NEW YORK (AP) -- NFL receiving leader Wes Welker has been fined $10,000 for making a "snow angel" after scoring a touchdown for the New England Patriots last Sunday.
Welker, who leads the league with 109 receptions, fell to the ground on his back just behind the end zone and brushed both arms and legs back and forth in the snow after catching an 11-yard pass from Matt Cassel in the second quarter. That gave New England a 28-0 lead in its 47-7 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
The NFL imposed the penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, specifically for participating in an illegal demonstration by going to the ground after his touchdown, league spokesman Corry Rush said.
Here is a guide to navigating the Inauguration Day crowds:
Getting Around. To get everyone to the 11:30 a.m. ceremony on time, Washington's Metro subway system is urging attendees to head out as early as 4 a.m., when trains start running. Planners for the aging system predict they can move 960,000 people to inaugural sites by noon, when Mr. Obama takes the oath of office -- but only if 120,000 people ride before 5 a.m.
Barring mechanical delays or medical emergencies, Metro is predicting a one-hour wait just to get into some stations, followed by another wait for a train, during peak travel hours. Even one jammed door can have "a tremendous ripple effect," said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. Metro officials advise those starting out for inaugural sites from within a two-mile radius to walk.
Washington's transportation department says that so far it has found parking for only half the tour buses that have permits to enter the city for the four-day inaugural weekend. It's asking Maryland and Virginia to find space for the rest. In all, it expects some 10,000 tour buses -- 10 times the number that arrive each day at the height of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.
The Secret Service will close roads around the Capitol and the parade route (it won't announce which ones for a few more weeks). Some will be open only for buses, pedestrians or emergency vehicles. Virginia is closing three bridges to cars. Not that there will be anyplace to park. Most of Washington's 160,000 metered and garage spaces won't be accessible.
The Ceremony. Workers are building a giant podium with 1,600 seats on the west front of the Capitol, with seating for former U.S. presidents, the Obama and Biden families and members of the House, Senate, Supreme Court, Joint Chiefs of Staff, diplomatic corps and new cabinet. Almost everyone else can expect a long wait and sore feet. A quarter-million people, including many who swamped their congressional representatives with requests, will score tickets to watch from the Capitol's west lawn. There are 30,000 tickets for seats below the podium; the rest of the tickets are for standing-room sections (with big-screen television sets) as far as four blocks away. Come early: Ticket holders who arrive after 11:30 a.m. won't be let in.
The Parade. You won't need a ticket to stand along 70% of the 1½-mile parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Secret Service expects parade-watchers to begin lining up at security entrances soon after the Metro starts running. Abandon hopes of bringing lawn chairs, coffee thermoses or picnic baskets, though. The Secret Service won't let them onto the Capitol grounds or the parade route.
How about watching from the comfort of a Pennsylvania Avenue hotel room? Forget about it. The Willard Hotel, where Abraham Lincoln lunched after his 1865 inauguration, says most rooms with a parade view sold out soon after the 2004 inaugural. The Newseum, with giant windows overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, says it has sold out of Jan. 20 admission tickets and expects hundreds more museum members to pile in. But unless they camp out early by a window with a view, most visitors will probably end up watching on the museum's big-screen TV.
The Mall. The day's biggest crowd is expected at the National Mall. If that many show up, the crowd will be bigger than the crowds at previous landmark Mall gatherings: Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I have a dream" speech drew an estimated 250,000, and the 1969 Vietnam War protest drew 500,000. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association plans to offer valet bike-parking at three sites around the Mall.
Food will be available from six Mall kiosks and from hundreds of licensed souvenir and snack vendors in the surrounding area. The Smithsonian museums lining the Mall -- including restaurants, restrooms and gift shops -- will be open, but security people will close the doors when a museum reaches capacity, letting in 10 people at a time as groups of 10 leave.
The Inaugural Committee hasn't announced how it will deal with the needs at the Mall for portable toilets. For one million people, the Portable Sanitation Association International recommends 12,510 porta-potties -- which by themselves would occupy 4.6 acres.
The Mall will be open all night, and chairs, picnic baskets and umbrellas will be allowed. (The expected degree range is from the high-20s to mid-40s.) But Mr. Line urges revelers to carry as little as possible and dress in layers of clothing that can be doffed as the day warms up; "Do not wear open-toed shoes to this event," he says.
An attorney for Roberto Dunn, convicted eight years ago of killing his girlfriend's mother, is asking St. Louis Circuit Judge Julian Bush for a new trial because of the recently discovered alleged sexual escapades involving two jurors, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported Monday.
Shortly after Dunn was convicted in 2000, Bush received a letter from a juror making the accusations against fellow jurors, and adding, "Sexual liberties by deputy sheriffs were rampant also," alleging that two sheriff's deputies guarding the jurors also had sex while on duty at the hotel.
Dunn's trial lawyers put the letter under seal and requested for a new trial but were refused. But his current attorney, Assistant Public Defender Lisa Stroup, says she found the letter and criticized the former attorneys whom, she said, should have pushed harder for a new trial, including calling the jurors as witnesses and quizzing them about the claims, the Post-Dispatch reported.
