Saturday 6 August 2011

Lollapalooza

Lollapalooza, is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. Lollapalooza has featured a diverse range of bands and has helped expose and popularize artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, The Cure, Primus, The Killers, Rage Against the Machine, Arcade Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction, Metallica, X Japan, Soundgarden, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Smashing Pumpkins, Muse, Alice in Chains, Tool, Hole, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Strokes, Lady GaGa and the Starlight Revue, and Green Day.
Conceived and created in 1991 by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for his band, Lollapalooza ran annually until 1997, and was revived in 2003. From its inception through 1997, and its revival in 2003, the festival toured North America. In 2004, the festival organizers decided to expand the dates to two days per city, but poor ticket sales forced the 2004 tour to be cancelled. In 2005, Farrell and the William Morris Agency partnered up with Austin, Texas-based company Capital Sports Entertainment (now C3 Presents) and retooled it into its current format as a weekend destination festival in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois. In 2010 it was announced that Lollapalooza would debut overseas, with a branch of the festival staged in Chile's capital Santiago on April 2–3, 2011 where they partnered up with Santiago, Chile-based company Lotus.

Etymology
The word—sometimes alternatively spelled and pronounced as lollapalootza or lalapaloosa—dates from a late 19th/early 20th century American idiomatic phrase meaning "an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. In time the term also came to refer to a large lollipop. Farrell, searching for a name for his festival, liked the euphonious quality of the now antiquated term upon hearing it in a Three Stooges short film. Paying homage to the term's double meaning, a character in the festival's original logo holds one of the lollipops. The word is also used in Rodgers and Hart's famous showtune "Thou Swell": "Hear me holler I choose a sweet Lollapalooza in thee."

History,Creation
Inspired by events produced by Bill Graham, Perry Farrell, along with Ted Gardener, Marc Geiger, and Don Muller, conceived of the festival in 1990 as a farewell tour for his band Jane's Addiction. Unlike previous music festivals such as Woodstock, A Gathering of the Tribes, or the US Festival, which were one-time events held in one venue, Lollapalooza was a touring festival that travelled across the United States and Canada.
The inaugural 1991 lineup was made up of artists from various genres, drawing in headliners from post-punk such as Siouxsie and the Banshees to rap such as Ice-T as well as industrial music such as Nine Inch Nails. Another key concept behind Lollapalooza was the inclusion of non-musical features. Performers like the Jim Rose Circus Side Show, an alternative freak show, and the Shaolin monks stretched the boundaries of traditional rock culture. There was a tent for display of art pieces, virtual reality games, and information tables for political and environmental non-profit groups promoting counter-culture and political awareness.

Success and decline
It was at Lollapalooza where Farrell coined the term Alternative Nation. The explosion of alternative rock in the early 1990s propelled Lollapalooza forward; the 1992 and 1993 festivals leaned heavily on grunge and alternative acts, and usually featured an additional rap artist. Punk rock standbys like mosh pits and crowd surfing became part of the canon of the concerts. These years saw great increases in the participatory nature of the event with the inclusion of booths for open-microphone readings and oratory, television-smashing pits, and tattooing and piercing parlors. After 1991, the festival included a second stage (and, in 1996, a third stage) for up-and-coming bands or local acts. Attendee complaints of the festival included high ticket prices as well as the high cost for food and water at the shows. When the festival played at the Alpine Valley festival in East Troy, Wisconsin on August 29, 1992, and also at Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan (near Detroit) in 1992, concertgoers ripped up chunks of sod and grass and threw them at each other and at the bands, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in damages to the venue.
Grunge band Nirvana was scheduled to headline at the festival in 1994, but the band officially dropped out of the festival on April 7, 1994. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's body was discovered in Seattle, Washington the next day. Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, made guest appearances at several shows, including the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania show at FDR Park (usually taking time given to her by The Smashing Pumpkins vocalist/guitarist Billy Corgan), speaking to the crowds about the loss, then singing a minimum of two songs. Farrell worked with rock poster artist Jim Evans (T.A.Z.) to create a series of posters and the complete graphic decoration for the 1994 event, including two 70 ft. tall Buddha statues that flanked the main stage. In 1996, Farrell, who had been the soul of the festival, decided to focus his energy to produce his new festival project, ENIT, and did not participate in producing Lollapalooza.Many fans saw the addition of Metallica in 1996 as going against the practice of featuring "non-mainstream" artists. Moreover, festival cofounder Farrell felt that the group's macho image violated his peaceful vision for the festival, for alternative culture of the early 1990s was generally against macho behavior. Farrell quit the tour in protest. Efforts were made to keep the festival relevant, including more eclectic acts such as country superstar Waylon Jennings and emphasizing more heavily electronica groups like The Prodigy. By 1997, however, the Lollapalooza concept had run out of steam, and in 1998 failed efforts to find a suitable headliner resulted in the festival's cancellation. The cancellation served as a signifier of alternative rock's declining popularity. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now.

