: The movie is “often childish” and isn’t going to stand out as one of the “shrewdest political satires” you’ve ever seen, but it’s “chuckle-worthy” if you like Rogen movies such as This Is The End.
The Mary Sue: The movie leans too much on its premise for the humor. It’s admirable if you watch The Interview “on principle,” but it’s “only occasionally funny” and doesn’t do much to comment on the CIA, the media or North Korea.
Rolling Stone: Peter Travers finds that the movie is “killer funny,” and that you “can’t help rooting for it” even when the jokes don’t work. With that said, he doesn’t think that The Interview (or any political satire, for that matter) can “carry the burden” of championing free speech.
The Verge: This is a classic “emperor-has-no-clothes situation,” Emily Yoshida says; the movie just wasn’t going to live up to the hype. It’s bad enough to be “self-parody,” and both the Asian and women characters are one-dimensional. You’re not doing much to promote free speech by watching.
Time: You shouldn’t expect “cogent political satire” from this “hit-or-miss” flick, but it’s ironic that North Korea doesn’t like the movie — the most complex and sympathy-inducing character is ruler Kim Jong-un, who switches between “charm and menace.”
Variety: Don’t expect kind words from Variety contributor Scott Foundas. He calls it a “terror attack” on anyone who isn’t a fan of toilet humor, and it feels like an underdeveloped concept.
Wall Street Journal: The movie falls apart after the opening scene. While it makes fun of Hollywood’s vacuous productions, it reflects a “dumbing-down” in American culture that turns a potential satire into “sour buffoonery.”
IMAGE: The Interview’s’ depiction of Kim Jong-un
For more on this story go to: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/27/the-interview-review-roundup/?ncid=rss_truncated
Order paves way for Aereo asset sale
By Scott Flaherty, From The Litigation Daily
Thanks to an agreement reached last week, defunct television streaming company Aereo Inc. will be able to begin auctioning off its assets. But the TV broadcasters whose copyright claims drove Aereo into bankruptcy will be paying close attention as bidders pick over the company’s carcass.
On Dec. 24, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in Manhattan approved a proposed asset sale after Aereo reached an agreement with ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and other broadcasters that had tried to block the sale process.
Aereo, a startup that allowed users to stream and store broadcast television using tiny remote antennas, filed for Chapter 11 in November, after the U.S. Supreme Court found that the company’s business model amounted to wholesale copyright infringement. Aereo shut down its streaming service shortly after the high court ruled in June.
Lawyers for Fox at Jenner & Block and counsel for ABC and CBS at Debevoise & Plimpton had joined the other broadcasters in seeking to block any asset sale until their copyright lawsuit against Aereo wraps up, warning that Aereo’s technology might still be used for infringing activities. Brown Rudnick’s William Baldiga, who serves as Aereo’s debtor’s counsel, has rejected that argument, saying there isn’t any real threat of continuing infringement.
The two sides have since reached a partial détente, according to the bankruptcy judge’s Dec. 24 order. Under its agreement with the broadcasters, Aereo will provide weekly status updates on the asset sale process, including which assets have been offered for sale and how many bidders have signed nondisclosure pacts. The broadcasters and their lawyers will also be allowed to attend the auctions.
The broadcasters have separately asked the bankruptcy court for relief from a litigation hold set off by Aereo’s Chapter 11 filing, and they’re seeking to move their fight with Aereo back to district court. Before the bankruptcy kicked off, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan was still weighing key issues in the copyright suit in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, including the amount Aereo may owe in damages. The bankruptcy judge’s ruling doesn’t appear to resolve the broadcasters’ attempts to lift the automatic bankruptcy stay and restart the district court case.
Representatives for the broadcasters didn’t immediately get back to us on Monday. Brown Rudnick’s Baldiga wasn’t immediately available.
http://www.litigationdaily.com/id=1202713581241/Order-Paves-Way-for-Aereo-Asset-Sale#ixzz3NNn4jTnI
See iNews Cayman related story published December 182014 “Broadcasters pursue Aereo in bankruptcy tug-of-war” with links to other Aereo stories go to: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/broadcasters-pursue-aereo-in-bankruptcy-tug-of-war/
Unusual X-ray signals could reveal dark matter
By Mariella Moon From engadget
Dark matter remains one of the most mysterious elements of the universe, because it’s completely invisible to us. It neither emits nor absorbs light, so we can’t observe it directly — not even if we use our most powerful telescope. A team of researchers believe that they’ve come across important data that could change that, though: data that could lead to equipment being built especially to observe dark matter. While studying the X-ray data collected by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton spacecraft, the team came across a spike they couldn’t identify. This signal, which came from the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster, matched no other signal scientists have observed before.
