WikiLeaks founder granted extradition appeal in UK

FILE - This is a Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 file photo of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he talks during a news conference in central London. As the suspected source for the biggest leak of intelligence material in American history faces his first hearing Friday Dec. 15 ,2011, U.S. prosecutors have their eye on another prize: The man who disclosed the documents to the world. When WikiLeaks' spectacular disclosures of U.S. secrets exploded onto the scene last year, much of Washington's anger coalesced around Julian Assange, the silver-haired globe-trotting figure whose outspoken defiance of the Pentagon and the State Department riled politicians on both sides of the aisle. Pfc. Bradley Manning, long under lock and key, hasn't attracted the same level of ire. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

FILE - This is a Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 file photo of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he talks during a news conference in central London. As the suspected source for the biggest leak of intelligence material in American history faces his first hearing Friday Dec. 15 ,2011, U.S. prosecutors have their eye on another prize: The man who disclosed the documents to the world. When WikiLeaks' spectacular disclosures of U.S. secrets exploded onto the scene last year, much of Washington's anger coalesced around Julian Assange, the silver-haired globe-trotting figure whose outspoken defiance of the Pentagon and the State Department riled politicians on both sides of the aisle. Pfc. Bradley Manning, long under lock and key, hasn't attracted the same level of ire. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

LONDON (AP) ? Britain's Supreme Court said Friday it had agreed to hear WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appeal against extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations.

The court said a panel of three judges had considered a written submission and granted a two-day appeal beginning on Feb. 1, meaning there is no prospect of Assange being sent to Stockholm until at least next year.

In a statement, the court said it had "decided that seven justices will hear the appeal given the great public importance of the issue raised, which is whether a prosecutor is a judicial authority."

Assange's legal team argue that police and prosecutors ? like the Swedish prosecutor seeking to bring Assange back to the country for questioning ? are not a proper judicial authority, and shouldn't have the right to order extraditions.

Earlier this month, High Court judges John Thomas and Duncan Ouseley said Assange could apply to the Supreme Court to argue that point and seek to prove that Europe's process of carrying out extradition was flawed.

However, Thomas warned Assange that his chance of success "may be extraordinarily slim."

Assange ? who leads the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website ? was accused of rape, coercion and molestation following encounters with two Swedish women in August 2010. Swedish authorities issued a European Arrest Warrant on rape and molestation accusations, and Assange was arrested in London in December 2010.

The 40-year-old denies wrongdoing and is currently held on bail on the condition that he lives under curfew at a supporter's country estate in eastern England and wears an electronic tag.

Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer in Sweden representing the two women, said the decision would cause more strain for his clients ? and predicted Assange would eventually face extradition.

"It is stressful for my clients that there is yet another extension," Borgstrom told AP by telephone.

"I assume that the Supreme Court will rule that Assange should be extradited according to the European Arrest warrant. If not, you can scrap it," he said.

In a hearing in London in February, Judge Howard Riddle had ruled that Assange can be extradited to Sweden to face questions about the allegations, rejecting his claims that he would not receive a fair trial there.

Assange appealed to the High Court, and will now take his legal battle to the country's highest legal authority, the Supreme Court. The hearing will be his last avenue in Britain to avoid extradition, though lawyers have said they could consider a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

___

Associated Press writer Karl Ritter in Stockhom contributed to this report

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-16-EU-WikiLeaks/id-ed8446e70ce24849801be5bb417b9067

kawasaki disease joe frazier where do i vote wheel of fortune today show smokin joe conrad murray verdict

New Paraguay police chief to focus on rebels (AP)

ASUNCION, Paraguay ? Paraguay's new police commissioner says he'll be focusing on quelling a guerrilla conflict in the north of the South American country.

Pablino Rojas says the struggle against the Paraguayan People's Army is meant to "return the tranquility of the citizenry."

Officials say the rebel group probably has no more than 40 members, but Rojas' comments demonstrate the concern it has caused. The group has attacked soldiers, kidnapped landowners and practiced extortion.

Rojas made the comments as he was sworn into his post on Friday.

Anti-kidnapping prosecutor Sandra Quinonez says the rebels were formed about 10 years ago and are supported by some small villages. She says they have received training from Colombian rebels.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_paraguay_guerrillas

graham spanier penn state board of trustees joe pa joe pa brett ratner jerry sandusky toyota recall

Close family ties keep microbial cheaters in check, study finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) ? Any multicellular animal, from a blue whale to a human being, poses a special challenge for evolution.

