[DAWN] Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams was found dead on Monday from an apparent suicide at his home in Northern California, Marin County Sheriff's Office said. He was 63.
The sheriff's coroner's division said it suspects the death was a suicide due to asphyxia, but the cause of death is still under investigation.
"This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken," Williams's wife Susan Schneider said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Very, very sad. We've lost a man who could make us laugh.
#2
A fine actor and a funny, funny man. RIP Robin.
Posted by: regular joe ||
08/12/2014 7:20 Comments ||
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#3
Fame. Fortune. and he was still depressed. Yet, the low information voters listen to these people about the 'morality' judgements they pass on their own way of life and future. That's the real sadness.
#4
He was anti-war, and there's no denying that. But he was also very much pro-troops, and walked the walk, unlike a lot in Hollywood. He was "over there" quite a bit, even helicoptering out to the FOBs with no cameras or press just to talk to the troops and make us laugh. Just from meeting him, and seeing how he behaved when the cameras were off, I personally feel that he had a deep and genuine respect and affection for us troops. He's the closest thing to Bob Hope this generation had.
He did support the troops while hating war. A very noble attitude to take and one that his Hollywood "friends" would never take. (Mostly because Hollywood isn't very noble)
#6
RIP Robin Williams. He gave a great deal to our culture. He made us laugh and he made us cry. The Times of Israel referred to him as an "Honorary Jew."
[LATIMES] A 75-year-old Spanish priest suffering from the Ebola virus died Tuesday in an isolation ward in Madrid -- the first European death from the outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people in West Africa and the first known death on European soil.
Miguel Pajares died around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at Madrid's Carlos III Hospital, Spanish officials announced.
A Roman Catholic missionary, Pajares was airlifted Aug. 7 from Liberia, where he is believed to have contracted the deadly virus at a hospital where he worked. Thousands of Spaniards had joined a social media campaign urging their government to rescue and repatriate him. He was the first Ebola patient evacuated to Europe amid the current, fast-spreading outbreak in Africa, which is already the worst in history.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 11:16 ||
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#1
This will spread beyond Africa. Hopefully the quarantine plans are being dusted off and relooked at.
[Iran Press TV] South Sudan's warring sides have missed a deadline to form a unity government despite growing international condemnation of the conflict in the country.
Under the Cessation of Hostilities Treaty signed on May 9, President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar had agreed to establish a unity government by August 10.
The latest round of peace talks between the two sides resumed last Monday in the Æthiopian capital Addis Ababa, but the delegates failed to meet for the rest of the week.
On Friday, the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Security Council threatened to impose sanctions on both sides for their failure to resolve the ongoing conflict in the country.
The actions of the warring leaders "in continuing to pursue a military solution to this conflict are unacceptable," according to a UN Security Council statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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The Ebola drug given to two Americans and a Spanish priest has been sent to treat infected doctors in two West African countries, and the supply of the medicine is now exhausted, its manufacturer said.
Countries including Nigeria and Liberia had requested the drug, called ZMapp. Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., based in San Diego, said it has complied with every request for the drug that was authorized by legal and regulatory authorities. The drug was provided at no cost, according to Mapp.
Yet to find news about how long it takes to make more ZMapp.
#1
The drug is extracted from GMO'ed tobacco plants.
Rough guess: time to grow the tobacco + extraction = a few months.
If you want FDA approval, add N years.
#3
It's a modified tobacco plant? Each plant will yield a dozen or more cuttings. Root in water, plant out in a greenhouse, and raise the carbon dioxide level. You'll get significantly faster time to maturity, and a good deal more plants. Rinse and repeat... but a base of so few patients is too few to show dangerous side effects, etc. This is still very experimental. Were I the manufacturer, I'd want some guarantees in writing to cover expansion expenses and to protect against law suits later.
And the FDA looks to be about to become even more cautious about approvals.
WHO announces W. African Ebola death toll passes 1,013.
The AP (8/12) reports that the World Health Organization announced that Ebola fatalities in the current outbreak in four countries in West Africa has reached 1,013. There have also been “1,848 suspected, probable or confirmed cases.”
