Officers scoured the Discovery Communications building overnight after a hostage-taker claiming to have “several bombs” was shot dead, but did not find any “active devices” at the scene, NBC News reported Thursday.

Montgomery County, Md. police told NBC News that they had given the “all-clear,” but were still treating the building — where a man who identified himself as James J. Lee had held three people hostage — as a crime scene.

It remained closed overnight after Wednesday’s standoff; police did not indicate whether or not employees would be permitted to return to work Thursday, NBC News added.

Police shot to death the man Wednesday at the building in suburban Washington, D.C. Authorities said the hostages were safe.

At least one device on the man’s body went off when he was shot inside the building in suburban Washington, D.C., Montgomery County police Chief Thomas Manger said. Police had been trying to determine whether two boxes and two backpacks the gunman had also contained explosives.

Manger said SWAT officers shot the gunman about 4:50 p.m. EDT because officials “believed the hostages were in danger.” The hostages — two Discovery Communications employees and a security guard — were unhurt after the four-hour standoff.

An NBC News producer who called the building to find out what was going on had a brief telephone conversation with the man when he came on the line unexpectedly. He said, “I have a gun and I have a bomb. … I have several bombs strapped to my body ready to go off.”

NBC News informed Montgomery County authorities of the conversation as the producer spoke to the man for about 10 minutes. NBC News did not report the conversation until the hostage situation had been resolved.

Speaking to reporters, Manger would not release the man’s identity, but numerous law enforcement authorities gave NBC News the same name: James J. Lee.

Lee, 43, was a longtime protester at the building who was sentenced to six months of supervised probation for disorderly conduct in March 2008.

Manger said the suspect held the hostages in the lobby area of the first floor. He said police spent several hours negotiating with the armed man after he entered the suburban Washington building about 1 p.m.

The building in the close-in suburb of Washington was safely evacuated, including the Discovery Kids Place day care center, and none of the 1,900 people who work in the building were hurt.

‘The planet does not need humans’
Lee appears to have posted environmental and population-control demands online, saying humans are ruining the planet and that Discovery should develop programs to sound the alarm.

“I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it,” the alleged manifesto reads, adding:

“Nothing is more important than saving … the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans.”

Court records show that Lee was arrested Feb. 21, 2008, on the sixth day of a protest at the Discovery building. At the time of his conviction in March 2008, he was identified as being from San Diego.

Police were called to the scene when a crowd that had gathered began growing “unruly” as Lee threw thousands of dollars of cash into the air, some of it still in shrink-wrapped packages, police said at the time. (Lee was found not guilty of littering.)

Lee said at the time that he experienced an “awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Nathaniel Harrington, a former Discovery employee, told msnbc TV’s Peter Alexander that he saw Lee outside the building during the 2008 protest.

“He was seen as something of a joke,” Harrington said. “I hate to say it, but at the time we kind of half-joked about it because he could come back shooting. Nobody took it very seriously.”

“As soon as I heard” the news Wednesday, “I knew it’s got to be Lee,” he said.

Lee had been active in other online arenas, too, in pursuing his causes:

While his main domain, savetheplanetprotest.com, is now a single page presenting his complaints, archives show that in the past he has used it to promote a contest to give away money and property in Hawaii “for the best TV show idea to save the planet.”

In early 2008, a message board called Save the Planet Protest was set up by a man calling himself Lee who uses a profile picture very similar to other photos of James Lee.

In a January 2008 post, the man, using the screen name misterfifteen, explains that he specifically targeted Discovery because he believes its identification with environmentalism was a sham:

“Discovery is hugely responsible for what is happening and their ineffective programming must be protested and dealt with. The time for pussy-footing around the subject is done. It’s time to protest them until they start changing their stupid message. They ARE glorifying the damned fishermen who are overfishing the planet and I would think that you would see that for yourself instead of defending them.”

