• 24 killed in Deraa after thousands take to streets • UN approves inquiry into government violence Thousands of Syrians defied their government’s bloody attempts to suppress protests, braving gunfire from security forces to demonstrate in Damascus and across the country. Initial reports said at least 24 people had been shot dead, most of them in the opposition stronghold of Deraa, where villagers tried to break through the security cordon to relieve its besieged population. Further deaths were reported in Latakia and Homs after the security forces opened fire on demonstrators. There was news of protests in 50 towns and villages including Hama, Aleppo, the coastal cities of Latakia and Banias, Deir Ezzor in the east, and Qamishli in the north-east. Unrest was also reported from the Syria-Jordan border, which is straddled by the Haurani tribes. Despite the government crackdown, the demonstrations – many starting as Friday worshippers left mosques – appeared to be at least as big as last week. Even more significantly, activists said, the protests spread closer into the centre of Damascus. Demonstrators in the neighbourhoods of Barzeh, Midan, Bab Srejeh and Hajr al-Aswad faced security forces backed up by soldiers for the first time. Two witnesses in Midan told the Guardian that a crowd of 4,000 protesters who came out of Zain al-Abideen and Hassan mosques were dispersed by tear gas and security forces with batons. “I counted 17 buses of security,” said one who asked not to be named. Another said tear gas and sound bombs were used and the street to the main hospital was closed. He said shabiha [gangs connected to the ruling family] were terrorising the neighbourhood well after the demonstration was dispersed. Meanwhile, the international community stepped up its pressure on Damascus. The UN human rights council in Geneva approved an investigation of the Syrian use of violence against protesters and called for the immediate release of political prisoners and the lifting of restrictions on the press and the internet. The US-drafted resolution passed despite the resistance of Russia, China and some Arab and African countries. However, it was watered down to omit mention of Syria’s currently unopposed candidacy to join the council itself. The UK envoy to the council, Peter Gooderham, said there could be “no impunity” for those who have committed human rights violations. “Those in power can see violations being committed in their name,” he said. “They are accountable too for the violence and the deaths, even more so if they do nothing to stop these actions.” The US was expected to announce sanctions targeted at Syria’s intelligence agency and member’s of Bashar al-Assad’s family. Reuters news agency quoted one official as saying that Maher al-Assad, Bashar’s brother, and Atif Najib, a cousin, were among the five targets The source said Mahir Assad is a brigade commander in the 4th Armoured Division that has played a key role in Deraa. EU officials also debated similar sanctions in Brussels but these will not come into force until a ministerial meeting which may not take place for weeks. Next month, western diplomats said Damascus could come under pressure from another direction. They say Yukiya Amano, the director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will state Syria had been developing a nuclear reactor at a desert site bombed by Israel in 2007. Syria has denied that the western allegations that the site at Dair Alzour was intended to produce plutonium for a weapons programme. Until now, the IAEA has sought more information before making a judgment but has been blocked by the government. If Amano declares Dair Alzour was in fact such a reactor, it could lead to Syria being referred to the UN Security Council for scrutiny of its nuclear ambitions. “We do expect Amano to come up with tougher language in the next report,” a western diplomat told the Guardian. “That could either lead the way to a resolution by the IAEA board or a referral to the security council.” At the demonstrations, many of the protesters chanted “We are not afraid” and voiced solidarity with Deraa where more than 50 people were killed in the last week alone. A devastating picture has been emerging from the city. Residents say bread and water are lacking and sewing needles are being used to stitch up wounds as medical supplies run low. The crackdown has extended to other cities and towns including Douma and Tartous which have been raided and the army setting up checkpoints. Activists said residents of Douma had not been allowed out to pray, whilst residents of Zabadani, where water and electricity have been cut off, broke their siege to march on the neighbouring town of Madaya, both in rural Damascus. Human rights monitors in Damascus said the protests were significant, coming in the wake of the most brutal week yet. The government had warned against holding any demonstrations on Friday. Syrian media said the interior ministry had not approved any “march, demonstration or sit-ins”. “It is significant that people came out today,” said Razan Zeitouneh, a lawyer and activist in Damascus. “After all the violence, after bringing the military inside and around the cities, cutting water, electricity and communications, still people came out.” Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad United Nations Middle East Human rights Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Considering the huge guest list, the crowds, and the massed ranks of cameras, the royal wedding proved an intimate affair Considering the size of the audience, the two sets of trumpeters, two choirs and several of the most senior clerics in the land, the presence of the entire British royal family, 45 crowned heads from around the world and a guest list stretching to nearly 2,000, it was quite an intimate wedding. And, confounding all the understandable fears, nerves and precautions, it went off without a hitch. Miss Catherine Middleton of Bucklebury, Berkshire went into Westminster Abbey at 11am and came out an hour and a quarter later, holding the hand of the second in line to the throne as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge – she will not be known as Princess Catherine. At the moment of their wedding, the Queen bestowed a title on her husband, Prince William of Wales. In fact, there were three titles so that none of her realms felt left out: he also became Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus. Yet, for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding them, the couple found space to share knowing looks and smiles, suggesting that the natural instincts and affections which Dr John Hall, the abbey’s dean, told them at the start of the service had been implanted by God, were already in place. There were giggles between them as he struggled to wriggle the Welsh gold ring on to her finger. Later, appearing on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to give each other the obligatory kiss to satisfy the watching crowd and the massed ranks of the world’s cameras, they gave each other the most perfunctory and chaste of pecks, as if slightly dismissive of the public nature of the ritual. After a couple of minutes, they did it again in case anyone had missed it. But there was another surprise: William and his bride appearing later in his dad’s 40-year-old open-topped Aston Martin, festooned with balloons and a Just Wed number plate, roaring out of the palace and heading down the Mall. On a grey but bright and muggy day in central London – no sign during the morning of the showers that had threatened to break the month’s hot weather – police estimated that up to a million people congregated, half of them in the Mall. In contrast to how police count demonstrations, that may have been an overestimate, but there were certainly many thousands. In the only slight sign of trouble, a small group of protesters gathering in Soho Square to put on masks were pre-emptively stalled without getting near. Overnight several thousand people had camped outside the abbey, where some had bagged space since early in the week, and along the edge of St James’s Park. From early morning, many thousands more poured in, parents carrying picnic bags and rucksacks and children with flags and painted faces, wearing their best party dresses, some of them with cardboard crowns and many others with union flag hats. There were whole families, including grannies and grandads and a high proportion of young people, with many tourists among them. As they made their way across the bridges, tramping towards Westminster, where the abbey glowed white in the early light, the mood was cheery and police officers, asked to take family photos, obliged. It was, Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi, noted on the BBC, Britain and royalty at its best. Later the prime minister would gush too: “It was beautiful to see two people who really love each other and who are incredibly happy at an amazing ceremony … A day when we see ‘the new team’. It was incredibly romantic and moving. “It’s a great moment for Britain, a moment when everyone is celebrating and it’s being watched round the world where people will see lots of things they love about Britain,” David Cameron said. Before 9am the first guests were arriving at the abbey, walking the red carpet that had been laid outside, through the Great West Door, past the tomb of the Unknown Warrior and up to the altar steps. The nave itself was lined with growing trees, eight maples and two hornbeams, with scented lily of the valley flowers planted at their base. The guests looked like an animated Madame Tussauds: Trevor Brooking and Earl Spencer, Elton John – his hair billowing in the wind like his very own fascinator – waving to the crowd with his partner David Furnish, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and the Beckhams, newly arrived from Los Angeles with David wearing his OBE pinned to his suit. Cheering wafted into the abbey from outside. Then came the foreign leaders: Australia’s republican prime minister Julia Gillard and her partner, New Zealand’s John Key and his wife . They were followed by British politicians, the men dragooned into morning suits: Ed Miliband and his fiancee Justine Thornton, Nick Clegg – his wife Miriam González Durántez almost defiantly glamorous – followed by David and Samantha Cameron and a clutch of ministers. Prince William, in the scarlet tunic of the Irish Guards, followed 45 minutes before the service, accompanied by his brother and best man Prince Harry, in time to greet arriving members of foreign royal families. Then, a fleet of four minibuses followed carrying minor royals from