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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
3/20/2013 11:02:55 AM

Defiant teen gets life sentences in Ohio shooting


T.J. Lane smirks as he listens to the judge during sentencing Tuesday, March 19, 2013, in Chardon, Ohio. Lane, was given three lifetime prison sentences without the possibility of parole Tuesday for opening fire last year in a high school cafeteria in a rampage that left three students dead and three others wounded. Lane, 18, had pleaded guilty last month to shooting at students in February 2012 at Chardon High School, east of Cleveland. Investigators have said he admitted to the shooting but said he didn't know why he did it. Before the case went to adult court last year, a juvenile court judge ruled that Lane was mentally competent to stand trial despite evidence he suffers from hallucinations, psychosis and fantasies. (AP Photo/The News-Herald, Duncan Scott, Pool)
Crystal King, sister of Russell King, wipes a tear as she addresses the court at the sentencing of T. J. Lane Tuesday, March 19, 2013, in Chardon, Ohio. Lane, was given three lifetime prison sentences without the possibility of parole Tuesday for opening fire last year in a high school cafeteria in a rampage that left three students dead and three others wounded. King was one of three students killed. Lane, 18, had pleaded guilty last month to shooting at students in February 2012 at Chardon High School, east of Cleveland. (AP Photo/The News-Herald, Duncan Scott, Pool)
CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — Wearing a T-shirt with "killer" scrawled across it, a teenager cursed and gestured obscenely as he was given three life sentences Tuesday for shooting to death three students in an Ohio high school cafeteria.

T.J. Lane, 18, had pleaded guilty last month to shooting at students in February 2012 at Chardon High School, east of Cleveland. Investigators have said he admitted to the shooting but said he didn't know why he did it.

Before the case went to adult court last year, a juvenile court judge ruled that Lane was mentally competent to stand trial despite evidence he suffers from hallucinations, psychosis and fantasies.

Lane was defiant during the sentencing, smiling and smirking throughout, including while four relatives of victims spoke.

After he came in, he calmly unbuttoned his blue dress shirt to reveal the T-shirt reading "killer," which the prosecutor noted was similar to one he wore during the shooting.

At one point, he swiveled around in his chair toward the gallery where his own family members and those of the slain teenagers were sitting and spoke suddenly, surprising even his lawyer.

"The hand that pulled the trigger that killed your sons now masturbates to the memory," he said, then cursed at and raised his middle finger toward the victims' relatives.

A statement released later to local media by the court on the judge's behalf said that he wasn't aware of the shirt and that if he had noticed it he would have halted the proceedings and ordered Lane to wear proper attire.

A student who was wounded in the rampage dismissed Lane's outburst.

"He said it like a scared little boy and couldn't talk slow enough that anyone could understand him," said Nate Mueller, who was nicked in the ear in the shooting.

Dina Parmertor, mother of victim Daniel, called Lane "a pathetic excuse for a human being" and wished upon him "an extremely, slow torturous death." She said she has nightmares and her family has been physically sick over the crimes.

"From now on, he will only be a killer," she said, as Lane's smile widened. "I want him to feel my anger toward him."

Prosecutors say Lane took a .22-caliber pistol and a knife to the school and fired 10 shots at a group of students in the cafeteria. Daniel Parmertor and Demetrius Hewlin, both 16, and Russell King Jr., 17, were killed.

Lane was at Chardon waiting for a bus to the alternative school he attended, for students who haven't done well in traditional settings.

Six days before the rampage, Lane had sent a text message to his sister, who attended Chardon High school, and mentioned a school shooting, Geauga County Prosecutor James Flaiz disclosed after the sentencing. He gave no details about what the message said.

"The way the text message was phrased to his sister, I'm not sure she would have taken it as anything. I think only when you look at it in retrospect does it really have the impact that it does now," Flaiz said.

Lane's sister, Sadie, was in the cafeteria the day of the shooting, and said outside the snow-swept courthouse that the brother she saw in court wasn't the one she remembers. She asked for prayers for her family.

"It may be hard for some to understand, but I love my brother and hope that whatever the sentencing in life takes him in the future, that he can touch others' lives in a positive way from the point of view that only he can give," she said.

She spoke and left the courthouse before Flaiz addressed reporters.

