Athletics: Pistorius cancels all future races to face murder charge

JOHANNESBURG: Oscar Pistorius has formally called off the races that were due in coming months in the face of charges of murdering his girlfriend on Valentine's Day, his manager said Sunday.

The Olympic and Paralympic athlete was charged on Friday with the premeditated murder of 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp, who was shot dead at his luxury Pretoria home.

He had been contracted to compete in races in Australia, Brazil, Britain and the United States between March and May.

"I have decided that following these tragic events that we have no option but to cancel all future races that Oscar Pistorius had been contracted to compete in, to allow Oscar to concentrate on the upcoming legal proceedings," manager Peet van Zyl said.

Sponsors and partners would in the meantime maintain their contractual commitments awaiting the outcome of the legal process, said Van Zyl uin a statement.

Pistorius is accused of killing his girlfriend who was shot four times. Police reportedly found a bloodied cricket bat at the house, according to a local Sunday paper.

Pistorius' family denies he intentionally killed the blonde covergirl. His father said he had "zero doubt" his son had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder and his 89-year-old grandmother told AFP the killing was accidental.

The family has said the 26-year-old, who is widely seen as an adrenaline junkie with a love for speed and guns, is "numb with shock as well as grief" over Steenkamp's death.

South Africa's independent City Press newspaper quoted police sources saying the investigators had found the cricket bat.

"There was lots of blood on the bat," one source said.

Police are probing whether the bat was used to assault Steenkamp, who was shot four times, including in the head, during the early hours of Thursday, or if she may have used it to defend herself, the newspaper said.

"The suspicion is that the first shot, in the bedroom, hit her in the hip. She then ran and hid herself in the toilet... He fired three more shots," the police source told City Press.

Authorities have rejected suggestions that Pistorius mistook Steenkamp for an intruder and on Sunday police spokesman Neville Malila refused to comment on the reports of the cricket bat.

"I don't know where they got it from, but they didn't get it from any official source in the police," Malila told AFP.

The newspaper described the case against Pistorius as "rock-solid".

Other reports suggested there had been an altercation between the two lovers that had spilled over from Wednesday night, when neighbours called security guards complaining about a "commotion" inside the Pistorius home.

The British Sunday People said a sobbing Pistorius had phoned his friend, Justin Divaris around 4:00 am (0200 GMT) on Thursday telling him "My baba, I've killed my baba (baby in Afrikaans). God take me away."

Pistorius was a national icon who inspired people around the world when he became the first double amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes in the Olympic Games last year.

His bail hearing on Tuesday will come the same day a funeral will be held for his slain girlfriend. He faces a life sentence if convicted of premeditated murder.

His father Henke Pistorius, 59, was quoted by Britain's Sunday Telegraph as saying the family had "zero doubt" his son shot Steenkamp on instinct after mistaking her for an intruder.

"When you are a sportsman, you act even more on instinct," he said. "It's instinct -- things happen and that's what you do."

When contacted by AFP, the father denied speaking to the Sunday Telegraph and refused to provide any further details. The newspaper's reporter Aislinn Laing confirmed she had spoken to the father on Saturday.

Echoing the family's line, Pistorius's 89-year-old grandmother also indicated the shooting had been accidental.

"I know it was a mistake anybody can make" Gertie Pistorius told AFP. "I have got my trust in my (grandson) and I have got my trust in the case, and I am sure things will go the right way" she said.

Police said there had been several previous domestic incidents at Pistorius's home.

Pistorius, who broke down sobbing in his first court appearance on Friday, has built up a powerful team of lawyers, medical specialists and public relations experts for his defence.

Stuart Higgins, a former editor of British tabloid The Sun, whose lengthy list of clients includes British Airways, Chelsea FC and Manchester United football club, will be handling public relations in the case.

One of the lawyers, Kenny Oldwage, acted for the driver in a 2010 accident that killed former president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela's great-grandchild Zenani. The driver was acquitted.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Cops may not oppose assitant director's bail application

MUMBAI: The Jogeshwari police are unlikely to oppose the bail plea of Bollywood assistant director Mark Samuel, who was remanded to seven days' police custody on charges of rash and drunk driving and not possessing a driving licence.

