Pounding typhoon rains flooded the Philippine capital Tuesday, in some cases leaving water neck-deep. Power was knocked out, thousands were evacuated and more than a score of people were dead or missing. (Sept. 27)
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What, you didn’t think Google would let the occasion slip by with a little Doodle-recognition did you? The search giant is marking its 13th birthday in a way they typically reserve for honoring others — with a Doodle. As of September 27, Google has entered into adolescence and to mark the occasion their homepage features
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• All tonight’s latest scores are here • The world’s league tables are here • Email barry.glendenning@guardian.co.uk with your thoughts • Or follow him on ‘The Twitter’ • Follow Man Utd v Basel here 12 min: “I am not in any way condoning the use of ‘Munich’ as a perjorative, and I find ‘Munich’ chants horrible and unacceptable, but …” writes Don. “I have heard all sorts of vile comments, both from individuals and organised, at football grounds all over the country, and those are almost never, ever, commented upon in the media- or addressed at the time, for that matter. I believe that if the media and Manchester United could refrain from knee-jerking to every instance of ‘Munich’, that would take the word’s power away from the ‘knuckleheads’ who say it looking for a response.” 10 min: Deep in Manchester City territory, Bayern Munich win a throw-in and take it quickly, catching Manchester City’s players unaware and allowing right-back Rafinho to try his luck from the corner of the penalty area. His effort goes high and wide. 9 min: Manchester City attack down the left flank, with four men committed to the outskirts of the Bayern penalty area. Edin Dzeko runs down a blind alley, is dispossessed by a defender and the home side clear their lines. 8 min: Sergio Aguero sends a weighted through-ball down the inside left channel for David Silva to chase. His pass isn’t weighted enough and the ball runs out of play for the Spanish winger can chase it down. 6 min: David Silva is hobbling a little with an ankle injury after a challenge from Jerome Boateng that he thought was worthy of a penalty. Referee Viktor Kassai didn’t concur. 4 min: Micah Richards bombs down the right flank and drills a low cross to Edin Dzeko, unmarked at the near post. his effort is weak and doesn’t trouble Manuel Neuer unduly. That was a glorious opportunity to put Manchester City one up, but he just didn’t put his boot through the ball. 3 min: Not much going on so far, with the ball spending most of its time being passed around midfield, with play occasionally punctuated by the occasional foul. 1 min: Manchester City kick off, lining up in a 4-4-2 and playing from left to right. Within 40 seconds, Bayern Munich defensive midfielder Luiz Gustavo goes down in a heap under a heavy challenge, but is quickly on his feet, grimacing with pain but fit to continue. Not long now: Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. The teams march out the tunnel, with Bayern Munich’s players wearing red shirts, shorts and socks with white trim. Manchester City’s wear their customary sky blue shirts and shorts, with blue and white hooped socks. Philipp Lahm wins the toss after Vincent Kompany is asked to call “yellow or blue” (it’s probably a token from one of the Oktoberfest tents) and opts for yellow. Hats off to the Manchester City delegation , led by life president Bernard Halford, current assistant manager Brian Kidd and former captain and manager Tony Book, who laid a wreath in the Manchesterplatz in Munich to commemorate the Munich air disaster earlier today. It’s common knowledge that 23 people died when the plane that was carrying them crashed on the runway on 6 February 1958, but many of those knucklehead City fans who spent Saturday afternoon at Goodison Park referring to Phil Neville as “a dirty Munich bastard” may not be aware that one of those who perished was the journalist Frank Swift, a former City goalkeeper. Or perhaps they are aware, but just don’t care. Who knows? How Bayern Munich will line up: It looks like they’ll go with a 4.2-3-1, with Bastian Schweinsteiger and Luiz Gustavo screening the back four and Mario Gomez playing alone in front of a three-man support act comprised of Franck Ribery and Thomas Muller on the left and right of Toni Kroos. Some scene-setting: On Sky Sports, former Bayern Munich legend Alan McInally speaks from his position in the Allianz Arena. “There’s a lot of German people really looking forward to this because Manchester City have come on the scene and spent a lot money,” he says, adding that the same folk would like to see their team put City back in their box after Roberto Mancini promised, in the immediate aftermath of his side’s draw with Napoli, that City would beat Bayern Munich in Munich. Bayern Munich: Neuer, Rafinha, Van Buyten, Boateng, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Gustavo, Muller, Kroos, Ribery, Gomez. Subs: