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NYPD Turn Backs to de Blasio at Slain Officer's Funeral

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NYPD Turn Backs to de Blasio at Slain Officer's Funeral

According to multiple sources, hundreds of NYPD officers turned their backs to Mayor Bill de Blasio on Saturday when he spoke at the funeral of Rafael Ramos, one of two policeman murdered by Brooklyn shooter Ismaaiyl Brinsley.

The gesture echoed a moment last weekend when officers turned away from the mayor before a press conference addressing the shooting, as well as an aerial banner flown over New York City on Friday that read: "De Blasio, Our Backs Have Turned to You."

According to some on-scene estimates, the NYPD officers participating in the silent protest numbered in the thousands.

Responding to the flown banner yesterday, de Blasio Deputy Press Secretary Wiley Norvell issued a statement saying, "This is a time to think about the families and honor our fallen officers. Dividing people won't help our city heal."

UPDATE: CNN has uploaded footage of police turning away from the screens showing Mayor de Blasio as he spoke.

[Image via Twitter/Dean Meminger]


Ridley Scott's Exodus Banned in Egypt, Morocco and U.A.E.

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Ridley Scott's Exodus Banned in Egypt, Morocco and U.A.E.

Morocco has banned Ridley Scott's biblical epic Exodus, according to The Guardian, because it contains a representation of God, which is forbidden in Islam. Also it is racist and bad.

The ban was issued in response to a scene in which God appears in the form of a "child who gives a revelation to the prophet Moses," the film's distributor told The Guardian.

Exodus has also been banned in Egypt as a result of its "historical inaccuracies," The Guardian reports, "including an apparent claim that 'Moses and the Jews built the pyramids.'"

"This totally contradicts proven historical facts," Egyptian culture minister Gaber Asfour told the British newspaper. "It is a Zionist film," he said. "It gives a Zionist view of history and contains historical inaccuracies and that's why we have decided to ban it."

Rupert Murdoch, who is pretty sure Egyptians are white, has yet to weigh in. "Gold temples everywhere... Must come back before tourists wreck," he tweeted from Myanmar this morning.

Update: According to Gulf News, Exodus will not be released in the United Arab Emirates, either.

[Image via YouTube]

Alleged Xbox and PlayStation Hacker Shows His Face in Interview

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Two days after a small group of hackers going by the name "Lizard Squad" claimed responsibility for a worldwide Xbox and PlayStation outage, one purported member feels bold enough to give a live interview. "I'd be rather worried if those people didn't have anything better to do than play games on their consoles on Christmas Eve," he says.

The confessional interview, conducted via Skype between the UK's Sky News and a self-professed Lizard Squad member going by "Ryan," is unprecedented—if Ryan is indeed who he says he is. Hackers relish all forms of attention, but keep their identities secret at all costs—putting your face on TV and admitting to a major crime would usually be anathema, and wildly brazen even by nihilistic hacker standards. Not so for "Ryan," who is happy to explain himself all the way from Finland:

"There's the core members [of Lizard Squad], which is about three or four people, who actually perpetrated the attacks...there are various other people involved. This attack was basically done by three people."

"Why we did it? Mostly...to raise awareness...one of the big aspects here is raising awareness regarding the low state of compute security of these companies. They should have more than enough funding to protect against these attacks."

He's not wrong there. The woeful state of online security at Sony has dominated headlines this month, and the company's online PlayStation network has been the victim of hackers in the past.

Alleged Xbox and PlayStation Hacker Shows His Face in Interview

When asked if he feels guilty, Ryan replies quickly: "I'd be rather worried if [gamers] didn't have anything better to do than play games on their consoles on Christmas Eve an Christmas day. I feel bad... I might have forced a couple kids to spend time with their families instead of playing games."

If Ryan is telling the truth about Lizard Squad's capabilities, despondent gamers might only be the start of the group's campaign:

"We have various networking devices all around the world. Currently, I believe we have access to 100,000 Linux servers. We have massive capability to take down networks like this."

When questioned about the victims of the attack, Ryan laughs gently and replies, "I completely understand that it's a bit unethical."

Watch more of the interview right here.

To contact the author of this post, write to biddle@gawker.com

World's Loneliest Gorilla Baby Will Just Find a New Family, I Guess

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World's Loneliest Gorilla Baby Will Just Find a New Family, I Guess

It looks like Kamina—the lonesome ape baby raised by humans and rejected by her own—will be hitting the old dusty trail again after two more gorilla moms refused to take her in.

Born this August at the Oklahoma City Zoo, Kamina was shunned by her birth mother and reared by human surrogates who "gorillafied" her by wearing hairy vests and crawling on their knees.

Sadly, Kamina's planned gorilla foster parents at the Cincinnati Zoo also failed to bond with her.

"Kamina has learned all of the behaviors she needs to know in order to be successful in a gorilla group," said primate team leader Ron Evans in a statement. "Unfortunately, neither of the adult females that we hoped would bond with her did."

Kamina will now be moving to the Columbus Zoo so a new primate family can either learn to love the sweet ape baby or spurn her once more.

[Image via Cincinnati Zoo]

Selma and the American-ness of the Academy

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Selma and the American-ness of the Academy

Last week, I attended a screening of Ava DuVernay's Selma about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1965 voting rights marches of Alabama.

Desperate for inspiration, fresh off my second rejection from Sundance Screenwriters Labs—this time, unlike last year's form letter, a lovely e-mail from the program director praising my "empathy" towards the story's characters—I took the subway uptown to the Academy Theater in Manhattan.

A light rain fell as I pushed my way into a modern building at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, the East Coast home of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the lobby, a lone security guard manned the front desk while a mousy-haired woman handed attendees tickets to the post-screening dinner.

