Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboard player dies of suspected heart attack

By Calvin Palmer

A keyboard player with the legendary Jacksonville rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd has died at his home in northeast Florida.

Billy Powell called 911 about 12:55 a.m. today saying he was having trouble breathing. Rescue crews performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead at 1:52 a.m., said Orange Park Police Lt. Mark Cornett.

Powell, 56, who had a history of heart problems, missed a Tuesday appointment with his doctor for a cardiac evaluation. A heart attack is suspected.

Lynyrd Skynyrd was formed in 1966 by a group of students at the Robert E. Lee High School in Riverside, Jacksonville.  The band took its name from a P.E. teacher they disliked, Leonard Skinner. He was notorious for enforcing the school’s policy against long hair.

Powell joined the group around 1972, the year before they released their first album, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd.

The band gained national fame with such hits as Free Bird (1973), What’s Your Name (1977),  and especially Sweet Home Alabama (1974), which reached the Top Ten in the U.S. national charts, and came to epitomize Southern Rock.

In 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd appeared at the Knebworth Festival in the United Kingdom alongside The Rolling Stones, Todd Rundgren and 10cc.

Disaster struck on October 20, 1977, when the band’s chartered plane crashed in a swamp near McComb, Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant; guitarist Steve Gaines and his sister, vocalist Cassie Gaines; as well as an assistant road manager, the pilot and co-pilot. Powell was one of the survivors.

Two years later, Powell and fellow members Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkeson formed the Rossington-Collins Band. It broke up in 1982.

Powell was on hand again in 1991 when a revived version of the band put out a new album, Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991 and launched a tour in Baton Rouge, La., where the band was headed in 1977 when the plane crashed. Fans who kept their tickets from the canceled 1977 concert were admitted free.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

[Based on a report by Associated Press.]

Russia responds to the Obama effect and suspends missile deployment

By Calvin Palmer

Russia’s plans to deploy missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, as a response to the missile shield proposed by the Bush administration, have been put on hold.

President Dmitri Medvedev ordered Iskander missiles to be placed in Kaliningrad in a speech made the day after Barack Obama’s election victory last November.

Russia objected to the plan to ten interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic, despite Washington’s assurances that the shield was necessary to counter threats from Iran and was not directed at Moscow.

Russia argued that the system posed a threat to its own security and repeatedly warned that it would take counter measures unless the U.S. backed down.

“These plans have been suspended because the new U.S .administration is not pushing ahead with the plans to deploy … the U.S. missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic,” an official from Russia’s General Staff told Interfax news.

“Russia does not need to deploy Iskanders in the Kaliningrad region if the U.S. does not install its missile defence facilities in Eastern Europe.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not confirm the change of policy officially, but Ria-Novosti quoted an official as saying that it had taken “no practical measures to deploy Iskander” in Kaliningrad.

A spokesman for Kurt Volker, the U.S. ambassador to Nato, said that Russia’s move, “if true”, would be a “very positive step”.

President Obama and President Medvedev spoke for the first time by telephone on Monday.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated that the two men could hold their first meeting in April at the G20 summit in London.

He told Russia’s upper house of parliament that relations with the US would “start anew”. Mr Lavrov said: “We hope that a new window of opportunity will be opened which will take our relations on to a trajectory of stable growth after a period of needless turbulence.”

In a rare interview on Monday with Bloomberg Television, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has led Russia’s anti-American rhetoric and policy, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama.

[Based on reports by The Times and The Daily Telegraph.]

Royal Navy’s most advanced destroyer HMS Daring sails into home port

By Calvin Palmer

The world’s most advanced destroyer, the Royal Navy’s HMS Daring, sailed into its home port of Portsmouth for the first time today.

The 7,350-tonne vessel, built at a cost of of £1 billion ($1.4 billion), was handed over to the Royal Navy last month after work was completed at the BVT Surface Fleet’s Scotstoun shipyard on the Clyde, Scotland.

HMS Daring was met at Portsmouth Naval Base, Hampshire, by a 15-gun salute as well as by families and friends of the ship’s company. Hundreds of members of public also lined the harbor walls to welcome the ship.

HMS Daring sails into Portsmouth. Picture courtesy of the Royal Navy.

The Type 45 destroyer is the first of six in a £6 billion ($8.6 billion) project to replace the Type 42 destroyers.

