Thursday, April 28, 2011

Couple Admit To Their Roles In Kidnapping Of 11-Year-Old

SAN FRANCISCO — Ending a sordid criminal ordeal that began two decades ago with a kidnapping on a South Lake Tahoe street, a convicted sex offender and his wife pleaded guilty on Thursday to the abduction, rape and imprisonment of Jaycee Lee Dugard.
Ms. Dugard,Authentic Soccer Jerseys
then 11 years old and now 30, was kidnapped in 1991 and subsequently held and sexually assaulted by Philip Garrido, now 60, and his wife, Nancy, 55, at their home outside Antioch, Calif., a Bay Area suburb. Mr. Garrido, who was on parole for a previous rape conviction, fathered two daughters by Ms. Dugard and built a secret backyard compound to hold her and the children.

That nightmare ended in 2009 when the authorities discovered Ms. Dugard and her children and arrested the Garridos, who had become increasingly open about bringing their captives into the world, sometimes passing them off as their own children and using Ms. Dugard to work in a family printing business.

A lengthy legal tussle followed the couple’s arrest, with a trial tentatively planned for August. But on Thursday, both Mr. Garrido and his wife pleaded guilty, with Mr. Garrido facing a maximum sentence of 431 years in prison, and his wife 36 years to life. Both waived their right to appeal — sentencing is scheduled for June 2 — and are expected to spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Vern Pierson, chelsea jerseythe district attorney in El Dorado County, which covers South Lake Tahoe, thanked Ms. Dugard for her help in the case, which included testifying to a grand jury in September, adding that the plea deal would spare her “the grief and trauma” of a trial.

“Were it not for Jaycee’s strong cooperation with our office and the prosecution of the Garridos, we would not have been able to firmly stand by our position to take this case to jury trial,” Mr. Pierson said in a statement. “Jaycee’s courage and willingness to confront her abductors in court directly led to the defendants’ plea and life sentences.”

In a statement,barcelona jersey Ms. Dugard said she was relieved that the Garridos had “finally acknowledged their guilt and confessed to their crimes against me and my family.”

Outside court,brazil soccer jersey Stephen Tapson, Ms. Garrido’s lawyer, said both defendants agreed to the plea after prosecutors dropped some charges against Ms. Garrido providing Mr. Garrido pleaded guilty to almost the full indictment, The Associated Press reported.

“She obviously committed a serious wrong,” argentina soccer jerseyMr. Tapson said, “but in her view now, she’s made peace with God and wants to get on with life, what’s left of it.”

Susan Gellman, Mr. Garrido’s lawyer, could not be reached for comment

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Hornets' Paul undaunted by prospect of elimination

NEW ORLEANS — Two transcendent playoff performances by Chris Paul made the Hornets' first-round series with Los Angeles far more interesting than the defending champion Lakers would have preferred.
The question now is whether the Hornets' four-time All-Star can summon another big game back in the Big Easy on Thursday night.

At the very least,Custom Soccer Jerseys Paul welcomes the pressure that comes with a game in which a loss ends the season for his team.

"This is all or nothing for us," Paul said. "I can't wait."

When Paul has been sensational — with his 33-point, 14 assist performance in Game 1 and his triple-double in Game 4 — the Hornets have pulled out a pair of hard fought victories. In the series' other three games, when Paul has still been exceptional, but short of dominant, the Lakers have won — including twice by double digits.

Now ahead 3-2 in the series,ac milan jersey Los Angeles needs only one more win to dispatch pesky New Orleans. If the Lakers own key statistical categories as thoroughly as they did in their 106-90 Game 5 triumph on Tuesday night, the series isn't likely to make it back to the West Coast for Game 7.

The Lakers restored their dominance inside, outrebounding the Hornets 42-25, which included a 15-3 advantage in offensive rebounds. That led to a whopping 22-2 advantage in second-chance points. Los Angeles also outscored the Hornets 42-30 in the paint.

"We should be able to play like that all the time," Lakers forward Pau Gasol said. "We needed to play physical and control the boards, and use our bodies. ... Our energy was good, and that's why we won the way we won."

