Two More For Hernandez, Pre-paid Gas
Friday, May 16, 2014
Vol. 3, No. 136
Nation: Former New England Patriot Aaron Hernadez has been indicted for two more murders in a 2012 car-to-car shooting in Boston. Hernadez was already facing charges in the killing of a man who had visited his home last June.
The killing of the two men occurred after Hernadez and the victims were seen at the same nightclub. A car believed to be owned by Hernandez followed the other two as they drove away. The prosecutor said, “Aaron Hernandez then fired a .38 caliber revolver multiple times from the driver’s side of his vehicle into the passenger side of the victims’ vehicle.”No motive was given.
>Firefighters in the San Diego area continue to fight a string of wildfires laced through residential hills. About 14 square miles of terrain have burned, but remarkably few homes have been lost. At least eight houses and an apartment building were destroyed. Cal State University San Marcos was closed and thousands of people advised to evacuate residential neighborhoods. The weather today is cooler and more favorable to getting the situation under control.
World: Russian President Vladimir Putin says starting June 1, Ukraine has to pre-pay for the natural gas it buys from Russia. The struggling country is $3.5 billion in arrears and its economy is on life support from the International Monetary Fund. But this could make things interesting. Crimea, which recently left Ukraine and joined the Russian Federation, gets most of its fresh water and electricity from Ukraine.
>An overloaded ferry capsized on a river in Bangladesh yesterday, killing an undetermined number of people. Twenty-nine bodies have been recovered, but the ferry operators don’t know exactly how many people were on board. It could be as many as 200.
Remember: President Obama was on hand yesterday for the ceremonial opening of the 9/11 museum at the site of the old World Trade Center. The museum includes artifacts like firefighter helmets, part of the steel structure of the Trade Center, and crushed fire trucks. The museum displays pictures of the dead and the heartbreaking missing person fliers posted all over lower Manhattan. No good thing goes unpunished. The exhibit has been criticized for a video attributing the attacks to a radical vision of Islam. But, you know what ….
Stuffed: LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling has refused to pay a $2.5 million fine to the NBA for making racist comments on an audiotape. It’s an indication that the litigious Sterling might be girding for a fight to hold on to the franchise the league wants him to sell.
Exit:Television diva, anchor, interviewer Barbara Walters, 84, is retiring today after her last appearance on her show, “The View.” In the male-dominated world of television news, Walters was the pathfinder for women. She went from pouring tea on the Today Show, to co-hosting ABC World News, and finally becoming one of the earning pillars of the network. Her domain was the big interview, the big “get”, from Fidel Castro to Golda Meir, Monica Lewinsky and only a few days ago, V. Stiviano, the girlfriend of disgraced LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
She leaves a mixed record. Walters was a tough nut who covered hard news, but her celebrity interviews with requisite weeping often crossed the line into infotainment. She got great answers, but some of her questions became the butt of parody. When Katharine Hepburn said she’d like to be a tree Walters famously asked what kind of tree she’d like to be. It actually wasn’t a bad question, but the comedians never got over it.
Not on the Menu: The rice and beans chain Chipotle has begun to print short stories on its cups and bags written by the likes of Malcolm Gladwell, Toni Morrison, and George Saunders. It was the idea of Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, who found himself in a Chipotle one day with nothing to read while he was eating a burrito.
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