In the spirit of Whitney: Houston Hologram tour set to begin
February 19, 2020

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2004 file photo, recording artist Whitney Houston performs at the 2004 World Music Awards at the Thomas and Mack Arena in Las Vegas. Houston is about to appear on the concert stage again. Eight years after her death, five years after the show was conceived and a year after production began, a holographic Houston will embark on a European tour starting Feb. 25, with U.S. dates expected to follow. The singer's sister-in-law and former manager Pat Houston says it's the right time for a revival, and says it's a show Whitney Houston would've wanted. The concerts will feature a projected Houston performing most of her biggest hits, including “I Will Always Love You," with real backup dancers and a live band. (AP Photo/Eric Jamison, file)


BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Whitney Houston is about to appear on the concert stage again.

Eight years after her death, a holographic Houston will embark on a European tour that starts in England on Feb. 25 and runs through early April, with U.S. dates expected to follow.

“Now is just the right time,” said Pat Houston, the singer’s sister-in-law, former manager and the executor of her estate, which is producing the show in collaboration with BASE Hologram. “In the spirit of Whitney, I know we’re doing all the right things right now.”

Last week, a few dozen members of the media were given a dress-rehearsal preview in Burbank, California of most of “An Evening With Whitney: The Whitney Houston Hologram Tour,” which features a Houston projected onto a nearly invisible scrim on a stage with real dancers and a live backing band.


The concert set includes most of her biggest hits — “How Will I Know,” “Saving All My Love For You,” “I Will Always Love You,” along with some unexpected rarities, including a cover of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” that Houston first recorded three decades ago.

The show, which was first conceived five years ago, used a body double along with hundreds of hours of Houston performances and extensive CGI synthesizing.

“We created the hologram the same way they did Carrie Fisher in the ‘Star Wars’ movie ‘Rogue One,’” said Marty Tudor, CEO of BASE Hologram, which has previously revived performing versions of dead singers including Roy Orbison and Maria Callas. “It’s lengthy, it’s tedious, it’s a big, complicated process, but I think it worked.”

The ambitious performance is the modest brainchild of Whitney Houston herself, in at least one respect.

While on her final European tour, she had an “unplugged” section of her show, with a stripped down band and minimal fanfare. Houston liked that so much that shortly before her death at age 48 on the eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards, she expressed a desire to one day do an entire tour that way.

That concept became the model for the hologram concert.

“This is something that she wanted to do,” Pat Houston said after the media preview of the show. “I get very emotional watching this, because it is so, so close to what she wanted. The only thing missing is her, physically.”

On first appearance it’s clear how far holographic technology has come since previous iterations like Tupac’s holographic stint with Snoop Dogg at Coachella in 2012, with little of the flickering unreality audiences expect. Houston’s appearance in a gold gown looks magically realistic.


The limits are more apparent as the concert goes on, with the projection beam visible and Houston’s movements minimal, but those shortcomings are unlikely to bother the hardcore fans the tour is likely to draw.

Houston was never one for elaborate choreography or flashy moves anyway, and her small gestures — a quivering jaw on long-held notes, fluttering fingers for vocal flourishes, are all captured here.

“Whitney didn’t dance a lot, but when she did do her little moves, they were so perfectly Whitney,” said Fatima Robinson, who choreographed the show. “We did lots of studying her behavior in her videos. We would study her movements, and find the best moments in some of the live videos that just really embody her.”

The show still features plenty of dancing, via four backup dancers and two moving backup singers, all of whom occasionally interact with the hologram.

But Houston mostly preferred to let her voice do the work, and that part of the show works seamlessly, through a blend of studio takes and live performances. Close listeners may think they’re hearing the album version of a hit before it swerves into seemingly spontaneous moments that give it a live feeling.

The sound crew also found moments of between-song patter from Houston that were eternal enough to use for the new show.

“May God bless you and keep you, and let us pray for peace, and pray for the answer,” she says toward the end of the set.

The production may be most effective when it embraces its holographic possibilities — including having Houston swarmed in a shimmering shower of golden sparks during the climactic performance of “I Will Always Love You.”

Dressing the Houston hologram provided its own set of problems and possibilities.

“The first thing is, you can’t do black,” Timothy Snell, who oversaw the wardrobe for the show, said with a mock gasp. “And black and sparkles are your first go-to. But Whitney also loved color.”

Along with the gold gown, her outfits include a shimmering orange jumpsuit and a floor-length pink flowered coat.

“She liked to look sophisticated and timeless,” Snell said. “And those timeless looks really show up here.”

RIP
Larry Tesler, the father of cut-copy-paste, has died at 74
HAIL HAIL HAIL TO THE GREAT ONE 
I USE CCP ALL THE TIME COULD NOT CODE WITHOUT IT 
IN HIS HONOUR I CUT AND PASTED THIS ARTICLE

by RACHEL KASER — 12 hours ago in APPLE

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

You might not know Larry Tesler’s name, but I can guarantee you used something he created. This former Apple computer scientist, the inventor of some of the world’s most common user interface tools — including the copy-paste — died this week at the age of 74, according to a report from AppleInsider and an obituary from Xerox.

