Some good news – we have found another workaround that so far provides to be 100% effective…. By switching 10.9 users to an Apple USB 100Mb Ethernet adapter, and using that instead of the onboard Ethernet, the packet loss issue goes away.

It should be noted that the Apple Thunderbolt Gigabit adapters does not correct the problem as they appear to be the same chipset as the onboard Gigabit Ethernet port. 

After-party venue / New sponsors / VSA speaker switch / Where the New Yorkers at?

We are 50 days away from the 2014 Brand New Conference and have a few updates and notes to share:

1) After-party
The venue for the after-party has been contracted at the very ample upstairs area of John Barleycorn on 149 West Kinzie Street. Non conference attendees and friends of conference attendees and nice people are welcome to attend at no cost — you'll just have to pay for your own booze and not eat the food.

2) New sponsors
Every year we are fortunate to have relevant and supportive sponsors. Since we first launched this year's site and speaker list we've added four new sponsors: MOO, Extensis, FontShop, and Airbnb.

3) VSA Partner speaker change
Due to a client conflict, VSA Partners' Jamie Koval will not be able to present. Lucky for us they have a deep pool of talent and Sol Sender — you know, of Obama ’08 logo fame — who joined the company in 2011 will be taking his place.

4) Attendee geography
We have nearly 500 attendees and we are delighted with this number so far. Our goal is 750 and we hope we can make it happen. We obviously have a big crowd from Illinois at 135. From the nearby Midwest we have 27 from Indiana, 13 from Michigan, 12 from Ohio, and 8 from Wisconsin. California is coming in strong with 32. Over 75 people are coming from outside the U.S.! From London, Stockholm, Spain, Moscow, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong. We love this. But we do have to ask: Where are the New Yorkers? Only 40 so far. Maybe you are offended we took the conference away from your home court? It's a quick flight to Chicago, so c'mon down, okay?

5) Ticket giveaway
On September 8 or 9 we will be doing our usual ticket giveaway courtesy of sponsors who may have unused tickets and our matching giveaway.

6) Last day for online registration
Finally, a reminder that online registration will close September 18. Walk-in registrations will be accepted.

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Pop Chart Lab has created A Visual Compendium of Baseball Jerseys, a new art print that features 121 hand-drawn baseball uniforms from throughout history. Signed and numbered prints are available to purchase online.

A loving ode to the ensembles of America’s Favorite Pastime, this compendium of home and visiting vestments also serves as a visual record of fashion trends in baseball over the last 150 years—from the rise and fall of stirrups to the push toward powder blue and pullovers

images via Pop Chart Lab

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Google Maps has added virtual tours of Mars and the Moon to the service. The tours includes labeled topographic features like Olympica Fossae on Mars.

To start your interplanetary adventure, look for Earth mode at the bottom left of your map (on supported browsers). Click on “Earth,” zoom all the way out until you see the entire globe, and you’ll see these two celestial bodies pop up at the bottom of
your screen.

via Google Maps

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

I want to leave

Ever since the Intercept published this story about the US government's Terrorist Screening Database, the press has been writing about a "second leaker":

The Intercept article focuses on the growth in U.S. government databases of known or suspected terrorist names during the Obama administration.

The article cites documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013, which is after Snowden left the United States to avoid criminal charges.

Greenwald has suggested there was another leaker. In July, he said on Twitter "it seems clear at this point" that there was another.

Everyone's miscounting. This is the third leaker:

• Leaker #1: Edward Snowden.

• Leaker #2: The person who is passing secrets to Jake Appelbaum, Laura Poitras and others in Germany: the Angela Merkel surveillance story, the TAO catalog, the X-KEYSCORE rules. My guess is that this is either an NSA employee or contractor working in Germany, or someone from German intelligence who has access to NSA documents. Snowden has said that he is not the source for the Merkel story, and Greenwald has confirmed that the Snowden documents are not the source for the X-KEYSCORE rules. I have also heard privately that the NSA knows that this is a second leaker.

• Leaker #3: This new leaker, with access to a different stream of information (the NCTC is not the NSA), whom the Intercept calls "a source in the intelligence community."

Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler has written an excellent law-review article on the need for a whistleblower defense. And there's this excellent article by David Pozen on why government leaks are, in general, a good thing.

