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Showing posts with label Lifestyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lifestyle. Show all posts
U.S. to 'rain mice' on tree snakes
Labels: LifestyleiPhone, iPad and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.Man vanishes into bedroom sinkhole
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Authorities release the audio of a 911 call: "The house just fell through"
- Rescuers have turned to trying to recover man's body, sheriff's office says
- The sinkhole opened under a home's bedroom, swallowing a man inside
- Hole, previously reported as 100 feet across, is about 20 to 30 feet wide, engineer says
Seffner, Florida (CNN) -- The ground just swallowed him up.
A Florida man fell into a sinkhole that opened suddenly Thursday night beneath the bedroom of his suburban Tampa home, calling out to his brother for help as he fell, the brother said Friday.
"I heard a loud crash, like a car coming through the house," Jeremy Bush told CNN affiliate WFTS. "I heard my brother screaming and I ran back there and tried going inside his room, but my old lady turned the light on and all I seen was this big hole, a real big hole, and all I saw was his mattress."
Bush frantically tried to rescue his brother, Jeff Bush, by standing in the hole and digging at the rubble with a shovel until police arrived and pulled him out, saying the floor was still collapsing.
"I thought I heard him holler for me to help him," the man tearfully told WFTS.
Jeremy Bush and four other people, including a 2-year-old child, escaped from the blue, one-story 1970s-era home in Seffner, Florida, a Tampa suburb.
Sinkholes: Common, costly and sometimes deadly
What began with hopes of rescue turned into a body recovery operation after monitoring equipment failed to detect any signs that Jeff Bush survived the fall into the hole, according the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
The office released a 911 call on Friday.
"The house just fell through," a female voice says on the recording. She asks for an ambulance and the police.
"The bedroom floor just collapsed, and my brother-in-law is in there. He's underneath the house," she says.
Rescuers still hadn't gone into the hole -- it's too dangerous, Fire Chief Ron Rogers told reporters. Authorities say they worry the hole is still spreading and the house could collapse at any time.
The sinkhole is about 20 feet to 30 feet across and may be 30 feet deep, said Bill Bracken, president of an engineering company assisting emergency workers. The hole was originally reported to be 100 feet across, but that is the diameter of the safety zone surrounding it, Bracken said.
"It started in the bedroom, and it has been expanding outward and it's taking the house with it as it opens up," he said.
Check out images of the sinkhole house
Nearby homes have been evacuated as a precaution, Rogers said.
Damico said about 40 police and firefighters were standing by at the scene Friday morning. Meanwhile, engineers hope to use more sophisticated equipment to get a three-dimensional image of the sinkhole.
Family members were also on hand, waiting out what they feared would be a devastating day.
"I know in my heart he's dead," Jeremy Bush said. "But I just want to be here for him, because I love him. He was my brother, man."
Sinkholes are common in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The state lies on bedrock made of limestone or other carbonate rock that can be eaten away by acidic groundwater, forming voids that collapse when the rock can no longer support the weight of what's above it.
Hillsborough County is part of an area known as "sinkhole alley" that accounts for two-thirds of the sinkhole-related insurance claims in the state, according to a Florida state Senate Insurance and Banking Committee report.
John Zarrella reported from Seffner; Michael Pearson reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Jake Carpenter, Brian Carberry, Elwyn Lopez, Nick Valencia and Tina Burnside also contributed to this report.
Suspect in Las Vegas shooting, crash apprehended
Labels: LifestyleBy Erica Henry and Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 5:56 PM EST, Thu February 28, 2013
Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26, was arrested about noon Thursday, the FBI says.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26, was wanted in relation to a February 21 incident
- Earlier in that day, police say he fired at a Maserati, which he crashed into a taxi
- Maserati's driver and two people in the taxi, one of them its driver, were killed
- Harris was apprehended in North Hollywood, California, an FBI spokeswoman says
(CNN) -- One week after an all-too-real scene more befitting a movie played out on the famed Las Vegas Strip -- a drive-by shooting that sparked a deadly, fiery crash -- the man authorities suspect started it all is finally under arrest.
Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26, was apprehended around noon (3 p.m. ET) on Thursday in North Hollywood, California, said FBI spokeswoman Lourdes Arocho.
FBI agents and members of the Los Angeles Police Department's Fugitive Task Force made the arrest, according to Arocho.
This all went down 275 miles southwest of where, authorities say, Harris was at the wheel of a black Range Rover around 4:20 a.m. last Thursday when he allegedly opened fire on a Maserati driven by Kenneth Cherry, an aspiring rapper known as Kenny Clutch, as it headed north on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Cherry was shot in the chest and arm. His vehicle collided with a taxi, which caught fire.
The crash killed cab driver Michael Boldon and passenger, Washington state resident Sandra Sutton-Wasmund. The 27-year-old Cherry later died at a hospital.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department identified Harris as the shooting suspect on Saturday, at which time they said his vehicle had been impounded. With an extensive criminal history, he was considered armed and dangerous, CNN affiliate KLAS said.
Las Vegas Strip shooting suspect named, car impounded
The whole scene played out in the midst of the Las Vegas tourist hub, closing a block and a half of the well-known boulevard near some of the Nevada city's biggest draws -- Caesars Palace, the Bellagio, Bally's and the Flamingo.
Seventeen years earlier, legendary rapper Tupac Shakur was shot dead two blocks from the accident scene.
On Tuesday, police said they looking for a woman in connection with the latest shooting, adding that she was believed to be inside the Range Rover when the shots were fired.
At the time, they characterized her as missing and possibly endangered.
The photos they released, however, showed the wrong woman. Earlier Thursday, Las Vegas police said they no longer considered the woman -- identified as Yenesis Alfonso, also known as Tineesha Howard -- "a missing person or a person of interest."
Las Vegas police issue wrong photographs of 'person of interest'
Meet the new Pentagon chief: former Army Sgt. Chuck Hagel
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Senate votes 58-41 to confirm former Nebraska senator, a Republican
- Fight for Cabinet post was deeply partisan, uphill battle for Hagel
- Republicans objected to Hagel's views on Israel and the Patriot Act
- Hagel must salvage congressional relationships, hit the ground running at Pentagon
Washington (CNN) -- Chuck Hagel's rocky and inauspicious path to leadership of the Pentagon could haunt him if he doesn't watch his step.
"If people feel Hagel makes a mistake in the future, they will come after him even harder than if this ugly process of recent weeks hadn't happened," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a co-author of "Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy."
Hagel's nomination as defense secretary was subject to harsh criticism from some Republicans over past statements on sensitive political and national security matters.
His shaky performance at his confirmation hearing and subsequent political wrangling over his selection and on unrelated matters did not help his case.
