Wednesday, January 15, 2014
CONTACT ME AT: manessmorrison2@yahoo.com


News For The Day



Texas man, imprisoned for murders half his life, freed on bond – NBC
By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News


A Texas man imprisoned for half his life for a double homicide that he, witnesses, and hundreds of supporters all maintain he did not commit was freed Tuesday, nearly two decades after he was sent to prison.

Daniel Villegas, 37, of El Paso, has been behind bars since 1995, when a jury convicted him of killing two teenagers and sentenced him to a life prison term. His conviction was largely based on a confession that Villegas, just 16 at the time of the 1993 drive-by shooting in northeast El Paso, has said was coerced by detectives.
On Tuesday morning, District Court Judge Sam Medrano set bond at $50,000 for Villegas. He was released about an hour after the hearing ended.

"I never thought this day would come," Villegas said after walking out of prison, reported The El Paso Times.

The District Attorney's office has not yet announced whether it will seek a new trial for Villegas, and has until a Jan. 21 hearing to decide.

Joshua Tepfer, one of Villegas' attorneys and co-director of Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, said Villegas went to church after leaving prison, and then was celebrating with family and friends.
"He seems pretty relaxed, all things considering. I think he's been very prepared for this day," Tepfer said. "He's really happy."

The confession that landed Villegas in a life sentence had numerous discrepancies in it: For example, Villegas claimed he was riding in a white car the night of the crime, when the vehicle involved in the shooting was actually red, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Villegas quickly recanted, explaining he only confessed because he was told if he didn't, he would be raped in county jail and that he would get the death penalty. But his confession to the murders of Robert England, 18, and Armando Lazo, 17, was kept on file.

An appellate court vacated the conviction in December. On Monday, District Judge Sam Medrano set Tuesday's bond hearing for Villegas.
Jesse Hernandez, a witness to the double killing, told FoxNews.com in 2012 he did not believe Villegas was the shooter.

"I believe with all my heart he is innocent," Hernandez said. "I always thought I knew who else might have done it from the beginning. I had never heard of Daniel before."

Hernandez and another witness, Juan Carlos Medina, have both signed affidavits affirming Villegas' confession paints a different version of what happened the night of the shooting.

Villegas' case attracted the support of The Innocence Project, Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, and Proclaim Justice, along with John Mimbela, an El Paso businessman-turned-activist who spent more than $200,000 trying to win freedom for Villegas, according to Proclaim Justice.
Villegas also collected hundreds of other supporters throughout his years in prison who fiercely believed the lack of physical evidence tying Villegas to the crime should have more weight than his confession.

According to Paul Cates, communications director for The Innocence Project, "young people and people with mental disabilities are more susceptible to false confessions."
Mimbela, who dedicated himself to the case for seven years, created a website for Villegas, called QuestforJustice.net. The website says that Villegas, a high school dropout who read and wrote at a third-grade level at the time of his arrest, has had "many sleepless nights worrying and wondering" if he'll ever be free.
Mimbela could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday, but on Monday, he told KFOX 14 in Texas, "Daniel and his family have been waiting for this day for over 18 years. So we are very excited that it's finally going to happen."

Villegas' first trial ended in a mistrial, but his second trial, just three days long, finished with a swift conviction. An appellate court ruled recently that he did not have adequate counsel during the trial.



I notice no complaint is made against the police and prosecutor in this article. Telling a suspect lies and threatening him, or worse, beating him, are things that shouldn't happen just because they are so unethical, but a confession tends to be a short-cut to a conviction on the evidence, and therefore those techniques are still used. As the article says, the mentally disabled and the very young are more prone to giving in to the pressure and making up a story that pleases the authorities. In this case, Villegas was both young and a very poor reader. Thank goodness he has been freed. Of course, the prosecution may be seeking a new trial, so he may not be free for long. I will try to collect the followup article on this when I see it.





Porn studios look for better 2014 after rough year – NBC
Chris Morris Special to CNBC.com

Expect more consolidation in the porn industry in 2014 after a rough 2013.
2013 couldn't have gone much worse for the porn industry.
The DVD business, once the lifeblood of adult film producers, dwindled even further. Legal challenges over mandatory condom laws continued to dog the industry. And porn companies were forced to shut down production three times after four performers tested positive for HIV.

As the industry prepares for the Adult Entertainment Expo, its annual trade show in Las Vegas, the question on everyone's mind is: What does 2014 have in store?
Some insiders are optimistic that the worst is over.

"My general impression is the industry has bottomed out," says Alec Helmy, founder and publisher of industry trade publication Xbiz. "Companies have figured out how to change their business models to sustain profitability. In terms of the number of players, it's at an all-time low, but those who have survived are obviously the stronger breed."