Most of the cells in its body will die without reproducing; only a privileged few will pass their genes to the next generation.

How could the extreme degree of cooperation required by multicellular existence actually evolve? Why aren't all creatures unicellular individualists determined to pass on their own genes?

Joan Strassmann and David Queller, evolutionary biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, provide an answer in this week's issue of the journal Science.

Experiments with amoebae that usually live as individuals, but must also join with others to form multicellular bodies to complete their life cycles, show that cooperation depends on kinship.

If amoebae occur in well-mixed cosmopolitan groups, cheaters will always be able to thrive by free-loading on their cooperative neighbors.

But if groups derive from a single cell, cheaters will usually occur in all-cheater groups and will have no cooperators to exploit.

The only exceptions are brand new cheater mutants in all-cooperator groups, and these could pose a problem if the mutation rate is high enough and there are many cells in the group to mutate.

The scientists calculated just how many times amoebae that arose from a single cell can safely divide before cooperation degenerates into a free-for-all.

The answer turns out to be 100 generations or more.

Population bottlenecks that kill off diversity and restart the population from a single cell are powerful stabilizers of cellular cooperation, the scientists conclude.

"The leap from single-celled organisms to multicelled ones was a critical step in the history of life that paved the way for the world's plants and animals, including humans," says Sam Scheiner, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research. "This study provides important clues that about the conditions necessary for that leap."

Queller and Strassmann moved to Washington University from Rice University this summer, bringing a truckload of frozen spores with them.

Although they had worked for years with wasps and stingless bees, Queller and Strassmann's current "lab rat" is the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, known as Dicty for short.

The social amoebae, better known as "slime mold," can be found almost everywhere: in Antarctica, in deserts, in the canopies of tropical forests and in Forest Park, the urban park that adjoins Washington University.

The amoebae spend most of their lives as tiny blobs crawling through soil looking for E. coli and other bacteria to eat.

Things become interesting when bacteria are scarce and the amoebae begin to starve. Then they release chemicals that attract other amoebae, which follow this trail until they bump into one another.

A mound of some 10,000 amoebae forms and elongates into a slug a few millimeters long that crawls forward, but not backward, toward heat and light.

The slug stops moving when it has reached a suitable place for dispersal. Then the front 20 percent of the amoebae die to produce a stalk that the remaining cells flow up to become spores.

The 20 percent of the amoebae in the stalk sacrifice their genes so the other 80 percent can pass theirs on.

When Strassmann and Queller began to work with Dicty, one of the first things they discovered was that the amoebae sometimes cheat.

Scientist Dennis Welker of Utah State University had given them a genetically diverse collection of wild-caught clones--genetically identical amoebae.

They mixed amoebae from two clones together, then examined the fruiting bodies to see where the clones ended up.

Each fruiting body included cells from both clones, but some clones contributed disproportionately to the spore body. They had cheated.

How can a blob of cytoplasm cheat? In more ways than you'd think.

"They might," says Queller, "have a mutation that makes an adhesion molecule less sticky, for example, so that they slide to the back of the slug, the part that forms spores."

"But there are tradeoffs," says Strassmann, "because if you're too slippery, you'll fall off the slug and lose all the advantages of being part of group."

Strassmann and Queller wondered if it would be possible to break the social contract among the amoebae by setting up conditions where relatedness was low, and each clonal lineage encountered mostly strangers and rarely relatives.

Together with then graduate student Jennie Kuzdzal-Fick, they set up an experiment to learn what happened to cheating as heterogeneous (low relatedness) populations of amoebae evolved.

"At the end of the experiment we assessed the cheating ability of the descendants by mixing equal numbers of descendants and ancestors, and checking to see whether the descendants ended up in the stalks or the spores of the fruiting bodies," says Strassmann.

They found that in nearly all cases the descendants cheated their ancestors. What's more, when descendant amoebae were grown as individual clones, about a third were unable to form fruiting bodies.

Many of the mutants, in other words, were "obligate" cheaters. Having lost the ability to form their own fruiting bodies, they were able to survive only by free-loading, or taking advantage of the amoebae that had retained the ability to cooperate.

This result, Queller and Strassmann say, shows that cheater mutations that threaten multicellularity occur naturally and are even favored--as long as the population of amoebae remains genetically diverse.