“The signal’s distribution within the galaxy corresponds exactly to what we were expecting with dark matter — that is, concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges,” said one of the researchers, Oleg Ruchayskiy of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Even if we can’t see it (researchers have estimated how quickly it can move, though) scientists know dark matter exists due to its gravitational pull on other celestial objects. In fact, they believe it comprises over 80 percent of the universe.
If this strange X-ray spike really does correspond to dark matter, then we’ll now know where to look and what to look for to observe it. The team’s lead researcher, Alexey Boyarsky from EPFL and Leiden University in the Netherlands, believes its confirmation could lead to the “construction of new telescopes specially designed for studying the signals from dark matter particles.” His team wasn’t the only one to notice strange spikes in the X-ray data from ESA’s XMM-Newton spacecraft, though. A separate group of Harvard researchers came across similar signals while focusing on results from the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster (this team focused on data from the outside).
That said, both groups think it’s still too early to tell whether they’ve really hit jackpot (and some are already confident that they haven’t). The European team is still working to ensure that the signal didn’t come from another source and will publish the results in a paper next week. For now, scientific types who love graphs, data and mathematical equations can read the team’s study in its pre-published state.
[Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/E.Bulbul, et al.]
For more on this story go to: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/13/x-ray-signals-dark-matter/?ncid=rss_truncated
Attorney sues firm over alleged race discrimination
By Katelyn Polantz, From Legal Times,
A former project attorney at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has sued the firm for racial discrimination after it cut his job while his white colleagues avoided furloughs and layoffs.
Lyle Silva, a 41-year-old lawyer from Bowie, Md., who is black, took a job as an at-will lawyer with Cleary’s Washington office in mid-2011 and worked there for about a year, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in Washington federal district court.
Silva’s legal projects involved a banking regulation matter and a federal investigation into a West Virginia coal mine explosion. Silva said he received positive feedback throughout his time at the firm—even written ‘thank you’ notes and praise from his supervisor and a $2,500 bonus at the end of 2011.
The coal mine-related work ended at the firm in July 2012, the complaint said, and Silva would need a new assignment. Instead, he and another project attorney, a Hispanic woman, were furloughed.
Within two weeks, the firm had cut Silva’s and the female attorney’s positions, the lawsuit said. The firm reassigned project attorneys who were white to new tasks within the firm, Silva said.
Delante Stevens, the Cleary staff attorney who hired him, and senior attorney Tom Hall broke the news to Silva over a conference call. They told him that his performance at work wasn’t an issue, according to the complaint.
But Silva said in a phone interview with the National Law Journal on Wednesday that superiors at Cleary first based their decision to cut him on his results in an essay test, called a “privilege exam,” that they had given him during the hiring process.
Staff attorney supervisors and spokespeople at Cleary could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Silva, representing himself, asks for compensation for his lost pay, benefits and damages including for the lack of career advancement opportunities.
Silva declined to say whether he’s currently employed as an attorney at a different law practice, though he said he still works in the legal industry.
The suit pokes at the sore spot that’s formed between some large corporate law firms and their low-level attorneys, who are often contractors or temporary workers. The at-will employees have had few successes in the court system with employment law complaints.
For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202713401003/Former-Cleary-Project-Attorney-Sues-Firm-Over-Alleged-Race-Discrimination#ixzz3NLHwvtD2
SAD! Youngest person executed in US cleared of murder – 70 years after his death
From Peacefm
Injustice: George Stinney Jr appears in his police booking photo aged just 14
A teenage boy convicted of murdering two young girls has been exonerated – 70 years after he was executed for the crime.
George Stinney Jr was just 14 when he was sentenced to death over the killing of two white girls, aged 11 and seven.
