Nazi Swastika Over New York Skies

The organization promoting the banner, Proswastika.org, aim to reclaim the swastika as a symbol of a peace, its meaning long before it became associated with the Nazis.
The banner shows the swastika over the Star of David. It flew as part of Swastika Rehabilitation Week starting July 5, according to the group's website.
But Mark Treyger, the New York councilman who represents Coney Island, is not buying that argument.
"I will not accept their twisted logic. And I am also going to speak out against sending chilling messages of fear and intimidation to residents," Treyger told CBS New York.
The Las Vegas-based International Raelian Movement paid for the banner, according to Proswastika.org.
Raelians believe extraterrestrials created humans thousands of years ago. The group is not anti-Semitic, Raelian spokesman Thomas Kaenzig told the Wall Street Journal.

Malala Wish for Birthday was the Safe Return of Boko Haram Girls

Calls kidnapped girls her "sisters" during visit to Nigeria
“I can see those girls as my sisters… and I’m going to speak up for them until they are released,” she told a crowd of parents, Reuters reports. “I can feel… the circumstances under which you are suffering. It’s quite difficult for a parent to know that their daughter is in great danger.
“My birthday wish this year is… bring back our girls now, and alive,” she added.
Malala, who became renowned as an international advocate for girls’ education after she survived a Taliban assassination attempt, is scheduled to meet with the Nigerian leader on Monday. She turned 17 on Saturday.

Michael Schumacher Its Not Anymore In Coma And Has Left The Hospital

Michael Schumacher is not in coma anymore and he would already have left the hospital where he had hospitalized from last December 29, after the ugly accident on the skis to Méribel, in Tall Savoia, when falling had beaten violently the head against a rock and, despite he wore the helmet, he had suffered a cranial trauma and a cerebral hemorrhage. After having been operated, he had entered pharmacological coma.

And' is his manager, Sabine Kehm, to announce it with a press release, as he has brought the German daily paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Michael has let the hospital of Grenoble to continue his long phase of rehabilitation. It is not in coma anymore - he has made to know in the note - his family would want to expressly thank all the doctors, the nurses and the therapists of Grenoble that in these first months an excellent job and the paramedics have developed intervened on the place of the accident. The thanks of the family also goes to all the people that their wishes of ready recovery have sent to Michael. they have surely helped him."

Finally a planet as the Earth 2014 New discovery

"The astronomers had waited for this moment since 1995, from when the first planet was open out of the Solar System." Raffaele Gratton, researcher of the National institute of Astrophysics, synthesizes so the importance of the announcement given from the Nasa yesterday. Kepler-186F, the first planet similar to the Earth individualized in the depths of the space, opens new perspectives and confirmation that in the universe there are other places that could entertain the life.   Doctor Gratton, because it was looked for with so much interest a planet as this? The idea leading it is that the planets with the characteristics of the Earth are the most proper to entertain the life. For a long time it looked for one of dimensions similar to our world. therefore with every probability rocky. and to a distance from his/her own star that allows such superficial temperatures to allow the presence of liquid water.   Does it deal with hypothesis or do we already have the certainty that is some water to the liquid state? For the time being I am hypothesis. The temperature of the planet also depends on the composition of the atmosphere and from how much the effect is efficient it shuts. Venus for instance has an irraggiamento equal to around twice that of the Earth, therefore in theory there could be liquid water, but on his/her surface there are more than 500 centigrade degrees. To have the certainty of thing are found on Kepler-186F it would need to study in detail the gases that surround him/it, but this is very difficult because it is very small and very distant, to about 500 light from us.   Is Kepler-186F an unique case or he/she is thought that there are many similar planets? You/they should be enough numerous. The most recent studies esteem that in a 30 year-old ray light from the Earth is at least one of it. In the next years it is hoped to start new more proper spatial missions for to individualize nearer planets to the Earth.   Is Qual the Italian contribution to this type of searches? Our Country has departed some late but you/he/she is recovering terrestrial and it participates in many important projects. Italy has for instance involved, among the others, in the missions Plato and Cheops, that aim to discover planets distances extrasolari more brought closer.   The announcement of the Nasa makes to dream many impassioned of science fiction. Will it be possible to reach Kepler-186F sooner or later? To go there is impossible: it is too far. Also to communicate with a possible civilization sending some messages radio would be impracticable: to reach destination they would employ 500 years, therefore we would have only an answer to 1000 years of distance. In reality "habitable planet" it doesn't mean "planet lived by intelligent forms of life." All it takes is thinking about the history of the Earth. It exists from million of years, but it is populated from intelligent forms of life from few thousand of years and from forms of life able to have been communicating only away radio for one century. The probabilities to find really in this moment someone with which to communicate is very low.

