Anthony Weiner Thinks Partisan SCOTUS Will Strike Down Individual Mandate, Paving the Way for the Public Option
March 24, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I hope Anthony Weiner is right here and that if our overly partisan Supreme Court does strike down the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act that it does lead to the return of the public option. Here’s more from TPM where Weiner expressed some similar sentiments to the ones made here with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. Weiner Says SCOTUS Will Rule Against Health Care Law, Paving Way For Public Option : This is more in the spirit of partypooping than of celebration. But on the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, one of the law’s most dogged defenders, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), admitted he thinks the Supreme Court will strike down the individual mandate. It’s not that he thinks the mandate is unconstitutional, but that the court has become so partisan, that its conservative justices will rule against President Obama in a 5-4 decision. He wasn’t glum about it, though — if the mandate goes he said it will pave the way for Congress to pass the public option. “If lightning strikes, and it turns out that as many of us believe, the Supreme Court turns out to be a third political branch of government and they strike down the mandate — big deal,” Weiner said, expressing a ‘so what?!’ sentiment. “Big deal!” Read on… I think potentially a bigger story our media and our politicians are ignoring is what’s happening in Vermont, where they’re poised to pass a single-payer health care plan for their state. If they can make this work there, you could see it spread to other states and eventually, hopefully, the rest of the country. If memory serves, this is the same type of scenario that brought Canada their health care program. It started in one province and eventually spread to the rest of the country. It’s a huge uphill battle with lots of special interests poised to fight against it, but who knows. Maybe we win one there and move towards not allowing the insurance companies continuing to rob us blind so they can take care of their stock holders and their CEO’s instead of the people they’re supposed to be bringing a service to. Vermont’s Single-Payer Salvation : The Green Mountain State is poised to abolish most forms of private health insurance. Three weeks after the House of Representatives voted to repeal last year’s landmark healthcare reform legislation, and one week after a federal judge ruled the bill’s insurance mandate unconstitutional, Vermont’s leaders decided to take matters into their own hands. On February 8, newly inaugurated Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin unveiled his plan for a publicly funded single-payer healthcare system, which was introduced into the state’s legislature. If enacted, which appears likely, it will be the first system of its kind in the United States and Vermont would become the first state to abolish most forms of private health insurance. “In five years, I predict the United States will go through another major debate of how to reform the healthcare system,” Harvard School of Public Health Professor William Hsiao told the state’s legislators in January, noting his belief that the federal reform legislation passed in March 2010 will not solve the nation’s healthcare crisis. “The question for Vermont is, do you want to walk ahead of the United States? Do you want to be a model for the United States?” Last year, lawmakers passed a bill to hire a team of consultants led by Hsiao—an economist who helped to develop universal healthcare plans in China and reform Medicare and Medicaid in the 1970s—to design a new healthcare system for the Green Mountain State. According to Hsiao’s research, about 32,000 people, or roughly five percent of the state’s population, would still be uninsured after federal reform measures take full effect in 2014. (Fifty seven thousand, or 9 percent, of Vermonters are currently uninsured.) What Hsiao and his team ended up recommending to the state was a single-payer system that would ensure coverage for all residents. An independent public body would oversee the system and contract out administration of all claims. Private insurers could compete for this work, as they have done for years to administer the state’s Medicare program. The bill, currently in committee, would take an estimated three to six years to implement. Read on…
Continue reading …NBC ‘Fact-Check’ Tries Playing Defense For Dem House Candidate, Fails Miserably
