Posts Tagged ‘United States’


Update: Wikileaks Founder Targeted for International Hunt

Tom Ramstack – AHN News Correspondent

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The hunt was on, Wednesday, for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange after Sweden issued an arrest warrant for him. The Swedish government is investigating him for rape while the U.S. government is outraged against him for leaking more than 251,000 documents that describe sometimes secret State Department communications.

Assange, 39, says the rape charges against him hide the real motives of government officials who want to silence his Web site that leaks secret documents.

He says he had only consensual sex with two Swedish women.

Nevertheless, Interpol added his name to its Most Wanted list.

Assange’s whereabouts were unknown by Wednesday afternoon after the globe-trotting Australian hacker apparently went into hiding.

Government officials from Ecuador initially offered him asylum but later tempered the offer by saying they would consider any request Assange might make to stay in their country to avoid prosecution.

On Monday, Ecuadorean Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas was quoted in the local media saying the government was trying to contact Assange.

“We are inviting him to give conferences and, if he wants, we have offered him Ecuadorean residency,” he said.

On Wednesday, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa backed off his foreign minister’s comments.

He said WikiLeaks “has committed an error by breaking the laws of the United States and leaking this type of information.”

Lucas was speaking on his own behalf but “no official offer was made” of residency by the Ecuadoran government, Correa said.

Correa is one of several Latin American leaders who have sharply criticized U.S. foreign policy previously.

As early as this year Assange has checked into possibilities of obtaining residency in Switzerland and Sweden.

He dropped his plans to move to Sweden when he was investigated for the sexual assault charges this summer.

Even if Assange escapes from Swedish authorities, he could face U.S. criminal charges.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that he has launched an investigation of Wikileaks and Assange’s methods for obtaining classified information.

Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin joined other politicians in saying he should be prosecuted.

So far, the damage from the leaked documents appears to be modest. It consists mostly of comments made by diplomats in private conversations and memos that are embarrassing but not devastating to U.S. foreign policy.

Assange appears to be unrepentant, even planning to publish more leaked documents soon.

Some of the next documents are likely to involve Russian government officials and businessmen, he said in a report published in the Christian Science Monitor.

Assange was quoted telling a Moscow reporter, “We have [compromising materials] about Russia, about your government and businessmen. We will publish these materials soon.”

He also has said he will publish documents about an American bank after the New Year.

Forbes magazine quoted Assange saying he would publish a “megaleak” of corporate secrets. “It could take down a bank or two,” he said.

One bank would be hit hardest but he refused to name it.

However, last year he was quoted in Computerworld magazine saying he had obtained a 5-gigabyte hard drive from a Bank of America executive.

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Google Ready To Cooperate With EU On Anti-trust Probe

AHN News Staff

Washington, United States (AHN) – The European Commission has started an anti-trust probe into American search engine giant Google. The commission’s move came upon complaint by other search engines like price comparison site Foundem and legal search engine ejustice.fr that the American firm had misused its dominant position.

The firms claimed that Google penalized competing services of other firms in its results. Responding to the allegations, Google rejected the claims and vowed to cooperate with the Commission to address any such concerns.

Earlier, Texas attorney general launched similar investigation against Google after Foundem and other firms complained against the world’s largest search engine. In both the cases, the competitors accused Google of manipulating its search results.

“The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google has abused a dominant position in online search,” the body said in a statement.

The search service providers’ concern on unfavorable treatment of their services in Google’s unpaid and sponsored search results prompted them to take an action against the American firm.

However, Google’s executive said that since they started the firm, they have worked hard to do the right thing by the users as well as industry.

“But there’s always going to be room for improvement, and so we’ll be working with the Commission to address any concerns,” the American giant said in a statement.

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Protest Fizzles for Opting Out of Airport Security Checks

Tom Ramstack – AHN News Correspondent

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The protest that was supposed to tie up check-in lines at airports nationwide Wednesday fizzled into a few minor cases of grumbling while most passengers moved smoothly toward their flights.

Some travelers upset over the Transportation Security Administration’s aggressive new screening tactics tried to organize a National Opt-Out Day for Thanksgiving eve.

Through a series of Internet postings, they encouraged travelers to choose pat-down searches at airport security checkpoints instead of walking through body scanning machines that make people appear nearly nude on a video screen.

The TSA operates 385 of the scanners at 68 airports.

Pat-down searches, in which TSA security agents rub their hands along people’s bodies, take longer.