Jaime King Will Become A Dad

After five years of marriage, the pitter patter of little feet will soon be in Jaime King's household as it was announced she and her hubby are expecting their first child.

The "Hart of Dixie" star's rep confirmed the happy news on Friday (May 3) dishing that the pair are set to welcome their little one later this year.Taking to her Twitter page, King posted a picture of herself with her two pooches and husband Kyle Newman, writing, "Getting ready for another baby to be squeezed into this picture:)"

Kyle and Jaime married back in 2007 at Greystone Park and Manor. Congratulations to the happy couple on their expanding family!

Jessica Simpson And Family the latest

Getting ready to jet out of the west coast, Jessica Simpson and her fiance Eric Johnson caught a flight out of LAX airport in Los Angeles on Friday (May 3).

With their adorable daughter Maxwell in tow, the happy couple made their way past the nearby shutterbugs while the "Fashion Star" mentor hid her growing baby bump behind an Hermes bag.Although this is Jessica's second time around with pregnancy, it looks like the interesting cravings are still in full effect.

Last week, Simpson responded to her fellow pregnant pal Cacee Cobb's Twitter post which read, "Last night I dreamt I was licking a statue. Clearly I'm starving. #pregnantgirlproblems," while Jess jokingly wrote, "That just made me hungry! Hahaha."

Enjoy the pictures of Jessica SImpson, Eric Johnson and their daughter Maxwell departing LAX airport in Los Angeles (May 3).

Forest war over

FEDERAL Environment Minister Tony Burke has declared an end to Tasmania's forestry wars, after key environmental groups signed up to an amended agreement with the state's logging industry.

Tasmania's Lower House is expected to sit late tonight to debate the forestry peace deal legislation, which is designed to end decades of bitter wrangling.

Environmentalists and the timber industry were forced to recommit to the agreement after the state's Upper House made amendments that delayed the protection of more than half the forests originally earmarked.

With agreement reached between signatories including The Wilderness Society, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Environment Tasmania, and the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, Mr Burke said the state's forestry war was now over.

Passing of the legislation will unlock tens of millions of dollars in federal and state assistance, aimed at helping Tasmanian struggling forestry industry restructure.

"Instead of an industry that was going through a significant decline ... as of tomorrow we get a story where conservation and forestry jobs get to move forward hand in hand," Mr Burke told reporters in Hobart this afternoon.

"In terms of wars, yes (it's over). You might get the odd skirmish from small minor groups. But what we have seen from the last 30 years ends tonight, and that is something to celebrate."

Despite her Tasmanian Greens colleagues and environmental groups backing the forestry agreement, Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne labelled the deal "dead" because of the Upper House amendments.

"Now there is a salvage strategy at best, a picking over the bones of the dead body," Senator Milne said.

"It died in the Upper House when the Legislative Council in Tasmania took a chainsaw to this agreement and destroyed its integrity."

Syria says prime minister survives Damascus bomb attack

Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki survived a bomb attack on his convoy inDamascus on Monday, state media and activists said, as rebels struck in the heart of President Bashar al-Assad's capital.

The explosion shook the Mezze neighborhood shortly after 9 a.m. (2 a.m. ET), sending a plume of thick black smoke into the sky, Internet footage posted by opposition activists showed.

The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of sources across Syria, said one person accompanying the prime minister had been killed. State television reported casualties, but gave no details.

"The terrorist explosion in al-Mezze was an attempt to target the convoy of the prime minister. Doctor Wael al-Halki is well and not hurt at all," state television said.