]Revival and rebirth
In 2003, Farrell reconvened Jane's Addiction and scheduled a new Lollapalooza tour. The festival schedule included venues in 30 cities through July and August. The 2003 tour achieved only marginal success with many fans staying away, presumably because of high ticket prices. Another tour scheduled for 2004 was to consist of a two-day festival taking place in each city. It was cancelled in June due to weak ticket sales across the country.
Farrell partnered with Capital Sports & Entertainment (now C3 Presents), which co-owns and produces the Austin City Limits Music Festival, to produce Lollapalooza. CSE, Farrell and the William Morris Agency—along with Charles Attal Presents—resurrected Lollapalooza as a two-day destination festival in 2005 in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois, with an even greater variety of performers (70 acts on five stages) than that of the touring festival. The festival was generally successful, attracting over 65,000 attendees, despite a 104 degree Sunday heat wave (two people were hospitalized for heat related illness). It returned to Chicago on August 4–6, 2006. On October 25, 2006, the Chicago Park District and Capital Sports & Entertainment agreed to a five-year, $5 million deal, keeping Lollapalooza at Grant Park in Chicago until 2011. Lollapalooza ran August 3–5 in 2007, August 1–3 in 2008, August 7–9 in 2009, and August 6–8 in 2010. The dates for 2011 are set for August 5–7. After a successful 2008 festival, another deal was signed to keep Lollapalooza in Chicago through 2018, guaranteeing the city $13 million.

International expansion
In 2010, it was announced that Lollapalooza would debut overseas, with a branch of the festival staged in Chile's capital Santiago on April 2–3, 2011. The line up included Kanye West, Jane's Addiction, 30 Seconds to Mars, The National, The Drums, The Killers, Ana Tijoux, Javiera Mena, Fatboy Slim, Deftones, Los Plumabits, Cypress Hill, 311, The Flaming Lips and many others.

Desperate Housewives' to end this year

US broadcaster ABC is expected to announce on Sunday that the eighth season of Desperate Housewives, which starts in September, will be the last.
The women of Wisteria Lane, including Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer and Eva Longeria as Gabrielle Solis, burst on to television screens in 2004 and immediately attracted 21.6 million viewers. The show eventually attracted 120 million viewers around the world.
It has recently seen audiences dwindle and there was also off-screen drama with former cast member Nicolette Sheridan suing over her departure.
The creator of the show, Marc Cherry, is not returning to produce the final season's episodes, allowing him to focus on other projects.
The show, which centres on the lives of a group of women in the fictional town of Fairview, has won numerous Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Media reps for "Desperate Housewives" told TODAY.com that reports of the show's conclusion in May is "all speculative at this point." They also confirmed to TODAY.com that ABC will have the official word on Sunday, when the network presents at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour in Los Angeles.
When TODAY.com asked actor Kevin Rahm, who plays Lee McDermott, on Friday about ABC's rumored decision to end the show after the eighth season, he said, "They haven’t told me yet."
But he does have an idea of how he'd like Lee's story on Wisteria Lane to end. "Artistically, I want to go down big. I want to knock someone off, or die, or have been a secret agent the whole time," he told TODAY.com.
However, it's not yet clear if Rahm will return for the potential final season. He said that "Housewives" offered him a one-year contract last year, and allowed him to do pilot season. He then landed the role of Jack on the upcoming Fox sitcom "I Hate My Teenage Daughter," which Rahm was promoting at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour in Los Angeles Friday. "I got this job ("Daughter"), then they kind of lost their chance at me," he said.
Should ABC want him back for "Housewives," Rahm told TODAY.com, "Time will not be the issue. It’ll be an issue of ... contracts and Fox and ABC. It’ll be out of my hands. If it were up to me, I would do both for the rest of the year."
When asked about the "Housewives' " eighth season, Rahm said, "Like all shows, anything after seven years is different than it was in the beginning. But I think it’ll go down as being a very influential show and a fun show. I still love it.

Lollapalooza opens its 20th anniversary bash

Lollapalooza 2011 opened with this ringing, backhanded endorsement from Jenn Wasner of the band Wye Oak: “I love Lollapalooza because it’s the one festival even my grandparents know what it is.”

Such cross-generational branding helped sell out a record capacity this year, the 20th anniversary of the annual live music smorgasbord. This weekend, 90,000 fans will attend each day of Lollapalooza. That makes this three-day concert in Grant Park one of the country’s biggest, with Coachella’s daily attendance around 75,000 and Bonnaroo’s more than 100,000.

At this massive music event, 140 artists and bands will perform on eight stages over three days, leading up to Sunday night headliners Deadmau5, Kid Cudi and the Foo Fighters. Here’s our report from Friday night’s first round:

Who was the main headliner Friday night? If you’re over 30, you probably thought it was Coldplay. But the biggest stage at Lollapalooza with room for the biggest crowd is on Hutchison Field in the south end of the park, and that’s not where Coldplay performed. The bigger stage and crowd went to Muse.

That older demographic has been asking me for weeks, “Who the hell is Muse?” But this wailing trio has been around for 17 years, longer than Coldplay — long enough that at festivals later this month in their native Britain they’ll be performing one of their “classic” albums in its entirety — and they sold out London’s Wembley Stadium before most Yanks had heard of them. Muse has developed a fiercely loyal following around the world of largely younger fans less familiar with the glam- and prog-rock they ape so ably. The band’s appearance last year on the latest “Twilight” movie soundtrack put them over the top in the United States.

