skip to main |
skip to sidebar
FORT COLLINS : Deputies searched the home of a couple caught up in Colorado's ‘balloon boy’ saga Saturday night after the sheriff said he was pursuing criminal charges in a case that at first sparked fear for the child, then relief he was okay, then suspicions of a hoax.
The boy's parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, met with Larimer County investigators for much of Saturday afternoon amid lingering questions about whether he perpetrated a publicity stunt when his 6-year-old son Falcon vanished into the rafters of his garage while the world thought he was zooming through the sky in a flying saucer-like helium balloon.
But Sheriff Jim Alderden didn't say who would be charged or what the charges would be. His deputies later showed up at the Heene's Fort Collins home with a search warrant and at least three of them began a search. Sgt. Ian Stewart declined so say what they were after.
Investigators were seen leaving the home just after midnight carrying several boxes and a computer.
Alderden didn't call Thursday's hours-long drama a hoax, but he expressed disappointment that he couldn't level more serious charges in the incident, which sent police and the military scrambling to save young Falcon Heene as millions of worried television viewers watched.
"We were looking at Class 3 misdemeanor, which hardly seems serious enough given the circumstances," Alderden said. "We are talking to the district attorney, federal officials to see if perhaps there aren't additional federal charges that are appropriate in this circumstance."
Suspicion that the balloon saga was a hoax arose almost immediately after Falcon was found hiding in a cardboard box. Heene, a storm chaser and inventor whose family has appeared on the reality show "Wife Swap," and his wife had said one of the boy's older brothers had said Falcon was aboard the homemade balloon when it took off.
Alderden initially said there was no reason to believe the incident was a hoax. Authorities questioned the Heenes again after Falcon turned to his dad during a CNN interview Thursday night and said "you said we did this for a show" when asked why he didn't come out of his hiding place.
Falcon got sick during two separate TV interviews Friday when asked again why he hid.
After the sheriff spoke to reporters, Richard Heene and his wife walked out of his office after meeting with officials for several hours. As reporters yelled questions, all Heene said was, "I was talking to the sheriff's department just now." He then walked to his car with his wife and a friend, and they drove away.
It wasn't clear where the family was late Saturday night. By 9 p.m., an AP reporter at the family home said the couple hadn't returned after leaving the sheriff's office. Their three sons were believed to have been at home being watched by sheriff's officials earlier in the day, but their whereabouts also weren't known to reporters in the evening.
The day began with Richard Heene knocking on the windows of journalists camped outside his home and promising a "big announcement." A few hours later, he did an about-face when he told reporters that they should leave questions in a cardboard box on the front doorstep.
As Heene walked away, a reporter shouted, "Can you tell us once and for all if this is a hoax?"
"Absolutely no hoax. I want your questions in the box," Heene said, waving a cardboard container before going back into his home.
A circus-like atmosphere formed outside, including men holding signs and occasionally yelling "balloon boy." One sign read, "Put balloon boy on TV: America's Most Wanted."
Other gawkers carried aluminum-foil stovetop popcorn makers that resembled the a flying saucer-like helium balloon launched from the family's backyard Thursday, with 6-year-old Falcon Heene believed to be onboard.
The Heenes have said the balloon was supposed to be tethered to the ground when it lifted off, and no one was supposed to be aboard. A video of the launch shows the family counting down in unison, "3, 2, 1," before Richard Heene pulls a cord, setting the balloon into the air.
"Whoa!" one of the boys exclaims. Then his father says in disbelief, "Oh, my God!" He then says to someone, "You didn't put the (expletive) tether down!" and he kicks the wood frame that had held the balloon.
Falcon's brother said he saw him inside the compartment before it took off and that's why they thought he was in there when it launched. Heene said he had yelled at Falcon before the launch for getting inside.
Over the years, Richard Heene has worked as a storm chaser, a handyman and contractor, and an aspiring reality-TV star.
He and his family appeared on the ABC reality show "Wife Swap," and the show's producer said it had a show in development with the Heenes but the deal is now off. TLC also said Heene had pitched a reality show to the network months ago, but it passed on the offer.
Despite his attempts to get on TV, Heene insisted Saturday that he didn't know what kinds of questions were being asked about him because he didn't have cable.
"I'm going to place the box out front. Please write your questions down, because friends are telling me they're saying this and that. I have no idea what the news is saying," Heene said.
source:www.aaj.tv
YALA : A bomb attack on Monday on a crowded market in Thailand's troubled south wounded 24 people including three soldiers, local police said.
The device, hidden in a motorcycle parked in front of the market in Yala town, went off at 7:30 am as customers were shopping for food.
A bitter separatist insurgency in Thailand's southern provinces has claimed more than 3,900 lives over the past five years.
The shadowy militants target Buddhists and Muslims, with victims ranging from teachers and security forces to rubber plantation workers.
The insurgency erupted in January 2004, but tensions have simmered in the region, formerly an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate, since it was annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand in 1902.
source:www.aaj.tv
WASHINGTON : It would be irresponsible to send more troops to Afghanistan until a legitimate and credible government is in place, the White House and top Democrats said on Sunday.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said the most critical issue facing US strategy is whether the Afghans can be an effective partner in destroying al Qaeda safe havens and bringing stability to the region.
"It would be reckless to make a decision on US troop levels if in fact you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that US troops would create and become a true partner in governing," Emanuel said in an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
Emanuel stressed that the central question is "not how much troops you have but whether in fact there's an Afghan partner."
