startups aim to help seniors · the drought-stricken state. police located their remains while...

World News Roundup

ARAB TIMES, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2015

10INTERNATIONAL

Education

Scorched trees and burned vehicles and the remains of homes cover the landscape on Sept 17, in Anderson springs Calif. The Valley fire that sped through Middletown and other parts of rural LakeCounty, less than100 miles north of San Francisco, has continued to burn since Saturday despite a massive firefighting effort. (AP)

California wildfires death toll rises to fiveThe death toll from monster wildfiresraging in northern California hasrisen to five with the discovery of twonew victims, authorities said onThursday.

Both were killed in the so-calledValley fire, one of two giant blazesthat have destroyed hundreds of

homes and displaced thousands inthe drought-stricken state.

Police located their remains whilesearching the burn zone with snifferdogs on Wednesday morning.

“Human remains were located inthe Hidden Valley area and theAnderson Springs area,” Steven

Brooks, spokesman for the sheriff ofLake County, said in a statement.

The remains are presumed to bethose of Bruce Beven Burns, report-ed missing on Tuesday, and LeonardNeft, who has been missing sinceMonday.

“Identification of the decedents is

being withheld until positive identifi-cation can be made,” the statementadded.

Three people were previouslyknown to have died in the Valley andButte wildfires. All were found in theirhomes, two in the Sierra NevadaFoothills and a third in Lake County.

Some 17,000 people are stillunable to return to their homes as13,000 firefighters battle blazesacross the state, according toLynnette Round, a spokeswomanwith the California Department ofForestry and Fire Protection(CalFire). (AFP)

Joseph N. Jessop and his survivingson walk off after a news conferenceon Sept 17, in Colorado City, Ariz.Jessop expressed his gratitude forthe outpouring of support after hiswife and children were swept away in

a flash flood Monday. (AP)

Anthony Meek

‘Big Tony’ sentenced to life:Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello wassentenced Thursday to life in prison with-out parole for the mob-connected 2001slaying of a prominent South Florida busi-nessman during a battle over control of afleet of gambling ships.

Broward County Circuit Judge IlonaHolmes imposed the sentence after a juryrejected the death sentence sought byprosecutors following more than threehours of deliberation. Holmes said shehad little choice but to follow the jury’sadvice.

Moscatiello, 76, showed no reactionwhen the jury’s decision was announced.He was convicted in July of murder andmurder conspiracy in the fatal shooting ofKonstantinos “Gus” Boulis during a dis-pute over lucrative gambling ships. Trialevidence showed Boulis was shot by a hitman hired by Moscatiello, a reputed mem-ber of New York’s Gambino crime familyonce headed by “Teflon Don” John Gotti.

Just before he was sentenced, however,Moscatiello made a short statement toHolmes denying any role in the killingand contending that the hit man identifiedby prosecutors is not the actual killer.Moscatiello turned in the courtroom toaddress Boulis nephew Spiro Naos.

“I truly am sorry about what happenedto Gus, but I assure you I had nothing todo with it,” he said.

Naos said in a statement that the verdictand sentence was “fair and just.”

“It has been almost 15 years since Guswas taken from us, but we can now move

Ahmed Mohamed, 14, gestures as he arrives to his family’s home in Irving,Texas, on Sept 17. Ahmed was arrested Monday at his school after a teacherthought a homemade clock he built was a bomb. He remains suspended and

said he will not return to classes at MacArthur High School. (AP)

Mideast Sheikh tied to speeding likely left USBEVERLY HILLS, Calif, Sept18, (AP): A Middle Easternsheikh who allegedly said heowned a Ferrari caught on filmspeeding through a Beverly Hillsneighborhood apparently hasraced out of town, police saidThursday.

Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani ofQatar has left the country and thecars are gone, authorities said at anews conference.

Al Thani owns a drag-racingteam and is a member of the rul-ing family of oil- and gas-richQatar. An aficionado of fast cars,Al Thani routinely has been pho-tographed racing cars on race-tracks, including a Formula 1racer.

on with our lives in a manner in whichGus Boulis would be proud,” Naos said.

Co-defendant Anthony “Little Tony”Ferrari was previously convicted and isserving a life sentence. A third conspira-tor, James “Pudgy” Fiorillo, pleadedguilty and testified for prosecutors after

serving more than six years behind bars.(AP)

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Friend of shooter arrested: Afriend of the alleged Charleston churchshooter was arrested Thursday, more than

a month after authorities told him he wasunder federal investigation for lying tothem and failing to report a crime, an offi-cial close to the probe said.

Joey Meek, 21, was arrested Thursday,the official told The Associated Press,

speaking only on the condition ofanonymity because the person was notauthorized to publicly talk about the case.The official didn’t immediately say whatcharges Meek faces.

