WORLD NEWS STORIES: Editor Brian Harrod Provides The Latest International News, Investigations And Analysis From Africa, The Americas, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, The Middle East And The U.K.
From the quarter toss into the jukebox to the cue ball crushed into powder and blown into a baddie's face to the moonwalk that lasts more than a blink of an eye, if you haven't watched the video for Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" in a while, it's every bit as magic as you remember it.
Jackson was always something of an illusionist, particularly when it came to his signature dance moves.
Three neurosurgeons (and admitted Jackson fans) from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India -- Nishant S. Yagnick, Manjul Tripathi and Sandeep Mohindra -- have revisited how the King of Pop achieved the 45-degree lean while keeping his spine straight, not just on video, but in live performances around the world.
"Several MJ fans, including the authors, have tried to copy this move and failed, often injuring themselves in their endeavors," reads the paper published in the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Trained dancers can lean forward a maximum of 25 to 30 degrees, but even then, it can put serious strain on the Achilles tendon.
LOL... I mostly posted this for the totally awesome video in it, but yeah, I'm pretty sure this article is a total whitewash and cover-up
Breitbart News landed an election scoop that went viral in August 2016: "Exclusive: 'Black Men for Bernie' Founder to End Democrat 'Political Slavery' of Minority Voters ... by Campaigning for Trump."
If the splashy, counterintuitive story, which circulated on such conservative websites as Truthfeed and Infowars, wasn't exactly fake news, it was carefully orchestrated. The story's writer -- an employee of the conservative website run by Steve Bannon before he took over Donald Trump's campaign -- spent weeks courting activist Bruce Carter to join Trump's cause.
He approached Carter under the guise of interviewing him.
The writer eventually dropped the pretense altogether, signing Carter up for a 10-week blitz aimed at convincing black voters in key states to support the Republican real estate mogul, or simply sit out the election.
LOL... He knew, he got paid to pretend to not know. Half of the conservative pundits get paid big bucks to say what they say, if everyone knew what they really think, the right wingers would be rioting.
Most of the conservative pundits hate the TEA Partier guys but hey, it's great money.
UP COMING SHOW: #Yonkers Republican NYS Senate Candidate Joseph Pinion III Will Be Appearing On The Yonkers Public Access Program "Yonkers Roundup", Which Is Hosted By "Yonkers Newswire" Editor Brian Harrod
He is a young Republican, who has been a critic of Donald J. Trump.
Yonkers Republicans say Joseph Pinion III has a strong platform, but he faces a very formidable challenges from Democrats Nader J. Sayegh and Anthony Nicodemo.
However, Joseph Pinion III thinks that he would have an advantage in the heavily Republican NYS Senate.
#JosephPinion feels that he would have the edge in working with the GOP to provide fair funding for #Yonkers.
Again debunking a right-wing conspiracy, Fox News' Shepard Smith took aim at President Donald Trump's assertion that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team will meddle in upcoming elections.
In his segment Tuesday, Smith called it "unfounded, not based in fact or reason with no evidence."
"The president says that Robert Mueller and his team are meddling in the midterms," Smith said.
Owned and operated by the Beasley Broadcast Group, the WTEL studios are located at 555 City Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania and its transmitters are located in the Crescent Park section of Bellmawr, New Jersey.
WTEL broadcasts in the HD Radio format on 610 AM
The station was formerly known for its influence on the Philadelphia sports fanbase.
Its prominent hosts included Angelo Cataldi, who arranged for a group of Eagles fans to attend the 1999 NFL Draft in New York City and demand the Eagles select University of Texas at Austin running back Ricky Williams with their #2 pick (which led to the infamous booing of the decision to select Donovan McNabb), and Howard Eskin, whose achievements included the Terrell Owens "funeral" (following the announcement of Owens's four-game suspension from the Eagles during the 2005-2006 season), and a short-lived hunger strike in support of trading Philadelphia 76ers superstar Allen Iverson.
The station was also known for hosting the annual eating contest, the Wing Bowl.
OVERVIEW: WIP was formerly owned by CBS Radio, and at that time was considered to be a sister station to another CBS Radio station, WFAN, in New York City. Both stations serve New Jersey in addition to their licensed cities.
WIP was the flagship radio station for the Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia Phillies.
When both teams were playing at the same time, WPHT and/or WYSP usually carried one of the games.
WIP was the flagship radio station for the Eagles until 1992, when Eagles broadcasts moved to WYSP, which at the time had a classic rock format and aired Howard Stern's syndicated morning show.
On February 20, 2008, the station announced that broadcasts of Eagles games would return to WIP, plus remain on WYSP, with each radio station broadcasting different feeds to make it easier for local fans to watch television coverage of Eagles games but to lower the volume on their TV and listen to the game on the radio.
The advent of digital television signals was putting television and radio signals too far out of sync.
The station also carried Philadelphia Phillies games on Friday nights during the 2005 season, allowing WPHT to pick up some regularly scheduled programming on Friday nights.
In 2008, WIP broadcast the Phillies' March 31 season opener against Washington along with WPHT.
