6 gripping new details about the Boston bombing endgame

After a weekend of media digging and officials talking, we have more tantalizing clues about just what happened last week

We still don't know a lot of things about the Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath, the biggest question being what motivated alleged bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev to allegedly commit the awful acts. The bombings killed three people and wounded more than 100 others, and police say the brothers shot dead an MIT police officer and critically wounded a Boston transit officer Thursday night and early Friday morning.

An interagency federal interrogation team is at the ready to try to get some answers out of the surviving brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar, but thanks to a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound to his throat, it's not clear if?Dzhokhar will ever talk again. ABC News says that the suspect, in serious but stable condition at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is awake and responding to some questions in writing.

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We do know a lot more, though, after a weekend of digging by reporters, media appearances by Boston-area officials, and statements from federal officials and members of Congress. Here are six of the most interesting things we've learned about the Tsarnaev brothers and the week of terror they allegedly inflicted on Boston.

1. Police tracked the brothers down through a carjacked vehicle
The carefully calculated decision by the FBI to release images of the suspects on Thursday afternoon set in motion the chaotic endgame that ended in Dzhokhar's capture and Tamerlan's death: Police noticed the pair in 7-Eleven surveillance video after an unrelated robbery, for example, placing the brothers in Cambridge; and their alleged decision to kill MIT officer Sean Collier linked them to the nearby carjacking of a Mercedes SUV.

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But their biggest giveaway, says Michael Crowley at TIME, came from their letting the SUV's driver either escape or releasing him unharmed ? the reports are conflicting ? at a gas station. Federal authorities say the Tsarnaevs used the man's ATM card to withdraw $800, which "would explain keeping him alive initially, rather than shooting him and taking his car" ? they needed his PIN. The decision to keep him alive, after identifying themselves and, according to one report, saying they planned to drive to New York, appears to be a fortuitous "blunder that indirectly spared the lives of many others."

The man was unharmed, though understandably hysterical, and immediately called 911.... Naturally, the carjacking victim provided police with the make and license plate of his vehicle. Even better, the Tsarnaevs now had their very own GPS beacon, as authorities tracked the location of a cell phone the man had left in his car. Within minutes, police had found the men and an ensuing gun battle left Tamerlan dead and Dkhokhar in hiding, soon to be caught. End of rampage. [TIME]

2. Dzhokhar apparently killed his brother
Tamerlan?was?killed in the shootout in the Boston suburb of Watertown, but not by police, according to Watertown Police Chief Ed Deveau. One officer spotted the brothers driving two cars, the stolen SUV and a Honda Civic, and the brothers immediately started shooting, Deveau tells The Boston Globe. "Quickly we had six Watertown police officers and two bad guys in a gunfight," with 200 to 300 shots fired.

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Deveau says the brothers also lobbed several explosives at the officers, including a pressure-cooker bomb like the ones used at the marathon and five "crude grenades," two of which exploded. Finally, Tamerlan started walking toward the cops, firing. When he appeared to run out of bullets, police tackled him and started handcuffing him. At that point, Deveau says, Dzhokhar jumped in the SUV and started driving toward the officers; they dove out of the way, and Dzhokhar plowed over his brother, briefly dragging him under the car. Dzhokhar's maneuver allowed him to escape, but apparently proved fatal for his brother.

3. The brothers had lots of guns, but no permits
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had "a small arsenal of guns, ammunition, and explosives" when they confronted the police Friday morning, say Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt in The New York Times. Along with the homemade grenades and bomb, they also had at least four guns ? two handguns and a BB gun apparently used in the Watertown street fight and "an M-4 carbine rifle ? a weapon similar to ones used by American forces in Afghanistan."

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What they didn't have, says Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas, were permits to carry guns. It's not clear if they applied for gun permits ? applications are not public records ? but at least Dzhokhar would have been turned down since state law only allows people 21 and older to own firearms.

4. Dzhokhar talked about the bombing with a classmate
Between the bombings on Monday and the release of the FBI photos on Thursday, Dzhokhar returned to class at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. In fact, he "acted like any other college sophomore," say Ann O'Neill and Melissa Gray at CNN. Dzhokhar "attended classes and dorm parties and went to the gym while the rest of Boston came to a tense standstill."

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Fellow student Zach Bettencourt saw Tsarnaev in the gym on Tuesday and brought up the bombing. "You hear about this kind of thing happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not here," Bettencourt remembers saying. "He was like, 'Yeah, tragedies happen like this all the time and it's sad.'" At a party Wednesday night, attended by some of Tsarnaev's soccer friends, he was described as relaxed and normal.

