CASHING IN ON CHECKING OUT

Pair Wheel Corpse to Store to Cash Check
Jan 8 11:04 PM US/EasternBy MARCUS FRANKLIN Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Two men wheeled a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store and tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested on fraud charges, police said.
David J. Dalaia and James O'Hare pushed Virgilio Cintron's body from the Manhattan apartment that O'Hare and Cintron shared to Pay-O-Matic, about a block away, spokesman Paul Browne said witnesses told police.
"The witnesses saw the two pushing the chair with Cintron flopping from side to side and the two individuals propping him up and keeping him from flopping from side to side," Browne said.
The men left Cintron's body outside the store, went inside and tried to cash his $355 check, Browne said. The store's clerk, who knew Cintron, asked the men where he was, and O'Hare told the clerk they would go and get him, Browne said.
A police detective who was having lunch at a restaurant next to the check-cashing store noticed a crowd forming around Cintron's body, and "it's immediately apparent to him that Cintron is dead," Browne said.
The detective called uniformed New York Police Department officers at a nearby precinct. Emergency medical technicians arrived as O'Hare and Dalaia were preparing to wheel Cintron's body into the check-cashing store, Browne said. Police arrested Dalaia and O'Hare there, he said.
Cintron's body was taken to a hospital morgue. The medical examiner's office told police it appeared Cintron, 66, had died of natural causes within the previous 24 hours, Browne said.
"He was deceased in the apartment when he was removed by these two," Browne said.
Dalaia and O'Hare, both 65, were being held by police and faced check fraud charges, Browne said.
A call to a telephone number listed for Cintron at the apartment he shared with O'Hare went unanswered Tuesday evening. Police said they didn't have an address for Dalaia or attorney information for him or O'Hare.

ANIMAL CRUELTY IN NYC SUBURBS

Dogfighting evidence in NYC suburbs
Bloodied, Injured Pit Bulls in Trash Bin Point to Dogfighting in New York City's Suburbs
JIM FITZGERALD AP News
Jan 09, 2008 03:38 EST

Maybe the dogs had lost a bout before a frenzied crowd in a basement. Maybe they had been used to whet the bloodlust of other dogs. But dead or alive, the two shredded pit bulls were no longer of any use to their owners.
The crippled, bloodied terriers were thrown into a trash bin at a gas station late Saturday or early Sunday and left to die, police said. One survived.

The discovery Sunday by workers at the Yonkers gas station was the latest of several recent signs of dogfighting in Westchester County, just north of New York City.
In October, six scarred dogs trained for fighting were found alive in a Yonkers garage. Two months earlier, five Rottweilers and a pit bull were rescued in Mount Vernon, not long after an injured pit bull was found in a pool of blood on the street.

Experts say the gruesome discoveries reflect the pervasiveness of dogfighting, which has gained attention with the sentencing of suspended NFL quarterback Michael Vick, who was convicted on federal charges of operating a dogfighting ring at his property in rural Virginia. Dogs that did not perform well in test fights were killed by electrocution, drowning, hanging and other means.
"It's everywhere," said Martin Mersereau, spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk, Va. "It's urban, it's rural, it's suburban. As long as there are cowards and there are pit bulls available to them there is going to be a dogfight."

Ken Ross, police chief for the Westchester County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said there likely has not been an increase in dogfighting in the county, but people have become more aware of it because of the Vick case.
Dogfighting is a felony in every state except Wyoming and Idaho, punishable in New York by four years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

Ross said he sees a link between dogfighting and gang activity in Westchester County.
"Sometimes it's just the status thing with gangs, and gangs will battle each other's dogs or two guys meet in somebody's basement to see whose dog is tougher," he said.
The dog that survived the weekend mauling was doing much better Tuesday, responding to intravenous fluids and antibiotics, Ross said.

But he noted that if the animal was trained as a vicious attack dog, it may have to be euthanized as a public safety risk once it recovers.
"You may save the dog," Ross said, "but then you may have to put down the dog."
Source: AP News

NY BIOSENSORS LOW PRIORITY FOR WHITEHOUSE

New York Presses To Deploy More Bioweapons SensorsDHS Priority Is Development Of Next-Generation Devices
By Spencer S. HsuWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, January 9, 2008; A03
NEW YORK -- City officials last month quietly activated some of the nation's newest generation of early warning sensors to detect a biological attack, turning on a limited number of filing-cabinet-size air filters in sensitive, high-volume areas of Manhattan.

But city officials say their effort to expand the program has run into surprising resistance from the White House, which is not widely deploying the machines.
Five years ago, officials here note, the Bush administration was prodding local authorities to move faster to detect the use of biological weapons and pouring billions into biosecurity-related initiatives. New York's leaders now say the administration's enthusiasm and sense of urgency has flagged in its final year in office.

The dispute is partly over whether the new sensors -- each with a $100,000 price tag -- are reliable and affordable enough for widespread deployment. But it is also about whether Washington's early support for such security enhancements has been undermined by distraction and competing budgetary demands.

"We'd like to see a little bit more focus in that area. . . . I think the federal government could do a better job," New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in an interview this week. He was referring to New York City officials' desire for more detectors and enhanced capabilities under a federal government program known as BioWatch, under which air samplers were installed in 2003 in more than 30 major U.S. cities to detect the airborne release of biological warfare agents such as anthrax, plague and smallpox.

BioWatch was meant to speed up the response of health authorities in the critical hours before disease could spread and symptoms appeared in people. More than $400 million has been spent so far, but officials in New York and elsewhere say the older air samplers installed under the program do not work as well as intended.

The older samplers catch airborne particles in filters that are manually collected once a day and taken to a laboratory, requiring up to 30 hours to detect a pathogen. They may not preserve live organisms that scientists use to select treatment options. And the process is cost- and labor-intensive, leading to false alarms, quality-control problems and limits on the system's size, despite an $85 million-a-year national budget.

New York officials say they prefer the newer model activated last month, known as Autonomous Pathogen Detection Systems and developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with federal support. They can automatically sniff the air hourly for a week unattended, identify up to 100 harmful species by using two types of genetic and biochemical reaction tests, preserve live specimens and transmit results immediately to headquarters.

"The whole name of the game with BioWatch is to buy yourself time," said Richard A. Falkenrath, Kelly's deputy commissioner for counterterrorism and a former Bush White House homeland security aide.

The faster authorities can pin down the time of exposure, the more aggressively they can go after perpetrators, treat victims in time to help them and avoid the overwhelming logistical challenge and likely panic of having to distribute vaccines or antibiotics to millions of people. "We won't have to make the worst-case assumption," Falkenrath said.

