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Sea Shepherd Ships to Patrol Libyan War Zone for Poachers

Posted on: Sunday, 15 May 2011, 00:02 CDT

Effective next month, two Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships will enter the waters off the coast of Libya, an area declared to be in a state of war as NATO-backed rebel forces struggle to topple the despotic dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with the goal of intercepting bluefin tuna poachers and freeing any illegally caught fish in attempt to save the species from nearing extinction.

Friday Harbor, WA (PRWEB) May 13, 2011

Effective next month, two Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships will enter the waters off the coast of Libya, an area declared to be in a state of war as NATO-backed rebel forces struggle to topple the despotic dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with the goal of intercepting bluefin tuna poachers and freeing any illegally caught fish in attempt to save the species from nearing extinction.

The territorial waters off Libya are a declared a no-fly zone by NATO, which means there will be a distinct absence of poaching surveillance in the region. NATO is not interested in illegal fishing operations, and no European Union or International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) inspectors will be allowed into the Libyan zone.

The Greenpeace Foundation is not conducting a bluefin tuna campaign, meaning that the only protection for the highly endangered Bluefin tuna will be at the presence of two Sea Shepherd’s vessels: the flagship Steve Irwin and the soon to be renamed fast interceptor vessel. The only non-military aircraft in this zone will be Sea Shepherd’s helicopter the Nancy Burnet onboard the Steve Irwin.

This will be a dangerous campaign but the bluefin tuna are facing extinction within a few years unless they are effectively protected, and Sea Shepherd will not fail them. Last year, during the first Operation Blue Rage Campaign in 2010, Sea Shepherd crewmembers located and intervened against an illegal poaching operation freeing approximately 800 bluefins.

President of Sea Shepherd France, Lamya Essemlali, attended a meeting with the European Commission Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries on May 6, 2011. As a result, the commission will follow Sea Shepherd’s campaign activities in June; Sea Shepherd will also prepare a complete progress report for the commission at the end of their campaign. Prior to taking action to release any unlawful catches, Sea Shepherd will confer with the commission regarding the potential illegality of the intercepted vessels.

This year, the bluefin will have some respite because nearly half of the French Bluefin tuna fleet will remain in port due to the cancellation of all fishing permits in Libyan waters for all Libyan-owned, French-registered boats. Ten of the tuna ships operating in the Mediterranean port of Sete, some 185 km (115 miles) from the city of Toulouse, will be confined to port because they are owned by Libyan companies with links to Gaddafi.

The conflict led to a delay in Libya submitting its 2011 Atlantic Bluefin tuna fishing quota to the Madrid-based ICCAT, which determined quotas late last year and awarded permits in mid April; Libya’s quota was canceled. “Because of the war in Libya, around a hundred fishermen from Sete will not go out to sea this year,” said Raphael Scannapieco, owner of five tuna ships, three of which are registered in Libya.

The Libyan quota was to be set at 902 tons out of a total of 12,900 tons for all nations for the 2011 season starting on May 15. However, no fishing will be allowed at all in Libyan waters this year, making Sea Shepherd’s job of identifying and interfering with poachers much easier this year than last.

“The profits from the poaching of bluefin are enormous,” said Essemlali, President of Sea Shepherd France. “This kind of quick-profit enterprise does attract a criminal element and we must take every precaution to defend ourselves from the potential of violent attacks.” The Sea Shepherd deck crew and bridge officers have been outfitted with bulletproof vests for this campaign in the event that the poachers are armed and potentially violent.

Sea Shepherd will not be intervening against legal tuna fishing operations, although we consider any so-called legal quotas to be grossly irresponsible, considering the recent diminishment of bluefin tuna due to excessive overfishing and mortality caused by the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill where the Atlantic Bluefin spawn.

France, Italy, and Spain catch most of the Atlantic Bluefin consumed in the world, and 80 percent of the haul is sold to Japan. Bluefin tuna can weigh up to 650 kg (1,433 lbs) and are found in the North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mediterranean Sea, where big commercial fisheries often fatten captured fish in floating enclosures.

Port captain Philippe Friboullet in Sete, France said the authorities would be informed if any of the Libyan-owned boats left port without the required fishing permits. Poachers can be expected from Libya, Malta, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey.

“We will be armed with the regulations and in touch with NATO and the European Union Commission if we encounter any suspicious activity,” said Sea Shepherd Founder and President, Captain Paul Watson. “Any bluefin tuna seiner or holding cage found in Libyan waters will be intercepted, the nets will be cut open, and the fish will be released. This year it is zero tolerance towards these illegal poaching operations and any fish in any net we encounter in Libyan waters will be freed and released.”

