January 10, 2016

Steven Avery Juror Had a Son Who Worked for Department

A juror who voted to convict Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery volunteered with the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department during Avery's murder trial, a source tells PEOPLE.

The juror, identified by the source as Carl Wardman, also had a son who worked for the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department as a supervisor at the jail.

According to court transcripts obtained by On Milwaukee, Wardman disclosed both his volunteer status and his son's profession, saying, "I like what I do for the Sheriff's Department. I hate to miss it."

When asked whether his son, Chris Wardman, had any involvement in the Avery case, he answered, "Yeah. He's standing outside the door," presumably referring to his son working in the jail that housed Avery at the time.

Neither the state nor the defense tried to strike Wardman him as a juror. It's believed the defense allowed Wardman to stay because of an alleged antagonistic encounter with law enforcement in his past.


http://www.people.com/article/steven-avery-juror-volunteered-sheriffs-department-during-trial

January 10, 2016

Cruz: Voters Should Spank Clinton Like I Spank My Daughter

en. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told a Charles City, Iowa audience on Friday night that his Democratic presidential opponent Hillary Clinton deserved a “spanking” for how she handled the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, according to the Washington Post.

Accusing Clinton of lying about the cause of the incident, Cruz said, “In my house, if my daughter Catherine, the five-year-old, says something she knows to be false, she gets a spanking. Well, in America, the voters have a way of administering a spanking.”

The Texas senator was responding to a question from an audience member about who would be held accountable for the attack on a U.S. compound that left four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, dead.

Cruz implied Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, should bear responsibility, accusing her and President Barack Obama’s administration of “deception, obstruction and cover up.”



http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-clinton-spanking-benghazi

January 10, 2016

Shooting on train at West Oakland BART station causing delays

BART officials are reporting major impacts to service because of a shooting on a train near the West Oakland station on Saturday night.

Authorities said a man fatally shot a passenger on a train and fled the scene when it stopped at the West Oakland station around 7:50 p.m.

BART police Lt. Kevin Franklin told the Oakland Tribune officers responding to a call about gunfire on a train found a dead man inside a passenger car.

West Oakland station at 1451 Seventh St. is closed and BART police are investigating the shooting.

Trains are not stopping at the West Oakland station and are single-tracking through the station to San Francisco and areas further south.

Trains are also single-tracking in the Dublin and Pleasanton direction from San Francisco and other western stops.


http://www.sfexaminer.com/shooting-on-train-at-west-oakland-bart-station-causing-delays/

January 10, 2016

Some GOP'ers so dislike Trump they'd rather see Clinton win

Some Iowa Republican caucusgoers say they're so disturbed by Donald Trump that they would never vote for him, even if it meant Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the general election.

Seven voters out of 27 in a focus group conducted in Des Moines Friday night by opinion researcher Frank Luntz said Trump so strongly repels them that they’d never cast a ballot for him.

Luntz was taken aback.

When quizzed on why they feel so strongly, the Iowans said although they dislike Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, they dislike Trump more. One man said the New York businessman can’t be trusted because he doesn’t have any consistent principles; his political leanings have shifted so many times over the years that it’s impossible to say how he’d behave in office. “So Hillary’s not that big a deal,” the man said.

Other criticisms: Trump is "an isolationist"; he said to let Russia’s Vladimir Putin take care of Islamic State terrorists; he’s such close friends with Hillary and Bill Clinton that he invited them to his wedding and plays golf with them; he wouldn’t “put a good face on the Republican party”; and he loves the attention of being on the campaign trail, but doesn’t actually want to be president.


http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/01/09/vote-for-trump-never-some-iowa-republicans-say/78553442/

January 10, 2016

John Ridley Talks About His Secret Marvel Series

John Ridley has earned plenty of praise for his work on ABC’s American Crime. The first season was lauded for opening up a dialogue about the justice system, and the second season looks to be poised to do the same from another angle. (It premieres on January 6.) But the crime drama isn’t the only project Ridley is working on for the network. He’s got two more in the works, one is Presence about a private investigator, another is a secret project for Marvel.

While Ridley couldn’t talk about just what was entailed in the Marvel series he’s been developing with the network in a recent interview with Collider, he did address the differences between making a show like American Crime and a show for Marvel. He admitted that he understands something like American Crime isn’t for everyone, and with a Marvel series, he would have the chance to create a show for a different audience:

All he could say about the show as a whole was this:


Some have speculated that the Marvel series in question, since it’s not the Agents of SHIELD spinoff series featuring Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood, could be centered around Ms. Marvel, or even Cloak and Dagger. Ms. Marvel, a character who took up the name because she’s a fan of Captain Marvel, a character who will be getting her own movie one day, is one of the most popular comics out there these days. The teenage Pakistani-American has made comic book readers more conscious of the need for diversity on the page. Cloak and Dagger, meanwhile, are part of the Runaways series of comic books, and characters that Marvel has tried to develop a project around numerous times in the past, but it’s never moved forward. fans of the comic book series, which featured a run by Joss Whedon, are still hoping they make it to the screen in the near future.


http://www.themovienetwork.com/article/john-ridley-talks-about-his-secret-marvel-series#sthash.tTViGNpL.dpuf

January 9, 2016

Cruz Tells Mexican Immigrant That As President, He Would Deport Her

While campaigning in Iowa on Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told an immigrant from Mexico that he would deport her if he became president, according to a Washington Post report.