In New York, which Kelly notes was targeted in both the 2001 World Trade Center and anthrax mailing attacks, authorities believe that model could help investigators pin down the moment a pathogen is released. "We see ourselves in the cross hairs here," Kelly said.
In President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, he cited the early deployment of air samplers as an example of "unprecedented measures to protect our people and defend our homeland." Now Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer and assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security's office of health affairs, said more research and technical improvements are needed before a costly full-scale deployment.

BioWatch backers in New York say they have a sympathetic ear and strong partner in Runge, but that it has been hard to him to obtain the administration's support to move faster. Runge, however, called Kelly's criticism unfounded, given that DHS has paid 90 percent of the cost to install New York's system and all of its operating costs.

Runge said technical challenges remain in ensuring new sensors' accuracy and reducing their size and operating costs. He said DHS plans to begin pilot tests this year of alternative sensors -- which it hopes will be better than those made by Lawrence Livermore -- and to oversee a competition between two private bidders, IQuum and Microfluidic Systems, beginning in 2009. As a result, Runge said, decisions on what and how big a system to deploy will be left to the next administration. "That decision has not been made," he said, "and I won't be around for this decision."

"I don't know what better job Washington can do other than having a multiyear, multimillion-dollar research program in how to get better automated pathogen detection," Runge said. "But what we have to do as a federal government is improve on the technology, to make sure other cities that don't have the billions that New York has can actually afford automated detection."
Some policy experts and members of Congress take an even more skeptical position, questioning the premises of the BioWatch program. Last month, for example, lawmakers set aside $2 million of BioWatch's $77 million operating budget for a "cost-benefit" analysis by the National Academy of Sciences of whether BioWatch's basic strategy -- of detecting the use of bioweapons through technology rather than through careful monitoring of disease patterns -- is flawed.

The study is meant to examine whether it would be better to improve diagnostic tests at traditional medical facilities such as hospitals, expand electronic medical recordkeeping and upgrade data links that enable the government to monitor unusual health and agricultural sector disease patterns.

Tara O'Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, asked Congress in October, "Does it make sense to invest limited biodefense funds in more advanced BioWatch technology even as we cut funds for public health personnel needed to analyze BioWatch data, as we are now doing?"

FUNERAL PHOTO-OP

Thousands of firefighters, Fire Academy recruits and other mourners gathered outside the Church of St. Clare in the Great Kills neighborhood of Staten Island this morning to pay their final respects to Lt. John H. Martinson, who was killed on Thursday as he fought a fire that swept through a 25-story apartment building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Included in the group of mourners were the politicians. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and City Councilwoman, Leticia James. Neither of which knew Martinson personally. It was a grand funeral foto-op for the politicians. Walking slowly past the press camera platform angling for that brief few minutes of face time, they performed. Solemn faced yet exchanging cheek kisses with the firemen, they did what they do best.....show up.

The concept of fireman chic developed shortly after 9-11. It was politically savvy to align oneself with firemen. Prior to the September debacle, the blue collar heroes were dismissed as inconsequential low wage muscle men. Wage increases were in dispute and though always recognized as valuable workers, the level of respect accorded to them by politicos was sorely wanting.

St. Clare's Church was full to capacity today. Many fellow firefighters stood outside by the hundreds.

There were no seats for them. Inside, Christine and Leticia were afforded a ringside seat. And as the choir sang and the family cried, they pondered their political futures.

REPORTER GETS WRITTEN OFF

January 8, 2008

A Philadelphia anchorwoman from Long Island who has been off the air since she was charged with striking a New York City police officer has been fired, the station said yesterday. Lake Grove native Alycia Lane "has been released from her contract, effective immediately," KYW-TV said in a statement the day the telegenic brunette had been due back on air, reports The Associated Press. Lane, a passenger in a taxi involved in a Dec. 16 traffic dispute, is accused of using a sexual slur against a plainclothes female officer and hitting her. Lane, 35, has denied the allegations.

KYW, a CBS affiliate, had Lane start a previously scheduled vacation the day after the incident, a week early, and pulled her from station promotions during her absence. "After assessing the overall impact of a series of incidents resulting from judgments she has made, we have concluded that it would be impossible for Alycia to continue to report the news as she, herself, has become the focus of so many news stories," station president and general manager Michael Colleran said in the statement.

Lane, who joined the station in 2003, reportedly earned $700,000 a year as co-anchor of the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. One of her attorneys, Paul Rosen, accused KYW of violating her contract, which he said had an unspecified number of years remaining. Lane has not been convicted of any crime, he noted. "The termination is unfair because Alycia has never had an opportunity to defend against this charge and tell her side of the story publicly," Rosen said in a statement.

STATEN ISLAND TRAFFIC WOES

Staten Island Dems to call for transportation 'czar'
by Staten Island Advance
Sunday January 06, 2008, 8:04 PM
Massive construction projects on Staten Island and in Brooklyn over the past few months have created transportation nightmares on the Staten Island Expressway, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and the Gowanus Expressway.
If only there was a transportation "czar," who could oversee all the projects on the table, and help coordinate the timing of the work to keep disruptions to a minimum.

That's the proposal Island Democrats will present in Albany this week, as State Sen. Diane Savino and Assemblymen Michael Cusick and Matthew Titone prepare to introduce a bill to establish a city of New York transportation project coordinator.
The coordinator would be responsible for working with liaisons from upstate and Long Island, as well as the city and state Transportation departments, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city's Department of City Planning.
"All you have to do is take a look at what happened on Staten Island this summer and early fall," Ms. Savino (D-Staten Island/Brooklyn) said, pointing to simultaneous work on the Gowanus, the bridge, the toll plaza, and a paving job on the Staten Island Expressway, which created massive traffic jams.

"It's simply common sense that someone will have to look at the projects and determine what will start and when so it will have the least impact on people's lives," Ms. Savino said.
The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council already offers a collaborative planning forum, including members of the region's transportation agencies. But Ms. Savino said her proposal will enable one person nominated by the mayor and appointed by the governor to make decisions.

"We know there are a vast number of projects going on at one time, and we think that if there is one person who organizes and sees and realizes how many projects are going on and how they are interconnected, that things will move smoothly and we won't run into the dilemmas we had during the last couple of months with the renovation of the Verrazano Bridge," said Cusick (D-Mid-Island).

With so many large capital projects planned years in advance, the idea is to take time to arrange the work schedules.
"I'm sure this isn't the first time there have been projects that need to be done by two different agencies that clash and create even bigger problems," said Titone (D-North Shore). "It's a really common sense piece of legislation. It's such a simple solution to a complex problem."
--- Contributed by Maura Yates
See more in News

COMMENTS

POLS SHOULD PAY THEIR BILLS

Source: cops called after Sweeney cab ride

CLIFTON PARK - Former Rep. John Sweeney had another brush with the law recently. Sweeney narrowly avoided being charged with theft of services after refusing to pay a cab fare for a ride from a strip club.
A law enforcement source tells NewsChannel 13 that the former congressman summoned a cab for himself and two friends while at a club in Clifton Park early on the morning of Dec. 27. When the cab arrived, Sweeney wasn't ready to go. So he asked the driver to bring two of his friends home and come back and get him.