HI(STORY: Founded by Gimbels department store, the station first went on the air on March 17, 1922 as Philadelphia's first commercial radio station with the call sign WIP, which people mistakenly think stands for "Wireless In Philadelphia," "We're In Philadelphia" or "Watch Its Progress." In fact, WIP was a call sign randomly issued by the federal government.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the station was an affiliate of the Mutual Broadcasting System. From the 1950s until the early 1960s, the station was owned by Metropolitan Broadcasting (successor to Dumont) and had a rock and roll format.
In the early 60s the parent company name was changed from Metropolitan to Metromedia, and WIP adopted an MOR format (after an unsuccessful attempt at a Top 40 format branded as Color Radio).
With this format, the station played pop hits of the 1960s, along with some 50s pop mixed in. Announcers during this time period included Joe McCauley (the "Morning Mayor"), Ned Powers, Tom Brown, and Chuck Daugherty.
During this time WIP called themselves "The Big W" after a phrase in the 60s comedy, "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," and the slogan was justified. WIP was number one in the market ratings through the 60s and for most of the 70s.
In the late 60s they began including more soft-rock until the format gradually evolved into an Adult Contemporary format which survived through the 70s and into the 80s.
The music mix continued to include pop from the previous two decades. In addition, the station was full service in approach, as they had a heavy emphasis on news as well.
After many years of ownership by Metromedia the station was purchased by Ed Snider's Spectacor Group, the longtime owner of the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers, in 1988. Snider sold the station to CBS Radio in 1994.
By the early 1970s, WIP evolved to an adult contemporary format, and for a while, they were heavy on 1950s and 1960s rock and roll oldies. At the height of its popularity as a full service/adult contemporary station in the early to mid-1970s,
During this time, Metromedia's station in New York, WNEW, had similar programming
By the early 1970s, WIP evolved to an adult contemporary format, and for a while, they were heavy on 1950s and 1960s rock and roll oldies.
At the height of its popularity as a full service/adult contemporary station in the early to mid-1970s, WIP was the home to some of the most well-known air personalities in the city, including popular rush hour host Ken Garland (who had replaced legend, Joe McCauley, the "Morning Mayor,") late morning host Bill "Wee Willie" Webber, early afternoon host Tom Moran, late PM host, Dick Clayton, evening host Tom Lamaine, and overnight host Nat Wright. Weekend coverage included Allan Michaels, Alan Drew and Bill St. James.
During this time, Metromedia's station in New York, WNEW, had similar programming and it was not uncommon for DJs to swap back and forth for subbing duties. WNEW's Julius LaRosa was a frequent guest. WIP’s presentation, like other full-service stations, was heavily dependent on its personalities to entertain the audience as much as the music itself.
In addition to music, full-service music stations in that era were typically home to strong news operations, and WIP had local newscasts every hour, seven days a week (at one point they offered half-hourly newscasts around the clock).
The weekday morning news was so extensive that they had two anchors in later years, and even introduced a 5 a.m. 30 minute newscast.
One of WIP’s news reporters, Jan Gorham, remained with the station after the switch to sports and continued to work there until retiring in 2009.
The station hosted a popular radiothon for one weekend a year for several years, raising funds to fight leukemia. The events were staged on a large scale, in venues like hotel ballrooms, with local and national celebrities visiting the live broadcast.
WIP’s best-known contest was Cash Call, a call-out game in which the DJs picked numbers out of the phone book or from postcards submitted by listeners.
The intro to the contest was the first 10 seconds of a song called "The Sound Of Money" by the J's with Jamie, a vocal group that recorded lots of commercial jingles and three albums.
If the person at the other end of the call could identify the exact amount of money in the “jackpot,” down to the standard 61¢ ending, they won the current jackpot.
Players who knew the 61¢ but not the dollar amount typically won a token prize from a sponsor.
Every incorrect guess lead to a few dollars being added to the jackpot; a correct guess resulted in the jackpot being reset to $61.61.
Another long-running contest late in WIP’s run as a music station was Team Trivia. Two area businesses competed, one on the morning show with Ken Garland, the other on the afternoon show with (Bruce) Stevens and (Nick) Seneca (who had replaced Tom Moran).
As the popularity of music on FM radio grew, stations like Magic 103 (now 102.9 WMGK) and Kiss 100 began to eat away at WIP’s audience.
For a time, the station experimented with general interest talk. Michele Iaia was brought on to host “WIPeople Talk,” a weeknight call-in show from 8 p.m. to midnight.
The show would later expand to include a weekend edition, and over time the talk block was expanded to run from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. (with the station touting that it played music all day and talked all night).
One of the regular features was a Friday night segment called Desperate & Dateless, a show that eventually spun off into a stand-alone Saturday night program that included music mixed in with the calls from single listeners.
The local talk was scaled back to make room for Larry King’s syndicated radio show in the overnight hours, and eventually most of the local talk was replaced by music once again.
The station later tried a programming experiment known as Midday Infotainment, a features-based midday show hosted by Bill Gallagher and Lynn Adkins.