But the scientists were aware that obligate cheaters are either very rare or altogether missing among wild social amoebae. They had not found any obligate cheaters in the more than 2,000 wild clones they sampled.

They also knew that in the wild, the amoebae in fruiting bodies are close kin if not clones.

What prevents cooperation in wild populations from degenerating into the laboratory free-for-all?

Could the difference be that the amoebae in the laboratory were distant relations and those in the wild are kissing kin?

Suppose, the scientists thought, one amoeba ventured alone into a pristine field of bacteria.

As it grew and multiplied, making copies of itself, how long would it take for cheating mutations to appear or what was the mutation rate? Additionally, how successfully would these mutations proliferate--how strongly would they be selected?

To establish the mutation rate, Strassmann and Queller along with graduate student Sara Fox ran what's called a mutation accumulation experiment.

In this experiment, amoebae that mutated didn't have to compete against amoebae that were faithful replicators.

In the absence of selection, all but the most severe mutations were also reproduced and became a permanent part of the lineage's genome.

The scientists allowed 90 different lines of amoebae to accumulate mutations in this way.

"At the end," says Queller, "we found that among those 90 lines not a single one had lost the ability to fruit. So that's almost 100 lines, almost a thousand generations and 100,000 opportunities, to lose fruiting and none of them did.

"That allowed us, using statistics, to put an upper limit on the rate at which mutations turn a cooperator into an obligate cheater."

The rate was low enough that if fruiting bodies were forming in the wild from amoebae that were all descended from one spore, cheating would never be an issue.

But the scientists wanted to ask another, bigger question.

They used calculations invented for population genetics to ask how many times the amoeba could divide--theoretically--before cheating became a problem.

What if, they asked, "we let an initial single amoebae divide enough times so there would be as many of them as there are cells in a fruit fly, then transferred one amoeba and allowed it to divide until the daughter colony reached fruit fly size, and so on?

"What if we let the colonies grow to human size? To elephant size? To blue whale size? Would the cheaters bring down the whale-sized Dicty colony?"

The answer, it turned out, was no.

A whale-sized Dicty colony is not the same thing as a whale, but nonetheless the experiments suggest how organisms, over the course of evolution, have sidestepped the cheating trap and maintained the levels of cooperation multicellular bodies demand.

"A multicellular body like the human body is an incredibly cooperative thing," Queller says, "and sociobiologists have learned that really cooperative things are hard to evolve because of the potential for cheating.

"It's the single-cell bottleneck,"he says, "that generates the high relatedness among the cells that allows them to cooperate."

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Science Foundation.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. J. J. Kuzdzal-Fick, S. A. Fox, J. E. Strassmann, D. C. Queller. High Relatedness Is Necessary and Sufficient to Maintain Multicellularity in Dictyostelium. Science, 2011; 334 (6062): 1548 DOI: 10.1126/science.1213272

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/xhM6ZKGsntk/111216112901.htm

zynga stock sam houston state university sam houston state university bradley manning whoopi goldberg tebowing tebowing

PFT: Bears' Hurd's clients reportedly NFL players

Getty Images

I?ve had a chance to fully digest the five-page criminal complaint filed today against Bears receiver Sam Hurd.? The document reveals that Hurd submitted to a consensual interview with federal authorities in July 2011 ? but Hurd allegedly kept on buying and selling cocaine and marijuana, in large amounts.

On July 27, a person known only as T.L. allegedly was attempting to purchase four kilograms of cocaine on behalf of Hurd.? T.L. wanted to buy the cocaine at an early hour, because Hurd would be taking it to a ?northern destination.?

Coincidentally ? or otherwise ? Hurd signed with the Bears on July 29.? Training camp opened in Illinois on July 30.

After a confidential informant arranged to sell the cocaine to T.L., but before the transaction was completed, the authorities arranged a routine traffic stop, at which time $88,000 was seized.? T.L. told authorities that the car and the money belonged to Hurd.

On July 28, one day before the Bears gave Hurd a $1.35 million signing bonus as part of a three-year contract, Hurd engaged in a consensual interview with federal authorities, in an effort to recover his $88,000.? Hurd said he had conducted bank withdrawals and wire transfers, and that T.L. had the car containing the money because T.L. was performing maintenance and detailing on the vehicle.

Hurd provided federal authorities with a bank statement reflecting the withdrawals.? The statement and the amounts allegedly did not match.

