Penn St officials head to court on perjury charges

Penn State President Graham Spanier and Chairman of the Penn State Board of Trustees Steve A. Garban exit Old Main just after midnight on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, following an executive session. The board accepted the request of Penn State Director of Athletics Tim Curley to take an administrative leave and Penn State's Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz's request to step down and return to retirement. (AP Photo/Chloe Elmer/Daily Collegian)

Penn State President Graham Spanier and Chairman of the Penn State Board of Trustees Steve A. Garban exit Old Main just after midnight on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, following an executive session. The board accepted the request of Penn State Director of Athletics Tim Curley to take an administrative leave and Penn State's Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz's request to step down and return to retirement. (AP Photo/Chloe Elmer/Daily Collegian)

Penn State President Graham Spanier leaves in his car just after midnight on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, following an executive session held at Old Main in University Park, Pa. The board accepted the request of Tim Curley to take an administrative leave and Gary Schultz's request to step down and return to retirement. (AP Photo/Chloe Elmer/Daily Collegian)

Penn State Vice President of Student Affairs Damon Sims exits Old Main late on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011, following an executive session. The board accepted the request of Tim Curley to take an administrative leave and Gary Schultz's request to step down and return to retirement. (AP Photo/Chloe Elmer/Daily Collegian)

This undated photo provided by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General shows Gary Schultz. Schultz, Penn State vice president for finance and business, is expected to turn himself in on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, as he has been charged with perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania?s child protective services law in connection with the investigation into allegations former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused eight young men, the state attorney general?s office said Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General)

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2002 file photo, Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley answers questions about a letter he wrote to the Big Ten calling for a review of football officiating practices in State College, Pa. Curley is expected to turn himself in on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, in Harrisburg, Pa., as he has been charged with perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania?s child protective services law in connection with the investigation into allegations former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused eight young men, the state attorney general?s office said Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Pat Little, File)

(AP) ? Just hours after stepping down, two high-ranking Penn State administrators face arraignment Monday on charges they lied to a grand jury investigating former defense coordinator Jerry Sandusky and failed to properly report suspected child abuse, a case that has left fans reeling.

Late Sunday, after an emergency meeting of the Board of Trustees, university President Graham Spanier announced that Athletic Director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the school's senior vice president for business and finance, would be leaving their posts.

Curley requested to be placed on administrative leave so he could devote time to his defense, and Schultz will be going back into retirement, Spanier said. Both men have maintained they are innocent of any wrongdoing in connection with the probe into whether Sandusky sexually abused eight boys over a 15-year period.

State Attorney General Linda Kelly and state police Commissioner Frank Noonan are expected to hold a 1 p.m. news conference about the case Monday a few miles from the Harrisburg district court. The arraignment is scheduled for immediately after that.

Sandusky was arrested Saturday on charges that he preyed on boys he met through The Second Mile, a charity he founded for at-risk youths. The charity said in a statement Sunday that Sandusky has had no involvement with The Second Mile programs involving children since 2008, when Sandusky told the foundation that he was being investigated on child-sex allegations.

The case has rocked State College, a campus town routinely ranked among America's best places to live and nicknamed Happy Valley. Under head football coach Joe Paterno ? who testified before the grand jury and isn't considered a suspect ? the teams were revered both for winning games, including two national championships, and largely steering clear of trouble.

In a statement issued Sunday, Paterno said the charges were "shocking."

"The fact that someone we thought we knew might have harmed young people to this extent is deeply troubling," he said. "If this is true we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers."

Sandusky, whose defenses were usually anchored by tough-guy linebackers, spent three decades at the school. The charges against him cover the period from 1994 to 2009.

Sandusky retired in 1999 but continued to use the school's facilities, but university officials said Sunday they were moving to ban him from campus in the wake of the charges.

Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office, told The Associated Press on Sunday that whether Paterno might testify was premature and nothing more than rampant speculation.

"That's putting the cart way ahead of the horse," he said. "We're certainly not going to be discussing the lineup of potential witnesses."