The source says Sweeney still wasn't ready to leave when the taxi returned. The driver waited 45 minutes and then Sweeney got in the car and the driver brought him to his Clifton Park home.
The source says Sweeney refused to pay the $80-plus cab fare. The cab company called police. State troopers showed up at the Sweeney home, but he didn't answer the door. The source says troopers called Sweeney's attorney and asked that Sweeney come to the barracks to be formally charged.

However, according to the law enforcement source, Sweeney's family brought payment and "something for the driver" to the cab company. The company then notified state police that they wanted to withdraw the complaint.
This incident follows Sweeney's arrest and conviction for driving while intoxicated on the Northway on Nov. 11, 2007.

Stadium Goes Up, but Bronx Still Seeks Benefits

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

The new Yankee Stadium, with a 2009 target date, is being built near the old one in the Bronx.

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

Published: January 7, 2008

Several years ago, as the Yankees negotiated to build a new stadium in the South Bronx, the neighborhood faced the realities of a massive construction project in its midst: parks would be closed and moved, traffic would be horrendous, life would be, for a while, a hassle.

So, as one way to make up for these inconveniences, the Yankees and elected officials signed a community benefits agreement. It required that the team would give roughly $1.2 million a year, starting when the work began, to various community groups through a special panel. The deal was similar to agreements in other major projects, like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem.

But nearly 17 months after construction began, as workers race to complete the new Yankee Stadium by opening day 2009, none of that money has been distributed, and the group responsible for administering it has never met.

The seven-member panel also has not chosen a permanent chairman, registered as a charity with either the Internal Revenue Service or the state attorney general’s office, or selected recipients for $800,000 in grants or $450,000 in free tickets, merchandise and athletic equipment.

Elected officials have complained that they are in the dark.

“I feel embarrassed because I don’t know anything about what’s going on,” said City Councilman G. Oliver Koppell, who represents the northwest Bronx. Mr. Koppell had suggested that the Bronx council members meet to discuss the agreement. “I was involved when we negotiated it, but I have not been involved since. I urged that we have a Bronx delegation review, but nothing’s happened.”

The Yankees say the community groups will get all of the money that they agreed to give according to the community benefits agreement, or C.B.A., including the first 17 months’ worth, once the panel meets. Alice T. McGillion, a team spokeswoman, said that the money was in an escrow account and that the club was not responsible for the delays.

“Please ask Bronx Boro President’s office about any delays in the fund and advisory panel being set up,” Ms. McGillion wrote by e-mail. “As the CBA specifically states the fund and its establishment is independent from the New York Yankees.”

The Bronx borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., has been “too busy” for the past three weeks to discuss the stadium fund in an interview, said his spokesman, Michael Murphy. Last month, Mr. Carrión announced his candidacy for city comptroller in 2009. But Mr. Murphy wrote in an e-mail message that the process to release the money to community groups was moving along.

“There were many people deciding who would be the most appropriate candidates for the panel,” Mr. Murphy wrote, in explaining the delays. “It took time for people to look at the list and come to a consensus.”

The fund was part of the agreement and was to be established the day stadium construction started, Aug. 17, 2006, and distributed annually through 2046.

The agreements are enforceable by courts, but officials who normally ensure that the terms of a contract are carried out — such as the city comptroller — have no oversight because municipal money is not involved.

The agreement for Yankee Stadium was unusual, however, because it was not negotiated or signed by community members. It carries only the signatures of four elected officials, who said they were acting on behalf of the community, and a representative of the Yankees.

None of the officials who signed the agreement agreed to be interviewed for this article. The signatories were Mr. Carrión; Randy L. Levine, the president of the Yankees; and Bronx City Council members Maria Baez, Joel Rivera and Maria del Carmen Arroyo.

Mr. Murphy referred most questions related to the fund to the Yankees, or to the panel itself, but he would not disclose the names of its members, with the exception of the group’s acting chairman, Serafin U. Mariel.

Mr. Murphy would not say who had selected Mr. Mariel, 64, a Manhattan resident who is the former president and chief executive of New York National Bank.

Mr. Mariel, who, campaign finance records show, has donated to the candidacies of Mr. Carrión in the past, acknowledged that the group was far behind schedule. “It has taken some time to choose the advisory panel, but while some of that time has been lost, I don’t think any of the funding commitment will be lost,” Mr. Mariel said during a telephone interview last month.

“I am in the process now of arranging a meeting of panel members so they can meet each other and establish guidelines,” Mr. Mariel said.

Councilwoman Helen Diane Foster, who represents the High Bridge neighborhood and who opposed the stadium, said she had neither been briefed nor been asked for an opinion on the board. She said she had sent letters requesting information to Mr. Carrión and to council members Ms. Baez and Ms. del Carmen Arroyo without response. “I have no idea how people were selected to the panel,” she said. “It concerns me, but I’m also wise enough to know that a lot of people are hinging careers on how great this deal is, so I’m not surprised we haven’t had this conversation.”

However, Mr. Carrión’s spokesman, Mr. Murphy, said that the borough president was open to discussing the issue with other elected officials. “This process has been participatory since the beginning,” Mr. Murphy wrote via e-mail. “Every Bronx elected official can at any time address his or her concerns directly to the Borough President. He has an open door policy regarding addressing any concerns his colleagues might have.”

Ron Paul TV Ad: Immigration

Ron Paul has joined the anti-immigration movement. For all of the unique and quirky essence he brings to the Presidential race, he falls short on this issue. There is an old Chinese proverb that says, "A man who sits between two stools easily falls." Perhaps Ron should make up his mind where he stands, so that hopeful supporters can stop wasting their money and their energy on his campaign.

Justin Raimondo, editor of AntiWar.com, a blog Paul regularly contributes to, called the ad "disgraceful."

"Rarely has a more ignorant proposal been advanced," he said. "And it is made even worse by the fact that this is Ron Paul we're talking about."

He and other angry fans accused Paul of pandering to the conservative base of the GOP, specifically border-security voters who backed presidential candidate Tom Tancredo before he recently dropped out of the race.

Video Shows O'Reilly Calling Obama Aide SOB and Low Class

Things got a little testy on the campaign trail. Fox's Bill O'Reilly had to "gently" remove a man blocking O'Reilly's camera. According to his version, the man was purposely obstructing the camera's point of view. Could this be the beginning of a grudge match?