One recurring theme at Friday's Lollapalooza was guy-girl tag teams, although the various pairings couldn't sound more different.
The Kills' guitarist Jamie Hince laid down dense, intense indie rock riffs as body-whipping Alison Mosshart sang sultry vocals through a weave of sticky, jet-black hair. When her eyes peered through on tracks like pulsating Heart is a Beating Drum, off its album Blood Pressures, Mosshart looked like a tiger poised to kill its prey.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, playing at the same time, retro pop revival act Cults, expanded from duo Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion to five touring performers. Their gentle, xylophone-kissed, '60s pop-leaning instrumentation gracefully glided over the crowd like a fluffy cloud, masking many of the tracks' melancholy lyrics, and making up for the fact that standout Go Outside lost some context out in broad daylight.
Somewhere in between the intensity of The Kills and the lightness of Cults was Black Cards, a new duo (expanded to include a drummer for Lolla) created by Chicago-area native Pete Wentz while emo-pop juggernaut Fall Out Boy is on indefinite hiatus. Unlike Kills or Cults, Cards is electro pop through and through, led by newcomer Bebe Rexha on vocals. While the music was light in tone, the performance was as aggressive a spectacle as you could get from a band with its first album still in the wings and performing on one of Lolla's smallest stages. Rexha exuded confidence and chops singing wannabe club jams like Take Me Down (Higher), released on SoundCloud the day of the show. She was joined on stage by dirty dancing models in skimpy black outfits initially wearing werewolf masks, a freaky, arm-twisting, head-popping contortionist, and Wentz, who threw beach balls and toilet paper rolls into the crowd, and stagedived three times in less than 30 minutes. "I just wanted to have fun on stage," Wentz said. Based on the crowd's reaction, the fun was infectious.

The biggest addition to Lolla this year is the expansion of the Perry's DJ stage to a tented venue with a capacity of 20,000. But within a few hours, it looked like Lolla organizers would have to increase capacity already next year. People were packed in shoulder to shoulder, with thick clusters around the perimeter, waiting for Afrojack to take the stage. It was so crowded, the Chicago Fire Department briefly delayed the show until some space was cleared. And Afrojack wasn't even the stage's final headliner (that honor would fall to Girl Talk). "We are sliding on sweat," Nicole Mendoza, 18 of Chicago, said of the conditions inside.
The stars warmed up their crowd with an unexpected performance of Jay-Z's profane 99 Problems inspiring thousands in the crowd to sing along. But don't fret, Coldplay is still Coldplay, devoted to thematically safe, nevertheless ambitious anthems that stir the emotions. That applies to the five songs Chris Martin and company played that have already made the rounds at some summer shows in Europe. Standouts included Charlie Brown, with Jonny Buckland's sticky, uplifting guitar work, and the soft, romantic Us Against The World, which featured drummer Will Champion on piano and backing vocals. The masses seemed engaged with the new stuff, but it showed the most enthusiasm with familiar favorites, singing loudly to Yellow, In My Place and The Scientist. Before Martin had a chance to sing a single note during a long intro to Viva la Vida, fans were already singing the lyrics. The band also explored some creative liberty on God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, rearranging the intro and incorporating galloping drum work. "It took us 20 years to get to Lollapalooza and we've always wanted to do it," Martin said. "Thank you for making four young, well not that young anymore, but four men's dreams come true. We're going to give everything we have this evening." Coldplay lived up to his word.

Lea Michele - Ryan Murphy Received Death Threats About 'Glee'

Ryan Murphy, who is best known for creating the Television series “Glee,” said that he has been the subject of death threats.

Murphy has given extra weightage to homosexual and minorities stuff on Glee, something that has not went down well with a large chunk of the audience. And so, they voiced their rejection of Murphy’s ideas by threatening him with his life.

Speaking in an interview with Deadline magazine, Ryan said, “I think any time you shine a spotlight on homosexuality or minorities and you try and say they are as normal or as worthy as acceptance as others, the people who are on the fringe don’t like that and they will come after you. And they have come after me. I think it’s such a great show for young kids. The values of it, I think, are great.”

He said that Glee was originally meant to be a post-safe harbor program and confessed that he made some mistakes while writing the storylines.

The Glee mastermind explained, “Ninety per cent of what the show has to say is so positive, I feel stupid and bad that the 10 per cent would exclude a portion of the episode. There are specific episodes where we did push it too far.

Murphy also spoke about how he had made some mistakes with the show that may have contributed to the ill-feeling, admitting that he had "screwed up in hindsight" because the show was originally intended to be post-watershed: "There are specific episodes where we did push it too far. I think the condom demonstration was a road too far. I think showing a kid masturbating was a bridge too far. You know, when you're creating a show you're in the middle of it and then you hear the comments." He also opened up about the decision to allow key members of the cast - Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith to 'graduate' and thereby leave the show. "I was, for a solid week, the Anti-Christ," he said. He also added that the three would return in some capacity.

Creating jobs must be Washington’s top priority

The jobs report, issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed better than expected job growth in July. There were 117,000 jobs added, higher than the 85,000 that economists were expecting, but still far lower than necessary to significantly bring down the nation's high unemployment rate. Unemployment went from 9.2 percent in June to 9.1 percent in July.

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said in a statement, “Today's dismal jobs report is a far cry from the hope and change that President Obama promised on the campaign trail. ... Despite these clear and abundant signs that our economy is floundering, President Obama has still failed to deliver a concrete plan to create jobs and promote growth. This lack of leadership is inexcusable and driving our economy toward decline.”

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney also blamed Obama for slow job growth: “Today's unemployment report represents the 30th straight month that the jobless rate has been above 8 percent. The administration promised with their $800 billion stimulus that they would keep unemployment below that number. When you see what this president has done to the economy in just three years, you know why America doesn't want to find out what he can do in eight.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) mentioned the large number of donors to Obama's 2012 political campaign in a jab on his economic policies.

Obama echoed this message in Saturday’s address, saying that the top priority for Washington must be helping Americans find jobs and building a sense of economic security for middle class families.

Just as Democrats and Republicans finally came together to resolve the debt ceiling impasse, the president said the two parties must come together once more to tackle unemployment.

“We’ve got to put politics aside to get some things done,” Obama said. “That’s what the American people expect of us.”

