WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. Naval Academy is investigating allegations that three football team members sexually assaulted a female midshipman at an off-campus house more than a year ago, a Pentagon spokesman said Friday, and a lawyer for the woman says she was "ostracized" on campus after she reported it.
The Pentagon did not make public the names of the players, and the school's athletic director referred questions to a Naval Academy spokesman, who said the Annapolis military college's leaders were monitoring the investigation but declined further comment.
Navy criminal investigators have concluded their work and submitted a report with additional corroborating evidence to Naval Academy Superintendent Michael Miller, who closed an investigation into the same allegations last year without charges, said Susan Burke, a lawyer for the female midshipman.
"The entire (Naval Academy) community knows about this," Burke said in an interview.
The nation's military academies have struggled for years with sexual assault and harassment allegations, and a string of sexual assault cases has recently drawn attention in Congress and at the Pentagon and The White House.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the chiefs of each military branch are scheduled to testify next week at a Senate hearing, and President Barack Obama raised the problem of sex assaults in the military while recently delivering the Naval Academy commencement ceremony address.
Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren confirmed the investigation of the midshipmen Friday but said he had no further details. He said academy officials are evaluating options for adjudicating the case. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is determined to stamp out the problem, Warren said.
Other Navy football players have faced sex assault allegations in past years.
In 2006, Lamar Owens, Jr., the team's starting quarterback, was acquitted of rape but found guilty of lesser charges. He was later expelled from the school despite opposition from some alumni. Another one-time member of the team, Kenny Ray Morrison, was convicted in 2007 of sexually assaulting a female classmate at a Washington hotel. He was sentenced to two years in the Navy brig.
The alleged assault occurred in April 2012 at an off-campus house in Annapolis. According to Burke, the woman woke up with bruises after a night of heavy drinking and later learned from friends and social media that three football players ? whom she considered friends ? were claiming to have had sex with her while she was intoxicated and blacked out, Burke said.
The woman reported the allegations to Navy criminal investigators and was disciplined for drinking while the athletes, one of whom discouraged her from cooperating, were permitted to continue playing, Burke said. The female midshipman remains a student in good standing.
"The institution sent her a message loud and clear about its values," she said.
The Navy agreed to reopen the investigation this year after the woman sought legal help, Burke said. The new investigation involved wiretapped conversations that Burke said further substantiated her client's account.
Burke said the scheduled graduation of one of the three students was put on hold because of the allegations, while the other two were not scheduled to graduate this year. But she questioned whether the Naval Academy superintendent could be unbiased in deciding the fate of the three students.
Naval Academy spokesman Cmdr. John Schofield declined to respond to Burke's statements, saying in a statement, "It is completely inappropriate to make any other public comment on this investigation or any ongoing investigation as we risk compromising the military justice process."
____
Associated Press Writers Robert Burns and Dave Ginsburg contributed to this report.
The good news: If you liked Windows 8, its first major update is going fix a ton of the little things that bothered you. The bad news: You might not like Windows 8. And there's nothing here that will change that. At least there's a Start button!
Updating
Microsoft today is giving a sneak peak at Windows 8.1, previously known as Windows Blue. And while it may not be the drastic walkback of the Metro design theory you were hoping for, there's plenty here to like. Starting with:
The Start Button
Yes, the rumors are true. It's back. It'll be there by default, in both desktop mode and in your lovely tiled rubric. See? There it is, right there in the lower lefthand corner:
Missed you, friend! It won't always be immediately visible in whatever app you're using, but you're never more than a mouse-over away from complete control over your Windows domain.
All About You
The Start button (rightly) is going to garner the most attention, but Windows 8.1 also features a bevy of smaller tweaks that let you better configure your PC to your needs. Much of this is aesthetic; you've got more control over your Start screen background, make your Lock screen a slideshow of pictures if you want to turn Surface into the world's most expensive digital picture frame, and uninstall, resize, or move apps in groups instead of one at a time.
There's less presumption in Windows 8.1, too. New apps don't automatically wind up on your Start screen; they instead get shimmied off to an apps view, from which you can choose where and how to pin it.
AMD might not be able to keep up (down?) with Intel in the CPU power consumption race, so it's taking another tack with the new Opteron X-series: horsepower. It just announced the Opteron X1150 and X2150 64-bit processors for microservers, part of the Jaguar-codenamed family of CPUs arriving in the next-gen Xbox One and Sony PS4 consoles. Thanks to its ultra-low power 6-watt Atom S1200 chips, Intel excels in the low-power server market, and at 9W and 11W respectively (minimum), AMD's CPUs consume considerably more juice. But AMD is pitching them as a better solution overall, thanks to those four cores (compared to two in the Atom), integrated AMD Radeon HD 8000 graphics on the X2150 model, support for 32GB of RAM and integrated SATA ports. AMD's chips are pricier, though, at $64 (X1150) or $99 (X2150) compared to $54 for Intel's Atom S1200 (all in quantities of 1,000). To top it off, Intel has new 64-bit Atom SoCs coming soon promising even lower power consumption -- possibly leaving AMD to play catch-up again.
BEIJING ? A newborn's cries from a public restroom in a residential building in eastern China led a tenant to a startling discovery: a baby boy trapped in a sewage pipe beneath a squat toilet.
Firefighters, unable to pull the baby out, ended up sawing away an L-shaped section of the pipe and carrying it to a hospital, where it was delicately pried apart to save the infant.
Video of the two-hour rescue of Baby No. 59 ? so named because of his incubator number in the hospital in the Pujiang area of the city of Jinhua ? was shown on Chinese news programs and websites late Monday and Tuesday.
The baby, who weighed 6 pounds, 2.8 ounces, had a low heart rate and some minor abrasions on his head and limbs, but was mostly unhurt, according to Zhejiang Online, the province's official news site. The placenta was still attached.
It was unclear how the baby ended up in the toilet, but police said they were treating the case as an attempted homicide. The Pujiang county police bureau said on its official microblog account that the boy's mother has been located and that an investigation was under way, but it gave no further details.
In the video, officials were shown removing the pipe from a ceiling that apparently was just below the restroom and then, at the hospital, using pliers and saws to gently pull apart the pipe, which was about 3 inches in diameter.