But efforts to further delay his nomination were swept away on Tuesday as the Senate confirmed him, 58-41.
The task for Hagel going forward is to swiftly move past the protracted nomination battle, prove himself a strong and capable Pentagon chief, and repair relationships on Capitol Hill, said Fran Townsend, a former homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.
"Of course, when he walks through the door he is bruised and battered. But I think we shouldn't overestimate the impact of that," Townsend said. "Frankly, once he is confirmed as secretary of defense and once he sits in the seat and takes on the mantle of responsibility, everyone in the Pentagon is going to stand up and salute smartly, as well they should."
O'Hanlon said Hagel would not "be damaged goods" and the political outcry over his nomination would quickly be overshadowed by the latest budget drama engulfing Washington over spending cuts.
Those bad feelings about Hagel stem, in part, from his 2007 comments that the "Jewish lobby intimidated lawmakers." Republicans who are already uncomfortable with President Barack Obama's policies toward Israel are uneasy about a defense secretary holding such views.
The decorated Vietnam veteran's criticism of the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and his past positions on Iran and on U.S. military intervention also raised red flags with his opponents.
In 1998, he spoke about an ambassadorial nominee as being "openly, aggressively gay," remarks for which he has since apologized.
And Hagel hasn't been sparing in his criticism of conservative and GOP figures, saying radio show hosts like Rush Limbaugh "try to rip everybody down" but "don't have any answers," and labeling George W. Bush as callous on Iraq when he was president.
Last week, 15 GOP senators sent a letter to Obama calling on him to withdraw Hagel's nomination.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a fierce Hagel critic, did not sign the letter. But he led the charge against him in the Senate, stalling the nomination at one point in exchange for more information from the White House on the deadly September terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
The real reasons why conservative groups are still going after Hagel
That sentiment gained traction in conservative circles.
"There is simply no way to sugar coat it. Senator Hagel's performance before the Senate Armed Services Committee was remarkably inept and we should not be installing a defense secretary who is obviously not qualified for the job and who holds dangerously misguided views on some of the most important issues facing national security policy for our country," said Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.
Vote no and send a message to Hagel
There was a healthy serving of politics behind the Hagel pushback, some experts say. He isn't the only potential member of the Obama Cabinet to be grilled during the nomination process.
"There is an element of strategic calculation going on here," Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University, said recently.
Some Republicans also believed that Hagel, like Susan Rice, was vulnerable, according to political experts.
Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, withdrew her name from consideration for secretary of state after drawing heavy criticism from McCain and other Republicans over her public statements about the Benghazi attack.
Moreover, at the start of his first term, Obama's pick to lead the Treasury Department, Timothy Geithner, emerged from a tough confirmation fight in the wake of recession to help push through Wall Street reform as well as the banking and auto industry rescues. His successor, Jack Lew, is expected to be confirmed.
A Democratic proponent of Hagel's, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, said Sunday the president's choice to head the Pentagon was receiving undue criticism from Republicans.
"The president wants him in the room as he's making important decisions. There's no question about his integrity of character. I think the president deserves to have the Cabinet he wants as long as the person is qualified," she said on "Fox News Sunday."
"He's qualified, and I think it's despicable how his character has been impugned by some people through innuendo and inference," McCaskill added.
The consternation over Hagel's confirmation has been "kabuki theater," said David Rothkopf, editor of Foreign Policy magazine.
"The political divisions that dictated the pace and twists of his confirmation process pre-date him and will post-date his confirmation," Rothkopf said. "The reality is that Hagel won't drive (defense) policy, the president and Hill politics will."
And time will heal even these political wounds, Rothkopf said.
"The margin of his confirmation victory won't impact this in any way except perhaps in terms of rhetoric," he said.
Hagel will face tough challenges in succeeding Leon Panetta at the Defense Department. The agency faces massive budget cuts through previous planning and through the pending congressional sequester, which takes effect on Friday absent congressional action to head it off.
He is also in charge of winding down U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan and, as a senior member of Obama's national security team, address threats to U.S. interests from global terrorists. The administration is also dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions and the civil war in Syria, where stockpiled chemical weapons are a chief concern.
"He has got to make sure that his next appearance, his next testimonial appearance before Congress is, to use a too often used phrase, a slam dunk. That is he has got to go in there over prepared, very aggressive and willing to take on the hard questions in a way he seemed reluctant to do in his confirmation process," Townsend said.
CNN's Kevin Liptak and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.
Weatherman blacks out on live TV
Labels: Lifestyleon your computer or on the CNN Apps for iPhone® and iPad®.
iPhone, iPad and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.Jimmie Johnson wins Daytona 500
Labels: LifestyleBy CNN Staff
updated 5:27 PM EST, Sun February 24, 2013
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Johnson led 17 laps, says he was confident in his car
- Danica Patrick becomes first woman to lead green-flag lap at the race
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a runner-up for the third time in 4 years
- Some fans injured in Saturday incident were scheduled to attend race, official says
(CNN) -- Jimmie Johnson won the Daytona 500, the season-opening and most prestigious race of the NASCAR season, on Sunday at the Daytona International Speedway.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second for the third time in four years.
Johnson, who won the race for the second time, led 17 laps.
"I had a lot of confidence leading the train," Johnson said of taking the front position as the remaining cars raced around the 2.5-mile track, mostly in single file. "I knew I had a fast car."
His crew chief, Chad Knaus said that despite the uncertainty of racing this season with the latest generation of NASCAR cars, they knew for weeks what they wanted to do,
"Jimmie did a great job of following that plan," said Knaus, who sat out the team's 2006 Daytona 500 win because of a suspension.
Danica Patrick, the first woman to win the pole position at the Daytona 500, led three times, including five laps under green -- also becoming the first woman to lead a lap at the race not under a yellow flag caution. She finished eighth, the highest finish ever for a female driver at the race.
"At the end of the day it was a solid day," she said. "We stayed basically in the top 10 all day so it was nice."
Crew chief Tony Gibson beamed after the race.
"She did great under pressure," he said.
Earnhardt did his best to earn his second win in the "Great American Race," but his last-lap charge came up short. With just over a mile to go, Earhardt, followed by veteran driver Mark Martin, went low on the track. With Martin's car pushing Earnhardt's the two pushed into contention but Johnson maneuvered in front of his teammate Earnhardt.
The 54-year-old Martin crossed the finish line third.
"We just kinda ran out of steam out of (turn) four," Earnhardt said. "We made a good move, but there just was not enough race track."
Some of the fans who were injured by flying debris Saturday during a crash late in the Nationwide Series Drive4COPD 300 were to attend the Daytona 500, speedway president Joie Chitwood said Sunday morning.