Meek has said that Dylann Roof, whois accused of killing nine black churchmembers during Bible study on June 17,stayed with him before the shootings.Meek told The Associated Press that Roofhad drunkenly complained that “blackswere taking over the world” and “some-

one needed to dosomething about itfor the white race.”

Roof faces federalhate crime charges aswell as nine countsof murder in statecourt.

Meek told the APthat Roof occasional-ly stayed with him ata mobile home inRed Bank, about 20miles (32 kms) fromColumbia, before the

shootings at Emanuel African MethodistEpiscopal Church.

Meek, of Lexington, told AP that Roofsaid he used birthday money from his par-ents to buy a .45-caliber Glock semi-auto-matic handgun, which Meek took awayfrom him the night of his drunken rant butgave back to him when Roof had soberedup. (AP)

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American stops flights: AmericanAirlines flights to and from Dallas,Chicago and Miami were briefly stoppedon Thursday by a computer problem thatprevented passengers from checking in.

Airline officials said they fixed theircomputer systems after less than twohours but were still trying to determinethe exact cause of the interruption.

American spokesman Casey Nortonsaid there was no indication that the air-line’s computers had been hacked.

The midday failure affected flights onAmerican and its regional affiliate,American Eagle. The Federal AviationAdministration said that AmericanAirlines planes destined for Dallas-FortWorth International Airport, O’HareAirport in Chicago and MiamiInternational Airport were held on theground at other airports.

Norton said six American Eagle flightsin Chicago were canceled and about 300American and Eagle flights were delayedby an average of slightly more than onehour. Tracking service FlightAware.comreported nearly 600 delays on Americanand more than 200 on Eagle operatorEnvoy Air by late afternoon, but Nortonsaid many were unrelated to the computerissue. (AP)

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Katz can’t suppress photo: A fed-eral appeals court said a minority ownerof the Miami Heat basketball team cannotstop a woman from running a scathinglycritical blog featuring an unflatteringphoto of him with his tongue protrudingaskew from his mouth.

Raanan Katz, who is also a Florida realestate developer, had sought to stop IrinaChevaldina, a disgruntled former tenant inone of his shopping centers, from usingthe “ugly” and “embarrassing” photo, inwhich he held the copyright.

But the 11th US Circuit Court ofAppeals in Miami on Thursday agreedwith a lower court judge that Chevaldinamade “fair use” of the photo to illustrateand communicate her beliefs about Katz,without trying to profit. (RTRS)

Other Lives

‘Age in place’

Startups aim to help seniorsNEW YORK, Sept 18, (RTRS): ShariCayle, 75, called “Miracle Mama” byher family ever since she beat backadvanced colon cancer seven yearsago, is still undergoing treatment andliving alone.

“I don’t want my grandchildren toremember me as the sick one, I wantto be the fun one,” said Cayle, who istesting a device that passively moni-tors her activity. “My family knowswhat I’m doing and I don’t think theyshould have to change their lifearound to make sure I’m OK.”

Onkol, a product inspired by Caylethat monitors her front door, remindsher to when to take her medicationand can alert her family if she fallshas allowed her to remain independ-ent at home. Devised by her sonMarc, it will hit the US market nextyear.

As more American seniors plan toremain at home rather than enter anursing facility, new startups andsome well-known technology brandsare connecting them to family andhealthcare providers.

The noninvasive devices sit in thebackground as users go about theirnormal routine. Through Bluetoothtechnology they are able to gatherinformation and send it to family ordoctors when, for example, a sensorreads that a pill box was opened or awireless medical device such as a glu-

cose monitor is used.According to

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ HealthResearch Institute, at-home optionslike these will disrupt roughly $64billion of traditional US provider rev-enue in the next 20 years.

Monitoring devices for the elderlystarted with products like privately-held Life Alert, which leapt into pub-lic awareness nearly 30 years agowith TV ads showing the elderly“Mrs Fletcher” reaching for her LifeAlert pendant and telling an operator,“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

FurtherNow companies like Nortek

Security & Control and small startupsare taking that much further.

The challenge though is that olderconsumers may not be ready to usethe technology and their medical,security and wellness needs may dif-fer significantly. There are also safetyand privacy risks.

“There’s a lot of potential, but a biggap between what seniors want andwhat the market can provide,” saidHarry Wang, director of health andmobile product research at ParksAssociates.

Milwaukee-based Onkol devel-oped a rectangular hub, roughly thesize of a tissue box, that passivelymonitors things like what their blood

glucose reading is and when theyopen their refrigerator. There is also awristband that can be pressed for helpin an emergency.

