Feds indict 5 San Francisco police officers, charges against 2 include stealing ... - Seattle Post Intelligencer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Feds indict 5 San Francisco police officers, charges against 2 include stealing money, drugs.

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British agents spied on Yahoo users' 'intimate' webcam images, Snowden files ... - The Independent

The surveillance agency GCHQ used a hacking program codenamed Optic Nerve to view British citizens in their homes as they used the Yahoo! webcam chat system, the classified files revealed by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Guardian show.

Up to 11 per cent of the images contained what agents called "undesirable nudity", according to the documents. It is unclear exactly how much information was obtained using Optic Nerve. However, in six months in 2008, images were obtained from more than 1.8 million Yahoo! user accounts around the world.

Civil liberty campaigners expressed horror at the scale of the surveillance of people who were not suspected of a crime. Yahoo!, which said it had not been aware of the surveillance, said the revelations represented "a whole new level of violation of our users' privacy".

The documents show the legal status of the system was discussed, particularly in relation to using automated facial matching to identify the people in the pictures. "It was agreed that the legalities of such a capability would be considered once it had been developed, but that the general principle applied would be that if the accuracy of the algorithm was such that it was useful to the analyst," one document from 2008 reads.

Nick Pickles, the director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, said Orwell's 1984 was "supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual". "Secretly intercepting and taking photographs from millions of people's webcam chats is as creepy as it gets," he said.

Conservative MP David Davis, who has campaigned on civil liberties issues, said: "It is perfectly proper for our intelligence agencies to use any and all means to target people for whom there are reasonable grounds for suspicion of terrorism. It is entirely improper to extend such intrusive surveillance on a blanket scale to ordinary citizens."

A GCHQ spokeswoman said: "We're not commenting on anything."

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Academy Awards: What do voters look for in a film? - BBC News

27 February 2014 Last updated at 19:43 ET By Daniel Nasaw BBC News Magazine, Washington

On Sunday night winners of the 86th Academy Awards will be announced in 24 categories. Two Oscar voters - a film director and a sound man - talk about how they pick the Best.

"Probably in the next few days, I'm going to take a day or two and just watch films," says Jerry Freedman, a director and voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in an interview before final voting began on 14 February.

Like his more than 6,000 fellow voting Academy members in all branches of the film business, Freedman has been inundated with DVDs in recent months, sent by the Academy and by the studios that produced the 289 feature films eligible for the Best Picture Oscar this year.

Ultimately, more than 50 films received a nomination, some in only a single category (The Wind Rises, Animated Feature Film) and others for many more (12 Years a Slave, nine categories; Gravity, 10).

Russell Williams, a sound mixer who won Oscars for Glory and Dances with Wolves and is now distinguished artist-in-residence at American University, says he will not vote in a category if he has not seen all five nominees.

"Maybe the one that should have gotten my vote is the one I haven't seen," he says.

Freedman and Williams spoke to the BBC about what they look for - and listen for - when they're making their selections.

Academy membership has its privileges: Free admission to cinemas across America, invitations to posh screenings, and stacks of DVDs and film scripts sent to their doors.

"I've been sitting and watching dozens of films," says Freedman. "I get them during the year, so even before nomination, I got all the big films, everything, you name it."

To be considered for Academy membership, you must work in the film business at "an unusually high level of quality and distinction", the Academy says.

Writers, producers and directors must have at least two eligible screen credits and actors at least three scripted roles behind them.

Prospective members must be sponsored by current members. An Oscar nomination gets you automatic consideration.

Every member can nominate up to 10 films for Best Picture.

For most other awards, only members of that branch of the Academy can nominate their colleagues. For example, only film directors can nominate movies for the Directing award.

There are five nominations per category, except for Best Picture, in which there are up to 10.

"I want to go on a journey, I want to learn more about this world, I want to be caught up just like anybody else," Williams says.

"If I have time on the first viewing to start dissecting how the director did this and how the sound did that, then they've failed."

Freedman says, "I look for quality and originality, and how it moves me emotionally and as an artist.

"Certain films will come out and you'll say, 'This is a game-changer.'"

Voters will often watch films a second time or more in order to judge categories such as sound mixing and editing, make-up and hairstyling and cinematography.

The studios undertake intense publicity campaigns to push their films, buying prominent adverts in the trade press and the popular media, holding screenings, and distributing DVDs and film scripts.

"You get deluged with emails," Freedman says.

"They want you to think about them. If you know somebody who works for the film, all of a sudden you meet the producer of 12 Years a Slave. All of a sudden you have a personal connection."

But the nominees are limited in how directly they can contact voters and ask for their support - and failure to comply with the rules can lead to sanction.

This year the Academy rescinded the nomination in the Best Original Song category of a composer who it said had contacted members and asked them specifically to listen to his song.

The issue: on nominating and voting materials, songs are listed only by title and the name of the film, in order to discourage members from nominating songs based on their composers.

Bruce Boughton, composer of Alone Yet Not Alone in an independent Christian-themed film of the same title, is well-known within the rarefied world of Hollywood film music writers.

"Mr Broughton should have been more cautious about acting in a way that made it appear as if he were taking advantage of his position to exert undue influence," the Academy said in a statement.

Will the sex abuse allegations against Woody Allen - which he denies and for which he has never been prosecuted - affect Blue Jasmine's chances in the three categories in which it was nominated?

"I suspect there will be a lot of detractors," Freedman says. "But I don't know if that will affect how people vote about Cate Blanchett."

"I look for someone that doesn't have a lot of artifice," says Freedman - and the film has to be one he genuinely enjoys.

"If a performance is great but the movie doesn't resonate, that will sometimes detract."

The world of Captain Phillips is created in large part by the sound - the radio chatter, the freighter's engineering plant, the sloshing of water on the lifeboat, says Williams.

"There's a lot of work to make it sound like what you would hear if you were in that space."

In Gravity the filmmakers tried to observe the laws of physics in space, he notes, and even the satellites explode around the heroine in silence.

"It's more terrifying to think that you could be ripped to shreds like that and not hear a thing," he says.

Freedman says: "12 Years a Slave is a game-changer, Gravity is game-changer."

He says he was blown away by the opening shot of Gravity, a nearly 15-minute view of Earth and the satellites surrounding it.

A shot of that length was impossible when films were still captured on celluloid, because a roll of film could only hold 10 minutes of footage.

"Once in a while something will grab you as a filmmaker," he says. "This is an incredible year. This is the best year in decades."

Follow Daniel Nasaw on Twitter

Contributions from Glenn Anderson

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Nets shake off loss, crush Nuggets - Reuters

Fri Feb 28, 2014 1:39am EST

Nets shake off loss, crush Nuggets

DENVER -- In 2002, after his New Jersey Nets team came to Denver and beat the Nuggets by 26, Jason Kidd described the game as a glorified practice.

