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Judge Bites BitTorrent Lawyer in Butt

February 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

fe7d5a74be990d805159fd301cf83f3c Judge Bites BitTorrent Lawyer in Butt

District Judge Royal Ferguson has severed most of Texas attorney ’s remaining John Doe defendants, arguing improper joinder.

DENTON, Texas—Attorney Evan Stone may believe he was born to litigate cases on behalf of producers of adult content, but he’s having a hard time convincing U.S. District Judge Royal Ferguson that the tactics he is using to achieve that end are legal. Last week Ferguson, citing improper joinder, all but decimated most of the remaining cases Stone has filed in the Northern District of Texas. In 13 of the 16 cases, all of which originally targeted hundreds if not thousands of anonymous alleged John Doe offenders, only one unnamed defendant remains.

Defiant to the end and apparently beyond, Stone told CNET, “This isn’t over. There are numerous other tools for obtaining the names and addresses of pirates, and we’re not going to stop until justice is served.” He told the site the judge had “improperly” severed the defendants, and insisted that BitTorrent users must work together to achieve their file-sharing ends.

In one case, however—LFP v. Does 2,619—Ferguson wrote, in his opinion severing all but one of the Does and quashing subpoenas issued to ISPs, “Plaintiff makes no allegation in this case that the claims against the joined defendants ‘arise out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences.’ Instead, it seems that the infringement claim against each Defendant is based upon the individual acts of each Defendant. Plaintiff only alleges in its Complaint that each defendant uses the same method for committing the infringement, but ‘merely committing the same type of violation in the same way does not link defendants together for purposes of joinder.’”

Ferguson then referenced the fact that several courts have agreed that where there is no allegation that multiple defendants have acted in concert, joinder is improper. Indeed, Ferguson rejected outright the salient claim in these cases that the very use of BitTorrent software systems by end users ties them together in a conspiratorial act of piracy that is legally binding. If this is the prevailing view of judges regarding the technology behind BitTorrent sites, it is hard to see how any of these mass defendant lawsuits will survive.

The judge added one last slap down to his decision, ruling that even the subpoena for the final sole Defendant, Doe 1, should be quashed, “pending this Court’s determination that as to whether an attorney ad litem should be appointed to protect Doe 1’s interests.”

The federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21 does not allow the court to dismiss a case for improper joinder, so all of the 16 Stone cases remain alive, as long as individual complaints against the Does are filed within 30 days of the date of the order. It remains to be seen, of course, whether that will happen, but in the mainstream that is exactly what is happening.

According to CNET, Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, a law firm that was also slapped down last year for trying similar tactics on behalf of the producers of The Hurt Locker, has begun to file individual lawsuits around the country.

“To do that,” wrote Greg Sandoval, “Dunlap established a network of lawyers who are licensed to operate in different federal districts.”

The firm has also begun filing lawsuits against named individuals, reported CNET, including suits filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West against residents who live there.

“Filing in Florida in about 10 minutes,” Thomas Dunlap, one of the firm’s founders, e-mailed CNET Thursday. “I am driving to courthouse now, should have cases already in Illinois. We will file in , Texas, Washington, and Oregon in the next two weeks.”

While penalties for copyright infringement convictions can go as high as $150,000 per violation, Dunlap will usually offer an alleged infringer the chance to settle out of court for an amount between $1,500 and $3,000. Attorneys filing on behalf of adult producers have cited similar amounts that they are offering alleged pirates, if and when they can get a hold of indentifying information.

Adult companies that Evan Stone has filed lawsuits on behalf of include LFP Internet Group, Lucas , VCX Ltd., Productions, Harmony Films, Adult Source Media, D & E Media, Serious Bidness, Steve Hardeman, Justin Slayer International and FUNimation .

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House defeats bill extending Patriot Act provisions until December

February 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

bbaedbce3fa6d93b6d228baa8d2eec23 House defeats bill extending Patriot Act provisions until December

The White House prefers an extension longer than what failed to win approval in the House on Tuesday.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* The bill falls short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass
* The White House and Democrats prefer a longer extension
* The provisions are scheduled to expire in March

RELATED TOPICS

* USA Patriot Act
* U.S. Congress
* Espionage and Intelligence
* Terrorism

(CNN) — A bill to extend three provisions of the Patriot Act and Intelligence Reform bill that are due to expire next month failed to win approval Tuesday from the U.S. House of Representatives.

The House voted 277-148 in favor of the bill, which fell short of the 284 votes needed to pass, because it was considered under a House rule that required a two-thirds majority.

In the vote, 26 joined 122 Democrats in opposing the bill that would have extended the provisions through December 8.