At least 28 fans were injured when more than a dozen cars piled up in the final curve of Saturday's race. Some of the debris went over a 22-foot-high fence that was built in 2010, and some of it went through holes as the fence mangled when a car slammed into it and bounced back onto the track.
Saturday's wreck occurred when several closely packed cars were jostling for position at top speeds of about 175 mph. They got tangled up, setting off a dangerous chain reaction that ensnared a number of vehicles.
Driver Kyle Larson's vehicle ended up flying into a fence that separates the track from spectators. The car broke into pieces, including tires and a fiery engine.
Larson walked away from the crash, even after the front part of his No. 32 car was gone. He and the other nine drivers involved told reporters that they were checked at a medical tent on the Daytona infield and released.
Water tank body still mystery
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Cause of death deferred, pending further examination
- Tests show hotel water is free of harmful bacteria, health department says
- Canadian university says woman not registered in classes this year
- Water "had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste," one guest says
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Two days after the grisly discovery, the case of the Los Angeles hotel water tank corpse is a mystery with many unanswered questions.
The decomposing body of Elisa Lam floated inside a water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel while guests brushed their teeth, bathed and drank with water from it for as long as 19 days.
A maintenance worker, checking on complaints about the hotel's water, found the 21-year-old Canadian tourist inside one of four water cisterns Tuesday morning, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Rudy Lopez said.
How and where did Elisa Lam die?
Body found in hotel water tank
HIDE CAPTION
Los Angeles robbery-homicide detectives are treating this as a suspicious death for obvious reasons, Lopez said. Falling into a covered water tank behind a locked door on top of a roof would be an unusual accident.
An autopsy was completed, but the cause of death is deferred pending further examination, assistant chief coroner Ed Winter said Thursday. That may take six to eight weeks.
It will be several weeks before investigators have the toxicology lab report which would show whether Lam had any drugs in her system.
Any marks, injuries or wounds may suggest Lam died elsewhere and was dumped into the tank by her killer.
Water in Lam's lungs could be a sign that she drowned, but it might not tell why she was inside the small tank.
One clue comes from security camera video of Lam inside a hotel elevator the last day she was seen.
She is seen walking into the elevator, pushing the buttons for four floors and then peering out of the opened elevator door as if she is hiding or looking for someone. Clad in a red hoodie, Lam at one point walks out of the elevator before returning to it, pushing the buttons again. She then stands outside the open elevator doorway, motioning with her hands, before apparently walking away.
Lam checked into the Cecil Hotel five days earlier, January 26, on her way to Santa Cruz, California, according to police in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.
Why did it it take so long to find Lam?
Lam's parents reported the University of British Columbia student missing in early February. Her daily calls home stopped on January 31, police told reporters on February 6 at a Los Angeles news conference.
Because it was an international case -- and her parents and sister flew to California to find answers -- the case may have gotten more attention than most of the several thousand missing person reports made in Los Angeles each year.
A search of the hotel then found no sign of Lam, including a trip to the roof with a police search dog, Lopez said.
Strange things began happening with the hotel's water supply later in the month, according to Sabina and Michael Baugh, a British couple who spent eight days there until checking out Wednesday. The water pressure dropped to a trickle at times.
"The shower was awful," Sabina Baugh said. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."
The tap water "tasted horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste. It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."
But for a week, they never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."
Knowing now what they didn't know then about the water is sickening, Michael Baugh said. "It makes you feel literally physically sick, but more than that you feel it psychologically. You think about it and it's not good."
Eventually, the hotel maintenance department investigated the water problem, sending a worker to look into the tank, police said. He saw Lam's lifeless body at the bottom.
A hard-working family
Randy Schmidt, a spokesman for the University of British Columbia, said Lam was registered in a class in August, but was not registered in any classes this year, according to records.
"Unfortunately, we do not have much more to say, other than to extend our deepest sympathies to the family," said Schmidt.
According to Los Angeles police, Lam tended to use public transportation.
Teika Steins, manager of a hostel in Toronto, Canada, said Lam stayed a week there in early December. Steins called the young woman friendly and outgoing.
Flowers and signs were left Thursday outside the temporarily-closed Lam family restaurant in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Tanya Grohmann, who works nearby, said she was saddened by the loss and the fact the family did not know what happened to the young woman.
"They are a hard-working family. They immigrated here," she told CNN affiliate CTV. "They've been in the neighborhood for nine years working. ... They're honest people."
Why did hotel stay open after discovery?
New guests continued to check into the Cecil in the hours after firefighters removed Lam's body from the water tank. But each guest was asked to sign a waiver releasing the hotel from liability if they become ill. "You do so at your own risk and peril," the hotel's release said. Guests who already paid for their rooms would not get refunds if they move out, it said.
CNN's repeated calls to the hotel for comment were unreturned Wednesday and Thursday.
The Los Angeles Public Health Department immediately tested the water supply, but told the manager they could stay open as long as they provided bottle water and warned guests not to drink the tap water.
The results of the testing showed no harmful bacteria in the tank or the pipes, according to Angelo Bellomo, director of environmental health for the department. Chlorine in the city's water may be the reason it is safe, he said.
All of the tanks and pipes in the building still must be drained, flushed and sanitized, Bellomo said. The water will be retested after that process, which should take several days, he said.
Several guests interviewed by CNN on Wednesday indicated the hotel management did not tell them about the body in the water supply they had been drinking and bathing in.
Qui Nguyen learned about it from a CNN reporter Wednesday morning. He decided not to sign the waiver and instead find a new hotel.
Many of its guests are tourists from other countries drawn by the hotel's billing as a "European-style" hotel that is the perfect accommodation for "spend-thrifty travelers."
But if they take Kim Cooper's tour bus ride through the neighborhood, they would hear about the Cecil being the former temporary home to at least two convicted murderers, including "Night Stalker" serial killer Richard Ramirez. Ramirez paid $14 a day to stay on the 14th floor during his 1980s killing spree, Cooper said.
The Cecil Hotel is "in the heart of the action, allowing our guest to embrace the city and the surrounding areas that make Los Angeles famous," according to the description you'll hear when you call there and are placed on hold.
In fact, the hotel is just a few blocks away from the infamous Skid Row district in downtown Los Angeles, but 16 miles from the beaches of Santa Monica, eight miles from Hollywood's Walk of Fame and 12 miles from glamorous streets of Beverly Hills that are prominently featured on the Cecil's website.
If you want a reservation at the Cecil you will have to wait until next month. The website said the hotel is "sold out" until March 1. After then, you can book a room for $65.
Hotel with corpse in water tank has notorious past
CNN's Kyung Lah, Chandler Friedman and Chuck Conder contributed to this report.