At that point, a normal person would have been scared straight.? (Then again, a normal person would never have been trying to buy four kilograms of cocaine.)? Roughly two weeks later, however, T.L. negotiated with the same informant the purchase of five kilograms of cocaine on behalf of Hurd.? The discussions apparently continued in early September, but the transaction apparently was not consummated at the time.

Then, in early December, T.L. told the informant that Hurd wanted to meet personally with the informant to discuss further business.? Conversations between T.L. and the informant culminated in Wednesday?s meeting at Morton?s Steakhouse in Rosemont.? At the meeting, Hurd told the informant and an undercover officer that Hurd wanted to buy five to ten kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana per week.? The undercover agent eventually gave Hurd a kilogram of cocaine.? Hurd left the restaurant with the cocaine, and he was arrested in his car.

The criminal complaint raises significant questions regarding the three-month lag in communications between September and December between T.L. and the informant.? It seems odd that Hurd would have so quickly found someone in Chicago who could supply four kilograms of cocaine per week, while struggling to finalize a single transaction with the informant in Dallas.? It could be that Hurd was lying about the current breadth of his operations, in the hopes of securing the trust and respect of the people with whom he was still dealing in Texas.

Given the clumsy manner in which Hurd handled the $88,000 that was seized only a day or so before he received $1.35 million from the Bears, common sense suggests that, if he were buying four kilograms of cocaine per week from someone in Chicago, it will be easy to collect enough evidence to prove that Hurd was buying and selling that amount of drugs.

Time will tell whether Hurd was indeed trafficking that much cocaine per week.? For now, though, there?s a chance that Hurd has been operating less like Heisenberg and more like Jesse Pinkman.? (Bitch.)

Though it won?t allow Hurd to avoid charges arising from his apparent receipt with intent to distribute of one kilogram of cocaine from an undercover officer, it could mean that he isn?t quite the kingpin that he painted himself to be last night.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/15/report-hurds-drug-clients-included-many-nfl-players/related/

caroline manzo caroline manzo the haunting in connecticut ashram ashram merce cunningham saints

White House says no veto of defense bill

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services, left, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. From left are, McCain, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., and Senate Armed Services Committee members, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services, left, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. From left are, McCain, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., and Senate Armed Services Committee members, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, center, flanked by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., and fellow committee member Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

From right, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, confer before a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to announce an effort to replace the defense sequester mandated as a result of the Supercommittee's failure. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House on Wednesday abandoned its threat that President Barack Obama would veto a defense bill over provisions on how to handle suspected terrorists as Congress raced to finish the legislation.

Press secretary Jay Carney said last-minute changes that Obama and his national security team sought produced legislation that "does not challenge the president's ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the American people."

Based on the modifications, "the president's senior advisers will not recommend a veto," the White House said.

The statement came just moments after the House wrapped up debate on the $662 billion bill that would authorize money for military personnel, weapons systems, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and national security programs in the Energy Department in the budget year that began Oct. 1.

The House was expected to vote for the measure later Wednesday. The Senate planned to wrap up the bill in the evening and send it to Obama.

The White House had threatened a veto over the detainee provisions. Specifically, the bill would require that the military take custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and who is involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. There is an exemption for U.S. citizens.

House and Senate negotiators announced late Monday that they had modified that provision. They added language that says nothing in the bill will affect "existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the FBI or any other domestic law enforcement agency" with regard to a captured suspect, "regardless of whether such ... person is held in military custody."

The bill also says the president can waive the provision based on national security.

"While we remain concerned about the uncertainty that this law will create for our counterterrorism professionals, the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country's strength," Carney said.

Uncertainty was a major concern of FBI Director Robert Mueller who expressed serious reservations about the detainee provisions.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller said a coordinated effort by the military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement has weakened al-Qaida and captured or killed many of its leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. He suggested that the divisive provision in the bipartisan defense bill would deny that flexibility and prove impractical.

"The statute lacks clarity with regard to what happens at the time of arrest. It lacks clarity with regard to what happens if we had a case in Lackawanna, New York, and an arrest has to be made there and there's no military within several hundred miles," Mueller said. "What happens if we have ... a case that we're investigating on three individuals, two of whom are American citizens and would not go to military custody and the third is not an American citizen and could go to military custody?"

The legislation also would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention.

The escalating fight over whether to treat suspects as prisoners of war or criminals has divided Democrats and Republicans, the Pentagon and Congress.