About Sea Shepherd Conservation SocietyEstablished in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit conservation organization whose mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species. Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced oceanic ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations. Founder and President Captain Paul Watson, is a world renowned, respected leader in environmental issues. Visit http://www.seashepherd.org for more information.

To interview Captain Watson and for U.S. media requests: 1-360-370-5650, Media(at)seashepherd(dot)orgFrance: Lamya Essemlali, Lamya(at)seashepherd(dot)fr, +33 76 007 5454Europe (including Spanish-speaking requests): Brigitte Scheffer, +44 7969 29 7726Brigitte(at)seashepherd(dot)org

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2011/5/prweb8429974.htm

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James Arness: Salute to TV hero

James Arness, a great Sequoia tree in the forest of TV Western heroes, has died; he was 88. Arness is immortal in TV history as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, the longest-running network drama in television history with the most episodes. (Gunsmoke‘s 635 episodes versus Law & Order’s 456; the two are tied with 20 seasons.) This feat would have been impossible without the presence of Arness, a 6-foot-7, quiet man who gave an air of serene authority to Matt Dillon.

Seen now on cable reruns, Gunsmoke looks like an old-fashioned Western, filled with shoot-outs (Marshal Dillon was reluctant to draw his gun, but when he did, the villains went down in the Dodge City dust), swinging-door saloons (Miss Kitty, played by Amanda Blake, ran the Long Branch Saloon and had a special, if discreet, relationship with Matt), and colorful supporting characters, most notably Dennis Weaver, as the limping, earnest Chester; Milburn Stone as the wise Doc Adams; Ken Curtis as the cornpone comic-relief Festus; and, in later seasons, Burt Reynolds as the town blacksmith, Quint Asper.

But in its time — 1955–75 — Gunsmoke was considered something new, a more serious, thoughtful, “adult” Western, as opposed to the kid-friendly, rootin’-tootin’ shoot-’em-ups of early TV such as The Roy Rogers Show and The Lone Ranger. Arness, who had little formal training as an actor, radiated a firm confidence. Originally a radio series, Gunsmoke was conceived in its transition to television as an ideal vehicle for someone such as John Wayne. Depending on which interview you read, Wayne either declined to star or wasn’t offered the role, but he did introduce the first episode, urging viewers to watch Arness, with whom Wayne had worked in movies such as Big Jim McLain and Hondo: “He’s a young fellow, and maybe new to some of you,” said Wayne. “But I’ve worked with him and I predict he’ll be a big star.”

Wayne’s thumbs-up helped Gunsmoke initially, but it took a few seasons for the show to become a huge success. The key to this was Arness’ portrayal of Matt Dillon as a ruminative man with a strong code of honor that gained him the love and loyalty of millions of viewers. Arness’ Dillon was a modern Western hero, unflinching when it came to meting out justice — murderers who didn’t surrender got shot by the Marshal, who tried to avoid violence but knew it was sometimes necessary.

Falling somewhere between the escapism of The Lone Ranger and the bloody realism of Sam Peckinpah’s revisionist films such as The Wild Bunch, Gunsmoke was a crucial link in the development of the Western. Gunsmoke owed something to features such as High Noon and the Westerns directed by John Ford and Howard Hawks, but Arness helped turn the show into something unique for the small screen. The series possessed an eclectic, elastic quality. One week, you could have a comic-relief episode with the Marshal joshing around with Chester and Festus; the next, the tone could turn grim, even doom-struck, the Western equivalent of a hard-boiled novel. This is one measure of both the show’s greatness, and Arness’ fully inhabited performance as Dillon.

Thanks to Arness and his fellow cast members, Gunsmoke might be considered one of the first workplace-family shows on TV. Matt, Kitty, Chester, and Doc would spend a lot of time just sitting around and talking — the dialogue was good enough to sustain the action. (Amanda Blake once said wryly, “This is the only show on TV where the characters sit in a barroom and say hello for half an hour.”)

But the plots often found Arness at the center of an injustice that needed to be set right. A progressive show, it featured plots that had Marshal Dillon protecting black and Indian characters from mob violence. Dillon stood up for indigent farmers and helpless women of ill repute.

The show took full advantage of Arness’ imposing demeanor. From the opening credits to many climactic showdowns, the camera framed Arness in the center, a big, silent man, awaiting either peace or violence, commanding attention amidst even the most boastful or colorful of bad guys.