Flaiz said he has a theory about the motive but wouldn't discuss it until he has a chance to meet with the families of victims and answer their questions.

Lane's courtroom behavior came as a surprise, he added.

"I am totally disgusted by that," Flaiz said. "What he did today is consistent with what we thought of him all along."

One of Lane's defense attorneys, Ian Friedman, also said he was caught off-guard by the comments. The defense had signaled earlier that Lane wouldn't speak in court and didn't want anyone to speak for him.

Lane had pleaded guilty last month to three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of felonious assault.

Life imprisonment without parole was the maximum sentence Lane faced. He wasn't eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the shootings. Relatives of the slain students indicated earlier they wanted Lane to get the maximum sentence.

In addition to three life sentences without chance of parole, Geauga County Common Pleas Judge David Fuhry also gave Lane sentences totaling 37 additional years for attempted murder and felonious assault and using a weapon in the crimes.

___

Associated Press freelance reporter John Coyne contributed to this report.


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
3/20/2013 11:10:24 AM

Mich. woman, 75, convicted of murdering grandson

In this March 13, 2013 file photo, Sandra Layne testifies in the Oakland County Circuit Court in Pontiac, Mich. The 75-year-old Detroit-area woman was convicted of second-degree murder on Tuesday, March 19, 2013, for shooting her 17-year-old grandson six times during an argument last spring. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, file)

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A 75-year-old woman was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder for killing her teenage grandsonlast spring in her Detroit-area home, after jurors rejected her claim that she shot him six times in self-defense.

Sandra Layne cried quietly when she heard the verdict, which was delivered during the first full day of jury deliberations. She was also found guilty of using a firearm during a felony and likely faces at least 14 years in prison for the death of her grandson, Jonathan Hoffman.

Defense attorney Jerome Sabbota said later that Layne was "devastated" by the verdict.

But some family members had harsh words. Hoffman's mother,Jennifer Hoffman, said her mother was a "monster" who deserved to go to prison.

"I'm glad she's put away and can't do harm to anyone else," Jennifer Hoffman said outside court. "He was a great kid and didn't deserve this."

His father, Michael Hoffman, said the verdict was a "final vindication for my son."

As Layne was handcuffed and being led out of court, some family members sitting with her 87-year-old husband, Fred, waved in a show of support. But she couldn't make eye contact because there was a deputy in between blocking the view.

Layne fired 10 shots at her 17-year-old grandson, striking him six times over a six-minute span during an argument last May in her home in West Bloomfield Township. She never disputed that she killed him, but she testified that she did so because he had hit her and she feared for her safety.

The evidence included a recording of Jonathan Hoffman's desperate call to 911 in which he pleads for help, even as more shots are fired.

"My grandma shot me. I'm going to die. Help. I got shot again," he told the dispatcher as he gasped for air.

Jurors declined to comment following the verdict, but they told attorneys during a private meeting that the 911 call was crucial to their decision. It revealed that Layne had left Hoffman bleeding but then returned with more gunfire.

"They said they played it over and over and over again" in the jury room, prosecutor Paul Walton said. "One of the big things they said is when you hear the shots on the (call) there's no struggle."

Sabbota said jurors found the "911 call was critical."

The Oakland County jury had a choice of first-degree murder or lesser charges, or it could have acquitted Layne based on her argument of self-defense.

In his closing argument, Walton told jurors that Layne never rushed out of the West Bloomfield Township home, despite claiming to be afraid of her grandson, and never called for an ambulance to help him after the shooting. She said she shot him after Hoffman struck her during a heated argument about money and a plan to flee Michigan because of a failed drug test.

"I wanted him to pay attention to me. He had to listen. It wasn't a conversation. It was arguing. Swearing," Layne said in tearful testimony last week, explaining why she pulled out a gun.

Walton called Layne's story "fanciful." He pointed out that she never complained to police about being attacked. A hospital nurse who examined her after her arrest said Layne had no injuries and spoke lovingly about Hoffman.

Sabbota asked jurors to view the incident through the eyes of a woman in her 70s. He said Layne was taking care of a teen who had used drugs and brought strangers to the home. Hoffman's parents were living in Arizona during his senior year of high school, and they had their hands full with a daughter being treated for a brain tumor.