The Hornets never looked more outmatched in the series, but if that result shook their confidence, they're not letting it show.

"The great thing about it is now we get to go back to our home court with our fans behind us,arsenal jersey and we have to bring the energy," Paul said. "It's the elimination game now. We can't leave anything out there."

Paul has said throughout his career that he never wants to come out and would gladly play 48 minutes if coaches would let him. Such an approach might have served the Hornets well in Game 5.

The Hornets led by nine when Paul went to the bench to rest in the beginning of the second quarter. The Lakers immediately went on a 10-0 run and the momentum seemed to change for good.

Hornets coach Monty Williams said Paul's teammates could have helped him by showing more toughness on defense and fouling hard, the way Lakers star Kobe Bryant did when he thwarted a layup attempt by Emeka Okafor with a forearm across the Hornets center's head.

"At some point, you have to know how to make a playoff foul," Williams said. The coach then referred to the lack of resistance Bryant met on his thunderous driving dunk in the second quarter, which seemed to energize his team. "We have to learn how to not allow him to get that play off."

Williams believes the Lakers have been allowed to get away with too much banging inside. He even made a formal protest to the NBA about it after Game 3.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson didn't seem quite sure what to make of his team being portrayed as the one that hits hardest.

"It was pretty interesting. We're not usually known for that," Jackson said. "We're known as being soft, but sometimes desperation can activate" toughness.

Jackson added that he fully expected the Hornets to respond to their coach's call for more aggression.

"The game will be feisty, no doubt about it," Jackson said. "The team that beats the other team to loose balls is going to win the game."

Bryant, meanwhile,england soccer jersey continues to receive treatment for an injury to his left ankle and foot that occurred late in the Hornets Game 4 win. Of course, the Hornets realized by the second quarter of Game 5 that they better not count on the injury slowing the Lakers' superstar down. Although he played less than 29 minutes in Game 5, he was 8 of 13 shooting for 19 points and showed little lack of explosion on a pair of soaring one-handed jams.

Jackson said Bryant was sore on Wednesday, spain soccer jerseybut added that he did not expect to limit Bryant's playing time at all on Thursday night.

"This is a game in which we go all-out to win," Jackson said. "If it's 40 minutes, we will" play Bryant that long.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Judge issues injunction against NFL lockout of players

(CNN) -- A federal judge ruled in favor of NFL players on Monday, issuing an injunction that ordered the league's owners to lift their lockout.

However, NFL Senior Vice President Of Public Relations Greg Aiello said the league will seek an immediate stay of the ruling pending an appeal.

A lockout was imposed after talks between the players and owners broke down last month and the players disbanded their union.

An NFL statement said an appeal will be on the grounds that federal law prohibits injunctions in labor disputes.

In her ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson said the decision by the players to disband their union meant the case no longer came under federal labor law that prohibits injunctions, as claimed by the owners.

Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, and seven other players filed the lawsuit on behalf of other current and eligible NFL players against the league to halt the lockout, which could affect the start of the 2011-12 season scheduled for September 8.

The players also want a future trial to determine if the NFL lockout is in violation of federal antitrust laws.

If the players are locked out from playing in September, it would be the first NFL work stoppage since 1987, with months of labor and legal maneuvering looming for football fans already confused about how a $9 billion industry lacks enough money to satisfy everyone.

The heart of the issue between the players and the owners is how to divide the league's $9 billion in revenue.

Right now, NFL owners take $1 billion off the top of that revenue stream. After that, the players get about 60%.

The owners say that the current labor deal doesn't take into account the rising costs related to building stadiums and promoting the game. The players argue that the league has not sufficiently opened up its books to prove this.

In addition, the owners also want to increase the season by two games, which the players are against because of the risk of injuries.

While star players earn millions of dollars each year, the median NFL salary is $790,000 and the average career lasts about four years.

A lockout also impacts the league's employees: the receptionists, ticket salespeople, and stadium workers. The New York Jets have announced that they will require all business-side employees to take a one-week unpaid leave each month during any lockout.

The lockout will not stop the NFL draft, which will proceed as scheduled on April 28-30, the league said.