5. FBI questioned Tamerlan in 2011
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said Sunday that from all the information he had, "they acted alone, these two individuals, the brothers." Tamerlan is widely believed to be the driving force behind the plot. Authorities believe Tamerlan had "brainwashed" his younger brother to follow him and "read those magazines that were published on how to create bombs, how to disrupt the general public, and things like that," Menino told ABC's This Week.

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Tamerlan had come up on the FBI's radar screen before, in 2011, the bureau said Friday. Russia had requested that the U.S. question the older Tsarnaev brother, "based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country's region to join unspecified underground groups," the FBI said. Federal agents did investigate Tamerlan and question him and family members, but found no "terrorism activity, domestic or foreign," and informed Russia.

Now, the U.S. is asking Russia what exactly it knew in 2011. But lawmakers also have some questions for the FBI. A group of four House Republicans are calling the FBI's handling of Tsarnaev "an intelligence failure," and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that "the fact that we could not track him has to be fixed." Whether "our laws are insufficient or the F.B.I. failed," Graham said on CNN Sunday, "it's people like this that you don't want to let out of your sight, and this was a mistake."

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6. Dzhokhar was finally caught thanks to a restless, brave boat owner
People have been, and will continue arguing about the decision by Boston authorities to essentially lock the city down on Friday, as police searched house-to-house for Dzhokhar. But it's pretty clear that the surviving brother was finally caught only after the police finally told people they could leave their houses.

In what is fast becoming legend, after the lockdown was lifted, George Henneberry?stepped outside for a cigarette and noticed the tarp flapping on the boat in his backyard. Then he saw some blood and called the cops. Here's how The Washington Post describes the final piece in the capture of the younger Tsarnaev:

As soon as authorities lifted the stay-inside order Friday just before dusk, Henneberry stepped out of his Watertown house. Something about his boat seemed off. The plastic cover was flapping in the wind, which made no sense, especially given that Henneberry had tied it down so well that it hadn't moved even through this winter's blizzards.

On inspection, the cover appeared to have been sliced open. Then Henneberry saw the blood. He came closer, pulled himself up a ladder to peer inside and saw more blood ? and a curled-up form. He called 911. Within minutes, he was hurried out of his house, and men in uniforms were firing at the boat and someone was shooting back. [Washington Post]

The swarms of police used a thermal imaging camera on a helicopter and flash-bang grenades to make sure Dzhohkar was responding inside the boat. He was, weakly. After 25 minutes of coaxing through a bullhorn, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stood up, lifted his shirt to show he wasn't wearing a bomb, and taken into custody. Watch video of his final standoff, including thermal imaging, below:

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Sources: ABC News, The Associated Press, The?Boston Globe, CNN, The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post (2)

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/6-gripping-details-boston-bombing-endgame-072500361.html

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Attractive friend with possible HPD : Significant Others, Family ...

Hi Nevilleb, and welcome to the SOF&F Forum

I feel torn about how to handle it.

Don't want to be too blunt (and if I am wrong, apologies - disregard), but maybe you were looking forward to having a romantic affair with her and it didn't pan out, which is why you are feeling torn? If that is true, you will find it pretty difficult to be the kind of objective friend who can flat honest point out the negatives in her behavior. And chances are she will sense your true feelings and play you - no, own you is a better term - as a fan club member who's rationalized role is informal psychological counselor. Sounds like an HPD's idea of a freakin gold mine - but unless you are Chuck Norris it will mess your head up.

On the other hand, if you don't have those feelings for her, you can be that friend you describe and provide true objective support, i.e., pointing out the positives and negatives.

No one wants their friends to start psycho-analysing them but on the other hand if no one ever tells her then how is she going to sort it out.

Boundaries...then don't go there, unless she sincerely asks you for advice.

She asked me why that was and I bit my tongue

This is always the first test of any kind of relationship with an HPD (or anyone else) - if she will tolerate you pointing out the negatives. We all have negatives. Just don't get too emotionally invested in 'saving' her, because she can backslide and become focused on your attention - ironically you will only obstruct her chances for progress. Unfortunately, although not an impossibility, the stats for HPD awareness and recovery apparently aren't too good. It takes a lot of commitment and dedicated hard work (not to mention mental health insurance) on their part, and many HPDs, probably 75% or more, just prefer to keep bubbling along, although some of those naturally grow out of it.

Always remember this: if you screw your own head up, you are of little to no use to anyone you wish to help.

We rarely talk now as I don't want to be a fan of anyone. Life's too short.