Twelve years later, Kidd, now coach of the Brooklyn Nets, probably got a sense of deja vu.

Forward Paul Pierce scored 18 points before sitting out the entire fourth quarter, and the Nets raced out to a big lead early and never relented in a 112-89 win over the Nuggets on Thursday night.

Guard Marcus Thornton scored 10 points in his second game since joining Brooklyn at the trade deadline last week, and forward Mason Plumlee added 10 points. Nets forward Joe Johnson also scored 10 points before watching much of the game in his warmups.

"I don't know what you can take away from it," Johnson said. "It felt like a pickup game."

It was the kind of effort Kidd was looking for after his team was on the wrong end of a 44-point blowout in Portland on Wednesday. The Nets were in control from the start Thursday and were never threatened.

"We didn't play well last night at all, but we had another game," Kidd said. "We came, we showed. Right from the tip, the guys came with the energy, defensively we got stops, and from there we started making shots."

The Nets have played well since the beginning of 2014. They were 11 games under .500 when the year started, but a 17-8 run has them 27-29 and within reach of the Toronto Raptors for first place in the Atlantic Division.

Injuries hurt the Nets early in the season, and they suffered a 24-point loss to Denver in Brooklyn on Dec. 3. Forward Andrei Kirilenko as well as Pierce and point guard Deron Williams missed that game.

They all played Thursday, and they embarrassed the now-woeful Nuggets despite solid games from Denver forward Kenneth Faried and guard Randy Foye. Faried had 14 points and eight rebounds, and Foye finished with 15 points.

"I didn't say anything, I just told them when practice was tomorrow," Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said of his postgame talk. "There's not really much you can say in a situation like this right now, emotions being what they are. I thought it was better to forget about it and we'll get after it tomorrow."

The players might have nightmares about Denver's worst period of the season. The Nuggets shot 3-for-18 from the field in the first quarter and had as many points as turnovers -- eight.

It was the lowest-scoring quarter of the season for Denver, and it led to a blowout defeat on national TV for the second time in a week. The Chicago Bulls beat the Nuggets by 28 last Friday.

Denver missed layups and dunks in its worst quarter in years. The franchise low is three points, set Nov. 27, 2002, at San Antonio.

"I think I can speak for everybody in the locker room when I say to be part of something like tonight, it's embarrassing," said Nuggets forward J.J. Hickson, who had 14 points and seven rebounds. "We know exactly what we have to do to win, and we're just not doing it."

The Nets took advantage of Denver's poor start. They led 29-8 after the first quarter and 49-18 midway through the second.

The Nuggets went on an 11-2 run to get within 22 points before halftime, but Brooklyn outscored them 30-20 in the third to squelch any comeback.

"We looked fresh after the back-to-back," Kidd said. "Normally we don't look fresh. The guys were getting stops, and we were getting easy baskets. We were sharing the ball, multiple guys were touching the ball, it wasn't just one guy just taking it and shooting it. Guys were creating movement, and there was a lot of trust offensively."

The Nets led by as many as 38 in the second half in handing Denver its ninth loss in 10 games.

The packed Pepsi Center had a mass exodus late in the third quarter, but the fans who stuck around gave Nets center Jason Collins a warm welcome when he entered the game with 8:02 remaining.

Collins, who signed a 10-day contract with Brooklyn on Monday, is the first openly gay player to compete in the NBA. He scored his first bucket of the season and finished with three points and four fouls.

"I got them a bucket, and of course I had my usual three, four, five fouls," Collins said.

NOTES: Nuggets F Wilson Chandler did not dress for the game because of a right knee injury. Chandler practiced Wednesday, but the knee acted up at Thursday's shootaround. Chandler's absence, along with injuries to F Darrell Arthur (left hip strain), G Nate Robinson (left knee surgery) and G Ty Lawson (fractured rib), left Denver with nine available players. ... Nets C Jason Collins said he planned to meet with the parents of Matthew Shepard after the game. Shepard was killed in Wyoming in 1998 in an anti-gay attack, and he is one of the reasons why Collins, the first openly gay man to play in the NBA, wears No. 98. Shepard was killed in 1998. ... The Nuggets have used 19 starting lineups this season, and the Nets have used 20. Brooklyn ranks fourth in the league in that category.

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St. Paul mayor visits White House for launch of Obama's plan to put minority ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

A day after President Obama visited St. Paul, the city's mayor is in Washington, D.C. to help the president unveil a new initiative.

Mayor Chris Coleman will be at the White House today for the formal launch of Obama's "My Brother's Keeper," a plan to pave a pathway to success for more young black and Hispanic males.

With the help of businesses, foundations and nonprofits, Obama hopes to address disparities in education, criminal justice and employment. According to the White House, groups have invested $150 million in the program with plans invest another $200 million over the next five years.

"It's so much a part of all the work that we're doing to close the achievement gap and really creating economic opportunity for all of our youth," Coleman said.

"It's absolutely critical that we look at all ways to fight the challenges that we face."

The White House invited Coleman and Democratic U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison to the event.

Obama visited St. Paul's Union Depot on Wednesday to unveil his four-year $302 billion roads and railways plan.

Coleman joked that the back-to-back visits constitute a "home and home series."

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Ukraine: Armed Men Occupy Airports in Crimea - Wall Street Journal

Updated Feb. 28, 2014 3:24 a.m. ET

Breaking

• Ukraine Acting President Calls Meeting of Security Chiefs on Crimea Situation

An armed man patrols at the airport in Simferopol, Crimea, on Friday. Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili

Russian soldiers have occupied two key airports in Ukraine's restive pro-Russia region of Crimea, Ukraine's acting interior minister said Friday.

Soldiers wearing camouflage and bearing automatic weapons took up positions at Belbek Airport in Sevastopol, home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and at the airport in Simferopol, the region's capital, Arsen Avakov said.

He said the soldiers' uniforms bore no identifying marks "but they do not hide their affiliation with the Russian armed forces."

A spokesperson for Russia's Black Sea Fleet denied that soldiers from the base were involved in blocking the Sevastopol airport.

"This is an armed invasion and occupation," Mr. Avakov said in a message posted on his Facebook page. "It is a direct provocation of armed bloodshed in the territory of a sovereign state."

It isn't clear whether the move constitutes the initial phase of a larger military action or if Russia was simply trying to forestall efforts by central Ukrainian authorities to exert greater control on the autonomous region.

A spokesperson for Russia's Defense Ministry couldn't immediately be reached.