That move pushed Bill Webber out of his longtime midday slot into the early evening shift. The show was canceled in less than a year, and the regular music format, hosted once more by Webber, returned.
As WIP continued adding more current music, it also added the weekly countdown show “Dick Clark’s National Music Survey.”
WIP aired the version produced for adult contemporary stations, while WSTW in Wilmington, Delaware, listenable in much of the Philadelphia market, aired the top 40 version.
WIP’s transition to sports was gradual, unlike many so-called format flips that happen instantaneously.
The station began adding sports programming in the mid-1980s. More and more sports hosts were brought on to replace the music hosts that left, including Ken Garland, who moved to cross-town WPEN, then a nostalgia-based music station.
Garland was initially replaced by WIP part-timer Jeff Brown before the sports-based morning show debuted.
Bill Webber’s show, then limited to 9 a.m. to noon, was the last regularly scheduled weekday music program.
Webber also would eventually join WPEN, hosting his familiar midday slot on Saturdays.
WIP continued playing music on Saturday mornings for a short time before the transition to all-sports (save for an overnight talk show with Larry King/Jim Bohannon) was complete in 1988.
On September 2, 2011, WIP began simulcasting on 94.1 FM, replacing rock station WYSP.
The simulcast of WIP and WIP-FM soon began to gradually split, as certain sporting events are not heard on both frequencies (such as most Philadelphia Phillies broadcasts, which began to air on WIP-FM in 2012 but are still carried on the AM dial by WPHT), and the syndicated
The Nick & Artie Show was added to 610 AM's programming in February 2012, while local programming airs on WIP-FM the simulcast ended entirely January 2, 2013, when WIP became a full-time affiliate of CBS Sports Radio, airing national programming to compliment the local programming on WIP-FM.
On October 2, 2014, CBS Radio announced that it would trade 14 radio stations located in Tampa, Charlotte and Philadelphia (only WIP (AM) would be sold) to the Beasley Broadcast Group in exchange for 3 stations located in Miami and WRDW-FM and WXTU in Philadelphia.
The swap was completed on December 1, 2014. As a result, WIP changed its call letters to WTEL, the longtime former call sign of Beasley-owned sister station WWDB, as CBS Radio continues to own WIP-FM
In early 2015, WTEL became an affiliate of ESPN Radio, dropping affiliation with CBS Sports Radio. The station began airing Mike and Mike in the Morning on April 20, 2015, on the day that former ESPN affiliate WPEN started a local morning show with former WIP host Anthony Gargano. WPEN continues to be affiliated with ESPN, but only airs live sporting events distributed by the network.
WTEL airs ESPN shows almost around the clock, except for public access shows on week-ends which include food, real estate, gardening and Italian-American programs.
610 Sports WTEL At 610 kHz from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania To Westchester County, New York
City: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Broadcast area: Greater Philadelphia (Delaware Valley)
Branding: 610 Sports
Slogan: Philly's ESPN Radio
Frequency: 610 kHz (also on HD Radio)
First air date: March 17, 1922 (as WIP)
Format: Sports
Power: 5,000 watts
Class: B
Facility ID28626
Former callsignsWIP (1922-2014)
Affiliations: ESPN Radio
Philadelphia Union (MLS)
Owner: Beasley Broadcast Group
(WXTU License Limited Partnership)
A Malian migrant, hailed as a hero after mounting a daring rescue to save a small boy dangling from a balcony in Paris, is to be made a French citizen. Mamoudou Gassama won widespread praise after climbing the outside of the building to save the four-year-old.
Video showed him being cheered on by spectators as he pulled himself from balcony to balcony to the fourth floor.
KGAL which began broadcasting in 1995, is owned by the Eads Broadcasting Corporation KGAL broadcasts a news/talk/sports radio format featuring a mix of local and syndicated programs including sports talk, conservative talk, local news, and live sporting events. PROGRAMMING: Local weekday programs include Morning Update with Weldon Greig and Jeff McMahon, Valley Talk hosted by Jeff McMahon and Hasso Hering.
Weekday syndicated programming includes Midnight Trucking Radio Network, Bill Bennett in the Morning with William Bennett, America in the Morning with Jim Bohannon, plus talk shows hosted by Dennis Prager, commentator and film critic Michael Medved, conservative author Hugh Hewitt, Radio Hall of Fame member Jim Bohannon, plus the Midnight Radio Network.
Throughout 2009, KGAL and sister station KSHO aired a series of one-minute historical vignettes as part of Oregon's sesquicentennial celebration.[4] The program, titled A Moment in Oregon History, highlights notable Oregon residents and key historical events. Each of the 240 vignettes was written by author Rick Steber.