The new ship has a range of 7,000 miles and is 45 percent more fuel efficient than its predecessors.  It also features the latest in anti-aircraft weapon and stealth technology.

Armed with a new high-tech missile system – Sea Viper, officially named today by Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar – the ship is capable of tracking hundreds of targets as far as 250 miles away and engaging up to ten of them simultaneously.

It can operate various helicopters, including the Chinook, embark 60 Royal Marines and is able to accommodate up to 700 people as part of an emergency evacuation.

Manned by a crew of 191, HMS Daring generates enough electricity from its gas and diesel engines to power a city of 300,000.

The ship was launched in January 2006 by the Countess of Wessex and has since undergone three sets of contractor sea trials. It will now undertake an intensive sea trials program for the rest of the year, with a formal commissioning ceremony due to take place in the summer with a target of formal acceptance into service by late 2010.

Quentin Davies, Minister for Defense Equipment and Support said: “HMS Daring is one of the most advanced ships ever built and along with the five other Type 45s will be one of the essential pillars of the Royal Navy in the 21st century.”

He forgot to mention that the Type 45 program has been halved from its original 12 ships.

Daring’s commanding officer Captain Paul Bennett added: “Daring is a good-looking, large capability platform. She is an illustration of the talent and capability of British shipbuilding.

“Today provides a fitting opportunity to mark the first entry into Portsmouth of a new class of destroyer for over 30 years.

“It’s been a fantastic event to mark the passage of this great warship into her home port and we look forward to a successful year of sea trials before embarking on operations.”

Like most British warships, HMS Daring is affiliated with a British city, in this case the industrial heartland city of Birmingham.

Capt. Bennett told The Birmingham Post newspaper: “Birmingham should be proud that it is affiliated to the most capable air defense destroyer in the world. The equipment we have is just extraordinary and is exactly what defense needs. We will probably take her to America in the future, and I am sure they will be very jealous, as they have nothing like this.”

The chairman of Aston Villa football club, American millionaire Randy Lerner, has also cemented ties with HMS Daring. He had a specially-commissioned painting handed over to the ship’s captain as a sign of his support.

The painting, which will be hung on board but has not yet been officially unveiled, shows a maritime battle played out within the walls of Villa Park.

Lerner invited the crew to form a guard of honour on the pitch before the match against Middlesbrough on Remembrance Sunday last year.

The Royal Navy’s eventual complement of six Type 45 destroyers is exactly the same number of destroyers it lost in the first four days of June 1940 during the final evacuation of troops from Dunkirk.  Heaven forbid that such a similar loss should ever occur but, at £1 billion a throw, it would prove costly to say the least.

[Based on reports by The Independent, The Birmingham Post and Reuters.]

Missing hedge fund manager Nadel turns himself in to the FBI

By Calvin Palmer

A U.S. magistrate in Florida today ordered hedge fund manager Arthur Nadel to be held until a bail hearing on Friday.

Earlier in the day Nadel surrendered to FBI agents in Tampa after being missing for two weeks.  Authorities allege he overstated the value of investors’ funds he administered by more than $300 million.

Nadel was chained at the waist and wrists when he appeared in court.  His attorney Barry Cohen had sought his release, arguing that Nadel has emotional problems and did not pose a flight risk.

Outside the court, Cohen said that his client “went away for a while just to be alone.” He declined to say where exactly Nadel was, and the FBI did not provide details.

Federal regulators last week sued Nadel for fraud, saying he misled investors and overstated the value of investments in six funds by about $300 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission also won a court order freezing his assets.

In the criminal complaint against Nadel unsealed today in New York, FBI Agent Kevin Riordan wrote that Nadel in the past several years had rejected a partner’s requests that he hire an independent certified public accountant to audit the assets in his funds.

Riordan said the partner, identified in court papers only as “Partner-1,” told Riordan that he told Nadel he had to hire an independent public accountant after the Madoff arrest in early December.

Riordan said the partner told him that Nadel agreed Jan.uary 8 to the independent audit and that a second partner sent a letter on January 13 related to an independent audit.

Nadel vanished the next day.

The following day, Nadel’s employees found what appeared to be a handwritten note from him to his wife in a shredding machine at his Sarasota office, Riordan wrote. Nadel warned that her avenues to money would soon be blocked and told her to “withdraw as much cash as you can.”