Butt, Petersen, Robben, Usami, Contento, Alaba, Tymoschuk. Man City: Hart, Richards, Kompany, Toure, Clichy, Nasri, Barry, Toure Yaya, Silva, Aguero, Dzeko. Subs: Pantilimon, Zabaleta, Lescott, Milner, Kolarov, Tevez, De Jong. Referee: Viktor Kassai (Hungary) Good evening all. Manchester City’s players will be hoping their travelling supporters are sober enough to unhand their steins and lurch from the Oktoberfest Schottenhamel tent to the Allianz Arena for their first away fixture in the Champions League this evening. City’s task could hardly be more daunting as they march into the belly of a Bayern beast that has won its last nine Bundesliga and Champions League matches, scoring 26 goals and conceding none. Yes, none. Nada. Nil. Null. Since shipping the only goal of the game against Borussia Mönchengladbach on the opening day of the season, Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer has not conceded for 838 minutes. For anyone who’s interested, the world record for the length of time a a goalkeeper has gone without conceding is held by Geraldo Pereira de Matos Filho of Vasco Da Gama and stands at a whopping 1,816 minutes. That’s the length of time it takes to boil 602 eggs, presuming you like them very runny and do them one after the other in the same saucepan, rather than all together in one big pot. Anyway, I digress … With Bayern top of the group having torpedoed the Yellow Submarine of Villarreal in their opening game, Manchester City are already playing catch-up after creditable but ultimately disappointing draw at home with Napoli on their maiden Champions League voyage. ” It is fantastic to play against a club like Bayern,” said Roberto Mancini in the run-up to the game. “We do not want to lose the game, that is for sure. We want to win it – as we always want to win. But we have to improve a lot. We are a good team already, but if we want to become a team like Bayern, to become part of the history of football, we have to learn a lot; we have just played one game in the Champions League.” Bayern manager Jupp Heynckes, who takes on English opposition in Europe for the first time this evening despite 139 previous matches, was equally complimentary when discussing his opposite number. “They have an Italian coach, but still they play quite attacking football,” he said. “We anticipate a tactical game on a very high level. For viewers it will very, very interesting. The type of players they have tells us how we can expect them to play – quite attacking! But we are in a good shape and I am confident we can improve further. We are very well prepared. Man City have a very strong team but so do we. It will be a challenge for both clubs.” Heynckes revealed that former City player Jérôme Boateng will start against old club tonight, while Arjen Robben, Mario Gomez, Daniel Van Buyten and Luiz Gustavo all returned from injury to play against Bayer Leverkusen last weekend. Ivica Olić and Breno (knee and under arrest on suspicion of an arson attack on his own house) miss out tonight, while Holger Badstuber has flu and will see how he feels later. For Manchester City, Mario Balotelli will sit this one out on the naughty step, while Nigel de Jong is still suffering from an ankle injury he picked up against Swansea City back in August. We’ll bring you the line-ups just as soon as they appear on the news wires. Or Twitter, which tends to be a quicker, if less reliable source of news than the actual news wires these days. Champions League 2011-12 Champions League Bayern Munich Manchester City Barry Glendenning guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Michael Jackson doctor trial begins with jury told of singer’s final moments
September 27, 2011 No Comment
Photos of Jackson lying dead in a hospital bed shown at LA manslaughter trial of Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray More than two years after Michael Jackson’s death from an overdose of a powerful surgical anaesthetic, the irrepressible circus surrounding the King of Pop was back in full swing on Tuesday as the personal physician who attended to him in his dying hours stood trial for involuntary manslaughter. Fans with gold “MJ” armbands and T-shirts bearing the silkscreen likeness of their idol crammed the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles for a glimpse of the courtroom entourage – and a shot at one of the few open seats in the public gallery. Bloggers, gossip columnists and news crews were also out in force, just as they were at Jackson’s child molestation trial in 2005 and at the rehearsals for the ill-fated final tour – hauntingly named This Is It – that never took place in 2009. Inside judge Michael Pastor’s courtroom, an altogether more sober David Walgren, representing the district attorney’s office, delivered an opening statement laying out the evidence that Conrad Murray was single-handedly responsible for Jackson’s death. “The acts and omissions of Michael Jackson’s personal