As he has said numerous times in recent months, the president stressed that there are immediate steps that Congress can take when it returns to the capital to boost job creation, including extending tax cuts for middle-class families, giving tax credit to companies that hire veterans and getting rid of red tape that can hold back entrepreneurs.

Obama also called on lawmakers to pass the pending free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama – deals that he said would not only help put people to work, but also put the words “Made in America” on products sold around the world.

The president maintained that each of these steps shares the support of both Democrats and Republicans.

“So I’m going to keep calling on both parties in Congress to put aside their differences and send these bills to my desk so I can sign them right away,” he said. “After all, both parties share power.”

Obama added, “Moving our economy and our country forward is not a Democratic or a Republican responsibility; it is our responsibility as Americans. That’s the spirit we need in Washington right now.

Jury convicts 5 New Orleans policemen

Five New Orleans police officers were convicted by a jury of various charges related to deadly shootings on a bridge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The jury stopped short of finding four officers guilty of two counts of murder in the case, although it convicted the officers of gun and civil rights charges, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported.

A fifth police officer who wasn't at the shooting was also convicted of corrupting the investigation and planting evidence.

Two people were shot and killed on the Danziger Bridge on Interstate 10 by police Sept. 4, 2005, days after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and sent the city into mayhem. Four other civilians were wounded by police.

The four officers involved in the shootings have been in jail since their indictments and face prison sentences ranging from 35 to 60 years, the newspaper said. They all pleaded guilty to the various charges.

U.S. Loses AAA Credit Rating as S&P Slams Debt, Politics

Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S.'s AAA credit rating for the first time, slamming the nation's political process and criticizing lawmakers for failing to cut spending enough to reduce record budget deficits.

S&P lowered the U.S. one level to AA+ while keeping the outlook at "negative" as it becomes less confident Congress will end Bush-era tax cuts or tackle entitlements. The rating may be cut to AA within two years if spending reductions are lower than agreed to, interest rates rise or "new fiscal pressures" result in higher general government debt, the New York-based firm said yesterday.

Lawmakers agreed on Aug. 2 to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and put in place a plan to enforce $2.4 trillion in spending reductions over the next 10 years, less than the $4 trillion S&P had said it preferred. Even with the specter of a downgrade, demand for Treasuries surged as investors saw few alternatives amid concern global growth is slowing and Europe's sovereign debt crisis is spreading.

"The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics," S&P said in a statement late yesterday after markets closed.

S&P’s action may hurt the U.S. economy over time by increasing the cost of mortgages, auto loans and other types of lending tied to the interest rates paid on Treasuries. JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated that a downgrade would raise the nation’s borrowing costs by $100 billion a year. The U.S. spent $414 billion on interest expense in fiscal 2010, or 2.7 percent of gross domestic product, according to Treasury Department data.
“It’s a reflection of the fact that we haven’t done enough to get our fiscal house in the order,” Anthony Valeri, market strategist in San Diego at LPL Financial, which oversees $340 billion, said in an interview before the cut. “Sovereign credit quality is going to remain under pressure for years to come.”
The agreement between Republicans and Democrats raised the nation’s debt ceiling until 2013 and threatens automatic spending cuts to enforce the $2.4 trillion in spending reductions over the next 10 years.
Even with the accord, S&P said the U.S.’s debt may rise to 74 percent of gross domestic product by year-end, to 79 percent in 2015 and 85 percent by 2021.
S&P also changed its assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush would expire by the end of 2012 “because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues.

S&P gives 18 sovereign entities its top ranking, including Australia, Hong Kong and the Isle of Man, according to a July report. The U.K. which is estimated to have debt to GDP this year of 80 percent, 6 percentage points higher than the U.S., also has the top credit grade. In contrast with the U.S., its net public debt is forecast to decline either before or by 2015, S&P said in the statement yesterday.
New Zealand is the only country other than the U.S. that has a AA+ rating from S&P and an Aaa grade from Moody’s. Belgium has an equivalent AA+ grade from S&P, Moody’s and Fitch.
A U.S. credit-rating cut would likely raise the nation’s borrowing costs by increasing Treasury yields by 60 basis points to 70 basis points over the “medium term,” JPMorgan’s Terry Belton said on a July 26 conference call hosted by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
“That impact on Treasury rates is significant,” Belton, global head of fixed-income strategy at JPMorgan, said during the call. “That $100 billion a year is money being used for higher interest rates and that’s money being taken away from other goods and services.