The protesters hoped a large number of travelers suddenly choosing pat-down searches would overwhelm TSA security agents, slowing check-in times and disrupting flight schedules on what is commonly the biggest travel day of the year.

“I hope to see deserted airports,” James Babb, a co-founder of the protest group “We Won’t Fly,” wrote on his Web site. “But if you want to do it, I say, have some fun with it. Be creative. Wear the kilt. Leave your phone on record. You could be the next YouTube star.”

The group says the TSA screening techniques create an invasion of privacy.

Instead of being overwhelmed by protesters, TSA officials reported little evidence of slowdowns at major airports.

Most of the protests consisted of a few travelers wearing T-shirts mocking the screening procedures or isolated incidents, such as a Utah man who wore a Speedo swimsuit as he passed through airport security and a woman in Los Angeles who showed up in a bikini.

John Pistole, the head of the safety administration, said on ABC television’s “Good Morning America” program that the TSA was prepared to handle the estimated 1.6 million air travelers on Wednesday.

Pistole, along with Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, urged flyers to avoid participating in the National Opt-Out Day protest.

“I just feel bad for the traveling public that’s just trying to get home for the holidays,” Pistole said about possible delays from a protest.

He said the TSA was trying to develop less intrusive screening techniques but would keep the body scanners and pat-downs for now.

At Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, airport officials estimated 70,000 travelers would pass through the security checkpoints Wednesday.

By mid-afternoon, the only obvious sign of protest came from a group that distributed fliers at the airport protesting the new security procedures.

Passengers at airports in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere also reported few disruptions.

The security checks appear to be having little impact on the number of Thanksgiving holiday travelers, according to the AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association.

More people are traveling this year than last year as the economic recession eases, AAA officials said.

About 42 million Americans are expected to travel during the holiday, most of them by automobile.

The increasing number of travelers this year pales in comparison with the record year of 2005, when about 58.6 million left home for Thanksgiving, the AAA reported.

Some of the biggest increases are expected on Amtrak, which has been reporting a record number of riders for most of this year.

About 686,000 travelers used Amtrak during last year’s Thanksgiving holiday.

Amtrak reported that tickets for nearly all of its trains were sold out by early this week.

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Survey Indicates 2/3 Of Americans Support Airport Full Body Scanners

AHN News Staff

D.C., Washington, United States (AHN) – Despite the recent furor created by strict airport security measures, particularly ivasive passenger searches, a survey released Monday indicated about two-thirds of Americans support the use of new full-body scanners at U.S. gateways.

However, 50 percent of the survey respondents drew the line on pat-downs, which they described as having gone too far. Some groups have labeled the pat-downs as glorified grope sessions.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano insisted the new regulations are needed for public safety because of the continued threat against the aviation industry by power and gel smugglers who could use these items as explosives.

Napolitano promised that the Transport Security Administration – which said less than 3 percent of air passengers undergo the pat-downs – would listen to public sentiment and make adjustments if it will not compromise airport security.

Since October 400 full-body scanners had been installed and in use at 70 of 450 American gateways.

Travelers who disagree with the TSA body search methods have initiated an online campaign urging passengers to refuse scanners on Wednesday, when a large number of Americans travel for the Thanksgiving week.

Some travelers plan to show their protest by opting for the slower pat-downs instead of passing through the full-body scanners considered as too invasive.

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TSA now needs false flag security incident to convince Americans to accept obscene pat-downs

