The Lo Zone

A 3-year-old boy, his throat slit, dies along with his brother, mother and aunt while his father is serving in Iraq. Hikers find a librarian and her daughter shot to death along a trail. A group of young men are fired on when they pull their car into a driveway.

The crimes left nine people dead in as many days, stunning this generally peaceful region. Law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall a similar string of multiple homicides in the Seattle area.

"What's really strange about them, besides the quantity, is that every one of these cases is very bizarre," King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said. "We just don't have that."

The Seattle area is no stranger to horrific crimes — serial killers Gary Ridgway and Ted Bundy, for example, and the unsolved assassination of federal prosecutor Tom Wales in 2001.

In a dramatic turnaround from her first murder trial, Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity Wednesday in the drowning of her (FIVE!!!!!) children in the bathtub.

Byron Harmon is the author of two earlier novels, All The Women I’ve Loved (Pocket, 2002) and Mistakes Men Make (Pocket, 2005). He is the executive producer for the WCBS TV Early Morning News in New York City.

An eighth day of intense heat pushed electricity usage to a peak of 50,270 megawatts — a record for California...

[...]

Meanwhile, utilities in the St. Louis area and New York City labored to restore power to hundreds of thousands whose electricity was knocked out by storms and equipment failures.

[...]

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses lost power in California on Sunday because of heavy electricity use and high temperatures that caused transformers and other equipment to overheat.

Some 50,000 customers in northern California still were without electricity, including 35,000 in San Jose and the East Bay, according to Pacific Gas & Electric. About 20,000 Los Angeles customers also remained without electricity.

A nursing home patient in Stockton died from heat-related stress Sunday after the Beverly Healthcare Center's air conditioning gave out, police said.

Among possible heat-related deaths was a man in his 40s found on a lawn Sunday in Fresco County with a body temperature above 109 degrees. Also, a 73-year-old woman died in Yolo County after passing out in a car without air conditioning and a woman collapsed and died while walking from her home to a drugstore not far from Death Valley National Park, where temperatures hit 125 degrees Sunday.

[...]

In Arizona, authorities said heat may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four other men in the Phoenix area over the weekend. The deaths came during a three-day streak of record-breaking temperatures in Phoenix. The temperature soared to 114 degrees Sunday, breaking the record of 112 set in 1906.

Isn't it?

“I didn’t even know that Christian fiction existed,” she said. “I knew that I wanted write a book that was entertaining, compelling and put God in the middle and still have the book be a page-turner.”

Since those early days, Murray’s books have regularly earned her spot on the Essence magazine’s bestseller’s list and garnered her a nomination for a 2001 NAACP Image Award.

The Wheatley Book Award honors the memory of the late African-American poet Phillis Wheatley. The award recognizes literary excellence and achievement that transcends cultural boundaries and perceptions, according to Max Rodriguez, the former publisher of QBR—The Quarterly Black Book Review and founder of the Harlem Book Fair. Past recipients include Dr. Maya Angelou, Maryse Conde, Carol Jenkins and Haki Madhubuti. In addition to Murray, this year’s honorees are Walter Dean Myers, author of the 1993 biography of Malcolm X; Omar Tyree, the outspoken author of 13 books that mainly focus on urban hip-hop culture; Chester Higgins, a photojournalist whose works have appeared in the New York Times, Black Enterprise and Art News; and Jan Carew, an educator and author whose works incorporate some of his experiences as an educator and author in Europe, Guyana and the U.S.

"They're pulling out their hair, they're crying, they're saying 'What's going on?' They're being rejected from the American Embassy," [...] "The American Embassy is still saying, 'We will call you.' That's all that they will say."

July 12 - Hezbollah gunmen kill three Israeli soldiers and kidnap two. Israeli forces retaliate by pounding Lebanon. Beirut International Airport is bombed. The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon urges Americans to review their security and travel plans.

July 13 - The embassy urges American citizens to avoid nonessential travel in Lebanon.

July 14 - The embassy authorizes the families of embassy staff members and non-emergency American employees to leave. It urges Americans in Lebanon to evaluate their security and consider departing, and it advises those who remain to keep low profiles and vary times and routes for all required travel.

July 15 - The embassy announces that it's working with the Department of Defense on a plan to help American citizens depart Lebanon through the island nation of Cyprus. The State Department reminds Americans that it doesn't provide free transportation for evacuees, but says it's authorized to provide repatriation loans to those in financial need.

July 16 - U.S. Marine Corps helicopters begin ferrying small numbers of Americans from the embassy compound north of Beirut to Cyprus.

July 17 - The Pentagon announces that it's contracted a Greek cruise ship, the Orient Queen, escorted by an American destroyer, to evacuate Americans from Lebanon. There are an estimated 25,000 Americans in Lebanon; the ship can carry 750 passengers.