That sounded so real, so strong

Source: http://www.psychforums.com/family-support/topic111961.html

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Egyptian justice minister resigns

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky has resigned in protest at what he sees as "an assault" on the judiciary by the Islamist-led authorities, the Justice Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Mekky submitted his resignation to President Mohamed Mursi on Saturday, said the spokesman, Ahmed Salam. It followed a protest on Friday by Mursi's Islamist backers demanding the "purification" of the judiciary.

A bill has been submitted to parliament which critics say would give the government too much control over the make-up of the judiciary.

Mekky, who was appointed in August, had been quoted in local media as saying he would resign if the law was passed. The Islamist-dominated upper house of parliament has yet to vote on the legislation.

Mursi said on Saturday he planned to reshuffle the cabinet.

Mekky was widely regarded as a supporter of judicial independence during the rule of former President Hosni Mubarak, but his critics had accused him of siding with the new Islamist-led authorities.

Thousands of Islamist supporters of Mursi rallied on Friday, calling for an independent judiciary by passing the new legislation and removing corrupt members of legal institutions.

Friction between the government and the judiciary has been on the rise since March when the Administrative Court ordered the cancellation of a Mursi decree calling for parliamentary elections, forcing a delay in voting due to have begun in April.

(Writing by Tom Perry and Asma Alsharif; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egyptian-justice-minister-resigns-124514046.html

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Pets | CJOnline.com - Topeka Capital-Journal

The following animals have been brought to the Helping Hands Humane Society, 5720 S.W. 21st. The telephone number is 233-7325.

Cats

Unknown age and gender, black, found in the 3600 block of S.E. 6th.

Female, dilute torti, unknown age, found in the 400 block of N.E. Kellam.

Male, black, unknown age, found in Grantville.

Male, gray with white, unknown age, found in Grantville.

Unknown age and gender, black, found in Rossville.

Female, orange tiger, 18 months old, found in Auburn.

Male, tabby point, 5 years old, found in the 3300 block of N.W. 18th.

Female, orange with white, 1 year old, found in the 400 block of S.W. High.

Unknown age and gender, black and tan tiger, found in the 3600 block of S.E. 6th.

Dogs

Male Yorkshire terrier mix, black and tan, 6 years old, found at unknown address.

Male Chihuahua mix, tan with white, 2 years old, found in the 4400 block of S.W. 61st.

Male Chihuahua mix, tan with white, unknown age, found in Meriden.

Male pit bull mix, white with tan, 2 years old, found in the Central Park neighborhood.

Male Cavalier King Charles spaniel/papillon mix, black and white, 1 year old, found at S.E. 32nd and California.

Female pit bull mix, blue, unknown age, found in the 1100 block of S.W. MacVicar.

Female Chihuahua mix, tricolor, 2 years old, found in the 900 block of S.E. 35th Terrace.

Male wirehaired fox terrier mix, red with white, 3 years old, found in the 400 block of S.W. Polk.

Male pug/beagle mix, tan with black tinge, 2 years old, found in Mayetta.

Female pit bull mix, white with tan, unknown age, found in the 2600 block of S.E. Pennsylvania.

Male pit bull mix, brown with white, 2 years old, found in the 400 block of N.E. Paramore.

Male Chihuahua mix, tan with white, 2 years old, found in the 1700 block of N.W. Lyman.

Source: http://cjonline.com/news/2013-04-18/pets

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Facebook launches real-time graphs to highlight its data center efficiency

Curious as to the effect that your poking wars are having on the planet? Facebook is outing power and water usage data for its Oregon and North Carolina data centers to show off its sustainability chops. The information is updated in near-real time, and the company will add its Swedish facility to the charts as soon as it's built. The stats for the Forest City, NC plant show a very efficient power usage effectiveness ratio of 1.09 -- thanks, in part, to that balmy (North) Carolina air.

Filed under: Internet, Facebook

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Via: GigaOm

Source: Facebook, Open Compute Project

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/VvyKo5lv7wo/

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U.S. cites human rights problems in Russia, China, Egypt

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday expressed concern about increasing crackdowns on civil liberties around the world, from Russia to Egypt and China, saying these and other countries were shrinking the space in which independent political and other activists can operate.

In its annual survey of human rights around the world, the State Department singled out Myanmar for praise for the second year in a row, in recognition of political and economic reforms put in place since that country's military stepped aside and a quasi-civilian government was installed in 2011.

"Because of steps toward democratic reform and stronger human rights protections, a country that had been isolated for years is now making progress," Secretary of State John Kerry said of Myanmar as the human rights report was released.

