Charges dismissed against Blackwater guards

Donald Ball, center, of West Valley City, was one of five Blackwater Worldwide security guards indicted in Washington D.C., for the shooting of Iraqi civilians. A federal judge Thrusday dismissed all charges. (Francisco Kjolseth / Tribune file photo)






He was a loving son. An Eagle Scout. A former Marine. A hardworking security guard.

But for the past nine months, Donald Ball has carried the burden of another description: Alleged killer.

No more.

A federal judge has ruled that all charges should be dismissed against the West Valley City man and four other former Blackwater security guards accused in the Sept. 16, 2007, killings of at least 14 unarmed civilians in Baghdad's Nissoor Square.

But while the ruling will likely bring an end to a legal case that has inflamed tensions between the United States and Iraq and ignited debate over the role of private security contractors in U.S. war zones, it does not resolve the question of what happened in the busy traffic circle on that day.

Prosecutors had called the shootings "unprovoked and illegal attacks on civilians." Defense attorneys had said the accused guards were under attack when they opened fire in the crowded intersection.

Judge Richard Urbina did not address that debate. Instead, he ruled that prosecutors, "in their zeal to bring charges," violated the guards' constitutional rights and rendered further criminal action unfeasible.

The five guards -- and a sixth, Jeremy Ridgeway, who has pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi civilian -- provided testimony to investigators who promised the statements would not be used in a criminal case.

But Urbina ruled that prosecutors could not have made their case


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without the benefit of the guards' admissions. In using coerced testimony to bring the charges, "the government's trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors, assigned to the case specifically to advise the trial team," Urbina wrote in a 90-page opinion.

As such, Urbina ruled, "the process aimed at bringing the accused to trial has compromised the constitutional rights of the accused."

"We're obviously disappointed by the decision," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd told the Associated Press. "We're still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options."

Prosecutors could appeal the judge's decision, but Ball's defense attorney believes that it is unlikely that they would succeed.

"It's a very reasonable and thoughtful opinion," said Washington, D.C., attorney Steven McCool.

Ball -- whose dreams of becoming a police officer have been deferred by the charges -- was "ecstatic" over the news, McCool said.

"He's had this hanging on his shoulders for quite some time now," he said.

From the beginning of the case, a united defense team representing Ball, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten have maintained that the guards were under attack when they returned fire in the crowded intersection.

"We've always maintained that the charges were unfounded," McCool said.

But in court pleadings, the defense also attacked the way the evidence against the guards was collected and questioned whether the United States even had jurisdiction to bring charges.

The accused men had faced mandatory 30-year prison terms if convicted on the charges of manslaughter and weapons violations.

Ridgeway has not yet been sentenced.

Source:sltrib.com/

Arenas firepower included weapons in locker

Photograph by: Brent Smith , ReutersWASHINGTON, Dec 24, 2009 (AFP) - Washington Wizards star playmaker Gilbert Arenas stored unloaded guns in his locker this month at the team’s home arena, the club said Thursday as the NBA began an investigation of the matter.


The Wizards said in a statement that there was no ammunication in his locked container and that both the NBA and local law-enforcement authorities were notified of the situation.


Arenas and the club "are cooperating fully with law enforcement during its review of this matter and will have no further comment at this time," the club statement said.


NBA labor regulations allow players to own firearms but ban them from having weapons at league facilities or while traveling on NBA-related matters.


"We’re aware of the situation and are working to gain a full understanding of the facts and relevant legal issues," an NBA statement said.


All-Star guard Arenas told the Washington Times that he brought his guns from his home to the arena after the birth of his daughter Hamiley earlier this month, wanting the guns out of the house.


"I wouldn’t have brought them to D.C. had I known the rules," Arenas told the Times. "After my daughter was born, I was just like, ’I don’t need these anymore.’"

Arenas said about a week after he brought them to his locker, he handed the guns to team security so they could be given to police.


Arenas, two weeks shy of his 28th birthday, had been suspended for the Wizards’ 2004 opener after failing to properly register a handgun while living in California the year before during his tenure with Golden State.


Three left knee operations had limited Arenas to only 15 games over the past two seasons, but Arenas is averaging 22.2 points this season, his second under a six-year contract worth 111 million dollars.