March 24, 2011 No CommentWhile NB usually focuses on the national news media, sometimes a local news segment is just so brazenly biased that it merits at least a mention. A local NBC News affiliate in New York decided it would fact-check a National Republican Congressional Committee attack ad aimed at Kathy Hochul, the Democratic candidate for the congressional seat left vacant by former Rep. Chris Lee (R). The segment, which called some NRCC claims “false” and others “misleading,” is such a transparent – and poor – attempt to provide cover for Hochul that Townhall's Guy Benson wondered whether it was ” the worst 'fact check' ever ” (though he decided that honor should go to Politifact ). Check out the ad in question – and NBC2's attempt at rebuttal – below the break. Here is NBC2's fact-check segment: Benson breaks down the segment's “findings”: Wooten says the ad is “false right off the top” because it insinuates Hochul is a Washington Lobbyist. The truth: She was a lobbyist in DC, but isn't any more. Busted! Except…the commercial doesn't say Hochul is an active lobbyist. In fact, it clearly indicates just the opposite. Wooten conveniently clips the footage right before the voiceover explains how the Democrat “learned how to tax and spend as a Washington lobbyist, and she's been taxing and spending ever since.” Based on my rudimentary grasp of the english language, “learned” is in the past tense, and “ever since” generally refers back to a previous incident or action. “As most of us know, Hochul doesn't even live in the nation's capital,” Wooten snidely reports. That's correct, as evidenced by the Buffalo, New York street address depicted in the ad itself. Next, our intrepid truth squad blows the lid off of several additional “misleading at best” claims in the spot. The script “misleads” viewers by suggesting that as a local and county executive, Hochul voted “to raise fees on all kinds of things,” including playing golf and owning a dog. The verdict: It turns out that Hochul did, in fact, vote to raise fees on golfing — but only on public courses. And the vote was unanimous. And (“the kicker”) it was supported by a citizens' group. Busted! Although the NRCC claim may be absolutely true, Wooten admonishes his audience, what drags it into “misleading at best” territory is the omission of some barely germane (at best!) context. What about the “misleading” claim that Hochul raised fees on dog ownership? Lay your righteous truthiness on us, Michael: “Hochul did vote to impose a dog licensing fee in 2004,” but it was required by the state and was lower than a similar fee in a neighboring town. Busted! Thank heavens NBC2 is “on our side.” Without their convoluted “fact check,” I might have come to the conclusion that the candidate had done…precisely what she did. Thank God for the Fourth Estate, huh?
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If this superhero performs badly due to anti-American feeling it will be a pity, because it’s starting to look rather decent There’s nothing like a good comic book origins story to ramp up excitement levels. The moment where Superman first outpaces a speeding train in Richard Donner’s 1978 film; the bit in Spider-Man where Tobey Maguire stands in front of the mirror and flexes his new-found muscles; the segue in Daredevil where Ben Affleck first dons that purple gimp suit (OK, maybe not so much the latter). Superhero stories speak to the child in all of us, the small boy or girl dreaming of growing up to be something bigger and better. The sense of anticipation that adulthood may open up boundless possibilities is at the heart of our fascination with the form. Captain America: The First Avenger, for which the first full trailer dropped this morning, wisely pitches its own moment of metamorphosis. Steve Rogers (a digitally shrunken Chris Evans) is introduced as a scrawny weakling turned down by the US army, before being transformed into the world’s first “super soldier” via a serum developed by German scientist Stanley Tucci (who seems to be channelling Werner Herzog) to help him fight the Nazis. Riffing off the aspects of Captain America’s origins story, which speak to the universal desire within all of us to be special, was always going to be a smart move for Marvel and director Joe Johnston. And yet if the film’s producers hope to really engage worldwide audiences, they are going to need to sidestep something we’ll call the “Captain America problem”. It ought not to be all that difficult. Put simply, it’s the name. Try as one might to ignore it, it hints at the worst reaches of US nationalism, the gung-ho attitude parodied in films such as Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s wonderful Team America . After eight years of Dubya, the world at large is not exactly primed to wrap itself up in the old red, white and blue, and Captain America is even being titled The First Avenger in some territories in an attempt to sidestep anti-US sentiment. Yet it’s worth remembering that historically the character is no rightwing stooge. Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby partly as a polemical device to argue for the US intervention in the second world war at a time prior to Pearl Harbor, when many were arguing that the country should avoid fighting the Nazis. The first instalment even featured Rogers punching Hitler in the face – Quentin Tarantino, eat your heart out. While the 1950s Captain America did briefly get caught up in the anti-communist fervour of the time as “Captain America: Commie Smasher”, Marvel later “ret-conned” the entire period to suggest that an insane imposter had been wearing Rogers’ costume, a move that mimicked America’s own shame over McCarthy-era persecution. Later on, Rogers almost hung up his suit following the Watergate scandals, and, recently, Marvel has been accused of leftwing bias by the likes of Fox News, following an edition of the comic book in which a raging mob were apparently compared to the Tea Party movement . If Johnston is looking to avoid upsetting those with anti-American sentiments, he ought to keep the character’s liberal origins in mind, because nobody wants “Captain America: fuck yeah!” Thanks to