Man arrested after leading deputies on 100 mph chase

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Man arrested after leading deputies on 100 mph chase along U.S. 41

Sheriff’s deputies say a 39-year-old North Naples man led them on a chase at speeds of more than 100 mph along U.S. 41.

Timothy J. Varble, of the 3300 block of Bermuda Isle Circle, was arrested early Saturday and charged with high-speed reckless fleeing and eluding a law enforcement officer with its lights and sirens active.

A Collier County sheriff’s deputy said he pulled over a pickup Varble was driving after the man made an improper U-turn at U.S. 41 and Immokalee Road about 11 p.m. Friday, reports stated. The deputy said Varble exited the truck and began walking toward him, saying his mother was in the hospital and wanted to leave.World Hot Topics Blog

The deputy, who had asked Varble to return to his pickup, said he found arrest warrants sought Varble on charges of failing to pay child support and driving with a suspended license. When the deputy said he was placing Varble under arrest, Varble fled in the truck north on U.S. 41.

The deputy said he pursued Varble, who was driving at speeds of more than 100 mph along U.S. 41. Varble eventually turned left onto Bonita Beach Road, heading west at speeds approaching 100 mph. Varble crashed his truck just west of Barefoot Beach Road and was treated and released from a hospital for injuries before being booked into the Naples Jail Center.

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N.J. earthquake causes stir in midst of Sandy recovery

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N.J. earthquake causes stir in midst of Sandy recovery

N.J. earthquake update: Early Monday morning, an earthquake in New Jersey rocked residents in the small town of Ringwood. The temblor measured only 2.0 on the Richter scale, but in the wake of Hurricane "Superstorm" Sandy and widespread power outages, the rare shaking was unsettling.

Monday, the Christian Science Monitor reported that many residents of the town -- less than an hour's drive north from New York, heard a boom at the time of the N.J. earthquake.World Hot Topics Blog

The National Earthquake Information Center reported that shaking was felt in Wanaque, Mahwah, Franklin Lakes, Oakland, West Milford and Paterson. The good news is there are no reports of injuries.
The New Jersey earthquake Monday was the second since February of 2010. Again, this was a mild seismic event, measuring only 2.2 magnitude.

Hurricane "Superstorm" Sandy tore through the East Coast last week and left a path of destruction through several states, mainly in New York and New Jersey. NBCNews reports that as of Monday, 1,389,000 million people in the Mid-Atlantic are without power, down from two million from the day before.

With Election Day Tuesday, round-the-clock efforts are underway to get power restored to residents and businesses.

Did the N.J. earthquake affect your area? Share your shaking experiences.

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http:// www.examiner.com/article/n-j-earthquake-causes-stir-midst-of-sandy-recovery

Blizzard warning issued in West Virginia

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Blizzard warning issued in West Virginia

ELKINS, W.Va. (AP) — Wet snow and high winds spinning off the edge of superstorm Sandy spread blizzard conditions over parts of West Virginia and neighboring Appalachian states Tuesday, shutting one interstate as trucks and cars bogged down and knocking out power to many.

The National Weather Service said a foot and more of snow was reported in lower elevations of West Virginia, where most towns and roads are. High elevations in the mountains were getting more than two feet and a blizzard warning for more than a dozen counties was in effect until Wednesday afternoon.

At least 236,000 customers were without power in West Virginia early Tuesday. In Elkins, a city of about 7,000 people, power went out across town before dawn and the only lights were from passing snow plows as heavy, wet flakes piled up to about 8 inches.World Hot Topics Blog

The roofs of at least three homes collapsed under the weight of heavy snow, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said. No injuries were reported in the Tuesday accidents in Nicholas County. West Virginia National Guard troops helped the residents of the homes get to local shelters.

Tomblin says there's been no word of additional deaths or any serious injuries. Officials earlier reported a woman was killed Monday in a storm-related traffic accident in an area where about 5 inches of snow had fallen.

The governor is urging residents to stay off the roads. That will prevent mishaps and allow National Guard, Division of Highways and Division of Forestry crews to clear felled trees for utility repair workers.

Tomblin says forecasters estimate that the storm's brunt should clear the state by nightfall.

Authorities closed nearly 50 miles of Interstate 68 on either side of the West Virginia-Maryland state line for hours early Tuesday because of blizzard conditions and stuck vehicles.

More than 30 other highways and roads were closed in West Virginia by snow, ice, high water, and downed trees and power lines. Department of Transportation spokeswoman Leslie Fitzwater said. Schools were closed in at least 39 counties. Police rescued several stranded motorists on the interstate in West Virginia.