Samuel, an assistant director for the Salman Khan starrer Dabangg 2, will move the Bombay High Court on Monday, along with his friend, Vidushi Sood, for bail. The duo was also charged with abusing and assaulting policemen on duty who stopped them after a 15-minute chase last Friday in Jogeshwari.

Police officials said they had almost completed custodial interrogation of the couple and may not oppose their bail. "We will take a final decision on Monday," said senior inspector V R Damugade, Jogeshwari police station.

The police may also revoke Samuel's passport.

Several legal eagles had questioned the remand plea and subsequent need for seven-day police custody.

Read More..

Pistorius Case: Agent Cancels All Future Races

Oscar Pistorius won't run in any of the future races that the athlete was contracted to compete in, but the Paraylmpic gold medalist's sponsors are still supportive as he faces a murder charge, his agent said today.

The decision to cancel Pistorius' scheduled appearances was made to "allow Oscar to concentrate on the upcoming legal proceedings and to help and support all those involved as they try to come to terms with this very difficult and distressing situation," Peet Van Zyl of In Site Athlete Management said in a statement.

"I have decided that following these tragic events that we have no option but to cancel all future races that Oscar Pistorius had been contracted to compete in," Van Zyl said.

Pistorius was slated to compete in races in Australia and Brazil, as well as at the Drake Relays in Iowa and the Manchester City Games in the U.K.

Van Zyl also said that Pistorius' sponsors and partners are supportive.

"I can confirm that at this point in time, all parties are supportive and their contractual commitments are maintained. They have said they are happy to let the legal process takes its course before making any change in their position," Van Zyl said in the statement.

However, M-Net movies, a subscription-funded South African television channel has pulled their ad campaign featuring Pistorius, tweeting, "Out of respect & sympathy to the bereaved, M-Net will be pulling its entire Oscar campaign featuring Oscar Pistorius with immediate effect."

The agent's announcement comes as family and friends rallied to Pistorius' defense -- saying they believe the Paralympic gold medalist's story that he shot his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp by accident after he mistook her for an intruder.

Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images; Mike Holmes/The Herald/Gallo Images/Getty Images

'Blade Runner' Murder Mystery: Family Speaks Out Watch Video

'Blade Runner' on Suicide Watch After Charged With Girlfriend's Murder Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Charged in Shooting Death of Girlfriend Watch Video

"When you are a sportsman, you act even more on instinct ... it's instinct -- things happen and that's what you do," Pistorius' father Henke Pistorius, 59, told The Telegraph.

The 26-year-old athlete, known as the "Blade Runner" because of the carbon-fiber blades he runs on, was charged Friday with premeditated murder.

PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged With Murder

If convicted, Pistorius could face at least 25 years in jail.

"All of us saw at firsthand how close [Steenkamp] had become to Oscar during that time and how happy they were. They had plans together and Oscar was happier in his private life than he had been for a long time," Pistorius' uncle Arnold Pistorius said on Saturday.

According to South African newspaper Beeld, Steenkamp was killed nearly two hours after police were called to Pistorius' home to respond to reports of an argument at the complex.

Police said they have responded to disputes at the sprinter's residence before, but did not say whether Steenkamp was involved.

The athlete's best friend said Pistorius called him after the shooting to say "there has been a terrible accident, I shot Reeva," Justin Divaris told the Sunday People.

While his family insists he is not a murderer, prosecutors disagree.

Police sources told local media that Steenkamp was shot through the bathroom door where she may have been trying to hide to save herself.

Reeva Steenkamp

A memorial service for Steenkamp will be held in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday evening, SABC reported. Her body will be flown back for the service before being cremated, her family said.

"Her future has been cut short ... I dare say she's with the angels," said Mike Steenkamp, Reeva Steenkamp's uncle.

The South African reality show Steenkamp competed in premiered Saturday night on SABC as planned and included a special tribute to the slain law school graduate whose modeling career was starting to take off.

Read More..