U.S. suing Lance Armstrong
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- U.S. Justice Department will file formal complaint in 60 days
- Feds won't allow Armstrong and managers "to walk away" with tens of millions of dollars
- "The defendants failed to live up to their agreement," postal official says
- "We disagree...whether the Postal Service was damaged," Armstrong attorney says
(CNN) -- The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday it has joined the whistle-blower lawsuit against cyclist Lance Armstrong that was originally filed by a former teammate.
The Justice Department will file its formal complaint in 60 days.
Armstrong, the onetime legendary and now disgraced cyclist, has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs. He was the team's lead rider when the U.S. Postal Service sponsored the team from 1996 to 2004 and Armstrong won six of his seven Tour de France titles, the Justice Department said.
The civil lawsuit alleges that Armstrong and former team managers submitted false claims for government funds to the sponsoring Postal Service by their "regularly employing banned substances and method to enhance their performance" in violation of the sponsorship agreement, the federal announcement said.
"Today's action demonstrates the Department of Justice's steadfast commitment to safeguarding federal funds and making sure that contractors live up to their promises," Stuart F. Delery, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the civil division, said in a statement.
Between 2001 and 2004, the Postal Service paid $31 million in sponsorship fees, but that affiliation has now been "unfairly associated with what has been described as 'the most sophisticated, professionalized, and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,' " said Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
"In today's economic climate, the U.S. Postal Service is simply not in a position to allow Lance Armstrong or any of the other defendants to walk away with the tens of millions of dollars they illegitimately procured," Machen said.
The suit also names as defendants Johan Bruyneel, who had managed the U.S. Postal Service and Discovery racing teams on which Armstrong raced, and Tailwind Sports, which was the team's management entity, the Justice Department said.
The Justice Department is joining the lawsuit's allegations against Bruyneel and Tailwind, but it isn't intervening in the suit's claims against several other defendants, the agency said.
The U.S. Postal Service supported the intervention.
"The defendants agreed to play by the rules and not use performance enhancing drugs," general counsel and executive vice president Mary Anne Gibbons said in a statement. "We now know that the defendants failed to live up to their agreement, and instead knowingly engaged in a pattern of activity that violated the rules of professional cycling and, therefore, violated the terms of their contracts with the Postal Service."
The lawsuit accuses the former management of Armstrong's team of defrauding the federal government of millions of dollars because it knew about the drug use and didn't do anything.
The federal government had been evaluating for weeks whether to intervene in the lawsuit.
An attorney for Armstrong, Robert Luskin, said that ongoing discussions between the federal government and Armstrong's legal team had collapsed.
"Lance and his representatives worked constructively over these last weeks with federal lawyers to resolve this case fairly, but those talks failed because we disagree about whether the Postal Service was damaged," Luskin said. "The Postal Service's own studies show that the service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship -- benefits totaling more than $100 million."
Armstrong's attorneys declined to comment further on Friday's Justice Department announcement.
Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after failing a drug test, filed the lawsuit in 2010 against the team, which was sponsored the U.S. Postal Service.
As of midday Friday, the whistle-blower suit remained under court seal.
Landis was a teammate of Armstrong on the Postal Service sponsored team from 2002 to 2004, and his lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Act, the Justice Department said. That act is commonly called the whistle-blower law.
The law permits the federal government to investigate allegations and intervene, the Justice Department said.
The act was originally passed in 1863 when government officials were concerned that suppliers to the Union Army during the Civil War could be defrauding them.
In 1986, Congress modified the law to make it easier for whistle-blowers to bring cases and give them a larger share of any penalties collected. Whistle-blowers can now take home between 15% and 30% of the sums collected in their cases.
For years, Armstrong had denied drug use and blood doping, but he publicly admitted such use in January, three months after international cycling's governing body stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles.
That stripping came after a damning report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency accused Armstrong and his team of the "most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program" in cycling history.
That agency praised the Justice Department's announcement.
"The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team was run as a fraudulent enterprise and individuals both inside and outside of sport aided and abetted this scheme and profited greatly," CEO Travis T. Tygart said in a statement.
CNN's Jason Morris in Dallas contributed to this report.
Drew Peterson gets 38 years for ex-wife's murder
Labels: LifestyleBy Michael Christian and Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 6:00 PM EST, Thu February 21, 2013
Former police officer Drew Peterson was convicted in September of killing his third ex-wife, Kathleen Savio.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: State's attorney describes Drew Peterson as a "cold-blooded killer"
- NEW: Vowing to appeal, a defense lawyer says his client was "railroaded"
- The Chicago-area police sergeant was convicted of murdering his third wife
- He is sentenced to 38 years in prison and will get credit for nearly 4 years served
(CNN) -- After years policing Illinois streets for criminals, Drew Peterson is now among them -- and will be for more than three decades, a judge ruled Thursday.
Will County Judge Edward Burmila sentenced Peterson to 38 years in prison in the murder of his third ex-wife, Kathleen Savio, said state's attorney spokesman Charles B. Pelkie.
The former Chicago-area police sergeant will get credit for the nearly four years that he has been in custody, according to Pelkie, a spokesman for Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow. He could have received as many as 60 years in prison; Illinois does not have a death penalty.
"The reason that I never looked Drew Peterson in the eye is because I never acknowledged his existence," said Glasgow, describing the convict as a "cold-blooded killer."
"But I looked him in the eye today," the prosecutor said. "He knows that we did our job."
Peterson was convicted of murder in September but had fought for a new trial, an effort that Burmila denied Thursday, just before the sentencing, Pelkie said.
Peterson's lawyers promised Thursday that they would press on with their appeal and expressed confidence they would prevail. They stood by their client, who made long and emotional remarks in court, claiming he never should have been found guilty of murder.
"Wouldn't you be angry if you were wrongly convicted?" said one of his attorneys, Steve Greenberg.
"In this case, (the prosecution) changed everything ... How would you feel if you were railroaded?"
Savio was found dead in her dry, clean bathtub on March 1, 2004. Prosecutors said Peterson killed her; the defense contended that she fell, hit her head and drowned.
The headline-grabbing case did not arise until after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, disappeared in October 2007. It was during the search for Stacy Peterson -- who still has not been found -- that investigators said they'd look again into Savio's death, which was initially ruled an accidental drowning.
Authorities altered their judgment and ruled Savio's death a homicide in February 2008, setting the stage for the first-degree murder trial last year of Peterson, a former police officer in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
A Will County jury convicted him of murder after nearly 14 hours of deliberation.
"Finally, somebody heard Kathleen's cry," the victim's mother, Marcia Savio, said after the verdict. "Twelve people did the right thing, oh, thank God."