In video of the incident posted to YouTube, a woman identified by the Post as 30-year-old special needs worker and activist Ofelia Valdez asked Cruz how she should feel about his hardline stance on immigration.

"I think of myself as a part of this community and you know, first day of presidency, you decide to deport, you know, people like myself, you know, it's just very difficult," said Valdez.

Valdez said she benefited from President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which is intended to protect immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the United States illegally as children.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-daca-immigration

January 9, 2016

White Nationalist PAC Blankets Iowa With Robocalls For Trump

Some registered voters in Iowa received robocalls Saturday from a white nationalist super PAC that urged them to support Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

“I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America,” Jared Taylor said on the robocall, paid for by the American National Super PAC. “We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”

Taylor is the founder of the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance. The robocall included two more endorsements from a conservative Christian talk show host and the head of the white nationalist American Freedom Party.

Reverend Donald Tan, a Filipino-American minister and host of Christian talk show program "For God and Country," encouraged Iowans to vote for Trump by citing scripture.

“First Corinthians states 'God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise and God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong,’” he says on the call. “For the Iowa caucuses please support Donald Trump."


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-robocalls-white-nationalists-iowa

January 9, 2016

Steven Avery from 'Making a Murderer' Gets New Representation

A high-profile attorney is now representing Steven Avery, the subject of a popular Netflix series "Making a Murderer."

Kathleen Zellner of The Law Firm of Kathleen Zellner and Associates, P.C. in Downers Grove, Illinois, announced in a press release Friday that the firm "will be assuming the full and complete representation of Steven Avery in all criminal matters."

Avery is the latest addition to Zellner's client list, which has included Ryan Ferguson, who was exonerated and later released from prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder. She was also an attorney to Mario Casciaro, who was released last September after successfully appealing his 26-year prison sentence for the murder of missing teen Brian Carrick.

The release also said that Zellner will be assisted by Tricia Bushnell, described as "local Wisconsin counsel."

The announcement concluded with, "The Zellner Law Firm is looking forward to adding Mr. Avery to its long list of wrongful conviction exonerations."


http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/steven-avery-making-murderer-representation/story?id=36186024

January 9, 2016

China's Market Turmoil: Worry, but Don't Panic

There's no reason for panic. Worry, yes, but not panic.

That was the opinion of some U.S. investment strategists after another free-fall on China's main stock market reverberated around the globe Thursday and sent the Dow Jones average to a loss of nearly 400 points.

Stock prices in China fell so fast that for the second time in four days, circuit-breaker mechanisms kicked in and halted trading, this time after just 30 minutes.

China's tumbling stock prices are, in themselves, nothing for investors outside the country to panic over. Because of government regulations, very few foreigners even own stocks on the Chinese markets that seized up.

But the selling was prompted by a surprise currency devaluation by the Chinese government and by worries about a slowdown in the country's manufacturing and service sectors. Because China is the second-largest economy in the world, those problems could spell trouble around the globe.

"This is not a situation that should result in panic; it should result in caution," said Kristina Hooper, head of investment strategies for the U.S. at Allianz Global Investors.

Even though China's economy is still growing at a rate that would be the envy of advanced economies, it's only about two-thirds of what it was five years ago and is expected to slow further.

A slowdown in China is seen as a threat by many investors because the country has been the main engine of global economic growth for years, particularly during the depths of the Great Recession.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/chinas-market-turmoil-worry-panic-36149680

January 9, 2016

Hillary Clinton wants to reduce backlog for family reunification Green Cards

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said she wants to reduce the backlog for family reunification visas or Green Cards, though she didn’t talk about how to bring in comprehensive immigration reforms to resolve the issue of backlogs for skilled workers waiting within the US for a Green Card, speaking at the launch of ‘AAPI for Hillary’, in California.

Clinton launched the outreach group to engage Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), an increasingly potent voting bloc, as she looks to broaden the appeal of her campaign.

The group ‘AAPI for Hillary’ was launched in California in presence of a large number of Asian American leaders, including Indian-Americans.

At the launch, Clinton pledged to address the concerns of the community, including those related to immigration and visa issues, reported the Press Trust of India.

http://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-wants-to-reduce-backlog-for-family-reunification-green-cards/