Globally, porn is a $97 billion industry, according to Kassia Wosick, assistant professor of sociology at New Mexico State University. Between $10 billion and $12 billion of that comes from the United States. Revenue from traditional porn films has been shrinking, though, because of piracy and an abundance of free content on the Internet.

"DVD sales are barely alive at this point," says Steven Hirsch, founder of Vivid, one of the industry's largest and best-known studios. "We've seen probably an 80 percent reduction in sales over the past five years — to the point where fairly soon it's not going to make sense to put movies out on DVD. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but we are certainly marching towards that day."

Porn diversifies
Diversification is a fast-growing trend in the industry. Studios who rely solely on DVD sales have generally gone out of business. Some of the survivors have beefed up their video-on-demand offerings to take advantage of the growing online market. Others have branched into physical products, such as sex toys or lubricants.
Few have grown in as many directions as Vivid, though. The studio perhaps best known for its ongoing line of celebrity sex tapes launched a satellite radio channel on Sirius this year, saw its Vivid TV become available in 70 million homes and licensed its name to a series of nightclubs in Charlotte, N.C., Miami, Los Angeles and (later this month) New York City.

While some porn companies may have goodwill, the industry as a whole could use some work. Last year's HIV cases came as adult film producers managed to fight off a state law requiring mandatory condom use in California, but continued their legal battle against a similar ordinance passed last year in Los Angeles County.

Before 2013, it had been three years since the industry saw a positive HIV diagnosis. And while many insiders say the porn industry's internal screening system did what it was supposed to do — catch the diagnosis early and ensure that performers did not infect others — some executives say they're still uneasy.

"When you have three moratoriums in a year and you eat your cache of movies, it has an effect," says Steve Orenstein, president and owner of Wicked Pictures — the only major porn studio that uses condoms in all of its films. "Obviously, there's nothing that has happened in the last year to change our decision to stay with condoms. If anything, it has solidified it."

2013 saw more consolidation in the industry, the most notable of which was the merging of RedTube and Manwin — two of the biggest online operators in the industry. The combined company now controls the majority of the porn 'tube' sites, (think Youtube for porn), which stream live content and XXX clips.

Blaming the tube sites
Many in the industry blame the tube sites for the industry's woes, noting they are often filled with pirated content, which is offered to consumers for free. Tube sites pick up ad revenue from page views, but the producers of the films earn nothing.
Manwin also saw a leadership change — as founder Fabian Thylmann, once considered the most powerful man in porn, sold his shares in the company roughly 10 months after his December 2012 arrest in Belgium on charges of tax evasion. "Both myself and Manwin are at a stage where I can no longer add significant value to the best of my ability," he said in a letter to employees.

Manwin soon changed the company name to Mind Geek.
Insiders say they expect more buyouts to happen this year — and more companies to go under.

"I think there's more to consolidate and we will see that happen in 2014 and moving forward," says Hirsch.
Despite the moratoriums, consolidation and ongoing legal uncertainties, both insiders and outside observers say the porn industry actually weathered a tough year fairly well. Owner Scott Taylor says New Sensations did better in 2013 than it has the previous two years. And Hirsch says Vivid's revenues are strong.

"I don't think the industry is any better than it was a year ago," says Wosick. "But they're not any worse than a year ago either. I think [the events of 2013] may have forced it to be a bit more self-reflective. Studios have had to tackle some issues they've had to avoid the past few years and been forced to take stock with how they exist in this present-day economy — and present-day moral atmosphere. ... I think 2014 might be the year the industry comes together."



I wish the demand for such things would disappear completely, aside from whether or not the actors are spreading AIDS. It's a sign of poor mental health, and seems basically disgusting to me, when people are so fixated on sex that they spend this much time thinking about it and can't satisfactorily entertain themselves any other way. Sex should be a real life activity between two people who care deeply about each other and aim for mutual satisfaction. Wanting a baby is also a basic part of our built in sex drive, but porn would never focus on such a thing, because porn is about the mere physical pleasures of sex.

I have only known one person, a woman, who said that she and her husband used porn films to heighten their sexual interaction. The book 50 Shades Of Grey, which has sold 70 million copies for Random House according to the Christian Science Monitor, shows how popular porn is nowadays, though. The fact that child porn is also very popular makes the situation even worse. People should sit down and read a good mystery for a change, or take a course at the local community college to improve their mind. If you don't want to do that, go walking or play a game of basketball.

As a society, I am afraid we are actually going downhill at a rapid pace. We are embracing low-brow thinking to a dangerous level. A constant focus on sex, I do believe, tends to cause crimes such as rape and child molestation to go up, and causes more spouses to get involved with an outside person to try to reach what is actually an unrealistic fantasy level high. It also makes venereal disease increase in the population, causing misery and even early death in the case of HIV.





