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

NEW ORLEANS — BP finally gained control over one of America’s biggest environmental catastrophes by placing a carefully fitted cap over a runaway geyser that has been gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico since early spring. Engineers, politicians and Gulf residents will watch anxiously over the next day and a half to see if it holds.

After nearly three months and up to 184 million gallons, the accomplishment Thursday was greeted with hope, high expectations — and, in many cases along the beleaguered coastline, disbelief. But no one was declaring victory just yet.

“It’s a great sight,” said BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, who immediately urged caution. The flow, he said, could resume. “It’s far from the finish line. … It’s not the time to celebrate.”

Regardless, for the first time since an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers April 20 and unleashed the spill 5,000 feet beneath the water’s surface, no oil was flowing into the Gulf.

The next hours would be critical. Engineers and scientists would be monitoring the cap around the clock, looking for pressure changes. High pressure is good, because it shows there’s only a single leak. Low pressure, below 6,000 pounds per square inch or so, could mean more leaks farther down in the well.

President Barack Obama, who has encouraged, cajoled and outright ordered BP to stop the leak, called Thursday’s development “a positive sign.” But Obama, whose political standing has taken a hit because of the spill and accusations of government inaction, cautioned that “we’re still in the testing phase.”

Deep-water drama
The worst-case scenario would be if the oil forced down into the bedrock ruptured the seafloor irreparably. Leaks deep in the well bore might also be found, which would mean that oil would continue to flow into the Gulf. And there’s always the possibility of another explosion, either from too much pressure or from a previously unknown unstable piece of piping.

The drama that unfolded quietly in the darkness of deep water Thursday was a combination of trial, error, technology and luck. It came after weeks of repeated attempts to stop the oil — everything from robotics to different capping techniques to stuffing the hole with mud and golf balls.

The week leading up to the moment where the oil stopped was a series of fitful starts and setbacks.

Robotic submarines working deep in the ocean removed a busted piece of pipe last weekend, at which point oil flowed unimpeded into the water. That was followed by installation of a connector that sits atop the spewing well bore — and by Monday the 75-ton metal cap, a stack of lines and valves latched onto the busted well.

After that, engineers spent hours creating a map of the rock under the sea floor to spot potential dangers, like gas pockets. They also shut down two ships collecting oil above the sea to get an accurate reading on the pressure in the cap.

As the oil flowed up to the cap, increasing the pressure, two valves were shut off like light switches, and the third dialed down on a dimmer switch until it too was choked off.

And just like that, the oil stopped.

It’s not clear yet whether the oil will remain bottled in the cap, or whether BP will choose to use the new device to funnel the crude into four ships on the surface.

‘Spillcam’
For nearly two months, the world’s window into the disaster has been through a battery of BP cameras, known as the “spillcam.” The constant stream of spewing oil became a fixture on cable TV news and web feeds.

That made it all the more dramatic on Thursday when, suddenly, it was no more.

On the video feed, the violently churning cloud of oil and gas coming out of a narrow tube thinned, and tapered off. Suddenly, there were a few puffs of oil, surrounded by cloudy dispersant that BP was pumping on top. Then there was nothing.

“Finally!” said Renee Brown, a school guidance counselor visiting Pensacola Beach, Fla., from London, Ky. “Honestly, I’m surprised that they haven’t been able to do something sooner, though.”

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley’s face lit up when he heard the news. “I think a lot of prayers were answered today,” he said.

Seafloor mapping
Thad Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral overseeing the spill for the government, said they are deciding as they go along whether to release oil into the water again. At the end of the 48-hour test it’s possible oil will start to flow again — but, theoretically, in a controlled manner.

When the test is complete, more seafloor mapping will be done to detect any damage or deep-water leaks.

The saga has devastated BP, costing it billions in everything from cleanup to repair efforts to plunging stock prices. Though BP shares have edged upward, they shot higher in the last hour of trading on Wall Street after the company announced the oil had stopped. Shares rose $2.74, or 7.6 percent, to close at $38.92 — still well below the $60.48 they fetched before the rig explosion.

The Gulf Coast has been shaken economically, environmentally and psychologically by the hardships of the past three months. That feeling of being swatted around — by BP, by the government, by fate even — was evident in the wide spectrum of reactions to news of the capping.

