Octuplets mother gets $1 million offer to star in hardcore porn

By Calvin Palmer

Nadya Suleman, the Southern Californian mother of octuplets has been offered $1 million to star in hardcore porn.

Vivid Entertainment, which has released videos starring Pamela Anderson and Kim Kardashian on its Vivid-Celeb label, says the offer also includes a year of healthcare insurance for Suleman and her 14 children.

Suleman gave birth to octuplets on January 26 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower after undergoing fertility treatment.  She already had six other children.

The unemployed single-mother is facing foreclosure on her home in Whittier.

Vivid Entertainment spokeswoman Jackie Martin says the offer was sent yesterday via overnight mail and there has been no immediate response.

[Based on a report by the San Francisco Chronicle.]

Son flees Miami home as father kills wife, two daughters and himself

By Calvin Palmer

A 53-year-old piano teacher shot and killed his wife and two of his three daughters this morning in his Miami home.  His 16-year-old son managed to flee the house and call 911.

Pablo Jose Amador then turned the gun on himself in a muder-suicide that has stunned the Palmetto Country Club Estates community.

Police named the victims as Amador’s 47-year-old wife, Maria, the education director at the University of Miami’s Project to Cure Paralysis and daughters Priscila, 14 and Rosa, 13.

Son Javier survived along with 20-year-old daughter Beula ”Bea” Beatriz Amador, a sophomore at the University of Miami.

At 1:00 a.m. she wrote on her Facebook page: “Crying/hurting inside. Don’t know how to deal. Not even gonna try attempting anymore.”

Then seven minutes later: ”Whatever. Life sucks.”

It was not clear what she was referring to.

When officers arrived, responding to a 911 call at 6:00 a.m., they found four bodies inside, according to Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, a police spokesman.

”The preliminary investigation revealed the male, the father of the family, shot his two daughters, killed his wife and then himself,” Zabaleta said.

Police did not say where their bodies were found.

The couple’s teenage son was able to escape unharmed from the house and called police from a cordless phone as he ran away, Zabaleta said.

On a Web site www.privatelessons.com, Amador, a Cuban immigrant, writes that he was a musical director, arranger and vocalist for Los Galileos, a six-member ensemble that had performed in dozens of churches around South Florida since 2001.

He also says he sang tenor with the Greater Miami Opera chorus, now the Florida Grand Opera, and sang at Kendall United Methodist Church.

Claretha Allen, a 41-year-old neighbor, said she often took her children to the home, where they received piano lessons from Amador, whom her kids called Mr. Jose.

”I can’t imagine what happened in that house,” she said.

Another neighbor, Sarait Betancourt, 44, said: “He was a marvelous person. People would enter the house, and you just breathed peace.”

[Based on reports by The Miami Herald and newsday.com.]

Classmate of Sabrina charged with her murder

By Calvin Palmer

A classmate of Sabrina Pina at Klein High School was charged today with her abduction and murder.

Theodore Charles Schmidt, 27, insists he has had no contact with Pina since school and has not acknowledged that he killed the 27-year-old Pina, said Lt. Rolf Nelson of Harris County Homicide.

A judge this morning ordered Schmidt held without bail on accusations that he abducted and killed Pina.

Spring resident Pina was last seen at a Kohl’s parking lot on Saturday afternoon.  Her clothed body was found the next day in a ditch about 20 miles away from the store.

She had been shot in the head and had duct tape wrapped around her hands and eyes, investigators said.

The duct tape had a fingerprint that led them to Schmidt, whose fingerprints were on file from previous theft and driving infractions.

Nelson would not comment on other evidence uncovered by detectives, including whether Pina struggled with her abductor or was sexually assaulted.

“We do know they knew each other in school,” Lt. Rolf Nelson of Harris County Homicide said. “How well they knew each other whether he was just a face, like ‘I recognize that guy from high school’ or if it was more than that, we’re still working on it.”

Photographs of Pina and Schmidt appear in the 1999-2000 Klein High School yearbook.

Nelson said there were indications they may have known each other while Pina was at UT, as well.

Officials said Schmidt told them he had enrolled in UT, but dropped out without attending classes.

Schmidt told investigators he hadn’t spoken with Pina since shortly after high school graduation.

Nelson said investigators are still piecing together the nature of their relationship.

“He’s in an area that she’s in when he hasn’t seen her in several years, but he can offer no explanation or won’t offer an explanation as to how that fingerprint got on the piece of tape that was around her head,” Nelson said.

Pina’s friends and family have said they do not know Schmidt.

Investigators have yet to locate the murder weapon, and they said they could not speculate on whether Pina went with her abductor willingly or was taken by force.

“We’re still working with our DNA lab, our firearms lab. We’ve got a lot of evidence that’s being processed that’s in the early stages of that processing.  So there will be more,” Nelson said.

“The facts that she was bound and taken to a remote location suggest that someone planned something.  It might have been a last-minute plan, but there was a plan,” he added.

[Based on a report by KHOU.com and the Houston Chronicle.]

Roadside bomb kills three soldiers in “surreal mini-British civil war”

By Calvin Palmer

Three British soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan today while escorting a supply convoy in Helmand province.