I took one and headed downstairs to the theater, breezing past a giant Oscar statue to the check-in table where New York program director Patrick Harris, a bespectacled man of color, greeted me.

"Are you a guest?" he asked, searching my face. It's his job to know all the local members and I clearly wasn't one, though I seemed interesting enough.

My short film, I told him, had screened here at the 2013 Student Academy Awards (SAA) semifinals. Having received an invitation for the Selma screening tonight, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to watch the film before its release.

Patrick nodded, remembering my name, and asked what I'd been up to lately.

"I'm turning the short into a feature for my NYU Grad Film thesis," I replied. As ambitious as it sounded, I had come to realize the more I said it out loud, the more attainable it seemed. He wished me good luck, waving me into the theater with just a few minutes to spare before the film began.

Walking down a long aisle past an audience of largely silver-haired, older white people, I took a seat near the front where five director-style chairs were arranged in a row. The Academy members stared at me, as people do, trying to figure out what my story was. Despite my long wool coat and jeans, I felt objectified, largely owing to my butterscotch skin, dreadlocks, and the berry-tinged lipstick I'd smeared on at home before leaving.

Every year at awards season, dozens of similar screenings are scheduled for Academy members to attend in anticipation of voting on the year's best films. Nomination ballots are mailed out to active members in late December and, once the nominations are in, final ballots are mailed to decide the winners prior to Oscar Sunday.

Waiting for the lights to dim, I thought about that evening, now more than a year ago, when I jittered anxiously in the audience at the SAAs. The crowd brimmed with members, guests, and students each vying for a spot at the nationals, whose winner qualifies for a bona fide Oscar nom. Incliding, there were three of us NYU graduate students and one undergrad—Shanghai-bred Bruce Li, a young Brett Ratner of sorts with an eight-person entourage—who screened films that evening.

Seeing our grad film chairman in the front row, I deflated, remembering the somewhat blistering reviews he'd given my early work. But the film played well and, at the reception, he told me how proud I should be, instilling hope that the $100K in student debt I'd incurred had somehow been worth it.

I made it into NYU on a long shot. My Nigerian parents relied on thrift stores and discount food programs to raise my sisters and me in an African immigrant community in Albany, New York. As a Stanford biology undergrad, I gravitated toward kindred creative, starving artist types who fell outside the mainstream.

When I finally abandoned the med-school track and applied for film school, I was ill prepared for the smug privilege of Tisch School of the Arts—rich kids, famous kids, faculty darlings, and, in a category all by himself, James Franco. Broke, black, female, and African, I didn't figure on any of those lists, but was solidly marginalized simply because I did not have a film background.

I lasted two weeks before I took a year off to buck up, enrolling with the following year's crop of students. After that first year, I was so broke that I had to take off another three years just to work before coming back to finish my last two years.

Leaning back in my chair, I smiled, buoyed by the realization that my hard work had brought me to this theater on my own merit. I had screened here before and was adapting my short into a feature—called Aissa's Story, loosely inspired by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case—for which I had won a Spike Lee Production Fund grant.

Sundance or not, I thought, I should be proud of myself. I repeated it like a mantra until my friend Tammy arrived, snapping me out of my reverie before the theater went dark and the film began.

* * *

I had no clear expectations of Selma going in, though I had heard about its Golden Globe nomination for Best Director—the first for a black female—and had seen it on a few Oscar short lists, namely Manohla Dargis's Best Movies of 2014. I was skeptical, though, given that Richard Linklater's Boyhood was on the list too and, though impressed by the directorial feat, I had tried and failed to enjoy it on more than one occasion.

Sometimes with biopics, their nominations have more to do with the film's epic scope and cultural significance, and the fact that the actors' tour-de-force performances dwarf anything anyone else could have possibly made that year.

But when the film opened up on a shot of Martin Luther King, Jr. disagreeing with his wife Coretta about wearing an ascot to his Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony, I was immediately spellbound by the intimacy of the scene—the quiet, loving way Coretta, played by Carmen Ejogo, and Martin, played by David Oyelowo, looked at each other.

No less captivating was the cut from the ceremony to a group of schoolgirls skipping down the 16th Street Baptist Church basement steps in Birmingham, Alabama, mere moments before a bomb went off and killed them. (On a singing tour with my college a cappella group, I had visited the church where Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair were murdered.)

Watching the concrete, wooden beams, and debris explode and settle around their lifeless bodies dropped me deep into my bones, where I stayed throughout the final strains of a freedom song over the end credits.

To say that Selma went beyond my expectations is to propound the falsehood that I could have even imagined it. Having seen Ava Duvernay's Middle of Nowhere—though interesting and promising, definitely an early director's effort—I would not have envisioned the near-perfect storytelling of Selma two years later. It had the nuanced, dynamic performances of Oyelowo and Ejogo; the boldness to include a scene about King's noted infidelities, the kind of messy truths that make our heroes human; the luminous cinematography of Bradford Young who, if he hasn't received one yet, deserves an Oscar nomination. Then there was the brilliant way the documentary footage was handled, interwoven in a way that was never expositional, but served to lift a fictionalized narrative to a kind of operatic truth.

It was a transformative experience, a story of multi-racial coalition coming together to make the civil rights movement and societal change possible in the face of state-sanctioned violence and deadly opposition, embodied by the bloody confrontation between marchers and state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge—named, to this day, after a former Confederate brigadier general and Alabama state senator, who was the Grand Master of the Ku Klux Klan.

In the face of this hate, we watched hopeful children milling amongst the adult marchers, theologians and faith leaders, weary travelers smiling and eating lunch at the side of the road, and octagenarians who walked the 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery. We cut out of the doc footage with King's voice, in the speech he delivered on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol building.