doctor, Conrad Murray, directly led to his premature death at the age of 50,” Walgren said. “He … repeatedly acted with gross negligence, repeatedly denied appropriate care to his patient … it was Dr Murray’s repeated incompetent and unskilled acts that led to Michael Jackon’s death.” Using a video monitor to present still photographs, charts, extracts from voicemail and other recordings, Walgren walked the jury through Jackson’s final two and a half months. Grim photos of Jackson lying dead in a hospital bed were juxtaposed with a picture of the singer rehearsing the day before his death. In that period, Murray ordered a staggering 15.5 litres of the surgical anaesthetic propofol, the prosecutor said. Walgren alleged that Murray relied on the drug – which Jackson referred to as his “milk” – to get the singer to sleep every night, even though it has no known application as a sleeping aid, and routinely administered it without monitoring equipment to check Jackson’s response. The prosecutor gave a stark narrative of how Murray realised he had lost his patient – apparently while he was on the phone to a cocktail waitress he regarded as his girlfriend – on the morning of 25 June 2009. This was just moments after he emailed an insurance agent for Jackson’s upcoming tour and said that press reports of health problems were entirely “fallacious”. Walgren said Murray did not ask his girlfriend, Sade Anding, to call the emergency services. Nor did he ask Jackson’s personal assistant, Michael Williams, when they spoke about 20 minutes later. Instead, according to the prosecutor, Murray said “Mr Jackson had a bad reaction” and urged Williams to come over to the star’s plush hillside mansion right away. When the paramedics who eventually arrived asked Murray what he had given Jackson, he made no mention of propofol. Nor did he mention it to the emergency room team at UCLA Medical Center where Jackson was pronounced dead shortly after. Only two days after Jackson’s death, according to Walgren, did he acknowledge to the police that he had administered the drug – and then said he had injected just 25mg, diluted with another drug called lidocaine. “The evidence will reveal that much more than 25mg was given to put Michael Jackson to sleep,” Walgren told the jury. Murray, crisply dressed in a white shirt and pale blue tie, showed no reaction as Walgren painted him as a man willing to abandon his medical responsibilities to earn a lucrative $150,000 per month paycheque. He was equally impassive as Walgren characterised his activities in the minutes after realising Jackson was dead as those of a man frantic not to be caught. Also in attendance were Jackson’s parents, Joe and Katherine, and his magician, Majestic Magnificent. Walgren described how Alberto Alvarez, who also worked for Jackson, came into the upstairs bedroom where Jackson’s lifeless body was laid out on the all-white bed covers and saw Murray administering CPR with one hand. Murray, according to Alvarez’s testimony, told him to grab a bag and started filling it with medicine vials and a saline bag which he told Alvarez to get rid of. Alvarez was also struck by the sight of a catheter running out of Jackson’s penis – a urine-collecting device usually used on patients knocked unconscious for major surgery. A jug of urine sat on a chair, and the jacket and trousers Jackson had worn to a rehearsal the night before lay strewn on the floor. Walgren’s opening statement was relatively brief, lasting about an hour and half, and was expected to be followed by the defence. Murray’s lawyers have previously indicated they intend to place much of the blame for the death on Jackson himself, characterising him as a propofol addict whom Murray tried in vain to wean away from the drug. United States Michael Jackson trial California Michael Jackson Andrew Gumbel guardian.co.uk
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‘The L-Word’ actress Leisha Hailey said she kissed her girlfriend – and got escorted off of a flight for doing it. Southwest Airlines said the actress was approached ‘based solely on behavior and not gender.’ (Sept. 27)
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Opening statements have begun in the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, who is accused of killing Michael Jackson with an overdose of the powerful anesthetic propofol. (Sept. 27)
Continue reading …Groupon employees have filed a class action lawsuit against the company claiming unpaid overtime, the second such suit filed against the daily deals website in the past month. This time around, Groupon’s so-called “deal vetters”—a position that no longer exists—say they weren’t paid overtime when working more than…