‘Save the Planet’ TV show pitch
The man goes on to say that he approached Discovery with programming ideas at one point “even though I had a feeling that they were working for their own greedy ends.” Discovery officials “didn’t do anything,” he writes.

The nature of that proposed programming can be gleaned from an undated pitch letter Lee sent to Discovery.

Calling himself “Mister Lee” and giving a Silver Spring address, Lee proposes “an idea for a reality-game show called ‘Race to Save the Planet.’”

According to the letter, which msnbc.com retrieved from archives of unlinked material on his website, Lee says contestants “would come from all over to compete with each other and come up with ideas to save the planet. The idea here is to use human inventiveness to save the planet from the environmental destruction it’s facing. People competing can either have completely new ideas on how to save the planet, or they can build on another person’s idea and make that original idea better.”

He concludes: “‘Race to Save the Planet.’ This show could very well save the planet.”

Also pulled down sometime in the past two years was a page set up to protest Discovery. On it, he writes:

“If their ‘environmental’ shows are actually working, then why is the news about the environment getting worse? It should be getting better if they were doing their job and we should be seeing that reflected on the nightly news. But NO! The Discovery Channel is actually not about saving the planet, they are just another ‘green’ corporation whose real interests lies in MONEY! Products! Junk! Trash!”

‘Chaotic’ scene described
Wednesday’s drama likewise played itself out online as scores of Discovery employees sought and gave information on Twitter and other social media services.

At the scene itself, helicopters and dozens of police cars patrolled the area, and most of the streets were blocked off.

“Someone over the P.A. said there’s a situation in the lobby, go back to your desks,” Melissa Shepard, a Discovery employee, told msnbc TV. “So we all went to offices and crammed into offices and shut the lights off and listened to the news. Then someone knocked on the door and said we need to evacuate.”

Shepard described initial confusion over the evacuation plan.

“The scariest was when they were telling us to go upstairs, then downstairs, then upstairs. I don’t know if it was safe,” she said.

“The thing is we were hearing there were two people, then explosives, then hostages, then that people were shot. We kept hearing different stories. It was one thing after another.”

“It’s pretty chaotic,” Tariq Warner, a photographer for NBC station WRC-TV, said on msnbc. He said a woman ran past him screaming.

Discovery Communications reaches about 1.5 billion subscribers in more than 180 countries with the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel and Planet Green networks.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (pictures): WXYZ, CBSNEWS

A nine-year-old boy was forgotten in a Chicago airport waiting room Saturday for nearly eight hours after an airline representative failed to put him on a connecting flight, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

Julien Reid was headed home to Ottawa on a United flight after visiting his dad in San Francisco, a trip he makes about six times a year.

He left San Francisco at 6 a.m. and arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport at 11 a.m. He was supposed to catch a connecting flight from Chicago to Ottawa at 1:50 p.m., which would have put him in Ottawa at about 4:45 p.m.

His mother, Genevieve Harte, checked online and saw that Julien’s flight was delayed until 5:35 p.m. When she arrived at the airport to pick him up, she noticed other passengers had disembarked but that her son was nowhere to be found.

Then she got a call from Julien, using his own pre-paid cell phone.

He said he was still at the Chicago airport in a “tiny, little room cramped with kids,” where they played the same video on a loop all day, the Ottawa Citizen reported. The only food he’d been given was McDonald’s, but Julian is a vegetarian. He said the other children were yelled at to “stop being kids.”

Harte, 36, asked Julien to put her on the phone with the United attendant who was watching the children. That’s when the attendant let it slip that no one had come to fetch Julien to put him on his connecting flight, she told the Ottawa Citizen.

Harte suspects her son may have been intentionally bumped from an overcrowded flight.

“It’s a lot easier to have a kid that’s not going to say anything than an adult who has a business meeting that’s going to scream at you in front of everybody,” his mother told the Ottawa Citizen.