(NaturalNews) With the grassroots backlash over the TSA’s obscene pat-downs growing by the day, it’s becoming fairly obvious that the only way the U.S. government is going to get the public to accept these Fourth Amendment violations is if there is another “terrorist incident” that’s stopped by the TSA and its naked body scanners. So far, the TSA is molesting children, teens and grannies without being able to demonstrate that this gross violation of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights is having any effect whatsoever on improving air travel safety. But if there’s anything to be learned from 9/11, it’s that the sheeple are always willing to give up their rights if they can be scared into doing so . (http://www.naturalnews.com/030452_Ron_Paul_enough_is.html) “After 9/11 people were scared and when people are scared they’ll do anything for someone who will make them less scared,” said Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis security technology expert, in an AP story (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101121/ap_on_re_us/us_airport_security_backlash). “But [this TSA] is particularly invasive. It’s strip-searching. It’s body groping. As abhorrent goes, this pegs it.” TSA is fighting for its survival The TSA is being threatened right now in a big way: One airport in Florida is already planning to ditch the agency and hire private contractors to run security. A NYC lawmaker has called for the “dismantling” of the TSA, and Rep Ron Paul has introduced legislation that would result in TSA agents being arrested for felony crimes if they touched peoples’ junk. The TSA, in other words, is fighting for its very survival right now. What it desperately needs is some new terrorist incident to remind the American people how much they need to give up their freedoms in exchange for security. Now, I’m not saying the TSA is going to plot to blow up an airplane or anything, but if there’s anybody who has the access to sneak something past airport security, it’s the TSA. How false flag operations achieve government goals The United States government has a long and detailed history of “staging” events in order to sway public opinion. The Gulf of Tonkin event in the Vietnam War era was deliberately staged by U.S. government officials in order to justify an escalation of military attacks on the North Vietnamese. Documents that were finally declassified just this year prove beyond any doubt that the U.S. government conspired to stage this “false flag” event. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/de-classified-vietnam-era-transcripts-show-senators-knew-gulf-of-tonkin-was-a-staged-false-flag-event.html) Operation Northwoods was a similar plot. As Wikipedia relates: The planned 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involved scenarios such as hijacking or shooting down passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs. These actions would be blamed on Cuba, and would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro’s communist government . It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nixed by John F. Kennedy, came to light through the Freedom of Information Act and was publicized by James Bamford. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag#As_pretexts_for_war) On the conspiracy theory front, there have long been accusations that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job” staged as a pretext to clamp down on Americans’ freedoms and roll out the Patriot Act — the very law that coincidentally gives TSA agents the right to have anybody arrested and detained for 48 hours without cause, without a warrant and without legal representation. The evidence surrounding the collapse of the WTC 7 building now has literally thousands of engineers, scientists and citizens realizing the building was obviously brought down by demolition explosions (http://buildingwhat.org) and not an “office fire” as was the official explanation. The point of all this is that when governments are cornered but don’t want to give in, they will sometimes resort to falsifying events in order to continue moving their agendas forward. As David Icke explains, it’s the old “problem-reaction-solution” approach. First, create the problem , then wait for the public reaction that allows you to enact the government solution . The formula works like a charm for everything from pushing flu vaccines to justifying a war. In fact, there is evidence that U.S. agents may already be working on this plan. The fake bomb recently found on board a German passenger jet, we now know, was manufactured by a U.S. company (http://www.prisonplanet.com/fake-bomb-aboard-german-passenger-jet-was-made-by-u-s-firm-to-test-airport-security.html). How government agencies keep themselves alive (and get more funding) Is the TSA at that point of desperation yet? I’m not sure, but it would certainly be easy for high-level TSA operatives to find some patsy who hates the government, convince him that he should carry some liquid explosives onto an airplane, and then “catch” him at a TSA security checkpoint, thereby proving that we need to keep giving up our freedoms in the name of security. The mainstream media would have a field day with that story, and for the next two weeks on the news, we’d all hear how important the TSA is and what a great job they’re doing, and how this “terrorist” was caught by the naked body scanner machine, and so on. Don’t be surprised to see such a scenario unfold. It’s not that I personally distrust the TSA in particular, because there are some good people who work there and who are not to blame for all this, but at the same time I’ve been around long enough and studied enough true history to know that government organizations