The inventor of cut/copy & paste, find & replace, and more was former Xerox researcher Larry Tesler. Your workday is easier thanks to his revolutionary ideas. Larry passed away Monday, so please join us in celebrating him. Photo credit: Yahoo CC-By-2.0 https://t.co/MXijSIMgoA pic.twitter.com/kXfLFuOlon

— Xerox (@Xerox) February 19, 2020

In 1973, Tesler joined the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he worked with Tim Mott to create the Gypsy text editor. It was within Gypsy that he created the modeless method for copying and moving parts of text, which we now know as cutting, copying, pasting. You can still view his modest-looking CV on his website here, in which he talks about the work he did while at the company. He describes his invention of the copy-paste thus:

Conceived, implemented and usability-tested GUI (graphical user interface) and IDE (integrated development environment) capabilities that have become standards in the industry, including the ability to:… insert or overwrite text without entering a mode by simply clicking or dragging and then typing… move or copy text without entering a mode using cut/copy and paste… type or paste find & replace text into a form that can be edited before and after searching…

Again, it sounds almost casual, as if this isn’t something all of us have used every day of our lives on a computer. I’ve used copy-pasting several times just while writing this very article. He also says on his website: “I have been mistakenly identified as ‘the father of the graphical user interface for the Macintosh’. I was not. However, a paternity test might expose me as one of its many grandparents.” Even if that were the extent of Tesler’s involvement in computer science, we’d still owe him a debt of gratitude, but it’s not.

Tesler was the person who was assigned to show Steve Jobs around PARC in 1979, a presentation which included Xerox’s Alto computer and its user interface. According to CNET, Jobs called the work “a goldmine,” and later persuaded Tesler to join Apple. Tesler worked there for almost 20 years, being promoted to the position of Chief Scientist in 1993. He worked on various projects, including Lisa, Newton, and Macintosh. He’s also credited with convincing Apple to invest in Advanced RISC Machines (ARM). Modern iPhones still benefit from this investment, as iOS devices run on ARM-based processors.

After he left in 1997, he worked at Amazon, Yahoo, and 23andMe. According to his most recent CV entry, he was doing private consulting work in “user experience management/research/design/programming for desktop/web/mobile/TV/print” in California.

We’ve reached out to Apple for comment.


Computer scientist who pioneered ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ has died yesterday

1 of 2
In this 1970s photo provided by Xerox PARC, Larry Tesler uses the Xerox Parc Alto early personal computer system. Tesler, the Silicon Valley pioneer who created the now-ubiquitous computer concepts such as “cut,” “copy” and “paste,” has died. He was 74. (Xerox PARC via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Larry Tesler, the Silicon Valley pioneer who created the now-ubiquitous computer concepts such as “cut,” “copy” and “paste,” has died. He was 74.

He made using computers easier for generations as a proponent and pioneer of what he called “modeless editing.” That meant a user wouldn’t have to use a keyboard to switch between modes to write and edit, for example.

“The inventor of cut/copy & paste, find & replace, and more was former Xerox researcher Larry Tesler. Your workday is easier thanks to his revolutionary ideas,” Xerox said in a tweet Wednesday.

Tesler was born in New York and attended Stanford University, where he received a degree in mathematics in 1965.

In 1973, he joined Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, a division of the copier company that worked on creating computer products. There, he pioneered concepts that helped make computers more user-friendly. That included such concepts as moving text through cut and paste and inserting text by clicking on a section and just typing.

He continued that work when he joined Apple in 1980. At Apple, he worked on a variety of products including the Lisa computer, the Newton personal digital assistant and the Macintosh.

After leaving Apple in 1997 he co-founded an education software company and held executive positions at Amazon, Yahoo and the genetics-testing service 23andMe before turning to independent consulting.

In 2012, Tesler told the BBC that he enjoyed working with younger people.

“There’s a very strong element of excitement, of being able to share what you’ve learned with the next generation,” he said.

Florida ‘red flag’ gun law used 3,500 times since Parkland

1 of 5
FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018, file photo, students hold their hands in the air as they are evacuated by police from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., after a shooter opened fire on the campus. A Florida law that allows judges to bar anyone deemed dangerous from possessing firearms has been used 3,500 times since its enactment after the 2018 high school massacre. An Associated Press analysis shows the law is being used unevenly around the state. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, File)


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A 23-year-old man who posted on Facebook, “I don’t know why I don’t go on a killing spree.” A West Palm Beach couple who shot up their home while high on cocaine. A 31-year-old Gulf Coast man who pointed a semiautomatic rifle at a motorcyclist.

All four Florida residents had their guns taken away by judges under a “red flag” law the state passed three weeks after authorities say a mentally disturbed man killed 17 people in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland two years ago Friday.

The law, supported by legislators of both parties , has been applied more than 3,500 times since, with the pace accelerating during the last half of 2019. Even so, an Associated Press analysis of the law showed its use is inconsistent, with some counties and cities using it rarely and others not at all.

Advocates of Florida’s red flag measure say before it existed, it was often difficult to remove firearms from those making threats or suffering severe mental breakdowns. Investigators did not act on reports that the Parkland shooter was threatening to carry out a school massacre. But even if they had, it is likely he would have been allowed to keep his guns because he had no felony convictions or involuntary, long-term mental commitments, they say.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who leads a commission that investigated the massacre’s causes, says the shooter would have easily qualified for a red flag order. Gualtieri says while it is impossible to say that would have prevented the shooting, the gunman wouldn’t have been able to legally buy weapons or ammunition, making his preparation difficult.

“We have needed this law for decades,” said Gualtieri, who started a unit in his department that handles only red flag cases.

But the law also has vocal critics: those who say it violates the U.S. and state constitutions, including the right to bear arms, and others who argue that laws already on the books in Florida made it unnecessary. Still others say it discriminates against the poor: Because the hearing with a judge is not a criminal proceeding, low-income defendants aren’t provided with a free lawyer.

Sixteen other states plus the District of Columbia have similar laws, 11 of which were enacted after the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Stoneman Douglas. President Donald Trump has at times supported a federal proposal, but has not strongly advocated it before Congress.

To get an order in Florida, police agencies must file a request with a civil court, citing serious mental illness or threats a person has made. If the judge agrees, the person must surrender their firearms to police. Within two weeks, a hearing is held during which the judge decides whether to take the person’s weapons away for a year. Police agencies can apply for an extension if there is evidence a person remains a threat after a year. If not, the guns are returned.