The allegations against Sandusky, who started The Second Mile in 1977, range from sexual advances to touching to oral and anal sex. The young men testified before a state grand jury that they were in their early teens when some of the abuse occurred; there is evidence even younger children may have been victimized.

Sandusky's attorney Joe Amendola said his client has been aware of the accusations for about three years and has maintained his innocence.

"He's shaky, as you can expect," Amendola told WJAC-TV. "Being 67 years old, never having faced criminal charges in his life and having the distinguished career that he's had, these are very serious allegations."

Sandusky is charged with multiple counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor, as well as single counts of aggravated indecent assault and attempted indecent assault.

One accuser, now 27, testified that Sandusky initiated contact with a "soap battle" in the shower that led to multiple instances of involuntary sexual intercourse and indecent assault at Sandusky's hands, the grand jury report said.

He said he traveled to charity functions and Penn State games with Sandusky. But when the boy resisted his advances, Sandusky threatened to send him home from the 1999 Alamo Bowl, the report said.

Sandusky also gave him clothes, shoes, a snowboard, golf clubs, hockey gear and football jerseys, and even guaranteed that he could walk on to the football team, the grand jury said. He testified that Sandusky once gave him $50 to buy marijuana, drove him to purchase it and then drove him home as the boy smoked the drug.

The first case to come to light was a boy who met Sandusky when he was 11 or 12, and physical contact began during his overnight stays at Sandusky's house, the grand jury said. Eventually, the boy's mother reported the sexual assault allegations to his high school, and Sandusky was banned from the child's school district in Clinton County. That triggered the state investigation that culminated in charges Saturday.

But the report also alleges much earlier instances of abuse and details failed efforts to stop it by some who became aware of what was happening.

Another child, known only as a boy about 11 to 13, was seen by a janitor pinned against a wall while Sandusky performed oral sex on him in fall 2000, the grand jury said.

And in 2002, Kelly said, a graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assault a naked boy, estimated to be about 10 years old, in a team locker room shower. The grad student and his father reported what he saw to Paterno, who immediately told Curley, prosecutors said.

The two school administrators fielded the complaint from an unnamed graduate assistant and from Paterno. Two people familiar with the investigation confirmed the identity of the graduate assistant as Mike McQueary, now the team's wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator. The two spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the names in the grand jury report haven't been publicly released.

McQueary's father, John, said his son was out of town on a recruiting trip Sunday, and he declined to comment about the case or say whether they were the two named in the grand jury report.

"I know it's online, and I know it's available," John McQueary told the AP. "I have gone out of my way not to read it for a number of reasons."

Curley and Schultz met with the graduate assistant about a week and a half after the attack was reported, Kelly said.

"Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law," Kelly said.

There's no indication that anyone at school attempted to find the boy or follow up with the witness, she said.

Schultz's lawyer, Thomas J. Farrell, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the mandated reporting rules only apply to people who come into direct contact with children. He also said the statute of limitations for the summary offense with which Schultz is charged is two years, so it expired in 2004.

The grand jury report that lays out the accusations against the men cites the state's Child Protective Services Law, which requires immediate reporting by doctors, nurses, school administrators, teachers, day care workers, police and others.

Neither Schultz nor Curley appear to have had direct contact with the boys Sandusky is accused of abusing, including the one involved in the eyewitness account prosecutors say they were given.

The law "applies only to children under the care and supervision of the organization for which he works, and that's Penn State, it's not The Second Mile," Farrell said of his client. "This child, from what we know, was a Second Mile child."

Messages left later Sunday seeking comment from Frederiksen with the attorney general's office, and from Curley's lawyer, Caroline Roberto, weren't immediately returned. Farrell said it was accurate to say the allegations against Curley are legally flawed in the same manner.

Farrell said he plans to seek dismissal at the earliest opportunity. "Now, tomorrow is probably not the appropriate time," Farrell said. "We'll bring every legal challenge that is appropriate, and I think quite a few are appropriate."

As a summary offense, failure to report suspected child abuse carries up to three months in jail and a $200 fine.

"As far as my research shows, there has never been a reported criminal decision under this statute, and the civil decisions go our way," he said.