News of the baby's ordeal was met with horror and pity by bloggers on Chinese sites. Most speculated that the child had been dumped by his parents down the toilet.
The rescue prompted an outpouring from strangers who came to the hospital with diapers, baby clothes, powdered milk and offers to adopt him.
The landlord of the building told Zhejiang News that there were no signs that the birth took place in the restroom and she was not aware of any recent pregnancies among her tenants.
Despite the offers to adopt Baby No. 59, a doctor at the hospital said the boy would be turned over to social services if his parents did not claim him, Zhejiang News said.
In China, reports of babies being abandoned are common and fuel public anger against a strict one-child policy that imposes huge fines on parents who violate the rules. The policy has been blamed as a factor in causing parents to abandon unwanted children, although they are usually baby girls because of a traditional preference for males.
A statistical model predicts the number of goals for each footballerPublic release date: 29-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: SINC info@agenciasinc.es 34-914-251-820 FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
Messi is the best striker, but in overall terms he comes sixth
After analysing football league players over nine seasons, from 2000 to 2009, Spanish researchers have come up with a mathematical method for estimating the goal-scoring performance of each player. According to their ranking, the most able strikers are Messi, Ronaldo Nazrio, Makkay, Villa and Etoo.
Over nine seasons, researchers from the faculties of Economic and Business Sciences at the Universities of Granada and Jan analysed the performance of football players in the Spanish league from 2000/2001 to 2008/2009, with the aim of creating a mathematical model to evaluate their goal-scoring potential.
Their paper, published in the 'European Journal of Sport Science', presents a model based on Bayesian statistics, which they say enables them to predict the number of goals each player will score based on their own individual qualities.
As the researchers explain, whether a player scores or not depends on easily quantifiable extrinsic factors, such as the number of minutes or matches played, the position on the pitch defender, midfielder or striker and the team quality (measured by their position in the league table). But this is not everything.
"Other factors that are harder to measure can also influence performance, such as the individual characteristics of the player that make him different from all the rest," explains to SINC Jos Mara Prez Snchez, professor at the institution in Granada and co-author of the study.
Extrinsic factors aside, the model can quantify an additional individual factor that influences the qualities of each footballer as a goal-scorer. "With this, we can rank Spanish league players according to this factor of individual ability," the authors assert.
The best players
The model enables a player's goal-scoring performance over the nine seasons analysed to be evaluated, by comparing the number of goals scored by the player with the number that would be expected of a footballer playing at the same time, in the same position and on the same team.
The results reveal that the five best defenders in the seasons studied were, in descending order, Ezequiel Garay, Roberto Carlos, Campano, Cristian lvarez and Larrazbal.
According to the classification resulting from the model, the best midfielders were Rivaldo, Robert, Luis Cembranos, Mark Gonzlez and Mostovoi; and the most able strikers were Messi, Ronaldo Nazrio, Makkay, Villa and Etoo.
In terms of the overall assessment of all the players in the football league over the nine seasons studied, the best was Rivaldo, followed by Robert, Ezequiel Garay, Luis Cembranos and Roberto Carlos.
"It is remarkable that the strikers do not rank very highly in terms of overall performance," Prez Snchez continues. "In fact, apart from Messi, who ranks sixth, the rest all rank below 15th place."
The authors suggest that the reason might lie in the fact that the model takes into account that they are strikers and assesses them more harshly in relation to the expected number of goals. Furthermore, the ranking particularly values goals scored by defenders and midfielders, since this is not their primary objective on the pitch.
The Messi paradox
Lastly, the study analyses in depth the careers of several emblematic football players to assess their goal-scoring performance over this period, drawing attention to cases such as that of Leo Messi.
"Messi's development is interesting," the researchers highlight. "Although his performance is high in early seasons, in 2007/2008 (the penultimate season of the study) his productivity decreases significantly."
The experts point out that this must be due to his change of position on the pitch, because he had previously been considered a midfielder but became a striker, demanding higher goal-scoring ability.
"If the latest seasons, in which the player's goal-scoring success has increased considerably, were included in the study, this effect would surely be offset, and Messi would clearly rank many places higher in the overall assessment," concludes Prez Snchez.
###
Citation:
Antonio Sez Castillo, Jos Rodrguez Avi & Jos Mara Prez Snchez. "Expected number of goals depending on intrinsic and extrinsic factors of a football player. An application to professional Spanish football league". European Journal of Sport Science, 2013. DOI:10.1080/17461391.2011.589473
Jos Mara Prez Snchez
Facultad de Ciencias Econmicas y Empresariales
Universidad de Granada
Tlf.: 958242977/ Email: josemag@ugr.es
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A statistical model predicts the number of goals for each footballerPublic release date: 29-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: SINC info@agenciasinc.es 34-914-251-820 FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
Messi is the best striker, but in overall terms he comes sixth
After analysing football league players over nine seasons, from 2000 to 2009, Spanish researchers have come up with a mathematical method for estimating the goal-scoring performance of each player. According to their ranking, the most able strikers are Messi, Ronaldo Nazrio, Makkay, Villa and Etoo.
Over nine seasons, researchers from the faculties of Economic and Business Sciences at the Universities of Granada and Jan analysed the performance of football players in the Spanish league from 2000/2001 to 2008/2009, with the aim of creating a mathematical model to evaluate their goal-scoring potential.
Their paper, published in the 'European Journal of Sport Science', presents a model based on Bayesian statistics, which they say enables them to predict the number of goals each player will score based on their own individual qualities.
As the researchers explain, whether a player scores or not depends on easily quantifiable extrinsic factors, such as the number of minutes or matches played, the position on the pitch defender, midfielder or striker and the team quality (measured by their position in the league table). But this is not everything.
"Other factors that are harder to measure can also influence performance, such as the individual characteristics of the player that make him different from all the rest," explains to SINC Jos Mara Prez Snchez, professor at the institution in Granada and co-author of the study.
Extrinsic factors aside, the model can quantify an additional individual factor that influences the qualities of each footballer as a goal-scorer. "With this, we can rank Spanish league players according to this factor of individual ability," the authors assert.
The best players
The model enables a player's goal-scoring performance over the nine seasons analysed to be evaluated, by comparing the number of goals scored by the player with the number that would be expected of a footballer playing at the same time, in the same position and on the same team.
