Emmy Winner William Windom Dead at 88

(he’s dead Jim)

Bruna Nessif, eonlineRest in peace, William Windom.

The television actor, who received an Emmy Award for his work in My World and Welcome to It and is well-known for his roles on Star Trek and Murder, She Wrote, died in his California home from congestive heart failure on Thursday, according to the New York Times .

Windom was 88.

During his early years, Windom joined the army and served as a paratrooper in World War II. He later attended the University of Kentucky, among several other higher-education institutions, and decided to pursue acting.

Windom also appeared on episodes of The Twilight Zone and the '60s comedy series The Farmer's Daughter, where he played a Minnesota congressman, a position served in real-life by his great-grandfather, whom he was named after.

The award-winning actor also landed film roles, including a part in To Kill a Mockingbird, as the prosecuting attorney who faced off against Gregory Peck 's Atticus Finch in court.

Windom is survived by his wife of 37 years, Patricia, and four children, Rachel, Heather, Hope and Rebel.

Wife of disgraced Chinese politician sentenced

(‘unspecified grave violations of party discipline” so he lacks discipline? Sounds less like charges and more like an 80’s album cover title. Still progress there China way to not jump to summary execution! WOOOOOooooooOO!!)

By GILLIAN WONG, APHEFEI, China — The wife of a disgraced Chinese politician received a suspended death sentence Monday for the murder of a British businessman, as authorities move to tidy up a huge political scandal ahead of a once-in-a-decade leadership transition this fall.

Gu Kailai's sentencing clears the way for the ruling Communist Party to deal with her husband, Bo Xilai, who was formerly one of China's most prominent politicians before being stripped of his Politburo post in the scandal. Bo has not been directly implicated in the murder of Neil Heywood, but is accused of unspecified grave violations of party discipline.

"They are eager to close the case and move on," said Dali Yang, director of the University of Chicago Center in Beijing.

Gu's suspended sentence will almost certainly be commuted to life in prison after two years, a relatively lenient punishment resulting from her cooperation with investigators and what the court deemed her mental instability at the time of Heywood's death by cyanide poisoning last November.

Family aide Zhang Xiaojun, accused of abetting the murder, was sentenced to nine years, Hefei Intermediate People's Court official Tang Yigan told reporters.

Bo was not called as a witness in the Gu trial and neither the verdict nor the evidence presented made any mention of him. The charges against Gu and Zhang also scrupulously avoided any mention of corruption or abuse of power, serving to shield the party's image from damage.

Four policemen accused of covering up the crime were given sentences from five to 11 years.

State media say Gu, 53, confessed to intentional homicide at a one-day trial held in this eastern China city on Aug. 9. The media reports — the court has been closed to international media — say she and Heywood had a dispute over money and Heywood allegedly threatened her son. State media said the two feuded after Heywood asked for a multi-million dollar commission on a real estate venture that had gone bad.

Gu was accused of luring the victim to a Chongqing hotel, getting him drunk and then pouring cyanide into his mouth.

Tang said Gu and Zhang told the court they would not appeal.

The ruling against Gu will set expectations for Bo to be dealt with severely, said Cheng Li, an expert in Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"If Bo does not get put through the legal process in the next few months, Gu will be seen as a scapegoat," he said.

State broadcaster CCTV showed Gu dressed in a white blouse and black pants suit briefly addressing the court from inside the dock surrounded by waist-high wooden columns.

"This verdict is just. It shows special respect for the law, reality and life," Gu said in calm, measured phrases.

The sentencing moves China one step closer to resolving its biggest political crisis in two decades that exposed divisions within the leadership and threatened to complicate plans for Vice President Xi Jinping to succeed Hu Jintao as top leader at a party congress expected in October.

Questions remain, however, over how the party intends to deal with Bo, who was dismissed in March as the powerful Communist Party boss of the major city of Chongqing and suspended from the 25-member Politburo.

Bo had at one time been considered a candidate for the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee at the upcoming 18th Communist Party national congress and it isn't clear whether the party will deal with him internally or put him on trial and risk further harm to its image.

The case has for months engrossed ordinary Chinese, among whom Bo remains broadly popular, especially with the working classes drawn by his populist flair and policies such as building affordable housing and cracking down on property developers and others he labeled gangsters. Many have tended to see his downfall as a politically motivated takedown engineered by his party rivals.

"I think it is just a political struggle, it has nothing to do with us ordinary people. The 18th party congress is coming very soon, so it must have something to do with that. I don't really care about it," said a Beijing investment advisor, who would only give his surname, Zhai, because of the sensitivity of the topic.

Tang said the court considered Gu's testimony against others, her confession and repentance, and her psychological impairment as mitigating factors in sentencing. But he said it rejected claims that Heywood's threats had prompted the crime, saying there was no evidence he intended to make good on them.

During Gu's trail, the court was told she had suffered from chronic insomnia, anxiety and depression and paranoia in the past, and that she had been dependent on medication, but it found that she willfully carried out the murder.