The White House and some Democrats prefer a longer extension of the three provisions, through 2013, and Senate Democrats are expected to propose legislation calling for such an extension.

Some House Republicans argued for a permanent extension of these items, saying they give enforcement the necessary tools to fight . However, Republican aides said the party’s leadership in the House opted to propose an extension into December to have more time to hold committee hearings on the current law and ensure that new House members were familiar with it before they voted on a longer extension.

Many of the 26 Republicans who voted against the bill Tuesday were new House members.

“The intelligence and law enforcement communities that are responsible for preventing terrorist attacks need to know that the tools they rely on to keep the American people safe will not be weakened or allowed to expire,” House Judiciary Chairman Committee Lamar Smith argued. “This short-term extension is a step toward the long-term re-authorization of important and necessary provisions. It gives Congress time for an open and meaningful debate, while ensuring that our law enforcement and intelligence communities can continue to prevent attacks and save lives,” said Smith, a Republican.

One of the three provisions, Section 206 of the Patriot Act, provides for roving wiretap surveillance of targets who try to thwart Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance. Without such roving wiretap authority, investigators would be forced to seek a new court order each time they need to change the location, phone or computer that needs to be monitored.

Another provision, Section 215, allows the to apply to the FISA court to issue orders granting the government access to any tangible items in foreign intelligence, international terrorism and clandestine intelligence cases.

The third provision, Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004, closes a loophole that could allow individual terrorists not affiliated with specific organizations to slip through the cracks of FISA surveillance. Law enforcement officials refer to it as the “lone wolf” provision.

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Study: Rise in some cancers linked to oral sex

February 9, 2011 By 1 Comment

be06b2837a8c500e13debb26196a1498 Study: Rise in some cancers linked to oral sex

There’s a worrisome uptick in the incidence of certain head and neck cancers among middle-aged and even younger Americans, and some experts link the trend to a rise in the popularity of over the past few decades.

That’s because the human papillomavirus (HPV) is a major trigger for these cancers, and HPV can be transmitted through this type of sexual activity.

“It seems like a pretty good link that more sexual activity, particularly oral , is associated with increased HPV infection,” said Dr. Greg Hartig, professor of otolaryngology — head and neck surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of and Public in Madison.

According to Dr. William Lydiatt, professor and chief of head and neck surgical oncology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the overall incidence of head and neck cancers is going down, largely because fewer people are smoking (tobacco and drinking are the major traditional risk factors).

But the incidence of cancers of the tonsil and base of the have been going up over the past decades, he said. And those are the ones that are more likely to test positive for HPV.

“It’s gotten to the point now where 60 to 70% of all tonsil cancers in the U.S. are HPV-related,” Lydiatt said.

Although the link between HPV and these types of cancers is indisputable, the association with oral sex is strong but a little more speculative, experts say.

A 2007 study in the New Journal of Medicine found that younger people with head and neck cancers who tested positive for oral HPV infection were more likely to have had multiple vaginal and oral sex partners in their lifetime.

In the study, having six or more oral sex partners over a lifetime was associated with a 3.4 times higher risk for oropharyngeal — cancers of the base of the tongue, back of the throat or tonsils. Having 26 or more vaginal-sex partners tripled the risk.

And the association increased as the number of partners — in either category — increased.

The researchers also reported that cancers of the tonsil and base of the tongue have been increasing every year since 1973, and wrote that “widespread oral sex practices among adolescents may be a contributing factor in this increase.”

The researchers concluded that in their study, oral sex was “strongly associated” with oropharyngeal cancer, but noted that they could not “rule out transmission through direct -to- contact” such as French kissing.

In 90% of cases of HPV infection in the body, the immune system clears HPV naturally within two years, according to federal health agencies, but in some cases, certain types of HPV can lead to cervical cancer or less common malignancies, such as oropharyngeal cancer. A 2010 Swedish study, in fact, suggested that the rise in oropharyngeal squamous cell cancer in a number of countries “is caused by a slow epidemic of HPV infection-induced (cancers).”

HPV tends to be site specific, explained Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, an adjunct instructor in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In other words, it tends to stay wherever it first enters the body, be it the (which in some cases could lead to cervical cancer), or the mouth and throat.

So does the increase in incidence mean that recent generations are having more sex than their grandparents?

“The general consensus on the street is that because people’s (sexual) practices have changed over time, we’re seeing an increase in these cancers,” said Hartig. “I don’t know why they’re having more oral sex (but) the concept of having oral sex is something that seems less obscure to you than it did to your parents or grandparents.”

“The thought would be that the baby boomers — the ’60s and early ’70s generation — probably had more freedom in sexual in general, including oral sex,” added Dr. Bert W. O’Malley Jr., chair of otorhinolaryngology — head and neck surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.