Curley and Schultz also are accused of perjury for their testimony to the grand jury that issued a 23-page report on the matter Friday, the day before state prosecutors charged them. Sandusky was arrested Saturday and charged with 40 criminal counts.

Curley denied that the assistant had reported anything of a sexual nature, calling it "merely 'horsing around,'" the grand jury report said. But he also testified that he barred Sandusky from bringing children onto campus and that he advised Spanier of the matter.

The grand jury said Curley was lying, Kelly said, adding that it also deemed portions of Schultz's testimony not to be credible.

Schultz told the jurors he also knew of a 1998 investigation involving sexually inappropriate behavior by Sandusky with a boy in the showers the football team used.

But despite his job overseeing campus police, he never reported the 2002 allegations to any authorities, "never sought or received a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002," the jurors wrote. "No one from the university did so."

Farrell said Schultz "should have been required only to report it to his supervisor, which he did."

Schultz reports to Spanier, who testified before the grand jury that Schultz and Curley came to him with a report that a staff member was uncomfortable because he'd seen Sandusky "horsing around" with a boy. Spanier wasn't charged.

About the perjury charge, Farrell said: "We're going to have a lot of issues with that, both factual and legal. I think there's a very strong defense here."

The university is paying legal costs for Curley and Schultz because the allegations against them concern how they fulfilled their responsibilities as employees, spokeswoman Lisa Powers said.

___

Genaro C. Armas in State College, Pa., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-07-Penn%20State-Abuse/id-7b279fe73fa2423dbf5a662012ef1c09

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Video: Why it might come down to Newt

Penn State reportedly planning Paterno's exit

??Penn State administrators are discussing how to manage Joe Paterno's departure as the football coach, the New York Times reported Tuesday, citing two unnamed people briefed on talks among the school's top officials.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45198291#45198291

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Rufus Sewell to play archangel in "Paradise Lost" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Rufus Sewell and director Alex Proyas are reteaming for Legendary Pictures' "Paradise Lost," Legendary announced on Monday.

Bradley Cooper and Benjamin Walker star in the movie, an adaptation of John Milton's 17th-century poem.

The movie is about a war in heaven, setting archangel Michael (Walker) against Lucifer (Cooper). Sewell will play the archangel Sammael.

Legendary says the movie will be "deconstructed as a broadly relatable epic action (film) that will include aerial warfare, possibly shot in 3D."

Sewell worked with Proyas on "Dark City." He recently appeared in "The Tourist," "The Holiday" and "The Illusionist."

Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi originally wrote the screenplay. Stuart Hazeldine developed the primary draft, which was polished by Lawrence Kasdan and, most recently, by Ryan Condal.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111107/film_nm/us_sewell

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Former CBS News commentator Andy Rooney dies (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator who pondered everything from shoelaces to the existence of God on CBS's "60 Minutes" news show for more than 30 years, died on Friday night at the age of 92, CBS said.

Rooney, a four-time Emmy winner, died one month after he had signed off from "60 Minutes" in October, concluding a 33-year run. A statement on CBS News' website said he died in a New York hospital of complications following minor surgery.

Rooney was a fixture on Sunday night television, closing out the "60 Minutes" broadcast with a short rant in his "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney" segment. Sitting in his cluttered office at a desk he made himself, Rooney delivered more than 1,000 such essays, holding hold forth on a range of topics of varying degrees of relevance.

Adjectives like crusty, cranky and crabby frequently were attached to Rooney as he took critical looks at topics such as breakfast cereals or salad dressing, often with the overriding sentiment that things just weren't as good as they used to be.

But, peering out from under his bushy white eyebrows, Rooney also analyzed presidents, critiqued the Iraq war and considered North Korea's nuclear threat. His commentaries won three Emmy Awards.

"Underneath that gruff exterior, was a prickly interior ... and deeper down was a sweet and gentle man, a patriot with a love of all things American, like good bourbon and a delicious hatred for prejudice and hypocrisy," "60 Minutes" colleague Morley Safer said in a statement.