Continue reading …Here’s one reason why the approval rating for Congress is low: media outlets insisting that anyone standing in the way of providing federal cash to flood victims – regardless of their private insurance policies – are heartless. An AP story by Michael Hill was headlined “The disaster-stricken cluck tongues at Congress.” AP and Hill were clearly too “compassionate” to ask the question whether people who failed to buy flood insurance or other kinds of private insurance get to lecture politicians about hitting up taxpayers for money. Hill savaged Congress by editorializing that victims had “paid perhaps the highest price for politics.” Hill even lined up people who've already taken tens of thousands from the government to bash Congress: On Monday, Congress advanced legislation to assure there would be no interruption in assistance through the new budget year, which begins Saturday. But that didn't do much to appease those who would have paid perhaps the highest price for politics. They're spreading the blame both among Republicans, who want cuts in other government spending, and Democrats, who are accused of using the GOP opposition to win political points. “They aren't looking so much at what is actually needed as what's good for their party, and that to me is wrong, wrong, wrong,” said Lawrence Sayah, a Waterbury resident whose home, ravaged by the floods wrought by the remnants of Hurricane Irene, is still stripped to the studs inside. Sayah already received $18,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, although he and his wife are appealing for more for repairs that will run more than three times that. He worried that an impasse could affect his appeal. Sayah wasn’t the only angry guy who’s already received a check from Washington: “You really wonder, what are they doing down there? What are they thinking?” said Skip Flanders, of Waterbury, who already got a $30,200 FEMA grant for his home. “They've certainly never been through it themselves to see what it's like to have your house and living somewhere else and not knowing how you're going to put it back together.” Didn’t Mr. Sayah or Mr. Flanders have flood insurance to handle this disaster? AP didn’t seem to ask. All the blame is supposed to be on Congress. You can’t blame the victim. But is Congress really doing the victimizing here? It was the same AP line for businessmen: “We're just waiting out Washington to make the move. It's our survival in this little town,” said Bill Briggs, whose factory making baseball bat blanks in upstate New York's Prattsville was destroyed by flooding wreaked by Irene. He was meeting Monday with his insurance man and a structural engineer to decide whether he could rebuild. But in the local media in upstate New York, you can hear a story of being under-insured: ” We're underinsured, like everyone else in town, and all we can do is pray for the best,” said Bill Briggs of Dimensional Hardwood….Briggs says his company has both flood and business insurance, but three weeks after Irene hit and he's still getting the runaround. Briggs said, “This insurance company's from Utah and has claims from South Carolina to Canada. When you call, they give you a number and when your number comes up, that's when they take care of you.” Anyone can sympathize with that. But AP is playing politics with this story just as much as any member of Congress. AP's reporter brought in the local liberal Senator for commentary in paragraph nine: Some Republicans had been pushing for expenses to be offset by cuts elsewhere. Democrats, like Sen. Patrick Leahy, who represent flood-stricken Vermont, countered that the same budgeting standards are not enforced when it comes to Afghanistan and Iraq. “Here you have Americans, and you say you can't help Americans in America with American dollars,” Leahy told The Associated Press. “It's ‘Alice in Wonderland.’” Where were the Republicans in this story? Sen. Mitch McConnell surfaced in paragraph 24 – the story’s very last paragraph. Everyone knows that many newspaper editors might slash the AP story to a smaller size, leaving the Republicans on the editing floor. In today’s Washington Post Express tabloid, the politicians from both sides were edited out, leaving only the victims to bash the “heartless” Congress.
Continue reading …Type: CE Title: AmazonBasics 16 GB Class 4 SDHC Flash Memory Card See all customer reviews Product Description: AmazonBasics SDHC Flash Memory Card series is dedicated to bring quality reliable product at reasonable price. AmazonBasics SDHC card will be a best match with your point and shoot camera or it can be external storage for any compatible digital device. Features: Minimum write speed of 4 MB/s Error Correction(ECC) function Write-protection switch Fully compatible with SD 2.0 Standards Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging See the details
Continue reading …Yesterday she was a ” Satanic she-devil” ; today, Amanda Knox is Jessica Rabbit—according to a defense lawyer. Giulia Bongiorno told the court today that Knox isn’t the “femme fatale” prosecutors are describing, but a loving and faithful woman—like the cartoon character from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? , the AP reports….
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