“Hallelujah! That’s wonderful news,” Belinda Griffin, who owns a charter fishing lodge in Lafitte, Louisiana, said upon hearing the gusher had stopped. “Now if we can just figure out what to do with all the oil that’s in the Gulf, we’ll be in good shape.”

The fishing industry in particular has been buffeted by fallout from the spill. Surveys of oyster grounds in Louisiana showed extensive deaths of the shellfish. Large sections of the Gulf Coast — which accounts for 60 to 70 percent of the oysters eaten in the United States — have been closed to harvesting, which helps explain why one oysterman in Louisiana refused to accept that progress was afoot.

At Get-Away-Lodge in Plaquemines Parish, the worst-hit area of the coast, three fishing captains changed oil in the boats they once used for fishing, but are a part of BP’s vessel of opportunity program when they heard.

They were pleased, but concerned — and worried about how long their jobs for BP will last.

“I think it’s wonderful they capped it, but it’s not helping our businesses,” said Chad Horton, 32, a native of Buras, who used to make a living putting customers on schools of redfish and speckled in these bountiful waters. “Our businesses are gone, but we’re depending on this (BP job) to support our families. They could come in and pull it out from under us at any time.”

Rosalie Lapeyrouse, who owns a grocery store and a shrimping operation in Chauvin, Louisiana, that cleans, boils and distributes the catch, was shocked.

“It what?” she said in disbelief. “It stopped?” she repeated after hearing the news.

“Oh, wow! That’s good,” she said, her face clouding. “I’m thinking they just stopped for a while. I don’t think it’s gonna last. They never could do nothing with it before.”

‘The damage is done’
Long after the out-of-control well is finally plugged, oil could still be washing up in marshes and on beaches as tar balls or disc-shaped patties. The sheen will dissolve over time, scientists say, and the slick will convert to another form.

There’s also fear that months from now, oil could move far west to Corpus Christi, Texas, or farther east and hitch a ride on the loop current, possibly showing up as tar balls in Miami or North Carolina.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expecting to track the oil in all its formations for several months after the well is killed, said Steve Lehmann, a scientific support coordinator for the federal agency.

Once the well stops actively spewing oil, the slicks will rapidly weather and disappear, possibly within a week, and NOAA will begin to rely more heavily on low-flying aircraft to search for tar balls and patties. Those can last for years, Lehmann said.

In St. Bernard Parish, oysterman Johnny Schneider stood near his boat, loaded not with seafood, but yellow plastic boom used to contain oil on the water.

“Eh, the damage is done. The oil’s everywhere now,” he said. “You ain’t never gonna get it out of the water.”

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (pictures): WORLDCORRESPONDENTS, PORTFOLIO

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

Spain’s victorious World Cup squad have landed in Madrid amid scenes of joyous celebration in the country’s capital.

A sizeable crowd chanted and car horns sounded as skipper Iker Casillas, carrying the trophy, led the team down the steps of the plane.

The players will have a brief siesta before a reception hosted by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

More than one million fans are expected to line the streets for an open-top bus parade starting at 1800 BST.

The parade will end about two hours later at the esplanade near the Puente del Rey, where the festivities are expected to continue officially until midnight.

Many fans made the trip to Barajas Airport to greet the returning heroes from South Africa.

The flight landed at 1338 local time with Spanish flags flying from the cockpit windows and two fire engines making a guard of honour with their jet streams.

The plane was emblazoned with the words ‘Campeones’ (Champions) and ‘Orgullosos de nuestra seleccion’ (Proud of our squad).

Casillas, who was in floods of tears after the final whistle in Johannesburg on Sunday night, again appeared to be on the verge of crying as he led his team across the tarmac to a waiting coach.

They were taken to a nearby hotel to eat and rest before they head to the Royal Palace for a reception with the Spanish royal family and then to the Moncloa Palace to be greeted by the prime minister.

European champions Spain won the World Cup for the first time in their history thanks to Andres Iniesta’s extra-time winner against the Netherlands at the Soccer City Stadium.

Source (article): BBCNEWS

Source (picture): CBC.CA