SPORTS: In addition to its regularly scheduled talk programming, KGAL airs Seattle Seahawks NFL Football, Lebanon High School varsity sporting events and University of Oregon Ducks football games. HISTORY: The Eads Broadcasting Corporation received the original construction permit for this station from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 27, 1994
KGAL received its license to cover from the FCC on November 20, 1995
KGAL was one of two radio stations in 1997 broadcasting the games of the Portland Forest Dragons of the Arena Football League.[8] That team would ultimately leave Portland after the 1999 season
AWARDS: Eads Broadcasting owner Charlie Eads was the Broadcaster of the Year in Oregon and was honored as Volunteer of the Year at the 2009 Ovation Awards given out at the annual Northwest Festivals and Events Conference
Eads was cited for his work with the Willamette Valley Concert Band, the Linn County Cultural Coalition, and several other community organizations
AM/MW DX Of Smart Talk 1580 KGAL At 1580 kHz From Lebanon, Oregon To Westchester County, New York
Lebanon, Oregon is about 2900 from Westchester County, New York
MW DX, short for mediumwave DXing, is the hobby of receiving distant mediumwave (known as AM in North America) radio stations
In the United States and Canada, stations on the mediumwave dial are spaced at 10 kHz intervals from 520 to 1710 kHz.
The tremendous number of radio stations in this region of the world and limited number of available frequencies means congestion is very common, and DXers may hear two, three, or more stations on the same frequency (especially on certain "graveyard" frequencies where many lower-powered stations operate).
The most powerful stations in the two countries transmit with 50 kilowatts of power. Examples of stations in this category are WLS in Chicago on 890 kHz, KMOX in St. Louis on 1120 kHz, VOCM in St. John's on 590 kHz, WSB in Atlanta on 750 kHz, WCCO in Minneapolis on 830 kHz, WWL in New Orleans on 870 kHz, CJBC from Toronto on 860 kHz, WABC in New York City on 770 kHz, WLW in Cincinnati on 700 kHz, WCBS, 880 kHz in New York City, and WTAM in Cleveland on 1100 kHz, all of which can be heard over much of the United States and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains.
In the southern half of the United States, Mexican stations, some of which operate with over 100 kW of power, may be heard on a similar night-to-night basis.
Many of these stations are also clear-channel stations, ensuring that there will be no interference or limited interference on the same frequency.
Although some distant listeners may rely on such stations for non-DX purposes, such as to hear a certain talk show or sporting event, DX'ers generally log these stations when they begin the hobby and afterwards pay little attention to them while seeking out new, less powerful and well-heard stations, often with a few kilowatts of power or less, or unusually distant stations.
Especially prized in the former category are receptions of distant traveler information service (TIS) stations, operated by the Department of Transportation to give visitors information.
These stations typically run at very low powers (limited to 10 watts) and are only intended to cover small areas, but may travel thousands of miles under certain instances.
Similar are the tiny radio stations operated by high schools.
On the East Coast of the United States, it is not unusual for DX'ers to hear the high-powered European stations, which operate at 9 kHz intervals, rather than the 10 kHz in the United States, helping to reduce co-channel interference from domestic stations, from countries such as Spain and Norway.
Stations from Africa and the Middle East are also often heard
Brian Harrod Westchester Shortwave Association: Shortwave Radio - #WSWA Address; 333 Mamaroneck Avenue #301, White Plains, NY 10605 Phone; (203) 559-2555
WYFF News 4 anchor Mike McCormick and WYFF News 4 photojournalist Aaron Smeltzer died Monday when a tree fell on their SUV. The accident happened on Highway 176 in Polk County while they were covering the impact of heavy rain in that area.
Tryon Fire Chief Geoffrey Tennant said the engine of the SUV was running and the transmission was in drive when authorities arrived at the scene about 2:30 p.m. He said the tree that fell on the SUV was about 3 feet in diameter and had stood back off the road.
ROUNDUP VIDEO: TV NZ's 'Lookout' - The Mt Erebus Disaster
Air New Zealand Flight 901 (TE-901) was a scheduled Air New Zealand Antarctic sightseeing flight that operated between 1977 and 1979.
The flight would leave Auckland Airport in the morning and spend a few hours flying over the Antarctic continent, before returning to Auckland in the evening via Christchurch.
On 28 November 1979, the fourteenth flight of TE-901, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, registration ZK-NZP, flew into Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board.
The initial investigation concluded the accident was caused by pilot error but public outcry led to the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the crash.
The commission, presided over by Justice Peter Mahon QC, concluded that the accident was caused by a correction made to the coordinates of the flight path the night before the disaster, coupled with a failure to inform the flight crew of the change, with the result that the aircraft, instead of being directed by computer down McMurdo Sound (as the crew had been led to believe), was instead re-routed into the path of Mount Erebus.
Justice Mahon's report accused Air New Zealand of presenting "an orchestrated litany of lies" and this led to changes in senior management at the airline.
The accident is New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster, as well as the deadliest accident in the history of Air New Zealand.
Flight and aircraft
The flight was designed and marketed as a unique sightseeing experience, carrying an experienced Antarctic guide who pointed out scenic features and landmarks using the aircraft public-address system, while passengers enjoyed a low-flying sweep of McMurdo Sound
The flights left and returned to New Zealand the same day.