Brianna Wu, writing for Macworld: Eve wasn’t invited:

But this is just the first step: Getting young girls interested in tech cannot be our only focus. A recent New York Times article revealed that women end up leaving tech in numbers three times greater than our male counterparts. Without also addressing these issues in the workplace for adult women, our girls will simply grow up and leave in similar numbers.

Burger Week runs August 11-17th

White Owl Social Club, the sprawling indoor/outdoor bar, rock club, and carno-veg-vegan-gf-friendly restaurant with a seriously legit menu, is offering one of Burger Week's two vegetarian burgers. It also happens to be fully vegan, but it packs more interesting, meaty, fresh flavor and complexity than you can possibly comprehend without trying it. This is a kitchen that knows all too well the common pitfalls of vegetarian and vegan recipes, and makes no such missteps. This food reads like it was made by people who love to eat, not love to worry.

The White Owl Social Club Hazelnut-Beet Burger is: housemade veggie patty (garlic, almonds, brown sugar, red miso, kosher salt, black pepper, peanut butter, wakame, hazelnuts, quinoa, beets, potato starch, white onion, olive oil), served on a toasted Alessio bun with Misonaise, Heidi Ho Monterey Jack, carrot ramps and pea shoots. The beet/hazelnut combination is truly inspired, the cheese tastes and feels just like the real thing, and I found the sweetness and crunch of the fresh pea shoots a pleasing alternative to lettuce. Bravo, chef Steadham, for making the 20th burger I sampled for Burger Week a total pleasure, and an eye-opener.

- * -

Read all the Burger Week details here!

The Portland Mercury would like to thank our partners once again this year, world-class meat provider Nicky USA, Widmer Brothers Brewing, and Jim Beam Kentucky Fire!

Important reminder: THESE BURGERS WILL SELL OUT. Last year’s restaurants had one main issue with the event last year, and that was people getting angry and rude when they found out that they are part of a reality where restaurants that are getting slammed run out of food. We have better forecasting numbers this year, but please: go early, be kind, get a drink, and, most importantly, a $5 burger is a privilege, not a right. You know what someone who acts like a horse’s ass is? Hint: It has two enormous buttocks and large poops fall out of the middle.

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Stratasys Reports Blowout Second Quarter & Stratasys’ Second Quarter Earnings. That’s about 150 a day.

MakerBot line of 3D printers contributed a staggering $33.6 million this quarter to the top line, representing a 100% increase over last year’s numbers when MakerBot was independent.

Full Stratasys Reports Record Second Quarter Financial Results here.

If you asked me for a list of some of the best superhero comics of the past year or so, I’d be sure to mention one that comes not from DC Comics or Marvel, two companies synonymous with the genre, but from Archie Comics, a publisher popularly known for not making superhero comics. That comic […]

Because Björk

Confirmed: Arizona State hates fun, happiness.

THIS IS A BRIDGE TOO FAR.

Just a heads up on the...tortillas (via @RedditCFB) pic.twitter.com/QoYmJKtxkq

— House of Sparky (@HouseOfSparky) August 7, 2014

Ohhhh we can still bring a small umbrella into the stadium? GO TO HELL. TORTILLAS OR DEATH.

The context is that students and fans have been throwing tortillas toward the field for years, because THROWING A TORTILLA IS FUN and because TORTILLAS ARE DELICIOUS AND SHOULD BE CELEBRATED and because why wouldn't you throw a tortilla? God made them shaped like Frisbees for a reason.

ASU has long tried to enforce "NO TORTILLAS" with a zeal bordering on fascism. In the words of a brilliant student reporter 12 years ago:

Inside the stadium, guards walk up and down the rows, checking for tortillas and confiscating them.

I don't care. I'm going to take a cue from my skater-punk little brother and stand up for a proud and fun tradition.

But Arizona State isn't the only school with a tortilla problem. Let's examine the history of tortilla tossing.

It goes back years and years, and is a long-stading tradition at Texas Tech.

Let's start with a little tortilla-chucking history. Rooster Bowl history indicates that Texas Tech students have allegedly been hurling tortillas since 1993 in a rebellious response to the Texas A&M quarterback's derision of Tech as "good for nothing but making tortillas."

UCSB had a serious tortilla problem and nearly lost a game because of it.

The Gauchos would win 65-61 but not before nearly being assessed a technical foul with 0.6 seconds left when, leading by two, yellow-clad fans sitting behind their bench revived the UCSB tradition of flinging tortillas onto the court to celebrate the impending victory.