And at least in terms of oral sex, that appears true for those younger than boomers.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, in 2002, some 90% of males and 88% of females aged 25 to 44 reported ever having oral sex with a partner of the opposite sex.

Comparable figures from 1992 showed that about three-quarters of men aged 20 to 39 and closer to 70% of women aged 18 to 59 having ever given or received oral sex.

The silver lining is that the HPV-related head and neck cancers are eminently more treatable than those attributable to smoking or drinking, even though they tend to be diagnosed at a later stage.

“(HPV-related head-and-neck cancers) have been a lot easier to treat. You can use less-intensive radiation,” said Dr. D.J. Verret, clinical assistant professor at the University of Southwestern Medical School and a facial plastic surgeon in Plano, .

About 85% of non-smoking people with HPV-positive tumors survive. That number drops to 45 or 50% in people who smoke and are HPV-negative, Lydiatt said.

And tongue and tonsil cancers remain relatively rare in the United States. The other good news — at least for the younger set — is that there is a relatively new vaccine to prevent against HPV infection. It’s not going to help those who are already infected, but it “absolutely” could help those who aren’t yet infected with the ubiquitous virus, Verret said.

Meanwhile, people, especially younger people, need to realize that smoking is not the only risk factor for head and neck cancer. If you find a lump in your neck, even if you’re only 20 or 30, “pay attention to it,” Lydiatt said.

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Plains and South brace for another winter storm

February 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

3bc0289431f81c337eb72f9f7b7b83d5 Plains and South brace for another winter storm

Last week’s storm dumped 2 feet of snow on . A new storm is poised to hit the nation’s heartland this week.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* Snow forecast from the Rockies into the mid-South by Wednesday
* Much of is under a winter storm warning
* The latest storm follows last week’s historic system

(CNN) — Barely a week after a record-setting winter storm roared across the heartland, Nature was ready to dish out more Tuesday, according to the .

A powerful weather system poised over the Rockies is forecast to dump several feet of snow in the Mountain West and up to 8 inches in Oklahoma and Arkansas by Wednesday morning, the forecast said.

Much of Oklahoma is under a winter storm warning, but snow and sleet is predicted as far south as central , with 2 to 4 inches expected to coat the -Fort Worth area, the weather service said.

Later in the week, the system is expected to bring rain and snow to many areas of the Deep South before delivering a wintry mix along portions of the by Thursday.

Bitterly cold temperatures will lock the center of the country in the deep freeze as the system moves east.

RELATED TOPICS

* Winter Weather
* National Weather Service
* Oklahoma

“Maximum temperature departures are expected to run 30 to 40 degrees below average for the central (Tuesday) with the same departures sinking south into Oklahoma and north Texas on Wednesday,” the weather service said.

A historic storm left its mark on at least 30 states last week, dumping about 2 feet of snow on the Chicago area and prompting Oklahoma’s governor to declare a state of emergency.

Another winter system at the end of the week left central and southern Texas a mess.

Ice caused 800 crashes across the metropolitan area, and many freeways were closed because they were too dangerous to navigate, CNN affiliate KPRC reported.

Hundreds of flights were canceled as the winter weather threatened the plans of Super Bowl enthusiasts headed for the game in Arlington, Texas.

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Major storm wallops nation’s midsection

February 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

867ef81e854371950091ea6aabba6a28 Major storm wallops nation’s midsection

CHICAGO — A vast, potent winter storm barreled across the nation’s midsection Tuesday, depositing dangerous amounts of ice and snow before aiming for the winter-weary Northeast.

“Enough already,” said Steve Huang, 37, a Chicago stock analyst, as heavy snow began to fall here in midafternoon and strong winds sent it swirling across Michigan Avenue. “This feels like the worst winter ever.”

Not quite, but before the snow ends here this afternoon, total accumulation might with the city’s snowiest storm ever: 23 inches that fell Jan. 26-27, 1967.

*
STORM: Records fall with snow, temperature
*
FLIGHTS: Winter storms cripple air travel
*
PHOTOS: Winter storms slam U.S.

Thousands of airline flights were canceled as winter storm warnings flew from southwestern New Mexico to northern Maine, a distance of more than 2,300 miles.

Life came to a standstill in a wide swath of the nation. Legislatures, schools and businesses closed, athletic events were postponed, and people stayed home. Chicago public schools called a snow day for the first time in 12 years. The city closed iconic Lake Shore Drive so crews could plow.

Gingham’s Homestyle Restaurant in St. Charles, Mo., is open 24 hours, even on holidays, but owner Craig Uttendorf closed the doors Tuesday afternoon. “It’s been sleeting pretty good,” he said, “and we’ve got a blizzard warning. We never close, but today is just not worth it.”

