LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Good news, “Doctor Who” fans; five actors who’ve played the Doctor in the long-running British sci-fi series are uniting for an audio drama to be released in November, in celebration of the series’ 50th anniversary.
Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann – aka, Doctors four through eight – are all participating in the 100-minute drama, dubbed “Doctor Who: The Light at the End.” According to Big Finish, which is producing the drama, the story will present a scenario in which the assembled Doctors’ “paths suddenly intersect when they face imminent destruction.”
A number of the Doctors’ companions are also coming along for the ride. Louise Jameson, Sarah Sutton, Nicola Bryant, Sophie Aldred and India Fisher will be reprising their roles from the series.
On the villain front, Geoffrey Beevers is coming back to play renegade Time Lord the Master, “and there will be a number of appearances from some much-cherished old friends from the TV series,”‘ according to producer David Richardson.
The Doctor is currently played by Matt Smith, the 11th actor to portray the role.
While the first three Doctors from the series – William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee – have died, “Doctor Who” actor Nicholas Briggs, who’s writing, directing and executive-producing the drama, says that they will play a part in the anniversary adventure.
“We wanted to do a proper, fully-fledged multi-Doctor story for this very special occasion,” Briggs said, “and it’s wonderful that all the surviving classic Doctors threw themselves behind the project so enthusiastically. That’s not to say the first three Doctors don’t appear – we wanted to pay homage to the whole history of the classic series.”
“Doctor Who: The Light at the End” will come in two versions. A five-disc, special limited edition will include two hour-long documentaries, along with the Companion Chronicles story “The Revenants,” which is performed by “Doctor Who” actor William Russell, and cast photographs. A standard two-disc version will also be available.
In addition to “The Light at the End,” BBC Two has commissioned an origin movie, “An Adventure in Space and Time,” which will “tell the story of the genesis of ‘Doctor Who’” and “look at the many personalities involved in bringing the series to life.”
The 90-minute special is being written by “Doctor Who” writer/actor Mark Garliss, with showrunner Steven Moffat and executive producer Caroline Skinner executive-producing.
TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News
A former New York City laboratory technician whose work on rape cases is now being scrutinized for serious mistakes said on Friday that she had been unaware there were problems in her work and, disputing an earlier report, denied she had resigned under pressure.
The former lab technician, Serrita Mitchell, said any problems must have been someone else’s.
“My work?” Ms. Mitchell said. “No, no, no, not my work.”
Earlier, the city medical examiner’s office, where Ms. Mitchell said she was employed from 2000 to 2011, said it was reviewing 843 rape cases handled by a lab technician who might have missed critical evidence.
So far, it has finished looking over about half the cases, and found 26 in which the technician had missed biological evidence and 19 in which evidence was commingled with evidence from other cases. In seven cases where evidence was missed, the medical examiner’s office was able to extract a DNA profile, raising the possibility that detectives could have caught some suspects sooner.
The office declined to identify the technician. Documents said she quit in November 2011 after the office moved to fire her, once supervisors had begun to discover deficiencies in her work. A city official who declined to be identified said Ms. Mitchell was the technician.
However, Ms. Mitchell, reached at her home in the Bronx on Friday, said she had never been told there were problems. “It couldn’t be me because your work gets checked,” she said. “You have supervisors.”
She also said that she had resigned because of a rotator cuff injury that impeded her movement. “I loved the job so much that I stayed a little longer,” she said, explaining that she had not expected to stay with the medical examiner’s office so long. “Then it was time to leave.”
Also on Friday, the Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal defense lawyers for most of the city’s poor defendants, said it was demanding that the city turn over information about the cases under review.
If needed, Legal Aid will sue the city to gain access to identifying information about the cases, its chief lawyer, Steven Banks, said, noting that New York was one of only 14 states that did not require routine disclosure of criminal evidence before trial.
Disclosure of the faulty examination of the evidence is prompting questions about outside review of the medical examiner’s office. The City Council on Friday announced plans for an emergency oversight committee, and its members spoke with outrage about the likelihood that missed semen stains and “false negatives” might have enabled rapists to go unpunished.
“The mishandling of rape cases is making double victims of women who have already suffered an indescribably horrific event,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.
A few more details emerged Friday about a 2001 case involving the rape of a minor in Brooklyn, in which the technician missed biological evidence, the review found. The victim accused an 18-year-old acquaintance of forcing himself on her, and he was questioned by the police but not charged, according to a law enforcement official.