Zoo bans monkeys from eating bananas as it's 'equivalent to giving them cake' – NBC

By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor

Monkeys have been banned from eating bananas at a British zoo because those grown for people are too sweet and sugary for them.

“Giving this fruit to animals is equivalent to giving them cake and chocolate,” said Dr. Amy Plowman, the head of conservation and advocacy at Paignton Zoo in southwest England. "People usually try to improve their diet by eating more fruit, but fruit cultivated for humans is much higher in sugar and much lower in protein and fiber than most wild fruit because we like our fruit to be so sweet and juicy."

This high sugar content is bad for the primates' teeth and can lead to conditions like diabetes as well as gastrointestinal problems as their stomachs are mostly adapted to eating fibrous foods with very low digestibility, she said.

The zoo began to wean the simian population off the sugary treats last year, gradually reducing the amounts so they could get accustomed to their new diet that now features lots of vegetables.

However, animals do still get banana if they are unwell and the keepers need to make sure they take medication.
“Putting it in a piece of banana works really well, as it’s such a treat now,” Dr. Plowman added.

Changing the diet has also resulted in behavioral improvements.
“Smaller monkeys such as tamarins and marmosets are highly strung animals and live in tight-knit social groups which can be quite aggressive at times,” senior head Keeper of mammals Matthew Webb said. “Reducing the sugar in their diets has calmed them down and made their groups more settled.”



This sounds like a public health article meant for humans. The animals even get a sugar high and are overly excited as a result. It sounds like human children with ADD. I'm sure it will improve their health, too, as the monkeys even get diabetes apparently. I hope American zoos follow suit and reduce the sugar in primate diets. Maybe that will help to make up for the lack of exercise, especially when animals are in small cages rather than roaming free in a large yard. I love to see the animals, but sometimes I find their captivity depressing. Our zoo in Jacksonville does have fairly large enclosures for the animals, so every year or so I go there. It's a very entertaining way to spend my time.




Teacher who saved students in NM school shooting praised as 'amazing man' – NBC

By Erin McClam and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News

With a sawed-off shotgun pointed straight at him, a New Mexico social studies teacher calmly talked a 12-year-old student into putting down his weapon — and stopped the country’s latest school shooting from being something much worse.
Two students were shot, an 11-year-old boy hit in the face and a 13-year-old girl hit in the shoulder. The teacher, John Masterson, was being praised as a hero for ending the crisis Tuesday before others were shot.

“He is an amazing man,” said Gov. Susana Martinez, who met with the teacher. “He stood there and allowed the gun to be pointed right at him so there would be no more young kids hurt.”

The suspected shooter, whose name has not been released, was in police custody early Wednesday. State police said the boy came to Berrendo Middle School on Tuesday morning with a 20-gauge, sawed-off shotgun hidden in a bag.

Authorities said he opened fire just after 8 a.m. in the gym, where about 500 students had gathered before class.
“I just saw blood everywhere,” Essance Sosa, 12, told The Associated Press. “Everyone started screaming and running.”

The two victims taken to a local hospital, then flown by helicopter to a better-equipped facility in Lubbock, Texas. The boy was taken to surgery twice and was listed in critical coundition. The girl was stable.

The boy’s name was not released. The girl was identified by the governor as Kendal Sanders.

“I am asking that all New Mexicans keep these children in your prayers,” Martinez told reporters.

John Masterson and his wife Lea stand outside their door as they talk to the media Tuesday night. Masterson confronted the shooter at a Roswell, N.M., middle school.
school Tuesday morning.

According to an account given by the governor, Masterson, the teacher, was facing away from the shooter, and the shooter away from him, when the first shot was fired. The teacher thought it was a firecracker, she said.

The teacher wheeled around and saw the young man fire more shots before pointing the gun at Masterson, she said. The teacher talked to him and urged him to put the gun down.

The shooter put the gun down and raised his hands, and the teacher put him up against a wall, the governor said. Just then, an off-duty police officer arrived — he was dropping his own son off at the school — and they contained the student.
The teacher and the off-duty officer, Lt. Gary Smith, drew praise from authorities for their bravery.

“It’s one thing for an armed state police officer to enter a school and do his or her job,” said Pete Kassetas, the state police chief. “It’s another thing for a teacher or staff member to intervene.”

Masterson, the social studies teacher, has taught at Berrendo for 10 years. could not be reached for comment by NBC News. He told The Albuquerque Journal newspaper newspaper that police had asked him not to comment on the shooting.
“It was a harrowing experience,” he said. “All I can saw was the staff there did a great job.”