Julien was finally put on a flight that left Chicago at 7 p.m. after spending nearly eight hours in the waiting room.

United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy told the Ottawa Citizen that the airline apologized for the inconvenience and planned to offer Harte a refund for the child care fee and an undisclosed goodwill gesture.

Julien had his own message for the airline.

“I’ll tell them to get me a better flight next time,” he told the Ottawa Citizen.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): THEBROOKLYNNOMAD

It is an age-old riddle that has perplexed generations: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Now British scientists claim to have finally come up with the definitive answer: The chicken.

The scientific and philosophical mystery was purportedly unraveled by researchers at Sheffield and Warwick universities, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg, according to the paper Wednesday. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken.

The protein speeds up the development of the hard shell, which is essential in protecting the delicate yolk and fluids while the chick grows inside the egg, the report said.

“It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first,” said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University’s Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail.

“The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process,” he said.

Professor John Harding, from the same department, said the discovery could have other uses, according to the Daily Mail.

“Understanding how chickens make egg shells is fascinating in itself but can also give clues towards designing new materials and processes,” he said.

“Nature has found innovative solutions that work for all kinds of problems in materials science and technology — we can learn a lot from them.”

The discovery was revealed in the paper Structural Control Of Crystal Nuclei By An Eggshell Protein.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): MAKEFIVE

Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, long the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of a U.S. teen in Aruba, has confessed to killing a young Peruvian woman in his Lima hotel room, a police spokesman said.

Peru’s chief police spokesman, Col. Abel Gamarra, told The Associated Press that Van der Sloot admitted under police questioning Monday that he killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores on May 30.

The broadcaster America Television reported that Van der Sloot killed Flores in a rage after learning she had looked up information about his past on his laptop. It said it had access to details of the confession but did not cite its source.

Gamarra would not provide details of the confession. Nor would the chief of Peru’s criminal police, Gen. Cesar Guardia, when the AP reached him by telephone. Guardia said only police director Gen. Miguel Hidalgo could authorize the information to be divulged. Hidalgo’s cell phone rang unanswered.

Asked about the Van der Sloot confession, a brother of the victim, Enrique Flores, told the AP “we are not going to make any comment. This is in the hands of the police, of the justice system.”

Van der Sloot’s confession came on his third full day in Peruvian police custody, on the eve of a planned trip to the hotel in which he was to participate in a reconstruction of the events leading to Flores’ slaying, Gamarra said.

Flores, a business student, was found beaten to death, her neck broken, in the 22-year-old Dutchman’s hotel room. Police said the two met playing poker at a casino.

Video from hotel security cameras shows the two entering Van der Sloot’s hotel room together at 5 a.m. Saturday and Van der Sloot leaving alone four hours later with his bags. Police say Van der Sloot also left the hotel briefly at 8:10 a.m. and returned with two cups of coffee and bread purchased across the street at a supermarket.

Gamarra said the case would now be turned over to prosecutors to present formal charges and Van der Sloot will be assigned to a prison while he awaits trial. Murder convictions carry a maximum of 35 years in prison in Peru and it was not immediately clear if a confession could lead to a reduced sentence.

Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, then 18, on the Caribbean resort island of Aruba while she was celebrating her high school graduation.

He was arrested twice in the case — and gave a number of conflicting confessions, some in TV interviews — but was freed for lack of evidence.

Holloway’s father told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday that Van der Sloot should tell all he knows about the disappearance of his daughter.

“He confessed to this one … I would like for him to tell everyone what happened” in the earlier case, Dave Holloway said. “Hopefully this is his last victim.”

A fixture on true crime shows and in tabloids after Holloway’s disappearance, he gained a reputation for lying — even admitting a penchant for it — and also exhibited a volatile temper. In one Dutch television interview he threw a glass of wine in a reporter’s eyes. In another, he smashed a glass of water against a wall in a fury.