Blizzard warnings were in effect in nine states, from Oklahoma to Ohio. Meteorologist Mark Ressler of the Channel said the system will move rapidly into and parts of New next. Severe thunderstorms that affected Louisiana and parts of on Tuesday will shift into and the Florida Panhandle, he said.

It’s unusual for a storm to affect such a broad swath of the country and so many big cities, Ressler said.

The Iowa Department of Transportation said most roadways in the state were partially or completely covered with ice and snow. Fatal wrecks were reported in and Kansas.

“If you don’t have to travel, don’t do it. If you can stay home, do it,” Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said.

Ice coated Missouri and portions of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. All of Interstate 70 in Missouri was closed between and Kansas City.

In Indiana, 850 members of the National Guard were activated and 26 shelters prepared. “There’s only so much man can do to control Nature, and ultimately Nature will always win,” First Sgt. Dave Bursten of the Indiana State Police said.

Power failures caused by icing are a major concern. The storm caused about 18,000 Indiana customers to lose power, but electricity was restored to all but 8,500 customers, said Joe Wainscott of the state Department of Homeland .

Road crews tried to keep up with heavy snow and ice while drivers confronted snowfall rates of 2-3 inches per hour in some areas.

Jorma Duran of the Missouri Department of Transportation said it takes 100 to 200 pounds of salt to cover one lane for one mile during an average winter storm — and more in an ice storm. On Tuesday, the Missouri DOT doubled those normal rates. Cost per ton of salt: $60. The state is using 1,500 snow vehicles to cover 33,000 miles of roads in the next 48-72 hours.

Ruddie’s Quik Stop, a convenience store in El Reno, Okla., ran out of milk, eggs and bread Tuesday, owner Ruddie Leathers said. He wasn’t sure when resupplies would be able to get through. “Usually we think 6 inches is a terrible storm,” he said. “This is the kind of excitement I don’t need.”

The blizzard halted production of today’s Tulsa World, the first time in more than a century that the newspaper has not published.

At the Blind Tiger restaurant in Topeka, general manager Mike Bowman said he plans to remain open even though a coating of ice slowed “almost to a screeching stop” before it began to snow. Double-digit snowfall totals were expected.

“I’m about tired of winter already,” Bowman said.

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EFF Claims Victory Against ‘Copyright Troll’ Attorney Evan Stone

February 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

6810c48799cfdfdecf33daf025296685 EFF Claims Victory Against ‘Copyright Troll’ Attorney Evan Stone

DALLAS, TX—The decision by attorney to file a Notice of Dismissal Friday in Mick Haig Productions v Does 1-670 was today hailed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as “another victory in [the] battle against flawed copyright lawsuits.” The lawsuit was filed in September of last year, accusing unnamed end users of illegally downloading Haig’s Der Gute Onkel.

Stone, who recently said he “was born” to litigate these types of cases, was also labeled a “copyright troll” by EFF, which, along with Public Citizen (PC), was appointed by the court to act as counsel for the unnamed defendants in the case. In his two-page filing, which is roundly being characterized as “petulant” and whiny,” Stone took equally sharp aim at EFF and PC, implying that they were incompetent in terms of law, and referring to them as “a trio of attorneys renowned for defending piracy and renowned for their general disregard for intellectual property law.”

According to Stone, he had to dismiss the case, explaining, “Four months after the initial filing of this case, with little chance of discovery in sight, Plaintiff feels it has lost any meaningful opportunity to pursue justice in this matter.” Stone places the blame for insurmountable delays not only on opposing counsel, but also the court.

Writing that he had filed a Motion for Expedited Discovery shortly after the initial filing, Stone complained, “Instead of instructing these attorneys to engage Plaintiff’s counsel in a Discovery conference which would allow the case to move forward, the Court ordered attorneys for the defense to respond to Plaintiff’s Motion, for which the Court has yet to make a ruling.”

Stone further complained that the response by the defense was “absurd” as well as “beyond the scope of the Discovery Motion at issue… Moreover, the Defense provided no alternatives for Plaintiff to cure the harm inflicted on it by Defendants.”

According to EFF and PC, however, Stone is personally responsible for doing in his own case. In a letter sent Jan. 26 to Stone by Paul Alan Levy of the Public Citizen Litigation Group, who, along with EFF’s Matt Zimmerman and Corynne McSherry, was one of the defendant’s counsel appointed by the court, Levy accused Stone of committing a serious abuse of the discovery procedure by subpoenaing ISPs before the court had even issued a ruling on Stone’s Motion for Expedited Discovery.