Nadel, 76, disappeared on January 14 after telling his wife in a note that he felt guilty. He also threatened to kill himself, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. Police found his green Subaru the next day in an airport parking lot.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Tampa, the SEC said Nadel recently transferred at least $1.25 million from two funds to secret bank accounts that he controlled.

Two investment companies co-owned by Nadel, Scoop Capital and Scoop Management, kast week agreed in a settlement with the SEC to injunctions and an asset freeze. They neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

According to Scoop Management’s internal accountant, the six funds have between 500 and 600 investors nationwide. Earlier this month, many were told the funds were empty.

Sarasota investigators have been fielding inquiries from investors from around the country and as far away as France.

The SEC said Nadel’s funds appeared to have assets totaling less than $1 million, while he claimed in sales materials for three of them that they had about $342 million in assets as of November 30.

The materials also boasted of monthly returns of 11 to 12 percent for several of the funds last year, when they actually had negative results.

An investor in one fund received an account statement for November indicating her investment was worth almost $420,000. In reality, the entire fund had less than $100,000, according to the SEC.

One investor, Larry Collier, of Sarasota, Florida, said he was glad to hear Nadel was in custody.

“At least we’ll find out what happened to the money, whether it’s a Ponzi scheme or he just lost it,” said Collier, whose last statement indicated he had $670,000.

Investor Tony Hagar, 68, who lost $1.5 million, said Nadel should be “taken out of circulation” and regulators needed to increase fund oversight.

[Based on reports by The Guardian and Associated Press.]

Priest gets one year in prison for groping girl on airplane

By Calvin Palmer

A Polish Roman Catholic priest was today given 12 months in federal prison for groping a 16-year-old girl on a trans-Atlantic jet bound for Newark, New Jersey.

The Rev. Tomasz Adam Zielinski, 33, had admitted to reaching under a blanket during the flight to grab the thigh and pubic area of the girl, who was traveling alone from Belarus for medical care in Pennsylvania.

The girl asked to be moved to a different seat, and Zielinski later apologized to her.

The incident occurred last July on a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Newark Liberty International Airport.

 U.S. District Judge Jose Linares said: “It is a very serious crime. The fact that he is a priest makes his actions all the more reprehensible.”

 Zielinski, who was in the United States on a religious visa, appeared in court wearing a suit jacket and open collar.

 He told Judge Linares that he deeply regretted fondling the girl. “I pray for her,” he said.

 Zielinski was removed from his position at Christ the King Church in Manville, New Jersey, soon after he was charged in July. He had been an associate pastor at the parish since April.

When Zielinski pleaded guilty in October to a felony charge of abusive sexual contact, his lawyer said the priest would volunteer to be deported.

[Based on reports by The Star-Ledger and newsday.com.]

Laid off California man kills his wife, five children and then himself

By Calvin Palmer

A man who had recently been laid off from a local hospital is believed this morning to have shot dead his five children, as well as his wife, at their Wilmington home, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.  The gunman then took his own life.

Officers received reports of a shooting at the two-story home in the 1000 block of McFarland Avenue at about 8:20.

Police said the assailant appeared to be the children’s father and that he apparently committed suicide after after faxing a letter to KABC Channel 7, who then contacted the police.

Police said the children were an eight-year-old girl, five-year-old twin girls and two-year-old twin boys.

Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner said police found notes inside the house in which the gunman referred to “job and work-related issues.”

“This was a financial and job related issue that led to the slayings,” Garner said. “In these tough economic times, there are other options. In my 32 years, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The bodies were found around the house and were shot with a revovler.

Garner said the three girls were found at an upstairs bedrooms and the boys and mother were found in a back bedroom. Notes found at the house suggested the case was a murder-suicide, he said.

Channel 7 reporter Gene Gleason said the faxed letter outlined workplace problems both the man and his wife were having at a Kaiser hospital in west Los Angeles.

“The letter said that an unnamed administrator told him he should never been hired and suggested he ‘blow his brains out,'” Gleason said. “The man said in the letter that he complained to his union to no avail. Then, both he and his wife were fired.”

Ervin Antonio Lupoe and his wife, Ana, were both former employees of Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center. “They were recently terminated,” a spokesman for the hospital group confirmed.

“We are deeply saddened to hear of the tragic deaths of Ana, Ervin and their five children,” Kaiser said in a statement, extending the hospital group’s sympathies to their family and friends. “We are providing support to Kaiser Permanente employees.”