Syria's Al-Ikhbariya television later broadcast footage of Halki, who looked and sounded composed and unruffled, chairing an economic committee at the prime ministry.

Mezze is part of a shrinking "Square of Security" in central Damascus, where many government and military institutions are based and where senior Syrian officials live.

Sheltered for nearly two years from the bloodshed and destruction ravaging much of the rest of Syria, it has been slowly sucked into violence as rebel forces based to the east of the capital launch mortar attacks and carry out bombings in the once-insulated city center.

COUNTER-OFFENSIVE

Assad has lost control of large areas of northern and eastern Syria, faces a growing challenge in the southern province of Deraa, and is battling rebels in many cities.

But his forces have been waging powerful ground offensives, backed by artillery and air strikes, against rebel-held territory around the capital and near the central city of Homs which links Damascus to the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect in the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean.

Most rebel fighters are from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority.

On Sunday, activists said rebels were battling troops near a complex linked to Syria's alleged chemical weapons program - the Scientific Studies and Research Centre on the foothills of Qasioun Mountain in the northern Barzeh district of Damascus.

The United States said last week Assad's forces had probably used chemical arms in the conflict and congressional pressure has mounted on President Barack Obama to do more to help the rebels. But Obama has made clear he is in no rush to intervene on the basis of evidence he said was still preliminary.

The United Nations says more than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria's civil war. Five million people have fled their homes, including 1.4 million refugees in nearby countries, and war losses are estimated at many tens of billions of dollars.

The Beirut-based U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia estimates that 400,000 houses have been completely destroyed, 300,000 partially destroyed and a further half million suffered some kind of structural damage.

2 police shot outside Italian premier's office

A prosecutor says Italian politicians were the intended target of a gunman who shot and wounded two policemen in a crowded square outside the premier's office in Rome.

The attack Sunday came just as Italy's new government was being sworn in elsewhere in the city. Italy has suffered political deadlock since an inconclusive February election.

Rome Prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani told reporters he had questioned the alleged assailant, who was taken to a hospital with bruises after being wrestled to the ground.

Laviani says the "desperate" gunman had "lost work, had lost everything." He said the man "wanted to shoot politicians, but given that he couldn't reach any, he shot the Carabinieri" police at the edge of Chigi Square.

Laviani said the man "confessed everything" and didn't appear mentally unbalanced.

Lindsay Lohan Massaged Charlie Sheen's

-->

Love LiLo or hate her, but you WILL watch her!

Charlie Sheen's peeps know this, which is exactly why they brought the Mean Girl onboard his sitcom!

The Very Special Lindsay Lohan episode of Anger Management was watched by 1.25 million people! That's a 22% increase from the previous week's numbers!

Say what you want about Lindz — most of it would probably be true — but there's no denying that people still tune in to witness the spectacle!!

We're glad our troubled starlet still has drawing power!! Hopefully she won't slip too far out of the limelight during her upcoming three month stint in rehab!

The controversial duo also stars in Scary Movie V, which opens this weekend — we wonder if it will enjoy similar success!!

Kerry to North Korea: Don't test missile or you will regret

-->

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a stark warning to North Korea on Friday not to test-fire a mid-range missile, while tamping down anxiety caused by a new U.S. intelligence report suggesting significant progress in the communist regime's nuclear weapons program.

Kicking off four days of talks in an East Asia beset by increasing North Korean threats, Kerry told reporters in Seoul that Pyongyang and its enigmatic young leader would only increase their isolation if they launched the missile that American officials believe has a range of some 2,500 miles — or enough to reach the U.S. territory of Guam.

"If Kim Jong Un decides to launch a missile, whether it's across the Sea of Japan or some other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire international community," Kerry told reporters. "And it will be a provocation and unwanted act that will raise people's temperatures."

If the trajectory of the test missile suggests that it could be a threat to either the U.S. or allies, the military would move to shoot it down from one of nine warships armed with sophisticated ballistic missile defense systems in the Pacific, including two that were moved closer to the Korean peninsula, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss military plans.

Kerry said the test would be a "huge mistake" for Kim.