At Belbek Airport, Mr. Avakov said armed military units connected to Russia's fleet had blocked access to the terminal and that the airport was now closed. He said Ukrainian soldiers and border guards remained inside the airport and Interior Ministry troops had set up a perimeter around the airport, but there had been no conflict.

Russian news agency Interfax cited a spokesperson for Russia's Black Sea Fleet as saying: "No divisions of the Black Sea Fleet are in the area of Belbek airport and are especially not blocking the airport…Given the volatile situation evolving in the area of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, as well as places where military personnel and their families reside, the base has strengthened its antiterrorism security."

In Simferopol, Mr. Avakov said that around midnight, 100 people who identified themselves as a Cossacks—civilian Russian traditionalists who often work closely with police—tried to break through a fence onto the airport grounds, but were driven away by airport security.

Then, at 1:30 a.m., several trucks carrying more than 100 armed soldiers in unmarked camouflage uniforms arrived and took up positions inside the airport's restaurant. When told by Ukrainian Interior Ministry troops that they had no right to be there, Mr. Avakov said the soldiers said they had been instructed not to negotiate. He said the Interior Ministry was reinforcing its units around the airport and that the situation was becoming "increasingly tense."

Despite the standoff, he said Simferopol airport was operating normally.

The move comes a day after gunmen took control of the region's parliament and executive buildings in Simferopol and replaced the Ukrainian flag with a Russian one.

The autonomous region of Crimea has emerged as the epicenter of resistance to the new leadership in Kiev, which has been trying to form a government following the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych on Saturday.

Mr. Yanukovych broke his silence Thursday, saying in a statement that he remains the country's legitimate leader and that the actions of the parliament stripping his powers were illegal. He is scheduled to hold a news conference on Friday in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, just a few hundred miles across the Sea of Azov from Crimea.

The Crimean legislature has called a referendum on the region's status for May 25, raising the prospect that Crimea, which until 1954 was part of Russia, might seek greater autonomy or even secede from Ukraine.

Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com

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GM issues rare public apology amid recall of 1.6 million cars - Los Angeles Times

In a rare public apology, General Motors acknowledged Tuesday that it may have reacted too slowly to a safety issue linked to 13 deaths.

The delayed response could potentially cost GM tens of millions of dollars in civil penalties if the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration determines the automaker neglected to inform regulators.

The NHTSA is also facing criticism for not demanding that GM act more quickly to recall more than 1.6 million vehicles.

The recall is linked to the cars' ignition switches, which GM says can be accidentally turned from the "run" position to the "accessory" position while the car is being driven. When this happens, the engine shuts off and safety systems — including power steering, anti-lock brakes, and airbags — are disabled.

This has led to at least 31 crashes and at least 13 front-seat fatalities in the U.S., GM said.

"We are deeply sorry and we are working to address this issue as quickly as we can," GM's North America President Alan Batey said in a statement.

This public acknowledgment of an oversight is extremely rare for a international corporation like GM.

"I haven't seen GM apologize since they apologized to Ralph Nader in 1966," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. "It's a huge deal."

Tuesday's announcement came as GM said it is recalling an additional 748,000 cars in the U.S., on top of 619,000 that were recalled on February 13. The remaining vehicles affected are in Mexico and Canada.

The updated recall now includes 2003-2007 Saturn Ions, 2006-2007 Chevrolet HHRs, 2006-2007 Pontiac Soltices, and 2006-2007 Saturn Sky models. These models join the 2005-2007 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 models that were recalled earlier. A total of 1,367,146 cars in the U.S. are now included in the recall.

According to documents submitted to NHTSA by GM, the automaker was aware of the defective ignition switches as early as 2004 and issued a service bulletin for its dealers in 2005.

In the bulletin, dealers were encouraged to tell affected customers — particularly those drivers who were short or had a large or heavy keychains — to remove all unnecessary items from the keychain to prevent the ignition from inadvertently turning off.

At the time, GM thought this was sufficient action, because the cars' steering and braking systems remained operational even after the engine was accidentally shut off, according to the document.

It wasn't until 2007 that NHTSA brought a report of a fatal crash to GM's attention. In that crash, a 16-year-old Maryland girl was killed after she lost control of her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt and slammed into a tree. The girl was not wearing a seatbelt.

NHTSA should have demanded a recall at that time, Ditlow said. "There really is no excuse for NHTSA not having told GM to do the recall in 2007. It's just that simple."

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Reliability slips amid more transmission, technology complaints

Mercedes to roll out new S-Class coupe at Geneva Motor Show

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Killer of Missouri schoolgirl executed after appeals dismissed - Reuters

KANSAS CITY, Missouri Wed Feb 26, 2014 3:20am EST

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A Missouri man was executed early on Wednesday for raping and murdering a 15-year-old schoolgirl, authorities said, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a flurry of petitions seeking a stay.

Michael Taylor died by lethal injection 25 years after he and an accomplice abducted Ann Harrison from a bus stop near Kansas City, raped her and stabbed her to death.

The 47-year-old had pleaded guilty to the rape and murder. But his attorneys launched a string of appeals, including one asserting the drugs used for lethal injection could subject him to a slow and tortuous death.

Lawyers also argued he should have been offered a life sentence, or at least a sentencing by a jury instead of a judge - and said that Missouri should allow all appeals to be exhausted before they proceeded with the execution.

Death penalty opponents and a federal judge have criticized the state for putting condemned inmates to death while petitions for a stay are still pending.

It was the state's 72nd execution since the death penalty was reinstated there in the 1970s and the second this year.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday night denied several petitions for a last-minute stay or further judicial review sought on Taylor's behalf by his attorney, John Simon.

The execution continued as scheduled after the string of terse denials issued for the high court by Justice Samuel Alito.

Governor Jay Nixon had refused to grant Taylor clemency earlier in the day.

"ULTIMATE PENALTY"

Before the execution, Taylor's family issued a statement saying he had showed remorse and that life imprisonment would have been sufficient.

Janel Harrison, mother of the victim, also made a public statement, asking for justice for her daughter. "There should be an ultimate penalty," she said.

Michael Taylor was pronounced dead at 12:10 a.m. local time at a prison in Bonne Terre, said Mike O'Connell, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Public Safety.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had not completed its review of previous death row inmate Allen Nicklasson's request for a stay based on a challenge to Missouri's lethal injection drug protocol when he was executed on December 11.

Circuit Judge Kermit Bye said in a written ruling after Nicklasson's execution that Missouri's actions should undergo intense judicial scrutiny.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has defended the state's actions and said in a statement that Taylor has had more than enough time to file appeals on any issue, and that his sentence has been upheld repeatedly by the Missouri Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court.

"It is ridiculous to suggest that Mr. Taylor should avoid his execution by filing a flood of new paperwork," Koster said.