An amendment to China's criminal law in 2011 said that criminals with life sentences who show proper conduct can have their life sentences cut to 25 years. Chinese law also allows for medical parole so Gu could be released after serving even less time.

For their part in the cover-up, former deputy Chongqing police chief Guo Weiguo was sentenced to 11 years, leading officer Li Yang was given 11, and officers Wang Pengfei and Wang Zhi were given five years each.

Former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun, whose February flight to a U.S. consulate revealed suspicions that Heywood had been murdered, is expected to go on trial soon. Gu allegedly told Wang about her crime, but it isn't known if he'll be charged in relation to the murder.

Security was tight outside the court on Monday, with police officers standing guard around the building and at least a half dozen SWAT police vans parked on each corner.

Gu's arrest and the ouster of her husband sparked the biggest political turbulence in China since the bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989.

Lawyers and political analysts said politics appeared to weigh heavily on the verdict, with the verdict on Gu apparently calibrated to assuage demands for justice without being overly harsh. .

Beijing-based rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang said the outcome ignored legal strictures that would have required the death penalty, given that Gu had admitted to committing premeditated murder. "Although I welcome this verdict, it doesn't actually stand up from a legal standpoint," Pu said.

Peking University law professor He Weifang said political considerations were clearly behind the relative leniency shown to Gu.

"If the murderer was an ordinary person who killed someone, not to mention killing a foreigner, the criminal would be sentenced to immediate execution," He said.

Augusta National adds first 2 female members

(not to worry America they’re still rich and powerful. Therefore they are legitimate golfers and will therefore only engage in legitimate golfing which has no chance of causing unexpected caddies)

By DOUG FERGUSON, APNEW YORK — For the first time in its 80-year history, Augusta National Golf Club has female members.

The home of the Masters, under increasing criticism the last decade because of its all-male membership, invited former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first women in green jackets when the club opens for a new season in October.

Both women accepted.

"This is a joyous occasion," Augusta National chairman Billy Payne said Monday.

The move likely ends a debate that intensified in 2002 when Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations urged the club to include women among its members. Former club chairman Hootie Johnson stood his ground, even at the cost of losing Masters television sponsors for two years, when he famously said Augusta National might one day have a woman in a green jacket, "but not at the point of a bayonet."

Pakistan girl jailed, accused of blasphemy

( on the bright side she was only jailed not stoned to death. The irony of a Christian being jailed for book burning is priceless, although she should have stuck to flag burning which being a popular secular pastime would have handled any burn stuff impulses and been applauded instead of jailed. It seems the height of madness that in this day and age there are still places with blasphemy laws. It also seems damn odd that the religions that claim to be religions of love so often have such a deep hate on. Beating someone to death and setting their body on fire, surely a way to express gods all encompassing love...)

By REBECCA SANTANA, APISLAMABAD — A Christian girl was sent to a Pakistani prison after being accused by her furious Muslim neighbors of burning pages of the Islamic holy book, the Quran, in violation of the country's strict blasphemy laws.

A police official said Monday there was little evidence that pages of the book had been burned and that the case would likely be dropped. But hundreds of angry neighbors gathered outside the girl's home last week demanding action in a case raising new concerns about religious extremism in this conservative Muslim country.

Some human rights officials and media reports said the girl was mentally handicapped. Police gave conflicting reports of her age as 11 and 16.

Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad or defiling the holy book, or Quran, can face life in prison or even execution. Critics say the laws are often misused to harass non-Muslims or target individuals.

Police put the girl in jail for 14 days on Thursday after neighbors said they believed a Christian girl had burned pages of a Quran, gathering outside her house in a poor outlying district of Islamabad, said police officer Zabi Ullah. He suggested she was being held for her protection.

"About 500 to 600 people had gathered outside her house in Islamabad and they were very emotional, angry and they might have harmed her if we had not quickly reacted," Ullah said.

Almost everyone in the girl's neighborhood insisted she had burned the Quran's pages, even though police said they had found no evidence of it. One police official, Qasim Niazi, said when the girl was brought to the police station, she had a shopping bag that contained various religious and Arabic-language papers that had been partly burned, but there was no Quran.

Some residents claimed they actually saw burnt pages of Quran — either at the local mosque or at the girl's house. Few people in Pakistan actually speak or read Arabic, so often assume that anything they see with Arabic script is believed to be from the Quran, sometimes the only Arabic-language book people have seen.

But one police officer familiar with the girl's case said the matter would likely be dropped once the investigation is completed and the atmosphere is defused, saying there was "nothing much to the case." He did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the case.

A spokesperson for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Farhatullah Babar, said the president has taken "serious note" of reports of the girl's arrest and has asked the Interior Ministry to look into the case.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the case "deeply disturbing".

"We urge the government of Pakistan to protect not just its religious minority citizens but also women and girls," she said.

The Associated Press is withholding the girl's name; the AP does not generally identify juveniles under 18 who are accused of crimes.

The case demonstrates the deep emotion that suspected blasphemy cases can evoke in a country where religion Many critics say the blasphemy laws are often abused.