ADAM PEARLMAN GADAHN CALLS FOR BUSH DEMISE

Adam Gadahn, formerly known as Adam Pearlman, is up to it again. Blame it on too much California sun or an avocado overdose. Now he is calling upon all good mujahdeen to "take out" President Bush.

American Al Qaeda Leader To Bush: 'We Will Be Waiting For You'
Native Californian Al Qaeda Leader Makes Threats Against Bush Middle East Visit

By MADELEINE SAUERJan. 6, 2008

American Al Qaeda leader Adam Gadahn told his followers to welcome Bush "with bombs and traps" upon his upcoming visit to the Middle East this week.

"The occupied territories are awaiting their first visit by the crusader Bush and the mujahideen are also waiting for him," said Gadahn, a California native and now an Al Qaeda spokesman.
Gadahn is the star of the latest al Qaeda propaganda video to be posted online by the group's media wing, As Sahab.
In his newest dramatic gesture, Gadahn tore up his U.S. passport in protest of the imprisonment of fellow al Qaeda followers Abu Zubaydah, John Walker Lindh and Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman.

"I don't need it to travel anyway," he said afterwards.
Gadahn made reference to November's Annapolis conference of Middle Eastern leaders, saying it was a gathering of Bush's "loyal puppets." He said the United States has been "unmistakably defeated" in Iraq in Afghanistan and has lost the battle for hearts and minds "in spectacular fashion."

"They're about to hand the whole mess over to local proxies who, if they haven't already, shall soon rue the day they sold their souls and religion to the American devil," Gadahn said.
Gadahn also made reference to Pakistan, but didn't mention the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, indicating the video may have been made before her death. Rather, he said Al Qaeda "continues to strike the ruling regime" there as it fights against President Pervez Musharraf's "farce of elections."
American Al Qaeda Leader To Bush: 'We Will Be Waiting For You' 12Next

SUNUNU SAVES BLOOMBITO STAFFER

Sununu saves journalist with Heimlich maneuver
By SCOTT BROOKSNew Hampshire Union Leader Staff

Manchester – When a piece of chicken got stuck in journalist Al Hunt's windpipe Friday night, Sen. John Sununu came to the rescue.
"John was terrific," said Hunt, 65, executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. "He quickly jumped up, put his arms around me, did the (Heimlich) maneuver. Within about two seconds, it came out."

Hunt and Sununu were sitting next to each other Friday night at the Hanover Street Chop House in downtown Manchester. The table was packed with powerbrokers, politicians and prominent journalists, including columnist Bob Novak, New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson and Hunt's wife, Judy Woodruff.
Hunt said he stood up at the table, trying to purge the piece of chicken, when Sununu sprung into action.

"It was really, really quick," Hunt said. "Some people were saying they didn't even know it had happened. But, as I say, he was fabulous."
The incident happened around 9 p.m., Hunt said.
Dinner resumed, he said, and the chewing and chatting continued until well after midnight.

• Debate coverage: Two parties, one night

  
  
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  Newsday coverage Select Candidate ------------ Clinton Obama Edwards Giuliani McCain Romney

"As beautifully presented, as passionately presented as they are, words are not action," Clinton said of Obama's widely praised speaking style. "What we need to do is to turn talk into action and feeling into reality."

Obama, riding a crest of support from young voters, said, "Words do inspire, words do help people get involved ... Don't discount that power."

Clinton sharply criticized Obama's health care plan and accused him of flip-flopping on several campaign promises he made when running for the Senate in 2004, including pledges to vote against the Patriot Act and Iraq War funding.

"Sen. Obama… can have a pretty good debate with himself," said Clinton, whose campaign sent out a flyer Saturday questioning his commitment to abortion rights, citing some of his votes in the Illinois State Senate.

"We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered," she said, adding, "I think I am the agent of change…I embody change. I think having the first woman president is a huge change."

Obama, who took his share of shots at Clinton before his Iowa win, remained composed under her attacks, telling her, "I think it's important what we don't do is to distort each other's records."

John Edwards, buoyed by his second-place Iowa finish, defended Obama as his partner against the Clinton-led "status quo," saying, "I didn't hear these kinds of attacks from Sen. Clinton when she was ahead."

But it was New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the fourth and final candidate invited to the ABC News/Facebook debate, who probably had the best line of the night: "I've been in hostage negotiations that were a lot more civil than this."

When the moderator asked Clinton why many voters perceive her as less likeable than Obama, she joked, "That hurts my feelings, but I'll try to go on… He's very likeable. I don't think I'm that bad."

The Illinois senator chimed in with, "You're likeable enough."

Obama's stunning win in Iowa hasn't apparently translated into a huge bump in the polls comparable to the 17-point rise that buoyed John Kerry when he defeated Howard Dean in 2004. The Illinois Democrat pulled into a 33-percent-to-33 percent tie with Clinton, according to a CNN/WMUR survey taken over the last two days, a modest 3-point increase over a poll taken at the end of December. Clinton lost only a single point, according to the poll, which had a 5-percent margin of error.

Edwards also picked up three points, rising to a strong third place with 20 percent.

Clinton's team engaged in an internal struggle over how and when to go negative on Obama. The campaign shelved plans to air negative TV ads Friday but sent mailed an anti-Obama pamphlet that him for voting "present" -- not yes or no -- on seven bills relating to a woman's right to choose. Obama says he favors abortion rights.

"A woman's right to choose demands a leader who will stand up and protect it," the mailing reads.

Obama says his neutral votes were part of a legislative strategy approved by pro-abortion-rights groups.

Earlier in the day, Obama hosted a morning rally at Nashua North High School that appeared to spell trouble Clinton.

While she was 40 miles away, addressing a crowd of 800 people at Merrimack Valley High School, 2,800 people waited in a line stretching a quarter mile from the school, braving freezing temperatures for as long as two hours.

THE BLUE WALL OF VIOLENCE

The following is an unconfirmed yet interesting story from an NYPD chatroom. It appears that an NYPD officer brought a female prisoner to a corrections facility. When the prisoner was presented to the CO, the CO refused acceptance. Words were exchanged between the NYPD officer and the CO. When the NYPD officer attempted to leave, he was "detained" by the CO.

Sounds like the Blue Wall of Violence not the Blue Wall of Silence. Here are the following two excerpts in police parlance.

Sector team brings in a stinker of a female collar. Jail Guard tells cop we aint taking her she has to go to the hospital. Cop and guard get into some verbal judo cop tries to leave guard tries to lock gate cop pushes it open it swings back and hits guard. Cop now enters another locked area another guard refuses to let him out. Cop calls the cavalry. And before you know it everyone except the janitor are involved. Seabrook and his people are on scene. Cop wants jail guards locked up for false imprisonment jail guard wants cop locked up for assault.