Taylor was narrowly spared from execution in 2006 by a late court-ordered reprieve after revelations about problems with the state's lethal injection practices at that time.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Steve Gorman and Lisa Shumaker)

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Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer returns home amid furor over bill allowing denial of ... - Fox News

PHOENIX –  Gov. Jan Brewer returned to Arizona on Tuesday and faced a pressing decision about a bill on her desk that has prompted a national debate over religious and gay rights.

The Republican governor has been in Washington the last five days for a governors conference, and she is returning to a political climate that is much different from just a week ago.

The Arizona Legislature passed a bill last week allowing businesses whose owners cite sincerely held religious beliefs to deny service to gays. It allows any business, church or person to cite the law as a defense in any action brought by the government or individual claiming discrimination.

The legislation has caused a national uproar. The chorus of opposition has grown each day, with the business community, the state's Super Bowl Committee and both Republican U.S. senators calling for a veto. Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney was the latest prominent voice to weigh in and urge Brewer to veto the bill.

Brewer will likely spend the next day or more pondering Senate Bill 1062 before deciding whether to sign or veto the legislation.

There is widespread speculation that Brewer will veto the bill, but she has not said how she'll act, as is her longtime practice with pending legislation.

Political observers in Arizona cautioned that the governor is deliberate and not prone to act hastily, despite the growing calls from business, politicians of all stripes, and civil rights groups for a veto.

"She's no rookie to these high-profile deals — she gives both sides their due," said Doug Cole, a political consultant whose firm has run all of Brewer's campaigns for decades.

"She's going to get a very detailed briefing from her legal team, and give the proponents their best shot, and the opponents their best shot," he said. "Everybody's going to get their say, and they've giving it."

Some Republican senators who pushed the bill through the Legislature are now calling for a veto as well, but they cite "inaccurate" information about the measure for igniting a firestorm. They argue the bill is designed only to protect business owners with strong religious beliefs from discrimination lawsuits that have happened in other states. Some blame the media for blowing the law out of proportion.

Democrats say that argument doesn't wash and call SB 1062 "toxic" legislation that allows discrimination. They said they warned Republicans who voted for the bill that it was destined for trouble.

"We brought this to their attention five weeks ago," said Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix. "We said this is exactly what is going to happen. You have a bill here that's so toxic it's going to divide this Legislature. It's going to be polarizing the entire state. And that's exactly what happened."

The bill was pushed by the Center for Arizona Policy, a social conservative group that opposes abortion and gay marriage. The group says the proposal simply clarifies existing state law and is needed to protect against increasingly activist federal courts.

The center's president, Cathi Herrod, has been deriding what she called "fear-mongering" from the measure's opponents.

"What's happened is our opponents have employed a new political tactic, and it's working," she said. "Throw out the threat of a boycott to attempt to defeat a bill, and you might just be able to be successful.

Herrod added she was surprised and disappointed that "in America today, false attacks and irresponsible characterizations about a piece of legislation can so intimidate and persuade people to change their opinion about religious liberty."

___

Follow Bob Christie at http://twitter.com/APChristie .

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US planning full Afghan pullout, Obama tells Karzai - BBC News

President Barack Obama has warned his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that the US may pull all of its troops out of his country by the year's end.

Mr Obama conveyed the message in a phone call to Mr Karzai, who has refused to sign a security agreement.

The US insists this agreement must be in place before it commits to leaving some troops behind for counter-insurgent operations and training.

Barbara Plett Usher reports from Washington.

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California couple strikes gold after finding $10 million in rare coins - CNN

By Dana Ford, CNN

updated 3:37 AM EST, Wed February 26, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The coins, in $5, $10 and $20 denominations, are dated from 1847 to 1894
• They have a combined face value of about $27,000, but could fetch $10 million or more
• The discovery is thought to be the largest of its kind in U.S. history

(CNN) -- Eureka!

A husband and wife are reveling in their good fortune after finding $10 million in rare gold coins buried on their property in Northern California.

The gold country discovery is thought to be the largest of its kind in U.S. history, according to David Hall, co-founder of Professional Coin Grading Service, which authenticated the find.

"It's quite a story. People were walking along on their property in Northern California, noticed something, began digging and they found cans of gold coins," Hall said.

"It should have happened to you and me."

The incredible find

The coins were unearthed in February 2013 by the husband and wife, who wish to remain anonymous.

They were walking their dog when they spotted something shiny on the ground.

The couple dug and eventually discovered eight metal cans, containing more than 1,400 gold coins.

No one knows how they got there, or who the coins might have belonged to.

"Somebody could have buried them and then died before they let anybody know where they were," Hall said.

"Believe it or not, I know cases where they forgot they had something, or they moved or whatever ... It could have been some kind of robbery deal ... Who knows?"

The treasure is known as the "Saddle Ridge Hoard" because it was discovered near a hill the couple called Saddle Ridge.

In their effort to stay anonymous, the husband and wife aren't saying exactly where the fortune was found.

The coins

The coins, in $5, $10 and $20 denominations, are dated from 1847 to 1894. Most were minted in San Francisco.

They have a combined face value of about $27,000, but experts believe they could fetch $10 million or more.

The couple is planning to sell much of the collection.

Approximately 90% of the coins will go up on Amazon.com's "Collectibles" site, according to Don Kagin, of Kagin's, Inc., who is assisting the anonymous owners.

Collectors wanting a sneak peak can see some of the coins at the American Numismatic Association's 2014 National Money Show in Atlanta, which opens Thursday.

"Unlike other hoards and treasures, this one includes a great variety of coins struck over many different years, and many of the coins are still in pristine condition," Kagin said in a statement.

"And add to that a wonderful human interest story: this family literally found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

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Mt. Gox Shutdown Triggers Bitcoin Industry Damage Control (3) - Businessweek

With the shutdown of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox -- once the world's largest exchange for digital currency transactions -- other companies in the Bitcoin universe worked to defend the nascent industry's reputation.

Reports that hackers may have pilfered more than $390 million in Bitcoin from Mt. Gox prompted companies from San Francisco to London as well as their industry group, the Bitcoin Foundation, to assure Bitcoin users that their funds won't disappear due to theft or mismanagement.

"This is certainly not the end of Bitcoin," the foundation said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. "As our industry matures, we are seeing a second wave of capable, responsible entrepreneurs and investors who are building reliable services for this ecosystem."

The shutdown of Mt. Gox comes after months in which the currency's price soared and it attracted increased attention from investors and customers and scrutiny from U.S. regulators over possible money-laundering and fraud.

"Absent rudimentary consumer protection rules -- even if voluntary -- I expect Bitcoin will receive some super-sized policy-maker attention," Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said in a statement.

