Baltimore police open probe into new shooting of unarmed black man

By John Clarke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police have opened an investigation into the killing of an unarmed black man by law enforcement officers outside Baltimore, authorities said on Saturday, two months after the city was rocked by protests over the death of another African-American who was taken into custody.

The latest incident unfolded in the Baltimore suburb of Owing Mills, where three officers fired at least 19 rounds and killed Spencer Lee McCain, 41, during a domestic disturbance on Thursday. The Baltimore County police's homicide unit is investigating, police said in a statement Saturday.

Police will conduct an internal review to determine compliance with departmental policy, rules and regulations, the department said. It will send the findings to the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office for review.

The investigation comes at time when U.S. law enforcement is under close scrutiny over the use of lethal force, especially in confrontations with African-American men.

In April, 25-year-old Freddie Gray died from a spinal injury suffered in custody of Baltimore police. His death triggered protests and rioting on the day of his funeral, drawing national attention to the city. Six Baltimore police officers are now facing criminal charges in his death.

A statement by the Baltimore County police identified the officers involved in the latest incident as Wilkes, Besaw and Stargel, providing only their last names.

A police spokesman would not provide first names or ages, saying he was prohibited from doing so by union rules.

Baltimore County Police Department salary records show Shenell Wilkes, Jonathan Besaw and Shannon Stargel as the only employees with those last names.

Wilkes is a six year veteran, Besaw an eight year veteran, and Stargel is a five year veteran, police said.

Officers were called to a home in Owings Mills just after 1 a.m. on Thursday. They forced their way inside when they heard a disturbance, police said.

Three officers shot McCain, fearing he had a weapon, but no firearms were found. Investigators found 19 shell casings, but the exact number of rounds fired was unknown, police said.

McCain was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The officers have been placed on administrative leave.

A woman and two children were also in the home and the woman was injured, the police statement said. McCain was under a protective order barring him from having contact with the woman and the children and from going to the home. 

Police had been called to the address about 17 times since January 2012, police said.

(Editing By Frank McGurty and Tom Brown)

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Kim Kardashian Thought the Kardashians Were Done After Kris Humphries Disaster

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Kris Humphries's marriage into the Kardashian family was short-lived. (WireImage)

Kim Kardashian has built a career out of knowing just what the people want, like plenty of photos of her backside. Obviously.

However, when she abruptly split with Kris Humphries in 2011, she incorrectly predicted that her fans were through with her and her family.

"At the time, when I was going through the divorce I did say to everyone, 'You guys, I think our careers are over. I hope you saved your money,'" Kardashian told the U.K.'s The Drum. "'And now we'll just continue to do our clothing stores and continue to do what we did before the show.' I totally thought it was over."

Kardashian's breakup with Humphries was shocking, yes. They'd only been married for 72 days when it happened. Not only that, but their lavish, televised wedding ballooned into a celebrity story almost as big as... her 2014 wedding to Kanye West.

Still, the Kardashians were not done after the Humphries disaster. They're arguably more prominent than ever, with even more clothing lines, books, and other products in the works.

Kim, for instance, spoke about her video game, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, which launched this time last year and was an instant hit. It turns out, the many fans of it should thank her husband, Kanye West, for advising her to do it.

"I had just had the baby... My husband and I had all these talks, just about, not slowing down but only working on passion projects," she noted. "My husband does only everything that he is one billion percent passionate about, and he had seen me do things that were a little bit all over the place. Maybe I wasn't so passionate about everything." (We had no idea she didn't love Midori liqueur with every fiber of her being!)

"I respect him and his opinion, and so I asked him, 'What do you think of this video game, do you think I should do it?'" Kim recalled, "And he was like, 'You have to do this.'"

TMZ estimated last July that Kardashian would rake in roughly $85.5 million in the game's first year. That's more than three times what Forbes estimated she earned the year before that.

However, Kim recognized social media as the thing that's really "heightened" her career. She added that she's even considered including a new streaming service in the vein of Snapchat on her new website, which launches this summer.

Doesn't look like we have to worry about the end of the Kardashians at the moment.

News source : Yahoo

College majors that get the highest pay

College majors that get the highest pay

These 10 degrees landed the average graduate a starting salary of at least $56K, a survey shows.