Orlando attorney Kendra Parris, who is trying to get a case before the state Supreme Court to overturn the law, says it doesn’t adequately define some terms, such as what constitutes serious mental health issues. And in any case, she says, other Florida statutes, such as misdemeanor breach of the peace, already allow police to take firearms from the truly dangerous before they act. That statute could easily have been invoked against the Stoneman Douglas shooter, she said.

“Probably two dozen times this guy could have been charged for breach of the peace and had his firearms removed,” Parris said.

The AP analysis shows that from March 2018, when the law was enacted, through December 2019, there was a wide disparity in its per capita usage in Florida’s 67 counties. Twenty issued at least one for every 5,500 residents during that time period, the statewide average. Three issued at least one for every 2,000 residents, including Gualtieri’s Pinellas County, which includes the Tampa Bay area, and has nearly 1 million people. Highlands County, near Lake Okeechobee, ranked No. 1, issuing one for every 850 residents.

On the other extreme, 12 counties issued one for every 30,000 residents or less. Two neighboring Panhandle counties — Escambia and Santa Rosa — issued one for every 100,000 residents or more. Another nine small, rural counties issued none.

Highlands County Sheriff Paul Blackman said he doesn’t know why his county is No. 1, but he noted that his deputies average two calls daily for mental health crises. The county has just over 100,000 residents and was the scene of a bank shooting last year that left five women dead.

“If someone has made a threat to hurt themselves or others and is intent on using a firearm, we will try to get a risk protection order against them so we can take away those guns,” Blackman said. But even the law isn’t a guarantee: Two Highlands men who received orders still killed themselves, one with carbon monoxide and the other with an illegally obtained gun, he said.

The sheriffs whose counties had no or few red flag orders during the reviewed period said in an AP questionnaire that they are not philosophically opposed to the law — they just haven’t needed it.

Santa Rosa Sheriff Bob Johnson said it was a “fluke” that his county of 155,000 had only issued one order. Baker County Maj. Randy Crews explained that the lack of red flag orders from his county on the Georgia border west of Jacksonville has to do with the fact that his deputies know most of the 27,000 residents and can intercede quickly if someone is having a breakdown and making threats.

Crews said most potential red flag cases are asked to surrender their guns to a relative, who is told to not return them until the person finishes mental health treatment. He said that approach works better than confrontation and has never backfired. He said the office would not hesitate to use the law, however, if someone didn’t cooperate.

UK patient plays violin during unusual brain surgery
February 19, 2020

LONDON (AP) — Surgeons at King’s College Hospital in London removed a brain tumor from a woman who played the violin during the procedure.

Doctors for violinist Dagmar Turner, 53, mapped her brain before the surgery to identify areas that were active when she played the instrument and those responsible for controlling language and movement.

Doctors then woke her in mid-procedure so she could play to “ensure the surgeons did not damage any crucial areas of the brain that controlled Dagmar’s delicate hand movements,″ the hospital said in a statement.

“We knew how important the violin is to Dagmar, so it was vital that we preserved function in the delicate areas of her brain that allowed her to play,″ said Prof. Keyoumars Ashkan, her neurosurgeon. “We managed to remove over 90% of the tumor, including all the areas suspicious of aggressive activity, while retaining full function in her left hand.”

Turner, who plays in Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra and various choral societies, left the hospital three days later and hopes to return to her orchestra soon. She was full of praise for the efforts of Ashkan, a fellow music lover.

“The thought of losing my ability to play was heart-breaking but, being a musician himself, Prof. Ashkan understood my concerns,″ she said. “He and the team at King’s went out of their way to plan the operation – from mapping my brain to planning the position I needed to be in to play.″

"The Music of Erich Zann" by H. P. Lovecraft

He told me it was an old German viol-player, a strange dumb man 

who signed his name as Erich Zann, and who played evenings in a cheap theatre orchestra

The Music of Erich Zann (1980) - IMDb

https://www.imdb.com › title

 Rating: 6.5/10 - ‎171 votes

17min | Short, Horror, Music | October 1980 (USA) This story revolves around a student of metaphysics, Charles Dexter Ward who befriends Erich Zann an aging violinist who lives on the floor above him. ... H.P. Lovecraft (short story), John Strysik (screenplay)

The Road Between Worlds: “The Music of Erich Zann” | Tor.com

https://www.tor.com › 2014/09/10 › the-road-between-worlds-the-music-o...

Sep 10, 2014 - Today we're looking at “The Music of Erich Zann,” written in December ... He hears music from the garret above: a viol playing wild, strange ...

The Music of Erich Zann | The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki | Fandom

https://lovecraft.fandom.com › wiki › The_Music_of_Erich_Zann

"The Music of Erich Zann" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. ... In a strange part of the city he had never seen before, on a street named "Rue ...

The Music of Erich Zann – Atlanta Radio Theatre Company

https://artc.org › Lovecraft

Jan 14, 2016 - [esplayer url = “http://traffic.libsyn.com/artc/ARTC161-ErichZann.mp3” width ... get back to the audio drama with The Music of Erich Zann by H. P. Lovecraft, ... His writing focuses on the strange, the macabre, and the insane.

Trump delivers on pledge for wealthy California farmers

DON'T CALL THEM FARMERS CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE

AGRIBUSINESS CORPORATIONS
President Donald Trump walks over to talk to the media before he boards Air Force One for a trip to Los Angeles to attend a campaign fundraiser, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Hoisting the spoils of victories in California’s hard-fought water wars, President Donald Trump is directing more of the state’s precious water to wealthy farmers and other agriculture interests when he visits their Republican Central Valley stronghold Wednesday.

Changes by the Trump administration are altering how federal authorities decide who gets water, and how much, in California, the U.S. state with the biggest population and economy and most lucrative farm output. Climate change promises to only worsen the state’s droughts and water shortages, raising the stakes.