Reuters (8/12) also reports the totals from the WHO announcement adding that of the 52 deaths added from August 7-9, 29 were in Liberia, 17 in Sierra Leone, and 6 in Guinea.
Nigeria Confirms Tenth Case. Bloomberg (8/12) reports that Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu announced yesterday that a nurse “suspected of contracting Ebola from” Patrick Sawyer, who died of Ebola, is now the eighth person with a confirmed case of Ebola in Nigeria. So far, all eight confirmed Nigerian cases have been in Lagos. [It must be noted that Sawyer seemed to go out of his way to infect health care personnel, based on other reports.]
More on the Final Doses Of ZMapp. The AP (8/11) reports that the Liberian government announced that the US has approved the use of ZMapp. The Mapp company announced that after shipping the treatment, “it had run out of its supply.” In addition, Mapp explained that “it would take months to produce even modest quantities” of the treatment. Liberia also said that it is “receiving an experimental treatment from the World Health Organization.”
Reuters (8/12) reports the request from Liberia for the treatment was approved by President Obama and the Food and Drug Administration, and that further doses were being sent by the WHO.
GSK Vaccine Phase I Trial May Begin In September. The Hill (8/12) reports that GlaxoSmithKline in cooperation with the US National Institutes of Health will begin a Phase I trial of its Ebola vaccine. The company also said that full testing “for a new vaccine is a long, complex process, often lasting 10 or more years.” Crucell is also working with NIH on an Ebola vaccine. It has been proven effective in monkeys.
Reuters (8/11) reports that the US Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the trial, which is expected to start this year. The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on its website said the trial could start this fall.
A [GSK] company spokeswoman said on Sunday that the trial should get underway "later this year", while GSK's partner the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said in a statement on its website it would start "as early as fall 2014", implying a potential September launch of testing.
Even if is fast-tracked, however, and emergency procedures are put in place, the new vaccine could not be ready for widespread deployment before 2015 - even assuming it works as well as hoped.
"It is right at the beginning of the development journey and still has a very long way to go," the GSK official said, declining to be drawn on a possible timeline for launch.
The investigational vaccine is based on a chimpanzee adenovirus into which two Ebola genes have been inserted, which means it contains no infectious Ebola virus material. Adenoviruses are best known for causing the common cold.
Once the vaccine enters a cell and delivers its genetic payload, the two gene inserts produce a protein that generates an immune response in the body - but the adenovirus carrying the genes does not replicate further.
[Iran Press TV] Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement for Moscow to send a humanitarian aid convoy to Kiev in cooperation with the International committee of the Red Thingy.
The announcement came after a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso on Monday.
Putin told Barroso that Moscow "is sending a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine in cooperation with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Thingy."
The Red Thingy has confirmed that it has held talks with both countries and said that eastern Ukraine's humanitarian situation is critical as reports say thousands have no access to water, electricity, and medical aid.
Moscow has been urging Kiev to permit it to send humanitarian aid to the residents of the eastern regions, but Ukraine and the West have opposed the move.
On Saturday, the US and Britannia labeled any Russian humanitarian mission in Ukraine as "unjustified and illegal."
Russia's decision follows Ukraine's intensified military operations, particularly around Donetsk, over the past week.
On Sunday, the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk came under fresh shelling, as fighting between government troops and pro-Russian forces continues.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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[FOXNEWS] Ukrainian officials said Tuesday that 280 trucks thought to be carrying humanitarian aid from Russia to the war-torn eastern Ukraine city of Luhansk would not be allowed to cross the border between the two countries.
Andriy Lysenko, a front man for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said the convoy would not be allowed to pass because it had not been certified by the Red Thingy. Lysenko also showed a covertly filmed video appearing to show vehicles similar to the white-canopied trucks dispatched from Moscow on Tuesday parked at a military base in Russia.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 11:14 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Over 100 inmates have beat feet from a prison in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk after it came under Kiev's artillery fire.
According to a statement released by Donetsk's city council on Monday, the inmates beat feet from the high-security prison located on the outskirts of the city, after it was hit by five artillery shells late on Sunday evening.
One inmate was killed and five others were maimed as the shells landed in their living quarters. The kaboom started a riot, during which 106 inmates escaped.