Kaiser officials said they are cooperating with the ongoing LAPD investigation.

The case involves one suicide and six murders, according to LAPD Lt. John Romero.  But physical evidence has to be reviewed to rule out other possibilities.

“The letter faxed to KABC suggests the possibility that both adults planned the slayings in advance.,” he said. “But the 911 call in which the husband reportedly told police that he came home to find his family shot to death also clouded the picture.”

[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and San Jose Mercury News.]

‘It was raining birds,’ says NJ mayor

By Calvin Palmer

Like a scene from the apocalypse, birds fell out of the sky littering the snow-clad lawns of a small community in Somerset County, central New Jersey.

“It was raining birds,” said Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine. “It got people a little anxious.”

Many residents yesterday were still getting over their shock from the sudden spate of deaths. Some were unaware that the deaths resulted from an intentional culling and that the pesticide used was harmless to people and pets.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture called local police last week and the Somerset County Health Department to warn them that a culling program was under way, but there was no notice that dead birds could fall from the sky, Levine said.

“A lot of us are concerned because it’s so odd,” said Chris Jiamboi, 49. “There were a lot of them dead in the roads and no one drives fast enough around here to kill a bird. Then they started showing up dead in people’s backyards.”

Carol Bannerman, a USDA spokeswoman, said a bird-specific pesticide called DRC-1339 was used to kill the starlings. “It is harmless to people and other animals,” she said.

The starlings had to be killed because they were plaguing an area farm, where they were eating feed meant for cattle and chickens and defecating in feeding bowls.

“We’re very sorry that it played out the way that it did,” Bannerman said. “USDA will try to do a better job of notifying the public in the future.”

Federal employees dispensed the pesticide on Friday and birds that ingest it usually die within three days.

“The die-off should have run its course by Monday,” said Bannerman.

The DRC-1339 pesticide is commonly used to protect farms and feedlot operations from European starlings, which are considered an invasive species by the USDA. Since 100 starlings were brought to the U.S. in 1890, they become the nation’s most numerous bird species.

The poison used is not specific to starlings but USDA workers closely monitor its application to make sure it targets only the intended bird population. Workers first lure the birds to a designated area with bait food in wooden trays. Once they are certain the bait has attracted the birds they want to cull, they mix poison with the bait pellets.

However, 75-year-old George Gibson of Griggstown said that to him and many of neighbors they were just beautiful birds.

“People around here are really worried,” said Gibson. “They should have told us what they were going to do because we have pets. One guy’s dog was chewing on the dead birds and we didn’t know what kind of diseases they had died from.”

The township of Franklin has posted a message on its Web site. It reads: “The USDA conducted some blackbird/starling management activities in the Franklin Township area without giving the Township or the residents prior notice as to when and where these activities would take place, much less what to expect in the aftermath.”

The Web site also gives contact numbers for the USDA and information about the avicide used by USDA .

It strikes me that everyone knew about this cull except the people who lived in the area and who were affected by it.  I wonder why.

[Based on a report by Associated Press.]

Indian slum dwellers riot over title of Slumdog Millionaire

By Calvin Palmer

Slum dwellers in eastern India ransacked a cinema showing Slumdog Millionaire because they object to the use of “dog” in the title.

Several hundred people rampaged through the cinema in Patna, capital of the eastern state of Bihar, yesterday and tore down posters advertising the film. They said the title was humiliating and vowed to continue their protests until it was changed.

The protest was organised by Tateshwar Vishwakarma, a social activist who filed a lawsuit over the title last week against four Indians involved in its production — a lead actor, the music director and two others.

“Referring to people living in slums as dogs is a violation of human rights,” said Vishwakarma, who works for a group promoting the rights of slum dwellers. We will burn Danny Boyle effigies in 56 slums here.” 

The case will be heard in a Patna court on February 5, police said.

Meanwhile, armed police have been deployed outside cinemas in the state to thwart any further attacks.

Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, has been nominated for ten Oscars and 11 BAFTA awards.  It has already won four Golden Globe awards, including Best Drama, and received another award at the Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony at the weekend.
 
[Based on reports by The Times and The Daily Telegraph.]

Octuplets — six boys and two girls — born in California

By Calvin Palmer

A woman in southern California today gave birth to octuplets, the world’s second live-born set of octuplets.