“We intend to ask Judge Godbey to order you to provide a sworn accounting of your actions as described above,” wrote Levy. “And, in the meantime, we have in mind to ask the Court to order you to contact every ISP to whom you have sent a subpoena in this case to tell them that the have been withdrawn, to order you to cease making use of any identifying information you have received, and to stop communicating with your clients unless we give you permission to do so or pending further order of the Court.”

In his filing Friday, Stone wrote, “Plaintiff has notified all relevant providers that this case is being dismissed and hereby notifies the Court of the same.”

Whether that action satisfies Levy or the court remains to be seen, but Zimmerman, in a quote provided today, said that concerns remain.

“This dismissal is wonderful news for the 670 anonymous defendants in this case, but troubling questions remain about the behavior of Mick Haig Productions,” he said. “Given the extremely invasive power of subpoenas, plaintiffs have a duty to ensure that subpoenas are not misused. EFF is committed to ensuring that litigants are held accountable for taking shortcuts around the due process rights of their opponents, especially in cases such as this one where the very act of obtaining someone’s identity could be improperly leveraged into pressure to settle a claim.”

The EFF statement also claims that this latest “victory” indicates a major shift in how mass copyright litigation is being perceived by both attorneys and courts around the country.

“Lawyers around the country are discovering that mass copyright litigation is not such a lucrative business model if you have to pursue your cases fairly,” the statement read. “In December and early January, federal judges in West Virginia and recognized that it is improper to join thousands of people in one lawsuit based solely on the fact that they all allegedly used the same software protocol to share one or more copyright works. As a practical matter, this means that copyright owners in those cases must file separate lawsuits against each alleged infringer and must have a reasonable basis for believing that they are filing in the right court.”

According to EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn, courts are finally catching up and taking a closer look at the rash of such lawsuits that were filed in 2010 and into 2011.

“There is often a gap between when cases are filed and when judges have the opportunity to look at them closely,” she said. “But that time appears to have arrived. Judges around the country are waking up to the dangers of mass copyright litigation and taking action to make sure the process is fair for the thousands of people who have been targeted in these suits.”

Another potentially problematic wrinkle in the case for Stone was whether the company ever owned the copyright to Der Gute Onkel in the first place. According to Torrent Freak, the title was never registered with the Copyright Office, a requirement under law before a copyright infringement lawsuit can be brought.

“Since the lawyer, Evan Stone, failed to properly inform the Court that the movie in question is not registered with Copyright Office, he has not [pleaded] the case properly,” wrote Torrent Freak. “For the alleged 670 downloaders this misstep is good news. If any of the defendants challenges the complaint through a motion to dismiss or motion to quash, it should be dismissed.” In the end, the case never got that far.

That alleged impropriety aside, EFF believes the mass litigation business model as it is being practiced—or malpracticed—is fatally flawed, arguing, “Given the additional expense of filing and litigating these cases fairly—expenses the plaintiffs were likely hoping to avoid by ignoring the court rules and due process requirements—these cases may not go much further.”

There are many companies and attorneys in the adult industry who still believe that end-user litigation, if done properly, has a big role to play in the overall strategy to address the pirating of copyrighted content.

Time will also tell whether Stone—who as early as late December said, “It’s my tech background that has saved me from making the same mistakes [other attorneys] made. Either way, this trend of BitTorrent litigation is a long way from over”—will continue on as aggressively as he has thus far or whether a tactical change in his legal strategy is forthcoming.

Mick Haig v Does Notice of Dismissal can be read here.

Paul Alan Levy letter to Evan Stone can be read here.

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Blinding snow hits Plains, Midwest and headed toward the Northeast

February 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

a5f471605c57bf0153d5d8069d7ec218 Blinding snow hits Plains, Midwest and headed toward the Northeast

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* NEW: Blizzard warnings are in place in 8 states
* NEW: “This is a life threatening storm,” the National Service says
* Snowfall could reach a rate of two to three inches per hour in
* Subzero temperatures are forecast across the upper Plains and Midwest

Share your snow images with CNN iReport. Follow CNNTravel on for the latest updates.

(CNN) — A historic winter storm whipped across the central Plains and Midwest early Tuesday, creating near whiteout conditions.

“Do not travel! Stay inside!” the National Weather Service warned. “Strong winds and blinding snow will make travel nearly impossible. This is a life threatening storm.”

The National Weather Service forecast blizzard conditions across portions of eight states, from to . Winds gusting to 40 mph are expected.

Oklahoma was under a state of emergency and Missouri mobilized 600 National Guard troops to help cope with Mother Nature’s onslaught.

Emergency personnel in Oklahoma City, and Chicago, among other locales, vowed they were prepared to weather the storm. The leaders of several states, many of which have already had a difficult winter, also commandeered their forces even as they urged people to stay home.