The results reveal that the five best defenders in the seasons studied were, in descending order, Ezequiel Garay, Roberto Carlos, Campano, Cristian lvarez and Larrazbal.
According to the classification resulting from the model, the best midfielders were Rivaldo, Robert, Luis Cembranos, Mark Gonzlez and Mostovoi; and the most able strikers were Messi, Ronaldo Nazrio, Makkay, Villa and Etoo.
In terms of the overall assessment of all the players in the football league over the nine seasons studied, the best was Rivaldo, followed by Robert, Ezequiel Garay, Luis Cembranos and Roberto Carlos.
"It is remarkable that the strikers do not rank very highly in terms of overall performance," Prez Snchez continues. "In fact, apart from Messi, who ranks sixth, the rest all rank below 15th place."
The authors suggest that the reason might lie in the fact that the model takes into account that they are strikers and assesses them more harshly in relation to the expected number of goals. Furthermore, the ranking particularly values goals scored by defenders and midfielders, since this is not their primary objective on the pitch.
The Messi paradox
Lastly, the study analyses in depth the careers of several emblematic football players to assess their goal-scoring performance over this period, drawing attention to cases such as that of Leo Messi.
"Messi's development is interesting," the researchers highlight. "Although his performance is high in early seasons, in 2007/2008 (the penultimate season of the study) his productivity decreases significantly."
The experts point out that this must be due to his change of position on the pitch, because he had previously been considered a midfielder but became a striker, demanding higher goal-scoring ability.
"If the latest seasons, in which the player's goal-scoring success has increased considerably, were included in the study, this effect would surely be offset, and Messi would clearly rank many places higher in the overall assessment," concludes Prez Snchez.
###
Citation:
Antonio Sez Castillo, Jos Rodrguez Avi & Jos Mara Prez Snchez. "Expected number of goals depending on intrinsic and extrinsic factors of a football player. An application to professional Spanish football league". European Journal of Sport Science, 2013. DOI:10.1080/17461391.2011.589473
Jos Mara Prez Snchez
Facultad de Ciencias Econmicas y Empresariales
Universidad de Granada
Tlf.: 958242977/ Email: josemag@ugr.es
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Florida Governor Rick Scott cannot require all state employees to take random drug tests and told the state to identify which government workers it believes should undergo periodic testing.
Scott, a Republican, issued an executive order in March 2011 ordering drug testing for all state employees, regardless of whether they were suspected of drug use, arguing the measure was similar to financial disclosures required for some workers.
He later suspended the order, which has been challenged in court by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The decision by the three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sends the case back to a U.S. District Court in Miami for further consideration.
In a ruling last year, U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro tossed out Scott's executive order, saying random drug tests of the state's 85,000 state workers violated the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches.
Scott appealed the decision and argued that "state employees possessed a diminished privacy interest." A state law Scott supported requiring drug tests for welfare recipients has also been tied up in the courts.
The federal appeals court ruled that Scott's drug testing order "almost certainly sweeps far too broadly." But it said that Ungaro's order knocking it down also invalidated longtime drug testing requirements for police, prison guards, pilots and operators of heavy machinery.
State worker unions did not challenge the constitutionality of random testing of law enforcement and workers in safety-sensitive jobs.
"No matter how much Governor Scott wants people to believe otherwise, the fact remains that people don't have to give up their privacy, dignity and constitutional protections in order to serve our communities," said Alma Gonzalez, a lawyer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Scott said in a statement that he would continue to argue that all state workers should be tested for drug use.
"Many Floridians are required to take drug tests in their workplace and it is only right for state workers paid with taxpayer funds to be required to do the same," he said.
"We will go forward in arguing this case in both the appellate and trial courts in order to ensure that taxpayer funds are safeguarded from misuse by ensuring our state workforce is drug free," Scott added.
Over at Newsday, Reason Contributing Editor Cathy Young takes a closer look at the appalling joint letter recently sent to the University of Montana by the Departments of Justice and Education:
While criticism of the letter has focused mostly on speech, it also raises disturbing issues of fairness for students accused of misconduct. The government has reaffirmed its position, first expressed in 2011, that campus disciplinary proceedings for reports of sexual offenses must use the lowest legal standard, "preponderance of the evidence": If those adjudicating the charge believe there is more than a 50-50 chance that it is true, they must find the accused guilty. Previously, most colleges used the higher standard of "clear and convincing evidence."
The guidelines also mandate proper training about sexual violence for college officials and student jurors who handle such complaints -- which, in practice, often amounts to indoctrination in presumption of guilt. At?Stanford University, such a training program has used materials stating that one should be "very, very cautious in accepting a man's claim that he has been wrongly accused." Sexual assault can shatter lives, no doubt. But so can wrongful accusations, and sometimes in acquaintance or dating situations telling the two apart is wrenchingly difficult.?
Whole thing here; link via InstaPundit.
I interviewed Foundation for Individual Rights in Education President Greg Lukianoff about these odious developments earlier this month:
Is it the hot new look for the summer season, or just a black and white mess? There's a poll, let us know!
BlackBerry users have their Oreo, webOS users love their Panda, and now the Android faithful have their very own zebra -- that's with the short e, in the proper Queen's English. (Read it in Alex's voice)
The zebra acts a whole lot like the regular, plain old black (and now white) version, but it's more zebra-like. Sporting a fun, yet business-ready black and white look, it's ready for anything while staying stylish no matter what you throw at it.
OK, I'll stop. But it is a pretty unique look, bound to have people who love it as well as folks who hate it. I'm digging the white one with the black bumper myself. What do you think? Answer the poll after the break, then fill the comments with praise or curses to let us all know why you feel that way. And of course, head into the forums where the zebra was first spotted.
With a little snort, dolphins can produce a nearly perfect "air" rings, (sophisticated non-dolphins called them toroidal vortices) which they turn into underwater toys.
If they leave the rings alone, (because air is lighter than water) the underwater circles will expand, rise to the surface and disappear ? so very playful dolphins don't let them rise. In the video below, you can see them pushing the rings down, so the water pressure keeps them compact. Or ? just for the fun of it, it seems ? they will make a ring smaller by cutting it in two ? with a quick bite!