Arness was a veteran of World War II, and a recipient of the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He acted in numerous films, including Them! Arness’ younger brother was the actor Peter Graves; it’s striking that these siblings starred in shows that helped define their genres, the Western, and in Graves’ case, the spy story (Mission: Impossible).

On his website, Arness wrote a letter to his fans “to post on our website in the event I was no longer here.” He expressed gratitude for his long career, love for his wife, Janet, and wrote to his fans in conclusion: “Thank you again for the many letters, cards, and emails we received from you over the years. You are and always have been appreciated. Sincerely, Jim Arness.”

Twitter: @kentucker

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James Arness of ‘Gunsmoke’ fame dead at 88

By FRAZIER MOORE
AP Television Writer

It takes a special kind of lawman to carry on for 20 years in the Wild West of TV.

Matt Dillon, the mythical marshal of Dodge City, stood tall – all 6 feet, 6 inches of him – on “Gunsmoke” from 1955 to 1975. He outlasted dozens of other Western heroes while making history on TV’s longest-running dramatic series, a record that held until NBC’s “Law & Order” tied the CBS Western’s record in 2010.

Through all those gunslinging years, James Arness, who died Friday, kept Marshal Dillon righteous, peace-seeking and, most of all, believable.

Fickle viewers can kill a TV hero as surely as a bullet from an outlaw’s six-gun. But Arness knew how to maintain order not only in circa-1870s Dodge City, but also among the TV audience, whose itchy fingers on their channel changers he knew how to calm.

In an era when TV actors typically chewed the scenery, Arness had a credible, commanding presence by hardly uttering a word. A typical scene found a dozen cowboys riding up to the town jail intent on busting out a prisoner pal.

Dillon faces them all down.

“The first move anybody makes,” he says, with a slight shake of his head, “I cut you in two.”

Arness’ defiant but rueful delivery is so understated, he makes Clint Eastwood seem like a loudmouth.

No wonder “Gunsmoke” wore so well. And became the last word on a programming craze that some seasons found as many as 30 Westerns on the air. When “Gunsmoke” went off in 1975, it was the only Western left.

By the end of his career, Arness, who was 88 when he died at his home in Los Angeles, seemed almost indistinguishable from Matt Dillon in the audience’s mind.

Befitting Marshal Dillon’s dignity and composure, Arness wrote, and left behind, a simple, straight-from-the-heart farewell which, at his request, was posted posthumously Friday on his official website.

“I had a wonderful life and was blessed with … (so) many loving people and great friends,” he said, then went on to thank his multitude of fans.

In life, Arness was a quiet, intensely private man who preferred the outdoor life to Hollywood’s party scene, rarely gave interviews, and refused to discuss his personal tragedies (his daughter and his former wife, Virginia, both died of drug overdoses).

“He’s big, impressive and virile,” co-star Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty) once said of Arness, adding, “I’ve worked with him for 16 years, but I don’t really know him.”

The actor was 32 when friend John Wayne declined the lead role in “Gunsmoke” and recommended Arness instead. Afraid of being typecast, Arness initially rejected it.

“Go ahead and take it, Jim,” Wayne urged him. “You’re too big for pictures. Guys like Gregory Peck and I don’t want a big lug like you towering over us. Make your mark in television.”

Then Wayne filmed an introduction for the first episode of “Gunsmoke” to give the largely unknown Arness the proper send-off.

“I predict he’ll be a big star,” Wayne told viewers. “So you might as well get used to him, like you’ve had to get used to me.”

Arness’ 20-year, prime-time run as the marshal was tied only in recent times, by Kelsey Grammer’s 20 years as Frasier Crane from 1984 to 2004 on “Cheers” and then on “Frasier.”

The years showed on the weathered-looking Arness, but he – and his TV character – wore them well.

“The camera really loved his face, and with good reason,” novelist Wallace Markfield wrote in a 1975 “Gunsmoke” appreciation in The New York Times. “It was a face that would age well and that, while aging, would carry intimations of waste, loss and futility.”

Born James Aurness in Minneapolis (he dropped the “u” for show business reasons), he and younger brother Peter enjoyed a “real Huckleberry Finn existence,” Arness once recalled.

Peter, who changed his last name to Graves, went on to star in the TV series “Mission Impossible.” (He died in 2010.)

A self-described drifter, Arness left home at age 18, hopping freight trains and Caribbean-bound freighters. He entered Beloit College in Wisconsin, but was drafted into the Army in his 1942-43 freshman year. Wounded in the leg during the 1944 invasion at Anzio, Italy, Arness was hospitalized for a year and left with a slight limp. He returned to Minneapolis to work as a radio announcer and in small theater roles.

