UPDATE: The FBI said the missing person was NOT the missing child..
DNA tests indicate that the young man, who identified himself to authorities in Campbell County, Kentucky, on Wednesday morning, is not the boy from Aurora, Illinois, who disappeared at age 6.
His real name is Brian Michael Rini, 23, of Medina, Ohio, an official with the Newport Police Department in Kentucky told NBC News.
"Although we are disappointed that this turned out to be a hoax, we remain diligent in our search for Timmothy, as our missing person's case remains unsolved," officials with the Aurora Police Department said.
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ORIGINAL POST
Teen found wandering in Kentucky says he’s boy who went missing 7 years ago
His name was Timmothy Pitzen.. after being taken out of school in 2011 to go on a trip, she was found dead no a hotel with a suicide note saying Timmothy was safe and “you will never find him.”
Fast forward to today:
People who talked to him before police arrived said he was anxious and pleaded for help.
“He walked up to my car and he went, ‘Can you help me?’” a 911 caller told dispatchers, according to the affiliate. “'I just want to get home. Please help me.’ I asked him what’s going on, and he tells me he’s been kidnapped and he’s been traded through all these people and he just wanted to go home.”
It was unclear what city he’d escaped from before arriving in Newport. Police agencies in the area checked nearby Red Roof Inn hotels and did not find anything, according to the report.
In a Facebook post, the Sharonville Police Department near Cincinnati said it helped check local hotels for the suspects, but its officers had no contact with Timmothy.
DEVELOPING
Social media photos showing Miley Cyrus posing in a Joshua tree have drawn criticism from people concerned about protecting the iconic desert species.
The photos posted this week on Instagramwere captioned “Looking down at all the petty drama like….” and “Monkey Bizzzzznassssss” but gave no specific location.
The Desert Sun newspaper reported other photos posted in the past two weeks appear to show the singer near electricity-producing windmills in the Palm Springs area of California.
The Joshua Tree is a protected species and also a symbol and important part of the Mojave Desert ecosystem..
Her semi-erotic post on the tree has spiked the ire of some who take offense to things online...
Britney Spears is getting public support from some of those closest to her after TMZ reported that the singer has checked herself into a mental health facility..
MORE..
The singer had already put her Las Vegas residency on hold to care for her ailing father, whose colon abruptly ruptured late last year. Now, TMZ reports that despite two surgeries to attempt to correct his system, Jamie Spears continues to suffer complications.
From the gossip rags in FTP style, Spears is having issues dealing with her father’s impending death and intends on spending 30 days in the facility..
SPEARS has been the subject of public scorn and humiliation since her debut onto the music scene.. And sadly it takes a toll on celebrities..
AT this point, while people will not, they should let her be.. Permitted to go about the business of mentally preparing herself to accept her family crisis ...allowing her to recover...
Fame kills..
Fame taunts..
And fan bases dry up.
As plans for Bell’s memorial bench circulated within the late-night, UFO, and paranormal community, other Art Bell fans, who have not been pleased with, nor supportive of the manner in which his Midnight In The Desert Radio Show was handled after he died, felt the names on the plaque would dishonor Bell’s memory, and most of all, upset his widow and their children.
Contacts were made to the Nye County Licensing Department, acknowledging procedures which had been followed by the FaceBook group, and subsequent approval of their request to have the bench erected. When asked if approval for erecting Mr Bell’s memorial bench had been rescinded in any way, the response was negative. A person from Nye County who could speak on this subject stated to the SOR News Wire, ”Approval has not been rescinded; however, I have contacted a close family friend, and the family themselves, in an effort to make sure their wishes are respected. The County will not place a memorial with any one group named as a contributor (aside from itself).”
Nye County is hoping to have the bench erected with an approved plaque by the first anniversary of Art Bell’s death. But it appears the Heather Wade FaceBook group’s name will not be placed on the plaque as a contributor. The county believes the bench will be a fitting memorial for their world wide celebrity who impacted late night radio into millions of fans and listeners.
STORM GIFFORD IN THE NY DAILY NEWS:
Paleontologists in North Dakota has uncovered an incredible stash of fossils that was formed instantaneously after an asteroid struck Earth nearly 66 million years ago.