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  Yahoo! Finance/Getty Images -

A new salary survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) shows that engineering majors dominate the list of college degrees that pay the highest salaries to new college graduates. Of the ten majors with the highest starting salaries, six are in some branch of engineering, including computer engineering, in the no. 1 slot at $70,400, chemical engineering, no. 2 at $66,400 and aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering, no. 4 at $64,000. The no. 3 highest-paying major is computer science, at $64,400.

News source : Yahoo

Devastating fire hits Brazilian nightclub

Devastating fire hits Brazilian nightclub

At least 232 are dead and hundreds are injured in one of the deadliest incidents in over a decade. 

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  Hundreds dead in Brazil club fire

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A blaze raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing 232 people as the air filled with deadly smoke and panicked party-goers stampeded toward the exits, police and witnesses said. It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Witnesses said that a flare or firework lit by band members may have started the fire.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that officials counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a gymnasium in the city of Santa Maria, at the southern tip of Brazil near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.

Another 117 people were being treated at hospitals, he said, and President Dilma Roussef arrived to visit victims after cutting short participation at a Latin American-European summit in Chile.

Bastianello said the recount lowered the toll from 245 earlier believed killed.

Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless, young male partygoers joined firefighters in wielding axes and sledgehammers, pounding at windows and walls to break through to those trapped inside. Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately trying to find help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

Silva added that firefighters and ambulances responded quickly after the fire broke out, but that it spread too fast inside the packed club for them to help.

Michele Pereira, another survivor, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage and that the fire broke out after members of the band lit flares.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward. At that point the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak but in a matter of seconds it spread," Pereira said.

Most of the dead apparently suffocated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who raced the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.

He said survivors, police and firefighters told him a flare set off by a band member set the ceiling's soundproofing ablaze. "Large amounts of toxic smoke quickly filled the room and I would say that at least 90 percent of the victims died of asphyxiation," Beltrame told The Associated Press by telephone.

"The toxic smoke made people lose their sense of direction so they were unable to find their way to the exit. At least 50 bodies were found inside a bathroom. Apparently they confused the bathroom door with the exit door."

"In the hospital I saw desperate friends and relatives walking and running down the corridors looking for information. It was one of the saddest scenes I have ever witnessed," he added.

Rodrigo Moura, identified by the newspaper Diario de Santa Maria as a security guard at the club, said it was at its maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 2,000, and partygoers were pushing and shoving to escape.

Beltrame also said he was told the club was filled far past its capacity during a party for students at the university's department of agronomy. The event featured a group called Gurizada Fandangueira, which plays a driving mixture of local Brazilian country music styles. It was not immediately clear if the band members were among the victims.

Santa Maria Mayor Cezar Schirmer decreed a 30-day mourning period due to the nightclub disaster and Tarso Genro, the governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, said that all possible action was being taken.

Santa Maria is a major university city with a population of around a quarter of a million.

A welding accident reportedly set off a Dec. 25, 2000, fire at a club in Luoyang, China, killing 309.

At least 194 people died at an overcrowded working-class nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2004. Seven members the band were sentenced to prison for setting off the blaze with pyrotechnics.

A blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, broke out on Dec. 5, 2009, when an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches, killing 152

A nightclub fire in the U.S. state of Rhode Island in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling.

News source : yahoo

Rule change: MLB bans annoying move

Rule change: MLB bans annoying move

The play slowed the game down and ticked off a lot of fans, but it also served a purpose.

Like a professional wrestler hitting his opponent with brass knuckles behind the referee‘s back, the surest way to draw an angry reaction from baseball fans is to break out the old fake-to-third, throw-to-first pickoff move.

Of course, the difference is the pitcher’s intent isn’t to draw a reaction from the crowd. Often times there is real sound strategy involved, whether it's attempting to dupe a base runner into making a mistake, a hitter into showing his hand too early, or even just buying some extra time to collect his thoughts or allow a reliever to warm up.

It really has served a purpose other than to annoy. But I guess that doesn’t change the fact the play rarely worked — you can count the successful attempts every season on one hand — and often killed the flow of a game. And that’s not to mention I've always felt the move fit the technical description of a balk since deception was involved.

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