Lance Armstrong won't cooperate with USADA probe
Labels: LifestyleBy Jason Hanna, CNN
updated 4:40 PM EST, Wed February 20, 2013
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Agency had given cyclist until Wednesday to decide whether he would cooperate under oath
- Armstrong's lifetime competition ban could have been altered had he cooperated
- Cyclist was stripped of Tour de France titles after drug and blood-doping accusations
(CNN) -- Cyclist Lance Armstrong will not cooperate with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's investigation of performance-enhancing drug use in the sport, an Armstrong attorney said Wednesday.
USADA had given Armstrong -- who publicly admitted such drug use last month -- until Wednesday to decide whether he would cooperate under oath with investigators as part of a possible path to altering his USADA-imposed lifetime competition ban.
"Lance will not participate in USADA's efforts to selectively conduct American prosecutions that only demonize selected individuals while failing to address the 95% of the sport over which USADA has no jurisdiction," Armstrong attorney Tim Herman said in a written statement Wednesday.
USADA CEO Travis Tygart issued a statement Wednesday saying that "over the last few weeks (Armstrong) has led us to believe that he wanted to come in and assist USADA, but was worried of potential criminal and civil liability if he did so."
"Today we learned from the media that Mr. Armstrong is choosing not to come in and be truthful and that he will not take the opportunity to work toward righting his wrongs in sport," Tygart said. "At this time we are moving forward with our investigation without him and we will continue to work closely with (the World Anti-Doping Agency) and other appropriate and responsible international authorities to fulfill our promise to clean athletes to protect their right to compete on a drug-free playing field."
Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by international cycling's governing body in October after a damning report by USADA accused him and his team of the "most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program" in cycling history.
He first admitted using performance-enhancing drugs and blood doping during a January television interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The USADA banned Armstrong, 41, for life but said the ban could be reduced to eight years if he cooperated under oath with investigators. Armstrong's competitive cycling career is long over, but he moved on to triathlons and won several of them in 2012.
The agency initially gave Armstrong a February 6 deadline before extending it by two weeks.
CNN's Jason Morris, Wayne Sterling and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.
Part of complete coverage on
Lance Armstrong
updated 10:13 AM EST, Sat January 19, 2013
The fairy tale of a cancer survivor who beat the odds to win the Tour de France a record seven times has crashed and burned. What can we learn?
updated 10:18 AM EST, Sat January 19, 2013
When it comes to seeking public redemption for crimes and misdemeanors, such as cheating in the Tour de France, surely being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey is, well, cheating.
updated 8:21 PM EST, Fri January 18, 2013
In July, when the riders of the Tour de France headed into Paris during the final stage of the race, they gave the honor of leading the pack onto the Champs-Elysees to George Hincapie.
updated 10:25 AM EST, Sat January 19, 2013
After years of tenacious spin that he was innocent, Lance Armstrong confessed said he used performance-enhancing drugs.
updated 1:06 PM EST, Fri January 18, 2013
Armstrong still must face judgment from a different group of fans: those who have personal experience with cancer.
updated 11:06 PM EST, Thu January 17, 2013
In a sense, Fred Schuster has a permanent reminder of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong etched into his skin.
updated 1:43 PM EST, Fri January 18, 2013
Cheating arises from desires, incentives, pressures.
updated 7:56 AM EST, Fri January 18, 2013
Lance Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs. Here's a look at what they are, and how they work.
updated 2:39 PM EST, Fri January 18, 2013
CNN asked for views on whether disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong deserves another chance.
updated 8:46 AM EST, Thu January 17, 2013
Armstrong has not only spent years vehemently denying using banned performance-enhancing drugs; he also has viciously attacked those who told what they knew about doping in the sport and implicated him in the process.
updated 4:27 PM EST, Tue January 15, 2013
The court of public opinion weighed in decidedly against Lance Armstrong, even before the broadcast of an interview in which he is said to acknowledge using performance-enhancing drugs after years of denials.
updated 9:26 AM EST, Tue January 15, 2013
Lance Armstrong's feat of winning seven consecutive Tour de France titles was like the demigod Hercules achieving his "Twelve Labors."
updated 3:40 PM EDT, Mon October 22, 2012
The International Cycling Union announces hat Lance Armstrong is being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Masked robbers steal $50M in diamonds at airport
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Thieves were dressed like police and threatened air crew at gunpoint, prosecutor says
- Team of eight takes only minutes to steal the rough and polished stones from a plane's cargo hold
- They breached the periphery and sped off with their haul in 2 vehicles, the spokesman says
- The stones were en route from Antwerp to Zurich, Switzerland, Antwerp diamond center says
(CNN) -- Night had fallen. Some 20 airplane passengers had taken their seats for the short hop from Brussels, Belgium, to Zurich, Switzerland.
Unknown to them, a precious cargo was being loaded into the airplane hold along with their suitcases: $50 million in rough and polished diamonds.
But the diamonds would never reach their final destination.
Shortly before 8 p.m. Monday, eight masked men in two vehicles burst through the perimeter fence of Brussels Airport and sped toward the aircraft on the tarmac.
The men, who authorities said wore clothing resembling police uniforms, were heavily armed.
While no shots were fired and no one was injured, the pilot, co-pilot and a transport security guard were all threatened at gunpoint, said Ine Van Wymersch, of the Public Prosecutor's Office in Brussels.
Within three minutes, the thieves had snatched the diamonds from the hold, said airport spokesman Jan Van der Cruysse.
Drag queens, fake beards and chocolates: Notable diamond heists
Moments later they left the scene, racing out through the same breach in the airport periphery through which they had entered.
The robbers, four in each car, had broken a hole in the fence where it ran between two construction sites, Van Wymersch told a news conference.
"This was a very precise, almost military-organized and well-executed robbery," Van der Cruysse said.
He said it was a "big surprise" that such a slick heist been possible -- but pointed the finger at organized crime.
"We are an airport that is, as all international airports are, subject to very strict aviation security and safety regulations," he said.
The aircraft targeted was a regular passenger flight operated by Helvetic Airways on behalf of Swiss, Switzerland's national airline.
It's not yet clear how the thieves knew that the diamonds would be on board.
But this was not a chance hold-up, said Van Wymersch, describing the men involved as "professionals."
Antwerp, the city known as the world's diamond-cutting capital, lies only about 25 miles away from Brussels.
The Antwerp World Diamond Centre has on average $200 million in stones coming in and out daily, and it takes security very seriously, a spokesman told CNN.
He was unable to confirm reports that gold and platinum were stolen along with the diamonds.
It's not the first time that Antwerp's centuries-old diamond trade has been targeted.