"It's a mess out there and people should stay home if they can until our first responders can get out there, clear the roads and get to those who need the most assistance," Fitzwater said. World Hot Topics Blog

On the Maryland side of I-68, a foot of snow triggered closures along a 40-mile stretch between LaVale and the West Virginia line.

Several westbound tractor-trailers jackknifed on Big Savage Mountain. Maryland State Police Sgt. Brian Broadwater said about 200 vehicles backed up behind the trucks. Travelers were turned around or detoured onto two-lane state highways that were also treacherous, prompting many to check into motels.

The depth of the early snow surprised some Appalachian residents in eastern Kentucky.

A tree heavy with snow fell on Claude Collier's truck Monday night in Jenkins, Ky. Collier, 50, says he has "never seen this much snow this early in the year." He said he and other residents lost power in the storm.

The storm also covered parts of the Virginia highlands, northeast Tennessee and northwest North Carolina.

At Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, park spokeswoman Dana Soehn reported 22 inches of snow at the highest elevations, with strong winds blowing drifts up to 4 feet deep. World Hot Topics Blog

Roads were closed throughout the park and a handful of hikers coming off sections of the Appalachian Trial on Tuesday morning reporting tangles of fallen trees and waist-deep drifts.

"We don't know exactly how many people are still up there, but we've not received any distress calls," Soehn said. "It's that heavy, wet snow, so it is difficult to plow."

Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in in Jenkins, Ky., contributed to this report.

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Stock markets closed as storm hobbles New York

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Stock markets closed as storm hobbles New York

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock and options markets will be closed on Monday, and possibly Tuesday, as regulators, exchanges and brokers worry about the integrity of markets and the safety of employees in the face of Hurricane Sandy.

Market participants and regulators decided late on Sunday to shut the market, reversing a plan to keep electronic trading going on Monday. Bond markets will remain open, but will close at noon, a trade group said. World Hot Topics Blog

The decision to close stock and options markets came after regulators, exchanges, and dealers discussed the unknowns that would have been tested if the markets opened on Monday, three sources familiar with the situation said.

For example, NYSE Euronext's New York Stock Exchange had initially planned to shut its physical trading floor, which would have meant operating as an all-electronic exchange for the first time.

The decision to shut down the stock markets came after Wall Street had prepared to open for business on Monday with limited staffing after a mass transit shut-down in New York, booking hotel rooms for key employees and leaning on offices in other cities.

Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc, activated their emergency plans, which many firms put in place after the September 11, 2001, attacks. It was not immediately clear if those plans had also changed. World Hot Topics Blog

Some bank offices in lower Manhattan's Financial District are in evacuation zones and most non-critical staff and employees who don't rely on high-speed systems, including some investment bankers, were asked to work from home.

"SUPER STORM"
The storm is expected to slam into the U.S. East Coast on Monday night, bringing torrential rain, high wind, severe flooding and power outages. The rare "super storm" - created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm - could be the biggest to hit the U.S. mainland, forecasters said.

The scramble started early as the threat of the storm forced the New York mass transit system to shut down on Sunday evening, leaving tens of thousands of employees stuck at home.

About 8.5 million commuters use the Metropolitan Transit Authority's transit lines daily, meaning most Wall Street employees would be unable to get to work. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also closed public schools and ordered an evacuation of 375,000 people in coastal areas, including downtown offices of banks such as Citigroup. World Hot Topics Blog

The major exchanges and most big trading firms have alternate trading facilities if downtown Manhattan is inaccessible, but the storm's wide path may affect a number of sites in the New York metropolitan area. Authorities have warned of possible widespread power outages that could last for days.

Wall Street was spared the worst of Hurricane Irene in August last year. Officials had feared Hurricane Irene would flood lower Manhattan and cripple business in the world's financial capital, but the flooding was minor and there were no major disruptions at the exchanges.

All of the U.S. exchanges, as well as major broker-dealers, and regulators were involved in the decision to close the markets, according to several executives at exchanges and financial firms.

The U.S. markets have seen three high-profile snafus this year, beginning with the failed IPO of BATS Global Markets, the No. 3 U.S. equities exchange, on its own exchange; Facebook Inc's botched markets debut on Nasdaq's exchange; and a software glitch that cost trading firm Knight Capital well over $400 million, nearly forcing it into bankruptcy. World Hot Topics Blog

BOND MARKETS
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said earlier on Sunday it is recommending an early close of noon EDT on Monday for the trading of U.S. dollar-denominated, fixed-income securities. It said its member firms should decide for themselves whether their fixed-income departments remain open for trading.

