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Milwaukee bra ban overturned
A Tennessee legislator has raised the ire of citizens after passing a resolution to honor himself.
Resolutions are basically congratulatory notes for achievement, or the establishment of an occasion or awareness day. So far this year, Tennessee lawmakers have passed 476 resolutions -- each one costing taxpayers roughly $300, reports WSMV.
Sen. Ophelia Ford has passed one to honor her intern, and Sens. Matthew and Timothy Hill passed one to honor their late grandmother, but Republican Sen. Jon Lundberg just passed a resolution to honor himself.
"I think it's important for us as a state to say, 'Hey, great job on creating jobs and moving the ball forward,'" said Lundberg.
Lundberg's resolution, written by his own staff, honors his public relations firm, The Corporate Image, and includes the phrases "the owners and employees of The Corporate Image are many such noteworthy persons" and "the company has continued to set the standard for the highest quality professional services."
"My staff wrote it, I reimbursed the state the cost of the paper and all of that," Lundberg said. He added he has resolutions for other businesses that reach milestones in his district. "Is that important for those companies? Yeah," Lundberg said.
Lundberg passed another resolution in 2009 honoring his daughter for graduating high school. When asked about that resolution Wednesday, Lundberg said he stands by that one, too.
This month alone, pop superstar Justin Bieber has made the news for signing the guestbook at the Anne Frank house, causing a town to change exam dates and getting stopped in an airport with his pet monkey.
But this morning, he put the cherry on top. A photo posted to his Instagram depicts him (unnecessarily labeled Justin) in bed with a fan (labeled Belieber).
The cartoon spawned a number of Twitter comments from his crazed-girl fanbase, including arguments over who is in the photo, including a Gawker comment suggesting that it's Anne Frank.
There's no word on who drew the cartoon, or whether he asked someone to draw it for him. It falls amid a stream of shirtless self portraits. For now, Bieber has furthered the dreams of tween girls worldwide.
The father of the two young brothers at the center of the Boston bombing investigation mourned his dead older son, calling Tamerlan Tsarnaev "a true angel."
Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, were identified by the FBI as suspects in Monday's deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon. A series of events early Friday morning lead to a massive manhunt and shootout in Watertown that left Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead.
His father, who still lives in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, described his son as a gifted student who dreamed of becoming a professional boxer.
The Tsarnaev brothers attended Cambridge Rindge & Latin school and Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent three semesters at Bunker Hill Community College between 2006 and 2008.
The brothers moved from Chechnya sometime after 2001. Both were legal permanent residents, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly became an United States citizen last year.
The city of Boston, Mass. is in lock-down over a massive manhunt for teen suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But not all businesses have closed their doors.
Buzzfeed reports four Watertown Dunkin' Donuts stores confirmed they would remain open during the lock-down.
"There was an automated message going around telling businesses to close, but because we're Dunkin' Donuts, we called the police department and they said we didn't have to," said store manager Jessica Cadorette.
According to the Doughnut chain's Twitter account they've been allowed to stay open in order to serve the community get through the situation providing their products for free.
"Yes, the Watertown DD is open to serve local law enforcement, first responders w/ free coffee & product," the account tweeted on Friday.
@bostonbiznews @brennan_murray Yes, the Watertown DD is open to serve local law enforcement, first responders w/ free coffee & product. ^JG
— Dunkin' Donuts (@DunkinDonuts) April 19, 2013
The doughnut shop has always had a special relationship with Boston because founder Bill Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin' Donuts store in Quincy, Mass., which is 10 miles from the city, in 1950 .
Washington Nationals slugger Bryce Harper was the last to know his opening-day jersey was up for auction, according to his Twitter feed.
The game-worn jersey from Harper's first major league opening day sold for just over $13,000. He hit both of game's home runs in the win against the Miami Marlins.
Harper took to Twitter to express his disappointment.
The MLB auction site says that proceeds from the sale are given to charity.
Russian Flight Engineers Pavel Vinogradov and Roman Romanenko opened the hatch to the Pirs airlock and docking compartment to start the spacewalk at 10:03 a.m. EDT. Watch a live stream from NASA as they rotate out an old experiment apparatus and install a new one, and replace a faulty retro-reflector device.
Amid reports that police had identified a second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings as 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, many fake Twitter accounts popped up claiming to belong to the suspect.
One of the fake handles @Dzhokhar_A, suggested the 19-year-old suspect was looking to avenge his dead brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police officers during a manhunt launched early morning on Friday.
"@Boston_Police I will kill you all as you killed my brother," was the first post on the account.
@boston_police I will kill you all as you killed my brother
— Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev (@Dzhokhar_A) April 19, 2013
The account was soon confirmed to be a hoax as it was only following the Boston Police Department, only began tweeting today and uses one of the widely distributed photos of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Billy Baker, a reporter for the Boston Globe who initially encouraged officials and followers to look into the account later confirmed it was most likely fake.
The @dzhokhar_a is still active. Had spelled name wrong, which is why Twitter told me it didn't exist. Heavy indication that it's fake.
— Billy Baker (@billy_baker) April 19, 2013
Another account using the handle @Dzhokhar_ also claimed to be the suspect. However, a Flickr user was quick to point out the account had gone by the name @FootyTube_ until early Friday.
According to Buzzfeed, Stefanie Gardner, who allegedly attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, confirmed his real Twitter account is @J_tsar.