Baylor students throw tortillas off a dang bridge:

The ledgend goes, that if you are able to land a tortilla on the platform during your freshman year, you will graduate from Baylor in four years. This is a huge attraction to Baylor freshman and is a great Baylor tradition.

Even Arizona has had problems with tortillas.

Likins said when he started at the UA in 1997, students threw tortillas in the air at the end of the ceremonies to celebrate their graduation, but in more recent years, tortillas seem to constantly fly everywhere.

He said the airborne tortillas unnerve speakers who are unfamiliar with the practice, and embarrass the university because it is a "childish" and wasteful act that graduating students should stop.

Today, we are all that guy's skater-punk little brother. *puts fist in air*

In 2012 the MoMA added a series of video games to their collection, including "Myst," "SimCity 2000" and the less succinctly named "Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter 2: Dwarf Fortress."

brianmichaelbendis:

Some images from last night’s signing at Excalibur comics in portland oregon

What a wonderful evening. I love doing stuff like this with my friends and maybe it’s because we all just came from San Diego where you can’t hear yourself think let alone have a sincere moment with someone but it was so nice to actually talk to everyone who came down.

 I swear to God if I didn’t already live in Portland this would have convinced me to move here. I love this city and I love the people.

and a special shout out to those who came from a shockingly great distance to hang out with us

 some people came all the way from Beaverton :-)

NATICK, MA—Saying that the ratings were influential in helping them make decisions about where to pursue higher education, prospective college applicants across the country reportedly rushed online this week to consult the Princeton Review’s 2...

WASHINGTON—According to a Census Bureau report released Thursday, Hispanics are now projected to make up the majority of the U.S.

Update: This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever made

The discussion around the Israel-Gaza conflict often turns on issues of international law. Was Israel's invasion legal? Is it fulfilling its legal obligations to avoid killing Palestinian civilians? What do Hamas's actions mean for Israel's basic responsibilities? These are often discussed as moral abstractions, but there is actual international law that speaks to these issues, even if it does not always provide crystal clear answers. The law of war is not merely a fresh pretense for finger-pointing, it is often the last line of defense for vulnerable civilians during times of conflict. This is a basic guide to those laws, what they tell us, and what they don't.

As is so often the case with Israel-Palestine, the answers, to the extent that there are answers, are probably not going to fully satisfy either side. Israel does have a defensible case that its Gaza invasion was legal, for example. But some of Israel's actions during the war appear to fall short of its legal obligations toward Palestinian civilians — to such an extent that a number of international observers, including even United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have accused it of violating international law.

This piece focuses primarily on Israel, not because Hamas's obligations are less important, but because Hamas makes little pretense of complying with international law, which it has violated repeatedly and egregiously during the conflict. Israel itself emphasizes international law in a way that Hamas does not. And to be clear, that allegiance to legal principles is a good thing, even though it leaves Israel's conduct open to greater scrutiny.

1. Does Israel have a legal right to defend itself?

RAFAH, GAZA - AUGUST 4: Palestinians collect their belongings under the wreckage of the buildings after Israeli shelling to Rafah in Gaza on August 4, 2014 (Ali Hasan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Yes. Israel has the right to defend itself and its citizens — but there's some debate over the source of that right.

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter says that all states have an "inherent right" to individual and collective self-defense against armed attack. That seems like it should apply here: Israel is definitely a state, and Hamas's missiles are definitely "armed attack."

Israel still has to avoid harming Gazans as much as possible, even if Hamas is knowingly putting them in danger

However, that reasoning was called into doubt in 2004, when the International Court of Justice held in an advisory opinion that Israel couldn't rely on Article 51 to justify the use of force in Gaza, because attacks from Gaza were not emanating from, or attributable to, a foreign state.

However, even if Article 51 does not apply, Israel still has a right to defend itself under international law. As the same International Court of Justice opinion noted, "Israel has to face numerous indiscriminate and deadly acts of violence against its civilian population. It has the right, and indeed the duty, to respond in order to protect the life of its citizens. The measures taken are bound nonetheless to remain in conformity with applicable international law."

Israel launched Operation Protective Edge after a barrage of more than 40 rockets were fired from Gaza, (as part of a by-then-weeks-long crisis), and Hamas claimed credit for the attack. Although Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system offers its citizens substantial protection, that is still the kind of armed attack that states have a right to respond to.