RELATED TOPICS

* Winter Weather
* National Weather Service
* Chicago

“Folks should batten down the hatches and hold on,” Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said. “The most likely place to get hurt is out on the road.”

Teeth-chattering will filter in behind the system, plunging temperatures to subzero in the upper Plains states.

The expansive storm will ultimately affect about three-quarters of the United States, stretching more than 2,000 miles. The weather service has posted winter storm warnings, watches or advisories in some 30 states.

Heavy snow is predicted along a sweeping 1,500-mile arch, starting in north-central and ending in southern Maine.

Along with its strength, the system’s immense size sets it apart.

“A storm of this size and scope needs to be taken seriously,” said Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Still, some of the biggest concerns Tuesday were in cities like Chicago.

“Combined snow totals … through Wednesday may exceed a foot and a half across much of northern Illinois and far northwest Indiana,” the weather service said.

“This storm could be one of the top 10 biggest snowstorms ever in the city,” said CNN meteorologist Sean Morris.

According to the National Weather Service, snowstorms that drop over 15 inches of snow occur about once every 19 years in Chicago. The last time this happened was in January 1999, when 21.6 inches of snow was recorded in the city.

Officials have added 120 garbage trucks with specially attached snow plows to the city’s fleet normal of 274 trucks in expectation of heavy snowfall, said Jose A. Santiago, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management.

Snowfall could reach a rate of two to three inches per hour with northeasterly winds of 25 mph to 40 mph, creating dangerous “white-out” conditions across the entire Chicago metropolitan area, the weather service reported.

Blizzard or near blizzard conditions are expected as far south as Oklahoma City on Tuesday, where snow accumulations there will be measured in feet, not in inches.

Oklahoma’s governor, Mary Fallin, released a statement on Monday declaring a state of emergency for all 77 counties in the state.

“This disaster declaration will make sure we can prepare for the winter weather ahead of the storm,” Fallin said. “We encourage all Oklahomans to prepare for the storm before it arrives.”

The mayor of Oklahoma City told residents to stay off the streets. Mick Cornett noted that most city and state offices would be closed Tuesday and asked that local businesses do their best to keep their employees home as well.

Oklahoma City officials urged residents to make early provisions — such as stocking up on water, batteries, medications and canned foods in case power outages occur. The storm is expected to have snowfall rates of up to 3 inches per hour, according to the weather service.

“We’re not strangers to weather,” said Michelann Ooten with Oklahoma City’s emergency management operations. “We’ve been working on this since last week.”

Ooten said her office had already contacted FEMA to secure generators and supplies in case emergency shelters are needed.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay tried to cut short a trip to New to head home in time for the storm, only to have his flight canceled due to the weather, his chief of staff Jeff Rainford said.

“So he’s one of the (thousands) stranded as well,” said Rainford.

Other cities likely to be affected during the week include Milwaukee, Cleveland, Providence in Rhode Island and the New York cities of Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany.

Heavy snowfall won’t be the only hazard from this major storm system. The subfreezing temperatures could coat trees, power lines and roads in ice from north Arkansas to Connecticut, forecasters said.

Ice accumulations of up to three-quarters of an inch will be possible, and they are likely to combine with gusty winds to cause tree branches to fall on power lines, according to forecasters.

With temperatures expected to drop well below freezing by Wednesday, parts of the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma will experience some of the coldest air this season, Morris said.

Strong winds will combine with the cold temperatures to create extremely dangerous wind chills, according to forecasts.

But the storm’s wrath won’t end there.

Severe thunderstorms are likely to develop along a trailing cold front from a main low-pressure area. That sets up a significant potential for tornadoes in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama.

The winter weather is prompting airlines to cancel flights by the hundreds and numerous carriers are letting customers make changes to their itineraries without the typical fees.

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Girl with girl cheating OK, half of boyfriends say

February 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

34e18a153215d2a704d833911a68a9e2 Girl with girl cheating OK, half of boyfriends say

(Reuters) – Half of would forgive their female partner’s , as long as it was with another , according to a new study on cheating.

, however, were less likely to forgive and forget if their boyfriend had been with another , the University of at Austin study showed.

Researchers asked 718 college students to imagine being in a long-term and what their reactions would be to several different cheating scenarios.

They found that overall, 50 percent of men would likely continue a relationship with a woman who had a dalliance with another woman, while 22 percent said they could forgive betrayal with another man.

For women, the results were reversed. If their boyfriend cheated with another woman, 28 percent said they’d keep him around, but only 21 percent said they would if he cheated with another man.

Published this month in the journal “Personality and Individual Differences,” the study concluded the participant’s reactions were based on basic instincts.