will do practically anything to stay in power . The DEA, for example, is desperately fighting against marijuana legalization not because marijuana is some highly dangerous drug (it isn’t), but because it’s job security for DEA agents . The CDC, likewise, went completely out of its way last year to spread fear about the H1N1 Swine Flu for the same reasons: Job security. There’s nothing quite like declaring a stage-six pandemic to keep the Congressional funding flowing your way, huh? The CDC also has a fascinating history of completely distorting the AIDS epidemic in order to boost its own funding, by the way. Watch this eye-opening video from House of Numbers to learn more: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=4FE73A67EAEC6D7D2E8F8CF30E63A37E Every government agency — the TSA, CDC, FDA, USDA, FTC and so on — fights for its survival every year. That’s because in an era of budget cuts, every agency knows it could potentially be on the chopping block for severe cuts. And funding cuts translate into job losses. So the unspoken rule at all government agencies is to “make ourselves important” in order to keep the money flowing. This is also why the food contamination scares have been hyped up beyond all reason over the last two years: The FDA wants new powers to control the food supply, and the best way to do that is to latch onto stories about e.coli and salmonella and blow those all out of proportion in order to pass reactionary legislation called Senate Bill 510 (http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_Senate_Bill_510_Food_Safety.html). The truth about this food safety situation is that right now something like 80% of the chickens sold in grocery stores are contaminated with salmonella (http://www.naturalnews.com/021258.html), yet you don’t hear a peep about that story. And the FDA is making no effort whatsoever to “ban chicken meat” from grocery stores. Their fear mongering about food contamination is very selective, it seems. Perhaps the TSA has been learning its lessons from the FDA. Simply stage a false flag attack and you, too, can have increased Congressional funding to “fight terror” or whatever. We do need protections, but we need our rights even more All this isn’t to say that America doesn’t have enemies who really do want to destroy us. It’s true that there are really bad people out there — people and groups who want to bring America down. There are some good people in Washington who are fighting for our safety behind the scenes. Yes, the FBI, CIA and NSA all have “a few good men” who are doing things around the world that you and I don’t even want to know about. Stuff that would make you cringe if you knew about it. The sacrifices being made by some of these individuals in the name of protecting America’s interests on the international stage will never be fully known, nor recognized by anyone in the mainstream. The everyday American people who go about their lives shopping, watching TV, collecting a paycheck and surfing the ‘web have no idea what goes on behind the scenes to give them the luxury of pursuing such a carefree lifestyle. That’s why nothing I print here is intended to disrespect the front-line warriors who are fighting for America’s interests — soldiers, the few “good” feds, etc. But at the same time that there are some “good men” (and women) in these agencies, there are also some rotten apples (like in any organization, I suppose). There are some people working in the government who absolutely would not hesitate to stage a false flag attack if it meant increasing their power, their pay and their importance. And those people must be scratching their heads right now, thinking, “Gee, it sure would be easy to pull off a staged event of some kind that keeps us all in power.” I just hope they come to their senses and realize they should not be at war with the American people . They’re supposed to be fighting to protect our freedoms, not to take away our freedoms. The real war is with the true enemies of America — those state-sponsored terrorist groups that genuinely want to destroy America and everything it stands for. Certainly, we must not let the terrorists win. But neither must we allow freedom to perish in the process. Reasonable security is fine As a freedom-loving American who values both my freedom and my safety, I will gladly submit to having my luggage X-rayed and walking through a metal detector. I will gladly sit beside an armed Air Marshal on the flight, captained by an armed pilot on the flight deck who hopefully has a couple of spare mags along with his Colt 1911, too (pilots carry firearms on airplanes right now, most people don’t even know..). Yet as much as those security precautions seem reasonable, I refuse to subject myself to a body X-ray that emits ionizing radiation, and I refuse to give in to an obscene pat-down that involves government personnel feeling up my genitals, with or without a latex glove. At that point, “security” has become tyranny. And the terrorists have already won. We need to rise up and stop this. Just as some of our undercover federal agents (and active soldiers) are fighting for America’s interests overseas, you and I need to be fighting for our freedom right here at home, on American soil, with this airport security issue. We are not subjects. We are not cattle. We are sovereign citizens and we will not surrender our bodies to be fondled by government agents with the excuse that “it’s for our own good.” And be on the watch for a “staged” security event designed to convince the American people that they need to give up yet more freedoms in the name of police-state security. I’m willing to bet that precisely such a plot is on the drawing board in Washington D.C. right now.