The film ends with King still alive, disallowing us from wallowing in the tragedy of his ultimate death, but rather urging us to live in the transformational glory of the march and the positive change that came of it, the slain leader's true legacy.

Selma was divine. I could hardly contain myself when the director and cast took the stage for a Q&A after the screening.

On her directorial motivation, Ava said:

"My father is from Lowndes County, Alabama, which is something that David [Oyelowo] didn't know about as he was advocating for me [to direct the film]. So I know that place, and it was really about imbuing the script with a sense of place and time. That's why we open up with the four little girls. I feel it's important not to sanitize that time in history. To not just have the physical violence, but the emotional violence as well."

David Oyelowo added:

"We now live in a different world. We live in a world where a black woman can direct this movie. We live in a world in which Oprah Winfrey is on that set as a producer. One of the things I loved about this movie is for Oprah to symbolically take on the role of someone who, fifty years ago, wouldn't be allowed to register to vote—and right now she could buy that registration office a billion times over."

What really resonated for me in the film was how the march echoed the protests going on across the country right now. If you just changed the references in King's speeches, he'd be speaking to the exact moment we're in now, with the slight riff of cops killing kids in the park, the preschool to prison pipeline, mandatory sentencing minimums, and the mass disenfranchisement of black and Latino men.

And releasing the film on the heels of the Ferguson decision, at a time when the nation has been drowning in an unending tide of state-sanctioned killings—of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice among others—Selma could not be more timely.

* * *

After the Q&A, we reconvened at a nearby restaurant for dinner and conversation. My friend and I put our coats down and palmed glasses of white wine, making light conversation with the other guests. Being a second-year thesis student, I've met my share of directors and actors, and found the entire cast to be warm, heartfelt, and approachable, though Common had me starstruck. After asking the origin of my name, David even gave me a hug from one fellow Nigerian to another.

The room was fairly narrow and we soon bumped elbows with Carmen Ejogo, with whom we chatted at length about the film and life in New York. As we wound down, a rather tall, elderly gentleman tapped me on the shoulder. He had gotten up from the dinner table to introduce himself, he said, because everyone at his table kept telling him what an amazing job I'd done in the film. I gave him a puzzled stare, throwing my glance back toward the table where his friends grinned eagerly at me.

But what was this man talking about?

I do not look anything like anyone in the film, although, by virtue of our dreadlocks, I could be said to bear a passing resemblance to Ava. That said, it would have been obvious, given my conspicuous absence from the Q&A, that I was not in the film. And of course there was the problem of my dress, a pair of jeans, while Carmen, in a ball gown, and the rest of the cast were in their Sunday best. I simply did not now what this man could possibly be thinking, other than all the black and brown faces in the room were the creative help.

"I wasn't in the movie," I replied, with a kind, almost apologetic smile.

His eyebrows knit together as he squinted, examining me, his face gradually relaxing into a smile. "Well then, what brings you here?" he asked, extending a hand. I told him I was a film thesis student, working on a feature, before he drifted quietly away.

Tammy thought it was great that people were mistaking me for an actress—I must look good enough to be on camera. But my discomfort at the glaring mistake only deepened when it happened again later that night, as we sat at a table eating fancy egg rolls and prawns, when a younger man in a cowboy hat wrapped his arm around my shoulder and boomed a hearty congratulations. This time I made no attempt to be warm and apologetic, replying, "For what?" His eyes glazed over as he tried to dig his way out of an obvious hole—though he repeated congratulations, I suppose, simply for my existence.

The entire debacle reminded me of the Student Academy Awards when, though my picture and name were in the program, and projected onto the wall during the closing reception, at least half a dozen members asked who I was, what I did in my movie, or congratulated me on my performance in it. Even more puzzling was the fact that my lead actress, whom I look nothing like, was also present at the event, sometimes standing right next to me.

I was pretty angry over how hard it was for people to tell us apart, and I remember my sister saying it was to my credit that the Academy members could not imagine a young, attractive black woman as a director. I exceeded their expectations, challenging their most deeply-held assumptions about what people like me are capable of.

Perhaps that is true, but what concerns me is what it says about the hope for films by people who look like me, who congeal into an indistinguishable brown swill at the bottom of the mainstream cup—simply because whiteness assumes a kind of individualized identity that rises above the homogenized, monolithic other into which the rest of us fall.

I have not finished my feature yet—nor the memoir I've been writing for a decade, but I digress—which is perhaps why nobody knows my face. But it becomes a problem when a group of older white people, most of whom have long passed the point of creative relevance, watch, vote, and decide which films in the entire culture and world get applauded. Some of them are literally falling asleep in the theater, while a significant portion of the rest can't even distinguish the faces of the black and brown people they've been watching speak for two hours on camera.

I hope that Ava gets an Oscar nomination for Selma, a film that offers a platform for black actors who otherwise wouldn't get work to hone their craft, and I wish the film and others like it could also be a platform to change the Academy. Because you walk into this room, you see meet people, and you understand why subtitled and experimental films often don't do well at the Oscars, why black-cast or -helmed films frequently get excluded.

To get in the Academy, you have to be nominated for an Oscar (or make a significant contribution to motion pictures) and be invited to join. And in a field with fewer opportunities for "others" to receive those nominations, we simply don't get to join—much like the Jim Crow voting practice, explained in the film, whereby Blacks could only register to vote if someone who was already a registered voter could "vouch" for them, a de facto denial in majority black counties.

Most "other" filmmakers don't have anybody to vouch for them, or rather, they don't have access to the kinds of opportunities that gain them acceptance into the club.

Though the Academy does not release demographic information, a recent survey by the Los Angeles Times found that, of its 6,172 voting members, 72% are men and 28% are women, and 89% of the most recent 271 invitees were composed of white non-Hispanic film practitioners.