Investigators searched the boy’s home, but police had yet to release a motive. Kassetas said there was “preliminary information” that some students had been warned by the shooter, but he said police had not substantiated that.

Robert Gorence, a prominent Albuquerque lawyer, said he was representing the suspect, a seventh-grader who he said had been transferred to a psychiatric hospital in Albuquerque after a judge’s order.

Gorence said the boy’s family would issue a statement Wednesday.
Authorities also praised the students in the gym for making a calm, orderly exit. Officials credited previous school-shooting drills there for preparing teachers and students.

It was the second shooting at an American middle school in three months. In Nevada in October, a mathematics teacher was shot to death while trying to shield students from a 12-year-old boy who opened fire.

Two boys were wounded in that attack before the shooter took his own life.
Hundreds packed the Roswell Civic Center for a prayer vigil for students injured in a school shooting in Roswell, N.M., on Tuesday.

In New Mexico on Tuesday night , an crowd of about 1,500 attended a prayer vigil at the Roswell Convention Center, where pastors spoke of healing and urged people to pray for the suspected shooter.

The governor said she had spoken to two students who were in the gym, and when she asked one of them how he was feeling, he told her, “I’m just trying to hold it in.”
“He says, ‘I just don’t want to let it out because then it won’t stop,’” she said. “These are kids that need the help. They need someone to lean on. And make sure that they’re getting this out so it just doesn’t eat them up.”



This teacher ran a grave risk when he tried to talk the boy down. In this case he succeeded, but at the Nevada shooting the teacher was shot. This boy, I noticed, was taken to a psychiatric hospital, so he must have been exhibiting symptoms of mental illness. Sooner or later he will have to face a trial, though. There is no detail about the shooter, whether he had been a discipline problem in the past or not. His lawyer is described as being “prominent,” so he should be getting good legal representation. The teacher will hopefully get a raise in pay for his performance.





India gang rape claim: Police investigate robbery, sex attack on Danish tourist – NBC

By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor

A Danish tourist told police she was gang raped, beaten and robbed after getting lost in the heart of the the Indian capital, New Delhi, officials said Wednesday.
“We are questioning a number of men in relation to the complaint which she filed with us,” Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told NBC News.

The 51-year-old said she was attacked near Connaught Place in New Delhi - in the heart of the tourist district losing her way and asking for directions, he added.
He declined to say how many men were being questioned but Indian newspaper The Hindustan Times reported that six men armed with a knife carried out the attack.
The tourist who was robbed of her cash, iPad and telephone, refused a medical examination and has since left India to return to Denmark, Baghat said. 

Danish ambassador Freddy Svane told Reuters there "is a case of alleged raped concerning a Danish citizen," but gave no further details. 



I wonder why she refused medical examination. She may have been afraid to testify against the attackers, and didn't want to prolong her stay in India, of course. I thought, at first, that India may be one of those foreign places where tourists aren't safe, but I'm sure tourists are assaulted and robbed every day in some US cities, too. The problem may simply have been that the woman got lost and asked the wrong person for help. Tourists would be better off to travel with a companion – it is both safer and more fun.





How much is that halo in the window? Vatican regulating sainthood costs -- NBC
Reuters


Even "poor" saints will benefit from Pope Francis' drive to control costs and introduce a sense of sobriety and accounting transparency in the Vatican. 
The Vatican newspaper says that the Holy See department that oversees the making of saints had introduced a "price list", or a rough guide to the costs of sanctity. 
It will clearly inform dioceses, associations or orders of priests and nuns who promote sainthood causes for deceased people considered to have been holy during their lifetime what they can expect to spend. 

Gathering historical evidence, witnesses and lawyers to prove to the Vatican that a person was a saint can be expensive, a fact that has favored those dioceses or orders of priests and nuns with more money. 

The newspaper said there were plans to establish a fund to help defray expenses for those dioceses or religious orders that did not have much financial backing for the process. The newspaper called these "poor causes". 

The newspaper, which gave few details, said the guide had come into force at the start of the year and that its goal was to instill a sense of "sobriety and fairness" to the process. 

The head of the Vatican department that oversees the making of saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, told a conference on Monday that more would be made public about the costs, and that they would be more uniformly applied than in the past. 

The procedure to make a saint can last anywhere from a few years to a few centuries. 
The late Pope John Paul II will be declared a saint in May, a mere nine years after he died in 2005. His progression to sainthood is the fastest in modern times. 


This is another good reform for the Catholic Church. Who knew that less wealthy groups in the church had comparatively less influence, even on promoting saints? Money and power seem to rule in any group, even those that are supposed to be pure in their activities. Even the church is held back by human flaws. It's good to see that Pope Francis is paying attention to all matters, even small ones.