Unrelated to the rape, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to third-degree robbery and served two years in prison. The DNA sample he gave in the robbery case was matched with the one belatedly developed from evidence the technician had overlooked in the 2001 rape, law enforcement officials said. He was recently indicted in the 2001 rape.
Especially alarming to defense lawyers was the possibility that DNA samples were cross-contaminated and led to false convictions, or could do so in the future.
“Up to this point,” Mr. Banks said, “they have not made information available to us, as the primary defender in New York City, to determine whether there’s an injustice that’s been done in past cases, pending cases, or allowing us to be on the lookout in future cases.” He added, “If it could happen with one analyst, how does anyone know that it stops there?”
The medical examiner’s office has said that the risk of cross-contamination was extremely low and that it does not appear that anyone was wrongly convicted in the cases that have been reviewed so far. And officials in at least two of the city’s district attorneys’ offices — for Brooklyn and Manhattan — said they had not found any erroneous convictions.
But Mr. Banks said the authorities needed to do more, and that their statements thus far were the equivalent of “trust us.”
“Given what’s happened,” he said, “that’s cold comfort.”
Plagued by one mishap after another, Boeing Co.'s much-heralded 787 Dreamliner passenger jet for the 21st century is feeling new heat from federal regulators.
Days after one of the planes caught fire while parked in Boston and another experienced a fuel leak, the Federal Aviation Administration has launched an unusual "comprehensive safety review of Boeing 787 critical systems." This includes a sweeping evaluation of the way Boeing designs, manufactures and assembles the aircraft.
The review — just 17 months after the FAA gave the go-ahead to the new $200-million-plus plane — does not ground the 50 Dreamliners currently being flown by eight airlines around the globe.
Since the inception of its next-generation passenger jet, Boeing has touted the revolutionary way the Dreamliner is made and the way it operates. But those novel technologies will now attract greater scrutiny from U.S. regulators after recent events have raised questions about Dreamliner safety.
New planes, in general, have "teething" issues as they are introduced. But, industry analysts said, the type of review the Dreamliner is undergoing is rare, and passenger jets haven't been subject to this sort of sweeping government review for decades.
Boeing said it will participate in the review with the FAA and believes the process will underscore customers' and the traveling public's confidence in the reliability of the aircraft.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA chief Michael Huerta launched the effort Friday at a news conference in Washington, revealing plans for a "comprehensive safety review of Boeing 787 critical systems." This includes a complete evaluation of the aircraft, including an assessment of the way Boeing designs, manufactures and assembles the aircraft.
The move comes despite the "unprecedented" certification process in which FAA technical experts logged 200,000 hours of work over nearly two years and flew on numerous test flights, Huerta said. There were more than a dozen new special conditions developed during the certification process because of the Dreamliner's innovative design.
"The purpose of the review is to validate the work that we've done," Huerta said, "and to look at the quality and other processes to ensure that effective oversight is being done."
Certification of the Dreamliner was completed Aug. 25, 2010, and the first plane was delivered to All Nippon Airways a month later. It was more than three years late because of design problems and supplier issues.
The Dreamliner, a twin-aisle aircraft that can seat 210 to 290 passengers, is the first large commercial jet with more than half its structure made of composite materials (carbon fibers meshed together with epoxy) rather than aluminum sheets. Another innovative application is the changeover from hydraulically actuated systems typically found on passenger jets to electrically powered systems involving lithium ion batteries.
For instance, Boeing has said electric brakes "significantly reduce the mechanical complexity of the braking system and eliminate the potential for delays associated with leaking brake hydraulic fluid, leaking valves and other hydraulic failures." Because of these technologies, Boeing says, the new plane burns 20% less fuel than other jetliners of a similar size.
But the use of such extensive electronic systems was called into question when a smoldering fire was discovered Monday on the underbelly of a Dreamliner operated by Japan Airlines Co. after the 173 passengers and 11 crew members had deplaned at the gate.
The incident prompted the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate.
"We don't know the cause of the fire, but it's a serious issue," said Scott Hamilton, an aviation industry consultant and managing director of Leeham Co. in Issaquah, Wash. "Did the FAA miss something? Did Boeing have an oversight in the design process? Was there a problem in the supply chain? These are questions we don't have answers to."
In December, the FAA ordered inspections of fuel line connectors because of risks of leaks and fires.
On the same day, a United Airlines Dreamliner flight from Houston to Newark, N.J., was diverted to New Orleans after an electrical problem popped up mid-flight. Qatar Airways, which had accepted delivery of a Dreamliner just a month earlier, grounded the aircraft for the same problem that United experienced.