These numbers are disturbing when you consider that, by the year 2043, Americans will be living in a majority non-white nation.

Among all the other very real inequities in housing, jobs, employment, healthcare, education, and wealth, the Academy is one of those lingering bastions of inequity that seems rather tone deaf to the changing culture. To be perfectly blunt, the kind of work that millions of protestors agitate for—the dismantling of racist institutions in society, of which the Selma marches are a prime exemplar—is the same work that needs to happen within the Academy. (Read Chris Rock's take at The Hollywood Reporter.)

And as a film student, I see that's exactly the kind of work people don't talk about as more and more frustrated, young creative talent turns to alternative means of distribution to get their stories told. Don't get me wrong, those platforms are important for circumventing the gatekeepers that have historically silenced so many "other" voices. And yet without this type of institutional activism, nothing will ever change.

I would be remiss, however, in painting Academy members with a monolithic brush, discounting the multi-cultural coalitions that were the very foundation of the Civil Rights movement itself and made the event, gathering all of us together, possible.

One of the great joys of the evening was meeting the ebullient Wynn Thomas, production designer on most, if not all, of Spike Lee's early work. And meeting the documentarian Rob Richter, who was a CBS reporter during the marches of 1965 struggling with whether or not to attend and receive backlash from his employers.

He didn't attend and ultimately regretted it, spending the better half of his adult life making politically incisive documentaries, the latest of which charts the famous legal trial of Huey P. Newton, and how a black jury foreman changed the course of American justice. Hearing Mr. Richter speak firsthand about his experience of that time, and the life's work it inspired, gave me hope that not all of the Academy members are completely out of touch with the culture and the plight of black and brown people.

So why am I writing this? The world is so complicated and it's hard to make sense of this moment now. All things being equal (which they're most certainly not), I'm excited for this time in which we're seeing so many films, like Selma, helmed by black women directors this year. And though one film can't change the world, those of us who take up the challenge of working within the system, and give people of color or women or immigrants or non-English speakers jobs on feature films, are doing important work.

I had always dreamed of working in Nigeria—not just because it's my cultural homeland, but because it seems to offer the kind of access to which many "others" trying to break into Hollywood will never gain. But having experienced Selma and the Academy last week, I realize that the entire film ecosystem should be opened up. Though I have never wanted to sacrifice my life to change a system as archaic as Hollywood, I recognize that it may be a call that I and many others have to answer.

The rain settled into a light drizzle as I boarded the subway to Brooklyn at midnight with a belly full of prawns and white wine. I leaned against the window, closing my eyes as my head swirled with questions: What is the touchstone that will galvanize people to change the Academy? As a black, Nigerian-American woman, I will do what I can to change the Academy, but should I want to be a part of the institution I'm fighting to change? I know that my dreams, like Dr. King's and Ava DuVernay's, are still possible. After all, I was there that night doing the work. And as Dr. King always taught, no matter what, the universe will eventually bend towards the work of justice.

Iquo B. Essien is a Nigerian-American writer and director. She attended the Graduate Film Program at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. Her short film, Aissa's Story, was a regional semifinalist in the 2013 Student Academy Awards. She is currently adapting the short into a feature film while writing a memoir, Elizabeth's Daughter, about losing her mother to cancer. You can find her on Twitter @alligatorlegs.

[Photos via Getty]

High School Bans "I Can't Breathe" T-Shirts at Basketball Tournament

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High School Bans "I Can't Breathe" T-Shirts at Basketball Tournament

Both boys' and girls' varsity basketball teams from a Northern California high school were disinvited from a tournament because of concerns that players would wear "I Can't Breathe" t-shirts during warm-ups, the Associated Press reports.

Mendocino Unified School District Superintendent Jason Morse told the AP that the boys' team was ultimately re-invited to the tournament at nearby Fort Bragg High School "after all but one player agreed not to wear the shirts anywhere on the Fort Bragg campus during the three-day tournament."

"Too few girls accepted the condition for the team to field a tournament squad," the AP reports.

The words, Eric Garner's last, have become a slogan for protestors demonstrating against police brutality and racism in the American justice system. After a Staten Island grand jury failed to indict the NYPD officer who placed Garner in the chokehold which killed him many athletes began wearing shirts with the words printed on them during warm-ups before games.

Both Mendocino boys' and girls' teams had reportedly worn "I Can't Breathe" shirts while warming up for games in recent weeks without consequence. "I didn't even know what it meant," their coach said. "I thought it was a joke about how I had conditioned them so hard."

"To protect the safety and well-being of all tournament participants it is necessary to ensure that all political statements and or protests are kept away from this tournament," Fort Bragg Principal Rebecca Walker said in a written statement. She also commended the students "for paying attention to what is going on in the world around them."

[Image via AP Images]

Woman Arrested for Throwing Raw Meat at Cops: "God Told Me To"

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Woman Arrested for Throwing Raw Meat at Cops: "God Told Me To"

"I'm here to feed the pigs." According to The Boston Globe, that's what a Massachusetts woman said on Friday before throwing a Dunkin' Donuts box full of sausage and bacon at the front desk of the Framingham police station.

Thwarted in her feeding attempt by a layer of bulletproof glass, police say 24-year-old Lindsay McNamara then began "smearing the greasy meat" on the window.

Woman Arrested for Throwing Raw Meat at Cops: "God Told Me To"

From the Boston Herald:

She was immediately arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and malicious destruction of property worth less than $250.

Asked by the officer why she did it, McNamara said: "God told me to go feed the pigs," according to the police report.

Representing herself in court on Friday, the pork pelter denied the charges.