Buckingham Palace, like a charabanc outing. And then there were the Middletons. A week ago Carole Middleton, flight attendant turned successful businesswoman, could have caught a cab unnoticed in Whitehall. Yesterday she and her son James, who has just started his own cake business, were driven by limousine up the Mall, across Horseguards Parade and past the Houses of Parliament past cheering crowds, to be greeted at the abbey door by a clutch of clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury in mitre and cope. Do mothers still dream that their daughters might grow up to marry a prince and be driven down the Mall in a carriage? If so, Mrs Middleton bore the slightly stunned, unreal expression of one who has woken up to find the dream come true. They were followed by Prince Charles, in naval uniform, and the Duchess of Cornwall and then the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. And then the bridesmaids and pages, the littlest, three-year-old Grace Van Cutsem, yawning from excitement and tiredness – the little girl, led out on to the balcony at the palace, would later cover her ears to shield them from the noise. Then lastly, precisely on time, Kate Middleton and her father Michael, whose career started as a British Airways cargo dispatcher, slid into a royal Rolls-Royce at their hotel, the dress, subject of so much speculation, still hidden from view: all that could be seen was lace about the sleeves and a veil over the head. The secret of the elegant ivory gown, designed by Sarah Burton, had to wait another nine minutes until the bride stepped out of her limousine at the abbey. The intention behind the service itself was a demonstration of Britishness: music by British composers – John Rutter and Peter Maxwell Davies and the young Welsh composer Paul Mealor as well as Elgar, Britten and Vaughan Williams – and old, favourite hymns: Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and Jerusalem. The service itself, in conformity with the Church of England’s 1966 prayerbook, was a mixture of modern and archaic English, during the course of which Middleton and her husband promised to love, comfort, honour and keep each other, forsaking all others and keeping only unto themselves. William also promised to share all his worldly goods with her. In his address Richard Chartres, the bishop of London and the clergyman closest to the royal family, advised: “The more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves … In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.” As he spoke of the Holy Spirit quickening within them, filling their lives with light and so leading on to family life, Middleton blushed and smiled. There are those loyalists who say Princess Diana’s spirit would be hovering and certainly her influence was seen most obviously as the couple left the abbey: the new duchess grinning with relief and joy, her husband smiling, but self-consciously blushing with eyes downcast, like his mother in a thousand photographs. And so to the palace in the 1902 state landau, pulled by white horses. En route the only unforseen incident of the day occurred when a horse ridden by a member of the Household Cavalry escort bolted, throwing its rider as the procession passed Downing Street. Only pride was dented, the Ministry of Defence said later: the horse “had had a bit of a moment”. Then those discreet kisses on the balcony. And that was thought likely to be that: retirement for the Queen’s reception to partake of crab salad and duck terrine, smoked salmon on beetroot blini, asparagus spears and quails’ eggs, langoustines and pork belly, Pol Roger champagne and wedding cake and to listen to Charles joke about passing his bald spot on to his son. After that spread, the 85-year-old monarch and her 89-year-old husband were understandably going to retreat to the country, leaving the youngsters to a dinner and disco. This is a prince less hidebound than his father and more informal. For most couples the drive down the Mall would be the start of their drive into the sunset, but not this pair, not any longer: they turned sharp left 200 yards down the road into Clarence House to rest and recuperate before the evening. Last night they were staying at Buckingham Palace. Today they set off on a fortnight’s honeymoon – destination a closely guarded secret but one that is almost certain to be discovered in time for the Sunday papers: a new life for the Duke of Cambridge and a transformed one for his duchess. She will never walk unnoticed down a street ever again. Royal wedding Prince William Kate Middleton Monarchy Weddings Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Considering the huge guest list, the crowds, and the massed ranks of cameras, the royal wedding proved an intimate affair Considering the size of the audience, the two sets of trumpeters, two choirs and several of the most senior clerics in the land, the presence of the entire British royal family, 45 crowned heads from around the world and a guest list stretching to nearly 2,000, it was quite an intimate wedding. And, confounding all the understandable fears, nerves and precautions, it went off without a hitch. Miss Catherine Middleton of Bucklebury, Berkshire went into Westminster Abbey at 11am and came out an hour and a quarter later, holding the hand of the second in line to the throne as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge – she will not be known as Princess Catherine. At the moment of their wedding, the Queen bestowed a title on her husband, Prince William of Wales. In fact, there were three titles so that none of her realms felt left out: he also became Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus. Yet, for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding them, the couple found space to share knowing looks and smiles, suggesting that the natural instincts and affections which Dr John Hall, the abbey’s dean, told them at the start of the service had been implanted by God, were already in place. There were giggles between them as he struggled to wriggle the Welsh gold ring on to her finger. Later, appearing on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to give each other the obligatory kiss to satisfy the watching crowd and the massed ranks of the world’s cameras, they gave each other the most perfunctory and chaste of pecks, as if slightly dismissive of the public nature of the ritual. After a couple of minutes, they did it again in case anyone had missed it. But there was another surprise: William and his bride appearing later in his dad’s 40-year-old open-topped Aston Martin, festooned with balloons and a Just Wed number plate, roaring out of the palace and heading down the Mall. On a grey but bright and muggy day in central London – no sign during the morning of the showers that had threatened to break the month’s hot weather – police estimated that up to a million people congregated, half of them in the Mall. In contrast to how police count demonstrations, that may have been an overestimate, but there were certainly many thousands. In the only slight sign of trouble, a small group of protesters gathering in Soho Square to put on masks were pre-emptively stalled without getting near. Overnight several thousand people had camped outside the abbey, where some had bagged space since early in the week, and along the edge of St James’s Park. From early morning, many thousands more poured in, parents carrying picnic bags and rucksacks and children with flags and painted faces, wearing their best party dresses, some of them with cardboard crowns and many others with union flag hats. There were whole families, including grannies and grandads and a high proportion of young people, with many tourists among them. As they made their way across the bridges, tramping towards Westminster, where the abbey glowed white in the early light, the mood was cheery and police officers, asked to take family photos, obliged. It was, Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi, noted on the BBC, Britain and royalty at its best. Later the prime minister would gush too: “It was beautiful to see two people who really love each other and who are incredibly happy at an amazing ceremony … A day when we see ‘the new team’. It was incredibly romantic and moving. “It’s a great moment for Britain, a moment when everyone is celebrating and it’s being watched round the world where people will see lots of things they love about Britain,” David Cameron said. Before 9am the first guests were arriving at the abbey, walking the red carpet that had been laid outside, through the Great West Door, past the tomb of the Unknown Warrior and up to the altar steps. The nave itself was lined with growing trees, eight maples and two hornbeams, with scented lily of the valley flowers planted at their base. The guests looked like an animated Madame Tussauds: Trevor Brooking and Earl Spencer, Elton John – his hair billowing in the wind like his very own fascinator – waving to the crowd with his partner David Furnish, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and the Beckhams, newly arrived from Los Angeles with David wearing his OBE pinned to his suit. Cheering wafted into the abbey from outside. Then came the foreign leaders: Australia’s republican prime minister Julia Gillard and her partner, New Zealand’s John Key and his wife . They were followed by British politicians, the men dragooned into morning suits: Ed Miliband and his fiancee Justine Thornton, Nick Clegg – his wife Miriam González Durántez almost defiantly glamorous – followed by David and Samantha Cameron and a clutch of ministers. Prince William, in the scarlet tunic of the Irish Guards, followed 45 minutes before the service, accompanied by his brother and best man Prince Harry, in time to greet arriving members of foreign royal families. Then, a fleet of four minibuses followed carrying minor royals from Buckingham Palace, like a charabanc outing. And then there were the Middletons. A week ago Carole Middleton, flight attendant turned successful businesswoman, could have caught a cab unnoticed in Whitehall. Yesterday she and her son James, who has just started his own cake business, were driven by limousine up the Mall, across Horseguards Parade and past the Houses of Parliament past cheering crowds, to be greeted at the abbey door by a clutch of clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury in mitre and cope. Do mothers still dream that their daughters might grow up to marry a prince and be driven down the Mall in a carriage? If so, Mrs Middleton bore the slightly stunned, unreal expression of one who has woken up to find the dream come true. They were followed