It's worth noting, though, that there's some debate about whether or not the rules for occupied territories should apply to Israel's operations in Gaza. If so, that would put additional restrictions and responsibilities on the occupying power — Israel. Israel claims that it has not occupied Gaza since its unilateral withdrawal in 2005, and so those rules don't apply, but Israel's position is widely disputed, in part because of Israel's blockade on most of Gaza's borders. This article looks just at Israel's responsibilities as a state, and not as an occupying power. That's not to endorse the Israeli argument that it has no such responsibilities toward Gaza, it's just because there is still plenty to examine with regard to its other responsibilities.

2. So does that mean that Israel's military operations in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge are legal?

KHAN YUNIS, GAZA - AUGUST 3: Palestinians inspect destroyed buildings and collect usable stuff following an Israeli air assault staged within the scope of 'Operation Protective Edge' in Huzaa district of Khan Yunis, Gaza on August 3, 2014. (Yasser Qudih/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Not necessarily. Remember that line from the ICJ opinion a second ago, about the need for Israel to conform to "applicable international law" when acting in self-defense? Legally, the question of when it's okay to go to war is a separate question from what's allowed to happen during the war. (If you want to get fancy, the Latin terms are "jus ad bellum" for the first category, and "jus in bello" for the second.)

As noted above, the jus ad bellum here is self-defense: Israel launched Protective Edge after a rocket attack by Hamas. But for Israel's operations to be legal, they also need to satisfy jus in bello requirements. Think of it this way: even if self-defense is the "why" of war, the "who, what, when, where, and how" still matter under the law. A lot. So to figure out if Israel's actions in Gaza are legal, we need to look at whether the conduct of its operations follows the laws of armed conflict.

3. Okay, so what does this jus in bello stuff require of Israel during wartime, then?

RAFAH, GAZA - AUGUST 5: Palestinians collect their remains from the rubble of their destroyed houses during the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Rafah, Gaza. (Ali Hassan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

The starting point is that parties to a conflict must always distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between "civilian objects" (such as homes, schools, and hospitals), and military targets. Civilians and civilian objects can never be the intended target of an attack, while military objectives are acceptable targets, but may be subject to additional limitations if the attack is going to affect civilians.

The idea that you have to treat civilians and military objective differently is known as the "principle of distinction," and it's a foundational rule of international humanitarian law.  It's set forth in detail in Articles 48-54 of the First Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions (usually called "Protocol I").

4. Hey, I just checked, and Israel isn't a signatory to Protocol I! Are you trying to trick me?

It's true that Israel isn't a signatory to Protocol I, but that doesn't mean Protocol I's rules don't apply here.

Many of Protocol I's provisions are binding on Israel anyway, because they are part of customary international law. Customary international law is a set of rules that are basically common law for countries — they are binding on all states, even those that haven't specifically signed on to a treaty that contains them. There's no need to take my word for it, just ask Israel's Supreme Court, which held in 2005 that "of course, the customary provisions of The First Protocol are part of Israeli law."

While there is some debate about whether the entire Protocol has the status of customary law, the sections at issue here are widely considered to be part of international custom. So they do apply to Israel.

5. Israel always warns civilians to clear the area before they attack, right? Does that make their attacks legal?

GAZA CITY, GAZA - AUGUST 5: Palestinians inspect the rubble of their destroyed houses during the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza City's Shujaya neighborhood. (Naaman Omar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

It's true that Israel's policy is to issue warnings before any attacks that are likely to affect civilians, if possible. International law does require them to issue those warnings, so it's good that they're doing it, but that's not enough, in and of itself, to make an attack legal.

The Geneva Conventions, in Article 57(2)(c) of Protocol 1, require "effective advance warning" of "all attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit." Operation Protective Edge indisputably affects the civilian population — UN statistics suggest about two thirds of people killed have been Palestinian civilians — so that rule is relevant here.

There is no one-size-fits-all rule about what it means for a warning to be "effective," but at a minimum, civilians need to actually receive and understand it. They also need time to act on the information, so there needs to be a gap between the warning and the attack. Israel uses several methods to warn civilians. Most of them, such as dropping leaflets, making robo-calls, and sending text messages, are pretty clearly capable of getting their message across. With those methods, the main question is whether civilians have time to act on the warnings.