the period setting, it should not be too hard to play down his “Americanness” as a product of wartime patriotic fervour, rather than a conduit for the grimmer realms of US nationalism. In many ways, Rogers is more a man of the people than, say, Superman or Batman, because in theory he might easily have been any one of us. Simon and Kirby conceived him as a character who would fight for all those who believe in what is right and true, not just the Sarah Palin brigade. If the movie does end up performing weakly outside the US due to anti-American sensibilities, it might just be a pity, because Johnson’s film is starting to look rather decent. While it’s always hard to judge these things based on a trailer, I’m liking the heavily filtered, stylised look (even if it screams Zack Snyder’s Watchmen ). It used to be that period movies were shot in black and white in an attempt at authenticity: these days it seems that boosting the teal and tan in post-production is the accepted method for convincing us we’ve slipped back in time. Furthermore, who wouldn’t enjoy Tommy Lee Jones’s gruff and grizzled US army officer – the veteran actor doing a far better job of that particular Hollywood cliche than Brad Pitt ever managed in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds . Based on the new trailer, how does Captain America: The First Avenger strike you? And would the name put you off? Action and adventure Comics and graphic novels Ben Child guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …If this superhero performs badly due to anti-American feeling it will be a pity, because it’s starting to look rather decent There’s nothing like a good comic book origins story to ramp up excitement levels. The moment where Superman first outpaces a speeding train in Richard Donner’s 1978 film; the bit in Spider-Man where Tobey Maguire stands in front of the mirror and flexes his new-found muscles; the segue in Daredevil where Ben Affleck first dons that purple gimp suit (OK, maybe not so much the latter). Superhero stories speak to the child in all of us, the small boy or girl dreaming of growing up to be something bigger and better. The sense of anticipation that adulthood may open up boundless possibilities is at the heart of our fascination with the form. Captain America: The First Avenger, for which the first full trailer dropped this morning, wisely pitches its own moment of metamorphosis. Steve Rogers (a digitally shrunken Chris Evans) is introduced as a scrawny weakling turned down by the US army, before being transformed into the world’s first “super soldier” via a serum developed by German scientist Stanley Tucci (who seems to be channelling Werner Herzog) to help him fight the Nazis. Riffing off the aspects of Captain America’s origins story, which speak to the universal desire within all of us to be special, was always going to be a smart move for Marvel and director Joe Johnston. And yet if the film’s producers hope to really engage worldwide audiences, they are going to need to sidestep something we’ll call the “Captain America problem”. It ought not to be all that difficult. Put simply, it’s the name. Try as one might to ignore it, it hints at the worst reaches of US nationalism, the gung-ho attitude parodied in films such as Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s wonderful Team America . After eight years of Dubya, the world at large is not exactly primed to wrap itself up in the old red, white and blue, and Captain America is even being titled The First Avenger in some territories in an attempt to sidestep anti-US sentiment. Yet it’s worth remembering that historically the character is no rightwing stooge. Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby partly as a polemical device to argue for the US intervention in the second world war at a time prior to Pearl Harbor, when many were arguing that the country should avoid fighting the Nazis. The first instalment even featured Rogers punching Hitler in the face – Quentin Tarantino, eat your heart out. While the 1950s Captain America did briefly get caught up in the anti-communist fervour of the time as “Captain America: Commie Smasher”, Marvel later “ret-conned” the entire period to suggest that an insane imposter had been wearing Rogers’ costume, a move that mimicked America’s own shame over McCarthy-era persecution. Later on, Rogers almost hung up his suit following the Watergate scandals, and, recently, Marvel has been accused of leftwing bias by the likes of Fox News, following an edition of the comic book in which a raging mob were apparently compared to the Tea Party movement . If Johnston is looking to avoid upsetting those with anti-American sentiments, he ought to keep the character’s liberal origins in mind, because nobody wants “Captain America: fuck yeah!” Thanks to the period setting, it should not be too hard to play down his “Americanness” as a product of wartime patriotic fervour, rather than a conduit for the grimmer realms of US nationalism. In many ways, Rogers is more a man of the people than, say, Superman or Batman, because in theory he might easily have been any one of us. Simon and Kirby conceived him as a character who would fight for all those who believe in what is right and true, not just the Sarah Palin brigade. If the movie does end up performing weakly outside the US due to anti-American sensibilities, it might just be a