by Prince Charles, in naval uniform, and the Duchess of Cornwall and then the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. And then the bridesmaids and pages, the littlest, three-year-old Grace Van Cutsem, yawning from excitement and tiredness – the little girl, led out on to the balcony at the palace, would later cover her ears to shield them from the noise. Then lastly, precisely on time, Kate Middleton and her father Michael, whose career started as a British Airways cargo dispatcher, slid into a royal Rolls-Royce at their hotel, the dress, subject of so much speculation, still hidden from view: all that could be seen was lace about the sleeves and a veil over the head. The secret of the elegant ivory gown, designed by Sarah Burton, had to wait another nine minutes until the bride stepped out of her limousine at the abbey. The intention behind the service itself was a demonstration of Britishness: music by British composers – John Rutter and Peter Maxwell Davies and the young Welsh composer Paul Mealor as well as Elgar, Britten and Vaughan Williams – and old, favourite hymns: Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and Jerusalem. The service itself, in conformity with the Church of England’s 1966 prayerbook, was a mixture of modern and archaic English, during the course of which Middleton and her husband promised to love, comfort, honour and keep each other, forsaking all others and keeping only unto themselves. William also promised to share all his worldly goods with her. In his address Richard Chartres, the bishop of London and the clergyman closest to the royal family, advised: “The more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves … In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.” As he spoke of the Holy Spirit quickening within them, filling their lives with light and so leading on to family life, Middleton blushed and smiled. There are those loyalists who say Princess Diana’s spirit would be hovering and certainly her influence was seen most obviously as the couple left the abbey: the new duchess grinning with relief and joy, her husband smiling, but self-consciously blushing with eyes downcast, like his mother in a thousand photographs. And so to the palace in the 1902 state landau, pulled by white horses. En route the only unforseen incident of the day occurred when a horse ridden by a member of the Household Cavalry escort bolted, throwing its rider as the procession passed Downing Street. Only pride was dented, the Ministry of Defence said later: the horse “had had a bit of a moment”. Then those discreet kisses on the balcony. And that was thought likely to be that: retirement for the Queen’s reception to partake of crab salad and duck terrine, smoked salmon on beetroot blini, asparagus spears and quails’ eggs, langoustines and pork belly, Pol Roger champagne and wedding cake and to listen to Charles joke about passing his bald spot on to his son. After that spread, the 85-year-old monarch and her 89-year-old husband were understandably going to retreat to the country, leaving the youngsters to a dinner and disco. This is a prince less hidebound than his father and more informal. For most couples the drive down the Mall would be the start of their drive into the sunset, but not this pair, not any longer: they turned sharp left 200 yards down the road into Clarence House to rest and recuperate before the evening. Last night they were staying at Buckingham Palace. Today they set off on a fortnight’s honeymoon – destination a closely guarded secret but one that is almost certain to be discovered in time for the Sunday papers: a new life for the Duke of Cambridge and a transformed one for his duchess. She will never walk unnoticed down a street ever again. Royal wedding Prince William Kate Middleton Monarchy Weddings Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Considering the huge guest list, the crowds, and the massed ranks of cameras, the royal wedding proved an intimate affair Considering the size of the audience, the two sets of trumpeters, two choirs and several of the most senior clerics in the land, the presence of the entire British royal family, 45 crowned heads from around the world and a guest list stretching to nearly 2,000, it was quite an intimate wedding. And, confounding all the understandable fears, nerves and precautions, it went off without a hitch. Miss Catherine Middleton of Bucklebury, Berkshire went into Westminster Abbey at 11am and came out an hour and a quarter later, holding the hand of the second in line to the throne as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge – she will not be known as Princess Catherine. At the moment of their wedding, the Queen bestowed a title on her husband, Prince William of Wales. In fact, there were three titles so that none of her realms felt left out: he also became Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus. Yet, for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding them, the couple found space to share knowing looks and smiles, suggesting that the natural instincts and affections which Dr John Hall, the abbey’s dean, told them at the start of the service had been implanted by God, were already in place. There were giggles between them as he struggled to wriggle the Welsh gold ring on to her finger. Later, appearing on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to give each other the obligatory kiss to satisfy the watching crowd and the massed ranks of the world’s cameras, they gave each other the most perfunctory and chaste of pecks, as if slightly dismissive of the public nature of the ritual. After a couple of minutes, they did it again in case anyone had missed it. But there was another surprise: William and his bride appearing later in his dad’s 40-year-old open-topped Aston Martin, festooned with balloons and a Just Wed number plate, roaring out of the palace and heading down the Mall. On a grey but bright and muggy day in central London – no sign during the morning of the showers that had threatened to break the month’s hot weather – police estimated that up to a million people congregated, half of them in the Mall. In contrast to how police count demonstrations, that may have been an overestimate, but there were certainly many thousands. In the only slight sign of trouble, a small group of protesters gathering in Soho Square to put on masks were pre-emptively stalled without getting near. Overnight several thousand people had camped outside the abbey, where some had bagged space since early in the week, and along the edge of St James’s Park. From early morning, many thousands more poured in, parents carrying picnic bags and rucksacks and children with flags and painted faces, wearing their best party dresses, some of them with cardboard crowns and many others with union flag hats. There were whole families, including grannies and grandads and a high proportion of young people, with many tourists among them. As they made their way across the bridges, tramping towards Westminster, where the abbey glowed white in the early light, the mood was cheery and police officers, asked to take family photos, obliged. It was, Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi, noted on the BBC, Britain and royalty at its best. Later the prime minister would gush too: “It was beautiful to see two people who really love each other and who are incredibly happy at an amazing ceremony … A day when we see ‘the new team’. It was incredibly romantic and moving. “It’s a great moment for Britain, a moment when everyone is celebrating and it’s being watched round the world where people will see lots of things they love about Britain,” David Cameron said. Before 9am the first guests were arriving at the abbey, walking the red carpet that had been laid outside, through the Great West Door, past the tomb of the Unknown Warrior and up to the altar steps. The nave itself was lined with growing trees, eight maples and two hornbeams, with scented lily of the valley flowers planted at their base. The guests looked like an animated Madame Tussauds: Trevor Brooking and Earl Spencer, Elton John – his hair billowing in the wind like his very own fascinator – waving to the crowd with his partner David Furnish, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and the Beckhams, newly arrived from Los Angeles with David wearing his OBE pinned to his suit. Cheering wafted into the abbey from outside. Then came the foreign leaders: Australia’s republican prime minister Julia Gillard and her partner, New Zealand’s John Key and his wife . They were followed by British politicians, the men dragooned into morning suits: Ed Miliband and his fiancee Justine Thornton, Nick Clegg – his wife Miriam González Durántez almost defiantly glamorous – followed by David and Samantha Cameron and a clutch of ministers. Prince William, in the scarlet tunic of the Irish Guards, followed 45 minutes before the service, accompanied by his brother and best man Prince Harry, in time to greet arriving members of foreign royal families. Then, a fleet of four minibuses followed carrying minor royals from Buckingham Palace, like a charabanc outing. And then there were the Middletons. A week ago Carole Middleton, flight attendant turned successful businesswoman, could have caught a cab unnoticed in Whitehall. Yesterday she and her son James, who has just started his own cake business, were driven by limousine up the Mall, across Horseguards Parade and past the Houses of Parliament past cheering crowds, to be greeted at the abbey door by a clutch of clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury in mitre and cope. Do mothers still dream that their daughters might grow up to marry a prince and be driven down the Mall in a carriage? If so, Mrs Middleton bore the slightly stunned, unreal expression of one who has woken up to find the dream come true. They were followed by Prince Charles, in naval uniform, and the Duchess of Cornwall and then the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. And then the bridesmaids and pages, the littlest, three-year-old Grace Van Cutsem, yawning from excitement and tiredness – the little girl, led out on to the balcony at the palace, would later cover her ears to shield them from the noise. Then lastly, precisely on time, Kate Middleton and her father Michael, whose career started as a British Airways cargo dispatcher, slid into a royal Rolls-Royce at their hotel, the dress, subject of so much speculation, still hidden from view: all that could be seen was lace about the sleeves and a veil over the head. The secret of the elegant ivory gown, designed by Sarah Burton, had to wait another nine