"It will further isolate his country and further isolate his people who are desperate for food and not missile launches," he warned. "They are desperate for opportunity and not for a leader to flex his muscles."

Kerry's diplomatic tour, while planned long in advance, is unusual in that it brings him directly to a region of escalated tensions and precisely at a time when North Korea is threatening action. The North often times its military and nuclear tests to generate maximum attention, and Kerry's presence on the peninsula alone risked spurring Pyongyang into another provocation. Another key date is the 101st birthday of the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.

After meeting South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Kerry also weighed in on an intelligence report that rocked Washington on Thursday, suggesting that North Korea now had the knowhow to arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead — even if the weapons would lack reliability. Kerry, repeating assertions by other administration officials, noted that Pyongyang still hadn't developed or fully tested the nuclear capacities needed for such a step.

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., surprised a hearing on the defense budget Thursday when he read aloud one paragraph of an otherwise classified Defense Intelligence Agency report. The assessment said the Pentagon's intelligence wing has "moderate confidence" that North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles but that the weapon was unreliable.

The disclosure took even Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by surprise and he refused to discuss it at the budget hearing. While analysts have made similar statements over the last two years, the reading of it at the same time Kim was renewing threats against the U.S. and its allies gave the notion new urgency.

Kerry offered strong words of solidarity for South Korea, praising Park's "bright vision" of a prosperous and reunified Korean Peninsula without nuclear weapons. By contrast, he said North Korea's Kim, by estimates only 29 or 30 years old, has a choice to make between provocation and returning to talks to de-escalate tension and lead to the end of its nuclear program.

"It's up to Kim Jong Un what he decides to do," Kerry said.

A missile launch, he said, "is not going to change our current position which is very clear: We will defend our allies. We will stand with South Korea and Japan against these threats. And we will defend ourselves."

Speaking beside Kerry, South Korea's Yun called for more United Nations action against Pyongyang if it commits another provocation.

He refused to comment specifically on the U.S. intelligence report, saying only that the North has "high nuclear and missile capabilities" but that it is still some time away from a nuclear bomb that is "small, light and diversified."

Both Yun and Kerry kept the door open for future negotiations with Pyongyang.

But both seemed to suggest that such talks were unlikely in light of the North's increasingly bombastic threats, including nuclear strikes on the United States. Most experts say those are unfeasible based on the North's current capacity and would never be explored seriously because the U.S. response would be overwhelming against a regime focused primarily on survival.

Kerry said any talks with North Korea have to lead toward denuclearization.

They have to be really serious," Kerry said. "No one is going to talk for the sake of talking and no one is going to play this round-robin game that gets repeated every few years, which is both unnecessary and dangerous."

US, French tourists kidnapped raped in Rio De Janeiro Argentine

-->

A night out on the town turned into a nightmare after an American woman was gang raped and beaten aboard a public transport van while her French boyfriend was handcuffed, hit with a crowbar and forced to watch the attacks, police said.

The incidents raise new questions about security in Rio, which has won kudos for its crackdown on once-endemic drug violence in preparation for hosting next year's football World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic games. The city also will be playing host to World Youth Day, a Roman Catholic pilgrimage that will be attended by Pope Francis and is expected to draw some 2 million people in late July.

Three men aged 20 to 22 have been taken into custody in connection to the crime, which took place over six hours starting shortly after midnight Saturday, police said. The suspects have been accused of at least one similar attack, with a young Brazilian woman having come forward to say that she too was raped by the same men in the van on March 23, police said.

"The victims described everything in great detail, mostly the sexual violence," police officer Rodrigo Brant told the Globo TV network. "Just how they described the facts was shocking — the violence and brutality. It surprised even us, who work in security and are used to hearing such things."

The attack drew comparisons with the fatal December beating and gang rape of a young woman on a New Delhi bus in which six men beset a 23-year-old university student and male friend after they boarded a private bus. That attack touched off a wave of protests across India demanding stronger protection for women. Officials there say tourism has dropped in the country following the attacks.

On Tuesday, Brazilian police were quick to emphasize to reporters the rarity of Saturday's attack.