So here the dolphin approaches ...
... then, (extremely quickly, so fast you can't see how) it takes a nip out of the bigger bubble, instantly restitching the two loose ends into a smaller, more compact bubble that keeps the bubble tight and lets them keep playing ...
Dolphins (I learned watching videos with dolphin expert Diana Reiss and Stanford bubble physicist Manu Prakash) sometimes blow two bubbles, giving the second one an extra push that sends its sailing right through the first ? a kind of dolphin parlor trick.
But their favorite thing, it seems, is to use their noses (called rostrums) to spin the bubbles without ever touching them. They intentionally create turbulence in the surrounding water that can make the ring spin very tight, or they'll design a looser, wigglier bubble, move it along until it's about to burst, and just before it does, they open their mouths ...
... and swallow it!
While humans and dolphins obviously play with rings, it's possible humpback whales do this too. The video shows humpbacks sending air rings to the ocean surface, but in one of them, the giant underwater author suddenly pops up mid-ring to take what looks like a bow in front of a boat of whale-watchers.
Volcanoes, of course, don't take bows. But in any ring-blowing contest, Italy's live volcano, Mt. Etna, deserves some kind of trophy for Gorgeous Ring Production. This nearly perfect ring got coughed straight out of a mountain ...
The video ends with a complicated series of rings within rings produced by the Soviet Union in 1961. It is the biggest man-made toroidal vortex in human history, and it's the only ring in this video collection that made me wince.
NASA sees developing tropical cyclone near southwestern MexicoPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of System 92E, a tropical low pressure area that is ripe for development into a tropical depression and tropical storm, as it continues to develop near to southwestern Mexico.
System 92E may organize more and become Tropical Storm Barbara later on May 28 as it continues organizing near the southwestern Mexican coast. When NASA's Aqua satellite flew over System 92E on May 28 at 07:17 UTC (3:17 a.m. EDT), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard Aqua captured an infrared image of the storm. AIRS measured cloud top temperatures as cold as -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius), that were indicative of high, strong thunderstorms with the potential to drop heavy rain. Those storms stretched over open waters west of Punta Escondida southward to Salina Cruz.
System 92E appears almost stationary, and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects the low to continue consolidating. Shower and thunderstorm activity continues to gradually increase today, May 28. System 92E's center is about 200 miles south of Salina Cruz, Mexico.
The NHC expects System 92E to become Tropical Storm Barbara late in the day on May 28, before it makes landfall later along the southwestern coast of Mexico. Tropical Storm Warnings could be posted later in the day and heavy rains are expected over southern Mexico and western Central America during the next few days.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NASA sees developing tropical cyclone near southwestern MexicoPublic release date: 28-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of System 92E, a tropical low pressure area that is ripe for development into a tropical depression and tropical storm, as it continues to develop near to southwestern Mexico.
System 92E may organize more and become Tropical Storm Barbara later on May 28 as it continues organizing near the southwestern Mexican coast. When NASA's Aqua satellite flew over System 92E on May 28 at 07:17 UTC (3:17 a.m. EDT), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard Aqua captured an infrared image of the storm. AIRS measured cloud top temperatures as cold as -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius), that were indicative of high, strong thunderstorms with the potential to drop heavy rain. Those storms stretched over open waters west of Punta Escondida southward to Salina Cruz.
System 92E appears almost stationary, and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects the low to continue consolidating. Shower and thunderstorm activity continues to gradually increase today, May 28. System 92E's center is about 200 miles south of Salina Cruz, Mexico.
The NHC expects System 92E to become Tropical Storm Barbara late in the day on May 28, before it makes landfall later along the southwestern coast of Mexico. Tropical Storm Warnings could be posted later in the day and heavy rains are expected over southern Mexico and western Central America during the next few days.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ? The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and survivors of the bloody conflicts that ripped through the Balkans in the 1990s looked back on two decades of trials and tribulations as the court marked the 20th anniversary Monday of its establishment by the U.N. Security Council.
Court officials hailed the tribunal's legacy of putting on trial war crimes suspects ranging from heads of state to low-ranking soldiers. Activists and survivors also praised the court, but lamented how slow it has been to mete out justice.
The court's complex and lengthy trials meant that it failed to reach a verdict in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian president widely seen as the driving force behind the violent breakup of Yugoslavia who died in his cell in 2006 before the end of his four-year trial.
"If there is something to be held against the tribunal, then it is its efficiency," Bosnian war crimes investigator Mirsad Tokaca said in a recent interview. "It is impermissible that the trials should last so long, absolutely impermissible."
The court's president, Judge Theodor Meron, acknowledged the problem, but said it was unavoidable as the court carved out a new international legal order and tackled massive and complex crimes often committed over months or years and allowed suspects like Milosevic to defend themselves ? a process that led to lengthy political grandstanding and dragged out his case.
"I wish we could have gone faster, but I do believe that we have such special problems that if you focus on our cases you see that our progress has been quite reasonable," Meron said.
The court has proved that ? with patience and help from the international community and local authorities ? war crimes tribunals can get their hands on suspects, even if they don't have their own police force.
The tribunal indicted 161 suspects, from Milosevic to a young Serb soldier who was part of a firing squad responsible for massacring Muslims in Srebrenica, and all who survived long enough have faced justice either in The Hague or local courts.
"One of the achievements is for sure that there are no fugitives at large any more," said the court's chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz.
Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military, chief Gen. Ratko Mladic, avoided capture for years before they were finally arrested in Serbia. Both are now standing trial in The Hague, though their cases were adjourned Monday as new Dutch King Willem-Alexander joined other dignitaries for a ceremony in the tribunal's lobby.
The arrests of the likes of Karadzic and Mladic give hope to the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, the International Criminal Court, based in a former telecom company office on the other side of The Hague, which is struggling to get custody of some of its most senior indicted suspects, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and a Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, a son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Meron said that one of the tribunal's key achievements was demonstrating that an international court could deliver justice impartially.
"We showed that it is possible to have international prosecutions and international trials of people accused of the gravest offenses against international law and do it in accordance with the entire panoply of principles of fairness and due process," he said.
Many Serbs disagree, saying the tribunal unfairly targets Serbs, who form the majority of its suspects.