Excavations revealed in amazing detail fossils of fish and other animals unable to escape the glassy fragments that plummeted from the sky caused by the thunderous impact that obliterated the dinosaurs.
The deposits also contain water, indicating a mammoth sea surge that the collision created.
University of Kansas paleontologist Robert DePalma and colleagues said the excavation site, called Tanis, offered a momentous peek into events that occurred minutes after the asteroid crashed into the planet.
“This is the first mass death assemblage of large organisms anyone has found associated with (the end of the Cretaceous Period),” said DePalma. “At no other (time) on Earth can you find such a collection consisting of a large number of species representing different ages of organisms and different stages of life, all of which died at the same time, on the same day.”
The impact is understood to have generated a huge tsunami, it would have taken many hours for this wave to travel the distance from the Gulf to North Dakota, despite the likely presence back then of a seaway cutting directly across the North American land mass..
Instead, the researchers believe local water could have been displaced much more quickly by the seismic shockwave - equivalent to a Magnitude 10 or 11 earthquake - that would have rippled around the Earth. It is a type of surge described as a seiche, which would have picked up everything in its path and dumped it into the jumbled collection of specimens now being reported by the team.
“A tangled mass of freshwater fish, terrestrial vertebrates, trees, branches, logs, marine ammonites and other marine creatures was all packed into this layer by the inland-directed surge,” said Mr DePalma.
“A tsunami would have taken at least 17 or more hours to reach the site from the crater, but seismic waves - and a subsequent surge - would have reached it in tens of minutes,” he added.
One explosion was even caught on a doorbell camera. The noises are loud enough to set off car alarms and wake people from their sleep.
“It rattles the windows, it sounds like a firework going off in my backyard,” said Dallis Stumpf.
The sounds are especially startling to those who have kids.
“She’s two-years-old and she comes out, ‘mommy what is that?’ and she freaks out,” Stumpf said.
The loud bangs have attracted so much attention that a Facebook group has been created to track the times and direction of the explosions. It now has more than 500 followers.
Jordan Peele’s new horror film ‘Us’ crushes box office expectations
It exceeded industry expectations in a big way. The film was initially projected by industry experts to bring in closer to $45 million this weekend.
The R-rated film stars Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke as parents trying to fend off an attack from evil Doppelgängers. The film has made $87 million worldwide.
“There’s nothing scary about horror for Hollywood,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Brian Austin Green texted “Beverly Hills, 90210” co-star Luke Perry‘s phone after his death, knowing he wouldn’t get a response.
“I texted him after he passed, knowing obviously that he can’t text me back but on some level, hoping that he would text me back, or that he was out there somewhere,” Green, who starred as David Silver alongside Perry’s Dylan McKay on “90210,” explained recently on his podcast.
“And I know he is. I know he’s looking down and I know he’s smiling.”
Perri Nemiroff, who reviewed the film for Collider, tweeted after watching the movie:
“Pet Semetary is vicious and I LOVED it. Super brutal visuals and was thrilled to see Widmyer & Kölsch fully embrace the deeply unsettling themes of mortality from the book. And WOW Jeté Laurence. They really pushed it with this adaptation & it worked for me – big time.
Film critic Rafael Motamayor tweeted: “Pet Semetary is a hoot and a half! Super dark, twisted, gory, and surprisingly funny! More of a dark comedy than the original movie, and it all works once the fucked up third act kicks in. The cast is fantastic. Jeté Laurence is a revelation!”
Preston Barta, who reviewed the film for Fresh Fiction, compared the film to another Stephen King adaptation: “Holy hell! Not only does it greatly improve upon the original film, but it manages to reach Kubrick/SHINING level heights! I was terrified, blown away and impressed.”
And a screen shot for posterity..When Ancient Societies Hit a Million People, Vengeful Gods Appeared
The scientists analyzed the relationship between social complexity and moralizing gods in 414 societies spanning the past 10,000 years from 30 regions across the globe. Researchers examined 51 measures of social complexity, such as the size of the largest settlement and the presence of a formal legal code, and four measures of supernatural enforcement of morality, such as the concept of a supernatural force that monitors and punishes selfish actions.
The researchers found that belief in moralizing gods usually followed increases in social complexity, generally appearing after the emergence of civilizations with populations of more than about 1 million people.
The headline from DISCOVER is misleading.. but the report is interesting..