Flight 901 would leave Auckland International Airport at 8:00 am for Antarctica, and arrive back at Christchurch International Airport at 7:00 pm after flying a total of 5,360 miles (8,630 km).
The aircraft would make a 45-minute stop at Christchurch for refuelling and crew change, before flying the remaining 464 miles (747 km) to Auckland, arriving at 9:00 pm.
Dignitaries including Sir Edmund Hillary had acted as guides on previous flights.
Hillary was scheduled to act as the guide for the fatal flight of 28 November 1979, but had to cancel owing to other commitments. His long-time friend and climbing companion, Peter Mulgrew, stood in as guide
The flights usually operated at about 85% of capacity; the empty seats, usually the ones in the centre row, allowed passengers to move more easily about the cabin to look out of the windows.
The aircraft used on the Antarctic flights were Air New Zealand's eight McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 trijets.
The aircraft on 28 November was registered ZK-NZP.
The 182nd DC-10 to be built, and the fourth DC-10 to be introduced by Air New Zealand, ZK-NZP was handed over to the airline on 12 December 1974 at McDonnell Douglas's Long Beach plant.
It was the first Air New Zealand DC-10 to be fitted with General Electric CF6-50C engines as built, and had logged more than 20,700 flight hours prior to the crash
Circumstances surrounding the accident
Captain Jim Collins and co-pilot Greg Cassin had never flown to Antarctica before, but they were experienced pilots and were considered qualified for the flight.
On 9 November 1979, 19 days before departure, the two pilots attended a briefing in which they were given a copy of the previous flight's flight plan.
The flight plan that had been approved in 1977 by the New Zealand Department of Transport Civil Aviation Division was along a track directly from Cape Hallett to the McMurdo non-directional beacon (NDB), which, coincidentally, entailed flying almost directly over the 12,448-foot (3,794 m) peak of Mount Erebus.
However, because of a typing error in the coordinates when the route was computerised, the printout from Air New Zealand's ground computer system presented at the 9 November briefing corresponded to a southerly flight path down the middle of the wide McMurdo Sound, approximately 27 miles (43 km) to the west of Mount Erebus
The majority of previous 13 flights had also entered this flight plan's coordinates into their aircraft navigational systems and flown the McMurdo Sound route, unaware that the route flown did not correspond with the approved route.
Captain Leslie Simpson, the pilot of a flight on 14 November and also present at the 9 November briefing, compared the coordinates of the McMurdo TACAN navigation beacon (approximately 5 kilometres [3 mi] east of McMurdo NDB), and the McMurdo waypoint that his flight crew had entered into the INS, and was surprised to find a large distance between the two.
After his flight, Captain Simpson advised Air New Zealand's Navigation section of the difference in positions.
For reasons that were disputed, this triggered Air New Zealand's Navigation section to resolve to update the McMurdo waypoint coordinates stored in the ground computer to correspond with the coordinates of the McMurdo TACAN beacon, despite this also not corresponding with the approved route.
The Navigation section changed the McMurdo waypoint coordinate stored in the ground computer system at approximately 1:40 am on the morning of the flight. Crucially, the flight crew of Flight 901 was not notified of the change.
The flight plan printout given to the crew on the morning of the flight, which was subsequently entered by them into the aircraft's INS, differed from the flight plan presented at the 9 November briefing and from Captain Collins' map mark-ups which he had prepared the night before the fatal flight.
The key difference was that the flight plan presented at the briefing corresponded to a track down McMurdo Sound, giving Mount Erebus a wide berth to the east, whereas the flight plan printed on the morning of the flight corresponded to a track that coincided with Mount Erebus, which would result in a collision with Mount Erebus if this leg was flown at an altitude of less than 13,000 feet (4,000 m).
Additionally, the computer program was altered such that the standard telex forwarded to US Air Traffic Controllers at the United States Antarctic science facility at McMurdo Station displayed the word "McMurdo", rather than the coordinates of latitude and longitude, for the final waypoint.
During the subsequent inquiry Justice Mahon concluded that this was a deliberate attempt to conceal from the United States authorities that the flight plan had been changed, and probably because it was known that US Air Traffic Control would lodge an objection to the new flight path.
The flight had earlier paused during the approach to McMurdo Sound to carry out a descent, via a figure-eight manoeuvre, through a gap in the low cloud base (later estimated to be at approximately 2,000 to 3,000 feet (610 to 910 m)) whilst over water to establish visual contact with surface landmarks and afford the passengers a better view.
It was established that the flight crew either was unaware of or ignored the approved route's minimum safe altitude (MSA) of 16,000 feet (4,900 m) for the approach to Mount Erebus, and 6,000 feet (1,800 m) in the sector south of Mount Erebus (and then only when the cloud base was at 7,000 feet (2,100 m) or better).
Photographs and news stories from previous flights showed that many of these had also been flown at levels substantially below the route's MSA.
In addition, pre-flight briefings for previous flights had approved descents to any altitude authorised by the US Air Traffic Controller (ATC) at McMurdo Station.