Source:canada.com/

Avatar merchandising bonanza?

LOS ANGELES -- The Hollywood studio behind Avatar is banking on the film to drive its biggest US product licensing push in years, starting with toy figures and expanding to items from home decor to party goods.



The News Corp.-owned 20th Century Fox is making that gamble even though consumers know virtually nothing about the blue, cat-like characters in Avatar who will be at the heart of the merchandising effort.


Fox has used its Avatar licensing deals, including one with Mattel Inc. for toys, as a way to recoup on what is one of the most expensive films in history, costing at least $237 million to produce, analysts said.


But if the movie, which opened on Friday and tells of a soldier infiltrating an alien race, crashes at box offices, stores may be left with shelves of unpopular Avatar products, literally standing with their tails between their legs.


Howard Roffman, head of licensing for Lucasfilm, the company behind Star Wars, said he would be "very nervous" to launch a retail push now, as Fox has done with Avatar. "The economy is not good, retailers are challenged, licensee companies are challenged, so my hat’s off to people who rise to that and get a program out there," Roffman said.


Last year, the Warner Bros. release Speed Racer bombed at box offices when it was released in May, and analysts say it crippled sales of toys tied to that movie.


But if all succeeds, Fox and its partner companies could turn Avatar into a major merchandising franchise, and perhaps even enter the same universe as the $18-billion retail phenomenon Star Wars, the movie franchise that has long been an inspiration for Avatar director James Cameron.


Is "The Force" with them?


By moving aggressively, Fox stands to avoid what happened to Star Wars when it opened in 1977. Then, no toys were out when parents started clamoring for them and at Christmas, kids received empty boxes with certificates for Star Wars toys.


Fox sees Pandora, the extra-terrestrial globe where Avatar is set, as a rich fictional world that can be mined for retail products.


"In the US market, this is the largest launch that we have had probably in recent memory -- if ever," said Robert Marick, executive vice-president of Fox Licensing.


He declined to give specific sales projections.


For comparison, the recent film G.I. Joe was based on a decades-old brand that consumers already knew, and Hasbro forecast toy sales of $100 million for 2009, said Chris White, analyst with Wedbush Morgan. "Avatar will be a sliver of that, it will be a lot less than G.I. Joe," he said.


Since October, Mattel has been selling Avatar figures with an "i-TAG" that can be held near a computer’s webcam. The computer scans the tag and launches an image of the character moving on-screen, or even fighting with another character.


Last month, News Corp’s HarperCollins published several books on the film, including Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora. JEM Sportswear and Awake Inc. launched T-shirts, sweatshirts and fashion tops.


This month, videogame maker Ubisoft released James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game. Fox hopes to one day launch home products such as bedding, as well as costumes, party goods, toy building sets and other products, Marick said.


Still, some analysts wonder if the strange-looking characters of Avatar will connect with children.


Even Tim Kilpin, general manager of Mattel’s girls, boys and games division, acknowledged that because the movie is new "there’s going to be some ramp-up to awareness."


"We think before too much longer, a lot of people will know these [Avatar] stories and these characters," he said. -- Reuters


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Avatar leads US box office despite storm
LOS ANGELES -- Titanic director James Cameron’s Avatar, a 3D extravaganza hyped as a giant leap in cinematic prowess, ruled the worldwide box office during its first weekend even as North American sales were hit by an enormous snow storm, its distributor said on Sunday.


The film -- one of the most expensive ever made -- earned an estimated $232.2 million from North America and 106 foreign markets, according to News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, provisionally the ninth-biggest opening of all time.


Moviegoers in the US and Canada chipped in $73 million, far short of enthusiastic forecasts in the $85-million range. Top contributors to the $159.2 million foreign total included Russia ($21 million), France ($19 million) and the U.K. ($14.2 million).


Avatar edged ahead of 2006’s The Da Vinci Code ($232.1 million) among worldwide openings, while the disaster picture 2012 slipped to No. 11 with $230.5 million. If the number is confirmed when final data are issued on Monday, Avatar will set a new opening record for a nonsequel.


The record for a worldwide opening is $394 million, set in July by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Avatar opening also fell far short of the $275-million opening for The Twilight Saga: New Moon last month.