minutes until the bride stepped out of her limousine at the abbey. The intention behind the service itself was a demonstration of Britishness: music by British composers – John Rutter and Peter Maxwell Davies and the young Welsh composer Paul Mealor as well as Elgar, Britten and Vaughan Williams – and old, favourite hymns: Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and Jerusalem. The service itself, in conformity with the Church of England’s 1966 prayerbook, was a mixture of modern and archaic English, during the course of which Middleton and her husband promised to love, comfort, honour and keep each other, forsaking all others and keeping only unto themselves. William also promised to share all his worldly goods with her. In his address Richard Chartres, the bishop of London and the clergyman closest to the royal family, advised: “The more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves … In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.” As he spoke of the Holy Spirit quickening within them, filling their lives with light and so leading on to family life, Middleton blushed and smiled. There are those loyalists who say Princess Diana’s spirit would be hovering and certainly her influence was seen most obviously as the couple left the abbey: the new duchess grinning with relief and joy, her husband smiling, but self-consciously blushing with eyes downcast, like his mother in a thousand photographs. And so to the palace in the 1902 state landau, pulled by white horses. En route the only unforseen incident of the day occurred when a horse ridden by a member of the Household Cavalry escort bolted, throwing its rider as the procession passed Downing Street. Only pride was dented, the Ministry of Defence said later: the horse “had had a bit of a moment”. Then those discreet kisses on the balcony. And that was thought likely to be that: retirement for the Queen’s reception to partake of crab salad and duck terrine, smoked salmon on beetroot blini, asparagus spears and quails’ eggs, langoustines and pork belly, Pol Roger champagne and wedding cake and to listen to Charles joke about passing his bald spot on to his son. After that spread, the 85-year-old monarch and her 89-year-old husband were understandably going to retreat to the country, leaving the youngsters to a dinner and disco. This is a prince less hidebound than his father and more informal. For most couples the drive down the Mall would be the start of their drive into the sunset, but not this pair, not any longer: they turned sharp left 200 yards down the road into Clarence House to rest and recuperate before the evening. Last night they were staying at Buckingham Palace. Today they set off on a fortnight’s honeymoon – destination a closely guarded secret but one that is almost certain to be discovered in time for the Sunday papers: a new life for the Duke of Cambridge and a transformed one for his duchess. She will never walk unnoticed down a street ever again. Royal wedding Prince William Kate Middleton Monarchy Weddings Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Considering the huge guest list, the crowds, and the massed ranks of cameras, the royal wedding proved an intimate affair Considering the size of the audience, the two sets of trumpeters, two choirs and several of the most senior clerics in the land, the presence of the entire British royal family, 45 crowned heads from around the world and a guest list stretching to nearly 2,000, it was quite an intimate wedding. And, confounding all the understandable fears, nerves and precautions, it went off without a hitch. Miss Catherine Middleton of Bucklebury, Berkshire went into Westminster Abbey at 11am and came out an hour and a quarter later, holding the hand of the second in line to the throne as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge – she will not be known as Princess Catherine. At the moment of their wedding, the Queen bestowed a title on her husband, Prince William of Wales. In fact, there were three titles so that none of her realms felt left out: he also became Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus. Yet, for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding them, the couple found space to share knowing looks and smiles, suggesting that the natural instincts and affections which Dr John Hall, the abbey’s dean, told them at the start of the service had been implanted by God, were already in place. There were giggles between them as he struggled to wriggle the Welsh gold ring on to her finger. Later, appearing on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to give each other the obligatory kiss to satisfy the watching crowd and the massed ranks of the world’s cameras, they gave each other the most perfunctory and chaste of pecks, as if slightly dismissive of the public nature of the ritual. After a couple of minutes, they did it again in case anyone had missed it. But there was another surprise: William and his bride appearing later in his dad’s 40-year-old open-topped Aston Martin, festooned with balloons and a Just Wed number plate, roaring out of the palace and heading down the Mall. On a grey but bright and muggy day in central London – no sign during the morning of the showers that had threatened to break the month’s hot weather – police estimated that up to a million people congregated, half of them in the Mall. In contrast to how police count demonstrations, that may have been an overestimate, but there were certainly many thousands. In the only slight sign of trouble, a small group of protesters gathering in Soho Square to put on masks were pre-emptively stalled without getting near. Overnight several thousand people had camped outside the abbey, where some had bagged space since early in the week, and along the edge of St James’s Park. From early morning, many thousands more poured in, parents carrying picnic bags and rucksacks and children with flags and painted faces, wearing their best party dresses, some of them with cardboard crowns and many others with union flag hats. There were whole families, including grannies and grandads and a high proportion of young people, with many tourists among them. As they made their way across the bridges, tramping towards Westminster, where the abbey glowed white in the early light, the mood was cheery and police officers, asked to take family photos, obliged. It was, Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi, noted on the BBC, Britain and royalty at its best. Later the prime minister would gush too: “It was beautiful to see two people who really love each other and who are incredibly happy at an amazing ceremony … A day when we see ‘the new team’. It was incredibly romantic and moving. “It’s a great moment for Britain, a moment when everyone is celebrating and it’s being watched round the world where people will see lots of things they love about Britain,” David Cameron said. Before 9am the first guests were arriving at the abbey, walking the red carpet that had been laid outside, through the Great West Door, past the tomb of the Unknown Warrior and up to the altar steps. The nave itself was lined with growing trees, eight maples and two hornbeams, with scented lily of the valley flowers planted at their base. The guests looked like an animated Madame Tussauds: Trevor Brooking and Earl Spencer, Elton John – his hair billowing in the wind like his very own fascinator – waving to the crowd with his partner David Furnish, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and the Beckhams, newly arrived from Los Angeles with David wearing his OBE pinned to his suit. Cheering wafted into the abbey from outside. Then came the foreign leaders: Australia’s republican prime minister Julia Gillard and her partner, New Zealand’s John Key and his wife . They were followed by British politicians, the men dragooned into morning suits: Ed Miliband and his fiancee Justine Thornton, Nick Clegg – his wife Miriam González Durántez almost defiantly glamorous – followed by David and Samantha Cameron and a clutch of ministers. Prince William, in the scarlet tunic of the Irish Guards, followed 45 minutes before the service, accompanied by his brother and best man Prince Harry, in time to greet arriving members of foreign royal families. Then, a fleet of four minibuses followed carrying minor royals from Buckingham Palace, like a charabanc outing. And then there were the Middletons. A week ago Carole Middleton, flight attendant turned successful businesswoman, could have caught a cab unnoticed in Whitehall. Yesterday she and her son James, who has just started his own cake business, were driven by limousine up the Mall, across Horseguards Parade and past the Houses of Parliament past cheering crowds, to be greeted at the abbey door by a clutch of clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury in mitre and cope. Do mothers still dream that their daughters might grow up to marry a prince and be driven down the Mall in a carriage? If so, Mrs Middleton bore the slightly stunned, unreal expression of one who has woken up to find the dream come true. They were followed by Prince Charles, in naval uniform, and the Duchess of Cornwall and then the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. And then the bridesmaids and pages, the littlest, three-year-old Grace Van Cutsem, yawning from excitement and tiredness – the little girl, led out on to the balcony at the palace, would later cover her ears to shield them from the noise. Then lastly, precisely on time, Kate Middleton and her father Michael, whose career started as a British Airways cargo dispatcher, slid into a royal Rolls-Royce at their hotel, the dress, subject of so much speculation, still hidden from view: all that could be seen was lace about the sleeves and a veil over the head. The secret of the elegant ivory gown, designed by Sarah Burton, had to wait another nine minutes until the bride stepped out of her limousine at the abbey. The intention behind the service itself was a demonstration of Britishness: music by British composers – John Rutter and Peter Maxwell Davies and the young Welsh composer Paul Mealor as well as Elgar, Britten and Vaughan Williams – and old, favourite hymns: Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and Jerusalem. The service itself, in conformity with the Church of England’s 1966 prayerbook, was a mixture of modern and archaic English, during the course of which Middleton and her husband promised to love, comfort, honour and keep each other, forsaking all others and keeping only unto themselves. William also promised to share all his worldly goods with her. In his address Richard Chartres, the bishop