After the verdicts were read, Sabbota said Layne has long been punishing herself and referred to her continued grief and regret.

"I've been saying it all along: We can't do anything that she hasn't already done to herself," Sabbota said. "She punishes herself every day. The legal system does what the legal system does. The jury felt that it wasn't appropriate self-defense. "

___

Follow Ed White at twitter.com/edwhiteap


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
3/20/2013 11:13:47 AM

Worker admits cutting 10 babies at abortion clinic

Associated Press/Matt Rourke - Dr. Kermit Gosnell's defense attorney Jack McMahon walks to the Criminal Justice Center, Monday, March 18, 2013, in Philadelphia. Gosnell, an abortion doctor who catered to minorities, immigrants and poor women at the Women's Medical Society, goes on trial Monday on eight counts of murder. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A medical assistant told a jury Tuesday that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies during unorthodox abortions at a West Philadelphia clinic, at the direction of the clinic's owner.

And she said Dr. Kermit Gosnell and another employee did the same to terminate pregnancies.

Adrienne Moton's testimony came in the capital murder trial of Gosnell, who owned the clinic and is on trial in the deaths of a patient and seven babies. Prosecutors accuse him of killing late-term, viable babies after they were delivered alive, in violation of state abortion laws.

Gosnell's lawyer disputes that any babies were born alive and challenges the gestational age of the aborted fetuses.

Moton, the first employee to testify, sobbed as she recalled taking a cellphone photograph of one baby left in her work area in 2008. She thought he could have survived, given his size and pinkish color. She had measured him at nearly 30 weeks.

Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.

Jurors saw Moton's photograph of the boy called "Baby A" on a large screen in the courtroom, which took on a bizarre look Tuesday as witnesses testified near a hospital bed with stirrups and other aging obstetric equipment. Denied the chance to bring jurors to the shuttered inner-city clinic, prosecutors are instead recreating a patient room in court.

The mother of "Baby A" testified Tuesday afternoon, describing a painful three-day abortion process that started at Gosnell's clinic in Delaware. She was 17, had an infant daughter and was told by Gosnell she was 24 weeks pregnant — the legal limit in Pennsylvania, but not in neighboring Delaware, where abortions are banned after 20 weeks.

The Chester woman said she given abortion drugs in Delaware and sent home the first two days, then was directed to the West Philadelphia clinic the third day. She was in severe pain by then, pain that only worsened the following week, she said.

Her aunt had taken her to the clinic and paid the $1,300 fee, and they had not told her mother.

"I never felt pain like that, ever," the woman said. "I couldn't talk to anybody and tell anybody."

But the teen ended up being hospitalized for two weeks with a large abscess and a blood clot near her heart. Prosecutors say she is one of countless patients injured during botched abortions or unsanitary conditions.

One patient, a 41-year-old refugee, died after an overdose of drugs allegedly given to her during a 2009 abortion.

Moton, 35, had lived with Gosnell's family during high school because of problems at home, then went to work for him years later. She earned about $10 an hour — off the books — to administer drugs, perform ultrasounds, help with abortions and dispose of fetal remains from 2005 to 2008.

She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, "At first I didn't."

Abortions are typically performed in utero.

Moton has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, which carries a 20- to 40-year term, as well as conspiracy and other charges. She has been in prison since early 2011, when Philadelphia prosecutors arrested Gosnell, his third wife, Pearl, and eight other employees. Most of them have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify.

Defense lawyer Jack McMahon told jurors in opening statements Monday that Gosnell, now 72, returned to the impoverished neighborhood after medical school when he could have struck it rich in the suburbs. He called the prosecution of his client, who is black, "a lynching."

But prosecutors believe Gosnell made plenty of money over a 30-year career using cheap, untrained staff, outdated medicines and barbaric techniques to perform abortions on desperate, low-income women.

And they say he made even more on the side running a "pill mill," where addicts and drug dealers could get prescriptions for potent painkillers. Authorities found $250,000 in cash under a mattress when they searched his home in 2010.


