Sunday, June 09, 2013

Sunday's headlines that got my attention

26 year old Marcela Franco is now the fifth victim of Friday's shooting in Santa Monica to die.  Her father, Carlos Franco, who had been a groundskeeper at SMC died earlier.  Both were shot by the gunman while they were in the father's SUV.

29 year old Edward Snowden has no regrets about his decision to leak the top-secret documents that led to disclosure of the U.S. government's monitoring of phones/computers using a program code-named PRISM.  A former CIA staffer working for a NSA contractor, he copied the documents and then went to Hong Kong.

The Palms, the last lesbian bar in West Hollywood will close this weekend.

Two male morons in Glendale were arrested for assaulting a homeless man this past Wednesday.  Oganes Manvelyan, 23, and Vahan Kiourktzian, 22 have both been charged with ADW.  They told police "we're young, we don't know why we did it, and it was stupid."  Wonder how that will fly with judge and jury?

BWI?  No, not an airport.  That's what Erin Brockovich was charged with, subsequent to her arrest on Nevada's Lake Mead.  The 52 year old who gained fame for the 2000 film that told the story of how she fought over pollution in a small CA town was allegedly boating while intoxicated.

Star Wars Episode VII will begin filming next January.  Wonder what the sub-title will be.  "The Aged Warriors"?  "Old Jedi Knight Just Fades Away"?

From the "they always return to the scene of the crime" file - a 65 year old former resident of Chicago was arrested at O'Hare International 34 years after he jumped bail.  He'd been charged with a 1979 murder.  He was trying to go to the graduation of a grandson.

Rut roh.  An IRS manager who describes himself as a "conservative Republican" has admitted having a big role in the decision to target applications for non-profit status from Tea Party and "patriot" groups added scrutiny.  Elijah Cummings said that he and a colleague were afraid these organizations might create a new precedent that would impact future IRS rulings.

A 77 year old Ohio resident was visiting Toronto when he suffered a fall and a bad cut on his neck.  He probably didn't expect a celebrity life-saver, but it was actor John Malkovich who helped to stop the man's bleeding.  The man is going to be fine.

As a lifelong Dodgers fan, I'm not fond of the Arizona Diamondbacks.  However, give them credit for a really classy move.  They drafted Cory Hahn in the 34th round even though they know he will almost certainly never play another inning of baseball in his life.  Hahn was a star player at Arizona State who was paralyzed from the chest down during a game against New Mexico.  Derrick Hall, former Dodgers vice-president and now CEO and team president of the D-Backs is a class act.

U.S. News and World Reports put out a list of the top 11 restaurants in the U.S. when it comes to french fries.  But they didn't include the Acme Oyster House in the French Quarter of New Orleans, which makes their list suspect.

Edward Lampert is the Chairman and CEO of Sears and many think he has no interest in trying to raise the stock of the company (he owns 55%).  As much as 30% of the other shares that he does not own were bought by people "shorting" the company's stock. (shorting is a way of borrowing and selling shares you don't own at the moment at today's price, and then buying other shares later at a lower price.  It's a dangerous gamble.  Some thing Lampert is doing what he's doing in order to keep buying more and more shares, at lower and lower prices.

In the weekend box office wars, "Fast and Furious 6" was expected to hold on to the top spot, but "The Purge" was a surprising winner.  Produced for only $3 million, it brought in an astonishing $36.3 million.  F&F6 was second with $19.7 million, followed closely by "Now You See Me" with $19.5 million.  New release "The Internship" was fourth with a disappointing $18.1 million.  "Star Trek Into Darkness" has crossed the $200 million mark.  Joss Whedon's take on Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" did an excellent $36,600 per screen on five screens.

Paris Jackson has been transferred to Ronald Reagan-UCLA Medical Center.

Justin Beiber's bodyguards have roughed up another would-be photographer, allegedly.

Actresses Zosia Mamet and Clara Mamet (both daughters of David Mamet, but from different mothers) were hoping to raise $32,000 on Kickstarter to fund a music video.  But considering both are working actresses with TV series that are in production, they were roundly criticized for the move.  After the allotted 11 days, they'd only received 6% of the funds they were seeking.