Rooney was a television writer and producer earlier in his career and preferred to think of himself as a writer who appeared on television. He joined CBS in 1949 as a writer for the popular "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" show and later worked on "The Garry Moore Show."

Beginning in 1962 he teamed with correspondent Harry Reasoner for CBS News, producing a series of specials with titles like "An Essay on Chairs" and "The Strange Case of the English Language." In 1968 Rooney won his first Emmy for his script for "Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed."

Rooney joined "60 Minutes" during its first season in 1968, again working as producer with Reasoner, and 10 years later his commentaries became a regular feature.

He also wrote, produced and narrated a CBS series on American life for which he won a prestigious Peabody Award.

CONTROVERSY

In 1990 he was suspended for three months after being quoted by a Los Angeles interviewer as saying blacks had "watered down their genes because the less intelligent ones are the ones that have the most children."

The suspension was reduced to one month after CBS received thousands of calls and letters from viewers, as well as internal pressure from "60 Minutes" executive producer Don Hewitt and longtime anchorman Walter Cronkite.

Rooney denied any racist sentiments and upon his return from suspension said on the air: "Do I have any opinions that might irritate some people? You're damn right I do. That's what I'm here for."

Rooney also came under fire in 2007 for saying many people joined the U.S. military because of problems in their lives and that the Army would be better off drafting soldiers from all classes of society.

Rooney was born January 14, 1919, in Albany, New York, and attended Colgate University until he was drafted into the Army in 1941. He became a correspondent for Stars and Stripes newspaper and was awarded a Bronze Star for his work during the Normandy invasion.

In 2003, Rooney was given the Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award, named for his friend, the famous war correspondent, by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

Rooney started a regular syndicated newspaper column in 1979 and wrote several books, including "My War," "Pieces of My Mind" and "Sincerely, Andy Rooney."

Rooney and wife Marguerite, who died in 2004, had a son and three daughters. Son Brian Rooney became a correspondent for ABC News and daughter Emily was a producer for ABC News before becoming host of a public affairs show in Boston.

(Reporting by Bill Trott in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111105/people_nm/us_rooney

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APNewsBreak: Yellowstone spill to cost Exxon $135M

FILE - In this Monday, July 11, 2011 file photo, an oil spill crew worker for drops absorbent pads along a flood plain of the Yellowstone River where oil was found near Laurel, Mont. Exxon Mobil said Friday, Nov. 4, 2011 it expects to incur costs of about $135 million from the oil pipeline break beneath Montana's Yellowstone River that triggered a massive effort to limit damage to the scenic waterway. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

FILE - In this Monday, July 11, 2011 file photo, an oil spill crew worker for drops absorbent pads along a flood plain of the Yellowstone River where oil was found near Laurel, Mont. Exxon Mobil said Friday, Nov. 4, 2011 it expects to incur costs of about $135 million from the oil pipeline break beneath Montana's Yellowstone River that triggered a massive effort to limit damage to the scenic waterway. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

(AP) ? Exxon Mobil Corp. said Friday it expects to incur costs of about $135 million from an oil pipeline break beneath Montana's Yellowstone River that triggered a massive effort to limit damage to the scenic waterway.

The cost figure was released in response to a request from The Associated Press and is more than triple an earlier estimate. It includes for the first time the expense of replacing the section of broken pipeline with a new one buried more deeply beneath the river.

The company's 20-year-old Silvertip crude oil pipeline broke July 1 during severe flooding.

In the 56 minutes it took Exxon Mobil to seal off the 12-inch line, an estimated 1,000 barrels of oil, or 42,000 gallons, poured into the river near Laurel. That fouled dozens of miles of riverbank, numerous islands and swaths of low-lying cropland with crude.

More than 1,000 workers were involved in the cleanup effort at its peak. Work to remove the damaged pipeline began Monday and is expected to take several weeks.

An Exxon Mobil spokeswoman declined to release a breakdown of the company's costs, providing only a broad overview of expenses.

"This estimate includes costs for overall emergency response and cleanup efforts including personnel, equipment, landowner claims and projects associated with the restart of the pipeline such as the horizontal directional drill," company spokeswoman Claire Hassett said.