"Serbs do not recognize The Hague tribunal at all. They are trying only the Serbs and all others have been released or will be released," said Bosnian Serb Jovo Gavrilovic.
One former leader with up-close knowledge of the tribunal's work, former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, praised the court that initially convicted him of war crimes and later acquitted him after a retrial.
"This is the only institution or arbiter that went (through) with it, so if the question is, is it worth that we have it or it would have been better not to have something like that? I must say it was worthy to have it," he said in an interview in Kosovo.
Now, as the tribunal prepares to close in coming years, its archives could underpin more prosecutions in domestic courts in the Balkans and provide a legacy that will ensure the crimes are never forgotten.
"I personally and many other victims believe that not a single war criminal would have been arrested and sentenced had there been no Hague tribunal," said Bakira Hasecic, herself a victim of war-time rape during Bosnia's 1992-95 conflict.
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AP senior producer Amer Cohadzic in Sarajevo and writer Nebi Qena in Pristina contributed to this story.
The proposed Amazon corporate headquarters in Seattle, Washington, is pictured in this artist's rendering courtesy of NBBJ.
While much of corporate America is retrenching on the real estate front, the four most influential technology companies in America are each planning headquarters that could win a Pritzker Architecture Prize for hubris.
Amazon.com this week revealed plans for three verdant bubbles in downtown Seattle, joining Apple's circular "spaceship," Facebook's Frank Gehry-designed open-office complex and a new Googleplex on the list of planned trophy offices.
"It signals a desire, a statement, to say that we're special, we're different. We have changed the world and we are going to continue to change it," said Margaret O'Mara, associate professor of history at the University of Washington, who has written about the building of Silicon Valley.
"It's also a reflection of robust bank accounts. They have a lot of cash."
Historically, however, when a company becomes preoccupied with the grandeur of its premises, it often signals a high point in its fortunes. These fantastical buildings may end up as little more than costly monuments to vanity and a loss of focus on the core business that made for success in the first place.
"I've been thinking the Apple spaceship is going to get nicknamed the 'Death Star' because the project is so big and the timing is so bad," said hedge fund manager Jeff Matthews of Ram Partners. The building is coming to fruition just as Apple's product cycles may be maturing, he explained. "It is such a classic contrary indicator that you just get the shakes." He no longer holds Apple stock.
Walter Price, who runs technology investment funds at RCM Capital Management, shares the outlook: "When companies build big headquarters it's usually when they're doing really well and have strong outlooks, and that often coincides with a peak in their stock." Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook are battling to recruit tech talent, and attractive campuses help with that, he added, but Apple's plan has not gone down well with investors. RCM's tech funds no longer hold shares.
Project Runway Amazon's design, presented to Seattle city planners this week, includes three steel and glass spheres almost 100 feet high, which will serve as the centerpiece for three new skyscrapers that will house a rapidly growing workforce in downtown Seattle.
The plans call for "a series of intersecting spheres with ample space for a wide range of planting material, as well as individuals working alone or in groups." Amazon declined further comment.
Google, the world's largest Internet search company, has outgrown its original headquarters in Silicon Valley's Mountain View and is planning to build a 1.1 million square foot Googleplex nearby.
Called Bay View, it will have nine rectangular buildings, horizontally bent, with living roofs surrounded by courtyards and connected by bridges. No employee will be more than a two-and-a-half-minute walk away from any colleague, a design aimed at encouraging collaboration. A Google spokeswoman declined further comment.
Facebook is taking the collaborative idea a step further, with plans for Facebook West, an addition to its main campus in Menlo Park, California, that will be the size of seven-and-a-half football fields.
Reuters
The proposed Amazon corporate headquarters in Seattle, Washington, is pictured in this artist's rendering courtesy of NBBJ.
Facebook hired Gehry to bring his trademark style of unexpected angles and understated drama to what is essentially one enormous open-plan office, where a worker can wander from one end to the other without ever going through a door. The rooftop serves as a park.
An earlier version of the building plan featured flares on the ends of the structure like butterfly wings, but Facebook decided not to go ahead with them, said Rachel Grossman, associate planner for the city of Menlo Park.
Facebook spokesman Tucker Bounds said the expansion will be "extremely cost-effective" and is needed to help the company develop new products for its users. He declined to comment further.
Apple has the most ambitious idea, a 2.8 million square foot glass ring on 176 acres. It would be in part a monument to former Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who described it as like a spaceship and was closely involved in the plans before he died in 2011.
The project, which could cost up to $5 billion according to reports, would house about 12,000 Apple employees. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.
Tempting fate The technology sector has amassed large cash piles in recent years, leaving many companies over-capitalized, said Bill Smead, head of Smead Capital Management, which oversees $465 million in assets and does not own shares of Apple, Amazon, Facebook or Google. "Over-capitalized companies often don't perform well, and leaders of over-capitalized companies sometimes squander the money," he said.
Apple, Amazon and Facebook are not getting tax breaks or other similar financial incentives for their plans, according to local officials. It is not clear if Google is receiving any incentives.
While these plans radiate optimism, they risk bringing down a curse that has befallen big companies just as they construct pyramid-scale palaces.
AOL-Time Warner started building the Time Warner Center, a 2.8 million square foot structure on the edge of New York's Central Park featuring two towering glass skyscrapers, right as the tech stock bubble popped in 2000, destroying more than three-quarters of the Internet and media company's value.
The New York Times, Wall Street bank Bear Stearns and chemical company Union Carbide also built ambitious headquarters just before their businesses hit tough times.
The "campus curse" has claimed several tech victims as well.
In the early 1990s, Borland Software ? once the second-largest independent software company ? spent more than $100 million on offices just south of Silicon Valley that featured ponds, tennis courts and a swimming pool. By 2008 the company had been hammered in the market by Microsoft and was worth less than the cost of the complex.
Since then, Yahoo, MySpace, Inktomi, Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics have either hatched plans for or moved into swaggering headquarters, only to hit the skids. Google moved into Silicon Graphics' campus and Facebook took over Sun's headquarters.
Salesforce.com the shakes in time. In late 2011 the stock had fallen from a July high, and analysts were criticizing the company for excessive spending on sales and marketing. Earlier approved plans to build a $2 billion high-tech campus in San Francisco were canceled by the following February.