of London and the clergyman closest to the royal family, advised: “The more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves … In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.” As he spoke of the Holy Spirit quickening within them, filling their lives with light and so leading on to family life, Middleton blushed and smiled. There are those loyalists who say Princess Diana’s spirit would be hovering and certainly her influence was seen most obviously as the couple left the abbey: the new duchess grinning with relief and joy, her husband smiling, but self-consciously blushing with eyes downcast, like his mother in a thousand photographs. And so to the palace in the 1902 state landau, pulled by white horses. En route the only unforseen incident of the day occurred when a horse ridden by a member of the Household Cavalry escort bolted, throwing its rider as the procession passed Downing Street. Only pride was dented, the Ministry of Defence said later: the horse “had had a bit of a moment”. Then those discreet kisses on the balcony. And that was thought likely to be that: retirement for the Queen’s reception to partake of crab salad and duck terrine, smoked salmon on beetroot blini, asparagus spears and quails’ eggs, langoustines and pork belly, Pol Roger champagne and wedding cake and to listen to Charles joke about passing his bald spot on to his son. After that spread, the 85-year-old monarch and her 89-year-old husband were understandably going to retreat to the country, leaving the youngsters to a dinner and disco. This is a prince less hidebound than his father and more informal. For most couples the drive down the Mall would be the start of their drive into the sunset, but not this pair, not any longer: they turned sharp left 200 yards down the road into Clarence House to rest and recuperate before the evening. Last night they were staying at Buckingham Palace. Today they set off on a fortnight’s honeymoon – destination a closely guarded secret but one that is almost certain to be discovered in time for the Sunday papers: a new life for the Duke of Cambridge and a transformed one for his duchess. She will never walk unnoticed down a street ever again. Royal wedding Prince William Kate Middleton Monarchy Weddings Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
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PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. (AP) — Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation’s deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 297 people were killed across six states – more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind. The death toll from Wednesday’s storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count. (CLICK HERE to see how you can help relief efforts) “These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen,” said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. “If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you’d have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground” to survive, Carbin said. (CLICK HERE for photos of the aftermath) The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed. In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton’s family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out. “The whole house caved in on top of that car,” he said. “Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us.” Son Justin remembers the dingy white cloud moving quickly toward the house. “To me it sounded like destruction,” the 22-year-old said. “It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful.” At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison’s neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped. “Sick is what I feel,” he said. “This is what you see in Oklahoma and Kansas. Not here. Not in the South.” Alabama Emergency Management officials said early Friday that the state had 210 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured – nearly 800 in Tuscaloosa alone. Some of the worst damage was about 50 miles southwest of Pleasant Grove in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. The storms destroyed the city’s emergency management center, so the school’s Bryant-Denny Stadium was turned into a makeshift one. School officials said two students were killed, though they did not say how they died. Finals were canceled and commencement was postponed. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox told reporters that police and the National Guard will impose a curfew at 10 p.m. Thursday, and 8 p.m. the next night. Authorities have been searching for survivors so far, but Maddox said they will begin using cadaver dogs on Friday. A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods. That twister and others Wednesday were several times more severe than a typical tornado, which is hundreds of yards wide, has winds around 100 mph and stays on the ground for a few miles, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the Storm Prediction Center. “There’s a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph,” he said. The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states. Brooks said the tornado that struck Tuscaloosa could be an EF5 – the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph – and was at least the second-highest category, an EF4. Search and rescue teams fanned out to dig through the rubble of devastated communities that bore eerie similarities to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when town after town lay flattened for nearly 90 miles. In Phil Campbell, a small town of 1,000 in northwest Alabama where 26 people died, the grocery store, gas stations and medical clinic were destroyed by a tornado that Mayor Jerry Mays estimated was a half-mile wide and traveled some 20 miles. “We’ve lost everything. Let’s just say it like it is,” Mays said. “I’m afraid we might have some suicides because of this.” President Barack Obama said he would travel to Alabama on Friday to view storm damage and meet Gov. Robert Bentley and affected families. Late Thursday he signed a disaster declaration for the state to provide federal aid to those who seek it. As many as a million homes and businesses there were without power, and Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states. “We can’t control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it,” Obama said. “And I want every American who has been affected by this disaster to know that the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover and we will stand with you as you rebuild.” The storm prediction center said it received 164 tornado reports around the region, but some tornadoes were probably reported multiple times and it could take days to get a final count. In fact, Brooks said 50 to 60 reports – from the Mississippi-Alabama line, through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and into Georgia and southwestern Tennessee – might end up being a single tornado. If that’s true its path would be one of the longest on record for a twister, rivaling a 1925 tornado that raged for 219 miles. Brooks said the weather service was able to provide about 24 minutes’ notice before the twisters hit. “It was a well-forecasted event,” Brooks said. “People were talking about this week being a big week a week ago.” Gov. Bentley said forecasters did a good job alerting people, but there’s only so much they can do to help people prepare. Carbin, the meteorologist, noted that the warning gave residents enough time to hunker down, but not enough for them to safely leave the area. “You’ve got half an hour to evacuate the north side of Tuscaloosa. How do you do that and when do you do that? Knowing there’s a tornado on the ground right now and the conditions in advance of it, you may inadvertently put people in harm’s way,” he said. Officials said at least 13 died in Smithville, Miss., where devastating winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories. Pieces of tin were twined high around the legs of a blue water tower, and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store was gutted. “It’s like the town is just gone,” said 24-year-old Jessica Monaghan, wiping away tears as she toted 9-month-old son Slade Scott. The baby’s father, Tupelo firefighter Tyler Scott, was at work when the warning came on the TV. WATCH: “It said be ready in 10 minutes, but about that time, it was there,” Monaghan said. She, Slade and the family’s cat survived by hiding in a closet. At Smithville Cemetery, even the dead were not spared: Tombstones dating to the 1800s, including some of Civil War soldiers, lay broken on the ground. Brothers Kenny and Paul Long dragged their youngest brother’s headstone back to its proper place. Unlike many neighboring towns, Kenny Long said, Smithville had no storm shelter. “You have warnings,” Long said, “but where do you go?” Some fled to the sturdy center section of Smithville Baptist Church. Pastor Wes White said they clung to each other and anything they could reach, a single “mass of humanity” as the building disintegrated around them. The second story is gone, the walls collapsed, but no one there was seriously hurt. The choir robes remained in place, perfectly white. Eight people were killed in Georgia’s Catoosa County, including in Ringgold, where a suspected tornado flattened about a dozen buildings and trapped an unknown number of people. “It happened so fast I couldn’t think at all,” said Tom Rose, an Illinois truck driver whose vehicle was blown off the road at I-75 North in Ringgold, near the Tennessee line. Catoosa County Sheriff Phil Summers said several residential areas had “nothing but foundations left,” and that some people reported missing had yet to be found. A church in Ringgold had its steeple amputated, and its chairs were left twisted and piled in the apartments’ parking lot. Elsewhere in the town, cars and pickup trucks sat askew at odd angles after being tossed like toys. In Trenton, Ga., nearly two dozen people took shelter in an Ace Hardware store, including a couple walking by when an employee emerged and told them to take cover immediately. Lisa Rice, owner of S&L Tans in Trenton, survived by climbing into a tanning bed with her two daughters. Stormy, 19, and Sky, 21. “We got in it and closed it on top of us,” Rice said. “Sky said, `We’re going to die.’ But, I said, `No, just pray. Just pray, just pray, just pray.’” For 30 seconds, wind rushed around the bed and debris flew as wind tore off the roof. “Then it just stopped. It got real quiet. We waited a few minutes and then opened up the bed and we saw daylight,” she said. The badly damaged Moore Funeral Home, meanwhile, sheltered the woman who cleans Larry Moore’s family business. When the first of three storms hit and uprooted trees in her yard, she figured the funeral home would be a safer place for her two children. As shingles began sailing past the window, she headed for the basement. “That’s what saved her, I guess,” Moore said. “It was over in just a matter of seconds. She called 911 and emergency crews had to help her get out.” The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out. In a large section of eastern Tennessee, officials were looking for survivors and assessing damage. In hard-hit Apison, an unincorporated community near the Georgia state line where eight people died, about 150 volunteers helped with the search. It was unclear how high the death toll could rise. In Mississippi, Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and a crew of deputies and inmates searched the rubble, recovering five bodies and marking homes that still had bodies inside with two large orange Xs. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Johnson said. “This is something that no one can prepare for.” ___ Mohr reported from Phil Campbell, Ala. Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Tuscaloosa; Phillip Rawls in Montgomery; Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va.; Kristi Eaton in Norman, Okla.; Ray Henry in Ringgold, Ga.; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; Michelle Williams in Atlanta; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., contributed to this report.