July 18 - The embassy announces that it's "monitoring the situation in Lebanon closely" and "reviewing all options" for assisting Americans who want to leave. The embassy says further information will be released by the media and in embassy announcements and warden messages. Americans who wish to depart are told that they should prepare passports and other important travel documents, including birth certificates, marriage certificates and medical records. Those who leave will be allowed one small suitcase.

Americans seeking U.S. Embassy for help in leaving the country had been asked to sign promissory notes...

Hours later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reversed course.

"We want to do everything we can to facilitate the departure of American citizens from Lebanon," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "Today's step removes one potential worry for our citizens at this difficult time."

This headline really caught my attention.

'Bionic man' can control robotic arm with his mind

Per the article:

A man paralysed from the neck down has shown he can open email, control a TV and move objects with a robotic arm by thought alone.

The 25-year-old American patient, Matthew Nagle, had a computer-linked implant placed in his brain that enabled him to operate devices just by thinking about it.

The Weinstein Company, the film studio started by the founders of Miramax, is near a deal to form a joint venture with Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, to create an urban entertainment company, according to people involved in the negotiations.

The joint venture could be announced as early as Thursday, these people said, though they cautioned that the deal could be delayed.

The joint venture is a first step toward creating a major force in urban entertainment, from producing films and television programming to new Internet programming, these people said. Initially, the joint venture will create low-cost films for the urban market, an audience that has often been ignored by the major studios but can be extremely lucrative. Terms of the deal could not be learned.

The Weinsteins...


...and Robert Johnson???

With bipartisan support and the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal haunting Republican efforts to pass antigambling legislation, the House approved a crackdown on Internet wagering that would ban not only sports bets but also online poker and other games that have become increasingly popular.

Voting 317 to 93, the House approved a bill that would make it illegal for financial institutions or intermediaries to process payments to offshore casinos through bettors’ electronic funds, checks, debits and other e-wallet transactions. In addition, the bill updates the Wire Act of 1961, which forbade the transmission of betting over telephone lines, to specifically outlaw online gambling through any communication network. Criminal penalties would increase to a maximum of five years in prison, from two years.

A man has been indicted for allegedly pushing his 4-year-old daughter to her death from a cliff 120 feet above the Pacific Ocean so he wouldn't have to pay child support.

Cameron John Brown, 42, pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering Lauren Key. The district attorney's office said prosecutors will decide later whether they intend to seek the death penalty.

He has been jailed since his arrest in November, when charges were initially filed in the case. The indictment, unsealed Monday, supersedes the earlier charges and means the case can proceed to trial without a preliminary hearing.

The little girl died Nov. 8, 2000, on Palos Verdes Peninsula, where Brown claimed she had slipped as they hiked to a spot high above the ocean called Inspiration Point, officials said.

The demented doctor suspected of blowing up his $9 million upper East Side brownstone yesterday morning was on the verge of losing his beloved home in a bitter divorce settlement - and had vowed to "die in my house."

Shortly before leveling the four-story E. 62nd St. building with a huge gas explosion that ignited terror fears and injured 15 pedestrians and firefighters, Dr. Nicholas Bartha sent a rambling, 14-page e-mail aimed at his estranged wife and other targets of his fury.

"When you read these lines your life will change forever. You deserve it," the hulking physician ominously wrote his wife of 29 years, Cordula. "You will be transformed from gold digger to ash and RUBBISH digger."

Bartha told her, "I will leave the house only if I am dead. You ridiculed me. You should have taken it seriously."

The 66-year-old doctor .e-mailed the poison-pen missive to at least a dozen other people and organizations - including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Fox News Channel - shortly before the failed suicide blast that left him critically burned and buried. The city was rocked about 8:40 a.m. when, officials believe, Bartha opened up the gas lines in his 19th century building before sparking the blast that reduced the home to rubble and sent flames and smoke high into the clear morning sky.

In a crime that the police chief in Fresno, Calif., calls "disturbing," as many as 10 men, most of whom are community college football players, are accused of raping an 11-year-old girl.

Detectives have two of the men in custody and say they have evidence to prove the involvement of the others. The girl, a runaway from a group home, claims she was raped multiple times by the men on Saturday night at a Fresno apartment complex.

She told police she was at the complex to visit an acquaintance. After the rape she said she fled the apartment and asked a couple on the street to call police.

China's censors have rejected worldwide box office champ "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" due to violent and supernatural content [...].

[...] the Film Bureau disliked the portrayal of the souls of the dead and of a ferocious "octopus-faced" character.

Kate Moss might want to get photographed snorting cocaine more often. The sniffly supermodel's earning power has soared since pictures of her Hoovering disco dust made headlines around the world. Despite the initial backlash - which included cheapie fashion superstore H&M dropping her from its ad campaign - she raked in cash with new deals with Burberry, Calvin Klein, Rimmel, Nikon, Roberto Cavalli and Virgin Mobile. The catwalk icon, 32, who earned about $7 million a year before the cocaine storm, will make about $18 million this year.