Productivity premium? Despite these cautionary tales, some say the new breed of tech companies are smart to construct their own buildings, which match the collaborative way they work and can yield long-term productivity and energy-efficiency benefits.
"As they see energy prices going up they recognize that these buildings have to last longer, and they need to be more in control of the operation costs of these buildings. A property developer does not focus on such long-term things," said John Barton, director of the architectural design program at Stanford University.
"Employees are more productive in the right kinds of environments. That may be more expensive, but if it pays back in a 5 percent productivity increase, that may be really smart," he added.
O'Mara at University of Washington suggests the new tech giants are emulating the workplace innovations of the famous Bell Labs, the historic research arm of AT&T that gave birth to the transistor, the laser and technology behind mobile phones over many decades.
Bell's legendary facility, designed by modernist architect Eero Saarinen in the late 1950s, might not be the right role monument.
Now owned by global telecom giant Alcatel Lucent, the quarter-mile-long mirrored box lies empty, and is likely to end up being turned into a medical center ? or razed.
(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta. Editing by Jonathan Weber, Mary Milliken and Prudence Crowther)
Whether you are an entrepreneur or plan on working for an established company, the real estate industry offers a wide variety of career opportunities including those in brokerages and leasing services for homes, office buildings, industrial properties and farmland, as well as property management, appraisal and counseling. Here, we take a look at a selection of the career paths in real estate, including some of the relevant professional designations and certifications for each profession.
Residential Real Estate
Residential real estate sales agents help people throughout the process of buying and selling homes. In addition to showing homes to prospective buyers, agents help clients with property valuation, financing, mortgages and government programs. Agents and brokers must be licensed in the state in which they work (there is no "national" license). Each state has its own licensing system and requirements that include some type of pre-licensing course and a state-specific licensing examination.
Designations and Certifications:
Accredited Buyer's Representative (ABR) - Awarded by REBAC (the Real Estate BUYER'S Agent Council of the National Association of REALTORS?), the ABR designation is designed for real estate agents who focus on working directly with buyer-clients. Candidates must complete a two-day course and successfully pass an exam to achieve ARB candidate status. During the following three-year period, candidates fulfill additional requirements for education and experience before becoming an ABR Designee.
Accredited Seller Representative (ASR) - Awarded by the Accredited Seller Agency Council, the ASR designation is designed for real estate agents who focus on working directly with seller-clients. Candidates must complete a 12 hour course, pass an exam, show proof of five closed sides of transactions where the candidate represented sellers, provide three letters of recommendation from three of those sellers, and be members of the National Association of REALTORS?.
Commercial Real Estate Commercial agents and brokers specialize in income-producing properties, such as retail stores, shopping centers, office buildings, industrial parks and apartment complexes. Commercial real estate professionals help clients evaluate a property's income potential and offer guidance regarding local zoning and tax laws. Some states require a specialized license for commercial transactions, while others cover residential and commercial transactions under the same license.
Designations and Certifications:
Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) - The CCIM designation is awarded by the CCIM Institute, an affiliate of the National Association of REALTORS?. CCIM candidates must complete a curriculum that includes ethics, interest-based negotiation, financial analysis, market analysis, user decision analysis and investment analysis for commercial investment real estate. In addition, candidates are required to submit a portfolio that demonstrates their commercial real estate experience and successfully complete an examination.
Certified Commercial Real Estate Advisor (CCREA) - The CCREA designation is awarded by the National Association of Commercial Real Estate Professionals (NAOCREP). CCREA candidates must complete a curriculum that includes multifamily asset class analysis, cash flow and equity projection and analysis, loan analysis and procurement, commercial foreclosure and short sale strategies, financial analysis and negotiation. The CCREA designation is awarded to candidates who successfully complete a comprehensive three-day live course and examination.
Property Management Property managers maintain properties that produce financial returns for the property owners and are responsible for the maintenance and management of the property, including budgeting and leasing. Residential property management involves apartment buildings, condominiums and vacation rentals. Commercial property management entails properties such as office buildings and shopping centers. Property managers often work for real estate firms. Most states require a real estate license for property managers who collect rent, list properties or negotiate leases.
Designations and Certifications:
Certified Property Manager (CPM) - The CPM designation is awarded by the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM). A CPM candidate must hold an active real estate license (where required), be a member of IREM, complete seven required courses (or equivalent education/experience), pass the CPM certification exam, complete IREM ethics education, submit three letters of recommendation, have three years of qualifying real estate management experience and be affiliated with National Association of REALTORS?.
Accredited Residential Manager (ARM) - The ARM certification is awarded by the Institute of Real Estate Management. ARM candidates must complete a week long course or complete four individual courses (or hold a CPM, CAM, CRM or RAM designation or have qualifying education/experience), pass the ARM certification exam, complete IREM ethics education and have one year of qualifying residential real estate management experience.
Real Estate Appraisal Real estate appraisers determine the value of properties to help people and businesses find the assessed value for tax purposes, investment value, present value for potential investors, book value for accounting purposes, rental value and insurable value. Appraisers must know acceptable appraisal principles, have practical experience and some knowledge of mathematics, accounting and economics. Often, appraisers work for banks or for appraiser firms. Appraisers must be licensed by the state in which they work. You must first become an Appraiser Trainee by completing state-specified coursework. With additional coursework and experience, you can go on to become a Licensed Residential Appraiser, a Certified Residential Appraiser and a Certified General Appraiser.
Designations and Certifications:
Residential Accredited Appraiser (RAA) and General Accredited Appraiser (GAA) - The RAA and GAA designations are awarded by the National Association of REALTORS?. Candidates must be active members of the National Association of REALTORS?, obtain state certification, have a minimum of 1,000 hours experience (in addition to state requirements) and take tested coursework (45 hours for the RAA, or 60 hours for the GAA).
MAI - The MAI designation is awarded by the Appraisal Institute to appraisers who are experienced in the evaluation and valuation of commercial, industrial and residential property, and who counsel clients on real estate investments. MAIs must hold an undergraduate degree from a four-year accredited institution, complete 400 hours of classroom instruction and pass a series of examinations, successfully take the General Comprehensive Examination, a two-day, four-part exam, and show evidence of 4,500 hours of specialized experience over at least a three-year period.