"I mean, I didn't really destruct property," said McNamara. "I just smeared some grease."

[Images via WCBV-TV//h/t Mediaite]

1,000 Chinese Cats Rescued Thanks to the Internet

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1,000 Chinese Cats Rescued Thanks to the Internet

More than 1,000 cats stolen by cat traffickers in northeast China were rescued after their owners found each other on the Internet and collaborated with local law enforcement, Sky News reports.

According to Sky News, the suspected traffickers arrived in Dalian City earlier this month and had been searching the city for cats every night, "before being noticed by a group of pet lovers who share their pet raising experiences online."

The pet lovers alerted police, who were able to locate a "cat den" in a nearby village, arresting six suspects. The cats were likely to be sold for their meat and fur, the Daily News reports.

More than 300 of the cats have been returned to their owners.

[Image via Shutterstock]


AirAsia Plane Carrying 155 Passengers Missing Over Java Sea

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AirAsia Plane Carrying 155 Passengers Missing Over Java Sea

The flight carrier AirAsia has confirmed that a passenger jet carrying 155 passengers and 7 crew members went missing on Sunday morning amidst heavy storms over the Java Sea. Originating in Surabaya, Indonesia, flight number QZ8501 was en route to Singapore when it ceased communication with air traffic controllers around 7:24 a.m. Western Indonesian Time.

A statement provided by Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry suggested that turbulent weather may have affected the plane’s navigation controls during the flight:

In a statement posted on Facebook, AirAsia supplied details regarding the experience of the aircraft’s pilot and the nationalities of its passengers:

The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours.

There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.

Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard are as below:

1 Singapore

1 Malaysia

1 France

3 South Korean

157 Indonesia

Reports indicating the discovery of the plane’s wreckage—which appear to originate from the English Twitter account of China Central Television—remain unconfirmed.

Update, 8:00 a.m.: Three Indonesian and two Singaporean aircraft were dispatched to the area near Belitung Island, in the Java Sea, where Flight 8501 went missing in a search and rescue mission coordinated by the Indonesian Civil Aviation Authority. The search was suspended overnight, although the Associated Press reports "some boats" are still looking.

Relatives of passengers on the plane gathered in a room at Surabaya airport, waiting to hear any information about their family and friends. "It is most possible that it has experienced an accident," Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the AP.

Photo credit: Associated Press

Ferguson Police Spokesman Calls Mike Brown Memorial "Pile of Trash"

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Ferguson Police Spokesman Calls Mike Brown Memorial "Pile of Trash"

A Ferguson police officer has been placed on unpaid leave after calling a longstanding memorial to slain teen Michael Brown "a pile of trash in the middle of the street," CBS reports.

Asked about the apparently malicious destruction of the memorial on Friday, public information officer Tim Zoll told The Washington Post "I don't know that a crime has occurred," saying, "But a pile of trash in the middle of the street? The Washington Post is making a call over this?"

According to a statement by the City of Ferguson, Zoll initially denied making the comments when asked by superiors, but later admitted to lying when confronted with the results of an internal investigation. Said the City:

The City of Ferguson wants to emphasize that negative remarks about the Michael Brown memorial do not reflect the feelings of the Ferguson Police Department. [...] The City of Ferguson and the Ferguson Police Department in particular, are focused on creating a trusting relationship with the entire community and taking impactful steps to improve the effectiveness of the department.

By Friday morning, the memorial to Brown had been rebuilt.

[Image via AP Images//h/t BuzzFeed]

War in Afghanistan Officially Over

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War in Afghanistan Officially Over

The United States and NATO have formally ended the war in Afghanistan, the Associated Press reports, with a flag-folding ceremony. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force will transition to a supporting role in January.

The U.S. will provide more than 11,000 of the troops that are to remain after January 1. Their new mission will be to provide training and support of the Afghan military. The Taliban has claimed the continued presence of American and NATO troops as an excuse to continue their efforts to destabilize the Afghan government, the AP reports.

"We've been in continuous war now for over 13 years," President Barack Obama told troops on Christmas Day. "Next week we will be ending our combat mission in Afghanistan." He continued, "Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country."

Violence in districts secured by U.S. troops has already increased. From a New York Times article published a week ago:

"This year is much worse than previous years," said Dr. Abdul Hamidi, a police colonel who is head of medical services for the national police in Helmand. "We've heard that the Quetta Shura has a big push to raise their flags over three districts by January, and has ordered their people to keep fighting until they do," he said, referring to the exiled Taliban leadership council in Pakistan.

A recent U.N. report found that 2014 has been the deadliest year for noncombatants in Afghanistan since 2009. Civilian casualties are expected to exceed 10,000 by the end of the year. NATO officials have said that Afghanistan's security force of 350,000 are prepared to handle the insurgency, which have suffered around 5,000 deaths so far—including some 3,200 policemen.

Photo credit: Associated Press

Report: Cosby Hired Investigators to Discredit Rape Accusers

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Report: Cosby Hired Investigators to Discredit Rape Accusers

According to the New York Post, Bill Cosby has hired multiple private investigators to "dig up dirt" on his accusers, paying "six-figure fees" for information that might undermine their allegations.

"If you're going to say to the world that I did this to you, then the world needs to know, 'What kind of person are you? Who is this person that's saying it?'" Cosby reportedly told his legal and public-relations team.

"You can't say that I put something in your coffee, threw you in a cab and then you go on and live a high-profile life, a famous life and you never complain," Cosby allegedly continued, apparently referring to Beverly Johnson's accusation that he drugged her at an audition. "You mean you never reported it to the police? You never tell anyone?"

Cosby's attorney Martin Singer—through whom he is reported to have hired the investigators—declined to address the issue directly. He did tell the Post, however, "You [the media] don't need private investigators to find out information about the accusers. A simple Google search will obtain the information."