If the judge agrees with Stroup, he can give Dunn a new trial, the newspaper said.
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — A new law school opening next fall in Southern California is offering a big incentive to top students who might be thinking twice about the cost of a legal education during the recession: free tuition for three years.
The financial carrot is part of an ambitious strategy by Erwin Chemerinsky, a renowned constitutional law scholar and dean of the new school at the University of California, Irvine, to attract Ivy League-caliber students to the first new law school in the state in 40 years.
Scholarship winners will be chosen for their potential to emerge three years later as legal stars on the ascendance. Only the best and brightest need apply, but the school hopes to offer full scholarships to all 60 members of its inaugural class in 2009. Subsequent classes will be on a normal tuition basis.
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WASHINGTON (AFP) — Barack Obama will take the oath as US president on the same Bible used to swear in president Abraham Lincoln, the committee planning his inauguration said in a statement Tuesday.
The presidential inaugural committee said the Lincoln Bible would be borrowed from the collections at the Library of Congress.
"President-elect Obama is deeply honored that the Library of Congress has made the Lincoln Bible available for use during his swearing-in," said Presidential Inaugural Committee Executive Director Emmett Beliveau in a statement.
With Obama's swearing-in on January 20, the historic Bible with its gilded edges and burgundy velvet binding will see its first use during a presidential inauguration since 1861 when Lincoln, the 16th US president, was sworn in.
"The president-elect is committed to holding an inauguration that celebrates America's unity, and the use of this historic Bible will provide a powerful connection to our common past and common heritage," Beliveau said.
Lincoln, from the state of Illinois which Obama represented in the US Congress, presided over the country's biggest domestic crisis, the American Civil War, and ended slavery, but he was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1865.
There is no constitutional requirement that a Bible be used during inaugurations, but US presidents traditionally have used Bibles for their swearing-in ceremonies.
AFP
PARIS - Ten tons of chocolate bonbons could stuff a lot of stockings this holiday season _ but instead they will be under the lock and key of French customs agents.
The French customs service announced Tuesday that officers at the giant Rungis international market outside Paris seized nearly 33,000 boxes of gold-foil-wrapped morsels, on suspicion that they were counterfeit Ferrero Rochers, a popular Italian chocolate brand.
Lab tests and an examination by Ferrero itself found that the seized candies were harmless but low-quality copies. They arrived in France by refrigerated truck from Turkey and were seized in late November.
Legal proceedings are under way between Ferrero and the chocolates' importer, said Sophie Hocquerelle, a spokeswoman for the French customs office.
"It was the first time we had ever seized chocolates," Hocquerelle said _ and what a seizure: 10 tons of coconut-filled dark chocolates and milk chocolate balls worth an estimated euro223,500 ($312,230).
AP
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A New York-based money manager who may have lost $1.4 billion of client funds invested with Bernard Madoff apparently killed himself in his Madison Avenue office, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
“Our investigative premise is that it was a suicide,” Kelly said today in an interview. The body of Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, 65, a co-founder and chief executive officer of Access International Advisors, was found today. The company raised money mainly from wealthy European investors. Madoff was arrested on Dec. 11 for allegedly running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
The death of de la Villehuchet, who founded Access in 1994 with Patrick Littaye, came as lawsuits mounted in connection with investors victimized by Madoff. Fairfield Greenwich Group, a hedge-fund firm that had $7.5 billion invested with Madoff, has been sued for allegedly failing to protect their clients’ assets. A New York woman who says she lost most of her savings is seeking $1.7 million in damages from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for Madoff losses.
The tally of investors hurt by Madoff continues to grow. Pedro Almodovar, the Spanish film director known for movies such as “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” has about $280,000 at risk, El Economista reported.
Credit Lyonnais
De La Villehuchet was found “with his feet propped up on his desk, a trash pail nearby to collect blood,” and no sign of a second person, Kelly said in the interview.
The money manager had “multiple stab wounds” to his arms and wrists, and a box-cutter and pills were found nearby, Kelly said at a news conference. No suicide note was found.
Before he founded Access, De La Villehuchet was chairman and CEO of Credit Lyonnais Securities USA, the U.S. investment banking arm of the French bank, according to Access marketing documents. Prior to joining Credit Lyonnais in 1987, he ran Interfinance, an international broker firm specializing in French, Belgian and Italian stock markets that he founded in 1983.
Access managed $3 billion and had 26 employees according to marketing documents dated September, and its LUXALPHA SICAV- American Selectionfund invested solely with Madoff. Access said last week that it was working with lawyers to assess the situation. UBS AG was LUXALPHA’s administrator until this year, and is no longer involved with it, said Karina Byrne, a UBS spokeswoman.
Clients of Madoff had at least $36 billion with his firm, according to a Bloomberg tally that may include some double counting. Before his arrest, Madoff, 70, confessed to employees that his “giant Ponzi scheme” may have cost as much as $50 billion, according to an FBI complaint.
His misconduct may have stretched back to at least to the 1970s, two people familiar with the government’s inquiry of Madoff said last week. Madoff is now under house arrest at his New York apartment.
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