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PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. (AP) — Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation’s deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 297 people were killed across six states – more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind. The death toll from Wednesday’s storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count. (CLICK HERE to see how you can help relief efforts) “These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen,” said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. “If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you’d have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground” to survive, Carbin said. (CLICK HERE for photos of the aftermath) The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed. In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton’s family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out. “The whole house caved in on top of that car,” he said. “Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us.” Son Justin remembers the dingy white cloud moving quickly toward the house. “To me it sounded like destruction,” the 22-year-old said. “It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful.” At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison’s neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped. “Sick is what I feel,” he said. “This is what you see in Oklahoma and Kansas. Not here. Not in the South.” Alabama Emergency Management officials said early Friday that the state had 210 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured – nearly 800 in Tuscaloosa alone. Some of the worst damage was about 50 miles southwest of Pleasant Grove in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. The storms destroyed the city’s emergency management center, so the school’s Bryant-Denny Stadium was turned into a makeshift one. School officials said two students were killed, though they did not say how they died. Finals were canceled and commencement was postponed. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox told reporters that police and the National Guard will impose a curfew at 10 p.m. Thursday, and 8 p.m. the next night. Authorities have been searching for survivors so far, but Maddox said they will begin using cadaver dogs on Friday. A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods. That twister and others Wednesday were several times more severe than a typical tornado, which is hundreds of yards wide, has winds around 100 mph and stays on the ground for a few miles, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the Storm Prediction Center. “There’s a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph,” he said. The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states. Brooks said the tornado that struck Tuscaloosa could be an EF5 – the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph – and was at least the second-highest category, an EF4. Search and rescue teams fanned out to dig through the rubble of devastated communities that bore eerie similarities to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when town after town lay flattened for nearly 90 miles. In Phil Campbell, a small town of 1,000 in northwest Alabama where 26 people died, the grocery store, gas stations and medical clinic were destroyed by a tornado that Mayor Jerry Mays estimated was a half-mile wide and traveled some 20 miles. “We’ve lost everything. Let’s just say it like it is,” Mays said. “I’m afraid we might have some suicides because of this.” President Barack Obama said he would travel to Alabama on Friday to view storm damage and meet Gov. Robert Bentley and affected families. Late Thursday he signed a disaster declaration for the state to provide federal aid to those who seek it. As many as a million homes and businesses there were without power, and Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states. “We can’t control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it,” Obama said. “And I want every American who has been affected by this disaster to know that the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover and we will stand with you as you rebuild.” The storm prediction center said it received 164 tornado reports around the region, but some tornadoes were probably reported multiple times and it could take days to get a final count. In fact, Brooks said 50 to 60 reports – from the Mississippi-Alabama line, through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and into Georgia and southwestern Tennessee – might end up being a single tornado. If that’s true its path would be one of the longest on record for a twister, rivaling a 1925 tornado that raged for 219 miles. Brooks said the weather service was able to provide about 24 minutes’ notice before the twisters hit. “It was a well-forecasted event,” Brooks said. “People were talking about this week being a big week a week ago.” Gov. Bentley said forecasters did a good job alerting people, but there’s only so much they can do to help people prepare. Carbin, the meteorologist, noted that the warning gave residents enough time to hunker down, but not enough for them to safely leave the area. “You’ve got half an hour to evacuate the north side of Tuscaloosa. How do you do that and when do you do that? Knowing there’s a tornado on the ground right now and the conditions in advance of it, you may inadvertently put people in harm’s way,” he said. Officials said at least 13 died in Smithville, Miss., where devastating winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories. Pieces of tin were twined high around the legs of a blue water tower, and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store was gutted. “It’s like the town is just gone,” said 24-year-old Jessica Monaghan, wiping away tears as she toted 9-month-old son Slade Scott. The baby’s father, Tupelo firefighter Tyler Scott, was at work when the warning came on the TV. WATCH: “It said be ready in 10 minutes, but about that time, it was there,” Monaghan said. She, Slade and the family’s cat survived by hiding in a closet. At Smithville Cemetery, even the dead were not spared: Tombstones dating to the 1800s, including some of Civil War soldiers, lay broken on the ground. Brothers Kenny and Paul Long dragged their youngest brother’s headstone back to its proper place. Unlike many neighboring towns, Kenny Long said, Smithville had no storm shelter. “You have warnings,” Long said, “but where do you go?” Some fled to the sturdy center section of Smithville Baptist Church. Pastor Wes White said they clung to each other and anything they could reach, a single “mass of humanity” as the building disintegrated around them. The second story is gone, the walls collapsed, but no one there was seriously hurt. The choir robes remained in place, perfectly white. Eight people were killed in Georgia’s Catoosa County, including in Ringgold, where a suspected tornado flattened about a dozen buildings and trapped an unknown number of people. “It happened so fast I couldn’t think at all,” said Tom Rose, an Illinois truck driver whose vehicle was blown off the road at I-75 North in Ringgold, near the Tennessee line. Catoosa County Sheriff Phil Summers said several residential areas had “nothing but foundations left,” and that some people reported missing had yet to be found. A church in Ringgold had its steeple amputated, and its chairs were left twisted and piled in the apartments’ parking lot. Elsewhere in the town, cars and pickup trucks sat askew at odd angles after being tossed like toys. In Trenton, Ga., nearly two dozen people took shelter in an Ace Hardware store, including a couple walking by when an employee emerged and told them to take cover immediately. Lisa Rice, owner of S&L Tans in Trenton, survived by climbing into a tanning bed with her two daughters. Stormy, 19, and Sky, 21. “We got in it and closed it on top of us,” Rice said. “Sky said, `We’re going to die.’ But, I said, `No, just pray. Just pray, just pray, just pray.’” For 30 seconds, wind rushed around the bed and debris flew as wind tore off the roof. “Then it just stopped. It got real quiet. We waited a few minutes and then opened up the bed and we saw daylight,” she said. The badly damaged Moore Funeral Home, meanwhile, sheltered the woman who cleans Larry Moore’s family business. When the first of three storms hit and uprooted trees in her yard, she figured the funeral home would be a safer place for her two children. As shingles began sailing past the window, she headed for the basement. “That’s what saved her, I guess,” Moore said. “It was over in just a matter of seconds. She called 911 and emergency crews had to help her get out.” The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out. In a large section of eastern Tennessee, officials were looking for survivors and assessing damage. In hard-hit Apison, an unincorporated community near the Georgia state line where eight people died, about 150 volunteers helped with the search. It was unclear how high the death toll could rise. In Mississippi, Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and a crew of deputies and inmates searched the rubble, recovering five bodies and marking homes that still had bodies inside with two large orange Xs. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Johnson said. “This is something that no one can prepare for.” ___ Mohr reported from Phil Campbell, Ala. Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Tuscaloosa; Phillip Rawls in Montgomery; Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va.; Kristi Eaton in Norman, Okla.; Ray Henry in Ringgold, Ga.; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; Michelle Williams in Atlanta; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., contributed to this report.