Meet the Meteorite Hunter

Michael Farmer is one of the world's only full-time meteorite hunters. Since the 1990s, the 40-year-old Tucson, Arizona, resident has been scouring the world for pieces of interstellar rock, racing to be the first one on the scene and selling his finds to museums and private collectors. On Friday, as Russians reportedly scrambled to collect fragments from a passing meteorite that injured hundreds, Farmer spoke with National Geographic about his unusual line of work.

Why are so many people in Russia busy gathering up meteorite fragments?

It's a historic event. This will be talked about forever. Everyone wants to have a little piece of it. And scientifically, we want to study it. We want to know what's out there, and we want to know how big it is, and we want to know what damage it can cause. The preliminary data from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says about 7,000 tons landed.

How many meteorite fragments are known to be on Earth?

There are a couple of hundred thousand known meteorites. Of course, there's millions and millions on the planet; we just have to find them. Most of the Earth is inhospitable—heavy forest, jungle, ocean. Meteorites that fall in the ocean are just gone, disappeared to the bottom.

How many other full-time meteorite hunters are there?

Dedicated, serious meteorite hunters? There are maybe 20 of us. If you add in the part-timers who go somewhere whenever [an impact is] close to them, then you might approach a hundred.

How did you become a meteorite hunter?

Here in Tucson right now we have the world's biggest mineral show going on. I bought a meteorite at this very same show 20 years ago, and I was absolutely obsessed and hooked. Since then I've been around the world more times than I can count—four million miles on American Airlines alone.

How many countries have you been to?

About 70 countries, by my last count. About 50, 59 trips to Africa—a lot of work in Africa. The Sahara and other deserts there make meteorites easier to find than on other terrains, and also keep them well preserved.

What are the challenges you face when you're on a hunt?

Well, you're usually going into a kind of chaotic scene where nobody really knows much. In Africa and other places I go [the locals] don't usually understand what's happening, and most of the time they don't care. They're more concerned with eating that day. But the instant some guy shows up and says, "I'll pay you to find this rock," the whole village empties—and then lots of rocks show up.

Related: Best Meteorites for Tourists

It can be dangerous work. I've been robbed, put into prison. For example, I was in prison two years ago in the Middle East, in Oman—actually sentenced, convicted, and put in prison for three months for "illegal mining activity." Not a very nice time. And the same year, 2011, in the fall I went to Kenya three times, after a major meteorite fell. On the third trip over I had a robbery where they ambushed us and almost murdered me. I was down on my knees, with a bag over my head and a machete on my throat and a gun at my head, being beaten. Luckily they decided to just take everything and leave instead of killing us. It's a dangerous line of work because it involves money, and people want that money.

What's the most valuable meteorite you've found?

Well, I've found three separate moon rocks in the Middle East. [Moon rocks are considered a type of meteorite that came loose from the lunar surface and fell to Earth.] And one of them I sold for $100,000 a week later. It was just a small piece—the size of a walnut. But the best meteorite I found was with my three partners up in Canada. It was actually discovered in 1931, but we went back to the location and discovered 53 kilograms [117 pounds] more. It's an extremely rare type of meteorite called a pallasite, and it's about 4.5 billion years old. We sold it to the Canadian government for just under a million dollars. Now it's in the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, and it's considered a national treasure.

Where else do you sell your wares?

Well, I do shows around the world, in France, Germany, Japan. I go to expos, like this one here in Tucson, which is the biggest mineral show in the world and lasts for three weeks. And museums are always calling me.

Related: Archival Photos of Meteorite Recovery

It's a small market. It's not like I need a shop or anything. People call me or email me or go to my website and check it out. The market these days is so ravenous for anything new that when I get a new meteorite, it's usually sold in hours. I don't even have to work anymore. I just make phone calls to a few people, and it's all gone.

Where do you store your collection?

I have multiple storage sites—never put all your eggs in one basket. And I have lots of bulk material. Sometimes I buy this stuff by the ton, and it goes into storage and I sell it off one piece at a time.

What's the verification process like?

Any meteorite, anything that we want to have an official name, has to go to a laboratory, where it gets sectioned and studied by scientists. For example, I'd guess this meteorite in Russia yesterday will be in a lab in Moscow, being researched within hours.

Related: History's Big Meteorite Crashes

In the collector market, we work collaboratively with the scientists. I supply them with rocks, and they supply me with data, both of which I need to make money. People want to know what something is before they buy it.