He moved to Hollywood in 1946 at a friend’s suggestion. After a slow start in which he took jobs as a carpenter and salesman, a role in MGM’s “Battleground” (1949) was a career turning point. Parts in more than 20 films followed, including “The Thing,” ”Hellgate” and “Hondo” with Wayne. Then came “Gunsmoke,” which proved a durable hit and a multimillion-dollar boon for Arness, who owned part of the series.

His longtime co-stars were Blake as saloon keeper Miss Kitty, Milburn Stone as Doc Adams, Dennis Weaver as the deputy, Chester Goode, and his replacement, Ken Curtis, as Deputy Festus Haggen.

The cancellation of “Gunsmoke” didn’t keep Arness away from TV for long: He returned a few months later, in January 1976, in the TV movie “The Macahans,” which led to the 1978-79 ABC series “How the West Was Won.”

Arness took on a contemporary role as a police officer in the series “McClain’s Law,” which aired on NBC from 1981-82.

Despite his desire for privacy, a rocky domestic life landed him in the news more than once.

Arness met future wife Virginia Chapman while both were studying at Southern California’s Pasadena Playhouse. They wed in 1948 and had two children, Jenny and Rolf. Chapman’s son from her first marriage, Craig, was adopted by Arness.

The marriage foundered and in 1963 Arness sought a divorce and custody of the three children, which he was granted. He tried to guard them from the spotlight.

“The kids don’t really have any part of my television life,” he once remarked. “Fortunately, there aren’t many times when show business intrudes on our family existence.”

The emotionally troubled Virginia Arness attempted suicide twice, in 1959 and in 1960. In 1975, Jenny Arness died of an apparently deliberate drug overdose. Two years later, an overdose that police deemed accidental killed her mother.

___

AP Television Writer David Bauder and Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle in New York, and Television Writer Lynn Elber in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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John Edwards indictment traces money trail

Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) speaks at a campaign rally January 26, 2008 in Columbia, S.C.

(Credit: Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
The federal grand jury indictment handed down Friday against former North Carolina Senator John Edwards charges the two-time Democratic presidential candidate of four counts of illegal campaign contributions, conspiracy and making false statements in connection with a cover-up of his extramarital affair.

“Person A” appears to reference former staffer Andrew Young, who for a time claimed Edward’s illegitimate child as his own; “Person B” is Rielle Hunter, a videographer covering the Edwards campaign with whom the candidate had an extramarital affair, and who gave birth to Edwards’ child in February 2008; “Person C” would be heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a major donor to Edwards’ campaign; and “Person D” would be Texas lawyer Fred Baron, who served as Edwards’ campaign finance chairman.

“The purpose of the conspiracy was to protect and advance Edwards’ candidacy for President of the United States by secretly obtaining and using hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from [Mellon] and [Baron], well in excess of the Election Act’s limit, to conceal Edwards’ extramarital affair with [Hunter] and [Hunter's] pregnancy with his child. Edwards knew that public revelation of the affair and pregnancy would destroy his candidacy by, among other things, undermining Edwards’ presentation of himself as a family man and by forcing his campaign to divert personnel and resources away from other campaign activities to response to criticism and media scrutiny regarding the affair and pregnancy.”

John Edwards indicted by federal grand juryIndictment: U.S.A. vs. Johnny Reid Edwards (pdf)

The indictment alleges that Edwards and his co-conspirators, working individually and in concert, solicited and accepted campaign contributions in excees of the $25,000 federal limits on individuals (approximately $725,000 from Mellon and $200,000 from Baron) and used the money to both facilitate and conceal Edwards’ affair, paying for Hunter’s living and medical expenses, travel and accommodations necessary to hide Hunter from the media and the public.

As such, the John Edwards for President Committee was led to file “false and misleading campaign finance reports” with the FEC, even after Edwards formally withdrew from the presidential race in January 2008.

The indictment quotes a note from Mellon that Young read to Edwards, in or around April 2007, in which she said she was “furious” about media reports over the price Edwards paid for a haircut that she characterized as “attacks.”

Cost of Edwards’ haircut hits $1,250

“It inspired me – from now on, all haircuts, etc., that are necessary and important for his campaign – please send the bills to me… It is a way to help our friend without government restrictions,” Mellon wrote.

The indictment reads that between June 7, 2007 and January 23, 2008, Mellon wrote seven checks in amounts varying from $10,000 to $200,000, which were deposited in an account overseen by Young. The checks listed such items as “chairs,” “antique Charleston table” or “book case” in the memo line. The checks totaled $725,000.