Continue reading …PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. (AP) — Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation’s deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 297 people were killed across six states – more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind. The death toll from Wednesday’s storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count. (CLICK HERE to see how you can help relief efforts) “These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen,” said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. “If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you’d have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground” to survive, Carbin said. (CLICK HERE for photos of the aftermath) The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed. In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton’s family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out. “The whole house caved in on top of that car,” he said. “Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us.” Son Justin remembers the dingy white cloud moving quickly toward the house. “To me it sounded like destruction,” the 22-year-old said. “It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful.” At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison’s neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped. “Sick is what I feel,” he said. “This is what you see in Oklahoma and Kansas. Not here. Not in the South.” Alabama Emergency Management officials said early Friday that the state had 210 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured – nearly 800 in Tuscaloosa alone. Some of the worst damage was about 50 miles southwest of Pleasant Grove in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. The storms destroyed the city’s emergency management center, so the school’s Bryant-Denny Stadium was turned into a makeshift one. School officials said two students were killed, though they did not say how they died. Finals were canceled and commencement was postponed. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox told reporters that police and the National Guard will impose a curfew at 10 p.m. Thursday, and 8 p.m. the next night. Authorities have been searching for survivors so far, but Maddox said they will begin using cadaver dogs on Friday. A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods. That twister and others Wednesday were several times more severe than a typical tornado, which is hundreds of yards wide, has winds around 100 mph and stays on the ground for a few miles, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the Storm Prediction Center. “There’s a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph,” he said. The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states. Brooks said the tornado that struck Tuscaloosa could be an EF5 – the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph – and was at least the second-highest category, an EF4. Search and rescue teams fanned out to dig through the rubble of devastated communities that bore eerie similarities to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when town after town lay flattened for nearly 90 miles. In Phil Campbell, a small town of 1,000 in northwest Alabama where 26 people died, the grocery store, gas stations and medical clinic were destroyed by a tornado that Mayor Jerry Mays estimated was a half-mile wide and traveled some 20 miles. “We’ve lost everything. Let’s just say it like it is,” Mays said. “I’m afraid we might have some suicides because of this.” President Barack Obama said he would travel to Alabama on Friday to view storm damage and meet Gov. Robert Bentley and affected families. Late Thursday he signed a disaster declaration for the state to provide federal aid to those who seek it. As many as a million homes and businesses there were without power, and Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states. “We can’t control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it,” Obama said. “And I want every American who has been affected by this disaster to know that the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover and we will stand with you as you rebuild.” The storm prediction center said it received 164 tornado reports around the region, but some tornadoes were probably reported multiple times and it could take days to get a final count. In fact, Brooks said 50 to 60 reports – from the Mississippi-Alabama line, through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and into Georgia and southwestern Tennessee – might end up being a single tornado. If that’s true its path would be one of the longest on record for a twister, rivaling a 1925 tornado that raged for 219 miles. Brooks said the weather service was able to provide about 24 minutes’ notice before the twisters hit. “It was a well-forecasted event,” Brooks said. “People were talking about this week being a big week a week ago.” Gov. Bentley said forecasters did a good job alerting people, but there’s only so much they can do to help people prepare. Carbin, the meteorologist, noted that the warning gave residents enough time to hunker down, but not enough for them to safely leave the area. “You’ve got half an hour to evacuate the north side of Tuscaloosa. How do you do that and when do you do that? Knowing there’s a tornado on the ground right now and the conditions in advance of it, you may inadvertently put people in harm’s way,” he said. Officials said at least 13 died in Smithville, Miss., where devastating winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories. Pieces of tin were twined high around the legs of a blue water tower, and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store was gutted. “It’s like the town is just gone,” said 24-year-old Jessica Monaghan, wiping away tears as she toted 9-month-old son Slade Scott. The baby’s father, Tupelo firefighter Tyler Scott, was at work when the warning came on the TV. WATCH: “It said be ready in 10 minutes, but about that time, it was there,” Monaghan said. She, Slade and the family’s cat survived by hiding in a closet. At Smithville Cemetery, even the dead were not spared: Tombstones dating to the 1800s, including some of Civil War soldiers, lay broken on the ground. Brothers Kenny and Paul Long dragged their youngest brother’s headstone back to its proper place. Unlike many neighboring towns, Kenny Long said, Smithville had no storm shelter. “You have warnings,” Long said, “but where do you go?” Some fled to the sturdy center section of Smithville Baptist Church. Pastor Wes White said they clung to each other and anything they could reach, a single “mass of humanity” as the building disintegrated around them. The second story is gone, the walls collapsed, but no one there was seriously hurt. The choir robes remained in place, perfectly white. Eight people were killed in Georgia’s Catoosa County, including in Ringgold, where a suspected tornado flattened about a dozen buildings and trapped an unknown number of people. “It happened so fast I couldn’t think at all,” said Tom Rose, an Illinois truck driver whose vehicle was blown off the road at I-75 North in Ringgold, near the Tennessee line. Catoosa County Sheriff Phil Summers said several residential areas had “nothing but foundations left,” and that some people reported missing had yet to be found. A church in Ringgold had its steeple amputated, and its chairs were left twisted and piled in the apartments’ parking lot. Elsewhere in the town, cars and pickup trucks sat askew at odd angles after being tossed like toys. In Trenton, Ga., nearly two dozen people took shelter in an Ace Hardware store, including a couple walking by when an employee emerged and told them to take cover immediately. Lisa Rice, owner of S&L Tans in Trenton, survived by climbing into a tanning bed with her two daughters. Stormy, 19, and Sky, 21. “We got in it and closed it on top of us,” Rice said. “Sky said, `We’re going to die.’ But, I said, `No, just pray. Just pray, just pray, just pray.’” For 30 seconds, wind rushed around the bed and debris flew as wind tore off the roof. “Then it just stopped. It got real quiet. We waited a few minutes and then opened up the bed and we saw daylight,” she said. The badly damaged Moore Funeral Home, meanwhile, sheltered the woman who cleans Larry Moore’s family business. When the first of three storms hit and uprooted trees in her yard, she figured the funeral home would be a safer place for her two children. As shingles began sailing past the window, she headed for the basement. “That’s what saved her, I guess,” Moore said. “It was over in just a matter of seconds. She called 911 and emergency crews had to help her get out.” The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out. In a large section of eastern Tennessee, officials were looking for survivors and assessing damage. In hard-hit Apison, an unincorporated community near the Georgia state line where eight people died, about 150 volunteers helped with the search. It was unclear how high the death toll could rise. In Mississippi, Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and a crew of deputies and inmates searched the rubble, recovering five bodies and marking homes that still had bodies inside with two large orange Xs. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Johnson said. “This is something that no one can prepare for.” ___ Mohr reported from Phil Campbell, Ala. Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Tuscaloosa; Phillip Rawls in Montgomery; Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va.; Kristi Eaton in Norman, Okla.; Ray Henry in Ringgold, Ga.; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; Michelle Williams in Atlanta; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., contributed to this report.