"These type of crimes committed against foreign tourists are very uncommon," said Alexandre Braga, the police officer leading the investigation.

Officials from the local Olympic and World Cup organizing committees didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about how the attack might affect their security precautions.

Braga said the two foreigners, who were in Brazil as students, took a public transport van similar to those often used as a faster alternative to the city's bus fleet. The pair were heading from Rio's Copacabana beach neighborhood to the nightlife hot spot of Lapa in downtown Rio.

A few minutes into the ride, the suspects forced the other passengers to get out of the van and then raped the female tourist inside the moving vehicle, Braga said. The woman was also beaten across the face, and the man was handcuffed and beaten, at one point with a metal crowbar.

The three suspects took turns behind the wheel, driving the van to Rio's sister city of Niteroi where they went on a spending spree with the foreigners' credit cards.

Once they hit the limit on both cards, spending around $500 at gas stations and convenience stores, the suspects drove the pair back to Rio, where the foreigners were staying, and forced the woman to fetch another credit card, Braga said.

Although she was alone, she didn't call the police or alert anyone, Braga said, "because the young man was still under the suspects' control and she feared something even worse might happen to him."

The two were ultimately dumped by the side of a highway near the city of Itaborai, some 50 kilometers from Rio. After they managed to make it to an unidentified country's consulate, officials took the two to the special police delegation that specializes in crimes against foreigners. The young woman has returned to the U.S., while the man remains in Rio to help with the investigations, Braga said.

"The victims recognized the three without a shadow of a doubt," Braga said.

The Brazilian woman who said she had also been raped by the suspects last month recognized media images of the alleged attackers and contacted police. Another foreigner has said she'd been robbed by one of the three suspects, police said.

Investigators are reviewing police databases to determine whether the three might have been involved in other crimes.

Two of the suspects have confessed to Saturday's attack, while the third denies any responsibility, Braga said.

"They do not show any repentance," he said. "They are quite indifferent, cold."

The suspects rented the van, which seats about a dozen people and has dark tinted windows, from the vehicle's owner, who police say is not suspected of any involvement in the crime. Though they apparently had authorization to transport passengers in Niteroi and neighboring Sao Goncalo, the suspects were not allowed to operate the van in Rio, Braga said.

"It appears they worked in transportation and sometimes engaged in crimes," said Braga.

Many in Rio know of such van services for their precarious safety conditions and reckless driving, as well as their links to organized crime. Some vans are linked to militias largely composed of former police and firemen that control large swaths of the city's slums and run clandestine transportation and other services. In general, tourists avoid the vans and opt for regular buses or taxis.

Foreigners are more often the targets of muggings and petty crime in Rio, with assaults a particular problem on public transit. Last year, a woman was raped on a moving bus in broad daylight in a widely publicized case, and the Rio subway has special women-only cars to help prevent such attacks.

More than 5,300 cases of sexual assault were reported in Brazil between January and June 2012, according to the country's Health Ministry.

Justin Bieber: Is he the latest child star on the verge of a meltdown?

In just four years, Justin Bieber has gone from fielding innocuous questions about his haircut to denying that he's in desperate need of rehab. Bieber's grown up and into tabloid territory, with his recent troubles making some question whether he's just the latest teen star gone wild.

In what could have been his worst week ever, the 19-year-old pop star struggled with his breathing and fainted backstage at a London show, was taken to a hospital and then was caught on camera clashing with a paparazzo. Days earlier, he was booed by his beloved fans when he showed up late to a concert.

Those incidents come after photos of Bieber appearing to smoke marijuana hit the Web, and some headlines have suggested that the ultra-popular star is going through a famous Britney Spears-style meltdown.

Others suggest he's struggling with a more common condition: being a teenager.

Donnie Wahlberg, who was just 14 when New Kids on the Block debuted on the music scene in the late 1980s to wild fan craze, said he remembers the pressure and hard times that came with being a teen celebrity.