Five current or former police officers deadly shootings Katrina

EW ORLEANS  — Five current or former police officers were convicted Friday of federal civil rights charges related to deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina:
SGT. Kenneth Bowen
Bowen, 37, was in the passenger seat of a rental truck that police drove to the Danziger Bridge in response to an officer's distress call. Former officer Michael Hunter, who was driving the truck, testified he saw Bowen lean over a concrete barrier on the east side of the bridge and randomly spray gunfire at wounded, unarmed people. Bowen was convicted in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old James Brissette, and of stomping on a dying, mentally disabled man, 40-year-old Ronald Madison, on the west side of the bridge. He's been on leave without pay due to incarceration.
SGT. Robert Gisevius
Gisevius, 39, was one of several officers in the rear of the rental truck when it arrived at the bridge. He allegedly fired an assault rifle on the east side of the bridge, where five people were shot, one fatally. But the weapon wasn't turned over to investigators. Jurors convicted him in the fatal shooting of Brissette — jurors didn't have to decide whether Brissette was murdered because they didn't hold any of the defendants individually responsible for causing his death. Gisevius also was convicted of taking part in a cover-up. In 2009, the FBI secretly taped a conversation in which Gisevius shared his suspicion that someone was leaking information to federal investigators. He's been on leave without pay due to incarceration.
OFFICER Anthony Villavaso
Villavaso, 34, also arrived at the bridge in the rear of the rental truck. A firearms expert who testified for the government said he matched nine ammunition casings found at the bridge to an assault rifle used by Villavaso. Jurors convicted him in Brissette's shooting and the cover-up. During a conversation recorded by the FBI, Villavaso repeatedly insisted he saw a civilian with a gun on the bridge. He's been on leave without pay due to incarceration.
EX-OFFICER ROBERT FAULCON
Faulcon, 47, was convicted in Brissette's shooting and found guilty of fatally shooting Madison on the west side of the bridge. But the jury decided Madison's killing didn't amount to murder. Faulcon, the only defendant to testify during the trial, said he was "paralyzed with fear" when he shot Madison. He didn't dispute that he shot an unarmed man in the back with a shotgun, but he said he believed Madison posed a threat as Faulcon chased him and his brother, Lance Madison, down the bridge. Faulcon left the police force shortly after the hurricane and took a job as a truck driver.
RETIRED SGT. Arthur Kaufman
Kaufman, 55, who was assigned to investigate the shootings, was convicted of participating in a cover-up to make the shootings appear justified. Prosecutors said he fabricated witnesses, falsified reports and planted a gun. Kaufman's attorney tried to shift blame to former Lt. Michael Lohman, who was the ranking officer on the bridge, and Sgt. Gerard Dugue, who also investigated the shootings. Lohman pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up. Dugue is scheduled to be tried separately later this year. Kaufman, who was not charged with participating in any of the shootings, retired from the police force earlier this year.


Prosecutors alleged that the fifth suspect, Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, a homicide investigator, joined the other four in covering up the incident, inventing witnesses, holding a meeting with the suspects to help them get their stories straight, and saying that a gun from his house was evidence found at the scene.


The four officers who were on the bridge were convicted of civil rights violations and charges related to the cover-up. They face potential multiple life terms.


The jury was asked to determine whether the killings amounted to "murder," which, while not a formal charge, would have resulted in potentially tougher sentences under federal statutes. But jurors declined to do so.

Afghan helicopter crash kills 31 US troops

KABUL, Afghanistan— Thirty-one American troops and seven Afghans died in the overnight downing of a U.S. helicopter, President Hamid Karzai's office said Saturday. The Taliban claimed to have shot down the craft.


The deaths represent the largest loss of military lives in a single incident in the course of the nearly 10-year-old war, and are a blow to Western efforts as the United States and its allies begin drawing down forces in Afghanistan in hopes of ending their combat role in the next three years.


NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, confirmed in a terse statement that a helicopter crash had occurred and acknowledged insurgent activity in the area at the time. A Western military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the twin-rotor Chinook helicopter had apparently been brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.


Karzai's statement identified the slain Americans as special operations forces. Sensitive to operational secrecy, special forces commanders as a rule are slower than other branches to publicly acknowledge combat casualties, which would account for the military's near-silence on the incident more than 12 hours after it occurred.


The helicopter went down after midnight in the Sayedabad district of Wardak province, west of the capital, Kabul, according to Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the provincial governor. He and other provincial officials said the crash followed a firefight that had left eight insurgents dead.


The NATO force said recovery efforts were under way, and Afghan officials said the crash site had been cordoned off. The statement from Karzai's office reporting the U.S. and Afghan casualties offered condolences to President Obama and the families of the Afghans who died.


Downings of Western helicopters by hostile fire have been relatively rare in the Afghan conflict. Far more military choppers are lost to mechanical problems or bad weather.


The Taliban claimed its fighters had ambushed Western troops after being tipped off to an imminent night raid in the district. The crash site is located in Wardak's Tangi valley, where the insurgents are known to be active.


The Taliban have claimed responsibility, saying their fighters downed the helicopter in a battle with Nato troops, according to the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Islamist group also said eight of its fighters had been killed in the fighting.


The incident is believed to be the biggest single loss of life for US forces in Afghanistan since they began operations in 2001.


Nawaz Haqyar, police chief of Maidan Wardak province, said the helicopter had come down in the province, which is west of the country's capital Kabul.


Karzai said in a statement that he has sent his condolences to US President Barack Obama.

Leon Panetta warns against more cuts in Pentagon budget

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta effectively told Congress on Thursday to raise taxes and cut Social Security and Medicare before taking another swipe at the Pentagon budget beyond defense cuts already called for in the debt-ceiling deal.

In his first Pentagon news conference, Mr. Panetta, a former budget director in the Clinton White House, lent his voice to the Obama administration’s strategy of putting pressure on Congress to consider raising revenues when a special committee meets this fall to recommend $1.5 trillion in additional deficit-reduction measures. Mr. Obama signed a debt-ceiling deal on Tuesday calling for an initial $1 trillion in cuts.

Mr. Panetta’s argument was that defense had given up enough — about $350 billion of that $1 trillion over 10 years — and that further cuts would have dire consequences. He then segued into a brief discourse on “discretionary” federal spending, like defense, and “mandatory” federal spending, like Social Security and other entitlements.

“Let me for a moment put a budget hat on,” said Mr. Panetta, who is a month into his job as defense secretary. “You cannot deal with the size deficits that this country is confronting by simply cutting the discretionary side of the budget. That represents less than a third of the overall federal budget.

“You’ve got to, as the president’s made clear, if you’re going to look at those size deficits, you’ve got to look at the mandatory side of the budget, which is two-thirds of the federal budget. And you also have to look at revenues as part of that answer.”