Israel also uses "roof knocks" to notify civilians of impending attacks: non-lethal bombs that explode loudly above buildings, as a warning that more lethal explosives are soon to follow. That method raises more questions, both because it conveys less information (a civilian could conclude that a roof knock means "an attack is happening right now," rather than "you have time to flee before the attack begins"), and because it's more frightening than other methods, and so may cause further distress to the civilian population while failing to fully convey the warning message.  Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have condemned the use of "roof knocks" as a warning method.

6. Is it okay for Israel to bomb any target, as long as it warns the civilians there first?

GAZA CITY, GAZA - AUGUST 5: Palestinian kids inspect their remains from the rubble of destroyed houses during the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Shujaya neighborhood, Gaza on August 05, 2014. (Naaman Omar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

No.  The warning doesn't mean that civilians aren't entitled to legal protection if they stay put, and the warning doesn't impose any legal obligation on them to leave. (Even if, practically speaking, that would be a good idea.)

If you think about it, that makes sense. If the rule were that one side's warnings created an affirmative obligation for civilians from the other side to flee their homes, then that rule could be exploited awfully easily to cause forced displacement or even ethnic cleansing — which would be a pretty perverse result of a law designed to protect civilians.

However, that doesn't mean that all targets that contain civilians are by definition off-limits to attack. Rather, once the civilians have been warned, Israel still has an obligation to make sure that any harm to civilians is proportional to the military objective it's trying to achieve. That's the second big principle to know about: proportionality.

7. What is 'proportionality'?

GAZA CITY, GAZA - AUGUST 5: Palestinians inspect the rubble of their destroyed houses during the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Shujaya neighborhood, Gaza on August 05, 2014. (Naaman Omar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

For an attack to be proportional, and thus legal under international law, the legitimate military objective that it achieves needs to outweigh the harm it causes to civilians. This is a balancing test, which means that there is no one-size-fits-all rule about what satisfies the proportionality test.

In some cases, the balancing test provides an easy answer: this report to an international court gives two examples: bombing a refugee camp because its residents were knitting socks for soldiers (obviously not acceptable), and an air strike on a munitions cache that happens to be in an area where a single farmer is plowing a field (acceptable). Usually, of course, the question is trickier.

Violation of the proportionality principle is probably what has led the US and others to criticize Israel so harshly for bombing a UN-run school in Rafah, Gaza. The school was serving as a shelter for thousands of civilians who had taken refuge there after being displaced by the conflict; ten civilians inside it were reportedly killed in the attack. The Israeli military said that it had intended to target three members of the Islamic Jihad militant group who were were passing by the school on a motorbike at the time.

In a proportionality analysis, three guys passing by on a motorbike is just not very much to weigh against the huge danger of bombing a target so close to a shelter full of civilians, so it's not surprising that that attack has been roundly criticized. The State Department called the strike "disgraceful," and noted that "the coordinates of the school, like all UN facilities in Gaza, have been repeatedly communicated to the Israeli Defense Forces." UN Ambassador Samantha Power called the attack "horrifying" and called on all parties to "respect humanitarian law." UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon went even further, calling the attack (which also killed a UN staff member) a "gross violation of international humanitarian law."

8. But if Hamas is deliberately operating out of civilian areas, isn't it their fault when civilians get hurt, not Israel's?

GAZA CITY, GAZA - 2014/06/25: Children carry a Hamas flag during a march in Gaza.  (Ibrahim Khader/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

No, that's not how the law works. All parties to a conflict have an obligation to protect civilians and abide by international law, even if the other parties fail to do so.

It is true that Hamas and other-Gaza based militants aren't complying with international law themselves. They target Israeli civilians in rocket attacks, commingle military sites and operations with civilian institutions, and, according to some reports, force people to remain in buildings after warnings from the Israeli military in order to serve as human shields.  All of those are clear violations of the Geneva Conventions and customary international law.

However, there is no legal principle that states that two wrongs make a right. Israel and Hamas both have obligations to civilians, and those obligations persist, even if the other side violates them. So Israel still has to avoid causing disproportionate harm to Gazans, even if Hamas is knowingly putting them in danger. Likewise, even if Israel's operations during Operation Protective Edge violate international law, it's still illegal for Hamas to attack Israeli civilians.

Civilian protection is a basic right — not something that has to be earned through combatants' good behavior.