The Ministry of Defence said the three soldiers belonged to the 1st Battalion The Rifles. Cpl Tom Gaden, 24, Lance Cpl Paul Upton, 31, and Rifleman Jamie Gunn, 21, died when their Wmik Land Rover was targeted by a Taliban bomb in the Upper Sangin Valley.

Their deaths bring to 11 the total number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, and 148 since the US-led invasion of the country in late 2001.

Commander Paula Rowe, spokeswoman for Task Force Helmand, said: “Today has been incredibly sad for the whole of Task Force Helmand, and particularly for The Rifles.

“We will all feel the loss of these brave soldiers, whose role was to build the capacity of the Afghan National Army.

“But it is their family, friends and loved ones, as well as the men and women who served alongside them, who feel the greatest pain and we offer them our deepest and heartfelt condolences, thoughts and prayers.”

The deaths come amid revelations that British soldiers are fighting against their own countrymen in Afghanistan.

The Independent newspaper reports that interceptions of Taliban communications have shown that British jihadists – some “speaking with West Midlands accents” – are active in Helmand and other parts of southern Afghanistan, according to briefing papers prepared by an official security agency.

The document states that the numbers of young British Muslims, “seemingly committed jihadists”, travelling abroad to commit extremist violence has been rising, with Pakistan and Somalia the most frequent destinations.

MI5 has estimated that up to 4,000 British Muslims had travelled to Pakistan and, before the fall of the Taliban, to Afghanistan for military training. The main concern until now has been about the parts some of them had played in terrorist plots in the UK. Now there are signs that they are mounting missions against British and Western targets abroad.

 “We are now involved in a kind of surreal mini-British civil war a few thousand miles away,” said one Army officer.

RAF Nimrod aircraft flying over Afghanistan at up to 40,000ft have been picking up Taliban electronic “chatter” in which voices can be heard in West Midlands and Yorkshire accents. Worryingly for the military, this has increased in the past few months, with communications picked up by both ground and air surveillance, showing the presence of more British voices in the Taliban front line.

Last week, during a visit to Helmand, the Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, was shown Taliban explosive devices containing British-made electronic components. An explosives officer said the devices had either been sent from Britain, or brought over to the country. They ranged from remote-control units used to fly model airplanes to advanced components which could detonates bombs at a range of more than a mile.

Evidence of British Muslims fighting inside Afghanistan and training in insurgent camps in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas has been provided to the UK authorities by the Americans. The U.S. has significantly stepped up its surveillance inside Pakistan as part of a more aggressive policy including cross-border raids by unmanned Predator aircraft.

The Americans are said to have raised the issue of the Pakistan connection, complaining that the UK is not doing enough to curb radical Muslims. The U.S .pointed out that this threatens their own security because UK passport holders can get into the U.S .under the visa waiver program.

Brigadier Ed Butler, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said British Muslims were fighting his forces. “There are British passport holders who live in the UK who are being found in places such as Kandahar,” he said. “There is a link between Kandahar and urban conurbations in the UK. This is something the military understands but the British public does not.”

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph, AFP and The Independent.]

Pilots among the nine killed in plane crash at Schiphol

By Calvin Palmer

The pilots of a Turkish Airlines jet were among nine people killed when it crashed approaching Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, today.

At least 84 passengers were injured – six of them critically and 25 severely, when the Boeing 737-800 slammed into a field three miles short of the airport.

The plane, carrying 135 people, broke into three sections on impact and its jet engines landed some about 100 yards away from the wreckage in the muddy field.

“There are still three crew members in the cabin. I’m sorry to say that they are dead,” said one of the investigators, at a press conference at Schiphol. “We are leaving them there because we have to investigate the cockpit before we take the cockpit apart.”

Passengers today told of the panic that broke out as Flight TK1951 from Istanbul apparently stalled on approach to Schiphol.

“All of a sudden the back end of the plane dropped and then the plane crashed down on its front end and broke into three pieces,” the male passenger told Dutch television.

“I was OK because I was in the middle, it was the people towards the tail and at the front who couldn’t get out. I heard screaming.

“Near the tail there was a man with his feet stuck, and people were kicking him to try to get his feet out.”

Another passenger said: “For the first ten seconds it was silent, and after that we heard crying and screaming. There was a lot of panic and a lot of wounded people.”

Witnesses on the ground spoke of their surprise as, within seconds of the jet skidding to rest, ten or 15 people who had been able to free themselves quickly from their seats stepped out into the mud.

“Almost immediately 15 people walked out,” said Henk Dijkshoorn.

The field was a couple of hundred yards outside the airport perimeter. Emergency services treated passengers in the mud at the scene.

Tractors were used to ferry the wounded away, the only vehicles able to cope with the sticky mud of the ploughed field, which was saturated after days of heavy rain.

The muddy, ploughed field may have contributed to making the accident less deadly by absorbing the force of the impact, experts said. It may also have helped to dampen sparks and absorb aviation fuel leaking from ruptured tanks and lines on the underside of the fuselage, which appeared to have suffered very heavy impact damage.