“A robust jealousy mechanism is activated in men and women by different types of cues — those that threaten paternity in men and those that threaten abandonment in women,” said Jaime Confer, the study’s lead author and a PhD candidate in evolutionary psychology.

Men, they said, felt more threatened by a rival male because of paternity uncertainty, whereas they saw a female partner’s homosexual affair as “an opportunity to mate with more than one woman simultaneously, satisfying men’s greater desire for more partners.”

Mark Cloud, one of the study co-authors, stressed in an interview that the homosexual infidelity scenario they asked participants to imagine was very rare in reality.

So, the researchers asked participants about their real experiences with cheating. There again, men showed less tolerance of cheating than women.

“Men were significantly more likely than women to have ended their actual following a partner’s affair,” according to the study.

(Reporting by Basil Katz; Editing by Patricia Reaney)

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Super Bowl a magnet for under-age sex trade

February 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

c17894c75a6699dd4317d7ac15826e36 Super Bowl a magnet for under age sex trade

(Reuters) – Pimps will traffic thousands of under-age prostitutes to Texas for Sunday’s Super Bowl, hoping to do business with men arriving for the big game with to burn, child rights advocates said.

As the country’s largest sporting event, the game between the and the Pittsburgh Steelers will make the -Fort Worth area a magnet for business of all kinds.

That includes the multimillion dollar, under-age sex industry, said activists and law enforcement officials working to combat what they say is an annual spike in trafficking of under-age girls ahead of the Super Bowl.

“The Super Bowl is one of the biggest human trafficking in the United States,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott told a trafficking prevention meeting in January.

Girls who enter the grim trade face a life of harsh treatment and danger, according to a Dallas police report in 2010. Few who emerge are willing to speak about it. Tina Frundt, 36, is an exception.

Now married and living in Washington D.C., Frundt was lured into sex work at 14 after she fell for a 24-year-old who invited her to leave home in 1989 and join his “” in Cleveland, Ohio.

That family consisted of the and three girls living in a motel. When Frundt declined on the first night to have sex with her boyfriend’s friends they raped her.

“I was angry with myself for not listening to him, so the next night when he sent me out on the street and told me … (to earn $500) I listened,” she said in a telephone interview.

Frundt paced the streets for hours and finally got into a client’s car.

When she came home in the morning with just $50, her pimp beat her in front of the other girls to teach them all a lesson and sent her back onto the street the next night with the warning not to return until she had reached the quota.

The scenario was repeated night after night as Frundt’s pimp moved his stable across the Midwest. Any sign of rebellion led to further beatings. Escape seemed out of the question.

“I was a teen-ager in a strange town with no money and no place to go,” she said. She finally escaped by getting arrested.

ENSNARED

Up to 300,000 girls between 11 and 17 are lured into the U.S. sex industry annually, according to a 2007 report sponsored by the and written by the nonprofit group Shared Hope International.

Some 90 percent of runaways and children whose parents force them to leave home fall into the trade and are often beaten, drugged, raped or imprisoned to force compliance, said a section of the report which referred to Atlanta.

Pimps tattoo girls with “$” signs or the word “Daddy” and take them to unfamiliar cities where they are more vulnerable.

Typically, pimps recruit unwitting girls at centers, mall events and on the Internet. Once ensnared, shame, fear and psychological manipulation by pimps make it hard to break free.

Clients, often called “Johns,” hook up with girls via the Internet, through hotels, massage parlors, strip clubs and escort services, the report said.

“At previous Super Bowls, pimps hired cab drivers to turn their vehicles into mobile brothels,” said Deena Graves, executive director of child advocacy group Traffick911.

Up to 10,000 and under-age girls have come to previous Super Bowls, said Jerry Strickland, communications director in the Texas attorney general’s office, who acknowledged that precise figures are hard to gauge.

“The statistics are a moving target. They (under age sex workers) can’t be counted in turnstiles like ticket holders,” he said in an interview.

RESCUE

Law enforcement agencies and advocacy groups rescued around 50 girls during the previous two Super Bowls, said Graves. Six were registered on the Center for Missing and Exploited Children website. One had been trafficked from Hawaii.

“Even one rescue is considered a success,” said Frundt who now advocates for exploited girls and has founded a girls’ treatment center and a safe house for girls in Washington D.C.

To fight the trade, authorities, child welfare advocates and the airline industry are collaborating.

Representatives from American Airlines, Delta, United, Quantas and American Eagle are holding a training session to help them spot signs of trafficking. Nancy Rivard, president of Airline Ambassadors International, will also work with another 100 flight crews to distribute materials on flights.