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Senate Bill 510 Food Safety? The FDA has killed far more people than contaminated eggs or lettuce

(NaturalNews) Proponents of Senate Bill 510 — the Food Safety and Modernization Act — keep trying to claim that we need the FDA to protect us from tainted eggs, lettuce, onions and spinach. On the surface, it seems like a reasonable argument: No one should ever die from unsafe food in America, right? But to accomplish a net reduction in deaths, you’d need to grant power over the food supply to some organization that actually respects human life… and the FDA is not that organization. In fact, as we have documented here on NaturalNews over the last seven years, the FDA is responsible for far more deaths of Americans than all the terrorist events in the history of the world — combined! How is that so? How the FDA has killed millions of Americans Well, for starters, the FDA has a long and rather dubious history of keeping dangerous, deadly drugs on the market even after it knows those drugs are killing people. The FDA has even gone out of its way to ignore critical evidence about dangerous drugs in order to appease its Big Pharma clients and keep those high-profit drugs selling while people are dying. To see one example of this, look at the history of Vioxx — a drug the FDA kept on the market while it racked up well over 60,000 deaths according to the FDA’s own scientists! (http://www.naturalnews.com/011401_Dr_David_Graham_the_FDA.html) As Dr David Graham said in an interview, “The FDA is responsible for 140,000 heart attacks and 60,000 dead Americans. That’s as many people as were killed in the Vietnam War. Yet the FDA points the finger at me and says, Well, this guy’s a rat, you can’t trust him,’ but nobody is calling them to account. Congress isn’t calling them to account.” If you want more evidence of the FDA’s outrageous disregard for human life, look at the agency’s handling of the drug Ketek (http://www.naturalnews.com/019698.html). Or check out how the FDA kept the liver-damaging drug Rezulin on the market while diabetic Americans were dropping dead. The FDA’s own scientists have repeatedly accused the agency of engaging in routine intimidation of scientists who try to call attention to dangerous products (http://www.naturalnews.com/025298_the_FDA_scientists.html). The FDA censors natural remedies that could save lives On top of all that corruption and fraud leading to negligent deaths caused by the FDA, this agency also censors the scientific truth about natural remedies and nutritional supplements that could save millions of lives each year. The FDA won’t, for example, allow vitamin D supplement companies to tell the truth about how vitamin D prevents cancer or how vitamin D prevents the flu and makes seasonal flu vaccines obsolete (http://www.naturalnews.com/029760_vitamin_D_influenza.html). The FDA also won’t allow any supplement companies to tell the truth about their natural remedies for preventing or even reversing diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer and more. In doing this, the FDA is complicit in the deaths of at least 250,000 Americans each year . According to the groundbreaking 2003 medical report Death by Medicine , by Drs Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes. The FDA has a hand in at least one-third of those deaths, mostly from its willful corruption and fraud in the world of deadly pharmaceuticals, which have proven to be far more deadly than terrorists (http://www.naturalnews.com/009278.html). If you do the math on all this, you are forced to reach some startling mathematical conclusions: – The FDA is more dangerous than all the terrorists and terror events in the history of the United States. – The FDA has killed more Americans than the entire Vietnam War. – Even more than that, over the last 20 years the FDA has killed more Americans than the total number who died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and even the Civil War — combined! – The FDA is the single most deadly agency that has ever existed in the history of the United States. It is responsible for more body bags, more funerals, more pain and suffering than even the Department of Defense! – The FDA does not value human life. It has no compassion for real people. It is driven by politics and money , and it answers to the demands of powerful corporations who control its agenda (http://www.naturalnews.com/019497.html). So now, let me get this straight. With Senate Bill 510 we are going to hand over control over the food supply to the most nefarious, corrupt and deadly agency that has ever existed in the history of the United States of America? FDA could outlaw all raw vegetables The FDA has killed more people than the CIA, FBI, ATF and DEA combined. This agency is technically responsible for the negligent homicide of countless American men, women, children and senior citizens. It has stood by and allowed modern psychiatry to drug our children into violent behavior. It has censored the truth about nutrition and natural remedies, and it has enforced a campaign of nutritional ignorance among the American people, making sure that virtually all competition to Big Pharma’s patented drugs is completely wiped out (or criminalized). The FDA has criminalized your raw milk , turning farmers into felons. The FDA once ordered the burning of recipe books containing stevia recipes as part of its effort to outlaw this natural sweetener (in order to protect aspartame profits). (http://www.naturalnews.com/001552.html) And now the U.S. Congress wants this agency in charge of your food? What madness is this? We’re going to take the largest killer in the history of America and give it the power to control the growing of foods, the saving of seeds and even the operations of small family farms? Can you imagine what the FDA is going to do with that kind of power? Trust me: It won’t be pretty. It may even be fatal. I can just see this agency outlawing all vegetables unless they’re irradiated . They might outlaw raw food and require all food be pasteurized. They could ban not just raw milk but even raw broccoli . Sound crazy? Sure it does! But so does the idea of raw milk being criminalized in America, too. America was raised on raw milk . What do you think Thomas Jefferson drank at his farm? What do you think kept the pioneers alive in the harsh Midwest winters? If the FDA can outlaw raw milk, they can outlaw anything. And Senate Bill 510 would give them all the power they need to do this. Never give a psychopath explosives It’s a dangerous deal with the devil, of course. Handing the FDA power over the food supply is like giving a violent psycho access to military-grade explosives. The net result can only be catastrophic and deadly. I’m all for the idea of “safe food,” but not if it involves taking the most dangerous government agency in the history of America and putting it in charge of the way we grow food, store seeds, harvest crops and package food products. Do we need to “modernize” our food creation systems in America? Sure we do, but not at the cost of making us all victims of a dangerous, corrupt and downright disastrously managed U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And besides, virtually all the contamination of food we’re seeing today is due to factory animal farming runoff. That’s where e.coli comes from, by the way. E.coli is an intestinal pathogen and plants don’t have intestines. It can only be harbored in animals . (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20002.cfm) So the problem with our food supply is not that the FDA doesn’t yet have enough power; it’s that we have abusive, cruel and ridiculously unclean factory animal farms operating in America that are contaminating the vegetables. If you really want to clean up the food supply, just crack down on the factory animal farms and let the veggie growers get back to work doing what they do best: Growing healthful, nutrient-rich vegetables that help keep America healthy. Take action now to stop S.510 Your voice needs to be heard on this issue. The vote on this bill has been delayed until after the Thanksgiving recess, so you have more time to oppose this dangerous legislation. Call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121. You can find other contact information for your US Senator at http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm Other petitions on the ‘net where you can voice your opposition to this bill include: Citizens for Health http://www.citizens.org/?page_id=2312 Natural Solutions Foundation http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4613 Take action NOW to protect our food, seeds and crops from the deadly control of the FDA.