pity, because Johnson’s film is starting to look rather decent. While it’s always hard to judge these things based on a trailer, I’m liking the heavily filtered, stylised look (even if it screams Zack Snyder’s Watchmen ). It used to be that period movies were shot in black and white in an attempt at authenticity: these days it seems that boosting the teal and tan in post-production is the accepted method for convincing us we’ve slipped back in time. Furthermore, who wouldn’t enjoy Tommy Lee Jones’s gruff and grizzled US army officer – the veteran actor doing a far better job of that particular Hollywood cliche than Brad Pitt ever managed in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds . Based on the new trailer, how does Captain America: The First Avenger strike you? And would the name put you off? Action and adventure Comics and graphic novels Ben Child guardian.co.uk
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If this superhero performs badly due to anti-American feeling it will be a pity, because it’s starting to look rather decent There’s nothing like a good comic book origins story to ramp up excitement levels. The moment where Superman first outpaces a speeding train in Richard Donner’s 1978 film; the bit in Spider-Man where Tobey Maguire stands in front of the mirror and flexes his new-found muscles; the segue in Daredevil where Ben Affleck first dons that purple gimp suit (OK, maybe not so much the latter). Superhero stories speak to the child in all of us, the small boy or girl dreaming of growing up to be something bigger and better. The sense of anticipation that adulthood may open up boundless possibilities is at the heart of our fascination with the form. Captain America: The First Avenger, for which the first full trailer dropped this morning, wisely pitches its own moment of metamorphosis. Steve Rogers (a digitally shrunken Chris Evans) is introduced as a scrawny weakling turned down by the US army, before being transformed into the world’s first “super soldier” via a serum developed by German scientist Stanley Tucci (who seems to be channelling Werner Herzog) to help him fight the Nazis. Riffing off the aspects of Captain America’s origins story, which speak to the universal desire within all of us to be special, was always going to be a smart move for Marvel and director Joe Johnston. And yet if the film’s producers hope to really engage worldwide audiences, they are going to need to sidestep something we’ll call the “Captain America problem”. It ought not to be all that difficult. Put simply, it’s the name. Try as one might to ignore it, it hints at the worst reaches of US nationalism, the gung-ho attitude parodied in films such as Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s wonderful Team America . After eight years of Dubya, the world at large is not exactly primed to wrap itself up in the old red, white and blue, and Captain America is even being titled The First Avenger in some territories in an attempt to sidestep anti-US sentiment. Yet it’s worth remembering that historically the character is no rightwing stooge. Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby partly as a polemical device to argue for the US intervention in the second world war at a time prior to Pearl Harbor, when many were arguing that the country should avoid fighting the Nazis. The first instalment even featured Rogers punching Hitler in the face – Quentin Tarantino, eat your heart out. While the 1950s Captain America did briefly get caught up in the anti-communist fervour of the time as “Captain America: Commie Smasher”, Marvel later “ret-conned” the entire period to suggest that an insane imposter had been wearing Rogers’ costume, a move that mimicked America’s own shame over McCarthy-era persecution. Later on, Rogers almost hung up his suit following the Watergate scandals, and, recently, Marvel has been accused of leftwing bias by the likes of Fox News, following an edition of the comic book in which a raging mob were apparently compared to the Tea Party movement . If Johnston is looking to avoid upsetting those with anti-American sentiments, he ought to keep the character’s liberal origins in mind, because nobody wants “Captain America: fuck yeah!” Thanks to the period setting, it should not be too hard to play down his “Americanness” as a product of wartime patriotic fervour, rather than a conduit for the grimmer realms of US nationalism. In many ways, Rogers is more a man of the people than, say, Superman or Batman, because in theory he might easily have been any one of us. Simon and Kirby conceived him as a character who would fight for all those who believe in what is right and true, not just the Sarah Palin brigade. If the movie does end up performing weakly outside the US due to anti-American sensibilities, it might just be a pity, because Johnson’s film is starting to look rather decent. While it’s always hard to judge these things based on a trailer, I’m liking the heavily filtered, stylised look (even if it screams Zack Snyder’s Watchmen ). It used to be that period movies were shot in black and white in an attempt at authenticity: these days it seems that boosting the teal and tan in post-production is the accepted method for convincing us we’ve slipped back in time. Furthermore, who wouldn’t enjoy Tommy Lee Jones’s gruff and grizzled US army officer – the veteran actor doing a far better job of that particular Hollywood cliche than Brad Pitt ever managed in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds . Based on the new trailer, how does Captain America: The First Avenger strike you? And would the name put you off? Action and adventure Comics and graphic novels Ben Child guardian.co.uk