The administration insists that the military, law enforcement and intelligence officials need flexibility in the campaign against terrorism. Obama points to his administration's successes in killing bin Laden and radical Islamic cleric al-Awlaki. Republicans counter that their efforts are necessary to respond to an evolving, post-Sept. 11 threat, and that Obama has failed to produce a consistent policy on handling terror suspects.

In a reflection of the uncertainty, House members offered differing interpretations of the military custody and indefinite detention provisions and what would happen if the bill became law.

"The provisions do not extend new authority to detain U.S. citizens," House Armed Services Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said during debate.

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the bill would turn "the military into a domestic police force."

Highlighting a period of austerity and a winding down of decade-old conflicts, the bill is $27 billion less than Obama requested and $43 billion less than Congress gave the Pentagon.

Frustrated with delays and cost overruns with the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft program, lawmakers planned to require the contractor, Lockheed Martin, to cover the expense for any extra costs on the next batch and future purchases of the aircraft. The Pentagon envisions buying 2,443 planes for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, but the price could make it the most expensive program in military history ? $1 trillion.

The legislation freezes $700 million for Pakistan until the defense secretary provides Congress a report on how Islamabad is countering the threat of improvised explosive devices.

It would impose tough new penalties on Iran, targeting foreign financial institutions that do business with the country's central bank. The president could waive those penalties if he notifies Congress that it's in the interest of national security.

The bill begins a reduction in defense spending, a reality the Pentagon hasn't faced in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks. Pentagon spending has nearly doubled in that period, but the deficit-reduction plan that Obama and congressional Republicans backed this summer sets the Defense Department on a budget-cutting course.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and several other GOP defense hawks pledged to return to Washington next month with a plan to avoid automatic across-the-board cuts to defense required in 2013. The failure of the deficit supercommittee last month means $1.2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, with half from defense.

Defense hawks said the 10 percent cut would hollow out the Pentagon and devastate U.S. military readiness.

____

Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-14-Congress-Defense/id-ace64ee56f59453e93d48e94603ac93c

brian williams patrice o neal patrice o neal paulina gretzky paulina gretzky wayne gretzky wayne gretzky

Vintage Ball Gown Theme Wedding

Be prepared to be captivated, because the precious pictures would guide you into a nuptial style in an extremely adoring and cozy way. Jane and Brian made acquaintance with each other at a ball, thus there is no wonder that this pair select a 1930s Jazz motif style for their upcoming wedding. The newlywed offered us a celebration together with the latest hot elements, which is apparently represented on the following in the most delightful way! Check out all minutias in the gallery.

Let us have a look at the wedding shots: as a matter of fact, I am so in love with this wedding as the style states the young pair?s traits perfectly. Jane and Brian ran into at a ball not long ago, and then Brain began to pursue Jane. Finally, they get hitched! The reason why I show fetish for this wedding is that Brian came up with vintage, and completed it in a chic yet special way.

Let us check some details first. Jane discovered her classic 1930?s wedding dress at an exclusive store in Seattle, so does her cousin?s chic dress and her mother?s gown. Plus, Jane?s veil was also customized from netting and decorations.

As for the celebration, they blended all kinds of components to conceive their ideal centerpieces. Jane and her mother weaved the red doilies, the timber was from their dwelling, the feel of cotton fabric were from Brian?s ranch, and the pair even made the wine containers as vases, what an innovative idea.

Other striking minutias were the banners for the wedding. The venue was decided right in an air journey route, thus with the aim at witnessing the planes which traveled by, Brian and Jane provided all the present banners to scream to show they were there.

Share some other joyous elements of the wedding for all of you.

The wedding was filled with the touching atmosphere of dance (with a jazz band live show!), and the wedding cake was DIY by a relative. All in all, the wedding cake was a real statement of what makes the pair being together.

Even though the weather was not as nice as we expected in that the rainfall began from the beginning of the big day, the wedding reception was filled with all kinds of colorful and brilliant lovely umbrellas. But never mind, we truly felt like we had been transported into one big gorgeous daydream.

Source: http://www.artsyweddingblog.com/vintage-ball-gown-theme-wedding

matt nathanson rick perry oops rick perry oops tom bradley penn state tom bradley penn state grace potter grace potter

State: Mom who shot kids, self denied food stamps (AP)

SAN ANTONIO ? A Texas woman who for months was unable to qualify for food stamps pulled a gun in a state welfare office and staged a seven-hour standoff with police that ended with her shooting her two children before killing herself, officials said Tuesday.