Mr. Panetta made his comments on the second straight day of a Pentagon pushback to hundreds of billions of dollars of budget cuts potentially coming its way, the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that it has faced shrinking spending.

Both Mr. Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, who joined Mr. Panetta at the news conference, used words like “disastrous” and “unacceptable” to describe across-the-board cuts that would automatically kick in if the new committee failed to agree on reductions this fall.

Mr. Panetta also took the position that the committee should make no further defense cuts, either. The White House, however, has not ruled out further defense reductions. The committee, to be composed of six Democrats and six Republicans, would also be unlikely to take them off the table.

Defense spending represents about half of the federal government’s discretionary spending, and the military’s budget has increased by more than 70 percent since 2001. Although the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the Pentagon upward of $1 trillion, nearly half of the growth in defense spending in the past decade has been unrelated to the wars.

Panetta said the $600 billion in cuts “would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families, and our military’s ability to protect the nation. It is an outcome that would be completely unacceptable to me as secretary of defense, to the president and, I believe, to our nation’s leaders.”

Earlier this week, a senior defense official said thousands of Defense Department civilians would lose their jobs if larger cuts were triggered by a failure of the bipartisan panel to reach an agreement.

Mullen, who just returned from a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, said the partisan fight over debt reduction had fueled worries among the troops that they might not be paid on time.

“Our men and women down range have enough to worry about just getting their job done,” Mullen said. “They shouldn’t also be concerned about whether or not they will be paid to do that job or whether or not their families will continue to get the support they need during long absences. We can do better than that, as a military and as a nation.”

Pentagon officials have tried to sound optimistic about the chances of a congressional panel reaching a deal that would spare the Pentagon additional pain. That hasn’t stopped them, however, from citing the dangers should the committee of Democrats and Republicans fail.

Asked whether, given the sharpness of his warning, Panetta thought he would be able to serve as defense secretary if the additional cuts were made, he chuckled.

Spain Has Lot to Do on Budget

Spain and Italy are especially vulnerable to attacks from market speculators and should accelerate reforms of their economies as much as possible, Gonzalez-Paramo said in an interview with Spain's Cadena Ser radio.

There is no time for holidays. It's extremely urgent to act decisively and to show an inflexible compromise with the need to reform economies to make them grow," the ECB board member said.

Gonzalez-Paramo's words echoed those of European leaders in separate declarations Friday evenings after a round of telephone calls between euro-zone heads of state. 

Spain has practically completed the reform of its banking system but still needs to make progress on budgetary reforms, where elements of vulnerability remain, the ECB board member said.

"We have been told that on August 19 we will hear more of the measures which will assure that Spain will meet its budgetary targets," said Paramo, referring to Spain's commitment to reduce its budget deficit.

Spain still has a lot to do on the budget front,” said Gonzalez-Paramo in an interview with Spanish radio Cadena Ser broadcast yesterday. “Urgent measures also need to be taken to reform the labor market.”
With stock markets sinking for an eighth day, European leaders were hunting for solutions to shield Italy and Spain from market turbulence. The ECB resumed its bond-buying program, without extending the purchases to those two countries.
Umberto Bossi, leader of Italy’s co-ruling Northern League party, said the ECB will start buying Italian bonds on Aug. 8, as part of an exchange for the new economic measures unveiled by Italy’s government yesterday, Ansa newswire reported.
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero resumed his vacation in the southern part of the country, his office said in a text message yesterday evening.
Less than a day after first heading out on vacation, Zapatero returned to his office on Aug. 3 to remain in close contact with European leaders as the country’s borrowing costs approached the 7 percent mark that heralded bailouts of Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

Also yesterday, Zapatero spoke to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and agreed to implement accords adopted at the European Union July 21 summit as soon as possible, according to a statement posted on the Spanish government website.
Zapatero spoke by telephone with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and both agreed that the strong fluctuations of recent days in sovereign debt markets make little sense.
“Markets want to see promises kept,” said Gonzalez-Paramo, referring to the July 21 European Union summit which empowered the rescue fund to buy bonds in the secondary market, offer precautionary credit lines and lend to recapitalize banks. Paramo said there are tensions in the market because the European rescue fund can only act in theory until the changes are implemented by European governments.
European finance ministers are likely to meet in early September to speed up the implementation process of the July 21 accords, Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado said yesterday to Spanish radio station RNE.
Spanish bonds rallied on speculation that policy makers may take more action to arrest the crisis. The yield on Spain’s 10- year bonds tumbled 25 basis points to 6.04 percent at 4:18 p.m. in London yesterday.

EU Struggles to Tame Crisis as Spain

FRANKFURT—The European Central Bank is now open to purchasing government bonds of Italy and Spain, though has made no firm commitment to do so, according to people familiar with the matter.

Buying bonds of the two countries, which together issue roughly €600 billion ($857 billion) of government bonds a year, would be a major step for the central bank. Until this week, the ECB had bought less than €80 billion of Greek, Portuguese and Irish government bonds.

ECB watchers had assumed the there wasn't appetite for such a drastic escalation. The bank's decision on Thursday to restart, after a four-month gap, purchases of Irish and Portuguese bonds was opposed by at least three members of the 23-strong ECB board, including by the head of the powerful German Bundesbank.

Many analysts said those purchases needed to be broadened to Spain and Italy in order to keep the debt crisis that began almost two years ago in Greece from threatening those countries. Friday's signal came as a relief to investors concerned that central bankers might sit idly by while Europe's debt crisis engulfed the euro zone's third- and fourth-largest economies.