A city council front man told news hounds that the escaped prisoners had been incarcerated for offenses such as murder, rape and robbery.
Pro-Russian protesters are currently patrolling the area around the prison over fears that the escaped prisoners may try to arm themselves.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Nearly 570 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed during four months of incessant fighting between government troops and pro-Russia forces in the volatile east regions of the country.
Ukraine's security front man, Andriy Lysenko, said on Monday that 568 government forces have been killed in the conflict which has also left another 2,120 servicemen maimed.
The Red Thingy has classed the fierce conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia activists as a civil war.
Lysenko said six soldiers have been killed during the past 24 hours as government forces tighten the noose around the eastern cities of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... has said more than 1,300 people have been killed in the fighting.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2014 00:00 ||
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[ARABNEWS] Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him in so they deserve him... on Monday prepared for the challenge of leading Turkey as a strongman president after winning an election in the first round albeit by a narrower-than-expected margin.
He vowed to build a "new Turkey" and reconcile a divided country in triumphant midnight speech before tens of thousands of supporters in Ankara, after taking almost 52 percent of the vote in Sunday's poll.
As premier since 2003, Erdogan has sought to modernize Turkey and take a more assertive position on the global stage but is seen by many as increasingly authoritarian.
Now the country's first ever directly elected president, the Islamic-rooted leader will be inaugurated on August 28 and could serve two five-year terms, staying in power until 2024.
Attention will now turn to who becomes the next prime minister to take the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) into 2015 legislative elections.
As Erdogan prepares to beef up the powers of the president — which in recent years has been a largely ceremonial role — he may have to tread more carefully after a victory that was weaker than expected by his strategists.
"It will have implications for the way he approaches the new presidency, it would have to be more cautious," said Ali Carkoglu, professor at Koc University in Istanbul.
Erdogan is seeking a more US-style executive presidency but this will prove tricky within the limits of the current constitution, and the AKP has vowed to seek a new basic law after the 2015 polls.
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#3
Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. The Iberian Peninsula is part of Europe. Today that's Spain and Portugal.
If you really want to see race/caste separation just look at the purer Spanish blood lines versus mestizos and indian lines in our South American neighbors. It's "in" to be aligned with being euro (aka white) there. Why shouldn't they bring their multicultural biases and prejudices with them? This is one of those fundamental contradictions of the Left, like supporting unrestricted abortion then getting upset because people choose to abort far more female than male babies. In this case, uncontrolled immigration among a group in which people want to be 'white' rather then be separated for the Left's own racist agenda.
#4
Procopius2k, historically the ones sneaking across the border did not come from the European stock. Has that changed or are the ones crossing trying to sort of launder their background?
#6
Mexico /Central are racist in the truest sense of the word. My wife is an educated woman from the state of Nayarit in southern Mexico. She has beautiful bronze skin. Her own relatives refer to her as "la Negra" and consider her their lesser for it. I did my Ph.D work at Univ. of Chicago on Mexico under Pres. Cardenas 1934-1940). I know what I speak of. Just watch the Latino TV channels -most characters are white as the driven snow. To this very day, Many/most Mexican children are taught to marry up (i.e.someone with a whiter complexion.) All of this does not fit the Left's historical narrative so it is not discussed. (BTW: in the 1920's the Mexicans drove all the Chinese out of northern Mexico - ethnic cleansing using the modern term. Again, never mentioned.)
#8
#4 - the Census Bureau doesn't have a legal definition of race (yet). You volunteer your 'identity'. As posted here, many have been taught you 'upgrade' themselves by choosing white/euro.
#5 - Far more Goths than Vikings. The Basques were displaced by the Celt-Iberians who in turn where incorporated by the Romans for a couple hundred years. They in turn were overrun by the Gothic tribes who spent most of their time fighting among themselves. Then the Moors conquered the fragmented peninsula save the northern strip up around Santander and Bilbao where topography gave them the means to resist with the sword. There you'll find some genetic lines of 'Hispanic' blondes far deeper than anything the later Viking raids left.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[LATIMES] A 75-year-old Spanish priest suffering from the Ebola virus died Tuesday in an isolation ward in Madrid -- the first European death from the outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people in West Africa and the first known death on European soil.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