One analyst said that the engines appeared not to have been turning at the time of impact, adding weight to the theory that the aircraft somehow stalled.

Wim Kok, a spokesman for the Dutch anti-terror coordinator’s office, said terrorism did not appear to be a factor.

“There are no indications whatsoever (of a terror attack),” Mr Kok said.

Injured survivors were being transported to Spaarne hospital in Haarlem and other nearby clinics, while other survivors were taken to a sports hall to be reunited with relatives, who had been taken from the arrivals lounge by bus, shocked and weeping.

All flights in and out of Schiphol, the fifth busiest airport in Europe, were suspended for a few hours, though traffic was this afternoon said to be returning to normal. The A9 motorway that runs near the crash scene was also closed.

The 737-800 is a new aircraft, the re-engineered and redesigned next generation of the original 737 which has for several decades been renowned as the workhorse of the skies.

“We have checked the plane’s documents and there is no problem concerning maintenance,” said Candan Karlitekin, the head of the airline’s board of directors. Visibility had been good at the time of landing, he said.

Temel Kotil, the chief executive of Turkish Airlines, said that Hasan Tahsin, a former air force pilot who was captaining the crash plane, was very experienced.

Today’s accident is the most catastrophic at Schiphol since October 1992 when an El Al Boeing cargo aircraft crashed into an apartment building in the Bijlmer neighbourhood of Amsterdam. Forty-three people were killed but health agencies believe that the aircraft had been carrying radioactive cargo.

In April 1994 a Saab 340B on a KLM Cityhopper flight from Cardiff crashed in a ploughed field near Schiphol, cartwheeling as its wing tip dug into the ground and killing three people on board, including the pilot.

Schiphol , which handles more than 47 million passengers a year, is the fifth biggest airport in Europe behind London, Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid.

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

The Commons pays tribute after death of Tory leader Cameron’s son

By Calvin Palmer

Political leaders in Britain today united in mourning the death of Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s son, Ivan.

The six-year-old, who suffered from a rare form of cerebral palsy that required round-the-clock care during his life, died early this morning at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, after being taken ill overnight.

As a mark of respect Prime Minister’s Questions, due at midday every Wednesday when the Commons is sitting, was cancelled. Instead,  Prime Minister Gordon Brown, William Hague, deputy leader of the Conservative Party, and Vincent Cable acting leader for the Liberal Democrats, made short statements before the sitting was suspended until 12.30 p.m. when normal business resumed.

Brown, whose own baby daughter died in 2002, empathized with the “unbearable” sorrow which the Tory leader and his family must be feeling.

“I know that, in an all-too-brief life, he brought joy to all those around him and I know also that, for all the days of his life, he was surrounded by his family’s love,” the Prime Minister said.

“Every child is precious and irreplaceable and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure.”

He added: “Politics can sometimes divide us, but there is a common human bond that unites us in sympathy and compassion at times of trial and in support for each other at times of grief.”

Hague thanked the Prime Minister for his tributes and for the “exceptional” step of suggesting the suspension of Prime Minister’s Questions, the weekly half-hour heated debate between party leaders.

He passed on a tribute from the Cameron family to all the NHS workers and staff who had given Ivan almost daily care during his short life.

“As much as anyone in the House, the Prime Minister will understand the dimensions of this loss, something which, as he has said, no parent should have to endure,” he said.

Cable expressed a hope that the Cameron family would be given time to grieve and come to terms with their loss.

“I would simply express the hope that this is a personal tragedy that transcends all party barriers, and I would simply want to express the hope that the family is given the space and there is privacy to grieve and cope with this tragedy that they have experienced,” he said.

The Queen sent a private message of sympathy to the Camerons, Buckingham Palace said.

Cameron, who has two other children, Nancy, 5, and three-year-old Arthur, had in the past spoken movingly about the “very grim and difficult period” he and his wife endured after learning of Ivan’s condition.

“You are depressed for a while because you are grieving for the differences between your hopes and the reality,” he said.

Cameron cancelled all of his engagements today, including the unveiling of a new portrait of Baroness Thatcher at Number 10, at which Mr Brown was also due to attend. That event was postponed.

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

Police arrest suspect in connection with shooting of Sabrina

By Calvin Palmer

A man known to Sabrina Pina has been arrested in connection with her shooting.

The 27-year-old suspect was arrested yesterday evening. Harris County Sheriff’s deputies spent hours questioning the man.

“This is not a stranger case – they’d known each other for years,” said Lt. Rolf Nelson, HCSO Homicide Division.

The suspect was taken into custody about 7:00  p.m. at the Carrington Place Apartments in northwest Houston and “he is talking” about the slaying, Nelson added.

Pina, 27, disappeared from a Spring shopping center on Saturday.  Her clothed body was found in a ditch the next morning, 20 miles from where she disappeared.

Her purse was missing but detectives said they did not know whether robbery was a motive in her death.

Sheriff’s spokesman Paul Mabry said he did not think there was any connection between the suspect and the death of another missing woman, Susana De Jesus, a 37-year-old Houston woman taken at gunpoint from a Pearland shopping center on February 2.
 
[Based on a report by the Houston Chronicle.]