In late 2007, when news broke about Edwards’ affair and his child with Hunter, Edwards denied the relationship, and the married Young falsely claimed paternity of the child.

According to the indictment, between December 2007 and January 2008 Baron paid for travel and accommodations for Hunter, including chartered airfare from Raleigh, N.C., to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from Florida to Aspen, Colo., and from Colorado to San Diego and Santa Barbara, Calif. Hotel and house rental payments in California were also made.

The indictment also says in or around December 2007 Baron provided a cash payment of approximately $1,000. The envelope contained a note reading, “Old Chinese saying: use cash, not credit cards!”

The indictment also lists statements made in the media by Edwards claiming he was not involved with Hunter, was not the father of her child, and had not made any payments to or solicited funds for her.

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John Edwards affair case: Criminal charges filed

Jun. 3, 2011 08:35 AMAssociated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. – A federal grand jury charged two-time presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday with soliciting and covering up the secret spending of more than $925,000 to hide his mistress and their baby during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.

The grand jury’s indictment in the case of USA v. Johnny Reid Edwards contained six counts, including conspiracy, four counts of receiving illegal campaign contributions and one count of false statements.

The indictment said the payments were a scheme to protect Edwards’ White House ambitions. “A centerpiece of Edwards’ candidacy was his public image as a devoted family man,” the indictment said.

“Edwards knew that public revelation of the affair and the pregnancy would destroy his candidacy by, among other things, undermining Edwards’ presentation of himself as a family man and by forcing his campaign to divert personnel and resources away from other campaign activities to respond to criticism and media scrutiny regarding the affair and pregnancy,” the indictment added.

The indictment and an arrest warrant were filed in Greensboro, N.C., which is in the district where his campaign was headquartered.

Edwards, 58, was scheduled to make an initial appearance Friday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Auld in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Negotiations between Edwards’ attorneys and federal prosecutors to settle on a charge to which Edwards was willing to plead guilty continued through Thursday, but proved fruitless, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. Prosecutors had insisted on a plea to a felony, which would endanger his ability to keep his license to practice law.

If convicted, Edwards faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the six counts. First time white collar offenders usually don’t receive prison terms in federal court, but the Justice Department typically presses for at least a short prison sentence for public officials. While Edwards was a private citizen as a candidate, he was receiving taxpayer money for his presidential campaign.

Edwards did not comment directly, but his attorneys issued statements from campaign finance experts advising him. The experts argued the Mellon and Baron payments were not campaign contributions. One, former Federal Elections Commission Chairman Scott Thomas, said if the FEC had investigated it would have found the payments did not violate the law, even as a civil matter.

“A criminal prosecution of a candidate on these facts would be outside anything I would expect after decades of experience with the campaign finance laws,” Thomas said.

The indictment is the culmination of a federal investigation begun by the FBI more than two years ago. The probe scoured virtually every corner of Edwards’ political career. That included his political action committees, a nonprofit and a so-called 527 independent political group. It even examined whether he did anything improper during his time in the U.S. Senate, which ended seven years ago.

But the centerpiece of the investigation has long been the hundreds of thousands of dollars privately provided by two wealthy Edwards supporters — his former campaign finance chairman Fred Baron and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, the 100-year-old widow of banking heir Paul Mellon. That money eventually went to keep mistress Rielle Hunter and her out-of-wedlock baby in hiding in 2007 and 2008, during the apex of the Democratic nomination campaign.

The indictment refers to $725,000 in payments made by Mellon and another $200,000 made by Baron. It said the money was used to pay for Hunter’s living and medical expenses and for chartered airfare, luxury hotels and rental for a house in Santa Barbara, Calif., to keep her hidden from the public.

Mellon sent her money through her decorator. The indictment said she listed items of furniture in the memo lines of her checks such as “chairs,” “antique Charleston table,” and “book case” to hide the true purpose.

It accused Edwards of lying when he told the media he never knew about any payments.

The indictment refers to Edwards’ discussions with a former employee in summer 2009 in which they prepared a statement to the media in which he would admit he was the father of Frances Quinn Hunter. A person familiar with the investigation has identified the former employee as speechwriter Wendy Button. The indictment said Edwards told her that he was aware Baron provided money to hide Hunter from the media.

“Edwards further told the employee that this was a huge issue and that for legal and practical reasons’ it should not be mentioned in the statement they were preparing,” the indictment said. The statement Edwards eventually issued seven months later claiming paternity did not mention the money spent on Hunter.