Blue people wow critics


Avatar garnered almost as much attention for its reported budget of at least $300 million as for its eco-friendly tale of a disabled ex-Marine sent from Earth to infiltrate an alien race of 10-foot-tall blue people in order to save his polluted planet. Inter-species romance ensues between computerized characters representing actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana.


It marks Cameron’s first dramatic feature since 1997’s Titanic, the biggest film of all time before accounting for inflation. He spent the intervening years waiting for movie-making technology to catch up with his vision for the followup. Production took two years.


His new film won breathless reviews from critics. "You’ve never experienced anything like it, and neither has anyone else," said the Los Angeles Times.


Despite the buzz, the weekend haul ranks as merely the sixth-biggest of the year in the US and Canada. The 2009 record was set last month by The Twilight Saga: New Moon, with $143 million. The all-time record of $158 million was set last year by The Dark Knight.


A blizzard along the East Coast crippled business for all movies. Holiday-shopping distractions also had an impact. Fox said Avatar sales in New York fell 18% on Saturday from the previous day. The drop was 86% in Baltimore and 75% in Washington DC. But the studio hoped business would rebound as the weather improved.


Fox distribution president Chris Aronson dismissed the industry forecasts, saying the studio had been hoping for an opening in the mid-$60 million range. He said the 163-minute running time reduced the number of daily screenings.


On the other hand, ticket sales for Avatar were inflated by premium pricing for screenings in venues equipped with 3D technology. Such venues accounted for 59% of the total cinema count and 71% of sales, Fox said.


Exit polling for the film was strong across the board, and he was surprised that 62% of moviegoers were aged over 25. Men accounted for 57% of the audience.


Profit, Oscar hopes


The big issues are whether Fox will make money on the picture, and how it will fare at the Academy Awards. Media analyst Rich Greenfield of Pali Capital last week upgraded News Corp. to hold from sell, saying Fox was unlikely to lose "a massive amount of money" on the film.


The rough rule-of-thumb is that the studio and theaters split the gross evenly. Fox is also on the hook for worldwide marketing costs of $150 million, and must share some profits with Cameron. DVD sales will add to the windfall, although critics sayAvatar is best appreciated in a 3D theater environment.


As for the Oscars, for which nominations will be announced on Feb. 2, the film is making some early headway, picking up key Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations. -- Reuters

Source:bworldonline.com/

Chantix to see Competition from New Anti-Smoking Vaccine

Washington, DC: It's all over the television now—ads for Chantix that depict a smiling, real-life Chantix user going about her everyday business without a cigarette between her fingers, while the announcer rattles off a warning about potential Chantix side effects, including suicide and aggression. Chantix side effects, for some, can be nasty.

And now a new vaccine that works in similar fashion to Chantix may be coming to a family doctor or pharmacy near you.

Many companies over the years have experimented with vaccines that do what essentially Chantix does—block neuron receptors in the brain that react to nicotine, producing the dopamine that's largely responsible for the pleasure that comes from smoking.

Now a company in Rockville, Maryland has announced the testing of an experimental vaccine. Nabi Biopharmaceuticals is in the midst of Phase 3 trials of what it calls NicVax, which shares a common modus operandi with Pfizer's Chantix. What’s more, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has entered into an agreement in principle with Nabi to undertake the cost and marketing of the new vaccine.

NicVax causes the immune system to create antibodies that bond with the nicotine molecule if it enters the bloodstream. The result is a molecule too large to pass along to the brain, essentially making the body immune to nicotine.

If smokers can't get a buzz from lighting up a cigarette, the thinking goes, there's no reason for them to continue the habit. Antibodies created by NicVax are thought to stay in the body for long periods, lowering the chances that a smoker will quickly return to the habit.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Nabi will realize a financial windfall from GSK, provided that Nabi completes Phase 3 testing sometime in 2011.

Under the terms of the agreement with GSK, Nabi will reap $40 million for the exclusive worldwide licensing of NicVax. GSK could wind up paying Nabi as much as $500 million if Nabi meets a number of developmental and marketing milestones in the coming years. That figure does not include royalties Nabi would earn if NicVax makes it to market.