Are there legal or ethical implications to meteorite hunting?

There always are. Certain countries have passed laws. But when I was arrested in Oman, they actually had no law—they were just very upset that we were taking lots of meteorites. The only law they could charge us with was illegal mining operations—basically running a company in the country without government licensing. But I won on appeal because we had no mining equipment. We were picking up rocks off the surface of the desert. And a judge said, "If a child could do it, then it's not mining." And I was immediately released and sent home.

But there's always friction between the collecting market and the scientific market. There are scientists out there who believe that no meteorite should be in private hands. Well, I tell you, I've been on hunts all over the world and I've only run into scientists a couple of times. They don't have the time or money to do it. So if it wasn't for us, 99 percent of these meteorites would be lost to science.

What about this meteorite strike—do you think scientists will go to Russia?

I guarantee there'll be scientists from everywhere in the world going to this one.

Are you catching the next flight to Moscow?

Well, of course as a meteorite dealer, I want to own this. I woke up this morning to a hundred e-mails from people begging me to get on a plane and go get it so they can buy a piece.

But I'm probably not going. Getting into Russia can be complicated. I'll just buy some from the Russians when it comes out.

Of course, if this had happened in China or somewhere in Africa, I'd be packing my bags right now and getting on a plane, figuring it all out when I get there.

Read More..

Thousands protest to end evictions in Spain

MADRID: Thousands of people demonstrated in Spanish cities on Saturday pushing for a new law to end a wave of evictions of homeowners ruined by the economic crisis.

Several thousand marched yelling to the din of drums and horns in central Madrid, waving banners reading "Stop evictions" and yelling "We have no homes!"

Similar protests were called in Barcelona and 50 other Spanish cities, the latest of months of demonstrations driven by anger at Spain's recession and the conservative government, which is imposing austere economic reforms.

Campaigners passed a rare milestone on Tuesday when the Spanish parliament agreed to debate a popular bill of measures to protect poor homeowners, backed by a petition that received more than 1.4 million signatures.

The organisation that brought that petition, the Platform for Mortgage Victims (PAH), called Saturday's nationwide protests to pressure lawmakers to follow through and vote it into law quickly.

"I think it will pass, and it will not be thanks to the politicians but to pressure from citizens in the street," said one demonstrator in Madrid, Enrique Valdivieso, 27, holding up one end of a banner reading "Government resign".

PAH says hundreds of thousands of people have been evicted from their homes in the crisis brought on by the collapse of Spain's housing market in 2008.

The recession sparked by that collapse has driven the unemployment rate up to 26 percent, leaving many unable to pay mortgages on houses whose value has fallen.

The PAH's bill proposes to change the law to end evictions and to allow insolvent homeowners to write off their debts by surrendering their home.

Under the current law, a bank can pursue a mortgage holder to pay off the remaining balance of a loan if the value of the seized property isn't sufficient.

Outrage has been fanned by a string of suicides of people reportedly driven to despair by the prospect of eviction, including a retired couple in Mallorca on Tuesday.

"We will not stand by idle waiting for the initiative to come to parliament" to be debated, the PAH said in a statement.

"We call on all political parties to vote in favour of the initiative and proceed with it urgently," the PAH said. "If they do not, we will hold them responsible for the financial genocide we are suffering."

- AFP/fa

Read More..

Bring class III, IV employees under Lokpal: Hazare

PUNE: Social crusader Anna Hazare has expressed concern over the Union government's move to exclude corporate sector and class III and class IV government employees from the purview of Lokpal.

In a letter sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ahead of Parliament's budget session, Hazare has reminded Singh of the promises made by the government about enacting a law incorporating citizens charter, appointing Lokayuktas on the lines of Lokpal in all states and including all government employees in the ambit of Lokpal.

Hazare has said that he has learnt that a Cabinet meeting has decided to exclude class III and class IV employees from the purview of Lokpal. "I am surprised by the development. The letter that you gave me on August 27, 2011, regarding Parliament's resolution clearly stated that the demand regarding inclusion of all government employees under the purview of Lokpal was accepted. How can the Cabinet reject what Parliament has accepted, especially as Parliament is supreme?" he asked in the letter sent on February 15.