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Eva Longoria Denies Filing For Divorce

Joanna Mazewski – News Room Administrators Editor

Hollywood, CA, United States (NewsBahn) – Apparently, she doesn’t want to be a “Desperate Housewife.” Actress Eva Longoria has vehemently denied reports she has filed divorce papers to end her marriage with NBA star Tony Parker.

According to reports, a Bexar County, Texas, courthouse clerk has confirmed that no divorce papers have been filed by the diminutive star. TMZ reported earlier this week that the couple have filed separate divorce papers, but later took down the report from their web site.

Longoria’s publicist also denied the report, stating that it was a hoax and no such divorce petition has been filed.

Longoria, who is best known for her role on the hit ABC drama, “Desperate Housewives,” married Parker in a lavish ceremony in Paris, France, in the summer of 2007.

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Sanford International Airport Opting Out of TSA Screening, Hiring Own Firm

Ayinde O. Chase – AHN News Editor

Sanford, FL, United States (AHN) – Orlando’s Sanford International Airport has decided to opt out of TSA’s pat down process. The facility has decided to hire their own private security screening agency.

The airport believes the move will offer passengers “better service at a better price and more accountability and better customer service.”

The airport is allowed to commence this move using one of five private security firms already approved by TSA.

Larry Dale, the director of the Sanford Airport Authority hopes that if things all go according to plan the new private security firm will be in place by the end of 2011.

TSA officials say that even if an airport decides to use a private firm for security, the firm still must follow TSA guidelines. That would include using enhanced pat-downs and the full-body scanners that have prompted the ire of many if they are installed at the airport.

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3 Killed, 1 Injured in Florida Twin Engine Plane Crash

Ayinde O. Chase – AHN News Editor

West Palm Beach, FL, United States (AHN) – A small plane crashed shortly after takeoff from West Palm Beach International airport. Three people were killed and one injured in the Thursday evening accident.

A representative of the Federal Aviation Administration said the twin engine Piper PA-44 crashed at 6:10 p.m. shortly after it took off from runway 10. Flight records show it had arrived from the Bahamas and was scheduled to depart for Melbourne.

The Piper Seminole aircraft built in 2008 was registered to FIT Aviation, a Melbourne-based flight school affiliated with the Florida Institute of Technology.

School officials said two of the people on the plane were students and one was an instructor. A fourth person on board the downed plane was airlifted to St. Mary’s Medical Center in critical condition.

It remains unclear at this time if it was a training flight.

Neither the pilot nor the passengers have been identified pending notification of relatives.

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Commodities Prices Fall On Chinese Interest Rates Fears

Linda Young – AHN News Writer

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Commodities prices for precious metals, oil and agricultural raw materials took the hardest fall in 18 months on news that China might take steps to avert inflation. Prices of commodities futures fell by up to 3.8 percent on news that China’s central bank might increase interest rates. The step is to prevent further inflation there after consumer prices rose by 4.4 percent in October.

Precious metals had been at near record highs before plunging. Gold dropped 2.7 percent to $1,365.50 an ounce on Friday while silver plunged 5.3 percent to $25.94 an ounce and copper fell 2.8 percent to $3.91 an ounce.

Refined sugar in London dove down by a record 12 percent while corn and soybeans on the Chicago market plunged by the exchange limit.

Oil prices also took a dip. Prices for crude oil for December delivery fell 3.4 percent to $84.81 a barrel at midday on the New York Mercantile Exchange while futures in New York dropped by as much as $3.29 on Friday.

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