The children, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, remained in critical condition Tuesday. The shooting took place at a Texas Department of Health and Human Services building in Laredo, where police said about 25 people were inside at the time.

Authorities identified the mother as Rachelle Grimmer, 38, and children Ramie and Timothy. Laredo police investigator Joe Baeza said Grimmer had recently moved to the border city from Zanesville, Ohio, about 30 miles east of Columbus.

Grimmer first applied for food stamps in July but was denied because she didn't turn in enough information, Texas Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.

Goodman didn't know what Grimmer specifically failed to provide. In addition to completing an 18-page application, families seeking state benefits also must provide documents proving their information, such as proof of employment and residency.

"We were still waiting, and if we had that, I don't know if she would still qualify or not," Goodman said.

Goodman said Grimmer's last contact with the agency appeared to be a phone call in mid-November. When the family entered the Laredo office on Monday shortly before 5 p.m., Goodman said Grimmer asked to speak to a new caseworker, and not the one whom she worked with previously.

Shortly thereafter, Goodman said, Grimmer was taken to a private room to discuss her case. She said it was there the mother revealed a gun and the standoff began.

Police negotiators stayed on the phone with Grimmer throughout the evening, but she kept hanging up, Baeza said. She allegedly told negotiators about a litany of complaints against state and federal government agencies.

Despite those complaints, Baeza said it wasn't clear what specifically triggered the standoff.

"This wasn't like a knee-jerk reaction," said Baeza, adding that Grimmer felt she was owed restitution of some sort.

Grimmer let a supervisor go unharmed around 7:45, but stayed inside the office with her children. After hanging up the phone around 11:45, police heard three shots, and a SWAT team entered the building. Inside, they found Grimmer's body and her two wounded children.

The children were "very critical" and unconscious when taken from the scene, Baeza said.

Multiple family members in Ohio and Missouri did not immediately return phone messages Tuesday. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said the agency had no information on Grimmer.

A YouTube channel the family appeared to have created in 2009 includes a profile that reads, "We are Shell, Ramie and Tim. Mom, daughter 10 and son 8. We like turtles, horses, and being outside. The kids have two turtles, an alligator snapper and a red eared slider. We work on naturalizing them and try to give them the most natural setting possible."

There are no videos uploaded. Tagged as favorites are an eclectic mix of nearly two dozen videos, ranging from a solar panel installation to a live clip of the band of AC/DC. The "Hometown" category reads: "We don't have one."

Goodman credited an office supervisor, a 24-year veteran of the agency, for ensuring the release of the other employees.

"He had told her he would try to help her, and that if she would let everyone else leave, he would talk to her," Goodman said.

Goodman didn't know whether Grimmer had a job, or whether her children were covered under Medicaid or the state children's health insurance program. The family had no history with the Texas Department of Child Protective Services.

The family's move from Ohio may have complicated Grimmer's application if the family had no Texas records the agency could check electronically, Goodman said. Grimmer also would have been denied benefits if she was receiving welfare assistance.

Grimmer also appeared to fall out of touch during her pursuit of food stamps. The mother originally applied July 7, but Goodman said Grimmer missed her first interview and didn't call back and reschedule for a few weeks. Her case was closed Aug. 8 for lack of a full application, Goodman said.

How much food stamp money a family receives depends on their income level. The average family on food stamps in Texas receives $294 a month.

Three months later, Grimmer called the agency's ombudsman Nov. 16 and requested a review of how her rejected case was handled. Goodman said the agency found that caseworkers acted appropriately after looking over Grimmer's file, and a supervisor called Grimmer's cell phone last Thursday to tell her the outcome. No one answered and the phone's voicemail box was full, Goodman said.

"The indications she had she was dealing with a lot of issues," Goodman said.

State welfare offices have come under scrutiny in the past for being overburdened, but Goodman said the agency has made significant strides in the past three years. She said wait times are shorter, and that Grimmer was scheduled for her initial interview just one day after applying. Grimmer didn't make the appointment, she said.

Goodman said it's not unusual for caseworkers to confront angry or confused benefit-seekers, but that it's very rare for a situation to escalate to violence.

___

Associated Press Writer Christopher Sherman in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111207/ap_on_re_us/us_texas_welfare_shootings

while you were sleeping while you were sleeping happy halloween happy halloween history of halloween eagles cowboys eagles cowboys