Hazare pointed out that it was imperative to include class III and class IV employees under the Lokpal ambit because corruption by low rank officials, like gram sevaks and circle officers, affects common people the most. He said if the Cabinet was allowed to change Parliament's decision without having any authority to do so, it would put a question mark on the supremacy of Parliament. "As the head of the government, you have to decide whether the country is run by Parliament or the Cabinet," he said.

Hazare also expressed displeasure over the government's stand of leaving appointing of Lokayuktas to state governments. "There should be a uniform law for all states regarding Lokayuktas. We should not have a situation where justice will differ from state to state," he said.

Hazare also expressed concern about corporates being excluded from the purview of Lokpal. "It is unfortunate that barring the Left parties, all political parties are in favour of excluding the corporate sector when we have serious issues concerning exploitation of water, land and forest resources," he said.

Read More..

Tennis: Benneteau stuns Federer in Rotterdam

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands: Frenchman Julien Benneteau sent defending champion Roger Federer crashing out of the Rotterdam World Tennis tournament on Friday with a stunning 6-3, 7-5 quarter-final upset.

Federer, who lifted the trophy in his last two appearances in 2005 and 2012, last suffered defeat in the event against Tim Henman in 2004.

"I'm very disappointed, I have some regrets about this match," said Federer, who came back from two sets to love down to beat Benneteau in the third round of Wimbledon last year.

"He played great and created more chances than I did. He deserved to win. It was a tough loss, but they do happen. Being broken so many times (five) indoors won't get the job done. My game was up and down overall.

"He made it difficult and generated pressure. That made you try to serve harder. When I had some chances I didn't take them. I was maybe a point or two away from taking it into a third set and then the clock resets."

Benneteau, the world 39, will play a Saturday a semi-final against either fifth-seeded compatriot Gilles Simon or Slovak Martin Klizan.

"This was a dream match, and I played like a dream," said Benneteau after
his second career win over the world number two.

"This is for sure my biggest win. He was the favourite, but maybe he played a bit tight. I've been playing well all week, improving with each match.

"I've had a great week here so far and I hope it's not finished."

Federer was clearly off the boil from the start, beginning with an ace but losing the first game.

He was broken three times in the first set in a shocking display from the top seed and heavy crowd favourite at the Ahoy stadium.

The French challenger wrapped up the opening set and went up a break at 3-1 in the second as Federer's game continued to suffer.

But the Swiss stirred to life as he broke back to love for 3-4.

Federer then levelled at four games apiece before Benneteau saved three break points to hold for 6-5.

A game later, it was done, with Federer donating a double-fault for a match point and then missing the far corner with a backhand which was confirmed by electronic linecalling.

Second seed Juan Martin del Potro cruised into the semi-finals with a victory in straight sets against Finland's Jarkko Nieminen.

The Argentine won 6-3, 6-4, and will now face unseeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov who came from a set down to beat Marcos Baghdatis.

Del Potro took just under 90 minutes to go through, racking up 10 aces along the way before sealing victory on his second match point as the Finn returned long.

"It was a difficult win, he's a lefty and hit his shots differently. He was fighting all the time and I had to play my best game to go through," said the 2009 US Open champion.

"It feels good to be in the semi-finals, I'm trying to repeat what I did last year (final) and go even farther.

"Dimitrov has a very good future. He's playing fantastic tennis, the match will be close for both sides."

Dimitrov beat Baghdatis 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/0), 6-3 in a performance that showed he is returning to the kind of form he produced at the start of the year, when he reached the final in Brisbane before losing to Andy Murray.

The Bulgarian had also beaten Baghdatis in three sets in that tournament, and he repeated the feat on Friday.

- AFP/fa

Read More..

Abhishek Verma owes Aeromatrix Gautam Khaitan Rs 5.32L as legal fees: ED

NEW DELHI: Contrary to reports that former director with Aeromatrix Gautam Khaitan held $145,000 of Abhishek Verma's money for disposal, documents available with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) show that it is Verma who owes Khaitan money.