Campaigning in the Central Valley farm hub of Fresno in 2016, Trump pledged then he’d be “opening up the water” for farmers. Candidate Trump denounced “insane” environmental rules meant to ensure that enough fresh water stayed in rivers and the San Francisco Bay to sustain more than a dozen endangered fish and other native species, which are struggling as agriculture and development diverts more water and land from wildlife.

Visiting Bakersfield in the Central Valley on Wednesday, Trump is expected to ceremoniously sign his administration’s reworking of those environmental rules. Environmental advocates and the state say the changes will allow federal authorities to pump more water from California’s wetter north southward to its biggest cities and farms.

The Trump administration, Republican lawmakers, and farm and water agencies say the changes will allow for more flexibility in water deliveries. In California’s heavily engineered water system, giant state and federal water projects made up of hundreds of miles of pipes, canals, pumps and dams, carry runoff from rain and Sierra Nevada snow melt from north to south — and serve as field of battle for lawsuits and regional political fights over competing demands for water.

Environmental groups say the changes will speed the disappearance of endangered winter-run salmon and other native fish, and make life tougher for whales and other creatures in the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean.

After an initial study by federal scientists found the rule changes would harm salmon and whales, the Trump administration ordered a new round of review, California news organizations reported last year.

The overall effort “ensured the highest quality” of evaluation of the rule changes, Paul Souza, Pacific Southwest director for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which is under the Interior Department, said in a statement Tuesday.


“We strongly disagree that the proposal will reduce protections for endangered species,” Souza said.

Beyond operational changes in the federal Central Valley Project water system, the administration’s changes allow for more habitat restoration, upgrades in fish hatcheries and the water system itself, monitoring of species and other improvements, Souza said.

Careers of California politicians can rise and fall on water issues. It’s often rancorous, as when Republican Rep. Devin Nunes in 2017 celebrated passage of a House resolution weakening environmental protections by tweeting a photo of cupcakes decorated with Delta smelt, a Northern California fish nearing extinction.

Trump mocked environmental limits on water deliveries in California in his 2016 campaign visit, saying they were all about “a certain kind of 3-inch fish,” the smelt.

Conservation groups have promised new rounds of water lawsuits to try to block the redone environmental rules.

“The species really are in much worse shape” than in earlier years, Doug Obegi with the Natural Resources Defense Council said. “We are at the point where we may watch them wink out ... potentially in the next few years.”

Another big change alarming conservation groups and some water agencies outside of Southern California is the pending award of a permanent federal contract from the Bureau of Reclamation to Westlands Water District, a Central Valley-based water agency that is the nation’s largest irrigation water district.

The Bureau of Reclamation is under the Interior Department, led by Secretary David Bernhardt, who was a lobbyist of Westlands Water District in Washington through 2016. Trump nominated Bernhardt to join the Interior Department, initially as deputy secretary, the next year.

The then-Republican-led Congress in 2016 approved legislation allowing California water agencies to pay to make their federal water contracts permanent. Westlands has jumped toward the front of the line, closing its public comment period last month.

Interior officials said Westlands still owes around $200 million from the initial cost of nearly a half-billion dollars.

Conservation groups and some Northern California water agencies fear Westlands’ permanent contract — and political power — will help it claim a bigger share of water when drought and over-demand reduce supplies, said Patricia Schifferle, an California water-law expert and activist.

In December, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said it planned to sue the Trump administration over their proposed new rules, saying they do not do enough to protect endangered species.

That lawsuit still has not been filed. Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, said state officials are still negotiating with the Trump administration about whether they would change the proposed rules to address the state’s environmental concerns.

“From our perspective, if we can resolve our concerns and ensure adequate protection of these endangered species, then we think it would be important to do so and we could avoid probably years of litigation,” Crowfoot said.

—-

Beam contributed from Sacramento.

Judge nixes claim that Bronx Zoo elephant is ‘imprisoned’

1 of 2
FILE - In this Oct. 2, 2018 file photo, Bronx Zoo elephant "Happy" feeds inside the zoo's Asia habitat in New York. On Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, animal rights advocates have lost a bid seeking to get Happy declared to have human-like rights and transferred to a sanctuary, though a judge said the case for sending the pachyderm to a sanctuary was "extremely persuasive." Judge Allison Tuitt dismissed the Nonhuman Rights Project's petition arguing that Happy the elephant is "unlawfully imprisoned" at the zoo where she has lived since 1977. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)




NEW YORK (AP) — Animal rights advocates have lost a bid to get a Bronx Zoo elephant declared to have human-like rights and transferred to a sanctuary, though a judge said the case for sending the pachyderm to a sanctuary was “extremely persuasive.”

Bronx Judge Alison Tuitt on Tuesday dismissed the Nonhuman Rights Project’s petition arguing that Happy the elephant is “unlawfully imprisoned” at the zoo where she has lived since 1977. She has been kept separate from other elephants for more than a decade.

New York courts have previously said animals aren’t legally considered “persons,” and Tuitt said those rulings applied to Happy, too. But the judge said she was “extremely sympathetic to Happy’s plight.”


“This court agrees that Happy is more than just a legal thing, or property. She is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity, and who may be entitled to liberty,” the judge wrote, calling the arguments for transferring Happy from her “lonely” exhibit to a sprawling elephant sanctuary “extremely persuasive.”

Zoo Director Jim Breheny said the ruling keeps Happy in a place providing her with “excellent care.”

“The veterinarians, keepers, and curators at the Bronx Zoo believe it is best for Happy to remain in familiar surroundings with the people she knows, relies on and trusts,” Breheny said in a statement Wednesday.

The Nonhuman Rights Project lamented that the 48-year-old Happy would stay at the zoo but hailed the judge’s comments and vowed to press on.

“Happy’s freedom matters as much to her as ours does to us, and we won’t stop fighting in and out of court until she has it,” Executive Director Kevin Schneider said in a statement.