Real Estate Counseling Real estate counselors give advice about property and help investors make decisions about how to select properties that are likely to appreciate in price in the future. Rather than selling real estate, counselors focus on each client's unique needs to offer solutions that address those needs. Counselors (also called real estate advisors) must know many facets of the real estate business. Often, real estate counselors have a background in real estate valuation, development, investing and/or property management.
Designations and Certifications:
Counselor Real Estate (CRE) - The CRE designation is awarded by the Counselors of Real Estate, and is available only to individuals who have been invited by their peers into membership. Through the CRE Invitation Process, candidates must show evidence of at least 10 years of real estate experience (three of which must be in counseling), demonstrate that they are recognized by clients and peers for their professional knowledge, integrity and judgment, have attained REALTOR? designations such as CCIM, CPM, GRI and SIOR and hold advanced degrees in business and related fields.
The Bottom Line The real estate industry is robust, with numerous career opportunities. This article names only a few of the many career paths currently available. Other real estate career opportunities include:
Construction
Farm and land brokerage
Investment
Land development
Research
Urban planning
Real estate designations and certifications can help you increase your skills, proficiency, knowledge and, ultimately, your marketability as a real estate professional. In addition to those listed here, there are dozens of other designations and certifications to show your experience and expertise the various real estate sectors.
A crew from the National Transportation Safety Board inspects a section of the Skagit River Bridge, Saturday, May 25, 2013 in Mount Vernon, Wash. The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday the bridge collapse in Washington state is a wake-up call for the nation. (AP Photo/The Skagit Valley Herald, Frank Varga)
A crew from the National Transportation Safety Board inspects a section of the Skagit River Bridge, Saturday, May 25, 2013 in Mount Vernon, Wash. The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday the bridge collapse in Washington state is a wake-up call for the nation. (AP Photo/The Skagit Valley Herald, Frank Varga)
A collapsed section of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River is seen in an aerial view Friday, May 24, 2013. Part of the bridge collapsed Thursday evening, sending cars and people into the water when a an oversized truck hit the span, the Washington State Patrol chief said. Three people were rescued from the water. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday declared a state of emergency in three counties around the bridge, saying that the bridge collapse has caused extensive disruption, impacting the citizens and economy in Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom Counties. (AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Mike Siegel)
People offer spontaneous prayer after an Interstate 5 bridge collapsed over the Skagit River between Mt. Vernon and Burlington, Wash. on Thursday, May 23, 2013. Two cars and one travel trailer went in the water. There were no know fatalities. (AP Photo/seattlepi.com, Joshua Trujillo)
Workers walk past the collapsed portion of the Interstate 5 bridge at the Skagit River Friday, May 24, 2013, in Mount Vernon, Wash. A truck carrying an oversize load struck the four-lane bridge on the major thoroughfare between Seattle and Canada, sending a section of the span and two vehicles into the Skagit River below Thursday evening. All three occupants suffered only minor injuries. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
A dented upper right corner and a scrape along the upper side are visible on the "oversize load" equipment casing being hauled a truck parked southbound on Interstate 5 south of the collapsed portion of the highway bridge at the Skagit River Friday, May 24, 2013, in Mount Vernon, Wash. The truck struck the four-lane bridge on the major thoroughfare between Seattle and Canada Thursday evening, sending a section of the span and two vehicles into the Skagit River. All three occupants suffered only minor injuries. At an overnight news conference, Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste blamed the collapse on the tractor-trailer carrying a tall load that hit an upper part of the span. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
SEATTLE (AP) ? The collapse of an interstate highway bridge in northern Washington state should be a wake-up call that prompts an expansive safety review, according to National Transportation Safety Board officials.
Investigators are trying to determine why a bridge over Interstate 5 about 60 miles north of Seattle collapsed after a truck clipped a steel truss and what can be done to prevent similar accidents. Officials have scheduled updates throughout the day Sunday.
NTSB Chairwoman Debbie Hersman on Saturday examined the scene in the Skagit River where two vehicles plunged into the water. Three people involved escaped with non-life threatening injuries.
An investigation by The Associated Press suggests similar accidents could happen elsewhere. Thousands of bridges around the U.S. are kept standing by engineering design, rather than sheer size or redundant protections. Such spans may be one freak accident or mistake away from collapse.
Bridge regulators call them "fracture critical" bridges, because if a single, vital component is compromised, they can crumple.
Hersman's team will spend about a week inspecting the I-5 bridge, talking to the truck driver whose vehicle hit it and examining maintenance documents and accident reports.
Other large vehicles struck the Skagit River bridge before the collapse Thursday, she noted. Investigators are using a high tech 3-D video camera to review the scene and attempt to pinpoint where the bridge failure began. Officials say they are working to find out whether the collapse was a fluke or a sign of bigger problems.
Hersman does not expect the investigation to delay removal of debris from the river or work on temporary replacement or repair plans. State and federal officials will work together on the investigation, she said.
They'll be watching for safety issues that could affect other bridges.
"The results can be very catastrophic," Hersman said. "We're very fortunate in this situation."
Washington state officials said Saturday that it will take time to find both short- and long-term fixes for the I-5 bridge.
While the NTSB finishes its inspection, state workers will begin cleaning up the river. Next, a temporary solution will be put in place to return traffic to Washington state's most important north-south roadway.
Motorists should not expect to drive on I-5 between Mount Vernon and Burlington for many weeks and possibly months, said Washington Transportation Department spokesman Bart Treece.
About 71,000 vehicles use that stretch of highway every day.
Officials were looking for a temporary, pre-fabricated bridge to replace the 160-foot section that failed, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday. That option could be in place in weeks. Otherwise, it could be months before a replacement can be built, the governor said.
Inslee said it will cost $15 million to repair the bridge. The federal government has promised $1 million in emergency dollars and more money could come later, according to Washington's congressional delegation.
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Contact Donna Blankinship at https://twitter.com/dgblankinship
LONDON (AP) ? Police, politicians and activists in Britain are warning of rising anti-Muslim sentiment following the slaughter of an off-duty British soldier in a London street, an apparent act of Islamic extremism that has horrified the nation.