In a reply filed with the ED, which has been investigating Verma's dealings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Khaitan has said that the war room leak case accused still owes him Rs 5.32 lakh for legal services his firm provided to Verma in a case he had fought against BSNL in 2004.

Quoting from Italian investigations into the alleged kickbacks paid to middlemen to push through Finmeccanica's VVIP chopper deal in India, media reports cited a letter allegedly written by Delhi-based lawyer Khaitan on behalf of his law firm, O P Khaitan & Co, to Atlas Interactive Ltd (AIL) in Mauritius, a Verma-owned firm. The letter said that Khaitan told AIL that his company was holding accounts of $145,000 each on behalf of AIL and that he would "dispose" of these funds as per instructions once he returned to Delhi.

While the authenticity of this letter is still being probed, ED documents show that while Verma has had links with Khaitan, he has failed to clear the latter's dues. ED had summoned Khaitan last September to quiz him on his links with Verma and the payments he had received from him.

Khaitan had replied last October that his firm had represented AIL in Delhi High Court and Arbitral Tribunal in a dispute that had arisen between Atlas Interactive (India) Pvt Ltd and BSNL over a 2004 Franchisee Agreement for providing broadband services to BSNL's landline users in Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gurgaon.

In 2006, a reply furnished to the CBI following a similar query had said, "The matter was attended by us on behalf of Atlas before Arbitral Tribunal only on five occasions... The matter, thereafter, was not attended by us as we were proving too expensive for Atlas. In fact, our bills to the tune of Rs 5.75 lakh are still pending besides issuance of TDS certificate."

The outstanding was, however, revised to Rs 5.32 lakh in Khaitan's reply to the ED last year.

The reply says that after 2004, Verma got in touch with the firm only in August-September, 2010 for a meeting with Myfairlady Pvt Ltd with which he wanted to enter into a joint venture to start sports betting in India. However, Khaitan asked for an advance payment which Verma did not provide following which the lawyer pulled out of the deal.

Read More..

Cruise Ship Now Faces Expected Wave of Lawsuits

Despite having their feet back on solid ground and making their way home, passengers from the Carnival Triumph cruise ship are still fuming over their five days of squalor on the stricken ship and the cruise ship company is likely to be hit with a wave of lawsuits.

"I think people are going to file suits and rightly so," maritime trial attorney John Hickey told ABCNews.com. "I think, frankly, that the conduct of Carnival has been outrageous from the get-go."

Hickey, a Miami-based attorney, said his firm has already received "quite a few" inquiries from passengers who just got off the ship early this morning.

"What you have here is a) negligence on the part of Carnival and b) you have them, the passengers, being exposed to the risk of actual physical injury," Hickey said.

Click Here for Photos of the Stranded Ship at Sea

The attorney said that whether passengers can recover monetary compensation will depend on maritime law and the 15-pages of legal "gobbledygook," as Hickey described it, that passengers signed before boarding, but "nobody really agrees to."

One of the ticket conditions is that class action lawsuits are not allowed, but Hickey said there is a possibility that could be voided when all the conditions of the situation are taken into account.

One of the passengers already thinking about legal action is Tammy Hilley, a mother of two, who was on a girl's getaway with her two friends when a fire in the ship's engine room disabled the vessel's propulsion system and knocked out most of its power.

"I think that's a direction that our families will talk about, consider and see what's right for us," Hilley told "Good Morning America" when asked if she would be seeking legal action.

While she said that she does not want to be greedy or exploit the situation, she does not feel that Carnival's $500 compensation is enough for the trauma passengers suffered.

Carnival's Triumph Passengers: 'We Were Homeless' Watch Video

Girl Disembarks Cruise Ship, Kisses the Ground Watch Video

Carnival Cruise Ship Passengers Line Up for Food Watch Video

"You talk about the emotional trauma and just last night, feeling what we went through last night while we were on land with our families and our insides just trembling," she said. "I don't think it begins to even say what is needed here."

In addition to the money, passengers will receive a full refund for the cruise, transportation expenses and vouchers for another cruise.

"We made our own nest [on deck] because we were just too terrified to go inside because of the smells and the germs, so we just banded together and made our own little nest and just survived," Hilley's friend Ann Barlow said.