Went Offline

Mt. Gox, which had the largest market share of all digital currency exchanges as recently as April 2013, went offline yesterday, after halting customer withdrawals on Feb. 7. A document posted on the Internet labeled a "Crisis Strategy Draft" said Mt. Gox had lost 744,408 Bitcoins as a result of theft that "went unnoticed for several years."

There is no contact information on the paper and no one at Mt. Gox has publicly verified its legitimacy. Calls and e-mails to the company in Tokyo went unanswered.

Mt. Gox went offline to "protect the site and our users," according to a statement on its website. "We will be closely monitoring the situation and will react accordingly," it added.

Bitcoin prices rose 11 percent to $592.58 at 8:52 a.m. London time after slumping to as low as $418.78 yesterday, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index. Prices have retreated from as high as $1,151 on Dec. 4.

The news on Mt. Gox triggered renewed calls for better security and consumer protection from several U.S. federal and state officials. Senator Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat who held the first hearings in the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill, said the potential losses at Mt. Gox underscored the need for clear rules sooner rather than later.

Growing Pains

"As any industry matures it will face growing pains and there will be individuals who believe they can use the fog of uncertainty to cover up their follies," Carper said.

Mt. Gox received a subpoena from federal prosecutors in New York this month asking it to preserve certain documents, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter.

Jennifer Queliz, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, neither confirmed nor denied the existence of a federal investigation when contacted by Bloomberg. Bharara's office previously has filed charges against Bitcoin operators of the Silk Road and BitInstant exchanges.

Mt. Gox Chief Executive Officer Mark Karpeles resigned this week from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, the group that promotes and sets technical standards for the digital money.

The turmoil at the exchange highlighted how most Bitcoin-related companies are still operating in a regulatory gray zone.

Tailored Regulation

"Tailored regulation could play an important role in protecting consumers and the security of the money that they entrust to virtual currency firms," Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of financial services in New York, said in a statement.

Japanese authorities are investigating the closing of the Mt. Gox exchange, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said today. The Financial Services Agency, Finance Ministry and police are gathering information on the matter and will take steps as needed after assessing the situation, he said at a news briefing in Tokyo.

Mark Williams, a former regulator and commodities trader who now teaches at Boston University, said that "much trust has been lost" with law enforcement, regulators and now consumers.

"To win back customer trust and gain broader adoption, Bitcoin community will need to accept regulation, work through well-established banking channels and embrace strong consumer protection rules," Williams said in an e-mail.

SecondMarket Exchange

At least one investor placed a vote of confidence in Bitcoin. Barry Silbert, chief executive of SecondMarket Inc., a New York brokerage, announced yesterday that his company would found a new Bitcoin exchange. SecondMarket, which already runs a Bitcoin investment vehicle for accredited investors, will spin off that business into the new one, and invest $20 million in cash and Bitcoin to seed the exchange.

Silbert said he is in discussions with "half dozen banks of global stature" about being members of the exchange, which would also include brokerages and money-services businesses. The troubles at Mt. Gox over the past few weeks haven't derailed the plans, which Silbert said hopes to finalize by the end of March.

"We would not be moving forward with building appropriately structured, regulated exchange if we thought this would damage Bitcoin long term," Silbert said in an interview.

Bitcoin was introduced in 2008 by a programmer or group of programmers under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The digital currency, based on a peer-to-peer software protocol, has no central issuing authority, and uses a public ledger to verify transactions while preserving users' anonymity.

Money Transmitters

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which works to combat money laundering, said in March that digital currency businesses could be considered money transmitters, which are licensed by U.S. states. Stephen Hudak, a spokesman for FinCEN, said the agency was monitoring the situation at Mt. Gox.

Fred Ehrsam, chief executive officer of Coinbase, a San Francisco-based payments processor, said that until California establishes rules for digital currency businesses, companies have to work to win customer trust on their own.

"The only thing we can do is show we have a great track record and a credible management team," Ehrsam said.

The main financial backer of Coinbase is venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, in which Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is an investor.

'Blood' Buying

Coinbase brought in Andreas Antonopoulos, chief security officer at Blockchain.info, a London-based company that maintains online "wallets" used to store digital currencies, to audit its security. Ehrsam called it a "peer review" that the company sought of its own accord, and Antonopoulos wrote on his own blog that Coinbase is "operating according to security best practices."

Fred Wilson, managing partner at New York's Union Square Ventures, which has backed Bitcoin companies, said he "bought a little Bitcoin today" after the price plunged, and recalled a Wall Street aphorism.

"I always feel good buying when there is blood in the streets in any market," Wilson wrote on his blog. "It is my favorite time to buy."

Jerry Brito, director of the technology program at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, said the public-relations challenge for Bitcoin firms could ebb if "the professionals" at other companies take the lead in restoring stability to the Bitcoin market.

"There's no question it's bad for Bitcoin's reputation," Brito said. "In the long run it's good, because it's the closing chapter of the amateur hobbyist Bitcoiners who laid out the initial infrastructure."

To contact the reporter on this story: Carter Dougherty in Washington at cdougherty6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Maura Reynolds at mreynolds34@bloomberg.net

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Letter: Always the Republicans at fault; but, then, gridlock goes both ways - TCPalm

Vincent Borst, Barefoot Bay

Letter: Always the Republicans at fault; but, then, gridlock goes both ways

Statement of President Barack Obama's longtime adviser Dan Pfeiffer: "I think the way we have to think about this year is we have a divided government. The Republican Congress is not going to rubber-stamp the president's agenda."

I always though the Congress consisted of the House of Representatives and the Senate. When did the Senate Democrats, who supported Obamacare, resign?

It always comes down to blaming Congress first, then blaming the Republicans in Congress. Never blame the Senate and the Democrats who control it.

How many bills, 20-plus, were sent from the House to the Senate that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to bring up so both houses of Congress could come together and discuss possible compromises?

One last thought: Let's start calling the TEA party by its real name: Taxed Enough Already. Who disagrees with that?

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California drought could force key water system to cut deliveries - Los Angeles Times

Officials Friday said that for the first time ever, the State Water Project that helps supply a majority of Californians may be unable to make any deliveries except to maintain public health and safety.

The prospect of no deliveries from one of the state's key water systems underscores the depth of a drought that threatens to be the worst in California's modern history.

But the practical effect is less stark because most water districts have other sources, such as local storage and groundwater, to turn to. Officials stressed that the cut did not mean faucets would run dry.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the state project's largest customer, has said it has enough supplies in reserve to get the Southland through this year without mandatory rationing.

Even so, the announcement Friday is a milestone. "This is the first time in the 54-year history of the State Water Project that projected water supplies for both urban and agricultural uses have been reduced to zero," said state Department of Water Resources director Mark Cowin.