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
3/20/2013 5:57:13 PM

North Korea Eyed in Huge Cyber Attack on South Korea

By JOOHEE CHO | ABC News2 hours 9 minutes ago

ABC News - North Korea Eyed in Huge Cyber Attack on South Korea (ABC News)

Computer networks at South Korean TV broadcasters and two majors banks are shut down by malicious cyberattacks today amid speculation that the attack originated from North Korea.

Systems at the South Korean military were not affected, but the army raised its defense level.

North Koreans last week had blamed South Korea and the United States for temporarily shutting down their websites in Pyongyang. For weeks, the communist state has been ratcheting up threats against South Korea and the U.S..

Officials at KBS, MBC, and YTN broadcasters said their computers were shut down at 2 p.m. and have not been able to reboot. LGU+, the network provider to these companies, said they see three skull drawings on a black screen with the phrase, "hacked by Whois Team," which experts say is a secretive group of hackers. The broadcasters are currently capable of airing programs as normal, though.

Shinhan Bank and NongHyup Bank computers were also temporarily shut down. Shinhan Bank, a lender of South Korea's fourth-largest banking group, took a hit on its online banking and automated teller machines, but its servers were back up within two hours.

Police officials are declining to speculate on whether North Korea is behind this attack, but says the incident is "pretty massive" and it will take a few days to collect conclusive evidence.

Others, however, are saying the likely culprit is North Korea.

"Lately they [North Korean leaders] have been stating publicly that they will make a revenge attack," Lim Jong-In, professor of information security at Korea University, told ABC News. "This sort of mass scale attack is a planned organizational one, not by some hacker."

"North Korea wants to show-off their strong arm without making human casualties. Their goal is to create instability here," Lim said.

In addition, previous statements from North Korea's NKTV specifically named KBS and MBC last April saying these TV stations "will come under fire in an unimaginable and unusual way."

North Korea's official Central News Agency had accused South Korea and the U.S. last week of an aggressive stance against the regime with "intensive and persistent virus attacks."

Experts indicated it could take months to determine what happened and one analyst suggested hackers in China were a more likely culprit.

North Korea has staged several cyber attacks targeting South Korea and U.S. institutions since 2009. The two major ones were in 2011 which knocked out South Korean servers at banks, conservative newspapers, and institutions in the form of a denial of service attack which experts believe was an effort to test South's computer defenses.

Wednesday's attack was in the form of hacking and planting malicious software or a virus.

"Their cyber attack method is advancing and unfortunately, there can not be a perfect defense in the future," said Joseph Yoon, IT specialist at Korea Telecom. "These attacks will not result in casualties, but such indirect attack on social infrastructure creates instability and distrust among the South Korean citizens towards the government."

Lim said North Korea is an expert at hacking.

"North Korean hacking skills are one of the world's top five. It's not a matter of how weak South Korean is in defending the attacks. We are talking about determined attackers who work non-stop to hack their hostile enemy, South Korea and the U.S.," warned Lim.

ABC News' Cho Long Park, Joanne Kim, and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
3/20/2013 6:04:31 PM

AP INTERVIEW: Jordan king says Assad days numbered

Associated Press/Yousef Allan, Jordanian Royal Palace - King Abdullah II of Jordan poses for the camera after an interview with The Associated Press at the Royal Palace, in Amman, Jordan, Wednesday March, 20, 2013. King Abdullah II said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that in his view, President Bashar Assad was beyond rehabilitation and it was only a matter of time before his regime collapses. As President Barack Obama began a regional tour, which includes stops in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, Abdullah says the visit is significant and opens a “window of opportunity” for restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. (AP Photo/Yousef Allan, Jordanian Royal Palace)

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan's king warned Wednesday that a jihadi state could emerge on his northern border in Syria with Islamic extremists trying to establish a foothold in the neighboring country.

King Abdullah II, a key U.S.-ally, told The Associated Press in an interview that in his view, Syrian President Bashar Assad was beyond rehabilitation and it was only a matter of time before his authoritarian regime collapses. But he said he opposed foreign military intervention.

"The most worrying factors in the Syrian conflict are the issues ofchemical weapons, the steady flow or sudden surge in refugees and a jihadist state emerging out of the conflict," the king said.

He said it costs his cash-strapped nation $550 million annually to host an estimated 500,000 Syrian refugees — about nine percent of Jordan's population of 6 million. He said most have crossed in the last 12 months.