Struggling St. Louis Airport Takes a Shot to the Chin, but Recovers

ST. LOUIS — The gleaming Gateway Arch that presides over the downtown riverfront may be the architectural symbol for this Midwestern metropolis, but its true gateway was built a decade earlier just outside city limits — the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
And despite its utilitarian function,
Custom Soccer Jerseysthe airport’s main terminal is a celebrated structure in its own right, welcoming arrivals for more than a half-century and winning praise as an inspiration for modern airport design.

So local residents reacted with alarm to the news that a tornado Friday night had cut a path of destruction directly into the airport, causing enough damage to force the city to temporarily close the transportation hub.

“To know what it was and to see what it is now, I’m just devastated,” Vicki Ware, an administrative assistant at the airport, said after arriving on her day off to assist.

Bruised but operational and smelling strongly of plywood, the airport reopened for much of its inbound and outbound traffic on Sunday. As construction workers continued to board up blown-out windows in the main terminal, as well as turning to the more serious repair work in a damaged concourse that had part of its roof torn off, the business of ferrying passengers resumed with surprising normalcy.

Meg Stowe, ac milan jerseya 37-year-old teacher traveling with her two daughters, said she was shocked not only by the damage but also by the fact that their flight home to Rhode Island had not been canceled.

“The speed with which they got this airport up and running is impressive,” she said.

Falling on the eve of the Easter holiday weekend, the daylong shutdown had limited economic impact on the city, though officials said it would cost millions of dollars to repair the airport damage. “We’re all committed to rebuilding this and making it look as it did beforehand as an iconic destination airport in the heartland,” Gov. Jay Nixon said after touring the scene.

No one was seriously injured in the tornadoes, which also destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in the surrounding neighborhoods.

For all the complaints they may inspire, arsenal jerseyairports have become the welcome mats of major American cities, usually shuffled through without observation but often offering telling details about the personality of a place. And this one — with a storied past and uncertain future — seems to embody the changing fortunes of the city it serves.

When the new terminal opened in 1956 at the city-owned airport on the site of an old balloon launching field — nearly 10 years before the Gateway Arch would be completed on the bank of the Mississippi River — it was a testament to the ambitions and influence of a city that was still the country’s eighth largest.

The domed concrete terminal, capped in copper and featuring enormous arched windows, was the work of the architect Minoru Yamasaki, best known for designing the World Trade Center in New York. Similar design elements soon appeared at airports in New York and Paris.

“We were really out to create the imagery of St. Louis,” said Gyo Obata, who directed the project.

Yet, as so many other airports of the era have outgrown those early terminals because of increased passenger volume, this one is instead cursed with “excess capacity,” its unused concourses testifying to a shrinking city that openly worries about whether its best days may be behind it.

After another decade of decline, the population of St. Louis stands at 319,000, according to the latest census figures, less than half the peak of 857,000 in the decade when the airport was built.

Meanwhile, partly as a result of the merger that ended Trans World Airlines, the airport is no longer one of the busiest in the country; the number of annual passengers dropped to 12.3 million last year, from 30.6 million a decade earlier. Part of the main terminal was closed, the rest was regarded as aging poorly. (A second terminal operated by Southwest Airlines opened in 1998 and was largely unaffected by the storm.)

St. Louis,england soccer jersey responding to the grumbling of residents and business leaders, was in the midst of a $70 million renovation when the tornado — the most powerful to hit the city in over four decades — undid some of the recent progress, toppling newly erected signs, exposing freshly painted walls to the elements and leaving the whole place littered with glass.

City leaders like Richard C. D. Fleming, the chief executive of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, said they were adjusting to changes in the aviation industry by promoting the airport as a potential cargo hub for Chinese products.

And the building remains a source of community pride. The St. Louis Art Museum opened an exhibition this month featuring work inspired by the airport that, according to the accompanying literature, “transformed the landscape of postwar airport design, successfully formalizing the concept of flight through its architecture.”

Mr. Obata, a founding partner at the firm HOK, has now worked on a number of airports around the world — including those in Dallas, Indianapolis and Saudi Arabia — but admits partiality to the airport he helped build in his hometown.