9. Are Gazans still entitled to full civilian protections even if they actively support Hamas?

Palestinian supporters of the Islamist movement Hamas wave their flag and a pre-Baath Syrian flag (C) during a demonstration in the West Bank city of Hebron on November 21, 2012.  (Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images)

Yes. It's true that a number of Gazan civilians support Hamas, including its attacks on Israeli civilians. But that doesn't make them legitimate military targets. A civilian can't be turned into a combatant simply on the basis of his political or ideological beliefs.

International law also forbids reprisals against civilians and "civilian objects," such as schools, hospitals, and private homes. That means that it is not legal for Israel to attack Gazans in order to punish them for their support of Hamas. Article 51(6) of Protocol 1 states that "attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited," and Article 52(1) states that "civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals."

However, if an individual shifts from mere political support to active participation in hostilities, then he becomes a combatant, and thus loses civilian protections.

At the very least, it appears that "True Detective" writer Nic Pizzolatto was "borrowing" words and phrasing from other authors, especially Thomas Ligotti.

Xu Qing, 29, has refused to work ever since leaving university, claiming that "employment is too boring." Sorry Xu, that's how everyone feels.

CHANNELS

Doctor Who Treated Ebola Victim Still Alive, Says Onyebuchi The Guardian Abuja — HEALTH Minister, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu Wednesday faulted the rumour making the round that an unnamed doctor that treated the Liberian Ebola virus victim, Patrick Sawyer is not dead. The minister who spoke when he appeared before the ... CDC Raises Response to Highest Alert Amid Ebola OutbreakNBCNews.com Ebola deaths rise in West Africa as WHO meets to assess epidemiceuronews Nigeria rushes to get isolation tents for EbolaNews24 The Hindu -Reuters -NEWS.com.au all 1,167 news articles »

Telegraph.co.uk

Islamic State pulls down church crosses in northern Iraq as 200000 flee Telegraph.co.uk Islamic State jihadists who took over large areas of northern Iraq overnight have forced thousands of Christians to flee and occupied churches, removing crosses and destroying manuscripts, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako has said. “(The Christians) have fled ... Jihadists take over Iraq's largest Christian town, trigger mass exodusHindustan Times Islamic Militants Seize More Territory in Northern IraqVoice of America Christians flee Islamic militants in IraqUSA TODAY The Guardian all 162 news articles »

Monsanto, which has been a target of environmental and human rights activists for decades now, is well aware of the constant need to burnish its own reputation. Here's one way they're working on their PR: by enlisting the help of Conde Nast, Mo Rocca and some desperate charities.

New York Daily News

Pennsylvania dad suspected in wife's murder kills self after fleeing to Staten ... New York Daily News A Pennsylvania dad died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after he allegedly killed his wife and fled to Staten Island with his two young sons. Before his death, Keith Belajonas went to a Staten Island drug store where one of his relatives ... Man who allegedly killed wife, abducted boys found dead in NYCBS News Police: 2 missing boys safe; apparent suspect deadMiamiHerald.com PA Kids Abducted by Man Found Safe on Staten IslandNY1 Idaho State Journal all 126 news articles »

The Falcons receiver made good on his promise to a fan who bet against him during March Madness.

In March, Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Roddy White was confident the Duke Blue Devils would easily dispatch the Mercer Bears during the NCAA basketball tournament. He was so confident, he bet a Falcons fan on Twitter that he would buy the fan season tickets for the upcoming Falcons season if Duke lost.

Turns out Duke lost, and White is putting his tickets where his mouth is. Dylan Hoyt, the 20-year-old that won the bet, was not only given two season tickets by White, but also a pair of Super Bowl tickets, sideline passes to a home game and one day at training camp as White's personal guest, according to Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"Never bet anything unless you're willing to pay up," the Falcons' wide receiver said Wednesday.

Wednesday marked Hoyt's visit to training camp, where the youngster met White, along with fellow receivers Julio Jones and Harry Douglas.

Moral of the story? If you're a fan, pick an underdog, tweet it at every player on your favorite football team during March Madness, and hope there is a man like White willing to bet against you.

Now we know when we'll learn the truth about Peter Quill's father. Peter Mayhew makes bold claims about Star Wars: Episode VII. The premiere of Agents of SHIELD will bring back a old foe. And 12 Monkeys, The Flash, and Bitten all add new characters and cast. Spoilers now!

Read more...