The report's long section on Russia noted that in the last year Moscow had approved new restrictions on nongovernmental organizations such as human rights groups - particularly those that get funding from abroad - as well as large increases in fines for unauthorized protests.

Russian authorities selectively detained and prosecuted members of the political opposition, the report said, including one of President Vladimir Putin's biggest critics, Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption whistleblower.

Three criminal cases were opened against Navalny in 2012. This week, he went on trial in one of the cases in which he faces theft charges that could result in a 10-year prison sentence. Russian investigators then increased the pressure by opening yet another criminal probe against him on Thursday.

The State Department report said procedural irregularities and reports of vote fraud marred the election of Putin to his third term last year. It said Russia mostly did not punish officials who committed human rights abuses, "resulting in a climate of impunity."

It said the rule of law was "particularly deficient" in the north Caucasus - which includes the Russian-ruled region of Chechnya - "where conflict among government forces, insurgents, Islamist militants, and criminal forces led to numerous human rights abuses, including killings, torture, physical abuse, and politically motivated abductions."

Uzra Zeya, the acting assistant secretary of state for human rights, declined to discuss whether the U.S. manhunt on Friday for an ethnic Chechen suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings might change the way the State Department viewed the human rights situation in that region.

The annual reports, which have been produced for nearly four decades, can upset smaller countries cited, while more powerful ones sometimes ignore the criticism or retort that Washington ignores its own problems at home.

Zeya was asked about the continued detention without trial of dozens of prisoners captured in U.S. counterterrorism operations abroad. She said President Barack Obama wanted to close the prison holding the suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but that Congress had not gone along with that.

TENSE U.S. TIES WITH PUTIN

Disputes over human rights have been one element in increasingly tense U.S. ties with Putin's government.

Last week the United States slapped visa bans on 18 people for alleged violations of human rights in Russia, most of them related to the 2009 death in prison of a whistleblower, Sergei Magnitsky. Russia retaliated by blacklisting 18 Americans, including two that had been in charge of the Guantanamo prison.

David Kramer of Freedom House, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, said that 2012 was a "downright ugly year" for human rights in Russia.

"When you add it all up, the report reflects the worst human rights situation in Russia since the collapse of the USSR," said Kramer, a former assistant secretary of state for human rights.

The State Department report said that in China, "repression and coercion, particularly against organizations and individuals involved in rights advocacy and public interest issues, were routine."

"There was severe official repression of the freedoms of speech, religion, association, and harsh restrictions on the movement of ethnic Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and of ethnic Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas," it said.

The report noted that the Egyptian government took action against nongovernmental groups at the end of 2011, with police raids against a number of groups including the Washington-based National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute.

The Egyptian government charged both citizens and foreign personnel with "running unlicensed organizations" and "receiving foreign funds without permission." Americans who worked for the groups were allowed to leave the country after a couple of months, but the State Department said 43 others remained on trial throughout 2012.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Warren Strobel and Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-cites-human-rights-problems-russia-china-egypt-231749616.html

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Discovery paves the way for ultrafast high-resolution imaging in real time

Apr. 18, 2013 ? Ultrafast high-resolution imaging in real time could be a reality with a new research discovery led by the University of Melbourne.

In work published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre for Excellence in Coherent Xray Science have demonstrated that ultra short durations of electron bunches generated from laser-cooled atoms can be both very cold and ultra-fast.

Lead researcher Associate Professor Robert Scholten said the surprising finding was an important step towards making ultrafast high-resolution electron imaging a reality.

He said the finding would enhance the ability of scientists in labs to create high quality snapshots of rapid changes in biological molecules and specimens.

"Electron microscopy, which uses electrons to create an image of a specimen or biological molecule has revolutionised science by showing us the structure at micro and even nanometre scales," Associate Professor Scholten said.

"But it is far too slow to show us critical dynamic processes, for example the folding of a protein molecule which requires time resolution of picoseconds (billionth of a billionth of a second)."

"Our discovery opens up the possibility to dramatically enhance the technology."

Researchers say imaging at this level is like making a 'molecular movie', The temperature of the electrons determines how sharp the images can be, while the electron pulse duration has a similar effect to shutter speed.

The team has been able to combine these two qualities of speed and temperature, generating ultrafast electron pulses with cold electrons, paving the way for new advances in the field.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Melbourne.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. A. J. McCulloch, D. V. Sheludko, M. Junker, R. E. Scholten. High-coherence picosecond electron bunches from cold atoms. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1692 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2699

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/top_news/top_technology/~3/0GZXj8HR-is/130418104336.htm

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