I just came across a paper with an interesting title: The Mutant Says in His Heart, “There Is No God”.
The conclusions of this work are even more interesting. According to the authors, Edward Dutton et al., humans evolved to be religious and atheism is caused (in part) by mutational damage to our normal, religious DNA. Atheists, in other words, are genetic degenerates.
Despite the talk of mutations, there is no genetics in this paper. No atheist genomes were sequenced and found to be mutated. Rather, Dutton et al. claim (mostly on the basis of a review of previous literature) that atheists have elevated rates of proxy measures of genetic health or ‘mutational load’, namely ill-health, autism, and left-handedness. This, they say, is consistent with atheism being a manifestation of “increasing genetic mutation affecting the mind”.
The post goes on to describe that these links are unconvincing.. that studies show that atheists are more intelligent, on average, than religious believers.. .
It feels as of late there is something unbalanced brewing. Something shifting but we are all collectively stuck in the lurch.. like a force that is as strong as a magnet pulling us in one direction but our brains want to stilly where we are..
Does anyone else feel such? Does anyone else feel like there is something just askew at this time?
More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics)
For the first time, scientists have replicated conditions described in the thought experiment. Their results, published Feb. 13 in the preprint journal arXiv, confirmed that even when observers described different states in the same photon, the two conflicting realities could both be true..
Heart attack prevention and outcomes have dramatically improved for American adults in the past two decades, according to a Yale study in JAMA Network Open.
Compared to the mid-1990s, Americans today are less likely to have heart attacks and also less likely to die from them, said the researchers.
“Antarctica Alert” –Ghostly Supermassive Black Hole Invader Detected | The Daily Galaxy
This one may be a little above our pay grade. It it’s fascinating.
A record 80,108 people saw the country star sing.
However, two seats were reserved for two very special patrons.
Two seats have been engraved for former president George H.W. and Barbara Bush.
According to KTRK, the two were long time supporters of Rodeo Houston.
“They had a very special relationship with some of the entertainers, Reba McEntire and Brad Paisley in particular. And when Reba or Brad would play they’d usually come in advance of the show and sit down and visit with them. And then they would enjoy seats right beside the bucking chute,” Rodeo Houston President Joel Cowley said.
Freda Black helped prosecute the 2001 killing examined by the documentary. An autopsy released Monday by the state medical examiner cited liver disease due to alcoholism as the cause of death.
Police have said Black was found dead last July and the 57-year-old’s death didn’t appear suspicious.
Any fan of nostalgia will love this…
BLOCKBUSTER is making its final stand in Oregon because .. well….. the manager says they are just stubborn.
This is the AP dispatch, for the record, on the issue:
BEND, Ore. (AP) — There are challenges that come with running the last Blockbuster Video on the planet.
The computer system must be rebooted using floppy disks that only the general manager — a solid member of Gen X — knows how to use. The dot-matrix printer broke, so employees write out membership cards by hand. And the store’s business transactions are backed up on a reel-to-reel tape that can’t be replaced because Radio Shack went out of business.
Yet none of that has kept this humble franchise in an Oregon strip mall from thriving as the advent of on-demand movie streaming laid waste all around it. When a Blockbuster in Australia shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the Bend store will be the only one left on Earth.
“It’s pure stubbornness, for one. We didn’t want to give in,” said general manager Sandi Harding, who has worked at the franchise for 15 years and receives a lot of the credit for keeping it alive well past its expiration date. “We did everything we could to cut costs and keep ourselves relevant.”
The store was once one of five Blockbusters owned by the same couple, Ken and Debbie Tisher, in three central Oregon towns. But by last year, the Bend franchise was the last local Blockbuster standing.
A tight budget meant no money to update the surviving store. That’s paying off now with a nostalgia factor that stops first-time visitors of a certain age in their tracks: the popcorn ceilings, low fluorescent lighting, wire metal video racks and the ubiquitous yellow-and-blue ticket stub logo that was a cultural touchstone for a generation.
“Most people, I think, when they think about renting videos — if they’re the right age — they don’t remember the movie that they went to pick, but they remember who they went with and that freedom of walking the aisles,” said Zeke Kamm, a local resident who is making a documentary about the store called “The Last Blockbuster” with a friend.