"Justin Bieber's making mistakes that everyone makes and he's probably trying things and exploring things that most kids his age explore, but the problem is he's got 50 paparazzi chasing him around when he does it," 43-year-old Wahlberg said. "When we are 19 and 20, we think we can take on the world and we do forget that there is a lot of life left to live in front of us, and hopefully he'll get through these times and find his way into a long career and a healthy adulthood."

Bieber, his manager and his mother didn't respond to interview requests for this story. But the pressure was evident in the days following his collapse backstage at the O2 Arena, as the Grammy-nominated singer wrote on Instagram that he's sick of the "countless lies in the press" and that he would not be heading to rehab.

"I've accomplished more than I could've ever dreamed of, i'm 19 and it must be scary to some people to think that this is just the beginning," he wrote. "I'm a good person with a big heart. ... All this isn't easy. I get angry sometimes. I'm human. I'm gonna make mistakes."

Even mistakes seem like new territory for Bieber: Since breaking out at 15 he's seen five of his albums hit No. 1 on Billboard's 200 albums chart and nearly 20 songs crack the Top 40. He's had several world tours, launched a massively successful 3-D movie about his life and made deals that include his own dolls, nail polish and fragrances. He's got a social media presence that includes 52 million likes on Facebook and 36 million Twitter followers.

But does that leave any time to be a kid?

Nick Carter, considered the wildest of the Backstreet Boys, was also the group's youngest member when they began to dominate the music charts in the 1990s, and he recalls the days when he grew mad as an overworked teen who yearned for a normal life.

"I remember getting tired. I remember getting burned out and I'm like, 'Let me relax' and you have managers, and the record label ... and then before you know it, the artist gets resentful and starts to revolt against them and that's when you end up with a situation like what's going on," he said, referring to Bieber.

"In a lot of ways you're resentful and you're missing out with your friends, your childhood, you see all of your high school friends growing up ... and you're like, 'Oh, I got to go back on tour."'

Vincent Herbert, the record executive who signed Lady Gaga and also discovered the teen R&B boy band Mindless Behavior and singer JoJo at 12, said that young singers need role models around them who are fit, and that there must be "time for music and time to be kids."

"I think sometimes young artists get to that (frustrated) point because they're young and it's a lot and it gets overwhelming. I don't think Justin Bieber is at that moment, I just think he had a bad week. That kid's a phenomenal artist, he's such a hardworking person, he's such a good kid," said Herbert.

But he acknowledges that for young artists, the pressure does sometimes lead to meltdowns: "No one's a machine — we're all human."

Spears became the poster child for that after she shaved her head and lost custody of her children, and more recently Demi Lovato checked into rehab because of an eating disorder and self-mutilation, though both have released successful music since. And many young members of Hollywood have been rebellious, used drugs and watched their careers falter, from Mackenzie Phillips to Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.

Carter said his bad attitude began to affect his business, and young singers must think twice about their actions even when they're at a breaking point. He says he's now working to rework those lost relationships.

"I probably messed up a particular movie I was going on an audition for because I showed up late and people looked at me like I was disrespecting them when really I was just out of my head," he said. "I've been for years right now scrounging and clawing and proving through my work and staying away from alcohol and trying to be the best person I can be to make up for all the things I've done, and that's been hard."

While Bieber, who was raised by a single mother in Canada, has held on to a pretty squeaky image, last year began to suggest some troubles: He vomited twice onstage during a concert in Glendale, Ariz., he was cited for speeding on a Los Angeles freeway and Los Angeles County Sheriff's investigators questioned the singer after he reportedly scuffled with paparazzi who tried to photograph him and then-girlfriend Selena Gomez as they left a movie theatre.

"What he's going through ultimately is just the passage of adulthood and to go through that with this kind of scrutiny — it's hard," said Bill Werde, the editorial director of Billboard. "He's going to have to decide if he wants that or not. He's going to have to decide if he can handle the sort of bad that comes with the good."

Both Carter and Wahlberg are reluctant to give advice to Bieber simply because when they were in his position, they wouldn't have listened.

"The facts are that he's going to do what he wants to do," Carter said. "What happened to me when I was that age was the same thing — it's power. Your parents are telling you, 'Please don't do this, please don't do that' and you're looking at them going, 'Who are you? I am me."'