Ferguson Manhunt, Category Five
Friday, March 13, 2015
Vol. 4, No. 72
Ferguson: Police are still hunting for at least one gunman who shot and wounded two police officers during a protest in Ferguson, Mo. Wednesday night. Both officers were treated and released.
Attorney General Eric Holder called the shooter a “damn punk.” President Obama said on Jimmy Kimmel Live that “What had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest. But there was no excuse for criminal acts.”
Nation: Former reality show producer Bruce Beresford-Redmond has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in Mexico for the 2010 murder of his wife in Cancun. Beresford-Redmond used to work for “Survivor” and was a co-creator of MTV’s “Pimp My Ride.” The body of his wife Monica was found in a sewer and there was blood in his hotel room. Evidence suggested his wife discovered he was having an affair.
>William Flynn, who in 1990 murdered the husband of his lover and teacher Pamela Smart in New Hampshire, has been released on parole at age 41. At the time it was a lurid story about a teacher crossing the boundary with a teenage student … nearly an everyday story today. Pam Smart was only 22 at the time, but she was found guilty of ordering the hit and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Flynn said, “I will always feel terrible about what happened 25 years ago. Parole will not change that.”
South Pacific: A category five tropical cyclone has made a direct hit on the island nation of Vanuatu after causing destruction in several South Pacific island nations. Vanuatu is a string of 80 islands with a population of 246,000. Some observers say this storm could result in the greatest natural disaster Vanuatu has ever had.
The Obit Page: The prolific architect and artist Michael Graves, one of the most prominent architects of the late 20th Century, has died at age 80. Graves designed everything from small houses to office buildings and hotels. He created the Disney building in Burbank, Ca., with the Seven Dwarves holding up the roof.
His buildings had distinctive geometric shapes … triangles, cylinders, and arches. He used colors that were both bright and muted at the same time.
Graves also made modernist household goods for the Target discount chain, and he was a busy artist whose cubist works often reflected the feel of his building designs.
Measured Diagonally: Viewers are increasingly turning away from traditional television to streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu according to Nielsen audience research. Forty percent of Americans now subscribe to streaming services so the big broadcasters are fighting back by establishing services of their own.
> NBC News medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman is resigning in a dustup over breaking her own quarantine after covering the Ebola crisis last fall in Africa. A cameraman working with Snyderman had contracted the disease so she and the rest of her crew went into quarantine … until they were caught picking up takeout at a restaurant.
Relations between Snyderman and the network have been described as strained since the incident. One night in late February she went on the air and Internet critics speculated she had been drinking. What’s interesting is that NBC cut loose Snyderman, but so far the suspended anchorman Brian Williams is in the wings waiting to return.
>Univision host Rodner Figueroa was fired for saying on air that Michelle Obama looked like a character from “Planet of the Apes.”
Where’s Vladimir?: Russian President Vladimir Putin has Moscow buzzing because he has been cancelling major events on his schedule and has not been seen in public since March 5th. Observers wonder whether he is ill, or worse. American wags have speculated that he might just be hiking the Appalachian Trail, a joke that doesn’t translate well into Russian.
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