As the US ATC expected Flight 901 to follow the same route as previous flights down McMurdo Sound, and in accordance with the route waypoints previously advised by Air New Zealand to them, the ATC advised Flight 901 that it had a radar that could let them down to 1,500 feet (460 m).
However, the radar equipment did not actually pick up the aircraft, and the crew also experienced difficulty establishing VHF communications. The distance measuring equipment (DME) did not lock onto the McMurdo Tactical Air Navigation System (TACAN) for any useful period.
Cockpit voice recorder transcripts from the last minutes of the flight before impact with Mount Erebus indicated that the flight crew believed they were flying over McMurdo Sound, well to the west of Mount Erebus and with the Ross Ice Shelf visible on the horizon, when in reality they were flying directly toward the mountain.
Despite most of the crew being engaged in identifying visual landmarks at the time, they never perceived the mountain directly in front of them. Approximately six minutes after completing a descent in Visual Meteorological Conditions, Flight 901 collided with the mountain at an altitude of approximately 1,500 feet (460 m), on the lower slopes of the 12,448-foot (3,794 m) tall mountain.
Passenger photographs taken seconds before the collision removed all doubt of a "flying in cloud" theory, showing perfectly clear visibility well beneath the cloud base, with landmarks 13 miles (21 km) to the left and 10 miles (16 km) to the right of the aircraft visible.
Changes to the coordinates and departure
The crew input the coordinates into the plane's computer before they departed at 7:21 am from Auckland International Airport.
Unknown to them, the coordinates had been modified earlier that morning to correct the error introduced previously and undetected until then.
The crew evidently did not check the destination waypoint against a topographical map (as did Captain Simpson on the flight of 14 November) or they would have noticed the change. Charts for the Antarctic were not available to the pilot for planning purposes, being withheld until the flight was about to depart.
The charts eventually provided, which were carried on the aircraft, were neither comprehensive enough nor large enough in scale to support detailed plotting.
Such cross checks (and more crucially, real-time monitoring of the aircraft's actual position over the ground) was neither supported nor required, nor even encouraged, by the Navigation Section of Air New Zealand.
These new coordinates changed the flight plan to track 27 miles (43 km) east of their understanding. The coordinates programmed the plane to overfly Mount Erebus, a 12,448-foot-high (3,794 m) volcano, instead of down McMurdo Sound.
About four hours after a smooth take-off, the flight was 42 miles (68 km) away from McMurdo Station. The radio communications centre there allowed the pilots to descend to 10,000 ft (3,000 m) and to continue "visually."
Air safety regulations at the time did not allow flights to descend to lower than 6,000 ft (1,800 m), even in good weather, although Air New Zealand's own travel magazine showed photographs of previous flights clearly operating below 6,000 ft (1,800 m). Collins believed the plane was over open water.
Crash into Mount Erebus
Collins told McMurdo Station that he would be dropping to 2,000 feet (610 m), at which point he switched control of the aircraft to the automated computer system.
Outside there was a layer of clouds that blended with the white of the snow-covered volcano, forming a sector whiteout – there was no contrast between the two to warn the pilots.
The effect deceived everyone on the flight deck, making them believe that the white mountainside was the Ross Ice Shelf, a huge expanse of floating ice derived from the great ice sheets of Antarctica, which was in fact now behind the mountain.
As it was little understood, even by experienced polar pilots, Air New Zealand had provided no training for the flight crew on the sector whiteout phenomenon.
Consequently, the crew thought they were flying along McMurdo Sound, when they were actually flying over Lewis Bay in front of Mt. Erebus.
At 12:49 pm, the ground proximity warning system (GPWS) began sounding a series of "whoop whoop pull up" alarms, warning that the plane was dangerously close to terrain.
The CVR captured these alarms, as well as flight engineer Gordon Brooks saying, "500 feet. 400 feet." Collins replied, "go around power please."
The go-around power was immediately applied, but it was too late.
There was no time to divert the aircraft, and six seconds later the plane crashed into the side of Mount Erebus and exploded, instantly killing everyone on board.
The accident occurred at 12:50 pm at a position of 77°25′30″S 167°27′30″E and an elevation of 1,467 feet (447 m) AMSL.
McMurdo Station attempted to contact the flight after the crash, and informed Air New Zealand headquarters in Auckland that communication with the aircraft had been lost. United States search and rescue personnel were placed on standby.
This time, the incident involves a group of three black filmmakers who were staying in an Airbnb home rental in the Golden State.
A woman named Kells Fyffe-Marshall posted on her Facebook page last week that as she and two other black friends were leaving their rental in Rialto, Calif., they were met with a throng of seven police cars and a helicopter, because why not call in the whirlybird on this?
This kerfuffle went down because a white neighbor took it upon herself to call said law enforcements on the friends, allegedly because they didn't "wave to her" (did she know them?) and also because three black people taking luggage out of a home automatically means they're robbing the joint.
A helicopter costs thousands and thousands of dollars a minute to keep in the air, aren't there budget restrictions that keep cops from calling one out whenever they feel like it?