After the tornado struck, cup-soccer-jerseys/spain-soccer-jersey.html">spain soccer jerseyMr. Obata traveled to the airport to see the damage but was not surprised that the main terminal, broken glass aside, had largely withstood the assault.

“Nothing will hurt that structure,” he said.

Struggling St. Louis Airport Takes a Shot to the Chin, but Recovers

ST. LOUIS — The gleaming Gateway Arch that presides over the downtown riverfront may be the architectural symbol for this Midwestern metropolis, but its true gateway was built a decade earlier just outside city limits — the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
And despite its utilitarian function,
Custom Soccer Jerseysthe airport’s main terminal is a celebrated structure in its own right, welcoming arrivals for more than a half-century and winning praise as an inspiration for modern airport design.

So local residents reacted with alarm to the news that a tornado Friday night had cut a path of destruction directly into the airport, causing enough damage to force the city to temporarily close the transportation hub.

“To know what it was and to see what it is now, I’m just devastated,” Vicki Ware, an administrative assistant at the airport, said after arriving on her day off to assist.

Bruised but operational and smelling strongly of plywood, the airport reopened for much of its inbound and outbound traffic on Sunday. As construction workers continued to board up blown-out windows in the main terminal, as well as turning to the more serious repair work in a damaged concourse that had part of its roof torn off, the business of ferrying passengers resumed with surprising normalcy.

Meg Stowe, ac milan jerseya 37-year-old teacher traveling with her two daughters, said she was shocked not only by the damage but also by the fact that their flight home to Rhode Island had not been canceled.

“The speed with which they got this airport up and running is impressive,” she said.

Falling on the eve of the Easter holiday weekend, the daylong shutdown had limited economic impact on the city, though officials said it would cost millions of dollars to repair the airport damage. “We’re all committed to rebuilding this and making it look as it did beforehand as an iconic destination airport in the heartland,” Gov. Jay Nixon said after touring the scene.

No one was seriously injured in the tornadoes, which also destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in the surrounding neighborhoods.

For all the complaints they may inspire, arsenal jerseyairports have become the welcome mats of major American cities, usually shuffled through without observation but often offering telling details about the personality of a place. And this one — with a storied past and uncertain future — seems to embody the changing fortunes of the city it serves.

When the new terminal opened in 1956 at the city-owned airport on the site of an old balloon launching field — nearly 10 years before the Gateway Arch would be completed on the bank of the Mississippi River — it was a testament to the ambitions and influence of a city that was still the country’s eighth largest.

The domed concrete terminal, capped in copper and featuring enormous arched windows, was the work of the architect Minoru Yamasaki, best known for designing the World Trade Center in New York. Similar design elements soon appeared at airports in New York and Paris.

“We were really out to create the imagery of St. Louis,” said Gyo Obata, who directed the project.

Yet, as so many other airports of the era have outgrown those early terminals because of increased passenger volume, this one is instead cursed with “excess capacity,” its unused concourses testifying to a shrinking city that openly worries about whether its best days may be behind it.

After another decade of decline, the population of St. Louis stands at 319,000, according to the latest census figures, less than half the peak of 857,000 in the decade when the airport was built.

Meanwhile, partly as a result of the merger that ended Trans World Airlines, the airport is no longer one of the busiest in the country; the number of annual passengers dropped to 12.3 million last year, from 30.6 million a decade earlier. Part of the main terminal was closed, the rest was regarded as aging poorly. (A second terminal operated by Southwest Airlines opened in 1998 and was largely unaffected by the storm.)

St. Louis,england soccer jersey responding to the grumbling of residents and business leaders, was in the midst of a $70 million renovation when the tornado — the most powerful to hit the city in over four decades — undid some of the recent progress, toppling newly erected signs, exposing freshly painted walls to the elements and leaving the whole place littered with glass.

City leaders like Richard C. D. Fleming, the chief executive of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, said they were adjusting to changes in the aviation industry by promoting the airport as a potential cargo hub for Chinese products.