"It has been exploited by individuals to settle personal scores, to grab land, to violate the rights of non-Muslims, to basically harass them," said the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Zora Yusuf.

Those convicted of blasphemy can spend years in prison and often face mob justice by extremists when they finally do get out. In July, thousands of people dragged a man accused of desecrating the Quran from a police station in the central city of Bahawalpur, beat him to death and then set his body on fire.

Attempts to revoke or alter the blasphemy laws have been met with violent opposition. Last year, two prominent political figures who spoke out against the laws were killed in attacks that basically ended any attempts at reform.

The girl's jailing terrified her Christian neighbors, many of whom left their homes in fear after the incident. One resident said Muslims used to object to the noise when Christians sang songs during their services. After the girl was accused he said senior members of the Muslim community pressured landlords to evict Christian tenants.

But Muslim residents insisted they treated their neighbors with respect, and said Christians needed to respect Islamic traditions and culture.

"Their priest should tell them that they should respect the call for prayer. They should respect the mosque and the Quran," said Haji Pervez, one of several Muslims gathered at the local mosque less than 100 yards (meters) from the grey concrete house where the Christian girl lived.

"This is what should have happened. We are standing in the house of God. This incident has happened and it is true. It was not good."

"Even a 3-year-old, 4-year-old child knows: "This is Muslim. This is Christian. This is our religion," said shopkeeper Mohammed Ilyas.

Autopsy: Death of handcuffed man in Ark. a suicide

(sounds legit, handcuffed in a police car shot himself. Open and shut case. Houdinicide killing yourself while escaping from handcuffs)

By JEANNIE NUSS, APLITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A man whose hands were cuffed behind him in the back seat of an Arkansas patrol car shot himself in the right temple with a handgun he apparently concealed from arresting officers, according to an autopsy report released Monday that listed the death as a suicide.

The state crime lab report, signed by three medical examiners, said the muzzle of a gun was placed against Chavis Carter's head when it was fired. Jonesboro police released the report to The Associated Press and other news organizations under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The report said the manner of death was ruled a suicide based on autopsy findings and investigative conclusions from the Jonesboro police department, which has faced questions from Carter's family and community members about the circumstances surrounding the July 28 shooting.

"He was cuffed and placed into a police car, where apparently he produced a weapon, and despite being handcuffed, shot himself in the head," the report said. Chief Medical Examiner Charles P. Kokes did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Police have said officers frisked Carter, 21, twice after a traffic stop without finding a gun before he was fatally shot, but the department's internal investigation continues. The FBI also is monitoring the case and the local branch of the NAACP has called for a thorough investigation into the death of Carter, who was black. Two other men who were in a truck with him during the stop and the two officers on the scene are white, according to police.

The autopsy report comes days after police released dashboard camera video recorded the night Carter was shot in Jonesboro, about 130 miles northeast of Little Rock. Part of the video showed Carter being patted down and ended before officers found Carter slumped over and bleeding in the back of a patrol car as was described in a police report. Police later released additional video they said was recorded after Carter was found.

Neither included the moment they say Carter shot himself, and the footage did little to resolve questions about how the shooting could have happened.

Carter's death came after police stopped a truck in which he was riding. The driver and another passenger eventually were allowed to go, but police said Carter had an outstanding arrest warrant. Court records show it had to do with a drug charge out of Mississippi's DeSoto County.

Carter was searched twice and police said they found a small amount of marijuana, but no gun. After the first search, an officer put Carter into a patrol car without handcuffing him. He was later searched again, handcuffed and returned to the same car.

"It's obvious they did miss the weapon on the first search. It is likely, since he was placed into the car un-handcuffed the first time, that he had an opportunity to stash the weapon in the car," Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates said last week. "The second search, which was more thorough and inclusive, did not disclose the weapon either."

Officers a short time later saw Carter slumped over in the backseat and covered in blood, according to the police report, which concluded he had managed to conceal a handgun with which he shot himself. He later died at a hospital.

As part of their investigation, the Jonesboro Police Department also released a video reconstruction of the shooting showing how a man could shoot himself in the head with his hands cuffed behind him.

In producing the video, the agency said it used the same type of handcuffs used on Carter and the same model of handgun found with Carter after he died, a .380-caliber Cobra semi-automatic. An officer of similar height and weight as Carter sat in the back of a cruiser, leaned over and was able to lift the weapon to his head and reach the trigger.

The autopsy report released Monday said Carter was about 5 feet 8 inches and that his body weighed 150 pounds.

Cellphone videos, other phone records, search warrant returns and investigative portions of the incident report had not been released Monday, police spokesman Sgt. Lyle Waterworth said.

"As the investigation continues and as prudent further information will be released," Waterworth said in an email. "Any other questions will be answered upon completion of investigation."

Benjamin Irwin, a Memphis, Tenn., lawyer representing Carter's family, said they're reviewing the autopsy report and plan to release a statement. Supporters of the family are expected to gather Monday in Memphis near the National Civil Rights Museum.