Still, both LaHood and Huerta insist the Dreamliner is safe. Ray Conner, Boeing's chief executive of commercial aircraft, attended the conference and said the company was "fully committed to resolving any issue related to the safety" of the Dreamliner.
The Chicago company has taken 848 orders for Dreamliners from airlines and aircraft leasing firms around the world. The price ranges from $206.8 million to $243.6 million per jet, depending on the version ordered.
Major parts for the plane are assembled at various locations worldwide — including Southern California, Russia, Japan and Italy — and then shipped to Boeing's facilities in Everett, Wash., where they are "snapped together" in three days once production hits full speed, compared with a month the conventional way.
Boeing currently is making five Dreamliners a month. The company plans to reach 10 a month late this year.
Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group Corp., a Virginia research firm, said the review will be beneficial for the Dreamliner program in the long run.
"There's no showstopper here; it's a short-term embarrassment for the company," he said. "Then again, this program is full of short-term embarrassments."
william.hennigan@latimes.com
Cyanide, a toxic combination of carbon and nitrogen, exists throughout nature in trace amounts in certain plants, seeds and soils. It is also produced by some bacteria and fungi.
In its pure solid or gas forms, however, cyanide can be acutely poisonous, earning it an ignoble reputation in human history as an efficient killer — from World War II Nazi death camps to the Jonestown massacre to the Chicago Tylenol murders.
"It is a poison we fear," said Frank Paloucek, a pharmacist and toxicologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "It is a really dangerous poison, and once you get enough of it, there is not much we can do."
That appears to be the case for Khan, a West Rogers Park businessman who died of cyanide poisoning in July just weeks after winning a million-dollar lottery jackpot. The Cook County medical examiner's office initially found that Khan died of natural causes, and he was buried in Rosehill Cemetery. But after a relative voiced concern, extensive toxicological tests showed he died of lethal levels of cyanide. Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors are investigating his death as a homicide.
The murder mystery, first revealed in the Tribune on Monday, has sparked worldwide interest. It comes more than 30 years after the murders of seven Chicago-area residents who ingested cyanide-spiked Tylenol capsules spread fear across the country. The FBI reopened its investigation into the killings four years ago, but no one has ever been charged.
"In the rare event of homicidal poisoning, cyanide is not an uncommon (substance) to use," Dr. Gregory Schmunk, a forensic pathologist and president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said Thursday.
Indeed, just last year, the wife of a former Communist Party leader in China was accused of killing a British businessman after ordering her butler to spike his drink with cyanide.
It is, however, more commonly seen in suicides, such as in the case of an Arizona businessman who poisoned himself in a courtroom with cyanide last year after he was found guilty of arson, according to experts.
The compound kills quickly.
Once inside the human body, it prevents cells from using oxygen. If enough cells absorb cyanide, a person's body and brain will become so oxygen-deprived that their tissues will begin to die.
As the body fights to provide more oxygen, heart and breathing rates rise. Cramping and headaches can occur, followed by loss of consciousness and eventually death.
Death may come in anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours, Paloucek said.
Cyanide is typically detected during a medical examination by a scarlet red discoloration or a "bitter almond" odor emitting from the body, according to experts. But neither is a sure measure — darker pigmentation can mask red skin coloration, and many people can't smell cyanide.
In its powder form, a toxic dose of cyanide may only be about 200 milligrams, roughly the amount of any common pain medication pill, according to Paloucek.
"We are dealing with a poison that has a very fast knockdown rate," said John H. Trestrail III, a clinical and forensic toxicologist who consults with law enforcement agencies on such cases.
For that reason, investigators have been looking closely at the events that happened around the time that Khan died, including the last meal he ate, which his wife acknowledged preparing.
Cyanide can come as a gas or in a solid powder that looks like white sugar. It is commonly used in research laboratories, in mining to extract certain metals and by jewelers. It also used to be widely used in the United States to kill various pests.
"One hundred years ago, you could go into a pharmacy and buy cyanide to kill wasps," Trestrail said. "But you don't do that anymore."
Now cyanide suppliers maintain a "poison register" that would include information like proof of purchase, the name of the buyer and its intended use, according to Trestrail.
Outside the United States, however, cyanide is readily available, according to Paloucek. And even within the U.S., there have been cases of people giving false information to cyanide suppliers to obtain the substance.
"If you're persistent, it is not hard to get your hands on it," Schmunk said.
Local authorities plan to ask a Cook County Circuit Court judge on Friday for permission to exhume Khan's body in the next week or two. The remains would be autopsied by the medical examiner's office, according to its spokeswoman, Mary Paleologos.