(Next Comment)

The cop never called an 85. He did go over the air and stated he was inside of corrections and the CO's were refusing to let him out. Most of his transmission was garbled. The 5th pct peddler Sgt tried to raise him but got no response. So they responded and called it off soon after they arrived. There are supervisors working at MCB. But it is a big complex and the jail guards werent going to let the cop use their phone.

HOW AMERICA CHOOSES ITS PRESIDENT

Can there be anything more fascinating in politics than the raw democratic process by which America chooses its president?

The Iowa caucus, the first contest for presidential hopefuls, threw up some electrifying surprises yesterday.

Who would have guessed the black Democrat Barack Obama would score a thumping victory in a predominantly white mid-Western state?

Who would have thought Hillary Clinton, favourite for the Democratic nomination, with all her financial backing and the Clinton name, would be beaten into a humiliating third place?

And, in the Republican caucus, who would have predicted Mike Huckabee, the obscure Baptist preacher who believes in creationism and spent little on his campaign, would defeat the multi-millionaire Mormon challenger Mitt Romney, who spent 20 times as much?

Conservative, religious Iowa is not a typical U.S. state and it is unlikely that Huckabee will win the final nomination - the Vietnam veteran John McCain and ex-New York mayor Rudi Giuliani are the favourites. But at least he has a chance.

This is the first time in 80 years that neither the incumbent president or vice president is standing, and only the second time in eight elections that the name Reagan or Bush will not appear on the national ticket. A real sense of change is in the air.

The Democrats are clear favourites. The last three years have been bleak ones in the U.S., leading to a loss of faith in George W Bush and the Neo-Conservative project.

America is fighting an unpopular war on two fronts, with a rising body count and no end in sight, the sub-prime crisis has led to a property crash, the health and pensions systems are crumbling and the economy is on the edge of slump.

But in such a basically conservative country, it would be foolish to rule out a Republican revival, and McCain could still be the dark horse in this race.
For all its faults, America is a rich and vibrant democracy and this is never more evident than at election time. The world needs the U.S. to snap out of its stasis and regain its sense of purpose.

This campaign, which resumes in New Hampshire on Tuesday with all to play for, can be the start of that process.

INTEL FAILS TO DELIVER THE GOODS

A program that could have made a significant difference to poor children around the world has called it quits. After much fan fare and free publicity, Intel has backed out of it's much touted "one laptop per child" program. One can only wonder where the fault lies. One should also wonder if they were sincere from the beginning. In an effort that could have bridged a gap between enlightenment and anti-Americanism, once again, a US corporation has failed.

Intel quits One Laptop Per Child program
By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer Fri Jan 4, 12:59 AM ET
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Citing disagreements with the organization, Intel Corp. said Thursday it has abandoned the One Laptop Per Child program, dealing a big blow to the ambitious project seeking to bring millions of low-cost laptops to children in developing countries.

The fallout ends a long-simmering spat that began even before the Santa Clara-based chipmaker joined the OLPC board in July, agreeing to contribute money and technical expertise. It also comes only a few days before the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where a prototype of an OLPC-designed laptop using an Intel chip was slated to debut.
Intel decided to quit the nonprofit project and the OLPC board because the two reached a "philosophical impasse," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said. Meanwhile, Intel will continue with its own inexpensive laptop design called the Classmate, which it is marketing in some of the same emerging markets OLPC has targeted.

Both sides shared the objective of providing children around the world with the use of new technology, "but OLPC had asked Intel to end our support for non-OLPC platforms, including the Classmate PC, and to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively," Mulloy said. "At the end of the day, we decided we couldn't accommodate that request."
A spokesman for OLPC did not immediately return a request for comment.

The One Laptop program was founded in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte, former Media Lab director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original concept was to offer a "$100 laptop," but the green-and-white low-power "XO" computer now costs $188. It runs on a Linux operating system and a chip made by Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Negroponte told The Associated Press last fall that until OLPC had a machine using an Intel chip, he could understand why Intel wouldn't want to push an AMD machine to customers.
Mulloy said the use of AMD chips in the OLPC machines had nothing to do with Intel's decision to withdraw.
Intel believed all along that there is a need for multiple alternatives to meet the needs of children in poor countries, he said.
"It's unfortunate this happened, but at some point, you have to make a tough decision," he said.

TRANSCENDING COLOR

Obama Shows Black Candidate Can Win

Jan 3 11:09 PM US/EasternBy NEDRA PICKLERAssociated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama has put to rest the question of whether a black presidential candidate can win in white America.
His victory in 95 percent white Iowa proved that he could appeal across racial lines and even draw women away from Hillary Rodham Clinton despite her push for them to make her the first female president. Next he'll try to build on his record in New Hampshire, which is 96 percent white.
Obama did not appeal so openly to make history as the first black to occupy the Oval Office; he rarely mentioned that he was black.

"You've got to have hope if you are a black man named Obama running for the presidency of the United States of America," Obama said during a late-night campaign stop two days before the caucus. It was one of his rare mentions of what he had to overcome.
Obama's candidacy has been dogged by questions about whether he'd be electable against a Republican. Pressed on that during a campaign stop in New Hampshire over the summer, Obama said his race would be an asset because it would bring blacks to the polls in record numbers and give the Democrats victories in Southern states that have been voting Republican for decades.

"I'm probably the only candidate who, having won the nomination, can actually redraw the political map," Obama said at the time. "I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I'm the nominee, goes up 30 percent around the country, minimum. Young people's percentage of the vote goes up 25-30 percent. So we're in a position to put states in play that haven't been in play since LBJ."

Lyndon Baines Johnson ran for president in 1964 and won in a landslide. But since then the South has turned into a Republican stronghold.
Obama's prediction about black voter turnout can't be tested in Iowa or New Hampshire, but young voters did come to the polls in larger numbers.
Nearly a quarter of Democratic caucus-goers interviewed in the entrance poll were under 30 years old, a jump from 2004. Obama got 57 percent of the vote from the under-30 crowd, compared with just 14 percent for 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards and 11 percent for Clinton.

Twenty-eight percent of Obama's support came from the under-30 set, according to a survey of voters entering the caucuses by The Associated Press and the television networks.
Obama also won the greatest percentages of independents, first-time caucus-goers, self-identified liberals and, most troubling for Clinton, women. Obama got 35 percent of women voters, compared to 30 percent for Clinton and 23 percent for Edwards. This despite the fact that Clinton focused her campaign on bringing fellow women to the polls.