Analysts predict there is still a vast amount of money to be made from the smoking cessation market. Chantix, on the market for three years, is already worth a reported $800 million in sales to Pfizer, in spite of a spate of negative publicity.

While smokers have declined steadily over the past few decades, the trend has flattened in recent years: 20.9 percent of Americans counted themselves as smokers in 2004, compared with 20.6 percent in 2008.


Source:Lawyersandsettlements.com/

President Obama And Family To Spend Christmas In Hawaii

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) - The Obamas will spend their first Christmas as the first family not in the White House but in Hawaii, where President Barack Obama was raised by his late grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who died a day before he won the election last year.


According to the White House, the President, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha will travel to Honolulu on Thursday morning.

The President had said Tuesday after meeting with small banks about efforts to fix the economy that his vacation plans would depend on whether Senate Democrats are able to pass their healthcare bill.


"I will not leave until my friends in the Senate have completed their work," Obama told reporters at the White House. "My attitude is, is that if they're making these sacrifices to provide health care to all Americans, then the least I can do is to be around and to provide them any encouragement and last-minute help if necessary." Senate Democrats, the same day, reached an agreement with Republicans that the final vote on passage of the healthcare bill would be held at 8:00 am on Thursday. The measure is expected to pass, having cleared a filibuster by the GOP on Monday with the minimum 60 votes required.

After passage, the measure will still need to be reconciled with the bill passed by the House last month, which has a government insurance plan. The merged legislation will then undergo final approval by each chamber before being sent to the White House for Obama to sign into law.

The President also spent the holidays in Hawaii last year with his family, as the president-elect. While on vacation, he "will continue to get daily intelligence updates and security updates," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday, but will hold no public events.

"As he's wont to do, he will probably take the girls out for shaved ice; they may go do various and sundry things in and around Hawaii. But there are no public events," Gibbs said.

The White House has not said if Obama will spend New Year's in Honolulu just as he did last year. The President is set to give his first State of the Union address in January, and the tone of that speech will be contingent on whether he is successful in passing healthcare reform, his top legislative priority.

Lawmakers are to re-convene in Capitol Hill on January 5. Obama spoke before a joint session of Congress a month after he was inaugurated. In September, he spoke to both chambers again, making clear, "Let there be no doubt: healthcare reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

Source:allheadlinenews.com/

American Airlines Flight 331 from Washington D.C. to Kingston, Jamaica Crashes Upon Landing, Splits in Two

American Airlines Flight 331 traveling from Washington D.C. to Kingston, Jamaica crashed upon landing and split in two late Tuesday evening.



According to reports the plane overshot the runway after attempting to land in severe storms, crashed and then broke in half. There were no immediate reports of casualties but several passengers were taken to hospitals near Norman Manley International Airport.



While American Airlines Flight 331 originated in D.C. it stopped in Miami before continuing to Kingston.

Source:transworldnews.com/

Inventor rides motorcycle from Brazil to Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON — Paulo Roberto Vieira stumbled into the Brazilian consulate, bedraggled, nearly broke and at the end of his rope.

Dressed in a battered black leather jacket and scuffed black jeans, he told consular officials an almost unbelievable story: He had ridden his motorcycle from his home town in southern Brazil to Washington, an 18,000-mile quest for official recognition of his life's proudest work, an automobile accessory he said he invented.

Vieira's arrival last month ended an odyssey that wound through 11 countries, and it illustrates Washington's enduring power as a magnet for ordinary people who think the answer to their prayers can be found in what's seen as the capital of the free world.

Standing next to his Honda CG150 Titan several days later, Vieira, gaunt and looking weary, recounted in his native Portuguese the improbable tale of his four-month journey.

He described how he rode for more than 1,900 miles on mostly unpaved roads through the Amazon, narrowly avoiding becoming lunch for a jaguar, one of the rain forest's most feared carnivores. How a delay in obtaining a U.S. visa forced him to traverse Mexico three times before crossing into Texas. How he hoped for sweet justice in the U.S. capital, perhaps even from the president himself.

"I decided to come here because Washington is where things get done," he said. "Barack Obama is already solving so many other problems — how much more trouble would it be for him to solve


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mine?"
Vieira, 58, followed a well-worn pattern of travel to Washington. Over the years, people have traveled to the city to seek redress for grievances great and small, including the Bonus Army encampment of the early 1930s and the itinerants who make Lafayette Square their home while they fight their causes.