The foreign exchange market's activity generally follows the fixed income markets.
The New York Federal Reserve has calls scheduled for early Monday morning with dealers to see what each dealer is doing to cope with the storm, and will modify its market activities accordingly.

In Washington, the Commerce Department said it would post its report on personal income and spending for September on its website at 8:30 a.m. as scheduled, even though the federal government was closed.
The Federal Reserve said it would postpone its regularly scheduled releases, including its weekly report on selected interest rates and daily commercial paper data. The Fed said it would release the data when federal offices in the Washington area reopened. World Hot Topics Blog

CME Group Inc said it will be closing its U.S. equity index futures and equity index options on futures markets on the trading floor and on CME Globex at 8:15 a.m., Central Time, on Monday. All other CME Group futures and options on futures markets will remain open.

IntercontinentalExchange Inc said trading in the ICE Futures Russell equity index futures and options will close early, at 9:15 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday. It said ICE Clear Credit will close at noon Eastern Time on Monday, with the U.S. fixed income markets. It said all other ICE markets and clearing houses will remain open and follow regular market hours.

WORK FROM HOME
Goldman, whose office in lower Manhattan is in one of the areas to be evacuated, told employees earlier on Sunday that it would open for business, with some staff working from offices in Greenwich, Connecticut, and in Princeton, New Jersey. It also plans to use teams in London and other locations around the world for support.

Citigroup, which has three buildings in the evacuation zone, said "non-critical personnel should invoke their work-from-home strategies." World Hot Topics Blog

JPMorgan Chase & Co said its buildings were still open Monday and the bank was planning to be fully operational, using resources in the United States, Europe and Asia.

For many investment bankers and private equity executives, working from home will make the most sense. Blackstone Group planned to close its office on Monday.

Hurricane Sandy also led to some events being canceled or postponed. Citigroup Prime Brokerage postponed a hedge fund event that had been scheduled for Tuesday.

(Reporting by John McCrank, David Gaffen, Caroline Humer, David Henry, Charles Mikolajczak, Richard Leong, Edward Krudy, Lauren LaCapra, Dan Wilchins and Rick Rothacker; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Jennifer Merritt, Tiffany Wu, Maureen Bavdek, Dale Hudson, Gary Crosse and Robert Birsel)

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Stock markets closed as storm hobbles New York

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US govt sues Bank of America on allegations of mortgage fraud

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US govt sues Bank of America on allegations of mortgage fraud

WASHINGTON: The US government has sued Bank of America for $1 billion on allegations of a multi-year mortgage fraud.

In a complaint filed in a New York court, the department of justice alleged that from 2007 through 2009, Countrywide, and later Bank of America after it acquired Countrywide, implemented a new loan origination process called the Hustle, which was intentionally designed to process loans at high speed and without quality checkpoints.

This generated thousands of fraudulent and otherwise defective residential mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that later defaulted, causing over $1 billion in losses and countless foreclosures.

This is the first civil fraud suit brought by the department of justice concerning mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. World Hot Topics Blog

"For the sixth time in less than 18 months, this office has been compelled to sue a major US bank for reckless mortgage practices in the lead-up to the financial crisis," said US attorney Preet Bharara.

"Countrywide and Bank of America systematically removed every check in favour of its own balance - they cast aside underwriters, eliminated quality controls, incentivised unqualified personnel to cut corners and concealed the resulting defects.

"These toxic products were then sold to the government sponsored enterprises as good loans.

"This lawsuit should send another clear message that reckless lending practices will not be tolerated," Bharara said in a statement. World Hot Topics Blog
World Hot Topics Blog
This is an act of tiny margins relative to the size of the organisations and relative to the fraud committed, William K Black, a former bank regulator who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, told The Washington Post.

"Prosecutors can't argue that these cases will serve as a deterrence when there have been no criminal indictments of senior executives," he said.

"At some point, Bank of America can't be expected to compensate every entity that claims losses that actually were caused by the economic downturn," said the Bank of America spokesman, Lawrence Grayson.

Bank of America "acted responsibly to resolve legacy mortgage matters", Grayson said.

"The claim that we failed to repurchase loans from Fannie Mae is simply false," he added.

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US govt sues Bank of America on allegations of mortgage fraud

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Family discovers doorstop is 4 billion-year-old meteorite

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Family discovers doorstop is 4 billion-year-old meteorite

The doorstop on Donna and George Lewis' porch traveled a long way to get there.

The 33-pound rock, something of a family heirloom, was found in a cow pasture near Tazewell, Tenn., in the 1930s by Donna Lewis' grandfather, the late Tilmon Brooks.