And the building remains a source of community pride. The St. Louis Art Museum opened an exhibition this month featuring work inspired by the airport that, according to the accompanying literature, “transformed the landscape of postwar airport design, successfully formalizing the concept of flight through its architecture.”

Mr. Obata, a founding partner at the firm HOK, has now worked on a number of airports around the world — including those in Dallas, Indianapolis and Saudi Arabia — but admits partiality to the airport he helped build in his hometown.

After the tornado struck, cup-soccer-jerseys/spain-soccer-jersey.html">spain soccer jerseyMr. Obata traveled to the airport to see the damage but was not surprised that the main terminal, broken glass aside, had largely withstood the assault.

“Nothing will hurt that structure,” he said.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Atmosphere's worth of dry ice found at Mars south pole

Currently, Mars has a thin atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide,
Custom Soccer Jerseys with pressures at most of the planet's surface so low that liquid water will immediately boil. But a variety of features we've discovered argue that the planet has once supported copious amounts of water, indicating that the planet's atmosphere must have differed considerably in the past. Using radar data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have now found a potential resting place for some material that was once in the Martian atmosphere: a huge deposit at the south pole that holds nearly as much CO2 as the planet's current atmosphere.

Mars' south pole has extensive ice deposits, but most of that material is thought to be water, with only a thin coating of carbon dioxide on top. However, the MRO's radar instrument identified several reflection-free zones, where most of the radar signal went entirely through the icy material to the planet's surface itself. Based on the authors' calculations, this can't be water ice, but it does have very similar reflective properties to dry ice, or frozen carbon dioxide. The area also has features that indicate that some of the dry ice has sublimated to a gaseous form, resulting in areas where the surface has collapsed.

If the area is dry ice,ac milan jersey then the total amount present is huge. The authors estimate the total volume of the non-reflective material at somewhere between 9,500 and 12,500 cubic kilometers. That's 30 times more than had previously been estimated to reside at the poles, and is about 80 percent of the current CO2 content of the entire atmosphere. If all the dry ice were heated up, Mars' atmospheric pressure would nearly double.

Like the Earth, arsenal jerseyMars undergoes orbital variations that alter the distribution of sunlight across the planet. One of these involves changes in the orientation of its axis of rotation relative to the plane of its orbit, called the obliquity. Mars undergoes more dramatic changes in obliquity than Earth and, as a result, its poles see more significant changes in sunlight at the extreme. The authors argue that this can help explain why the reflection-free zones lack any material from the planet's famous dust storms, which should reflect the radar effectively.

Mars' atmosphere needs to be above a certain density to support the particles that make up its dust storms. As the poles undergo extended cold periods, the authors suggest "the atmosphere collapses onto the polar caps." So much of the planet's dry ice winds up frozen at the poles that the atmosphere becomes even thinner than it is at present, and incapable of supporting dust storms.

As of now, however, england soccer jerseythe amount of sunlight at the poles is increasing, leading to the loss of some of the material from these areas, which is bulking up the atmosphere. The authors run a simplified global circulation model of Mars' atmosphere to see what happens as the planet reaches the opposite extreme, and all of the polar dry ice is liberated into the atmosphere. Pressure on the surface would nearly double, and the increased CO2 would enhance the planet's existing greenhouse effect. However, it would also increase the formation of seasonal dry ice deposits that reflect sunlight and offset this warming, leaving Mars slightly cooler.

However, spain soccer jerseythe simplified model leaves out some other factors. For one, the denser atmosphere could support more significant dust storms, changing the planet's ability to absorb sunlight. Some of the water ice at the poles would probably also melt, adding water vapor to the atmosphere and further enhancing the greenhouse effect. However, the increased atmospheric pressure would allow some of the liquid water to remain on the surface without boiling, meaning we could see some pools of water on Mars.

Sorting out exactly what would happen will apparently require a more complete climate model for the red planet. "Given the complex interplay between the dust, water, and CO2 cycles, additional changes in the climate system are very likely," the authors conclude. Still, even with the possible melting of the polar ice caps and enhanced greenhouse effect, the total of the changes don't seem to be sufficient to get us to anything like Mars' watery past, which suggests that some of the planet's carbon dioxide and water may now be trapped in geological features.