The city was the scene of a spectacular robbery in 2003 when thieves made off with the contents of more than 100 safes at the diamond center. Those gems were never recovered.
Some 34,000 jobs in the city are connected to the diamond trade, according to the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, from mining company representatives to dealers to the craftsmen who polish the stones.
Netherlands art heist suspects arrested
3 arrested in massive maple syrup heist
Pistorius' girlfriend was alive after shooting, official says
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Detectives are examining role of a blood-stained cricket bat, newspaper reports
- Runner Oscar Pistorius has been charged with murder in model Reeva Steenkamp's death
- Steenkamp was still alive when Pistorius carried her downstairs, an official says
Pretoria, South Africa (CNN) -- Model Reeva Steenkamp was shot four times through the bathroom door at the home of Olympian Oscar Pistorius, a South African official familiar with the case told CNN on Monday.
She was alive after she was shot and was carried downstairs by Pistorius, said the official, who was not authorized to release details to the media.
A blood-stained cricket bat has also emerged as key evidence in the case, according to the City Press newspaper of Johannesburg.
Detectives are working to determine whether the bat was used to attack Steenkamp or she used it in self-defense, the newspaper reported, citing a source with inside knowledge of the case. Detectives are also looking into the possibility that Pistorius used the bat to break down the bathroom door.
The details are the latest to emerge in the shooting death that has roiled the nation and left South Africans asking what went so terribly wrong inside the upscale Pretoria home of the man nicknamed "Blade Runner" for his lightning-fast prosthetic legs.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there were indications the 29-year-old model intended to stay the night at the house: She had an overnight bag and her iPad.
Opinion: Pistorius case and the plague of violence against women
Authorities have released little about a possible motive in the Valentine's Day shooting, while local media have reported that Pistorius had mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder. South African authorities have stressed that the scenario did not come from them, and said there was no evidence of forced entry at the home.
Police have charged Pistorius with murder, and he will appear in court Tuesday for a bail hearing. South African prosecutors have said they intend to upgrade the charge to premeditated murder, but have not released further details.
Pistorius, 26, has rejected the murder allegation "in the strongest terms," his agent said in a statement.
Nike's bullet ad with Pistorius backfires
Burial service
The same day Pistorius returns to court, Steenkamp will be buried in a private service in her hometown of Port Elizabeth.
Her burial Tuesday will come two days after South Africa's national broadcaster aired a pre-recorded reality TV show featuring Steenkamp discussing her exit from "Tropika Island of Treasure," on which local celebrities compete for prize money.
The decision to air the program took "much deliberation," and "this week's episode will be dedicated to Reeva's memory," said Samantha Moon, the executive producer.
The shooting has stunned South Africa, where Pistorius is a national hero as the first disabled athlete to compete in the able-bodied Olympic Games. He competed in the London Games as well as winning two gold medals in the Paralympic Games.
Headlines about the case have dominated in the days since Pistorius was arrested, though tight-lipped authorities have revealed little about what, if anything, the track star has said.
Oscar Pistorius with Reeva Steenkamp in January 2013.
Questions swirl
Reports say Pistorius and Steenkamp became an item around November and were popular in South African social circles.
The night before the shooting, Steenkamp appeared to be looking forward to Valentine's Day.
"What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow?" she asked her Twitter followers the day before. "Get excited."
Steenkamp was found in a pool of blood at Pistorius' home Thursday morning. Neighbors alerted authorities to the early morning shooting, saying they had "heard things earlier," police spokeswoman Denise Beukes has said. She did not clarify what the neighbors reported they heard.
Authorities also have not said whether Pistorius called for help.
Pictures of his walk to a police car, his head covered by a sweatshirt, have flashed repeatedly across television screens.
On Sunday, Pistorius canceled his appearances in five upcoming races.
The move is meant to help Pistorius focus on the legal proceedings and "help and support all those involved as they try to come to terms with this very difficult and distressing situation," said Peet Van Zyl of Pistorius' management company, In Site Athlete Management.
CNN's Robyn Curnow reported from South Africa; Chelsea J. Carter and Faith Karimi reported from Atlanta.
Panic, then composure as Bounty sank
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Third mate: Crew remained calm after Sandy tossed them into the Atlantic
- Coast Guard hearings look for possible negligence
- Before leaving port, captain gave crew option to go home
- Shipyard representative says Bounty had rotted frame
Portsmouth, Virginia (CNN) -- Floating in a life raft with Hurricane Sandy raging around them, the crew of the HMS Bounty remained surprisingly calm and even told jokes after their ship rolled them into the Atlantic, survivors said.
Testifying Friday before a Coast Guard hearing, former Bounty third mate Daniel Cleveland and boatswain Laura Groves revealed breathtaking details about the shipwreck last fall that left a deckhand dead and the captain missing.
The vessel and its crew of 16 were heading from New London, Connecticut, to St. Petersburg, Florida, when it ran into Sandy's vicious winds and waves 90 miles off North Carolina. The ship began taking on water and eventually it lost power to its pumps and engines. In the 4 a.m. darkness of October 25, Capt. Robin Walbridge gave the order they all knew was coming: abandon ship.
Dressed in red survival suits, they stood on deck preparing to take to their lifeboats. Suddenly 50-mph winds and up to 30-foot waves flipped the ship horizontally, tossing the crew overboard.
It was chaos.
"Everybody panicked at that point," said Groves, fighting back tears as she described the struggle to keep their heads above water.
Cleveland said he recalled being "thrown around, caught on stuff and underneath stuff and being hit by things." While they were treading water under the Bounty's huge sails, the wind began slamming the sail rigging down "on all of us repeatedly," said Groves. "We were doing our best to swim away from the boat and the rig."
Cleveland, Groves and a few other crew members found a large piece of wood grating that kept them afloat. "We were all looking for each other," Cleveland said, "but all you could see was a bunch of red suits and there was a lot of yelling."
In a stroke of luck, the crew clinging to the wood grating found a floating capsule containing an inflatable life raft. With some difficulty they inflated the raft and got inside. They had seen a Coast Guard aircraft circling overhead, giving them confidence a rescue helicopter would arrive soon.
"We were there for a while telling jokes and stuff," said Cleveland. "No one was in a bad mood -- crying or anything." He said they talked about the terrifying experience they'd just been through and "what we were going to do when we got home."
"At some point we sang a few sea shanties," recalled Groves. "We were in relatively good spirits."
Dawn broke, followed by the the sound of a Coast Guard chopper, which dropped a rescue swimmer down to the life raft.
He said, 'Hi, I'm Dan. I heard you guys need a ride. Let's get out of here.'
Laura Groves, shipwreck survivor
"He said, 'Hi, I'm Dan,'" Groves remembered. "'I heard you guys need a ride. Let's get out of here.'"