The object of curiosity, which long served as a doorstop and a garden ornament and had even been painted green, turns out to be a very rare and very real meteorite, possibly 4.5 billion years old.

It wasn't until George Lewis put a metal detector to the object—and it read off the charts—that the couple realized this was no ordinary rock. World Hot Topics Blog

When the Lewis family brought the object to Jerry Cook, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Eastern Kentucky University, he suspected it was special.

According to the school's press release, "tests at the University of Tennessee confirmed the object's origins: it was probably part of a known meteorite strike that had first turned up evidence in Tazewell in 1853."

The university has since purchased the meteorite, the remains of a meteor that fell to Earth, from the family. The former doorstop will now be on display. It already made its debut at a science fair on the campus over the weekend. World Hot Topics Blog

"We don't want to lock it up somewhere," Cook said in a statement. "We want kids to be able to touch it, lift it, and understand what it is. Part of our job is to get kids interested in science, and this ... will stir their curiosity."

Cook added, "We're extremely lucky to find something like this, and to find one locally is a real plus for us."
The discovery is the second-largest known meteorite from the Tazewell strike. The first weighed in at 100 pounds.

For her part, Donna Lewis is thrilled that the space rock will be available to students for study.

The school secretary said, "I saw how excited kids at our school got when they saw it. It's good to know that Eastern will keep it in one piece and students will be able to study it."

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Family discovers doorstop is 4 billion-year-old meteorite

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Bullied Teen's Death Spurs Fake Sites

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Bullied Teen's Death Spurs Fake Sites

Money-seeking vultures are attempting to profit from the enormous public outcry in support for bullied teen Amanda Todd by setting up fraudulent websites that claim to be fundraising for the girl's family.

"Taking advantage of a family's grief is despicable," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Peter Thiessen said in a statement. "We want to get the word out that there is one real account and anyone who is interested can make a donation at any RBC branch to the Amanda Todd Trust Account."

Thiessen said that the intense attention to the case has led to a number of fake websites and accounts that say they are fundraising for the family.

Todd, 15, posted the video called "My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm" on Sept. 7 and was found dead in her home town of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia on Oct. 10. Since her death, the video has been viewed more than 4 million times.

Dozens of tribute pages for the teen have been created on Facebook. The most popular one has over one million supporters and several others have hundreds of thousands of supporters.

"The outpouring of support, emotion and information is literally overwhelming," Thiessen said. "The internet and social media were central to Amanda's story and they are central to our investigation as well."

Authorities are "sifting through thousands of tips" they have received since Todd's death.

"One of our big challenges right now, is false information that is being spread by people who appear to be trying to use Amanda's story to do harm or make a profit," Thiessen said in the release.

Police have opened a probe into Todd's death and "anyone that had contact with her" before she died. Of particular interest is a man who convinced Todd to flash her breasts, took a screen grab of the moment and used the photo to cyber-bully her for years.

Earlier this week, Anonymous, an online hacking and activist group, posted the name and address of a British Columbia man in his 30's who they claimed was the culprit.

Police called the allegation "unfounded" and said investigators had to spend "considerable" time responding to the rumors.

The man identified by Anonymous denied being her bully to the Vancouver Sun and pointed to a man in Wisconsin. Anonymous has since posted the name and address of the second man.

Thiessen urged "everyone who has been touched by Amanda's story" to respect her memory by being a responsible citizen of the Internet and thinking critically about information before passing it along.

In her video, Todd described using webcam chats to meet and talk to new people online as a seventh grade student, including a man who pressured her to flash her chest. One year later, she did and the man took a photo of her chest.

Todd said that the man put the photo online and sent it to everyone she knew. Even after moving towns and schools multiple times, the man continued to follow her online and use her photo, she said. The photo and the bullying online and in school drove her to depression, drugs, alcohol, cutting and a suicide attempt with bleach.

"I can never get that photo back," she wrote. "It's out there forever."

Teenager Documents Bullying and Abuse Before Her Death

Authorities have not officially called the death a suicide, but Cpl. Jamie Chung of the Coquitlam Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement earlier this week, "At this time it has been determined that the teen's death was not suspicious in nature and that foul play was not a factor."

The nearly nine-minute, black and white video showed Todd silently telling her story through a series of white cards with black marker writing on them. She can only be seen from her nose down for most of the video, occasionally moving around so that her face is visible.

"Hello, I've decided to tell you about my never ending story," the video begins.
She described the events leading up to the photo of her chest and how she felt after the photo was posted online.