"This is not a coming crisis … This is a current crisis," Cowin said during a Sacramento news conference in which state officials announced a variety of actions they were taking to cope with the growing water shortage.

The State Water Project supplies mostly urban agencies centered in the Bay Area and Southern California, along with about 1,000 square miles of irrigated farmland, primarily in the southern San Joaquin Valley.

The State Water Resources Control Board is issuing temporary orders relaxing environmental standards that would have triggered increased releases from large reservoirs in Northern California. It is limiting exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to what is necessary to meet health and safety needs, in effect eliminating delta irrigation deliveries to San Joaquin agriculture.

The board is also telling about 5,800 junior rights holders, most of them agricultural, that they will have to curtail surface water diversions in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins.

"Today's actions mean that everyone — farmers, fish, people in our cities and towns — will get less water," Cowin said. "But these actions will protect us all better in the long run. Simply put, there's not enough water to go around."

Last year was California's driest calendar year in more than a century of records. This year could be just as bad. Storage in major reservoirs has dropped well below average. The mountain snowpack, which acts as a natural reservoir, is at record lows for this time of year.

Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a drought emergency and urged all Californians to cut water use by 20%. The state has identified 17 communities in Central and Northern California that could run out of water in the next couple of months.

Growers who get supplies from the federal Central Valley Project will hear in a few weeks if they can count on any deliveries from that system.

About 75% of Californians' water use is by agriculture, meaning the state's fertile middle takes the biggest hit in times of drought. San Joaquin Valley farmers will pump groundwater and use any reserves they have to keep profitable orchards and vines alive, while leaving hundreds of thousands of acres unplanted this year.

Jim Beck, general manager of the Kern County Water Agency, the State Water Project's second-largest customer, said his growers would be able to make up for a large part of lost deliveries with groundwater and supplies left over from last year.

Still, he called the prospect of a zero allocation a "huge disaster that will dramatically affect our growers economically" and said it "should be viewed with the same urgency and response as an earthquake and wildfire."

In 1991, during California's last major drought, the State Water Project didn't deliver any irrigation water but sent some supplies to urban agencies. The project makes monthly assessments and, if February and March bring rain and snow, the allocation could change.

In 2010, the state project initially said it would only be able to deliver 5% of contractor requests. When winter storms boosted reservoir levels, the allocation jumped to 50%.

Officials aren't counting on that this year. By reducing dam releases now, they say they can hold on to supplies to use later for urban deliveries, to prevent delta water supplies from getting too salty and to maintain cool river temperatures for migrating salmon.

"We're trying to make sure there's enough water for fish and public health going into the future," said Tom Howard, executive director of the state water board.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

Twitter: @boxall

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Ukraine president signs amnesty into law - The News International

'They crucified me. They punctured my hands. They cut off my ear, slashed my face. But I am alive, thank God'

KIEV: Ukraine's embattled President Viktor Yanukovich on Friday signed into law an amnesty for demonstrators detained during mass unrest and repealed anti-protest legislation, in a fresh bid to take the heat out of the political crisis.

 

But the move by Yanukovich, who remains politically active despite going on sick leave on Thursday, was not likely to be enough to end the sometimes violent anti-government protests on the streets of Kiev and beyond.

 

Many protesters rejected the amnesty outright, because it is conditional on occupied buildings being cleared of activists, and a radical Ukrainian nationalist group behind much of the violence pressed new tough demands on Friday.

 

The 63-year-old leader, who looks increasingly isolated in a tug-of-war between the West and Ukraine's former Soviet overlord Russia, suddenly withdrew from view on Thursday, complaining of a high temperature and acute respiratory ailment.

 

He has been under pressure since November, when his decision to accept a $15 billion loan package from Russia instead of signing a trade deal with Europe infuriated many of his compatriots and sparked huge protests in the capital.

 

At least six people have been killed and hundreds more injured in street battles between anti-government demonstrators and police, which have escalated sharply after the authorities toughened their response.

 

The crisis forced Prime Minister Mykola Azarov to resign, and as yet there is no sign of a successor.

 

Serhiy Arbuzov, Azarov's first deputy and a close family friend of Yanukovich, has stepped in as interim prime minister. Underlining its economic leverage over Ukraine, Moscow says a new government must be in place before it goes ahead with a planned purchase of $2 billion of Ukrainian government bonds.

 

That reluctance, and the turmoil more generally, contributed to a 2.5 per cent fall in the value of the hryvnia currency against the dollar on Friday to its lowest level for 4-1/2 years.

 

US Secretary of State John Kerry plans to meet opposition leaders, including boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko, on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich on Friday.

 

"Our message to Ukraine's opposition will be the full support of President Obama and of the American people for their efforts," Kerry said in Berlin on Friday before the meetings.

 

"But we will also say to them that if you get that reform agenda... we would urge them to engage in that because further standoff, or further violence that becomes uncontrollable, is not in anybody's interests. "Kerry also called on Russia to keep its distance."

 

We would ... say to our friends in Russia this does not have to be a zero (sum) game, this is not something where Ukraine should become a proxy and trapped in some kind of larger ambition for Russia or the United States."

 

With opposition leaders away in Munich and freezing night temperatures gripping the capital, protest organisers have not called for a big rally on Sunday, when the biggest demonstrations tend to be held on Kiev's Independence Square.

 

Some protesters sleep in tents and warm themselves from wood-fuelled braziers through the night, but many hundreds also sleep on the floors of occupied public buildings including Kiev's City Hall.

 

An anti-government activist who vanished a week ago appeared on television on Friday, his face badly beaten and with wounds to his hands, saying he was kidnapped and tortured by his abductors who had "crucified" him.

 

Dmytro Bulatov, 35, who was one of the leaders of anti-government protest motorcades called 'Automaidan', was taken to hospital after he appeared on Ukrainian television. "They crucified me.

 

They punctured my hands," he said, pointing to marks on the backs of his hands. "They cut off my ear, slashed my face," he said. "But I am alive, thank God."

 

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Lupica: Chris Christie's political career is over if aides can prove he lied - New York Daily News

James Keivom/New York Daily News

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has blamed the George Washington Bridge traffic on 'stupid' staff members, but former Port Authority official David Wildstein says Christie knew of the September lane closures.

No one could possibly have known at the time, when everything came to a stop on the George Washington Bridge because of a political grudge and a lie about a phony traffic study. But maybe Chris Christie's ride to the Republican nomination for President might have gotten stopped on that bridge along with everybody else last September.

By now, you know Christie has blamed that traffic on everybody except Hillary Clinton. He said he was betrayed by members of his staff, said he was the one lied to, called staff members "stupid," fired a couple of them.