Democratic consultant Jamal Simmons said Obama's victory "proves that America is changing when it comes to race and politics."
"Winning in Iowa is not winning the nomination, but is very significant," Simmons said. "Tonight Barack Obama has made it more true that every black child in America can do whatever they want to if they work hard for it—really."
___

MR. 9-11 FLAILS AND TRAILS

Rudy Suddenly Taking N.H. Seriously
Tom Edsall reports:
With his "late state strategy" slowly imploding, Rudy Giuliani now plans to campaign full-time from this Friday through next Tuesday's primary in a last ditch drive for a face-saving showing in New Hampshire, where his chances of winning have inexorably eroded over the past four months. . . .

"There is one very good word to describe Rudy's 'late state' strategy," Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who is not affiliated with any presidential campaign, told the Huffington Post: "Implausible." Another unaffiliated GOP pollster, Neil Newhouse, gave HuffPost his own view of Giuliani's current status: "Almost an afterthought."

John Weaver, the Texan who was chief strategist for John McCain, but who is now is not working for any candidate, compared Giuliani's strategy to that of Union Civil War General George McClellan: "McClellan, a lot of song and dance, beautiful parades and bold strategies. But at the end of the day. it never amounted to anything."
--David Kurtz

BULBS CAUSE "MIGREEN" HEADACHE

Energy-Saving Bulbs Causing Migraine Headaches
Posted Jan 2nd 2008 10:08AM by Tim StevensFiled under: Green Tech

Compact fluorescent bulbs, the twisted looking replacement lights that use as little as one fourth the power of their common incandescent counterparts (and last much longer), are being adopted worldwide in an effort to reduce energy consumption. They are even becoming mandatory in some countries -- a little troubling according to the Daily Mail, which reports that health experts in the U.K. say the green bulbs can cause migraine headaches or other disconcerting symptoms in many people.

The bulbs work in the same way as the long, traditional fluorescent tube lights seen in many commercial establishments. This means that they can produce light that subtly flickers, unnoticeable by many, but a big problem for others, especially epileptics, who can suffer from seizures under fluorescent bulbs. According the U.K.'s Migraine Action Association and other health organizations, the lights also cause headaches, as well as nausea, dizziness, and even physical pain for those suffering with lupus, according to the study.In both the United States and the United Kingdom, traditional incandescent bulbs are set to be completely phased out by 2012.

Surely those with medical conditions can be given exemptions easily enough, but if they can't simply walk into a store and buy a traditional bulb, just how many companies will continue manufacturing them and how much will they cost? Will traditional bulb clubs be the marijuana-buying clubs of the 21st century?Such recent health concerns around energy-saving fluorescent bulbs might be another reason to push research into production of LED-based lighting options, which are even more efficient than CFL lighting, and even more durable, with a single bulb potentially never burning out. Such LED-based bulbs are available now, but at per-bulb costs that dwarf those of the relatively expensive CFL bulbs.

NEW JERSEY CONSIDERS AN APOLOGY

US state of New Jersey mulls slavery apology
Published: Wednesday January 2, 2008

The US state of New Jersey is to weigh apologizing for its role in the slave trade, under a bill to be considered by lawmakers Thursday, more than 200 years after the state abolished the practice.
If approved, the bill would make New Jersey the fifth US state to issue such an apology but the first among the northern anti-slavery states that formed the Union side in the US civil war from 1861-1865.

The text of the bill "expresses New Jersey's profound regret for its role in slavery and apologizes for wrongs inflicted by slavery and its after effects in the United States."
The "slave states" of Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia apologized last year for their slave-trading past. Maryland, however, fought on the northern side in the war.

New Jersey became the last northern state to abolish slavery in 1804, but the gradual law meant that the practice was not completely eradicated there until 1846, while slavery was not officially abolished nationwide until 1865.
Former president Bill Clinton expressed his "regrets" over the US role in the slave trade and President George W. Bush described it as "one of the greatest crimes of history," but there has never been an official US government apology.

ANOTHER YEAR WITHOUT A HOME

One man's struggle to survive on Broadway (The Riverdale Press)
Chances are you have seen Kenneth Porter ambling along Broadway. You may have given him some spare change from your pocket or - more likely - averted your eyes to the ground, picked up your pace and pretended you didn't hear his pleas.
Maybe you didn't notice him at all.
But he's there. Every day.

"I've been here for 10 years, everybody knows me up and down this bad boy," Mr. Porter said on a recent chilly afternoon outside Riverdale Market, just north of the West 242nd Street subway stop. He refuses to go elsewhere. "I don't know if there is a place better than Riverdale … can't be. I don't know, at least I ain't seen none."
Mr. Porter doesn't have an official residence, but Broadway is his home - more specifically the sidewalks outside Riverdale Market and the Short Stop Café, under the elevated train tracks, where he begs for change and food.

Although he was reluctant to speak of his past, the 54-year-old did say he was once employed as a factory worker at Phillip Morris in Richmond, Va., where he grew up.
At the age of 26, he suffered a stroke, which left him partially disabled. He walks with a slight limp, and he said he's unable to write well. His speech is also a little slurred.
"I can't run and I can't do the normal things that kids can do like run because I had the stroke," he said.

The tall, bearded man, who wears a black coat he received from the 50th Precinct, spends most of his day alone. At night, he opts to sleep on the subway. He shuns homeless shelters.
"The shelter keeps you cooped up. You get your curfew, you got to be in at 10 o'clock like you're a little kid. I ain't set for that," he said. "Cause when you were small your mom, your parents tell you gotta do this, you gotta do that. Okay, but now you're grown you don't need no curfew to tell you when to come in or whenever."

While some may see his life as a struggle, Mr. Porter said he is grateful for each day.
"Thank God I get up in the morning to see another day cause most people don't see another day," he said. "…He could have taken me when I was a little kid, he could have snapped my life away. He let me [stay] this far. Hopefully he let me [stay] a little further."

NO PRESS CARD FOR BLOGGER

Saudis Confirm Detention of BloggerNew York Times ^ 1/2/2007 KATHERINE ZOEPF
Posted on 01/01/2008 9:27:52 PM PST by ricks_place
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — An outspoken Saudi blogger is being held for “purposes of interrogation,” the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday.
Gen. Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman reached by telephone, said the blogger, Fouah al-Farhan, was “being questioned about specific violations of nonsecurity laws.” Mr. Farhan’s blog, which discusses social issues, had become one of the most widely read in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Farhan, 32, of Jidda, was arrested Dec. 10 at his office, local news sources reported. Two weeks before his arrest, he wrote a letter to friends warning them that it was imminent.
“I was told that there is an official order from a high-ranking official in the Ministry of the Interior to investigate me,” read the letter, which is now posted in English and Arabic on Mr. Farhan’s blog.