"Horizontal directional drill" refers to the process the company used to bore a new route for the pipeline dozens of feet beneath the riverbed. That move was mandated by federal pipeline regulators.

The original pipeline was buried only a few feet beneath the river. State and federal officials have speculated that summer flooding scoured the riverbed and left the pipe exposed to damaging debris and the force of the rushing river.

An investigation into the cause remains pending.

State officials said they hope to learn more when the first pieces of the damaged section of pipeline are pulled from the river, possibly this weekend. Those will be sent to an independent laboratory for analysis, according to state and federal officials and the company.

An inspector from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will be on site throughout the removal process. The agency wants to make sure all evidence is preserved as part of the accident investigation, spokesman Damon Hill said.

Several property owners along the river have sued Exxon Mobil in federal court, accusing the company of damaging their land and conducting a "haphazard, sloppy" cleanup.

The landowners also claim the company failed to heed warnings from local officials who raised concerns about Silvertip months before the accident.

The lawsuit was originally filed in state court but was transferred last week to U.S. District Court in Billings. The case was assigned to Judge Richard Cebull.

In a response filed Thursday, Exxon Mobil attorneys rejected many of the lawsuit's assertions and suggested some of the injuries suffered by the plaintiffs were caused by their own negligence.

Exxon Mobil's Hassett said the company has reached settlements with 95 percent of affected property owners.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency oversaw the most intensive parts of the cleanup before turning over authority to the state Department of Environmental Quality in September.

At the time, EPA representatives said they were pleased with the cooperation they had received from the company.

Although Gov. Brian Schweitzer clashed with Exxon Mobil over its initial response, a spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality said Friday that the state has no major complaints as the first phase of the cleanup nears an end and long-term monitoring begins.

"We're not thrilled we had to do it in the first place," DEQ spokeswoman Mary Ann Dunwell said. "We can scientifically clean up something appropriately and have no problem with it. But there's also the inconvenience, the lifestyle changes that many people were forced to endure this last summer and fall. I don't know if you can put a price on that."

State agencies through October spent about $900,000 on the spill and cleanup, said DEQ deputy director Tom Livers.

Livers said the state expects to be fully reimbursed by Exxon Mobil and through an oil industry fund set up to pay for emergency spill response costs.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-04-Oil%20Spill-Costs/id-55780c0d455348e68cf22bd746fad9a1

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NSK developing Kinect-laced robotic guide dog for the blind (video)

Have you ever looked at a robotic dog, scratched your head and thought, "Why?" Well, NSK has just responded with a pretty valid "Because." Turns out, the Japanese manufacturer is working on a new mechanized canine that could one day serve as a guide dog for the blind. The company's latest prototype builds on the work of the University of Electro-Communications (UEC), which unveiled its first model, the NR001, in 2005, followed by an updated version (NR002) in 2007. With this third iteration, unveiled late last month, NSK and UEC have added a Microsoft Kinect sensor, which allows it to more easily identify and navigate obstacles or stairs. The quadrupedal beast can also scamper up and down steps with more grace than its predecessors, which moved more like arthropods than actual dogs. The bot's paws have also been equipped with obstacle-avoiding bumper sensors, and researchers are working on incorporating voice commands, as well. NSK says its guide dog could eventually feature GPS capabilities to provide more accurate directions for the blind and visually impaired, though it'll probably be a while before it hits the pavement; the company hopes to commercialize the dogbot by 2020. Trot past the break to see the pup in action, in a pair of demo videos.

Continue reading NSK developing Kinect-laced robotic guide dog for the blind (video)

NSK developing Kinect-laced robotic guide dog for the blind (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/07/nsk-developing-kinect-laced-robotic-guide-dog-for-the-blind-vid/

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Apple seeds iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 to developers

Just two days after posting iOS 5.0.1, Apple has already revved it to beta 2. No word yet on what, if any changes the new build holds — even better battery life enhancements, more rock-solid Documents in the Cloud, improvements to the new no-delete, no-backup datastore? —...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/JIOZdzy0xSI/story01.htm

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