And when he met with the media for nearly two hours one day, in a self-absorbed and rather self-pitying performance for a rough, tough guy, he wanted the whole world to believe that he was as much a victim as the people who sat on that bridge for hours because one of his staffers — Bridget Anne Kelly — had sent an email to David Wildstein of the Port Authority about how it was time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.

RELATED: PUT CHRISTIE UNDER OATH

The morning she sent the email, she got one back from Wildstein, a high school friend of Christie's, about as fast as high school kids respond to text messages.

"Got it," was Wildstein's response.

When Christie talked about all that at a press conference almost as long as "American Hustle," this was one of the things he said:

RELATED: CHRISTIE KNEW ABOUT GWB LANE CLOSURES: AIDE

"I had no knowledge of this — of the planning, the execution or anything about it — and that I first found out about it after it was over. And even then, what I was told was that it was a traffic study."

Wildstein, who took the Fifth when called before the legislative panel investigating what is now known far and wide as Bridgegate, says differently now through his lawyer. Here is the money paragraph in the middle of the letter sent by Alan Zegas to the general counsel of the Port Authority, where Wildstein worked before he quit in the immediate aftermath of Bridgegate:

"It has also come to light that a person within the Christie administration communicated the Christie administration's order that certain lanes on the George Washington Bridge were to be closed, and evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to knowledge of the lane closures during the period when the lanes were closed contrary to what the governor stated."

RELATED: CHRISTIE CAMPAIGN SEEKS FUNDS TO COVER BRIDGEGATE LEGAL COSTS

This doesn't mean that Bridget Anne Kelly, called "stupid" by Chris Christie and essentially fired on television, will tell a similar story when she is called to testify about all this under oath. But if either she or Wildstein does have proof that Christie lied when he said he didn't know, Christie isn't just through as a presidential candidate, his political career is over.

Clearly, David Wildstein is trying to save himself here, his own reputation. There are a lot of people who will face subpoenas in this case and you may eventually need a program like the one that people will buy at the Super Bowl to keep track of all of them. But before Wildstein has to tell his own version of things under oath, this letter comes out.

We will eventually see what kind of evidence Wildstein has, how good it is. We will eventually hear from Bridget Anne Kelly. And Bill Baroni, a young guy who was Christie's chief of staff and was going places, maybe all the way to Washington with Chris Christie.

And you know what happens then? We find out once and for all who was stupid about traffic on the George Washington Bridge.

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Knox trial: Both sides say the truth is in the evidence - CNN

The case against Amanda Knox

The case against Amanda Knox

The case against Amanda Knox

The case against Amanda Knox

The case against Amanda Knox

The case against Amanda Knox

The case against Amanda Knox

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Italian court convicted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito of murder -- again
• The two were convicted in 2009 and acquitted on appeal in 2011
• Opposing sides argues over what is revealed by alleged murder weapon, DNA evidence

Editor's note: This is an edited version of a story first published in November 2009 during the first murder trial of Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito looking at the disputed evidence in the case, which has largely remained the same.

(CNN) -- Within weeks of British student Meredith Kercher's death in the vibrant college town of Perugia, Italy, in 2007, prosecutors and police declared the case closed.

They'd seized two knives in their search for the murder weapon. They took DNA from the room where Kercher was killed. And at least one suspect had confessed to being at the murder scene. Or so they said.

Kercher had been stabbed in a sexual misadventure, officials said. And they knew the killers.

American Amanda Knox, Kercher's roommate; Italian Raffaele Sollecito, Knox's former boyfriend; and Ivory Coast native Rudy Guede, a drifter known in the area, had their pictures splattered across the world's media.

Knox's photo was even hung in the police plaza alongside Italy's most infamous mobsters and criminals.

The prosecution case seemed a sensational slam-dunk, almost too good to be true.

Knox's supporters say that's because it is.

"In the beginning, all of this supposed evidence was being leaked, showing what sounded like a pretty convincing case," Anne Bremner, a lawyer and former prosecutor working with the group Friends of Amanda, told CNN.

The case couldn't look more different depending on where you stand.

That is as true now, following Knox and Sollecito's second conviction Thursday, as it was during the first trial that ended in two convictions in 2009 and the appeal in 2011 that acquitted them based on "lack of evidence."

6 things to know about the Amanda Knox verdict

Italy's Supreme Court decided in 2013 to retry the case, saying the jury that acquitted Knox and Sollecito didn't consider all the evidence, and that discrepancies in testimony needed to be answered.

On Thursday the acquittals were overturned, and Knox, who remains at her home in Seattle, was sentenced in absentia to 28½ years in prison. Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.

Knox vowed Friday to fight her conviction "until the very end" and said she "will never go willingly" back to Italy. Her lawyers say they will appeal the ruling.

Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," Knox said news of the guilty verdict Thursday "really has hit me like a train."

"I did not expect this to happen. I really expected so much better from the Italian justice system," she said. "They found me innocent before. How can they say that it's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?

Italian authorities on Friday stopped Sollecito near the border with Austria and Slovenia, Italian police told CNN.

Sollecito, who is not allowed to leave Italy while the legal process continues, was halted in the northern Italian town of Udine, police said. Sollecito's lawyer told CNN his client never intended to flee the country, but he was driving with his girlfriend to her house in Udine, when they were forced to stop due to snow.

Same evidence, two very different conclusions

The case has always been about the evidence. But how you view the evidence, simply depends on what side you believe. It all comes down to disputed DNA.

In Knox's corner: her friends and family from Seattle, Washington.

For them, she is the victim -- railroaded by an overzealous Italian prosecutor, whose credibility was marred by allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in another case.

Knox's supporters say he's tried to force the evidence to fit his theory of what happened. And with negative and often false details about the case appearing in the press -- all for the world to read -- Knox supporters feared she would be convicted regardless of the facts.

On the other side: Perugia's prosecutor Giuliano Mignini. For him and his colleagues, the answer is simple -- Guede, Knox and Sollecito are all responsible for leaving Kercher partially clothed, strangled and with her throat cut on November 2, 2007.

Timeline: Murder to now

And the two sides still couldn't be further apart on how they view the very evidence that has over the course of nearly seven years both been used to find her guilty and to overturn that ruling.

Independent experts testified during the in 2011 appeal that they believed some of the evidence had been contaminated.

The testimony fueled the fire that started during the first trial about the effectiveness of Italy's justice system given widespread doubts over the handling of the investigation and key pieces of evidence.

But Italian prosecutors, police and those who collected the evidence maintain those arguments are nothing more than last-ditch efforts by a pair guilty of murdering Kercher in cold blood.

And the second conviction shows the Italian court, this time, believes the prosecution. But questions about the specific pieces evidence that led to two convictions and one acquittal still continue.