Washington was not the endpoint Vieira had in mind in June when he left his home town of Campinas, an industrial city of a million people about 60 miles northwest of Sao Paulo. He said the trip sprang from his decades working as a motorcycle mechanic.

Vieira, a lifelong tinkerer, developed a device in the mid-1990s that detects low tire pressure in vehicles and alerts drivers with an alarm. He registered a patent for it in Brazil in 1999. Since then, he has waged a battle for international validation of his rights as the inventor, particularly in the United States, where a similar accessory is made under a U.S. patent. His goal is to open a factory in Brazil to produce the alarm.

"This is my family's patrimony," said the divorced father of eight adult children, tapping an inch-thick binder of official Brazilian documents that he said back his claim. "It's for my children, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

The patent fight led him to leave Campinas on June 25 for Brasilia, where he hoped his government could solve his problem. But after several fruitless days sparring with bureaucrats, Vieira decided there was only one place to go: Washington.

From the road, Vieira called his youngest daughter to inform her of his plans. She tried to talk him out of it.

"I cried and begged him for the love of God not to go, but he went anyway," Camila Souza Vieira, 21, said in a telephone interview from Campinas. "When he gets an idea in his head, no one can change his mind."

Over the course of his trip, Vieira said, he went through two wheel rims and four tires, changed the oil 29 times and burned through 250 gallons of fuel. The most difficult stretch was in the Amazon in northern Brazil, where he rode for hour upon hour without seeing another soul.

As he continued north, Vieira amassed a collection of passport stamps: in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico.

The odyssey nearly ended there. When he arrived in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, officials at the U.S. consulate denied him a visa. So Vieira rode more than 1,000 miles back to Guatemala. From there, he caught a flight home to Brazil, where he secured a U.S. visa in a matter of days. He flew back to Guatemala and resumed his ride north, recrossing Mexico again until he entered the United States on Oct. 21.

"There's no greater thrill for me than when you cross a country's border," he said, "and the greatest moment was when I finally entered the United States."

By the time Vieira dismounted in the District of Columbia on Oct. 28, he was down to his last few dollars. He had gone more than a day without eating.

Knowing no English and having no contacts in the city, he turned to the Brazilian consulate. After leafing through his passport and verifying his story with family members back home, consular officials fed him lunch, spotted Vieira enough money to cover a day or two of living expenses and steered him to a cheap motel in Falls Church.

"His case was a huge surprise for us," said Cyro Cardoso, vice consul of the Brazilian consulate, who is used to dealing with tourists who have lost wallets or passports — not ridden a motorcycle to the point of exhaustion. "It's one for the history books."

Vieira got a money transfer from home, settling basic survival questions. But a big problem remained: He had no plan for what would come next.

Vieira had not set up any meetings with government officials. He had no one to help him wade through one of the trickiest areas of U.S. business law. And the consulate was neither equipped nor authorized to wade into a battle over intellectual property.

So Vieira made a liberating, yet agonizing, decision: He set aside his patent quest and declared victory, at least temporarily.

"You can't put a price on an experience like this," he said with a smile. "For me, it's the equivalent of going to the moon."

For three weeks, Vieira has enjoyed Washington as other tourists do, riding his Honda downtown, snapping photos and soaking up the sights. He has made near-daily visits to the consulate, drinking coffee with officials and chatting up anyone willing to hear his story.

The motorcycle, adorned with Brazilian and U.S. flags, has drawn attention from passersby. The local Brazilian community has embraced Vieira. A worker at the consulate let Vieira sleep in a spare room. Another gave him a new set of motorcycle gloves.

Vieira was laying the groundwork to return to Campinas and planned to leave within days. He said he considered flying to Sao Paulo and sending his bike by boat, but, emboldened by his achievement, he has decided to return the way he came — albeit with a different itinerary, tracing the western edge of South America.

He pointed to the bike's odometer. It registered 35,114 kilometers — 21,819 miles.

"I don't know how many miles it's going to have when I get back," he said. "But it's going to get there well traveled."

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