The bank, which has generally preferred to see national governments get their own finances in order, urged Italy and Spain to accelerate the pace of fiscal austerity and economic reform, according to people familiar with the matter, though reforms won't necessarily bring bond purchases. Italy on Friday announced new steps to speed up fiscal consolidation.

The ECB "is ready to make major efforts to help the situation, but countries have to do what is necessary first, otherwise it's just like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it," Belgium's central bank governor Luc Coene told a Belgian radio station early in the day.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet on Thursday suggested he was waiting for Italy to make the first move, saying it was "urgent" for European countries to front-load economic reforms, "and for Italy of course."

Any enthusiasm from Mr. Trichet's announcement on Thursday that the central bank was back in the market buying bonds was quickly damped by reports from bond traders that the ECB was only buying Irish and Portuguese debt.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy plan to speak by phone later today, their offices said. The European Commission called for an expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility, the 440 billion-euro ($623 billion) rescue fund, earning a rebuke from Germany.
“It’s important to constantly review if there is a need to further reinforce the EFSF in terms of its size,” European Union Economic and Monetary Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Brussels. German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler rejected taking more measures.
Europe’s government leaders were back in the spotlight after a divided ECB restarted its bond-purchase program yesterday following a four-month hiatus. The central bank refused to extend the purchases to Italy and Spain, the two countries at the center of the current turmoil.
“Would the ECB please get serious?” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Joh. Berenberg Gossler & Co. in London, said in an e-mailed note. Limiting the bond-buying to Ireland and Portugal brings to mind “a fire brigade that responds to a major emergency but then drives to the wrong place and refuses to turn around and douse the real fire.

Spanish and Italian bonds rallied on speculation that policy makers may take more action to arrest the crisis. Ten- year yields dropped 22 basis points to 6.06 percent in Spain and 4 basis points to 6.16 percent in Italy.
The euro was up 0.8 percent at $1.4207 at 4:15 p.m. in Brussels.
Over the opposition of the German central bank, the ECB bought bonds of Ireland and Portugal yesterday, two countries drawing on official aid. It did so again today, according to two people with knowledge of the transactions. The ECB stopped short of buying Italian bonds, and ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said Italy has to show it is “ahead of the curve” in taming its debt.
A clash over the size of the bailout fund flared between European officials and Germany, the biggest underwriter of aid packages to Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
A call by Jose Barroso, commission president, for a review of “all elements” including the fund’s size was rejected today by Germany’s Roesler.

US credit rating downgrade prompts warning from China

Allies and critics of President Obama are already pointing fingers over the credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poors.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who clashed with Obama repeatedly during the recent debt ceiling dispute, attributed the downgrade to government spending.

"Unfortunately," Boehner added, "decades of reckless spending cannot be reversed immediately, especially when the Democrats who run Washington remain unwilling to make the tough choices required to put America on solid ground."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, echoed Obama's call for a "balanced" debt reduction plan, including more tax revenues from wealthy Americans -- a step blocked by Republicans during the recent debate over raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

"The action by S&P reaffirms the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenue-raising measures like closing taxpayer-funded giveaways to billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners," Reid said.

The downgrade of the credit rating -- from AAA to AA-plus -- now puts a premium on the special congressional committee assigned to find $1.5 trillion more in debt reduction over the next decade.

Republican presidential candidates are also weighing in on the downgrade -- pointing the finger straight at Obama.

"America's creditworthiness just became the latest casualty in President Obama's failed record of leadership on the economy," said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. "Standard & Poor's rating downgrade is a deeply troubling indicator of our country's decline under President Obama."

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., -- who opposed the debt ceiling deal -- called on Obama to fire Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and "submit a plan with a list of cuts to balance the budget this year, turn our economy around and put Americans back to work.

After the European markets closed, Wall Street – which had suffered a 512-point fall on Thursday in one of its worse performances since 2008 – was encouraged by remarks from the Spanish government that the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, agreed with the French president Nicolas Sarkozy's desire for greater co-ordination.

Even so, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, on a day of wild fluctuations, ended just 60 points higher. Tensions were also eased after Italy's prime minster, Silvio Berlusconi, promised to accelerate austerity measures by a year, and summoned a meeting of G7 finance ministers as soon as possible.

His comments followed rumours that the European Central Bank could reverse its hardline stance and begin buying Spanish and Italian government bonds in return for quicker reforms.

Dealers have been frustrated by the lack of urgency shown by the ECB in supporting Italy and Spain. During Thursday's market mayhem, they had bought only bonds issued by Ireland and Portugal.

Amid fears of an escalation in the crisis, Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, held a conference call with David Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne – both on holiday – to discuss the impact of the financial crash on Britain's banks and the struggling UK economy. The Bank is likely to cut its growth forecast for the UK when it publishes its latest quarterly inflation report on Wednesday.

"They discussed the financial situation and the chancellor asked the governor for his judgment," a Treasury source said. "They agreed to monitor the situation."

The source said the chancellor was keeping up the pressure on eurozone leaders to carry through the terms of the second bailout of Greece, which was intended to calm the markets when announced on 21 July but has failed to do so, with concerns widening to Italy and Spain. "What we are communicating to our European counterparts is you must deliver on what you have promised," a Treasury source said.

The US jobless rate went down from 9.2% to 9.1%. Analysts said the increase in non-farm payrolls was bigger than the 85,000 jump expected by Wall Street, but the figures were not good enough to make traders feel less gloomy about the possibility of a global double-dip recession.

Glenn Uniacke, senior dealer at Moneycorp, said there was relief at the US jobs figures. "With employment growth in the world's top consumer market an indicator of the future strength of the global economy, today's non-farm payroll figures gave the markets a modest upside surprise and President Obama some short-term reprieve following the blood-letting of the past week," he said.