Last week Singer sent CNN a letter accusing the network of "one-sided" reporting; earlier, Cosby appealed to black journalists to maintain a "neutral mind."

Photo credit: Associated Press

Absent Californians Pay $40.7 Million in Cash for Empty NYC Apartment

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Absent Californians Pay $40.7 Million in Cash for Empty NYC Apartment

A full-floor penthouse on the 23rd floor of the Walker Tower, a converted Art Deco skyscraper in Chelsea, sold for $40,730,000, the New York Times reports. The buyers are from California and will use the apartment as a pied-à-terre. They paid all-cash.

The apartment is actually one of two penthouses in the building and is referred to as Penthouse Two. Penthouse One is slightly smaller than Penthouse Two, but it is on the top floor. Penthouse One set a record for downtown Manhattan in January when it sold for $50.9 million, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. That deal was also all-cash.

The building's first resale, in February, generated $3 million in profit for owner-investor Burt Freiman, whom the New York Times dubs a "serial apartment flipper." (Fun!) "The buyers paid more for the apartment than my client did," his broker told the Times, "but I don't feel that they paid up; they paid what the market will bear today."

According to the Times, Freiman did not visit his acquisition even once. Penthouse Two's unnamed Californian buyers, meanwhile, reportedly plan to spend part of the holidays in their big new playhouse.

Photo credit: Douglas Elliman

Police Chief's Perfect Response: Respect Protestors, Keep an Open Mind

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Police Chief's Perfect Response: Respect Protestors, Keep an Open Mind

When a pro-cop citizen wrote the Nashville Police to express his "frustration and outrage" at the city's peaceful handling of recent Ferguson protests, Chief Steve Anderson reminded the letter-writer of a simple fact: "The police are merely a representative of a government formed by the people for the people—for all people."

In his point-by-point response—published online Friday and reproduced in full below—Anderson explained why police in Nashville served demonstrators hot chocolate instead of threatening them with arrest, urging the unnamed critic to "truly give fair consideration to all points of view."

"[C]omparing the outcome here in Nashville with what has occurred in some other cities," wrote Anderson, "the results speak for themselves."

Mr. _____________

While I certainly appreciate your offer to intercede on my behalf with our Mayor, you should know that the Mayor has not issued any order, directive or instruction on the matter with which you take issue. All decisions concerning the police department's reaction to the recent demonstrations have been made within the police department and approved by me. Therefore, any reasons or rationale supporting your proposal as what would be the best approach for all of Nashville, and not just a method of utilizing the police department to enforce a personal agenda, should be directed to me.

In that your thoughts deserve consideration, I will attempt to address some of the issues you have raised:

  • Has consideration been given as to whether the response of the police department "help or hurt the community."

It is our view that every decision made within the police department should be made with the community in mind. Obviously, there are some matters in which we have no discretion. On matters in which we do have discretion, careful consideration is given as to the best course of action, always with the welfare of the general public in mind.

That has been the consideration on this issue. Certainly, in comparing the outcome here in Nashville with what has occurred in some other cities, the results speak for themselves. I stand on the decisions that have been made.

  • "These actions are putting the department at disharmony from the majority of the citizens."

While I don't doubt that you sincerely believe that your thoughts represent the majority of citizens, I would ask you to consider the following before you chisel those thoughts in stone.

As imperfect humans, we have a tendency to limit our association with other persons to those persons who are most like us. Unfortunately, there is even more of a human tendency to stay within our comfort zone by further narrowing those associations to those persons who share our thoughts and opinions. By doing this we can avoid giving consideration to thoughts and ideas different than our own. This would make us uncomfortable. By considering only the thoughts and ideas we are in agreement with, we stay in our comfort zone. Our own biases get reinforced and reflected back at us leaving no room for any opinion but our own. By doing this, we often convince ourselves that the majority of the world shares opinion and that anyone with another opinion is, obviously, wrong.

It is only when we go outside that comfort zone, and subject ourselves to the discomfort of considering thoughts we don't agree with, that we can make an informed judgment on any matter. We can still disagree and maintain our opinions, but we can now do so knowing that the issue has been given consideration from all four sides. Or, if we truly give fair consideration to all points of view, we may need to swallow our pride and amend our original thoughts.

And, it is only by giving consideration to the thoughts of all persons, even those that disagree with us, that we can have an understanding as to what constitutes a majority.

  • "I just want myself and my family to feel that our city is safe, and right now we don't feel that way."

I have to admit, I am somewhat puzzled by this announcement. None of the demonstrators in this city have in any way exhibited any propensity for violence or indicated, even verbally, that they would harm anyone. I can understand how you may feel that your ideologies have been questioned but I am not aware of any occurrence that would give reason for someone to feel physically threatened.

  • "I have a son who I have raised to respect police officers and other authority figures, but if he comes to me today and asks "Why are the police allowing this?" I wouldn't have a good answer."

It is somewhat perplexing when children are injected into the conversation as an attempt to bolster a position or as an attempt to thwart the position of another. While this is not the type of conversation I ordinarily engage in, here are some thoughts you may find useful as you talk with your son.

First, it is laudable that you are teaching your son respect for the police and other authority figures. However, a better lesson might be that it is the government the police serve that should be respected. The police are merely a representative of a government formed by the people for the people—for all people. Being respectful of the government would mean being respectful of all persons, no matter what their views.

Later, it might be good to point out that the government needs to be, and is, somewhat flexible, especially in situations where there are minor violations of law. A government that had zero tolerance for even minor infractions would prove unworkable in short order.