Metropolitan Police investigating the killing of Lee Rigby, a 25-year-old soldier who was run over by attackers then butchered by knives, arrested three more men in the murder investigation Saturday. Stun guns were used on two of the three men, aged 24 and 28, police said.
The latest arrests came as an estimated 1,500 members of an extremist right-wing group called the English Defense League marched in the northern English city of Newcastle, chanting Rigby's name. In the southern English city of Portsmouth, police arrested two men for a racially motivated assault as hundreds of demonstrators gathered near one mosque, while several more people were detained for alleged racist offenses elsewhere.
The two men suspected of killing the soldier, Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, remained under armed guard in separate London hospitals after police shot them at the scene. Police have not officially named the suspects because they have not been charged, but British officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the investigation, have confirmed their names to The Associated Press.
Wednesday's murder in southeast London's Woolwich area shocked the nation partly because the horrific scenes were recorded on witnesses' cellphones, and a video picked up by British media showed one of the two suspects, his hands bloodied, making political statements and warning of further violence as the soldier lay on the ground behind him.
Counter-terrorism police also are questioning a friend of Adebolajo who was arrested Friday night immediately after he gave BBC Television an interview detailing why he thought Adebolajo may have become radicalized.
Metropolitan Police said the friend, identified by the BBC as 31-year-old Abu Nusaybah, was wanted himself on suspicion of "the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism." The force declined to elaborate.
In his BBC interview, Nusaybah said he knew Adebolajo as a moderate Islam convert. He said he thought Adebolajo's behavior changed after a trip to Kenya last year, and alleged that Britain's MI5 domestic spy agency tried to recruit him upon his return six months ago.
Rigby's killing ? and Adebolajo's apparent link to Islamic extremism ? has stirred anti-Muslim backlashes across Britain. Police said they arrested three people on suspicion of posting racist tweets ahead of the English Defense League march, and further detained 24 others before and during the protest on suspicion of public drunkenness, vandalism and distributing racist literature. One group of marchers carried a sign that read "Taliban Hunting Club."
About 350 counterdemonstrators who called themselves Newcastle Unites shouted abuse at the marchers, including "Nazi scum off our streets!" The region's Northumbria Police said riot police prevented any direct clashes between the opposed groups.
Meanwhile, the far-right British National Party announced it would rally supporters next weekend on the spot where the young soldier was killed.
"Has the horror of Woolwich woken you up too? ... Join the British resistance," British National Party leader Nick Griffin said in a video address Saturday to supporters announcing his plans for a "Stand Up to Muslim Terror" rally at the scene of the crime, where thousands already have left floral bouquets paying tribute to the soldier.
A group that campaigns against extremism, Faith Matters, said it has received reports of around 150 anti-Muslim hate crimes across Britain since the soldier was killed Wednesday, more than 10 times the usual rate. Its director, Fiyaz Mughal, said he was particularly concerned by how geographically widespread the actions, including street fights and the vandalism of mosques, had become.
"Some of them are quite aggressive, very focused, very aggressive attacks ... against institutions or places where Muslims congregate," he said.
Questions abound over what could have led the two men to attack Rigby, a drummer and machine-gunner who had served in Afghanistan and was off-duty when he was walking near his barracks. Nusaybah's interview with the BBC offered one possible narrative. He said Adebolajo became withdrawn after he allegedly suffered abuse by Kenyan security forces during interrogation in prison there.
"Although that change wasn't necessarily one that became overt, aggressive or anything like that, he became ... less talkative. He wasn't his bubbly self," Nusaybah told the BBC.
He said MI5 agents approached Adebolajo after he returned to Britain and initially asked him if he had met specific Muslim militants, then asked Adebolajo if he was willing to act as an informer.
"He was explicit in that he refused to work for them," Nusaybah said.
The BBC said police arrested Nusaybah outside its studio immediately after the interview was recorded.
"This interviewee had important background information that sheds light on this horrific event," the BBC said in a statement. "And when we asked him to appear and interviewed him, we were not aware he was wanted for questioning by the police."
It was not immediately possible to verify the information provided by Nusaybah, who said he had known Adebolajo for about a decade. MI5 does not publicly discuss its efforts to recruit informers.
In Kenya, Anti-Terrorism Police Unit chief Boniface Mwaniki said police were checking their records to confirm whether Adebolajo had been in their custody. Mwaniki rejected any suggestion that Adebolajo had been abused.
Nusaybah said Adebolajo converted to Islam around 2004. His account corroborates those provided by two Muslim hard-liners who said they also knew Adebolajo.
Anjem Choudary, a former leader of a banned British radical group called al-Muhajiroun, said Adebolajo was a Christian who converted to Islam around 2003. Choudary told the AP that Adebolajo participated in several of the group's London demonstrations before Britain outlawed al-Muhajiroun in 2010.
Omar Bakri Muhammad, another former al-Muhajiroun leader and radical Muslim preacher, said Adebolajo is a Nigerian who was born and raised in Britain. He said Adebolajo attended his London lectures in the early 2000s, but added he had not stayed in touch with the suspect since then.
Bakri fled London and resettled in Lebanon in 2005 after suicide attacks on London's public transit system killed 56 people, including four bombers.
"I don't know what Michael did since 2004 or 2005," Bakri told the AP. "Two years ago he stopped attending our open lectures and lessons as well as our activities."
The University of Greenwich confirmed Saturday that Adebolajo was a student there from 2003 to 2005 but dropped out.
Fewer details have emerged about Adebowale besides one reported brush with death as a teenager.
The Guardian newspaper, citing police and court records, reported Saturday that Adebowale was stabbed in 2008, when a man attacked him and two friends in a London apartment. One 18-year-old friend died and the attacker received a life sentence for murder, the newspaper said.
MI5 Director-General Andrew Parker is expected to deliver a preliminary report next week to Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee detailing what the agency knew about both suspects and whether the domestic spy agency could have done anything to stop the attack.
The directors of Britain's foreign spy agency, MI6, and Britain's eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, also are expected to give reports on what intelligence they had on the two men.
Police earlier this week detained three others in connection with the murder probe. Two women were released without charge, and a 29-year-old man has been bailed pending further questioning.
___
Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds in London, Tom Odula in Nairobi, Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.
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Public release date: 29-May-2013
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