The two physicians who helped in the deliveries said they were only expecting seven babies.  Instead, they got six boys and two girls.

“My eyes got to be the size of saucers,” Dr. Karen Maples said when it became obvious there was an eighth child. “We just went on and delivered the babies.”

“The orchestrated delivery went off without a hitch,” added Dr. Harold Henry. “The babies are all doing well and the mom is also doing well. There were no complications from the surgery to the best of my knowledge.”

Henry said that hospital physicians and their assistants practiced two dry runs ahead of time.  “We planned well and it was well executed,” he said.

The babies were delivered by C-section between 10:43 a.m. and 10:48 a.m. at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Bellflower, which is 17 miles southeast of Los Angeles. They each weighed between 1 pound and 15 ounces to 3 pounds and 4 ounces.

Maples said there were 46 people involved in the deliveries.

“It was exciting, a little anxious,” she said. “But we were prepared.” She said the mother should be released in a week but that the babies would probably remain in the hospital for at least two months.

The mother has asked not to be identified.

Dr. Richard Paulson, director of the fertility program at the USC Medical School, said: “Births of this kind are brought on by fertility medication, not in vitro fertilization. Often, during the medication, several of the mother’s eggs are fertilized.

“In most cases, the mother chooses to reduce the number of fertile eggs to two, to make sure the two remaining babies will have the best chance at having good health. To have all those babies, the mother would choose to have selective reduction. Apparently the mother made the decision to carry all the eight babies to viability.”

In 1998, the first known set of octuplets born in the United States arrived. The six girls and two boys were born in Houston. One of the babies later died. The others survived and recently celebrated their 10th birthdays.

[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press.]

Smoke gets in your eyes but coffee staves off dementia

By Calvin Palmer

Cigarettes and coffee have been part of my life for more years than I can remember.  The two go together in perfect harmony and fire me up for the day.  After a mug of coffee and three cigarettes, I am ready to take on anything a harsh world can throw at me.

And that first nicotine and caffeine rush is maintained throughout the day.  My daily consumption amounts to five cups of coffee and a pack of cigarettes.  To the health fascists, I am the devil incarnate for enjoying these simple pleasures.

And before members of the new SS, the white-coated Stethoscope Sirens, get on my case, I would never encourage anyone to take up smoking.  I simply ask that those who do smoke be allowed to enjoy a cigarette at places where cups of coffee are sold, outside a restaurant or café is just fine by me.

Given my enjoyment of coffee, I was pleased to learn that a team of Swedish and Danish researchers have concluded that drinking coffee in mid-life can help prevent the onset of dementia later in life.  So as the years advance, I may well become poorer and poorer but at least I will have my wits about me.

This conclusion was based on a study that tracked coffee consumption in a group of 1,409 middle-age men and women for an average of 21 years. During that time, 61 participants developed dementia, 48 with Alzheimer’s disease.

After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less.

People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, the researchers said, but there were not enough people in this group to draw statistically significant conclusions.

The research was published this month in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Dr. Miia Kivipelto, an associate professor of neurology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead author of the study, said:  “This is an observational study. We have no evidence that for people who are not drinking coffee, taking up drinking will have a protective effect.”

She suggest several possibilities for why coffee might reduce the risk of dementia later in life. First, earlier studies have linked coffee consumption with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes which in turn has been associated with a greater risk of dementia. In animal studies, caffeine has been shown to reduce the formation of amyloid plaques in the brain, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, coffee may have an antioxidant effect in the bloodstream, reducing vascular risk factors for dementia.

Previous studies have shown that coffee drinking may also be linked to a reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease.

All I need now is research that shows cigarette smoking and second-hand smoke have beneficial effects for some other malaise.

Wouldn’t it be great if cigarette smoking and passive smoking helped clear up hemorrhoids and even prevented the affliction?

In the remake of The Ladykillers (2004) by the Coen brothers, the character of Marva Munson, played delightfully by Irma P.Hall, recounts that her late husband said, “There are only two kinds of people in the world: those with hemorrhoids and those about to get them.”

If cigarette smoke were found both to cure and prevent hemorrhoids, state and city legislators would overturn the anti-smoking legislation introduced in recent years as fast as they could take the cap off a tube of Preparation H.

I guess that is what is called a pipe dream.  Oh well, time for coffee and a cigarette.

[Based on a report by The New York Times.]