“In a lot of towns, the Blockbuster was the only place that was open past nine o’clock, and a lot of them stayed open until midnight, so kids who weren’t hoodlums would come here and look at movies and fall in love with movies.”
The Bend store had eight years under its belt as a local video store before it converted to a Blockbuster in 2000, a time when this high desert city was still a sleepy community with a small-town feel to match.
Customers kept coming back, drawn by special touches like staff recommendations, a “wish list” for videos to add to the rental selection and even home delivery for a few special customers who couldn’t drive in. Dozens of local teens have worked there over the years.
Then, in 2010, Blockbuster declared bankruptcy, and by 2014, all corporate-owned stores had shuttered. That left locally owned franchises to fend for themselves, and one by one, they closed.
When stores in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska, shut down last summer — barely outlasting a Redmond, Oregon, store — Bend’s Blockbuster was the only U.S. location left.
Tourists started stopping by to snap selfies, and business picked up. Harding ordered up blue-and-yellow sweat shirts, T-shirts, cups, magnets, bumper stickers, hats and stocking caps from local vendors emblazoned with the words “The Last Blockbuster in America,” and they flew off the shelves.
Then, this month, she got a phone call: The world’s only other Blockbuster, in Perth, Australia, would soon close its doors. A new T-shirt order went out — this time with the slogan “The Last Blockbuster on the Planet” — and the store is already getting a new wave of selfie-snapping visitors from as far away as Europe and Asia.
On a recent weekday, Michael Trovato of Melbourne, Australia, stopped by while visiting his twin sister in Bend.
After posing for a photo, Trovato said he misses a time when choosing a movie meant browsing hundreds of titles and asking a video clerk for insight instead of letting a movie-streaming service recommend one for him based on a computer algorithim.
“I miss quite a bit being able to walk into a Blockbuster or CD store and have that social experience and see people looking at stuff and talking to people,” Trovato said. “It’s something you don’t get from the slick presentation of a music service or, you know, from the Internet.”
The Bend store doesn’t seem to be in danger of closing anytime soon.
Its newfound fame has been a shot in the arm, and customers stream in to buy $40 sweat shirts, $20 T-shirts and even $15 yellow-and-blue beanies hand-knit by Harding herself. The store pays Dish Network for the right to use the Blockbuster logo and has several years left on its lease.
People regularly send the store boxes of old VHS tapes and DVDs. They also donate Blockbuster memorabilia: a corporate jean jacket, key chains and old membership cards.
Employees always send a thank-you note, store manager Dan Montgomery said.
Recently, Harding has noticed another type of customer that’s giving her hope: a new generation of kids dragged in by their nostalgic parents who later leave happy, holding stacks of rented movies and piles of candy.
Jerry Gilless and his wife, Elizabeth, brought their two kids, John, 3, and Ellen, 5, and watched with a smile as the siblings bounced from row to row, grabbing “Peter Pan” and “The Lion King” and surveying dinosaur cartoons.
“How could we not stop? It’s the last one,” said Gilless, of their detour to the store while on vacation from Memphis, Tennessee. “They need to see that not everything’s on the iPad.”
It’s over…
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lori Laughlin won’t appear on the upcoming fifth season of Netflix’s popular family sitcom Fuller House..
Laughlin, who played Aunt Becky on the original Full House and portrayed her again in a guest-starring role on Fuller House, appeared in 13 of the new show’s 57 episodes.
The fifth season of Fuller House, which hasn’t started filming yet, is set to premiere on Netflix this fall. Sources told THR that the show’s production won’t be impacted by the drama surrounding Laughlin.
Officials in Macon County, Alabama said that the reality star MAMA JUNE was charged Monday morning over an arrest that occurred last Wednesday following an alleged domestic dispute between the star and boyfriend, Geno Doak.
A 24-year-old Staten Island man was arrested Saturday in the shooting death of a reputed Gambino crime family boss, and investigators reportedly believe the murder of Francesco Cali outside his home was a domestic incident and not a mob slaying.
Anthony Comello was apprehended in New Jersey Saturday on charges that he shot Cali 10 times outside the alleged mobster’s Staten Island home.
Comello was tracked down in part because of his pickup truck that was seen on surveillance footage near the murder. The truck rammed into another vehicle outside Cali’s house, which lured the mobster outside the home. Comello also reportedly left his fingerprints on a license plate he handed to Cali moments before the shooting; Comello had no criminal history but was in a database after he was fingerprinted for a rifle permit.