Investigators will take samples of Khan's stomach contents to see if and how the cyanide was ingested, Paleologos said. They will also take more fluid and blood samples and look at other organs such as the lungs, to see if it may have been inhaled, she said. Investigators will also try to rule out chronic cyanide poisoning in which long-term exposure to the compound may have contributed to his death.
"A lot depends on if the body is in good or poor condition," Paleologos said. "If it's in good condition, of course (the medical examiner) can get decent samples, but if it's in poor condition, the quality of the samples will be poor as well."
cdizikes@tribune.com
asweeney@tribune.com
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Native Canadians are so angry that they could resort to blocking resource development and bring the economy “to its knees” unless the Conservative government addresses their grievances, an influential chief said on Thursday.
Native Canadian chiefs are due to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to discuss the poor living conditions facing many of Canada’s 1.2 million aboriginals.
“We have had enough. Our young people have had enough. Our women have had enough … . We have nothing left to lose,” said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak from the province of Manitoba.
Activists have already blockaded some rail lines and threatened to close Canada’s borders with the United States in a campaign they call “Idle No More.”
Canada has 633 separate native “bands,” each of which have their own communities and lands, and not all share the same opinions. The chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the aboriginal umbrella group, said his members had come to a tipping point, but he made no mention of damaging the economy.
“You cannot ignore what is happening with Idle No More… We will drive the final stake in the heart of colonialism and it will happen in this generation,” Shawn Atleo told a separate news conference.
“First Nations are not opposed to resource development, they are just not supportive of development at any cost,” he said.
Native Canadian leaders say they want more federal money, a greater say over what happens to resources on their land and more respect from the federal Conservative government.
“These are demands, not requests,” said Nepinak. “The Idle No More movement has the people – it has the people and the numbers – that can bring the Canadian economy to its knees. It can stop Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s resource development plan,” Nepinak told reporters in Ottawa.
“We have the warriors that are standing up now, that are willing to go that far. So we’re not here to make requests, we’re here to demand attention,” he said.
Aboriginal bands are unhappy about Enbridge Inc’s plans to build a pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific province of British Columbia, and some say they will not allow the project to go ahead.
Some aboriginal bands oppose the Enbridge pipeline on the grounds that it is too environmentally dangerous while others say the company did not do enough to consult them before applying for permission to go ahead with the project.
“DIPLOMATIC HAND”
Nepinak said he wants to extend a “diplomatic hand” toward resolving the issues and gave no details about what he meant by bringing the economy to its knees.
Nepinak and other Manitoba chiefs are also demanding that Ottawa rescind parts of two recent budget acts they say reduce environmental protection for lakes and rivers, and make it easier to sell lands on the reserves where many natives live.
“We’ve been working tirelessly to gain access through various channels into this Harper regime … . How do we trust the words of this prime minister?” Nepinak asked.
Successive Canadian governments have struggled for decades to improve the life of aboriginals.
Ottawa spends around C$ 11 billion ($ 11.1 billion) a year on its aboriginal population, yet living conditions for many are poor, particularly for those on reserves with high rates of poverty, addiction, joblessness and suicide.
As part of the Idle No More campaign, protesters blocked a Canadian National Railway Co line in Sarnia, Ontario, in late December and early January.
($ 1=$ 0.99 Canadian)
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway, Xavier Briand and David Brunnstrom)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(Reuters) – Television personality Meredith Vieira is leaving the U.S. version of the quiz show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” after 11 seasons.
“It’s the final year of Meredith’s contract. She has chosen to move on and pursue other opportunities. We are searching for a new host,” said a spokeswoman for Disney/ABC Television Group.
Vieira will remain on the air for new episodes through May and on repeats that will play over the summer before a new host takes over in the fall, the spokeswoman said.
The international quiz show of British origin gave rise to the popular culture question “Is that your final answer?” and was the basis for the 2008 film “Slumdog Millionaire,” which won a best picture Oscar.
Vieira, a nine-time Emmy winner, may be best-known as host of “Today,” the highly rated morning show on NBC, from 2006 to 2011. Before that she was a host on ABC’s daytime show “The View.”
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Eric Walsh)
TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News
New York City health officials may proceed temporarily with a plan to require parental consent before an infant may undergo a particular Jewish circumcision ritual, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
City officials say 12 cases of herpes simplex virus have likely resulted from the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, since 2000, including one Brooklyn case reported this week. Two infants died, and two suffered permanent brain damage. Most Jews no longer practice metzitzah b’peh, in which the circumciser uses his mouth to suck blood from the wound, but it remains common among some ultra-Orthodox communities.