Former campaign staffer Andrew Young, who initially claimed paternity of Hunter’s child, has said Edwards was aware of the private financial support that helped keep the mistress satisfied and secluded. Prosecutors believe the private gifts should have been considered campaign contributions since they aided his candidacy.

The case opens a new front in how the federal government oversees the flow of money around political campaigns. An attorney for Edwards said last week that the government’s case was “novel and untested” and argued that the government’s theory was wrong on both the facts and the law.

With one of Edwards’ former campaign rivals now sitting in the White House, the case includes a measure of political intrigue. Greg Craig, who was previously White House counsel for President Barack Obama, emerged as a leading figure on Edwards’ legal team just as Obama’s Justice Department was reviewing the case that prosecutors in North Carolina had prepared.

Meanwhile, with the backing of North Carolina’s two senators, Republican-appointed U.S. attorney George Holding stayed on the job in the Obama administration to finish the Edwards probe.

“Democracy demands that our election system be protected, and without vigorously enforced campaign finance laws, the people of this country lose their voice,” said Holding. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice are committed to the prosecution of individuals who abuse the very system of which they seek to become a part.”

Edwards and Hunter began their relationship in 2006, just as the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee was plotting a second run for the White House. She was hired to shoot behind-the-scenes video footage of the prospective candidate. Edwards’ political action committee and a nonprofit affiliated with him both paid Hunter’s video-production firm about $100,000 for the work.

Edwards initially denied having an affair with Hunter but eventually admitted to it in the summer of 2008. He then denied being the father of her child before finally confessing last year. His wife, Elizabeth, died of cancer in December.

Young has said that Edwards agreed in 2007 to solicit money directly from Mellon. And the long-time Edwards aide, now estranged from his former boss, has said he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in checks from Mellon — some hidden in boxes of chocolate.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said, “As this indictment shows, we will not permit candidates for high office to abuse their special ability to access the coffers of their political supporters to circumvent our election laws.”

Mellon and Edwards are still friendly despite the glare of the federal investigation. They had lunch together at her Virginia estate last week even as the indictment appeared imminent.

Baron’s support was even more direct. The wealthy trial lawyer said in 2008 that he helped Young and Hunter move across the country to protect them from media scrutiny. Baron, who died a few months later, said Edwards wasn’t aware of the aid, but Young has said that Edwards did know.

Young, Hunter and Baron’s wife were among many Edwards aides and supporters who were called to testify before a federal grand jury or have been interviewed by investigators.

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Jack Kevorkian, assisted suicide advocate, dies

(AP) 

Updated at 11:35 a.m. ET

DETROIT – Jack Kevorkian, the audacious, fearless doctor who spurred on the national right-to-die debate with a homemade suicide machine that helped end the lives of dozens of ailing people, died Friday at a Detroit-area hospital after a brief illness. He was 83.

Kevorkian died about 2:30 a.m. at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, close friend and prominent attorney Mayer Morganroth said. He had been hospitalized since last month with pneumonia and kidney problems.

The retired pathologist, who said he injected lethal drugs that helped some 130 people die during the 1990s, likened himself to Martin Luther King and Gandhi and called prosecutors Nazis, his critics religious fanatics. He burned state orders against him, showed up at court in costume, called doctors who didn’t support him “hypocritic oafs” and challenged authorities to stop him or make his actions legal.

(In 2007, Jack Kevorkian gave his first interview after his release from prison to “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace.)

“60 Minutes” Video: Dr. Kevorkian free and talkingVideo: Kevorkian lethally injects terminally ill manPacino: Kevorkian role unlike any he ever played

“The issue’s got to be raised to the level where it is finally decided,” Kevorkian said during a broadcast of CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired a Lou Gehrig’s disease patient’s videotaped 1998 death as Kevorkian challenged prosecutors to charge him in the case that eventually sent him to prison.

Experts credit Kevorkian, who insisted that people had the right to have a medical professional help them die, with publicizing physician-assisted suicide. Even so, few states made it legal. Laws went into effect in Oregon in 1997 and Washington state in 2009, and a 2009 Montana Supreme Court ruling effectively legalized the practice in that state.

“Somebody has to do something for suffering humanity,” Kevorkian once said. “I put myself in my patients’ place. This is something I would want.”

Pictures: Jack Kevorkian: 1928-2011Kevorkian: Assisted suicide “discussed to death”

People who died with Kevorkian’s help suffered from cancer, Lou Gehrig’s disease, multiple sclerosis, paralysis. They died in their homes, an office, a Detroit island park, a remote cabin, the back of Kevorkian’s van.