The government says they have strained the country's meager resources, including health care and education, and forced the budget deficit to a record high of $3 billion last year.

There is also concern that agents linked to Assad or his militant Lebanese ally Hezbollah has formed sleeper cells in Jordan to destabilize the country.

Nevertheless, Abdullah said he was against any foreign military intervention in Syria, including setting up a safe zone for the refugees inside the country.

"Jordan works within Arab consensus and international consensus and legalities. I am totally against sending Jordanian troops inside Syria and this has always been Jordanian policy. I am also against any foreign military intervention in Syria."

Previously, Abdullah warned that Syria's chemical weapons could fall into the hand of the militants, who are seeking to establish presence in Syria. From there, they could be used against Syria's neighbors, including Jordan — a strong U.S. ally that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

He warned that radicalization of Syria, together with the deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, could ignite the entire region.

"Another extremely dangerous scenario is the fragmentation of Syria, which would trigger sectarian conflicts across the region for generations to come," he said. "And also the huge risk that Syria could become a regional base for extremist and terrorist groups, which we are already seeing establishing firm footholds in some areas," the king added.

"All these are extremely dangerous threats. I have been warning against them all, especially the chemical weapons threat, since the beginning of the crisis," he said.

As for the humanitarian emergency, the king said assistance is direly needed not only to the host countries, like Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey but also inside Syria, so that "hearts and minds can be won before extremists fill the vacuum left by a failed Syrian state and mass exoduses are prevented."

He said faced with all these threats, Jordan is working on "contingencies to protect our population and borders, in self-defense." He declined to elaborate.

But government officials and Jordan-based Western diplomats have said that Jordan has been shopping around for Patriot missiles to be stationed on its northern border, should tensions across the frontier escalate.

Abdullah appealed to the international community to "to catch up and support Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to cover the increasing costs of hosting Syrian refugees."

He said that if the conflict escalated further, as is widely expected, he could see the number of refugees almost double over the next six to eight months.

He said Jordan continues to exert its utmost "diplomatic efforts to assist in bridging gaps in the international community so that an agreement can be reached on an inclusive political transition that preserves the territorial integrity and unity of Syria."

Asked if the Assad regime could still survive, Abdullah said: "I believe we are past that point, too much destruction, too much blood."

However, he said that was ultimately something for the Syrian people to determine.

"The key question is whether Syria will plunge into chaos or there will be a transition, and what kind of transition," he said.

"For the sake of Syria, the region and the international community, we should all work toward an immediate inclusive transition, where each group in Syrian society feels that it has a stake in the country's future," including Assad's ruling Alawite minority.

On other topics, Abdullah said the start of President Barack Obama's visit to the region opens a "window of opportunity" for restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The tour includes stops in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.

"I see a window of opportunity to restart negotiations on the basis of a two-state solution, which is the only formula," he said.

"First, we have a second-term U.S. president. Second, the historic U.N. vote upgrading the status of Palestine reflected a fresh international will," he said.

He said the Arab Spring uprisings added urgency to resuming the peace process.

"The Arab Spring is first and foremost a cry for dignity, justice and freedom, which only a just and real peace can bring."

He called on the new Israeli government "to seize on this fast closing window and to act quickly and decisively for the sake of a just and a lasting peace."

Abdullah said Jordan has a lot at stake from the final status negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, especially on issues related to their common border with the kingdom, the fate of Jerusalem — where Jordan's peace treaty with Israel allows it to be the custodian of Christian and Muslim holy shrines in East Jerusalem — and the fate of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.

Roughly half of Jordan's 6 million people are of Palestinian origin.

"Achieving the two-state solution is part of our national strategic interest and key to stability in our region," Abdullah said.

"This is why we have always worked and will continue to work as hard as we can toward this goal. We have been doing our homework, together with like-minded countries in our region," Europe, Russia, the U.N. and the United States.

He said Washington's leadership "is vital to resuming meaningful negotiations. Our job is to ensure that the U.S. does not have to do the heavy lifting by itself, that we collectively do something differently and urgently that re-launches final status negotiations so that we do not miss an increasingly narrowing opportunity to silence the rallying call for violence and extremism in this region and beyond."

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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