"I then got really sick and got anxiety, major depression and panic disorders," she wrote. "I then moved and got into drugs and alcohol."

She described being called names, eating lunch alone and resorting to cutting herself. She also told the story of an incident where she made a "huge mistake" and "hooked up" with a boy at her school who had a girlfriend, but who she believed really liked her, which led to being beaten up at school.

Todd said she "wanted to die so bad" when her dad found her in a ditch. She drank bleach when she went home and had to be rushed to the hospital to have her stomach pumped, she said.

"After I got home, all I saw was on Facebook--'She deserved it. Did you wash the mud out of your hair? I hope she's dead,'" she wrote.

Todd said in her video that she did not want to press charges against the girl who beat her up because she wanted to move on when she moved to another city and school.

She moved to another school in another city, but said the torture followed her through Facebook. Students posted photos of ditches and suggested she try another bleach.

Todd was in the tenth grade at the Coquitlam Alternate Basic Education School when she died. School officials would not release the name of her previous school.

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Bullied Teen's Death Spurs Fake Sites

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Extra sleep may improve kids conduct

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Extra sleep may improve kids' conduct

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Letting kids sleep a little longer may help improve their behavior and make them less restless in school, according to a new study.

On the flip side, cutting back on kids' time asleep seems to make them more likely to cry, lose their temper and become frustrated, according to the researchers, who published their findings in the journal Pediatrics on Monday.

"You can think about it from a lot of different angles. What we are showing here is that it can go both ways in terms of behavior and academic performance," said Reut Gruber, of Montreal's McGill University and Douglas Research Center, who led the study. World Hot Topics Blog

While Gruber's team is not the first to link sleep and behavior, few studies have looked at whether more sleep actually leads to better behavior in school children.

For the study, they recruited 33 children between seven and 11 years old to be followed over two weeks.

For the first week, the researchers monitored how long the kids slept - about 9.3 hours, which is short of the 10 hours suggested by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The children were then split into two groups for the second week.

One group's parents were told to add an hour to their kids' usual time asleep, while the other group was told to cut their kids' sleep by an hour.
Half of the children did lose an hour of sleep each night, but the other group was only able to add about 30 minutes. World Hot Topics Blog

Still, that half hour seemed long enough for teachers to notice an improvement in the kids' behavior.
After the first week of monitoring, the teachers answered questions that rated the children's emotions, moodiness and restlessness at school on a scale from zero to 100, with higher scores indicating worse behavior and scores above 60 signaling a behavioral problem.

The baseline score for both groups of kids before the sleep manipulation began was about 50.
After a week of the experimental sleep changes, teachers - who did not know which group any of the children were in - rated the kids again.


The children who got that extra 30 minutes of sleep during the second week scored, on average, about 47, meaning their behavior had improved.

Meanwhile, teachers rated the kids who lost an hour of sleep each night at about 54, indicating their behavior had gotten worse. World Hot Topics Blog

Neither of those changes signals an extreme difference in the children's behaviors, said Gruber. But, she added, it would be enough of a difference to make the teachers notice.

Unsurprisingly, the parents of those who got an extra 30 minutes of sleep also said their children weren't as tired throughout the day, while the opposite was true for parents in the other group.

ELIMINATE INTERFERENCES

"The thing that was surprising was how little sleep extension could affect functioning on a day-to-day basis," said Dr. Umakanth Khatwa, sleep lab director at Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts, who was not involved with the new study.

Gruber told Reuters Health that while the study only included 33 kids, it was still able to show more sleep leads to better behavior. 

However, the researchers do write that not all of the study's participants were blinded as to which children lost or gained an hour of sleep, because the parents had to be in the know. That may have influenced the parents' reporting of sleepiness throughout the day, they say. World Hot Topics Blog

Gruber said that it can be hard for parents to add time to their kids' sleep schedule, but she said one of the keys is to eliminate interferences, such as late-night sports practice.

Khatwa agreed. "A lot of practices are going into evening now… And by the time you're done, your body is riled up and you need time to wind down," he said.
Gruber said one way to add the extra sleep could be to add 15 extra minutes of sleep at night and in the morning.

"Once it becomes a routine, the children won't really care about it," she said.
But Khatwa said it's also important for parents to know their children's specific sleep needs.
"I don't want parents to take this and force their kids to sleep longer… Parents need to have realistic expectations," he added. "You need to let them sleep long enough so they can function normally."

Gruber said that it's important for schools to educate children that getting enough sleep is just as important as eating right and getting enough exercise.

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Extra sleep may improve kids' conduct

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