While the swimmer was helping survivors get out of the life raft, it flipped upside down. "We all thought we were going to drown again," remembered Groves. Instead, they swam out of the raft and held on to the outside until the chopper hoisted them to safety.
Related: Watch Bounty survivors being rescued
Meanwhile the Bounty -- a replica of an 18th-century sailing ship that was longer than half a football field and weighed about a million pounds -- was descending to the bottom of the Atlantic.
During his testimony, Cleveland was asked about the last time he saw deckhand Claudene Christian, 42. More than three months after the shipwreck, the exact circumstances surrounding her death remain unclear. Before the ship rolled, Cleveland said he remembered holding Christian's hand as he helped her and other crew members prepare to launch the life rafts. Searchers found Christian's body later that evening.
Related: Claudene Christian's mutineer connection
The final glimpse Cleveland got of Walbridge, 63, was just before the ship went on its side.
Walbridge's body has not been found. His widow said she believes the captain died trying to help Christian escape.
Related: Bounty's captain was 'my soul mate'
Bounty's captain: 'My soul mate'
HIDE CAPTION
Bounty was much more than a creaky 50-year-old wooden tourist attraction. It was a bona fide Hollywood star, featured in the 1962 film version of "Mutiny on the Bounty," which starred Marlon Brando, and more recently in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise that starred Johnny Depp. But it also was a ship where inexperienced sailors could learn seafaring skills that go back hundreds of years.
The hearings, which include the National Transportation Safety Board, could lead to federal recommendations aimed at improving safety for other ships like the Bounty.
Investigators in this military shipyard region near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay have been asking two basic questions: Was the Bounty fit to sail in rough weather? And did the ship needlessly sail into harm's way?
About two months before the disaster, Walbridge, a master sailor with a lifetime of experience at sea, played down the seriousness of sailing through bad weather. "Have we run into stormy seas? We chase hurricanes," Walbridge said in a video interview posted on YouTube. "You don't want to get in front of it," he said. "You want to stay behind it, but you also get a good ride out of a hurricane."
Asked about that comment by Walbridge, Cleveland testified that the captain didn't mean literally chasing hurricanes. "It means we are trying to follow them into a navigable, safer" area of the storm, he said. The idea was "getting behind it, in a safe place" to make use of its favorable winds. "You don't want to be in its path."
Before the ship set sail from New London, the crew was very aware of the approaching hurricane, Cleveland said. Walbridge gathered them for a meeting in which he "mentioned his experience with hurricanes and he said if anybody wanted to leave there would be no hard feelings, no begrudging."
"I believed him," said Cleveland, who was then asked if the crew were offered paid expenses home. "In my experience, if you choose to leave, you would have to find your own way home."
"Nobody decided to leave," Cleveland said.
Walbridge said he wanted to "make tracks" to the south and east as fast as possible, Cleveland said, so the vessel could position itself to get the best winds from Sandy.
The captain believed, Cleveland said, that his ship would be safer riding Sandy out at sea, instead of waiting for the storm to hit them in New London. Cleveland said he agreed with that point of view, but there were also good arguments to remain in port.
Bounty first mate John Svendsen testified Tuesday that Walbridge wasn't chasing Sandy, but the captain had said "the ship was safer at sea."
Svendsen testified that as the storm worsened on October 29, he advised Walbridge to abandon ship more than once over a short period. "He said, 'I think we have more time.'" When Svendsen made a third request to the captain to abandon ship, he said Walbridge finally gave the order.
While the 13 other crew members, including Groves and Cleveland, made it safely to two life rafts, Svendsen spent three hours floating alone in his survival suit before Coast Guard rescuers saw his emergency beacon.
The Coast Guard said its goal for the investigation is to determine as much as possible about the cause of the tragedy and whether it was linked to equipment or material failure. Investigators are looking for evidence of "misconduct, inattention to duty, negligence or willful violation of the law."
Did Walbridge make a fatal error? People who weren't there have no right to pass judgment, the captain's widow, Claudia McCann, said last week from her home in St. Petersburg.
Although it's not a criminal hearing, Bounty owner Robert Hansen declined to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment constitutional protections against self-incrimination. Evidence could be forwarded to federal prosecutors.
In Thursday's testimony, Todd Kosakowski of Maine's Boothbay Harbor Shipyard said he raised doubts about Bounty's seaworthiness weeks before it sailed into the storm. He said he told Walbridge he was worried about rotting wood in the Bounty's frame. Walbridge, Kosakowski said, decided against fixing the rot.
"I believe that that could have had an impact on the strength of the vessel," Kosakowski said.
Joe Jakomovicz, a retired manager who worked at the shipyard for four decades, told investigators he disagreed with Kosakowski's analysis. The decay of the Bounty's timbers, he said, wasn't as bad as Kosakowski's assessment. "He's basing his judgment on probably five or six years of experience," Jakomovicz testified.
Claudene Christian's father, Rex, and her mother -- who shares her daughter's first name but goes by Dina -- were also at the hearing. For now, they've declined to speak with reporters.
Their daughter was relatively new to sailing, and told friends in May how excited she was to join the Bounty. A former beauty queen, Christian also said she was a descendant of Fletcher Christian, the infamous mutineer on the real HMS Bounty 220 years ago.
On Friday, her mother sat silently at the side of the hearing room, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief and sometimes taking notes.
The memory of Claudene Christian took a seat at the proceding almost as real as any of the participants.
Several questions focused on the energetic deckhand who had virtually no experience aboard a tall ship, let alone riding out hurricanes. When Cleveland helped her move toward the back of the ship, shortly before it went horizontal, he "told her to stay low. I told her to go aft and to grab the next person I would hand her to."
She never made it home.
During a brief recess, Christian's parents paused at a window near the hearing room in this shipyard town, their arms around each other, looking across the Elizabeth River flowing toward the sea.
CNN's John Couwels contributed to this report.
Internet rules: More cats. LESS CAPS
Labels: LifestyleSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Yes, there ARE some rules to the Internet, though, for now they're mainly an inside joke
- Some rules based on pop culture, some have become Web memes
- Other rules ominously quote Anonymous
- Is there a need for rules on the vast and wild Web? Depends on where you stand
Editor's note: In the gallery above, we've selected a handful of our favorite Internet rules, or truths. (You might recognize a few.) What are some of yours? Tell us in the comments. We'll feature some of the best on CNN.
(CNN) -- Hello!
Welcome to the Internet. It's a big place, so let me show you around.
You're approaching Oversharing Pass, where residents routinely post too much information. The Facebook Gorge and Twitter Triangle are particularly nefarious time-sucks. Restraint is advised.