Some 67,000 people signed a petition on www.change.org opposing sex trafficking as part of a campaign by Traffick911 called “I’m Not Buying It!” that is supported by 60 nonprofits and faith-based groups.

That campaign has also attracted heavy hitters like Dallas Cowboy Jay Ratliff, a three-time Pro Bowler, who made a public service announcement entitled “Real men don’t buy children. They don’t buy sex.”

Ratliff, who himself has two daughters, is recruiting other National League players for the campaign.

“You hear of sex trafficking overseas,” he wrote in an from Hawaii where he is playing in the Pro Bowl. “But you never imagine it is happening in the United States.”

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Windy City falls under blizzard watch as winter storm revs up

January 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

f0fc8d46b14c56dc130bf827ec2252c1 Windy City falls under blizzard watch as winter storm revs up

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* The metropolitan area is under a blizzard watch
* is preparing for a possible historic snowfall
* The system will arrive on the by Thursday
* Temperatures will plummet below zero in and

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* Chicago

Share your snow images with CNN iReport.
For more on this article, see CNN affiliate KSDK

(CNN) — Chicago is bracing for a snow storm of historic proportions that was expected to coat the Windy City and large sections of the country’s midsection in a thick blanket of snow.

Forecasters have issued a blizzard watch.

“Combined snow totals from the Monday afternoon through Wednesday may exceed a foot and a half across much of northern Illinois and far northwest Indiana,” the National Weather Service said. “Snowfall rates up to 3 inches per hour will be probable at the height of the storm Tuesday night.”

Some of the coldest air of the season will plummet southward and combine with another storm developing over the southern Plains, according to CNN meteorologist Sean Morris, before moving toward the northeast.

An intense surface low will develop over north Texas and pull abundant warm, moist air from the Gulf of into the frigid Arctic air diving southward into the Plains. In addition to blizzard conditions, the storm system is expected to spin off heavy snow, ice storms and tornadoes.

This storm appears to be one for the record books.

It could be one of the top 10 biggest snowstorms ever in the Windy City. The biggest snow storm in Chicago’s history occurred from January 26-27, 1967 when 23 inches of snow fell on the city.

According to the National Weather Service, snowstorms that drop over 15 inches of snow occur once in about every 19 years. The last time this happened was in January of 1999 when 21.6 inches of snow was recorded in Chicago.

The storm will likely extend from Oklahoma City to Caribou, Maine, by late week, said CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen.

The National Weather Service said the “dangerous storm” will begin to affect Missouri and Illinois, which were under storm warnings, as early as Monday.

Snowfall, primarily on Tuesday, could be over 12 inches in parts of both states, the agency said.

CNN St. Louis affiliate KSDK indicated the storm could be “historic,” saying it could rival a 1982 system that left 13.9 inches of snow in St. Louis and some areas with more than 2 feet.

Very heavy snow will fall from Oklahoma northeastward through Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. Snow accumulations there will be measured in feet, not in inches.

Blizzard or near-blizzard conditions are expected as far south as Oklahoma City on Tuesday. The National Weather Service forecast office in Norman, Oklahoma, warns that a “potentially dangerous winter situation” is developing with travel becoming extremely dangerous or impossible across the state by Tuesday morning.

Accumulations of 16 to 24 inches are possible in a narrow band from Illinois into Ohio, and perhaps through St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit, Hennen said, adding it was not yet possible to pinpoint the exact location.

The peak of the storm in the Midwest should be from Tuesday into Wednesday morning, Hennen said. Snow will affect Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis; Chicago; and into Detroit. Other cities likely to be affected during the week include Milwaukee, Cleveland, Boston and the New York cities of Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany.

Punxsutawney Phil, of Groundhog Day fame, may be more interested in his exposed fur than his spring forecast when the system reaches western Pennsylvania.

In total, more than 20 states fall under winter storm advisories, watches or warnings, stretching from New Mexico in the southwest to in the northeast.

Severe thunderstorms will likely develop along a trailing front from a main low-pressure area. There could be a significant potential for tornadoes in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and .

Where the warm air overrides the cold Arctic air, rain will fall into subfreezing temperatures at the surface and coat trees, power lines and roads in ice from Missouri to southern Illinois and eastward into central Indiana, Morris said. Ice accumulations of up to three-quarters of an inch will be possible, which will likely combine with gusty winds, which could cause tree branches to fall on power lines.

This will also be some of the coldest air of the season, with temperatures expected to drop well below zero in parts of the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma by Wednesday. Temperatures across the central and southern high Plains will be almost 50 degrees below normal in some areas. Low temperatures on Wednesday morning could be in the single digits as far south as north Texas.

Strong winds will combine with the cold temperatures to create extremely dangerous wind chills of 20 to 35 below zero across the southern Plains.

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