The 6-foot-3 (191-centimeter) -tall Van der Sloot had been held at Peruvian criminal police headquarters since arriving Saturday in a police convoy from Chile, where he was captured on Thursday.

He had crossed into Chile on Monday, nearly a day after leaving the Lima hotel — five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance.

Lima’s deputy medical investigator, Victor Tejada, told the AP that Flores was killed by blows with a blunt object, probably the tennis racket found in the hotel room.

Guardia told the AP her body was found face down and clothed with no indication of sexual assault.

In video taken of the Dutchman that was broadcast by a TV channel, Peruvian police were seen searching Van der Sloot’s belongings in his presence, pulling a laptop, a business-card holder and 15 bills in foreign currency from his backpack.

Chilean police who questioned Van der Sloot earlier said he declared himself innocent of the Lima slaying but acknowledged knowing Flores.

Van der Sloot was represented by a state-appointed lawyer during Saturday’s questioning and both a Dutch Embassy official and his U.S.-based attorney told the AP on Sunday that he was seeking to hire his own counsel.

The suspect’s father, a former judge and attorney on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, died in February. Van der Sloot has two brothers.

There were indications Van der Sloot may have been traveling on money gained through extortion.

The day of his arrest in Chile, Van der Sloot was charged in the United States with trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for disclosing the location of her body and describing how she died.

U.S. prosecutors say $15,000 was transferred to a Dutch bank account in his name on May 10. He arrived in Peru four days later, his visit coinciding with the runup to a June 2-5 Latin America Poker Tour tournament with a $930,000 prize pool.

Tournament organizers said Van der Sloot did not sign up to participate in the event.

Van der Sloot is an avid gambler and was known to frequent Aruba’s casino hotels, one of which was lodging Natalee Holloway.

In a lengthy 2006 interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, Van der Sloot described drinking shots of rum with Holloway, whom he said he met while playing poker at an Aruba casino, then taking her to a beach and leaving her there around 3:30 a.m.

Two years later, a Dutch television crime reporter captured hidden-camera footage of Van der Sloot saying that after Holloway, drunk, collapsed on the beach while the two were kissing he asked a friend to dump her body in the sea.

“I would never murder a girl,” he said.

That interview prompted authorities in Aruba to reopen the case, but Van der Sloot later said he made up the whole story and he was not charged.

The crime reporter, Peter de Vries — the victim of the wine-throwing incident — reported later in 2008 that Van der Sloot was recruiting Thai women in Bangkok for sex work in the Netherlands.

——
Associated Press Writers Carla Salazar in Lima, Frank Bajak in Bogota, Colombia, and Arthur Max in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

Source(article): MSNBC

Source(pictures): NYDAILYNEWS, EXAMINER, OPTIMUSNEWS

A child was in critical condition in Orange County on Sunday after being hit by a pickup truck and dragged down a street.

Police said it all happened in front of horrified onlookers who were buying treats from an ice cream truck in the Lockhart area of Orange County, not far from Forest City Road, just after 5 p.m. Saturday.

Jonathan Newkirk, 6, was rushed to Arnold Palmer Hospital.

The Florida Highway Patrol trooper who is handling the case said the boy and his father don’t live in Lockhart, but instead live in Poinciana in Osceola County.

Witnesses said Jonathan was standing next to an ice cream truck along with some others and was attempting to run back to the sidewalk, where his father was close by. That’s when he was hit by a white pickup truck, police said.

“I was buying ice cream with my brother and one of the little kids ran in front of the ice cream truck to cross the street, and another truck came and hit him and dragged him about 20 feet,” said witness Ronald Cruz. “The little kid was laying there on the ground, and I rushed to him as he was bleeding from his ears and his mouth.”

The driver of the pickup truck was 28-year-old David Diaz, of Orlando. He was taken away by officers but was not arrested and has not been charged so far, police said.

Police said the crash remains under investigation.

Source (article): WESH

Source (picture): ORLANDOHEALTH