Since his arrest, friends have continued to post entries on his Web log (www.alfarhan.org) on his behalf under a banner that reads “Free Fouad” and features his picture.
“The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia, and they think I’m running an online campaign promoting their issue,” the letter continued, saying that Mr. Farhan had been asked to sign a statement of apology.

“I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that,” he wrote. “An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is a liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?”
Ahmad al-Omran, a blogger and a friend of Mr. Farhan, said that Mr. Farhan had been the first Saudi blogger to be detained by state security. The arrest created widespread anxiety among other Saudi bloggers and advocates, he said.
“An incident like this has its effect,” Mr. Omran said by telephone.

BUYER BEWARE OF FIRE

E-MAIL ARTICLE
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E-MAIL ALERTS
More counterfeit extension cords found
By SARAH NETTERTHE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: December 30, 2007)
County inspectors have found more dangerous counterfeit extension cords for sale at Rockland discount stores one week after Spring Valley's fire inspector made the initial discovery of cords with fake safety certification labels.
After learning of Harry Oster's findings in Spring Valley, the county's Office of Consumer Protection sent four inspectors out Friday to begin canvassing Rockland's dollar and discount stores.

They were looking for extension cords with counterfeit UL labels, with "UL" referring to Underwriters Laboratories, which inspects electrical items before they are sold.
The cords Oster found were 6- and 15-foot cords that were labeled as made in China.
Terry Grosselfinger, director of Rockland's Office of Consumer Protection, said the inspectors would look at about two dozen stores and put any suspicious cords "off-sale" until they were either deemed safe or counterfeit. The sweep of the county was expected to take until midweek, he said.

Joan O'Keefe, deputy director of the Office of Consumer Protection, said inspectors found two stores Friday that had cords suspected of being counterfeit. Both were dollar stores, one in West Nyack and one in Spring Valley.
Gordon Wren, the county's fire coordinator, said the fake cords are a significant fire hazard, because they cannot handle the electricity needed for common uses.
"If you don't have the proper capacity ... they'll heat up," he said.
The cheap extension cords, he said, have far less copper to carry the electricity than standard cords.

"They're really, really dangerous," he said.
Wren's office is assisting the Office of Consumer Protection in identifying the counterfeit extension cords. Wren said his office is also in contact with UL and the National Fire Protection Association, which sets standards for fire safety.
Shopping Friday at the Valley Cottage Dollar Tree, Mindy Scher of Nanuet said she had heard about the counterfeit cords, and she wouldn't buy extension cords from a dollar store anyway.
"I know that they aren't safe," she said. "Why take a chance?"
But dollar stores are great, she said, pointing to her cart, which held snacks and trinkets for her grandchildren.

A manager at Dollar Tree said the store did not carry extension cords.
Legislator Ed Day, R-New City, said the news about fake cords hit a nerve with him, because it's not easy to tell the counterfeit versions from certified cords.
"The average person is not going to know," he said.
Day called Grosselfinger shortly after it was reported that Oster had found counterfeit cords. Day said Friday that he was impressed the Office of Consumer Protection was out doing inspections so quickly.

Gary Brown, director of the Westchester County Office of Consumer Protection, said Friday that the discovery of the Spring Valley cords led his office to do a similar inspection, which turned up suspect cords in a Port Chester store.
There have been no complaints about counterfeit extension cords in Putnam County.
Staff writer Nancy Cutler contributed to this report.

THE PAIN OF BEING BLACK

ER docs give whites narcotics more often
Whites More Likely Than Minorities to Get Narcotics From ER Doctors, Study Finds
CARLA K. JOHNSONAP News
Jan 01, 2008 17:53 EST

Emergency room doctors are prescribing strong narcotics more often to patients who complain of pain, but minorities are less likely to get them than whites, a new study finds. Even for the severe pain of kidney stones, minorities were prescribed narcotics such as oxycodone and morphine less frequently than whites.
The analysis of more than 150,000 emergency room visits over 13 years found differences in prescribing by race in both urban and rural hospitals, in all U.S. regions and for every type of pain.

"The gaps between whites and nonwhites have not appeared to close at all," said study co-author Dr. Mark Pletcher of the University of California, San Francisco.
The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Prescribing narcotics for pain in emergency rooms rose during the study, from 23 percent of those complaining of pain in 1993 to 37 percent in 2005.

The increase coincided with changing attitudes among doctors who now regard pain management as a key to healing. Doctors in accredited hospitals must ask patients about pain, just as they monitor vital signs such as temperature and pulse.
Even with the increase, the racial gap endured. Linda Simoni-Wastila of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Pharmacy said the race gap finding may reveal some doctors' suspicions that minority patients could be drug abusers lying about pain to get narcotics.
The irony, she said, is that blacks are the least likely group to abuse prescription drugs. Hispanics are becoming as likely as whites to abuse prescription opioids and stimulants, according to her research. She was not involved in the current study.

The study's authors said doctors may be less likely to see signs of painkiller abuse in white patients, or they may be undertreating pain in minority patients.
Patient behavior may play a role, Pletcher said. Minority patients "may be less likely to keep complaining about their pain or feel they deserve good pain control," he said.
Stricter protocols for prescribing narcotics may help close the gap.

A New York hospital recently studied its emergency patients and found no racial disparity in narcotics prescribed for broken bones. Montefiore Medical Center aggressively treats pain and is developing protocols for painkillers that dictate initial dosages and times to check with patients to see if they need more pain medicine, said Dr. David Esses, emergency department associate director at Montefiore.

Such standards may eliminate racial disparities, Esses said.
In the study, opioid narcotics were prescribed in 31 percent of the pain-related visits involving whites, 28 percent for Asians, 24 percent for Hispanics and 23 percent for blacks.
Minorities were slightly more likely than whites to get aspirin, ibuprofen and similar drugs for pain.

In more than 2,000 visits for kidney stones, whites got narcotics 72 percent of the time, Hispanics 68 percent, Asians 67 percent and blacks 56 percent.
The data came from a well-regarded government survey that collects information on emergency room visits for four weeks each year from 500 U.S. hospitals. The new study was funded by federal grants.

"It's time to move past describing disparities and work on narrowing them," said Dr. Thomas L. Fisher, an emergency room doctor at the University of Chicago Medical Center who was not involved in the study.
Fisher, who is black, said he is not immune to letting subconscious assumptions inappropriately influence his work as a doctor.
"If anybody argues they have no social biases that sway clinical practice, they have not been thoughtful about the issue or they're not being honest with themselves," he said.
___

WALSHIN FLED MEXICO ACCORDING TO ISRAELI CONSUL

Backpacker Mysteriously Vanishes in Mexico
By Marc PerelmanWed. Dec 26, 2007 (The Jewish Daily Forward)
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Dana Rishpy has vanished. The 24-year-old Israeli was last seen at a beach party in Tulum, Mexico, nine months ago. Dania, her mother, still hopes her child will return to the family’s home in Haifa. Dror, her father, thinks that the only place he will see his youngest daughter is in a video clip she recorded shortly before disappearing. Israeli officials involved in the case reluctantly agree with Dror, believing that Dana was likely murdered.