The murder weapon: The knife

The crime scene was gruesome. The 21-year old British student was found under a duvet on the floor by her bed, covered in blood. A bloody handprint was streaked on the wall above her.

A source close to the prosecution says Kercher was held down while she was strangled and stabbed. The source says Sollecito's 6 ½-inch kitchen knife was used to slit her throat and then taken back to his apartment.

Knox's DNA is on the handle and that of Kercher is on the blade, said a source close to the prosecution who did not wish to be identified discussing an ongoing case.

Kercher had never been to Sollecito's apartment and wouldn't have come in contact with the knife, he said, yet there was her DNA. Those "unmistakable facts" show the knife played a role in the murder, the source said.

What's next for Amanda Knox?

Bremner and experts testifying for the defense say there is no way that specific knife could be the murder weapon.

Dr. Carlo Torre, a leading forensics expert in Italy, testified that the knife taken from Sollecito's apartment wouldn't have made the wounds on Kercher's body.

"It doesn't match the size or shape [of the wounds,]" Bremner told CNN. "And Sollecito's knife also doesn't match a bloody outline of a knife left on the bedding."

Bremner, who offered her legal advice pro bono to the Knox family, questioned the validity of the DNA evidence, saying the knife had been "improperly transported in a shoe box."

Furthermore, Bremner said the jury heard from defense expert Sarah Gino, a geneticist and private coroner in Italy, who said that the DNA sample was too small to be definitive. Bremner said the presence of Knox's DNA on the knife handle was no surprise, as the couple had dinner at his house occasionally.

Prosecutors have maintained just because the knife doesn't match everything doesn't mean it wasn't used. The source close to the prosecution said it was possible, based on the wounds, that several different items made them.

Damning DNA or 'Fellini Forensics'

On the night Kercher was killed, Knox and her boyfriend say they were at his house watching a movie and smoking hashish.

Their recollection of events, they admitted, was hazy from the drugs, but both swore they went back to the house the next morning. Knox says she was unable to gain entry - and called police.

For their case, prosecutors had to prove that Knox and Sollecito - who had recently started dating - were lying and place them at the home when Kercher was killed.

Some reports spoke of a scurry of people - more than one - on the night of the murder around the house. It was a positive lead for prosecutor Mignini - but came to nothing in court.

But the prosecution had more evidence in the form of a bra clasp, one that fell to the floor after the murderer cut Kercher's bra in half before she was killed.

And on it was Sollecito's DNA.

Bremner says that evidence on the clasp is fundamentally flawed, like much from the crime scene collection, calling the work "Fellini forensics."

"In the [crime scene] video, you can see it went from being white in color to nearly black because it got so dirty being moved around," Bremner said of the clasp, noting that tainted the only evidence that placed Sollecito at the scene.

Bremner described other errors she saw on the crime scene video.

"They were putting their fingers in Kercher's wound, they were shaking out evidence, picking up hairs and dropping them," she said. "Some people didn't wear gloves or had their hair draping on the floor, they crashed into a window at one point and threw aside evidence. It was just wrong on all levels."

The prosecution source maintains the crime scene was handled properly, and the evidence shows what it shows.

A big win for Italy or the 'greatest travesty' ever?

Knox's introduction to the world came in a whirlwind of tabloid headlines.

The prosecution touted hard evidence early that they said unquestionably showed they had their killers.

There was a footprint in Knox and Kercher's bathroom that was attributed to Sollecito - though later analysts admitted it belonged to Guede, who was convicted of Kercher's murder in 2008.

The prosecution also presented what they called a confession by Knox, but Knox later said any apparent admission she was at the scene was made when investigators told her to imagine what she might have seen if she had been there.

The argument became moot when a higher court ruled the alleged confession could not be used because the statement was made without an attorney or translator present.

The tabloid headlines continue as Knox's third ruling was handed down and she was convicted for a second time.

Media around the world focused early on Knox's sexual history, what clothes she wears to court and whether a bump on her lip means the girl they dubbed "Foxy Knoxy" has herpes.

From then on it has all been distraction from the lack of evidence, Bremner said.

"It's the greatest travesty of a prosecution ever," Bremner said. "It's so ludicrous. You've got to have a theory, or a motive, but the theory has to fit the facts somehow. And in this case, there's no solid evidence, no motive and no match whatsoever."

Knox's supporters maintain that the prosecution did get one thing right - putting Guede behind bars. He chose a fast-track trial, separate from Sollecito and Knox, and was convicted of murder and attempted sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years. They believe he was Kercher's sole killer. He appealed the verdict, which was upheld, but his sentence was reduced to 16 years.

Supporters of Knox and Sollecito say they are only being prosecuted because the pair was flaunted so publicly as the killers for so long that it would look bad for officials to admit they got it wrong.

The prosecution source rejects that, and portrays Knox, Sollecito and Guede as three people who together ended the life of the young British woman. And they say the way Knox originally pointed the finger at another man - who was cleared with an alibi - shows she had something to hide.

Both sides agree the truth is in the evidence; the question is which truth reveals what really happened the night Kercher died. And the truth may be, we'll never know.

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What's in State's Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Report - ABC News

A report issued by the State Department on Friday raised no major environmental objections to the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. The 1,179-mile pipeline would travel through Montana and South Dakota to a hub in Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries in Texas.

Some details about what's in the 11-volume report, the fifth environmental review released on the project since 2010:

—— Tar sands in Alberta, Canada, are likely to be developed regardless of U.S. action on the pipeline.

—— Oil derived from the tar sands generates about 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming than traditional crude. But other methods of transporting the oil — including rail, trucks and barges — would be worse for climate change.

—— An alternative that relies on shipping the oil by rail through the central U.S. to Gulf Coast refineries would generate 28 percent more greenhouse gases than a pipeline.

—— The project would support about 3,900 construction jobs in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas and support up to 42,000 jobs in direct, indirect and induced jobs in the region.

— The pipeline would create about 50 jobs once it is operational.

—— The project would contribute approximately $3.4 billion to the U.S. economy during construction.

——The pipeline would probably have an adverse effect on the American burying beetle, an endangered species found in South Dakota and Nebraska. Deaths or harm to individual beetles would be offset by a monitoring program and a performance bond from pipeline operator TransCanada that requires land disturbed by the project to be restored. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded last year that the pipeline is not likely to jeopardize the beetle's continued existence.

— More than 99 percent of about 1.5 million comments received on the project were form letters submitted by advocacy groups, for and against the pipeline.

The Environmental Protection Agency and other departments will have 90 days to comment before the State Department makes a recommendation to President Barack Obama on whether the project is in the national interest. A final decision by the government is not expected before summer.

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