As the White House faces mounting pressure in implementing a viable strategy in the 8-year-old war, the outcome of Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election remains in question because of reported ballot fraud. Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared victory, but a runoff election with his closest challenger is now a possibility.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., reiterated the need for a clear commitment from the Afghans before Obama agrees to send more US troops.
"It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country when we don't even have an election finished and know who the president is and what kind of government we're working with," Kerry told CNN.
Kerry said Obama and key White House advisers must assess what the Afghan government will be able to deliver and how they are able to assist "with respect to their army" before the president decides to send additional troops to fight.
Kerry dismissed criticism that Obama's deliberations on additional troops are a sign of indecision or weakness.
source:www.aaj.tv
LONDON : Botanists at Britain’s Kew Gardens have collected seeds from 10% of the world’s wild plants, their first goal in a long-term project to protect all endangered species, they said on Thursday.
Seeds from a wild, pink banana are among the latest additions to the collection at Kew, London, designed to guard against dwindling diversity. The banana from China, musa itinerans, is an important staple for wild elephants and is also useful for breeding new types of the fruit, but is under threat as its jungle habitat is cleared for commercial agriculture.
It became the 24,200th species of wild plant with seeds stored in the Millennium Seed Bank, a nine-year-old conservation project run by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and institutions in 54 countries.
With it the project reaches its target to collect, bank and conserve seeds from 10% of the world’s most under-threat wild plant species — it is already working towards a new goal of 25% of plants by 2020.
The seed partnership focuses on collecting those plants most at risk and storing them sfor future use in conservation or for research. Since 2000, more than 3.5 billion seeds have been collected and stored in air-tight containers in the temperature-controlled vaults.
source:www.aaj.tv
NEW YORK : The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it will be working with the National Eye Institute and the Department of Defence on Phase 2 of a study on the potential dangers of a surgical laser procedure known as LASIK.
It will study the scope of problems linked with laser eye-correcting surgery, such as, blurred vision and dry eyes, including determining the percentage of patients who experience negative side effects after the surgery.
The project composed of three phases saw Phase 1 begin in July, with the agency designing and implementing a Web-based questionnaire that assessed patient-reported outcomes, including evaluating the quality of life issues following the surgery.
The project expected to conclude by 2012, also includes a clinical trial for tracking patients who undergo the procedure.
Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, Acting Head of FDA's Medical Device Division says: 'This study will enhance our understanding of the risks of Lasik and could lead to a reduction in patients who experience adverse effects.'
An estimated 6-million Americans have had Lasik surgery for permanent reshaping of their corneas i. e. a clear layer covering the eye, to improve their vision. With the long-term safety of the procedure unknown, there are no guarantees of 20/20 vision, hoever, ophthalmology societies report 95% of patient satisfaction with their new vision.
Even so, a small number of patients have reported permanent eye damage following the surgery, including double vision, dry eye and halos around objects at night.
After years of complaints, the FDA in 2008 agreed to look into the problems. Last summer, according to the agency it received 140-reports of Lasik-related problems between 1998 and 2006.
Advanced Medical Optics Inc., Alcon Inc., and Bausch and Lomb are some of the Lasik laser manufacturers
source:www.aaj.tv
CANBERRA : Social networking upstart Twitter has made the jump to academia’s hallowed halls, with ‘tweets’ made compulsory writing for would-be journalists at an Australian university.
“Some students’ tweets are not as in depth as you might like. But I don’t know if getting them to write an essay is any more beneficial,” Jacqui Ewart, senior lecturer at Griffith University, said on Thursday.
Twitter microblogs have become an online phenomenon with users sending “tweets” of up to 140 characters, or just a few words, to increasing numbers of “followers”.
The service rose to global prominence during unrest in the wake of Iran’s recent presidential elections with tweets used to broadcast otherwise restricted information.
The service is being used more frequently by politicians, including Australia’s bookish Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has asked followers to recommend movie choices and this week “tweeted” about his visit to a rural bakery.
Students were using twitter as “an exercise in self-reflection”, Ewart said, citing increasing demand from employers for people to use social networking tools.
But reaction from students has been mixed, she said, raising questions over the utility of using sites like Twitter and Facebook in a formal education curriculum.
“Quite surprisingly, a lot of students didn’t know what Twitter was. There were a couple of really vocal students who were saying they couldn’t believe we were using it and thought it was a waste of time,” Ewart said.
source:www.aaj.tv
LONDON : Giving paracetamol to babies to prevent fever after routine vaccinations may reduce the effect of the shots themselves, Czech scientists said on Friday.
While the paracetamol, known as acetaminophen in the United States, generally does limit post-vaccination fever, it also reduces the child’s response to some of the vaccine antigens, according to a study in the Lancet journal.
Mothers in developed countries whose babies have a series of routine vaccinations at around the age three months are often told by medical staff to give paracetamol to try to cut the risk of fever or febrile convulsions.
But Roman Prymula of the Czech University of Defence said his study showed that giving so-called anti-pyretic medicines like paracetamol after vaccinations should “no longer be routinely recommended without careful weighing of the expected benefits and risks”.
The vaccinations which are generally offered to children as protection against pneumococcal disease, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, polio and rotavirus.
The effect of some of the vaccines — in particular Hib, diphtheria, tetanus and pneumococcal — is reduced if kids are given paracetamol, the expert said.
source:www.aaj.tv