From The Article:
The cops admit that the woman's reason for calling the police was because we didn't WAVE to her as she looked at us putting our luggage into our car from her lawn.
LOL... Hopefully the local Starbucks can give these cops some much-needed anti-racism training, because their boss sure ain't gonna do it.
He is faster than a speeding stroller, more adorable than a kitten, and able to get a stranger's attention with a single courtesy.
This is America's latest superhero -- and the only superhero with the power to feed the homeless.
By day, Austin Perine is a mild-mannered 4-year-old from Birmingham, Alabama.
LOL... This kid is just enslaving these people to a life of dependency. He should let them all go hungry so they will learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, the way Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, etc., all did.
Flying aircraft carriers that launch and recover fleets of small, inexpensive drones could soon be part of the U.S. military arsenal, as the Pentagon works with private technology partners to engineer that vision into reality.
In late April the Pentagon's advanced research-and-development arm, known as DARPA, awarded a 21-month, $38.6 million contract to Dynetics, a Huntsville, Alabama-based company, to work on the software and technology.
San Diego-based Kratos, a venture-funded tech company that specializes in cheap drones used for target practice, joined as a subcontractor and will build a new class of drones whose wings can be folded up for easier storage in the belly of a plane.
LOL... And of course, any 'extra' military gear that the military 'doesn't need anymore' will go to the cops.
Opinion: According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a secretive, corrupting campaign finance system is at the root of political dysfunction dividing Americans across the country -- and he says Congress better fix it.
He candidly writes in his forthcoming memoir, The Restless Wave, that non-profit social welfare organizations -- the 501(c)(4)s that hide their donors and fight to keep them secret -- "are often financed by one or two of several billionaires" who yield enormous influence.
ROFLMAO..... It's a shame McCain never held a government position that could have done something about this.
LOL... The George W. Bush campaign taught me that John McCain has a dark baby.
LOL... He probably should have sent an emissary to Russia to discuss their adoption policies.
LOL.. Might have won him the election.
THE TRUTH IS..... One Russian Oligarch funneled $500,000 through Cohen's LLC which has collected and distributed about $4.5 million during the campaign season for a variety of reasons which include at least one porn star.
I/O keynote included a segment on Google Assistant with a slew of newly announced features, but none was as startling as its rollout of Google Duplex: a voice-powered service that pretends to be human and calls businesses on your behalf.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai played back two phone conversations that he alleged were 100-percent legitimate, in which Google's AI-driven voice service called real-world businesses and scheduled appointments based on a user's data.
In both cases, voices that sounded decidedly more human and realistic than the default female Google Assistant voice used seemingly natural speech patterns.
ROFLMAO.... I Just Can't Wait For Businesses To Start Using This Bot .....
"Hi, I need an appointment for a lobotomy as soon as possible under the name, RexButthurt, can you help me?"
"Hello, Chicken Ranch...."
LOL... One supposes that the GA could make appointments for anyone you axed it to, where ever you wanted it to.
"Hello, Federal Penitentiary? I'd like to make an appointment to give myself up under the name Donald Trump."
Months after ramming through deficit-exploding tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations, President Donald Trump and the GOP are now looking for programs to slash to make up the difference -- and they're starting with children's healthcare.
According to a Washington Post report late Monday, Trump is "sending a plan to Congress that calls for stripping more than $15 billion in previously approved spending," $7 billion of which would come from the broadly popular Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
LOL... What Republicans always do: slash children's healthcare to pay for tax cut for billionaires.
Those billionaires needed those tax cuts because they were starving and couldn't afford healthcare insurance so little kids need to die.
LOL... Sorry folks but billionaires lives are just more important than poor kids lives.
Next up will be cutting their school lunches.... more Republican Family Values.
GOP: "If those kids are destined to die from some undiagnosed disease then all those school lunches would be a waste of money anyway. We need to run America as a business, that's the Republican mantra which has been repeated most of my life."
Arab youth now view the United States primarily as an adversary, according to an annual survey of 18-24 year olds in 16 Arab states.
Why it matters.... The U.S. has held a presence in many of these countries for years, but the latest ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey reveals a dramatic shift in how youth in the region view America:
57% of those surveyed this year see the U.S. as an enemy, and 35% consider the U.S. an ally. That's almost a complete reversal of the numbers from 2016.
The Trump factor: 73% of Arab youth said President Trump's election has had a negative impact on their countries. And more youth trust Russia than the United States, as the Kremlin builds up its presence in the region.
Asked who their country's top international ally is, the youths were most likely to pick the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, and Egypt. The U.S. fell out of the top five for the first time in the survey's history.
The countries surveyed ... Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia), and the Levant + Other (Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories) ... are mostly our supposed Allies.
A day after Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to lead the C.I.A., refused during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday to condemn the agency's torture of Qaeda suspects, several lawmakers and human-rights advocates said aspects of her testimony merited greater scrutiny.
While Haspel, the agency's acting director, vowed never to start another detention and interrogation program, her testimony was laced with ambiguities about the program and her understanding of limits on the C.I.A.'s powers.