An official cause of death for Kevorkian was not immediately determined, but Morganroth said it likely will be pulmonary thrombosis, a blood clot.

“I had seen him earlier and he was conscious,” said Morganroth, who added that the two spoke about Kevorkian’s pending release from the hospital and planned start of rehabilitation. “Then I left and he took a turn for the worst and I went back.”

Nurses played recordings of classical music by composer Johann Sebastian Bach for Kevorkian before he died, Morganroth said.

Nicknamed “Dr. Death,” Kevorkian catapulted into public consciousness in 1990 when he used his homemade “suicide machine” in his rusted Volkswagen van to inject lethal drugs into an Alzheimer’s patient who sought his help in dying.

For nearly a decade, he escaped authorities’ efforts to stop him. His first four trials, all on assisted suicide charges, resulted in three acquittals and one mistrial.

(At left, watch “60 Minutes” correspondent Mike Wallace interview Jack Kevorkian in 2007 after his release from prison.)

Murder charges in earlier cases were thrown out because Michigan at the time had no law against assisted suicide; the Legislature wrote one in response to Kevorkian. He also was stripped of his medical license.

Devotees filled courtrooms wearing “I Back Jack” buttons. But critics questioned his publicity-grabbing methods, aided by his flamboyant attorney Geoffrey Fieger until the two parted ways before the 1999 trial in which he was convicted of second-degree murder.

“I think Kevorkian played an enormous role in bringing the physician-assisted suicide debate to the forefront,” Susan Wolf, a professor of law and medicine at University of Minnesota Law School, said in 2000.

“It sometimes takes a very outrageous individual to put an issue on the public agenda,” she said, and the debate he engendered “in a way cleared public space for more reasonable voices to come in.”

In a rare televised interview from prison in 2005, Kevorkian told MSNBC he regretted “a little” the actions that put him there.

“It was disappointing because what I did turned out to be in vain. … And my only regret was not having done it through the legal system, through legislation, possibly,” he said.

Kevorkian’s ultimate goal was to establish “obitoriums” where people would go to die. Doctors there could harvest organs and perform medical experiments during the suicide process. Such experiments would be “entirely ethical spinoffs” of suicide, he wrote in his 1991 book “Prescription: Medicide — The Goodness of Planned Death.”

His road to prison began in September 1998, when he videotaped himself injecting Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old Lou Gehrig’s disease patient, with lethal drugs. He gave the tape to “60 Minutes.”

(At left, watch the tape Jack Kevorkian provided to “60 Minutes.” Please note that the video might offend some viewers.)

Two months later, a national television audience watched Youk die and heard Kevorkian say of authorities: “I’ve got to force them to act.” Prosecutors quickly responded with a first-degree murder charge.

Kevorkian acted as his own attorney for most of the trial. He told the court his actions were “a medical service for an agonized human being.”

In his closing argument, Kevorkian told jurors that some acts “by sheer common sense are not crimes.”

“Just look at me,” he said. “Honestly now, do you see a criminal? Do you see a murderer?”

The U.S. Supreme Court twice turned back appeals from Kevorkian, in 2002, when he argued that his prosecution was unconstitutional, and in 2004, when he claimed he had ineffective representation.

Better Homes And Gardens Prepares For Huge Yard Sale

POSTED: 8:39 pm CDT June 1, 2011UPDATED: 9:19 am CDT June 2, 2011

DES MOINES, Iowa — It has been two decades since the editors of Better Homes and Gardens cleaned their corporate closets and put everything out on the lawn. More than 1,200 items will be up for grabs in a massive yard sale this Saturday morning.Photos: Sneak Peek At Huge Garage Sale Items “This is your chance to shop from the things that the editors have selected. There are some fantastic style items here and some really great bargains,” Editor-In-Chief Gayle Butler told KCCI on Wednesday.Butler said if you’ve seen it in the magazine, you could soon see it in your home. She pointed to a pair of studded coffee tables showcased in a recent edition.A two-person patio rocker is tagged for $40. A claw-foot bathtub is tagged for $150. Butler said they have also smaller items like lamp shades, decorative pillows and covered clothes hangers. Most of the items have only been used long enough to pose for a picture and then they were done.“We sort of cleaned out our book shelves and our prop shelves. We saved things from shoots. They’re products we brought in to shoot. So you really have a potpourri of things brought into Better Homes and Gardens: the decorating, the gardening, items for kitchen and bath and items for entertaining and holiday,” Butler said.With loot like that, the crowd could be huge. Butler and her staff are expecting hundreds of people and could rake in thousands of dollars.“I would say to people come early for the best selection,” she said.The sale starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday. It’s being held on the back parking lot of the Meredith Corporation Headquarters at 1716 Locust St. That’s the west side of downtown. There is a lot just south of the building where visitors can park.There is a $3 admission fee. Money from the sale and admission will go to a nonprofit called Share Our Strength. The organization wants to end childhood hunger by 2015.