The group said Happy was in fact living a sad life, isolated from other elephants in a 1-acre (0.40-hectare) exhibit that covers far less territory than she would in the wild, or in a 2,300-acre (931-hectare) sanctuary that has agreed to take her.

Born in the wild in Asia and brought to the U.S. as a 1-year-old, Happy was paired with a female elephant named Grumpy for 25 years. In 2002, Grumpy was fatally injured in a confrontation with two other Bronx Zoo elephants, Maxine and Patty. Happy was then paired with another elephant until its death in 2006.

After that, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo, said it would no longer acquire new elephants.

Happy was kept apart from Maxine and Patty due to concerns they wouldn’t get along. Maxine was euthanized in November, after the zoo said she had neurologic deterioration and generalized muscle weakness that left her unable to eat.


The Nonhuman Rights Project wants Happy to be relocated to a large sanctuary where she could socialize with other elephants and roam more freely.

The zoo’s Breheny says the activists have been spreading misinformation about Happy’s circumstances and exploiting the pachyderm “to further their misguided philosophical agenda and fund-raise for their cause.”

The zoo has said that while Happy doesn’t share a holding area with other elephants, she has “tactile and auditory contact with them” and isn’t languishing.

Breheny said Wednesday that zookeepers “continually assess Happy’s situation and will make decisions based on what is best for her as an individual.”


FILE - In this Oct. 2, 2018 file photo, Bronx Zoo elephant "Happy" strolls inside the zoo's Asia Habitat in New York. On Tueday, Feb. 18, 2020, Bronx Judge Allison Tuitt dismissed the Nonhuman Rights Project's petition to have the elephant declared to have human-like rights and transferred to a sanctuary. They argued at that Happy is "unlawfully imprisoned" at the zoo where she has lived since 1977. She has been kept separate from other elephants for more than a decade. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

#MKULTRA

After learning of Whitey Bulger CIA LSD tests, 
juror has regrets

1 of 10
Janet Uhlar sits for a photo at her dining room table with an arrangement of letters and pictures she received through her correspondence with imprisoned Boston organized crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Eastham, Mass. Uhlar was one of 12 jurors who found Bulger guilty in a massive racketeering case, including involvement in 11 murders. But now she says she regrets voting to convict Bulger on the murder charges, because she learned he was an unwitting participant in a secret CIA experiment in which he was dosed with LSD on a regular basis for 15 months. (AP Photo/David Goldman)


EASTHAM, Mass. (AP) — One of the jurors who convicted notorious crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger says she regrets her decision after learning that he was an unwitting participant in a covert CIA experiment with LSD.

Bulger terrorized Boston from the 1970s into the 1990s with a campaign of murder, extortion, and drug trafficking, then spent 16 years on the lam after he was tipped to his pending arrest.

In 2013, Janet Uhlar was one of 12 jurors who found Bulger guilty in a massive racketeering case, including involvement in 11 murders, even after hearing evidence that the mobster was helped by corrupt agents in the Boston office of the FBI.

But now Uhlar says she regrets voting to convict Bulger on any of the murder charges.

Her regret stems from a cache of more than 70 letters Bulger wrote to her from prison. In some, he describes his unwitting participation in a secret CIA experiment with LSD. In a desperate search for a mind control drug in the late 1950s, the agency dosed Bulger with the powerful hallucinogen more than 50 times when he was serving his first stretch in prison — something his lawyers never brought up in his federal trial.

“Had I known, I would have absolutely held off on the murder charges,” Uhlar told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “He didn’t murder prior to the LSD. His brain may have been altered, so how could you say he was really guilty?” At the same time, Uhlar says she would have voted to convict Bulger on the long list of other criminal counts, meaning he still would likely have died in prison.

Uhlar has spoken publicly about her regret before but says her belief that the gangster was wrongly convicted on the murder charges was reinforced after reading a new book by Brown University professor Stephen Kinzer: “Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control.” The book digs into the dark tale of the CIA’s former chief chemist and his attempts to develop mind control techniques by giving LSD and other drugs to unsuspecting individuals, including colleagues, and observing the effects.
“It was encouraging to know I wasn’t losing my mind, thinking this was important,” Uhlar said. “It told me, this is huge. I mean, how many lives were affected by this? We have no idea.”

Gottlieb’s secret program, known as MK-ULTRA, enlisted doctors and other subcontractors to administer LSD in large doses to prisoners, addicts and others unlikely to complain. In Bulger’s case, the mobster and fellow inmates were offered reduced time for their participation and told they would be taking part in medical research into a cure for schizophrenia.

“Appealed to our sense of doing something worthwhile for society,” Bulger wrote in a letter to Uhlar reviewed by the AP.


Letters addressed to Janet Uhlar that she received through her correspondence with imprisoned Boston organized crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, sit on her dining room table, Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Eastham, Mass. Before he died, though, Bulger engaged in extensive correspondence with Uhlar, writing her more than 70 letters, including several that detailed his unwitting role in the MK-ULTRA experiments. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

But nothing could have been further from the truth.

“The CIA mind control program known as MK-ULTRA involved the most extreme experiments on human beings ever conducted by any agency of the U.S. government,” Kinzer said. “During its peak in the 1950s, that program and it’s director, Sidney Gottlieb, left behind a trail of broken bodies and shattered minds across three continents.”

After Bulger was found guilty by Uhlar and the other jurors, a federal judge sentenced him to two life terms plus five years. But his life behind bars ended a little more than a year ago, at age 89, when he was beaten to death by fellow inmates shortly after arriving in his wheelchair at the Hazelton federal prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. No criminal charges have been filed.

Although much had been written about the CIA’s mind control experiments before Bulger’s trial, Uhlar said she knew nothing about them until she began corresponding with the renowned gangster following his conviction.

Uhlar started writing Bulger, she said, because she was troubled by the fact that much of the evidence against him came through testimony by former criminal associates who were also killers and had received reduced sentences in exchange for testifying against their former partner in crime.