For example, she promised to follow "the law" but insisted that the agency's interrogations were legal at the time.
At one point, for example, she told Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, that "I was not even read into the interrogation program until it had been up and running for a year."
Being "read in" means being briefed about classified information. The agency started its torture program in the summer of 2002, months after the capture of Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee the agency took into custody and for whom it initially developed its list of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, like waterboarding.
By late 2002, Haspel was running a secret C.I.A. prison in Thailand where another detainee in her custody, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was subjected to waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation and other such tactics.
Asked about the apparent discrepancy, Ryan Trapani, an agency spokesman, said in a statement, "Acting Director Haspel has said that she was briefed on some of C.I.A.'s more sensitive counterterrorism authorities and activities in October 2002."
In 2005, as the torture program was coming under investigation, she drafted an order to destroy 92 videotapes of interrogation sessions.
Ms. Haspel's testimony about that episode also attracted scrutiny. For example, she told Ms. Feinstein that the destroyed videotapes "were recordings of only one detainee."
"It was 92 tapes of one detainee," she said.
But while most of the tapes depicted interrogations of Mr. Zubaydah, two were long believed to be of Mr. Nashiri, the detainee who was tortured in her custody.
She knew that Congress wanted the tapes, but ordered them destroyed anyway. Not holding these monsters accountable was one of the biggest failings of Obama, IMO.
Residents in a southern Maryland county expressed mixed reviews after a group of "Deplorables" erected a billboard warning "liberals" to take up arms should President Donald Trump be impeached.
"Hey liberals," reads the billboard in Maryland's Culvert County, as first reported by DC's WJLA. "Better get your guns if you try to impeach President Trump. From all of your deplorables in Calvert County."
LOL... Why, because you'll visit out schools and kill our children?
Deplorables as a vigilante group, decide to threaten death to liberals, and blood in the streets if the nation enforces laws and protects and enforces the constitution?
Predictable.
This is simply another "Death to Americans" chant. Righty terrorists and Isis with a shared goal.
"Conservative Marylander Michelle Rinker, however, defended the sign to the station.
"I love the billboard," she told WJLA, adding that "if you attempt to take down a good president, there's gonna be a problem."
In other words, if you follow a lawful, Constitutional process then they are going to kill you.
She is absolutely deplorable and absolutely does prove Hillary Clinton was right for calling those pieces of crap what they really are.
LOL... They have just outed themselves as terrorists. Arrest them.
But the truth is public threats with the 2nd amendment are covered by the 1st amendment?
That these people are able to make overt, continuing political threats of violence is about the most egregious example of white privilege
I've encountered.
LOL... I wonder if the FBI would set up a massive task force if black militants publicly threatened to kill people with a billboard.
During a news panel discussion about an $8 trillion ruble shortage, the host declared that Russian citizens no longer needed to worry about the money because Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran deal, according to Julia Davis, a writer who monitors Russian Media.
The host explained that this would increase oil prices thus bringing Russia a lot more money.
LOL... DJT is a Russian asset.
The Saudis, who actually attacked us on 9/11, are dancing in the streets as well
Gas in my town went up 23 cents overnight. Oil is up 2% in early trading today.
Trumpers, when gas prices hit $4.00 per gallon thank Donald Trump.
And say bye-bye to the tax cut most average Americans received.
Remember what they were when Barrack Obama left office.
Trump should be well aware of how critics try to pin blame for high gasoline prices on the president. He did so to Obama in 2012 when the average gas price nearly broke $4 per gallon, suggesting on Twitter the president does indeed have the power to make the price of gasoline obey his wishes:
Gas prices are about to hit a record high during the Labor Day weekend. @BarackObama could have stopped this.
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2012
Gas prices are at crazy levels--fire Obama!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2012
Throughout Trump's tenure in office, the nation has enjoyed gasoline prices well below $3 per gallon -- something for which Trump has been eager to take credit:
Gas prices are the lowest in the U.S. in over ten years! I would like to see them go even lower.
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2017
The Iran deal was a damn good one. Literally EVERYONE with knowledge of foreign policy agreed, even hardliners in Israel.
If there were a Guinness World Record for robocalls, a Miami man may have set it. And now he's paying the price.
The FCC has fined Adrian Abramovich $120 million for setting up a program that made nearly 100 million robocalls between 2015 and 2016.
"Abramovich is the perpetrator of one of the largest -- and most dangerous -- illegal robocalling campaigns that the Commission has ever investigated," the FCC said in June, when it handed down its citation against him. The fine amount was finalized Thursday.
BUT, BUT, But..... the wrong criminal is being targeted. OK, maybe not the wrong one, but not all of 'em.
The real criminal in the robo-call mess is the VoIP provider that allows so many calls with forged caller-ID data.
ROFLMAO...Is this guy a Mossad operative? Is that how he was able to perform regardless the millions of FCC complaints..... LOL...He should meet the woman who texted 65,000 times.... LOL...talk about a match made in heaven.