Continue reading …PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. (AP) — Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation’s deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 297 people were killed across six states – more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind. The death toll from Wednesday’s storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count. (CLICK HERE to see how you can help relief efforts) “These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen,” said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. “If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you’d have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground” to survive, Carbin said. (CLICK HERE for photos of the aftermath) The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed. In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton’s family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out. “The whole house caved in on top of that car,” he said. “Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us.” Son Justin remembers the dingy white cloud moving quickly toward the house. “To me it sounded like destruction,” the 22-year-old said. “It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful.” At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison’s neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped. “Sick is what I feel,” he said. “This is what you see in Oklahoma and Kansas. Not here. Not in the South.” Alabama Emergency Management officials said early Friday that the state had 210 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured – nearly 800 in Tuscaloosa alone. Some of the worst damage was about 50 miles southwest of Pleasant Grove in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. The storms destroyed the city’s emergency management center, so the school’s Bryant-Denny Stadium was turned into a makeshift one. School officials said two students were killed, though they did not say how they died. Finals were canceled and commencement was postponed. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox told reporters that police and the National Guard will impose a curfew at 10 p.m. Thursday, and 8 p.m. the next night. Authorities have been searching for survivors so far, but Maddox said they will begin using cadaver dogs on Friday. A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods. That twister and others Wednesday were several times more severe than a typical tornado, which is hundreds of yards wide, has winds around 100 mph and stays on the ground for a few miles, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the Storm Prediction Center. “There’s a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph,” he said. The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states. Brooks said the tornado that struck Tuscaloosa could be an EF5 – the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph – and was at least the second-highest category, an EF4. Search and rescue teams fanned out to dig through the rubble of devastated communities that bore eerie similarities to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when town after town lay flattened for nearly 90 miles. In Phil Campbell, a small town of 1,000 in northwest Alabama where 26 people died, the grocery store, gas stations and medical clinic were destroyed by a tornado that Mayor Jerry Mays estimated was a half-mile wide and traveled some 20 miles. “We’ve lost everything. Let’s just say it like it is,” Mays said. “I’m afraid we might have some suicides because of this.” President Barack Obama said he would travel to Alabama on Friday to view storm damage and meet Gov. Robert Bentley and affected families. Late Thursday he signed a disaster declaration for the state to provide federal aid to those who seek it. As many as a million homes and businesses there were without power, and Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states. “We can’t control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it,” Obama said. “And I want every American who has been affected by this disaster to know that the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover and we will stand with you as you rebuild.” The storm prediction center said it received 164 tornado reports around the region, but some tornadoes were probably reported multiple times and it could take days to get a final count. In fact, Brooks said 50 to 60 reports – from the Mississippi-Alabama line, through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and into Georgia and southwestern Tennessee – might end up being a single tornado. If that’s true its path would be one of the longest on record for a twister, rivaling a 1925 tornado that raged for 219 miles. Brooks said the weather service was able to provide about 24 minutes’ notice before the twisters hit. “It was a well-forecasted event,” Brooks said. “People were talking about this week being a big week a week ago.” Gov. Bentley said forecasters did a good job alerting people, but there’s only so much they can do to help people prepare. Carbin, the meteorologist, noted that the warning gave residents enough time to hunker down, but not enough for them to safely leave the area. “You’ve got half an hour to evacuate the north side of Tuscaloosa. How do you do that and when do you do that? Knowing there’s a tornado on the ground right now and the conditions in advance of it, you may inadvertently put people in harm’s way,” he said. Officials said at least 13 died in Smithville, Miss., where devastating winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories. Pieces of tin were twined high around the legs of a blue water tower, and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store was gutted. “It’s like the town is just gone,” said 24-year-old Jessica Monaghan, wiping away tears as she toted 9-month-old son Slade Scott. The baby’s father, Tupelo firefighter Tyler Scott, was at work when the warning came on the TV. WATCH: “It said be ready in 10 minutes, but about that time, it was there,” Monaghan said. She, Slade and the family’s cat survived by hiding in a closet. At Smithville Cemetery, even the dead were not spared: Tombstones dating to the 1800s, including some of Civil War soldiers, lay broken on the ground. Brothers Kenny and Paul Long dragged their youngest brother’s headstone back to its proper place. Unlike many neighboring towns, Kenny Long said, Smithville had no storm shelter. “You have warnings,” Long said, “but where do you go?” Some fled to the sturdy center section of Smithville Baptist Church. Pastor Wes White said they clung to each other and anything they could reach, a single “mass of humanity” as the building disintegrated around them. The second story is gone, the walls collapsed, but no one there was seriously hurt. The choir robes remained in place, perfectly white. Eight people were killed in Georgia’s Catoosa County, including in Ringgold, where a suspected tornado flattened about a dozen buildings and trapped an unknown number of people. “It happened so fast I couldn’t think at all,” said Tom Rose, an Illinois truck driver whose vehicle was blown off the road at I-75 North in Ringgold, near the Tennessee line. Catoosa County Sheriff Phil Summers said several residential areas had “nothing but foundations left,” and that some people reported missing had yet to be found. A church in Ringgold had its steeple amputated, and its chairs were left twisted and piled in the apartments’ parking lot. Elsewhere in the town, cars and pickup trucks sat askew at odd angles after being tossed like toys. In Trenton, Ga., nearly two dozen people took shelter in an Ace Hardware store, including a couple walking by when an employee emerged and told them to take cover immediately. Lisa Rice, owner of S&L Tans in Trenton, survived by climbing into a tanning bed with her two daughters. Stormy, 19, and Sky, 21. “We got in it and closed it on top of us,” Rice said. “Sky said, `We’re going to die.’ But, I said, `No, just pray. Just pray, just pray, just pray.’” For 30 seconds, wind rushed around the bed and debris flew as wind tore off the roof. “Then it just stopped. It got real quiet. We waited a few minutes and then opened up the bed and we saw daylight,” she said. The badly damaged Moore Funeral Home, meanwhile, sheltered the woman who cleans Larry Moore’s family business. When the first of three storms hit and uprooted trees in her yard, she figured the funeral home would be a safer place for her two children. As shingles began sailing past the window, she headed for the basement. “That’s what saved her, I guess,” Moore said. “It was over in just a matter of seconds. She called 911 and emergency crews had to help her get out.” The storm system spread destruction from Texas to New York, where dozens of roads were flooded or washed out. In a large section of eastern Tennessee, officials were looking for survivors and assessing damage. In hard-hit Apison, an unincorporated community near the Georgia state line where eight people died, about 150 volunteers helped with the search. It was unclear how high the death toll could rise. In Mississippi, Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and a crew of deputies and inmates searched the rubble, recovering five bodies and marking homes that still had bodies inside with two large orange Xs. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Johnson said. “This is something that no one can prepare for.” ___ Mohr reported from Phil Campbell, Ala. Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Tuscaloosa; Phillip Rawls in Montgomery; Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va.; Kristi Eaton in Norman, Okla.; Ray Henry in Ringgold, Ga.; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; Michelle Williams in Atlanta; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., contributed to this report.
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We didn’t exactly need any more evidence that the LG Revolution would be the first Android phone to support Netflix, but a new, seemingly authentic Verizon document posted by an Android Central forum member has now all but confirmed that fact. What’s more, considering that Verizon touts Netflix as one of the phone’s main features, it seems safe to assume that the app will also come pre-installed for your convenience. As you can see, Verizon also says that the phone is “coming soon,” which is unfortunately about as specific a release date as we’ve seen so far. Wondering what’s in store? Then you might want to check out the hands-on we did with the app back at Mobile World Congress in February. Verizon document suggests LG Revolution will have Netflix pre-installed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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