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Arianna Huffington to launch UK edition as US news and current affairs website moves to expand internationally Arianna Huffington is to launch a UK edition of the Huffington Post this summer, as the US news and current affairs website recently acquired by AOL moves to expand internationally. The multi-millionaire, who sold Huffington Post to AOL for $315m (£195m) in February , told the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit on Thursday that the takeover meant she could accelerate plans to hire journalists and create a UK-specific site. The British-educated internet entrepreneur said “whenever I am in England I feel like I am home”, adding that she had always planned to expand outside the US, but had been held back by limited internal capital. Huffington Post UK will follow the same model as the US version – hiring a core team of paid writers and editors, while at the same time signing up unpaid bloggers who will have their writings showcased on the site. Huffington Post currently employs 200 writers and journalists. AOL meanwhile is eager to expand its content portfolio internationally. Tim Armstrong, Huffington’s boss and the chief executive of AOL, told the event: “Both companies may be big in the US, but the US only represents 4% of the world’s population.” • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook Huffington Post Digital media Arianna Huffington Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Arianna Huffington to launch UK edition as US news and current affairs website moves to expand internationally Arianna Huffington is to launch a UK edition of the Huffington Post this summer, as the US news and current affairs website recently acquired by AOL moves to expand internationally. The multi-millionaire, who sold Huffington Post to AOL for $315m (£195m) in February , told the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit on Thursday that the takeover meant she could accelerate plans to hire journalists and create a UK-specific site. The British-educated internet entrepreneur said “whenever I am in England I feel like I am home”, adding that she had always planned to expand outside the US, but had been held back by limited internal capital. Huffington Post UK will follow the same model as the US version – hiring a core team of paid writers and editors, while at the same time signing up unpaid bloggers who will have their writings showcased on the site. Huffington Post currently employs 200 writers and journalists. AOL meanwhile is eager to expand its content portfolio internationally. Tim Armstrong, Huffington’s boss and the chief executive of AOL, told the event: “Both companies may be big in the US, but the US only represents 4% of the world’s population.” • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook Huffington Post Digital media Arianna Huffington Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Arianna Huffington to launch UK edition as US news and current affairs website moves to expand internationally Arianna Huffington is to launch a UK edition of the Huffington Post this summer, as the US news and current affairs website recently acquired by AOL moves to expand internationally. The multi-millionaire, who sold Huffington Post to AOL for $315m (£195m) in February , told the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit on Thursday that the takeover meant she could accelerate plans to hire journalists and create a UK-specific site. The British-educated internet entrepreneur said “whenever I am in England I feel like I am home”, adding that she had always planned to expand outside the US, but had been held back by limited internal capital. Huffington Post UK will follow the same model as the US version – hiring a core team of paid writers and editors, while at the same time signing up unpaid bloggers who will have their writings showcased on the site. Huffington Post currently employs 200 writers and journalists. AOL meanwhile is eager to expand its content portfolio internationally. Tim Armstrong, Huffington’s boss and the chief executive of AOL, told the event: “Both companies may be big in the US, but the US only represents 4% of the world’s population.” • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook Huffington Post Digital media Arianna Huffington Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk
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Stone tools have been found in sediments 15,500 years old, before the Clovis people are thought to have arrived in America Humans first arrived in North America more than 2,500 years earlier than previously thought, according to an analysis of ancient stone tools found in Texas. And the people who left them appear to have developed a portable toolkit for killing and preparing meat. Researchers found a haul of thousands of artefacts near the state capital, Austin, some of which were identified as blades and other tools. The material was buried in sediments that are between 13,200 and 15,500 years old. Until now, the oldest evidence for human occupation in North America has come from the Clovis site in New Mexico . Scientists think that these people came to North America around 13,000 years ago by crossing the Bering Land Bridge from northeastern Asia. From there, they are thought to have spread across the northern and southern American continents. There are problems with this story, however. Clovis-like tools, known for their distinctive fluted points, have never been found in northeastern Asia. And stone tools found in Alaska are too young (and too different) to be associated with Clovis. Michael Waters from Texas A&M University led a team of researchers to study the Debra L. Friedkin site in Texas, about 40 miles northwest of Austin. Buried underneath the layer of rock that has been associated with the time period for the Clovis humans, his team found more than 15,000 objects that indicated the presence of an older civilisation. “This discovery challenges us to rethink the early colonisation of the Americas,” said Waters. “There’s no doubt these tools and weapons are human-made and they date to about 15,500 years ago, making them the oldest artefacts found both in Texas and North America.” He added: “This makes the Friedkin site the oldest credible archaeological site in Texas and North America. The site is important to the debate about the timing of the colonisation of the Americas and the origins of Clovis.” The analysis of the artefacts found at the site, which researchers have called the Buttermilk Creek Complex, is published in the latest issue of Science . “Most of these are chipping debris from the making and re-sharpening of tools, but over 50 are tools,” said Waters. “There are bifacial artefacts that tell us they were making projectile points and knives at the site. There are expediently made tools and blades that were used for cutting and scraping.” The researchers think that the tools were made small so they could be used in a mobile toolkit, easily packed up and moved to a new location. Though the tools are noticeably different from the Clovis technology, Waters thinks that they could be related. “This discovery provides ample time for Clovis to develop. People [from the Buttermilk Creek Complex] could have experimented with stone and invented the weapons and tools that we now recognise as Clovis … In short, it is now time to abandon once and for all the ‘Clovis First’ model and develop a new model for the peopling of the Americas.” The stone tools at Buttermilk Creek were dated using an optical technique called luminescence dating , which uses changes in luminescence levels in quartz or feldspar as a clock to pinpoint the time that objects were buried in sediment. “We found Buttermilk Creek to be about 15,500 years ago – a few thousand years before Clovis,” said Steven Forman of the University of Illinois, who is a co-author on the paper. He added that it was the first identification of pre-Clovis stone tool technology in North America. Anthropology Archaeology United States Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
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Made-for-television drama is a ‘violation by the media’, argues US student jailed for the death of Meredith Kercher Amanda Knox, the US student jailed for murdering Meredith Kercher, has appealed to a civil court in Perugia, Italy, to prevent distribution over the internet of a made-for-television film about her case. Knox, who is appealing against her 26-year sentence for stabbing the British student in 2007, told the court she was “devastated by this invasion into my life and the way I’m being exploited”. The film, called Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy, was broadcast by America’s Lifetime network last month and can now be downloaded from the internet. Knox told the judge she had seen a trailer for the film. “I consider it the pinnacle of the repeated violations by the media against my person, my personality and my story,” she said. “It does not correspond with the truth.” After the court hearing on Thursday, Carlo Dalla Vedova, a lawyer representing Knox, called for its removal from the internet, pointing out that one site was now offering the film with Italian subtitles. The case was adjourned to 4 July. As Knox’s appeal against her sentence continues , a team of forensic experts called by the appeal judge has reported that a knife prosecutors believe is the murder weapon bears such a small quantity of DNA that it cannot be retested. A police forensic expert told Knox’s first trial that DNA belonging to Knox was on the knife. “There are no traces of usable DNA and for us that’s a positive thing,” said Luciano Ghirga, a lawyer representing Knox. But Francesco Maresca, a lawyer representing the Kercher family, said the finding was no surprise. “The police scientist said all along the DNA had been consumed during testing and this just confirms that,” he said. Kercher’s torn bra clasp was originally found to contain DNA belonging to Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend, who was sentenced to 25 years for participating in Kercher’s murder at the flat she shared with Knox in Perugia. But the new evidence review found the metal part of the clasp has now rusted and cannot be retested. Amanda Knox Meredith Kercher Crime Italy Europe United States Tom Kington guardian.co.uk
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