“When I left the trial, I had more questions,” she said.

After Bulger started returning her letters, Uhlar noticed he often dated them with the time he had started writing in his tight cursive style. “He always seemed to be writing at one, two, or three in the morning and when I asked him why, he said it was because of the hallucinations,” Uhlar said.

When Uhlar asked him to explain, Bulger revealed what he had already told many others: that since taking part in the LSD experiments at a federal prison in Atlanta, he’d been plagued by nightmares and gruesome hallucinations and was unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

“Sleep was full of violent nightmares and wake up every hour or so — still that way — since ’57,” he wrote.

“On the Rock at times felt sure going insane,” he wrote in another letter, referring to the infamous former prison on Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, where he was transferred from Atlanta. “Auditory & visual hallucinations and violent nightmares — still have them — always slept with lights on helps when I wake up about every hour from nightmares.”

The mobster also recalled the supervising physician, the late Carl Pfeiffer of Emory University, and the technicians who would monitor his response to the LSD, asking him questions such as, “Would you ever kill anyone? Etc., etc.”

That question struck a nerve with Uhlar. After hearing from Bulger about MK-ULTRA, “as if I should have known about it,” she visited him at a Florida federal prison on three occasions to discuss the experiments and started reading everything she could find about them.

At one point, she reviewed the 1977 hearings by the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence, which was looking into MK-ULTRA following the first public disclosures of the top-secret program.

The hearings included testimony from CIA director Stansfield Turner, who acknowledged evidence showing that the agency had been searching for a drug that could prepare someone for “debilitating an individual or even killing another person.”

“That’s just horrifying, in my opinion,” Uhlar said. “It opens up the question of whether he was responsible for the murders he committed.”

According to at least two of the several books written about Bulger and his life of crime, associates including corrupt former FBI agent John Morris said they assumed Bulger would use the LSD experiments to mount an insanity defense, if he were ever caught and tried.

But in 2013 Bulger’s Boston attorneys, J.W. Carney Jr. and Hank Brennan, unveiled a novel defense in which they admitted Bulger was a criminal who made “millions and millions of dollars” from his gangland enterprise, but was enabled by corrupt law enforcement officers, especially those in Boston office of the FBI.

Neither Carney nor Brennan would comment on their decision — attorney client privilege outlasts a client’s death. But Anthony Cardinale, a Boston attorney who has represented numerous organized crime defendants, said he would have opted for an insanity defense, in part because of the abundant evidence against Bulger.

“I would have had him come into court like Harvey Weinstein, all disheveled, and in a wheelchair,” he said.

Still, Cardinale acknowledged there would have been challenges to presenting an insanity defense, including the fact that Bulger spent 16 years outwitting several law enforcement agencies, before he was captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., where he’d been living quietly with his longtime girlfriend while on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

“The problem is, he lived for a very long time on the lam in a very secretive and a very smart way,” Cardinale said. “But that doesn’t diminish the notion that, based on the LSD experiments, and the doses he was experiencing, he could have convinced himself of things that were not true, including that he had immunity from prosecution and could do whatever he wanted.”

To his dying day, Bulger insisted he’d received criminal immunity from a deceased federal prosecutor who once headed the New England Organized Crime Strike Force.

John Bradley, a former Massachusetts federal prosecutor and assistant district attorney, agreed that defense lawyers would have faced high hurdles waging an insanity defense, noting that most end in convictions.

“The flip side is that jurors are sometimes swayed by morality more than legality,” he said. “The whole shtick that the government played a role in creating this monster, uses him as an informant and then goes after him — that’s an argument that could affect one or two jurors.”

And it only takes one to vote not guilty on all the criminal charges to produce a hung jury, Bradley noted, forcing prosecutors to decide whether to retry a case.

Given Bulger’s decades as a crime boss who corrupted the Boston office of the FBI, paying cash and doing favors in exchange for information that helped him thwart multiple investigations, a retrial would have been a near certainty. Nevertheless, Cardinale said, a hung jury in the Bulger case “would have been a monster victory” for the defense.

Even if Bulger were convicted on the other criminal charges and received a sentence that would have kept him behind bars for life, a refusal to find him guilty on the murder charges would have meant anguish for family members of his victims.

“As in any case involving a tragic murder, a conviction of the perpetrator helps family member obtain closure and move on with their lives,” said Paul V. Kelly, a former federal prosecutor who has represented the family of one of Bulger’s murder victims. “An acquittal of Whitey Bulger on the murder charges would have just caused additional pain and anguish.”

Uhlar has written about the Bulger trial in “The Truth be Damned,” a fictionalized account she published in 2018 and advertises on her website. She also gives occasional talks on the trial at community centers and libraries.

During her correspondence and visits with Bulger, Uhlar said, she grew fond of the gangster, though he often warned her that he was a criminal and “master manipulator.” When asked if Bulger might have manipulated her, she said, “I’ve asked myself that many times. I’ll finish reading a letter and say, ‘Could he have?’ “

Bulger often wrote to Uhlar as if she were a friend, even joking with her. But in one letter he also enclosed a more menacing message inscribed to her on the back of a photo taken of him on “the Rock,” at a time when he was fending off LSD-induced nightmares while contemplating his return to Boston’s violent criminal underworld.

“At end of Alcatraz, getting more serious and capable of about anything,” he wrote. “Hard time makes hard people.”

___

AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

Follow Associated Press investigative reporter Michael Rezendes at https://twitter.com/mikerezendes

Amid protests, Portugal lawmakers vote to allow euthanasia

1 of 5
Demonstrators protest outside the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. Protesters gathered Thursday outside Portugal's where lawmakers were due to debate proposals that would allow euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Groups which oppose the procedures waved banners and chanted "Sim a vida!" ("Yes to life!") in bright sunshine outside the parliament building in Lisbon. One banner said, "Euthanasia doesn't end suffering, it ends life." (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s parliament voted Thursday in favor of allowing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill people.