Although this is unlikely, given your zero tolerance stance, suppose that, by accident or perhaps inattention, you found yourself going 40 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour zone and that you were stopped by a police officer. Then, after making assurances that licenses were in order and that there were no outstanding warrants, the officer asked you not to speed again and did not issue a citation, but merely sent you on your way.

As you have suggested, a question may come to you from the back seat, "How can I respect the police if they will not enforce the law?" In the event this does occur, here are some facts that might help you answer that question.

In the year 2013, our officers made over four hundred thousand vehicle stops, mostly for traffic violations. A citation was issued in only about one in six of those stops. Five of the six received warnings. This is the police exercising discretion for minor violations of the law. Few, if any, persons would argue that the police should have no discretion.

This is an explanation you might give your son. Take into account, however, that the innocence of children can produce the most profound and probing questions. They often see the world in a very clear and precise manner, their eyes unclouded by the biases life gives us. This could produce the next question. "If you believe that the police should enforce the law at all times, why didn't you insist that the officer write you a ticket?"

I don't have a suggestion as to how that should be answered.

I do know, however, that this is a very diverse city. Nashville, and all of America, will be even more diverse when your son becomes an adult. Certainly, tolerance, respect and consideration for the views of all persons would be valuable attributes for him to take into adulthood.

Mr. ______, thank you for taking the time to express your position on this matter. I assure that your thoughts will be given all due consideration. We will continue, however, to make decisions, on this and all matters, that take into account what is best for all of Nashville.

Steve Anderson

Chief of Police

[ Image via WKRN-TV]

Russia's Terrifying 'Nuke Trains' Will Be Roving The Rails By 2018

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Russia's Terrifying 'Nuke Trains' Will Be Roving The Rails By 2018

Banned under the previous STARTII treaty, but not excluded in 2011's New START treaty, Russia is pulling from its Soviet strategic playbook and reviving the intercontinental ballistic missile toting, hiding in plain sight, 'Nuke Train' concept.

Sounding more like a set-piece from a James Bond movie, this new and improved Nuke Train will be carrying even more terrifying cargo than its Soviet predecessors. The Combat Railway Missile Complex (as the Russians call it) is somewhat akin to a ground-based nuclear ballistic missile submarine, although it is much less expensive to operate. Its constantly moving nature and 'hiding in plain sight' camouflage represents a survivable, hard to target, land-based nuclear second strike deterrent. The idea is that a portion of the Combat Railway Missile Complex fleet will roam the countryside at any given time, operating among similar looking passenger and cargo trains, thus making continuous satellite tracking by Western powers extremely difficult.

Russia's Terrifying 'Nuke Trains' Will Be Roving The Rails By 2018

This new railway based missile platform is said to be named 'Barguzin' after the strong eastern wind that blows off Lake Baikal. Russian news site RT reports that like its 12 Soviet-era Nuke Train predecessors, which were removed from service in 1993, Barguzin will also have its cars disguised as standard commercial refrigeration cars, although they will not need heavy steel reinforced wheels like past units. This is due to the fact that the new RS-24 'Yars' ICBM these trains will carry weighs half the weight of the RT-23 'Molodets' ICBM carried on Soviet-era Nuke Trains. Without the tell-tale reinforced running gear, the fact that these ICBM toting train cars will look exactly like normal refrigeration cars will make them nearly impossible to track, even by informants on the ground.

Russia's Terrifying 'Nuke Trains' Will Be Roving The Rails By 2018

Each of these new Railway Missile Complexes will hold six RS-24s, which are each capable of carrying four Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs). This means that each train, of which five are currently planned, could hold 24 thermonuclear warheads, each able to take out a town of its own. That is a lot of apocalyptic firepower roving around the countryside on train tracks.

The RS-24 in particular is not Russia's most powerful ICBM, even the RT-23 'Molodets' that it replaces in the Nuke Train ICBM role carried over double the MIRVs, each with larger explosive yield options. Yet, for what the RS-24 lacks in punch it makes up for in accuracy and survivability. It speeds to its target at over mach 20, making it one of the fastest ICBMs in the world, this means that quicker reaction times are required when dealing with an RS-24 launch. In the end this equates into less enemy assets being dispersed once the RS-24's warheads hit their targets and less time for the enemy, in this case the US, to deploy its ballistic missile defenses.

The RS-24 also has a shorter infrared launch 'footprint,' making it harder to detect and track by space-based infrared early-warning satellites. The Yars also possess Russia's most advanced decoy systems aimed at fooling America's anti-ballistic missile systems and is rumored to be equipped with a highly-maneuverable post-boost vehicle. The RS-24's MIRVs are said to have a circular error probability of just 150 feet after flying some 7,500 miles to their target, making it very accurate ICBM, especially by Russian standards.

Russia's Terrifying 'Nuke Trains' Will Be Roving The Rails By 2018

Russia's renewed interest in Nuke Trains is said to be a response to America's Conventional Prompt Global Strike project, which looks towards a cocktail of hypersonic air-breathing missiles and aircraft as well as possibly ballistic missiles, and even space-based weaponry, to hit a target within an hour, anywhere on globe. This new requirement, which has produced nothing operational in the 'white world' as of yet, has been deemed a threat to road-mobile transporter-erector-launcher based ICBMs, which have to expose themselves for launch. A Nuke Train masquerading perfectly as a commercial train would be much harder to detect and can literally hide in plain sight, only transforming moments before launch.

Nuke Trains and Russia's reinvigorated focus on developing its nuclear arsenal is just another sign of how chilly the relationship between Russia and the West has become. These capabilities take a lot of money to develop and to sustain and along with Russia's recent investments in long-range aviation, its nuclear submarine force and ground-based nuclear forces, it is a very strong sign that Russia sees there may actually be a need for such a deterrent in the first place.