Copyright 2011 by KCCI.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Kidnappers Phillip and Nancy Garrido are sentenced in sex-slave case

Reporting from Placerville, Calif. — Twenty years after Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted while walking to her school bus stop, the couple who kidnapped and raped her and stole her childhood were sentenced Thursday to prison terms that could keep them behind bars for the rest of their lives.

Phillip Garrido, a 60-year-old serial predator, was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison. His 55-year-old wife, Nancy, was sentenced to 36 years to life and cannot be paroled until she is in her 70s.

As he imposed the lengthy prison term, Eldorado County Superior Court Judge Douglas C. Phimister said Garrido “lacks a soul” and called his actions “beyond horrible.” A tearful Terry Probyn, Dugard’s mother, described her daughter’s attacker as “the epitome of disgust … some evil being.”

And Dugard herself, in a defiant statement read by her mother during the emotional hearing, said the man who kidnapped her as a sex slave, raped her over a period of years, videotaped many of the attacks and fathered her two children “stole my life.”

“To you, Phillip, I say … I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you,” said Dugard, who was 11 when she was abducted. “To you, Nancy, I have nothing to say. As I think of all those years, I am angry. You stole my life and that of my family.”

Dugard, now 31, did not attend the hearing, she said, “because I refuse to waste another second of my life in your presence.”

The Garridos abducted Dugard on June 10, 1991, as she was heading to school in her South Lake Tahoe neighborhood while her horrified stepfather leapt on a mountain bike in pursuit. The case made international headlines when Dugard resurfaced in August 2009 with her children — after a UC Berkeley policewoman spotted an odd-acting Garrido with the little girls on campus.

During Thursday’s hearing, Dugard’s former captors sat flanked by their attorneys in Department 7, which was packed with reporters, cameras, a few of Dugard’s family members and Katie Callaway Hall, whom Garrido was convicted of raping in 1976.

Dugard’s aunt, Tina, told Phimister during the sentencing that the abduction left the entire family “under a cloud of despair” and killed Tina’s mother, Dugard’s grandmother.

“My mom died less than a year after Jaycee was stolen from us,” she said. “My mother died of a broken heart. Facing life without her beloved Jaycee was more than my mom could handle. “

But the most heart-wrenching testimony came from Probyn. She and Carl Probyn, Dugard’s stepfather, divorced after the abduction. He has said that the crime and its aftermath “ended” their marriage.

Probyn talked about the joy she felt on May 3, 1980, when her daughter was born at 10:52 p.m. — blond hair, blue eyes, 6 lb. 4 oz., “a true miracle,” “a gift from God.” She told the court how, when Dugard’s belly hurt, she would rock her little girl in her arms and sing, “You Are My Sunshine.”

The day Dugard was taken, Probyn said, “my world went dark, and my sunshine was taken away.” Probyn described the months and years of not knowing her daughter’s fate as “hell on this earth.”

“I could hear her crying, but not with my ears, with my heart,” said a tearful Probyn. “I could feel her pain, not with my body, but with my heart. I endured a huge gaping hole in my heart, that some evil being put their hand in and ripped it out.”

Garrido was driving that June morning. He and Nancy had blankets in the car and a Taser. They were “shopping for a victim,” Phimister said Thursday. “What was the conversation in the car? ‘Should we select this one? That one? What are we looking for?’”

Once they settled on Dugard, Garrido stunned the little girl with the Taser, and Nancy snatched her. They put her in the car, covered her with blankets and headed to their home in Antioch, an East Bay suburb, where they had prepared an undetectable warren of tents and sheds in the backyard.

Dugard was locked in one of the backyard buildings for a year and a half as a “prisoner,” said Dist. Atty. Vern Pierson in court documents recommending that Garrido receive a sentence of 431 years to life. She did not leave the backyard for the first four years after the abduction.

Dugard “was impregnated by Phillip Garrido when she was 13 years old and had her first child at the age of 14,” Pierson said in the document. She “was again impregnated by Phillip Garrido when she was 16 and had her second child at the age of 17.”

The children were delivered by Nancy in the couple’s ramshackle compound; neither they nor Dugard set foot in a schoolroom or saw a doctor until they were discovered in 2009.

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