The landmark vote left Portugal poised to become one of the few countries in the world permitting the procedures. However, the country’s president could still attempt to block the legislation.

The 230-seat Republican Assembly, Portugal’s parliament, approved five right-to-die bills, each by a comfortable margin. Left-of-center parties introduced the bills, which had no substantial differences.

Before lawmakers voted, hundreds of people outside parliament building protested the measures. One banner said, “Euthanasia doesn’t end suffering, it ends life.” Some protesters chanted “Sim a vida!” (“Yes to life!”) and others held up crucifixes and religious effigies.


Demonstrators, some of them holding statues of saints, protest outside the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. Protesters gathered Thursday outside Portugal's where lawmakers were due to debate proposals that would allow euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Groups which oppose the procedures waved banners and chanted "Sim a vida!" ("Yes to life!") in bright sunshine outside the parliament building in Lisbon. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)


Inside the parliament building, underlining the historical weight of the moment, each lawmaker was called, in alphabetical order, to state their vote on each bill, instead of voting electronically. Such a lengthy method is usually used only for landmark votes, such as a declaration of war or impeachment.

After the five bills passed, some lawmakers took photographs with their smartphone of the electronic screen on the wall announcing the results. The bills were approved by margins of between 28 and 41 votes.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who is known to be reluctant about euthanasia, could veto the new law, but parliament can override his veto by voting a second time for approval. The Portuguese president doesn’t have executive powers.

The head of state also could ask the Constitutional Court to review the legislation; Portugal’s Constitution states that human life is “sacrosanct,” though abortion has been legal in the country since 2007.

Euthanasia — when a doctor directly administers fatal drugs to a patient — is legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In some U.S. states, medically-assisted suicide — where patients administer the lethal drug themselves, under medical supervision — is permitted.

Ana Figueiredo, a math teacher, became a supporter of euthanasia after her 70-year-old father with terminal cancer killed himself with a gun almost six years ago.

“He was conscious, in deep pain and ... he went on begging his doctors to take his pain away because he was in such a terminal state,” Figueiredo said. “It was very sad to see him begging for a dignified death without pain.”


The Catholic church in Portugal has led opposition to the procedures, which currently are illegal and carry prison sentences of up to three years. Church leaders have urged lawmakers in vain to hold a referendum on the issue.

In a similar debate two years ago, lawmakers rejected euthanasia by five votes.

Most parties allowed their lawmakers to vote their conscience, with some diverging from their party line.

Socialist lawmaker Isabel Moreira said the aim of the bills was to let people “make intimate choices, without breaking the law.”

In recent years, the Socialist Party has also led successful efforts to permit same-sex marriages and abortion in Portugal.

“Everyone can be the architect of their own destiny, as long they don’t harm others,” Moreira said during the debate.

Telmo Correia, a lawmaker from the conservative Popular Party, described euthanasia as “a sinister step backward for civilization.” He said none of the parties presenting the legalization proposals mentioned euthanasia in their platforms for October’s general election.

The governing Socialist Party’s bill, similar to the others, covers patients over 18 years of age who are “in a situation of extreme suffering, with an untreatable injury or a fatal and incurable disease.”

Two doctors, at least one of them a specialist in the relevant illness, and a psychiatrist would need to sign off on the patient’s request to die. The case would then go to a Verification and Evaluation Committee, which could approve or turn down the procedure.

The process is postponed if it is legally challenged, or if the patient loses consciousness, and health practitioners can refuse to perform the procedure on moral grounds. Oversight is provided by the General-Inspectorate for Health.

To discourage people from traveling to Portugal to end their life, the bills all stipulate that patients must either be Portuguese citizens or legal residents.

The Socialist-led coalition government in Portugal’s neighbor Spain has also set in motion the legislative steps needed to allow euthanasia.

___

AP reporter Helena Alves contributed from Lisbon.

New Mexico’s sued Google over allegations it is illegally collecting personal data generated by children 

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general sued Google Thursday over allegations the tech company is illegally collecting personal data generated by children in violation of federal and state laws.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque claims Google is using its education services package that is marketed to school districts, teachers and parents as a way to spy on children and their families.

Attorney General Hector Balderas said that while the company touts Google Education as a valuable tool for resource-deprived schools, it is a means to monitor children while they browse the internet in the classroom and at home on private networks. He said the information being mined includes everything from physical locations to websites visited, videos watched, saved passwords and contact lists.

The state is seeking unspecified civil penalties.

“Student safety should be the number one priority of any company providing services to our children, particularly in schools,” Balderas said in a statement. “Tracking student data without parental consent is not only illegal, it is dangerous.”

Google dismissed the claims as “factually wrong,” saying the G Suite for Education package allows schools to control account access and requires that schools obtain parental consent when necessary.

“We do not use personal information from users in primary and secondary schools to target ads,” said company spokesman Jose Castaneda. “School districts can decide how best to use Google for education in their classrooms and we are committed to partnering with them.”

UnlikeEurope, the U.S. has no overarching national law governing data collection and privacy. Instead, it has a patchwork of state and federal laws that protect specific types of data, such as consumer health, financial information and the personal data generated by younger children.

New Mexico’s claim cites violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires websites and online services to obtain parental consent before collecting any information from children under 13. In a separate case, Google already has agreed to pay $170 million combined to the Federal Trade Commission and New York state to settle allegations its YouTube video service collected personal data on children without their parents’ consent.

According to the New Mexico lawsuit, outside its Google Education platform, the company prohibits children in the U.S. under the age of 13 from having their own Google accounts. The state contends Google is attempting to get around this by using its education services to “secretly gain access to troves of information” about New Mexico children.