Seeing as Russia's economy is in free-fall and President Putin's image as the strongman that will lead Russia into a prosperous future is beginning to come under increased doubt, it will be interesting to see if these expensive doomsday weapons investments continue at their current pace. If they do, it will be yet another sign that we are heading toward something like the Cold War of decades ago.

After seeing the Kremlin's absurd denials during the Crimea invasion and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, even a manufactured Cold War-like crisis may be yet another tactic in Putin's playbook aimed at maintaining strong nationalist sentiment and popular support for his fiscally failing policies.

Russia's Terrifying 'Nuke Trains' Will Be Roving The Rails By 2018

Photos via Wiki-commons, bottom shot via AP.

Tyler Rogoway is a defense journalist and photographer who edits the website Foxtrot Alpha for Jalopnik.com You can reach Tyler with story ideas or direct comments regarding this or any other defense topic via the email address Tyler@Jalopnik.com


Aerial Rescue of Nearly 500 Passengers Trapped on Burning Ferry Begins

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Aerial Rescue of Nearly 500 Passengers Trapped on Burning Ferry Begins

Initially hampered by bad weather and strong winds, rescuers finally began airlifting passengers from an Italian ferry that caught fire off the coast of Albania on Sunday.

As of 1:30 p.m. EST, the BBC reports 165 of 478 people onboard the Norman Atlantic have been rescued and one has died after falling into the sea.

From NBC News:

Each air transfer was taking about 15 minutes per helicopter, according to a Greek Defence Ministry official. Another official said two Italian and two Greek helicopters were involved in the rescue. Coastguard spokesman Nikos Lagkadianos said the heavy rain that was hampering the rescue had helped contain the fire, although the ship was still burning. Two tugboats were present, one of which had managed to approach the ship to try to extinguish the blaze.

Before rescuers arrived, descriptions of the situation on the ship were grim.

"We are burning and sinking, no one can save us," a passenger reportedly told Greek TV by telephone. "Please help us! Don't leave us!"

[Image via AP Images]

CNN Analyst Says Terrorism Happens When It's Nice Out

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CNN Analyst Says Terrorism Happens When It's Nice Out

Mary Schiavo, a CNN Aviation Analyst reporting on missing AirAsia Flight 8501, believes that terrorists are not to blame, because terrorists prefer nice weather, and the weather was bad when Flight 8501 disappeared.

"At this point, given it was extremely bad weather, the chances of this being some sort of a terrorist activity are very small.," Schiavo said, on television. "Because most terrorist activity takes place in good weather."

"For example," the former Inspector General of the United States Department of Transportation added, "9/11."

When Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 went missing back in March, CNN anchor Don Lemon asked Schiavo about the possibility that a black hole might have been to blame.

[Photo credit: AP Images | h/t @tomgara]

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asked his readers to send him poems about race in America.

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New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asked his readers to send him poems about race in America. They did. And then he published some of them! One is addressed to looters.

Grieving Family Rescues Stolen Hearse Bearing Departed Relative's Body

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Grieving Family Rescues Stolen Hearse Bearing Departed Relative's Body

A South Los Angeles family stopped a man from making off with their dead relative's body, which was still in the back of the hearse he had stolen from outside the church where services were to take place yesterday morning, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The incident took place as a funeral director was preparing services for 19-year-old Jonté Lee Reed at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Shirley Little, the pastor's wife, told the Times that the director had left the hearse idling as he went inside to arrange flowers; when he returned, it was gone.

"Family members driving to the funeral had been notified of the theft and saw a hearse passing them near 52nd and Main streets, about four blocks from the Baptist church," the Times reports. "They made the driver pull over and began angrily arguing with him." Police were called and the man was taken into custody. Police told KTLA5 he would likely be charged with auto theft and his mental condition "evaluated."

"Even with all of that occurring, the service for this gentleman was only 30 minutes late," Little said. "It was nice."

In 2011, a West Virginia woman was charged with grand larceny and displacement of a dead body after she stole a hearse with a body in it from outside a funeral home. In November, an escaped nursing home patient suffering from dementia stole a corpse-laden hearse in Australia.

[Image via KTLA5]

China Enters Gibberish Stage of Capitalism with Adidos, Orgee Brands

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China Enters Gibberish Stage of Capitalism with Adidos, Orgee Brands

On Friday, The New York Times profiled some of the Chinese companies that have taken nonsensical branding to its postmodern conclusion, selling products under Western-inspired names like "Biemlfdlkk" and "Marisfrolg."

"You could call it fawning on foreign powers," one costumer told the paper while shopping Chocoolate, a Hong Kong clothing store.

China Enters Gibberish Stage of Capitalism with Adidos, Orgee Brands

Other brands mentioned in the article:

  • Frognie Zila
  • Helen Keller (a sunglasses maker)
  • Chrisdien Deny
  • Adidos
  • Orgee
  • Cnoverse
  • Fuma
  • Johnnie Worker Red Labial Whiskey

Of course, giving your company a meaningless, foreign-sounding name can present unique challenges when dealing with journalists.

A Biemlfdlkk saleswoman in the southern city of Guangzhou explained, "It's a German name." An employee at another Biemlfdlkk shop had a different explanation: "It's the name of a French designer."

Ah yes, Jean-Pierre Biemlfdlkk.

Some, however, rose to the occasion, like an employee at Helen Keller (motto: "you see the world, the world sees you"), whose website "omits all mention of the disabilities" faced by their namesake.

Reached by phone, a brand manager found nothing problematic about the omission. "So she's blind and deaf — her personal shortcomings are not related to the spirit of our brand," said the woman, who gave only her surname, Jiang. "These products help you love and protect your eyes. Why would that be offensive?"

[Images via Youtube/GG.com]

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