Citing the risk of infection, health officials in September introduced a regulation that would require parents to provide written consent stating that they were aware of the health risks.
But the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, Agudath Israel of America, and the International Bris Association sued in October to stop the rule from taking effect, calling it an infringement of their constitutional rights. They also denied the procedure posed a risk and asked a federal court to put the rule on hold while the litigation proceeded.
In denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the United States District Court for the Southern District wrote that the risks were clear.
“In light of the quality of the evidence presented in support of the regulation, we conclude that a continued injunction against enforcement of the regulation would not serve the public interest,” she wrote.
City lawyers said they were gratified by the ruling, but Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said the groups would appeal. “We continue to believe that this case is a wrongful and unnecessary intrusion into the rights of freedom of religion and speech,” he said.
|
The company said it will trim occupied square footage 50 percent at the plant by moving from three buildings to one. The plant in Texas manufactures electronics for a variety of Boeing products.
The cuts will be completed by the end of 2014, the company said.
Boeing announced a major restructuring of its defense division in November that would cut 30 percent of management jobs from 2010 levels, close facilities and consolidate several business units.
The company's shares closed at $77.09 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
SPRINGFIELD—
The old Legislature adjourned Tuesday without fixing the state's broken public pension system. Also left unresolved were the divisive issues of same-sex marriage, gun regulation and gambling expansion. It'll be a while before such problems are tackled — the part-time lawmakers are scheduled to go home for a few weeks before returning to the Capitol.
In the House, Speaker Michael Madigan remains in charge, as he has for all but two of the past 30 years. In the Senate, President John Cullerton starts his fifth year running the show. Both Chicago Democrats now wield veto-proof majorities after many voters throughout the state opted against the Republican alternative in November legislative races.
That new Democratic power brings added pressure to perform was not lost on Cullerton, who said his party's 40-19 advantage over the GOP is the largest in the nation and in state history.
"I know a lot of you are thinking, 'This is great. We've got 40 members. I don't have to take any tough votes,'" Cullerton told his Democrats in a decorated Senate chamber as family members were entertained by a rendition of the 1960s tune "Feeling Good."
"But if everybody thought like that, we wouldn't get anything done, would we?" he said.
Madigan, the longest-serving speaker in state history, told House members that key issues remain "terribly contentious, terribly divisive."
"We have to call upon our inner resolves to dedicate ourselves to the solution of these problems, working cooperatively with the other members of the House of Representatives and the Senate," said Madigan, who leads a 71-47 Democratic majority.
Still, Madigan gave a grave assessment of the poorly funded pensions, saying he would "emphasize the absolutely serious nature of the fiscal condition."
In the waning days of the legislative session that concluded Tuesday, Madigan made what he said was a good-faith effort to spur pension talks by lifting a demand that suburban and downstate teacher retirement costs be shifted from the state to local school districts. That's now back on the table for Madigan, who called it a "free lunch."
"Serious, serious problem, and if we're serious about solving the problem, that must be addressed," Madigan said.
The cost-shift provision is adamantly opposed by Republicans and some suburban Democrats who maintain that it will lead to local property tax increases.
After failing to come up with a pension solution before the clock ran out this week, Cullerton said that Senate Bill 1, legislation often symbolizing the top agenda item, would be a pension measure combining aspects of unresolved Senate-passed and House-sponsored plans.
"The finances of our pension system have to be addressed in a fair and constitutional manner. The issue has lingered for generations and threatens to doom future generations if something isn't done," Cullerton said.
"We are on the verge of our state budget being turned into a financial plan that funds pension benefits, not essential services. Our investments in higher, elementary and secondary education and human services are increasingly crowded out — some might say, squeezed — by our pension costs," Cullerton said in a nod to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, whose grass-roots pension reform movement used a cartoon mascot, Squeezy, the Pension Python.
Though Cullerton cast a vote for Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno of Lemont for Senate president, as she did for him in a symbolic display of bipartisanship, Radogno said "many people in Illinois really don't have a lot of confidence in us and hopefully we can turn that around."
"We have to come to grips with some of the very real problems that we have," she said. "The underlying pillar that will allow us to begin to address them is solving the pension problem."
House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego called for "incredibly bold ideas and incredibly bold solutions."
"We're facing challenges in the state that we probably haven't seen as a General Assembly since the Great Depression," Cross said.
Copyright © Terrified News. All rights reserved.
Design 
And Business Directories