The attorney general’s office filed a similar lawsuit against Google and other tech companies in 2018, targeting what Balderas described as illegal data collection from child-directed mobile apps. That case still is pending in federal court, but the companies have denied wrongdoing.

The latest lawsuit claims more than 80 million teachers and students use Google’seducation plaform. Balderas said in a letter to New Mexico school officials that there was no immediate harm if they continue using the products and that the lawsuit shouldn’t interrupt activities in the classroom.

THE POPE'S FAVORITE NFL TEAM

NFL Saints backed by church in effort to keep emails secret

1 of 5
FILE - In this Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019 file photo, New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson waves to the crowd before the first half of an NFL football game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints in Atlanta. Benson, who inherited the team following her husband Tom Benson's 2018 death, said the team's senior vice president of communications advised Archbishop Gregory Aymond to be “honest, complete and transparent” about clergy abuse. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An attorney for New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese Thursday strongly defended the New Orleans Saints’ behind-the-scenes help in dealing with the clergy sex abuse crisis, saying the legal effort to release hundreds of confidential emails between them is aimed at trying to shame those “who had the audacity” to back the church.

Claims that the NFL team’s public relations help was improper are “nothing more than a clear attack on the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church for wrongs of the past that the church has acknowledged,” attorney E. Dirk Wegmann argued.

He added that the emails are private and “should not be parsed through simply for the purpose of annoying or embarrassing — or bringing public scrutiny on — individuals who supported the church.”

The impassioned remarks came amid a court hearing on the Saints’ request to keep secret hundreds of emails the team exchanged with the archdiocese in 2018 and 2019. A special master overseeing the proceeding was not expected to rule immediately.

The hearing comes amid claims the Saints joined the church in a “pattern and practice” of concealing sexual abuse — an allegation team officials have vehemently denied.

Attorneys for some two dozen men suing the church say the emails show team officials had a say in deciding which priests the archdiocese named on a 2018 list of dozens of “credibly accused” clergy members. An Associated Press analysis found that roster was undercounted by at least 20 names.


2/5 FILE - In this Oct. 23, 2016, file photo, a New Orleans Saints helmet rests on the playing field before an NFL football game in Kansas City, Mo. An Associated Press review of public tax documents found that the Bensons' foundation has given at least $62 million to the Archdiocese of New Orleans and other Catholic causes over the past dozen years, including gifts to schools, universities, charities and individual parishes. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)



The Saints say their involvement was limited to a team executive preparing church leaders for the publicity surrounding the credibly accused list.

Retired Judge Carolyn Gill-Jefferson heard arguments from attorneys for the archdiocese, the Saints and the AP, which broke news of the emails and filed a motion urging their release.

AP attorney Mary Ellen Roy argued that neither the Saints nor the archdiocese had met their legal burden to demonstrate the emails are confidential. The news organization argued in court papers that any privacy interests “are minimal compared to the public’s concern about the roles the Archdiocese and the Saints played in managing public opinion.”

“They’re trying to have it both ways,” Roy said. “They’re trying to say, ‘Everything we did was fine and dandy, but let us tell you that. Don’t look at them yourselves and make your own determination of that.’”

Gill-Jefferson was appointed “special master” in the dispute by an Orleans Parish Civil District Court judge overseeing a lawsuit against the archdiocese over a longtime deacon accused of abusing schoolchildren decades ago.

The Saints say they have nothing to hide but have asked Gill-Jefferson to apply “the normal rules of civil discovery” in the lawsuit, rather than allowing attorneys for the men suing the church to “selectively disseminate” the emails before trial. The team has said it does not oppose the emails being made public at a later stage of the litigation.

“The Saints motion to maintain confidentiality is not rooted in a desire to conceal information,” Saints attorneys wrote in court filings last week.

Team owner Gayle Benson, a devout Catholic who has donated millions of dollars to church causes, said last week she is proud of the role the team played in assisting the archdiocese, efforts she said were part of a bid to help “heal the community.”


Benson, who inherited the team following her husband Tom Benson’s 2018 death, said the team’s senior vice president of communications advised Archbishop Gregory Aymond to be “honest, complete and transparent” about clergy abuse.

The attorneys for the men suing the church, however, have said the Saints and archdiocese have misled the public about their coordination and the contents of the emails.

They argued in court papers that the public has a right to know “whether this is an untoward relationship designed not only to mitigate the PR fallout from the church sexual abuse crisis but also to spin some of the underlying facts.”

Wegmann, the archdiocese attorney, said the AP’s reporting on the Saints’ involvement ignited a “media storm.”

“It was like you threw a match in a warehouse full of gasoline,” he said.

All the while, Wegmann added, church leaders have been contending with some claims of clergy abuse that “could not ever have happened” based on the assignments of certain priests.

“The fact that an allegation is made does not mean ... that you get a red letter,” he said.



3/5 FILE James C. Gulotta, Jr., attorney for the New Orleans Saints, right, leaves a hearing at Orleans Parish Civil District Court in New Orleans, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. The New Orleans Saints headed to court Thursday in a bid to block the release of hundreds of confidential emails detailing the behind-the-scenes public relations work the team did for the area's Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its sexual abuse crisis. The request comes amid claims that the NFL team joined the Archdiocese of New Orleans in a “pattern and practice” of concealing sexual abuse — an allegation the Saints have vehemently denied. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)


4/5 Edward Dirk Wegmann, attorney for the New Orleans Archdiocese, right, and James C. Gulotta, Jr., attorney for the New Orleans Saints, leave a hearing at Orleans Parish Civil District Court in New Orleans, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. The New Orleans Saints headed to court Thursday in a bid to block the release of hundreds of confidential emails detailing the behind-the-scenes public relations work the team did for the area's Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its sexual abuse crisis. The request comes amid claims that the NFL team joined the Archdiocese of New Orleans in a “pattern and practice” of concealing sexual abuse — an allegation the Saints have vehemently denied. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)