Police later found the damaged pickup truck outside Comello’s parents’ house. He was arrested without incident early Saturday morning at the family’s shore home in Brick, New Jersey. Comello reportedly confessed to the Cali murder and is awaiting extradition back to New York.
Biggest mob killing since ‘85 .. .that’s last century. And it was because of scorned love.. THEY SAY…
A huge fireball exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere in December, according to Nasa. The blast was the second largest of its kind in 30 years, and the biggest since the fireball over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago. But it went largely unnoticed until now because it blew up over the Bering Sea, off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
Military satellites picked up the blast.. NASA and the AIR FORCE were notified..
At about noon local time on 18 December, the asteroid barrelled through the atmosphere at a speed of 32km/s, on a steep trajectory of seven degrees.
Measuring several metres in size, the space rock exploded 25.6km above the Earth’s surface, with an impact energy of 173 kilotons.
Preliminary data recovered from the black boxes of last week’s Ethiopian Airlines crash has revealed “similarities” to October’s fatal Lion Air crash, the Ethiopian Minister of Transport said Sunday.
Dagmawit Moges said that investigators have recovered all relevant data from the black boxes.Moges did not provide additional details about the purported “similarities” between the two crashes but said they would be “subject to further investigation.”
The FEC examines improper campaign contributions while the FCC originated the fairness doctrine - a regulation that requires the news give equal time to both sides. However the doctrine was discontinued in 1987 and is no longer on the books. Additionally, when it was used by the FCC as a method of distributing television and radio licenses, it was found not to apply to elected officials.
Also, ‘Saturday Night Live’ is a comedy show and its satire is protected free speech.
Flooding has continued in swathes of Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, according to CNN.
A bomb cyclone occurs when—as happened last week when a storm that began to form in the Southwest swept across the Central U.S.—pressure drops dramatically in a short period of time, a phenomenon known as “explosive bombogenesis.” It’s rare for one to happen in the inland U.S., and this week’s storm resulted in severe weather across a massive stretch of the country.
MORE…
The controversy was over Sky News Australia replaying footage from the infamous video streamed by the murderer during the rampage.
New Zealand police advised people not to show the footage in a tweet sent on Thursday. “Police are aware there is extremely distressing footage relating to the incident in Christchurch circulating online,” it read. We would strongly urge that the link not be shared. We are working to have any footage removed.“
Nevertheless, News Corp’s Sky News Australia continued showing the footage, which prompted the pulling of the plug.
MORE…
Fans and viewers were quick to take to the comments section, voicing their displeasure.
“I honestly found it very disappointing when you said you care more about parties and tailgates rather than your education. If you hate school so much why go to college?” one commenter said, according to People magazine. “And it’s honestly insulting when tons of people can’t even afford to go to college but want to.”
“Dang must be nice to only go to school for the game days, or to party…,” another user wrote sarcastically, the outlet reported. “Here I am going cause I would be the first of my family’s generation to have a degree and better opportunities.”
After reading the backlash from the comments to the video, she posted a second video apology titled “im sorry,” saying she was “disappointed in herself.”
Accused Christchurch massacre gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant makes a white power gesture from behind a glass window..
… during a brief appearance in court..
MORE..
At the beginning of the hearing he appeared to have a faint smile on his face, but it faded into a neutral expression as the hearing continued.
Security was tight, with about six security guards and police in total, the guards wearing black protective vests.
No members of the public were allowed to attend except for media ‘in the interest of public safety’, the judge said.
Tarrant was remanded in custody. His duty lawyer did not apply for bail. Nor did he apply for suppression on information of the proceedings.
The hearing was all over in just a few minutes, with Tarrant taking one final look at those gathered and marched away. Some victims’ relatives were waiting at the front doors to the court.
“Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy. Facebook, Amazon, and Google," read the ads, which Warren's campaign had placed Friday. "We all use them. But in their rise to power, they’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor.”
A message on the three ads reads: “This ad was taken down because it goes against Facebook's advertising policies.”
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the ads had been taken down and said the company is reviewing the matter. The person said, according to an initial review, that the removal could be linked to the company's policies about using Facebook's brand in posts.