Answers have been hard to come by in this case. The Mexican federal authorities took the unusual step of opening their own probe a few weeks ago, but only after months of complaints from the Rishpy family about the investigation conducted by the authorities in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, along with a damning exposé of the case in a leading Mexican paper and a direct appeal by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai to Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon.
“We got the full cooperation of the local authorities but no result, so we asked the federal authorities to step in,” said Itzhak Erez, a consul at the Israeli embassy in Mexico City. “It’s an especially difficult case because there is no evidence, no body and, as a result, no crime according to Mexican law.”

Erez added that Israel’s attorney general had opened his own probe in June and had asked for assistance from the Mexican federal authorities and the U.S. Justice Department.
Dania Rishpy places little hope in the latest Mexican gestures, given that the man whom the Israeli consulate and the Rishpy family wants for questioning — an American who was last seen with Dana — has never been interrogated by the Mexican authorities and has left the country and now lives in the United States.

Dana Rishpy grew up in a well-heeled Haifa family with three older siblings. Her father was an El Al pilot who worked for the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin during the 1960s.
After her army service Rishpy toyed with a number of artistic careers; during one stint, she helped dub children’s cartoons from Japan. Before flying to Cancun in March of this year, she had been in California, looking at potential schools where she could study computer animation.
Two days after arriving in Mexico, on March 26, Rishpy sent an e-mail to her family, saying she had met foreign tourists and was planning to take a boat trip to a nearby island. This would be her last communication with them.

The next time Dania and Dror Rishpy heard about Dana was April 7, when the phone rang at the Manhattan apartment where they live for a few weeks a year.
Dania says she answered and a man who identified himself as “Mati” told her that Dana had left her backpack with him. Dania told him to leave her daughter’s belongings at the reception of the hotel with a note for her. She then wrote her daughter an e-mail urging her to get in touch and passing on the message that Mati had called and left her bag at the hotel lobby.

After several follow-up e-mails went unanswered, Dania went into Dana’s e-mail account and saw that she had not used it in two weeks. She also came across an e-mail from “flower power.” The author was Mati, and the e-mail was sent a few hours after he had called the Rishpys in New York. In the e-mail, Mati informed Dana that he was leaving and that he had left her bags at the hotel.

The Rishpys now believe that Mati’s phone call and e-mail from April 7 were meant to serve as an alibi for Mati, whose real name, according to the Israeli consul, is Matthew Walshin. But at the time, they saw him as a helpful hand and wrote back, urging him to get in touch. He answered by e-mail that he had not heard from Dana since March 31, when she told him she was going to visit the Mayan ruins of Tulum, possibly with some young people from Quebec. The parents then asked him for the name and location of the bungalow where Dana had stayed. His April 21 answer was the last contact the Rishpys had with him.

The parents eventually called the local Mexican police, who found the hotel and Dana’s backpack April 24 with her belongings, her money and her passport. They also found her diary. The last entry was dated March 30. Dana wrote in Hebrew that she had come back to Tulum from the island with two Swiss and an American. The American, who she identified as Mati, offered to share his cabin.

“I do not know his intentions but I don’t want anything to do with him, at least until he takes a bath and cuts his hair. He seems friendly but he stinks…. What a good fortune to meet a guy like Mati, who knows this place,” she wrote. That night, she went with him to a party organized every Friday on the beach of the Mezzanine hotel in Tulum, the family determined.

It was after Dana’s backpack turned up that the Rishpys contacted Erez, who immediately flew to the area and organized a search with Israeli volunteers. On April 26, the volunteers located Walshin’s apartment. He had left a few hours earlier, taking a flight to San Francisco via Phoenix, according to Erez.
“We found his Californian driver’s license, a newspaper dated from the day before, so we know he had just left in a hurry,” Erez said.
Dana’s older brother had flown to Mexico from Spain to help in the investigation, and was told by several witnesses that Dana had left the party with Walshin. The family and the Israeli diplomats soon came to the conclusion that the investigation had been poorly handled: Evidence was not properly collected and witnesses not thoroughly questioned. In June and in October, the local district attorney, Melchor Bello Rodriguez, announced that the police had found witnesses in Belize and in Guatemala who had identified Dana and Walshin in a photograph. He declared the investigation closed.

The case was given a jolt in October, when journalist Sylvia Cherem published a six-part investigation in the Mexican newspaper La Reforma denouncing the work of the Quintana Roo authorities. Cherem posited that the negligence was due to their eagerness to protect the booming tourism business in the Cancun region.

According to Cherem, the Mexican police file contains statements about Walshin’s previous run-ins with the law. Cherem reported that a file from the international police agency, Interpol, mentions that Walshin had been convicted in California of sexual battery in 1990, serving six months in jail and five years of probation. This allegation was confirmed by Erez but could not be verified independently with the authorities of Santa Cruz County, where the incident allegedly took place.

The series in La Reforma and the pressure from the Israeli government were met by an announcement that the Mexican federal government was opening its own probe into the case.
While the Mexico investigation has dragged on, the Rishpys decided to hire a private investigator, a former San Francisco detective.

In mid-September, the detective confronted Walshin on the street in El Cerrito, a town near Berkeley, Calif. The detective told the Mexican press that he ended up in a brawl during which Walshin told him that he would never find the “girl in Mexico.” Walshin ended up spending the night in jail and was released the following day, according to police documents.
The detective, who does not work for the Rishpy family anymore, declined comment, stating that it could disrupt ongoing efforts to investigate the case.

While Walshin could not be located by the Forward, a defense of his actions has cropped up in the form of a series of anonymous comments on an English-language blog, Your Free Press, which has translated the Mexican articles. The comments argue that Walshin had helped the family by calling the parents and that he left the area because he did not trust the Mexican police. Another comment, dated October 31, claims that Rishpy had left the Mezzanine party not with Walshin but with two French Canadians. This was the second time French Canadians were mentioned, the other one being Walshin’s e-mail to Rishpy’s parents in which he said Dana went to the Tulum ruins with people from Quebec the day after the party.

Dania Rishpy has only one message for Walshin: “If you are innocent, why don’t you just tell us what you know? Why don’t you help us find our daughter?”
Both Cherem and Erez believe that the most likely scenario is that Dana was killed and the killer hid her body.

Dania says she imagines new scenarios every day. “My husband is not [an] optimist, but I still am,” she said. “I still see her coming through the door one day.”
Wed. Dec 26, 2007