"However, the data won't stop the rot and is not sufficient to change the bearish outlook from traders, with a sustained figure of 200,000-plus needed for any major positive impact on the unemployment rate. The markets were seen swinging wildly straight after the data, unsure how to interpret the ray of light in an otherwise gloomy week."

The British economist Baroness Vadera, a former Labour minister and G20 adviser who played a role in devising a rescue package for the international banking system at the time of the 2008 crash, said the current crisis could be even worse.

She told BBC Newsnight: "It feels as scary, but it is different. The reason it is potentially worse is that governments stepped in all over the world and saved the banking system in order to save their economies, but now who is going to step in to save governments?

"When we went into that crisis, interest rates were quite high, so we did have monetary policy to use as a tool and now we are at the outer limits of that. Lastly, we are currently facing quite a lot of inflationary pressures, particularly coming from commodities and emerging markets, so our room for manoeuvre is a lot more limited.

Travel to Spain for World Youth Day

As final preparations are made for World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid, Spain, 21 pilgrims from the Diocese of Sioux City are making final plans of their own.
Andrea Jenson, assistant diocesan director of youth and young adult ministry, will accompany, Father Brent Lingle and eight seminarians along with high school and college students and four chaperones on a pilgrimage from Aug. 11-25.
“Any time that we can get away from home and experience our faith is an opportunity for growth,” said Jenson. “World Youth Day in particular is known for miraculous things happening as well as deep conversions taking place, strengthening of faith, finding of someone’s vocation and an opportunity to see how universal the Catholic Church is.”
This will be a repeat trip to World Youth Day (WYD) for 25 percent of the group, she noted.
“Whether they went when it was in Denver, Canada or Australia, they are going for a second time,” said Jenson. “I think that speaks volumes to what a wonderful experience it is, if they are willing to spend the money to go on the pilgrimage again.”

FALL RIVER — Over 60 persons including teens, young adults and adults from the Fall River Diocese will be traveling to Spain this month to participate in the international celebration of World Youth Day in Madrid from Aug. 16-21.

Held usually every three years in different countries, World Youth Day is an opportunity for youth and young adults from around the globe to unite to celebrate and share their faith through a common experience of pilgrimage, prayer and worship. The weeklong schedule of activities includes catechetical sessions, liturgies, concerts, cultural events, sight-seeing and a prayer vigil and closing Mass with Pope Benedict XVI.

"It's the best experience of the universal Catholic Church that young adults can possibly have," said diocesan Youth and Young Adult Ministry Assistant Director Crystal-Lynn Medeiros who attended World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia. "There are no words to describe it; you just have to experience it."

She is heading to this year's World Youth Day as part of one local group that includes diocesan Faith Formation Director Claire McManus, two college-age parishioners and the faith formation director from Sacred Heart Parish in Fall River and two parishioners from St. Mary Parish in Mansfield. They will be joining a larger delegation from the Boston Archdiocese.

Other Fall River diocesan World Youth Day pilgrims will be traveling in two different groups.

Twenty-six young people, ages 14-24, from the St. Anthony Parish, New Bedford, Youth Group will be going accompanied by seven adult chaperones including their pastor, Father Roger J. Landry. Members of the youth group have been raising money since 2008 to cover the expense of the trip through bake and candy sales, pilgrimage walk-a-thons, parish breakfasts and other means.

There is also a contingent of 21 heading to Madrid from St. Patrick Parish in Wareham, including some members of that parish's youth group, the director of religious education, and parish parochial vicar Father Ron P. Floyd along with a few young persons from other parishes and three seminarians of the diocese.

First as a seminarian and then as their parish priest, Father Floyd has been working with the St. Patrick's Youth group for several years to plan and fund-raise for participation in World Youth Day 2011.

He described the majority of his group going to Madrid as preparing to enter college in September and believes that age to be right for the World Youth Day experience.

"World Youth Day is an intense time to think about what God is calling you to do, and college age is a great time to focus on that," he said.

At the conclusion of World Youth Day the group will travel to Fatima for a spiritual retreat and then to Lisbon.

Father Landry explained that both young and adult travelers from St. Anthony's have been preparing for their pilgrimage by studying the sites they'll see, the saints whose tombs they'll visit, and previous papal World Youth Day messages. Their expanded itinerary will begin in Lisbon and Fatima and continue on to several Christian shrines in other regions of Spain before their arrival in Madrid. Throughout their journey, youth group members will share their experiences and photos via their online blog at www.saintanthonyyouthgroup.blogspot.com.

"All of us are getting very excited and counting down the days," said Landry. "We've worked hard for three years. Now all the fundraising is over, and we've turned our focus not only to packing but to preparing ourselves spiritually for the graces God in his goodness has been planning from all eternity to give us during this pilgrimage. The theme of the World Youth Day is 'Planted and Built Up in Jesus Christ, Firm in the Faith,' and we're going conscious of the fact that Jesus wants to build us all up in faith, hope and love so that we can return better equipped to help him build up our parish and the Church."

As of mid-July almost a half million young persons were registered to attend World Youth Day with over 29,000 coming from the U.S.

Pope Benedict, who convened the gathering, will pray with and speak to youth at an evening vigil on Saturday, Aug. 20 and then preside over the closing "Mass of Sending" the next morning. These events will take place at the Cuatro Vientos, an air base large enough to accommodate the 1.2 million expected at the closing Mass. Most World Youth Day pilgrims will walk the approximate 5-mile distance to the air base on Saturday morning and remain there overnight for the Sunday Mass.