“The advantage of it is that the per-son, the patient, doesn’t have to worryabout hooking it up and doing stuffwith the computer, their kids do that,”said Cayle, whose son co-foundedOnkol.

Sensely is another device used byproviders like Kaiser Permanente,based in California, and the NationalHealth Service in the UnitedKingdom. Since 2013, its virtualnurse Molly has connected patientswith doctors from a mobile device.She asks how they are feeling and letsthem know when it is time to take ahealth reading.

Another startup, San Francisco-based Lively began selling its productto consumers in 2012. Similarly, itcollects information from sensors andconnects to a smart watch that trackscustomers’ footsteps, routine and caneven call emergency services. Nextyear it will connect with medicaldevices, send data to physicians andenable video consultations that canreplace some doctor’s appointments.

Venture firms including FenoxVenture Capital, Maveron, CapitalMidwest Fund and LaunchPadDigital Health have contributed mil-lions of dollars to these startups.

5 arraigned

‘Overhaul setof principles’IRVINE, California, Sept 18, (AP):Under pressure from Jewish organi-zations, members of the University ofCalifornia’s governing boardThursday called for an overhaul of aproposed set of system-wide princi-ples against intolerance, saying itshould explicitly address anti-Semitism.

About two dozen people gaveinput to the board of regents at their

meeting at UCIrvine about theproposed“Statement ofPrinciplesAgainstIntolerance,” abroad declara-tion that freespeech advo-cates contendedwould amountto censorship.

Jewish organ-izations concerned about a series ofincidents on campuses - includingswastikas and Hitler graffiti - askedthe UC system in March to take astronger stand and adopt the US StateDepartment’s definition of anti-Semitism, which includes demoniz-ing Israel or denying its right to exist.

What UC officials drafted was astatement that did not include anexplicit mention of anti-Semitism orIsrael. The proposed principles aimto protect any individual or group, bycalling for its 10 campuses to be “freefrom acts and expressions of intoler-ance.” It would prohibit “depicting orarticulating a view of ethnic or racialgroups as less ambitious, less hard-working or talented, or more threat-ening than other groups,” amongother things.

OmissionGroups critical of Israel’s treat-

ment of Palestinians applauded theomission of the US StateDepartment’s definition in the state-ment, saying they feared it could beused to silence them. But Jewishgroups said they felt the universitywas ignoring a problem that neededto be addressed. On Thursday,Regent Norman Pattiz urged thebody to take a real stand against theanti-Semitic incidents described bystudents and said that was the intentbehind making such a declaration.UC is the first statewide university toconsider adopting such a set of prin-ciples against intolerance.

“To not recognize why this subjectis even being brought up is to do adisservice to those who brought it upin the first place,” he said.

His comments were echoed byother regents and welcomed byJewish students and groups. Theysaid they hope a new statement willaddress a rash of anti-Semitic inci-dents.

UC President Janet Napolitano ina May radio interview had expressedsupport for adopting the StateDepartment’s definition.

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The first five of 37 suspects in thedeath of a New York City freshmanfraternity pledge during an initiationritual appeared Thursday in aPennsylvania courtroom to facecharges.

Fraternity members at BaruchCollege physically abused Chun“Michael” Deng during a December2013 initiation ritual in the PoconoMountains, about 100 miles (160kms) west of New York, then tried tocover it up, police said. Police sayfraternity members blindfolded the19-year-old Deng, forced him towear a heavy backpack and thenrepeatedly tackled him during a haz-ing ritual known as glass ceiling.

Deng fell unconscious and wascarried inside the house while frater-nity members changed his clothesand did an Internet search of hissymptoms, waiting an hour beforetaking him to the hospital, accordingto court documents. He died a daylater.

Five men, include the formernational president of the Pi DeltaPsi fraternity, were arraigned onthree felony counts related to whatpolice say was an effort to concealthe crime, as well as one misde-meanor charge of hazing. A magis-trate released them on $50,000unsecured bail and set a preliminaryhearing date of Oct 16.

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A former University ofMississippi student who admittedhelping place a noose on a statue of acivil rights activist is going to prison.

A federal judge sentencedGraeme Phillip Harris on Thursdayto six months in prison beginningJan. 4, and 12 months’ supervisedrelease. Harris’ lawyer argued he did-n’t deserve jail time.

Harris pleaded guilty in June to amisdemeanor charge of using a threatof force to intimidate African-American students and employees.Prosecutors say he and two other for-mer students placed a noose on thestatue of James Meredith, a blackman who integrated the universityknown as Ole Miss amid rioting in1962.

A second man, Austin ReedEdenfield, had been scheduled toplead guilty Wednesday.

Napolitano

America

Roof