The last post on the account was written on Tuesday, a day after the shooting, and reads, "Im a stress free kind of guy."
I'm a stress free kind of guy
— Jahar (@J_tsar) April 17, 2013
After a late night police shootout, Boston is on lockdown as authorities search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, one of the suspects in the Monday's marathon bombings. Here's what we know about him and his deceased 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, so far.
Dzhokhar, who was born July 22, 1993, in Kyrgyzstan, is believed to have attended Cambridge Ringe & Latin School. He graduated in 2011, the same year the city of Cambridge awarded him a $2,500 college scholarship. CBS News and NBC's Pete Williams reported that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became an American citizen last year on September 11.
According to various reports from Slate, Buzzfeed and other sources, several of Dzhokhar's classmates say he was a "nice kid."
"I saw the pictures last night and thought it looked kind of like him," Dzhokhar's former classmate, Rebecca Mazur, told Buzzfeed. "But I felt mean even thinking that the person in the photos looked like him."
“I just remember seeing him on the wrestling team, just one of the normal kids. He seemed like a nice guy. He hung out with people who I knew as nice people," family friend Nathan Greenberg told Slate.
Here is his high school year book photo:
.@washingtonpost found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's yearbook photo: washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-le… twitter.com/UPI/status/325…
— UPI.com (@UPI) April 19, 2013
My beloved nephew on right, djohar tsarnaev on left, happy cambridge Rindge and Latin grads.heartbreaking twitter.com/hereandnowrobi…
— Robin Young (@hereandnowrobin) April 19, 2013
Despite numerous fake Twitter accounts that popped up Thursday, Buzzfeed and Gawker's Adrian Chen are confident they identified his real user name, @J_tsar. A cached version of the account features his face as a profile picture:
UMass Dartmouth closed Thursday after reports that Dzhokhar is a registered student there.
The Atlantic Wire has a photo of him enjoying a meal with a friend.
He lived with his older brother at 410 Norfolk Street in Cambridge, Mass.
Dzhokhar's brother, Tamerlan, died in the shootout with police. NBC's Pete Williams reported Thursday morning that Dzhokhar had run over his brother during the getaway.
NBC's Pete Williams saying that at-large suspect drove over his brother in getaway #Bostonbombing #manhunt
— UPI.com (@UPI) April 19, 2013
Tamerlan, 26, was wearing a black hat in FBI photos released Wednesday. He has been linked to an unconfirmed YouTube account by The Washington Post and Mother Jones.
Tamerlan was born October 21, 1986, in Kyrgyzstan. He first arrived in the U.S. in 2003. MSNBC describes Tamerlan as a "prize-winning heavyweight boxer" who wanted to represent the United States at the Olympics. Slate found a photo essay about Tamerlan's training as a boxer in Salt Lake City called "Will Box for Passport."
"I don't have a single American friend, I don't understand them," Tamerlan says in the photo captions. According to Spotcrime.com, Tamerlan was arrested in 2009 for assaulting his girlfriend.
He also described himself as a Muslim and attended Bunker Hill Community College as an engineering student.
The suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, said he knew his nephews as children, but couldn't explain why they allegedly became violent.
"Being losers, hatred to those who were able to settle themselves. These are the only reasons I can imagine of. Anything else, anything else to do with religion, with Islam, is a fake," he said.
Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing were identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, who moved to the U.S. after briefly living in Chechnya. Both brothers were legal residents.
Tamerlan was shot early Friday morning and Dzhokhar remains at large. An ongoing manhunt has Boston on lockdown, with one MIT police officer dead.
Reports indicated the brothers were from Chechnya, a long-disputed, predominantly Muslim territory in southern Russia sought independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union and then fought two brutal wars with Moscow, according to The New York Times.
In light of this information, the Wikipedia entry for Chechnya became a target for vandalism. One user brought out an early internet meme and "Rickrolled" the page, uploading an image of Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up" rather than the full video.
Another vandal repeatedly edited the page with the same message before administrators changed the article's protection level. It was briefly closed to non-admin users, but is currently under semi-protection, so registered users may edit.
Even with the new attention, the article's traffic so far for Friday, April 19 is less than a third of views on April 4 this year, when a 40-story skyscraper in Grozny, Chechnya was engulfed in flames. The dramatic skyscraper fire took place in the Olympus Tower, the tallest building in the north Caucasus region of southern Russia. The building opened in 2011 and housed luxury apartments and a five-star hotel.
Korea's oldest and largest television network banned "Gentleman," the followup single to "Gangnam Style" by pop star PSY, because he kicked a traffic cone in the video, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Korean Broadcasting System is funded by the government, and according to KBS, airing a video that shows the destruction of public property would be "inappropriate" and could be a negative influence on society. The network said that it would, however, air portions of the video if it was discussed on the news.
This comes as at least one official expressed concern that the library depicted in the video could become a famous PSY landmark overrun with fans taking photos, and will no longer be a place to study and read.
PSY's management said it would not change the video for KBS broadcast. "Gentleman" is currently No. 1 on the Youtube 100 and has over 162 million views.
Released April 13, the video hit 100 million views in just three days, tying the record of the Russian meteor, according to Mashable. The viral "Gangnam Style" took longer to reach that mark, but it is currently YouTube's most-watched video with more than 1.5 billion views.
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