Up ahead is Hyperbole Junction, which is the Worst. Spot. Ever. We recommend that you maintain an even keel and stay to the center; the extreme left and right can be dangerous.
And over there is the infamous Lair of Sociopaths, the home of trolls and loners who mercilessly mock everyone who enters their territory. Watch your step: They may trip you up and you'll fall into the Chasm of Lulz.
Our world isn't all dangerous, of course. You may visit Squee City, where images of cute cats and laughing babies fill the landscape. You'll also meet countless kind strangers, hilarious raconteurs and hard-working fact-checkers. They make it all worthwhile.
Hmm. Maybe it would be easier if you had a guide -- you know, some rules to help you find your way.
What, you didn't know there are rules of the Internet?
Of course there are rules. How do you think we maintain order around here?
A parody of rules
That's a joke.
But there really are some rules of the Internet -- even if they, too, began as kind of a joke.
According to the site KnowYourMeme.com, the Rules began around 2006 as a guide for the Internet collective Anonymous and emerged on the old Encyclopedia Dramatica, a bawdy meme catalog. Soon a version emerged on 4chan, an online bulletin board where most users post anonymously, says Jamie Cohen, director of web/digital media at Hofstra University's School of Communication.
"Chris Poole (4chan's founder) kind of designed it, kind of like a Netiquette rules," he says, describing the unspoken code of conduct that lubricates Internet discourse. (Poole has attributed the rules to Gaia Online, a role-playing community.)
But the rules of the Internet deliberately mocked many of those conventions. The self-reflexive parody fit perfectly with its community's attitude, points out Anthony Rotolo, a professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.
"These jokes are meant to comment on something happening in the world," he says. "Later they get accepted as truisms or become a meme."
The absurdity has been reflected even in the supposed number of rules. Though the best-known first version claimed there were 50 rules, only 18 were listed. Number 1 was initially "Do not talk about Rules 2-33"; no Rules 2-33 were on the list.
The sarcastic attitude was reinforced by the kicker found on Encyclopedia Dramatica. It was a parody of Wikipedia's stub language: "This article is crap. You can help by completely re-writing it."
'Fight Club' and Monty Python
Very quickly, the lists started multiplying and expanding, liberally borrowing from comedy, Web culture and math-science tropes. On one list, a few were designated by complex numbers and mathematical symbols. Some were observations; others were directives.
Some have traced the Internet rules to Chris Poole, the founder of 4chan.
Two rules were taken from "Fight Club": "You do not talk about 4chan (or "/b/," 4chan's random, free-wheeling bulletin board) and "You DO NOT talk about 4chan." One version of Rule 6 stated "There is no Rule 6," which is from a Monty Python sketch. Rule 42, "Always bring a towel," was drawn from Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. (If you have to ask, read the books.) "Profit," Rule 49, came from "South Park."
Other rules went the reverse direction and became part of mainstream culture. Rule 34 -- "If it exists, there is porn of it" -- is likely the most famous. But there's also "Pics or it didn't happen" (Rule 30), "For every given male character, there is a female version of that character; conversely for every given female character, there is a male version of that character" (Rule 63) and, of course, the corollary to Rule 34 -- "If no porn of it exists at the moment, it will be made" (Rule 35).
Most retained a sense of humor, riffing off established rules and occasionally ending with a giggly "No exceptions."
But a handful were, and remain, as serious as a judge -- notably the three directly about Anonymous (commonly Rules 3-5):
- We are Anonymous.
- We are legion.
- We do not forgive, we do not forget.
The overall Internet rules may have started as a joke, but such ominous language from Anonymous speaks to some of the paradoxes of the Web:
Rules? Why do we need some stinkin' rules?
After all, rules can be helpful -- or divisive. They can create community -- or subvert it.
Even Anonymous, the activist group itself, cuts both ways, says Rotolo. When it hacked the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, many people cheered. But when it goes after less unpopular targets, some cry vigilantism.
Cohen says that the rules themselves try to have it both ways. They're funny until someone gets hurt.
They "play more of a game type of role. They can be bent or broken or cheated or moved around, as you would in any game that has no physical reaction," he says. "That doesn't take into account ever the result of real people being affected by this -- such as teenagers, children, anybody who's seeing things that they shouldn't."
He adds, "There's a lot of rules in there that work for (the creators) more than anyone else. Until they become victims of their own thing, they don't know how powerful the rules are."
Evolving from the Wild West
Of course, the Internet isn't that old, and we're still in its Wild West era in many ways. As the technology evolves from a handful of hackers on Usenet bulletin boards to billions of users on officially sponsored sites, the customs -- the rules -- of the Web will evolve with it.
But we're not talking about the kinds of changes that your family makes to the rules of Monopoly (no, Free Parking is NOT for the pool of money acquired via Chance and Community Chest). We're talking something more expansive: All the established customs of our carbon-based life forms, making way for the instantaneous and virtual modes of silicon-based electronics.
Who knows what new rules may be written?
"When you're in the midst of social change, it's impossible to determine where it's going," says Peter S. Vogel, a former programmer who's now a Dallas-based attorney. "And I think we are in the greatest social change in the history of humans, because there are no boundaries of geography or time."
We haven't even sorted out what happens when the differences in local culture meet global technology. Bruce Umbaugh, a philosophy professor at Webster University in St. Louis who teaches a course on philosophy and technology, argues that not all parts of the world are as tolerant or open-minded as Western democracies.
There's a lot of rules in there that work for (the creators) more than anyone else.
Jamie Cohen, Hofstra University
"There are a lot of other places in the world that are actively using the technology of the Internet to control the free communication among citizens, and to identify critics of the government and hurt them," he says. "We need to be mindful in what we advocate from our perspective that the tools that are implemented on the Net are tools for the global Net."
In other words, citizens of other countries already face actual, enforceable rules -- unlike the folkways established by Web users in the West. Witness the frictions of the Arab Spring, or the restrictions of societies such as North Korea.
It's the kind of perspective that provides a different context for the issues raised by a libertarian, anything-goes Internet. It's hard enough to stop "Star Wars" comment boards from devolving into flamebaiting, meme-generating files of NSFW Yodas.
So for now, we're still making our way through the Series of Tubes, and nobody knows where the boundaries lie. We joke, we grimace and we marvel at the creativity of the hive mind. The Internet is a big place, and countless cultures have set up residence. Eventually, what is now humor may lose its zing; what are now customs may become laws.
Will the rules ever become The Rules? Maybe some future generation will figure out the true guideposts of Internet life, and the singularity will be upon us.
Nah. It'll never happen.
What did we miss? Share your rules for the internet below in the comments. We'll feature some of the best on CNN.
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