Her friend Carolyn Klam said she got a stomach virus from drinking bad water once the power went out and friend Tammy Hilley said her cell phone was stolen this morning as the boat came into port.

"I think going back to our room was kind of traumatic and seeing that from day one we had no home, we were homeless," Hilley said. "We would go downstairs below deck and your feet could feel the sludge that you were walking through. The smells and the liquids draining from the ceiling and the stories of people sleeping in the hallways and the sanitary bags in the hallway, that was traumatic to just watch it start piling up."

The more than 4,000 passengers and crew began to disembark from the damaged ship around 10:15 p.m. CT Thursday in Mobile, Ala., amid cheers and tears. The last passenger left the ship at 1 a.m. CT, according to Carnival's Twitter handle.

Passenger Brandi Dorsett was thankful to be home, especially for her mother who was with her on the ship. Dorsett said she wasn't pleased with the doctor on staff.

"My mother is a diabetic, and they would not even come to the room because she cannot walk the stairs to help her with insulin. She hasn't had insulin in three days," Dorsett said.

The Carnival Triumph departed Galveston, Texas, last Thursday and lost power Sunday.

Cruise Ship Newlyweds Won't Be Spending Honeymoon on a Boat

After power went out, passengers texted ABC News that sewage was seeping down the walls from burst plumbing pipes, carpets were wet with urine, and food was in short supply. Reports surfaced of elderly passengers running out of critical heart medicine and others on board squabbling over scarce food.

"It's degrading. Demoralizing, and then they want to insult us by giving us $500," Veronica Arriaga said after disembarking the ship.

As the ship docked, passengers lined the decks of the Triumph, waving and whistling to those on shore. "Happy V-Day" read a homemade sign made for the Valentine's Day arrival, while another sent a starker message: "The ship's afloat, so is the sewage."

WATCH: Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill Apologizes to Passengers

Read More..

Postmaster takes case for five-day mail delivery to skeptical senators

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe took his controversial plan for five-day mail delivery before a congressional hearing Wednesday, where he told senators that the Postal Service “needs your help.”

Donahoe’s refrain was familiar.

●The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is losing $25 million a day.

●Last year, the Postal Service lost $15.9 billion.

●It defaulted on $11.1 billion owed to the Treasury.

As he has before, Donahoe pleaded with Congress, this time the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to approve comprehensive postal reform legislation. Now, more than before, it looks as though Congress will do so.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the Senate panel that after two months of negotiations, “we are close, very close” to agreement on a bipartisan, bicameral bill.

Without some assistance from Congress, said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate committee, “the Postal Service will drift toward insolvency and, eventually, the point at which it must shut its doors. . . . We have never been closer to losing the Postal Service.”

Although in some ways Donahoe’s appearance echoed his many other pleas for congressional action, this hearing drew a standing-room-only crowd on the third floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. That was probably influenced by all the attention generated by his surprise announcement last week that Saturday mail delivery will end in August.

Donahoe’s written testimony outlined several key legislative goals, but five-day mail delivery was not specifically listed among them. After repeatedly urging Congress to end the six-day requirement, Donahoe said postal officials had determined that he could take that action without congressional approval.

Moving to five-day delivery would close just 10 percent of the postal budget gap, Donahoe said, yet the controversy surrounding it stole the focus from other important financial issues.

Among them is a controversial proposal to move postal employees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which serves all federal workers, to a health insurance program run by the USPS.

Donahoe presented an updated health insurance proposal, but it received little attention compared with his five-day delivery plan.

Last year the Senate approved legislation, co-sponsored by Carper, that would allow five-day delivery two years after its enactment. The delay was designed to allow the Postal Service to study the impact of five-day delivery. Carper was among those who have expressed disappointment with Donahoe’s plan to implement it unilaterally.

“We are taking every reasonable and responsible step in our power to strengthen our finances immediately,” Donahoe told the committee. “We would urge Congress to eliminate any impediments to our new delivery schedule.

“Although discussion about our delivery schedule gets a lot of attention, it is just one important part of a larger strategy to close our budgetary gap,” he added. “It accounts for $2 billion in cost reductions while we are seeking to fill a $20 billion budget gap.”

Read More..