He became the youngest person in the 20th Century to be executed in the US.
But 70 years on a US judge in South Carolina has thrown out the black teen’s conviction on the basis he was wronged by the justice system.
The ruling has been welcomed by Stinney Jr’s family and civil rights activists who campaigned for years. However it has come too late for the teen, who would be 84 today.When he was executed in 1944, Stinney was so short he had to sit on a phone book so he would fit on the electric chair and one of the electrodes was too big for his leg.
The young lad was living with his family in Alcolu, South Carolina, when he was accused of murdering Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, seven, on March 23, 1944.The girls had vanished after going on a bike ride together and their bodies were found the next morning. Both of them had been violently beaten to death with a railroad spike.
Witnesses claimed to see Stinney Jr picking flowers with the young victims before they were found dead.
He admitted to the crime during interrogation by police after being separated from his parents.
He was found guilty by an all-male, all-white jury who deliberated for less than 10 minutes after a trial that lasted less than a day. He was later denied appeal.On Wednesday Judge Carmen Mullins based her ruling on how the justice system treated the boy and said he had not been properly defended by his attorney.
She also pointed out his confession to police was likely coerced and there was no physical evidence linking him to the double murder.
She said: “From time to time we are called to look back to examine our still-recent history and correct injustice where possible.
“I can think of no greater injustice than a violation of one’s constitutional rights, which has been proven to me in this case by a preponderance of the evidence standard.”
She also labelled executing a 14-year-old boy as cruel and unusual punishment.
One of Stinney Jr’s two sisters Amie Ruffner, 78, said: “They took my brother away and I never saw my mother laugh again.”
Appealing his innocence, Stinney Jr’s brother testified he had spent the day with the teenager of the day the girls were murdered.
Source: The Mirror
For more: http://news.peacefmonline.com/pages/news/201412/226256.php
Report: Envoy Air, ExpressJet more likely to lose your bags; Virgin, Frontier least likely
By Ashlee Kieler From Consumerist
Each time I check my suitcase before hopping a flight, I say a little prayer that my things will make to my final destination. Luckily for me, I’ve had few issues with checked baggage (knock on wood), but thousands of other passengers haven’t been so fortunate. In fact, a new report from the U.S. Department of Transportation reveals that more than 1.6 million consumers have filed mishandled baggage reports in the first nine months of 2014. So, is there one airline that’s more apt to lose your luggage? Probably.
The Washington Post reports that according to the DOT data [PDF], some airlines were more likely than others to separate travelers and their belongings so far this year.
The passengers who filed mishandled baggage reports – those pertaining to lost luggage on domestic U.S. airline flights – most often used smaller, regional airlines, such as Envoy Air and ExpressJet Airlines.
Mishandled baggage from January to September 2014. [Click to Enlarge]
Mishandled baggage from January to September 2014. [Click to Enlarge]
Top of the list for airlines that mishandle bags was Envoy Air, a regional airline owned by American Airlines Group. Data from the DOT shows that the Envoy mishandles nine bags for every 1,000 passengers that fly the airline.
Next up is ExpressJet Airlines, a smaller airline owned by SkyWest Airlines, with roughly six bags out of every 1,000 passengers having been mishandled. SkyWest itself comes in third with just under five bags per 1,000 customers being mishandled.
Some of the U.S.’s larger airlines – Southwest, American Airlines and United Airlines – make an appearance on the list starting at number four. Each airline reportedly mishandles about four bags for every 1,000 passengers it records.
Which airlines are less likely to lose your bags if the U.S. DOT data is to be any indicator? That would be Virgin America, which mishandles less than one bag per 1,000 passengers, and Frontier Airlines, with about one and a half bags mishandled per customer.
According to the Post, the latest figures, while enlightening, probably don’t provide the clearest outlook on mishandled bags, as it likely underestimates the actual rates.
The figures could appear to be lower-than-actuality since they are calculated by using the total number of passengers traveling, and not just the portion who have checked their bags.
But even if you’re one of the unfortunate travelers who can’t seem to find their suitcase at baggage claim, all is not lost. Just remember the case of an Arizona woman who got a call that her belongings were found nearly 20 years after it was lost.
