Chicago ‘Suitcase Killer’ Issues Startling YouTube ‘Confession’

A young Chicago mother serving time in an Indonesian prison after her dead mother was found stuffed in a suitcase in Bali has issued a troubling statement in a series of YouTube videos saying she alone was responsible for the murder. During the three-part video, Heather Mack, 21, exonerates her boyfriend, whom she had previously accused of killing her mother. Mack is serving a 10-year sentence as an accessory to the murder in Bali. She and beau Tommy Schaefer, now 23, were traveling there in 2014 when the body of Shelia von Wiese-Mack, 62, was discovered in a suitcase in a taxi outside the luxury hotel where they were staying. Now Mack says she alone killed her mother and that she placed incriminating messages on Schaefer’s phone. The two have a daughter together, Stella, who is being raised by Mack in Bali’s infamous Kerobokon prison until she turns 2 in March. She was pregnant during the murder. “Since I was a kid, I’ve heard the truth sets you free. I never understood,” Mack says in one of the videos. “But I’m Heather Mack, and I want to be set free. I don’t want to live in a lie anymore.” Mack, wearing a sky-blue shirt and makeup, is startlingly poised on camera, almost as if she’s acting in a movie. “I’m sorry, Tommy Schaefer. I love you, I really love you,” she says at one point. “If I could go back, I would do it myself. I’m sorry that everyone that ever knew you thinks you’re a murderer .… I’m sorry everybody thinks you’re some crazy killer.” It’s not known when the videos were made. They were posted to YouTube on Thursday. Tommy Schaefer and Heather Mack leave prison with their baby, Stella, for a court appearance in 2015 shortly before they were found guilty in the murder of Mack’s mother. Mack’s attorney told Reuters he suspects that Schaefer somehow pressured her into making the video, but he offered no details. The videos could end up tacking time onto Mack’s sentence. “If Mack is indeed the mastermind of the murder, the video can be used as evidence in the case, and the sentence should be heavier than it is now,” a spokesman for the Bali prosecutor’s office told Reuters. But CBS News reports that investigators have evidence that implicates Schaefer as well as a cousin, Robert Ryan Justin Bibbs, who pleaded guilty in a Chicago court to helping plot the murder. He’ll be sentenced in May. According to a text obtained by investigators, Schaefer told Bibbs around the time of the murder: “Now I’m a millionaire … In about a year or so I’ll have all that money … A couple mil prob.” Mack’s tape could also be part of a defense strategy to help establish an emotional distress or insanity appeal. For the first time on the videos she claims her mother killed her father in an Athens hotel room when Mack was 10 years old. She said she discovered […]

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Enormous Black Hole Chews Star For a Decade

U.S. researchers have been tracking the incredibly lengthy meal of a giant black hole consuming a star for a record-breaking decade. And it’s still not done. Most black holes dispense of stars in a year or less. This one, spotted by University of New Hampshire scientist Dacheng Lin and his team, began devouring the star in 2005. The phenomenon is unfolding in the center of a galaxy 1.8 billion light years from Earth, the researchers revealed in a report in Nature Astronomy. The black hole — dubbed XJ1500+0154 — has been tracked by three orbital telescopes, including NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, via a sustained “tidal disruption event” in space linked to the intense gravity when a black hole rips apart and consumes a star. During such an event, some stellar debris is flung outward while the rest is sucked back into the black hole. As the star travels deeper inward to be ingested by the black hole, the material heats up to millions of degrees and generates a distinct X-ray flare. The black hole is believed to be supermassive, as are most black holes at the center of larger galaxies, notes NASA. “We have witnessed a star’s spectacular and prolonged demise,” said Lin in a statement. “Dozens of tidal disruption events have been detected since the 1990s, but none that remained bright for nearly as long as this one.” Researchers don’t know what it all means but are captivated by the evolution of the black hole. “For most of the time we’ve been looking at this object, it has been growing rapidly. This tells us something unusual — like a star twice as heavy as our sun — is being fed into the black hole,” said researcher James Guillochon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The black hole is expected to continue consuming its star for several years to come. “This event shows that black holes really can grow at extraordinarily high rates,” said co-author Stefanie Komossa of QianNan Normal University for Nationalities in Duyun City, China. “This may help us understand how precocious black holes came to be.”

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Immoral Equivalence

MANDEL NGAN via Getty Images President Donald Trump will doubtlessly continue to add more new phrases to the American political lexicon throughout his term in office. This weekend ― in an interview on Fox aired as part of the Super Bowl extravaganza, no less ― Trump made a downright astonishing statement, comparing America to Putin’s Russia. This was not an example of moral equivalence, instead it has to be properly called making the case for immoral equivalence. Bill O’Reilly asked Trump about Vladimir Putin, and Trump was in the midst of giving a stock answer about how it’d be great if America got along with Russia, when O’Reilly interrupted to protest: “But he’s a killer. Putin’s a killer.” Trump’s response was jaw-dropping: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” Now, just imagine for one tiny second what Republicans would be saying right now if President Barack Obama had ever said anything remotely like that. Or President Hillary Clinton, for that matter. Conservative heads would currently be exploding, to put it mildly. The denunciations would be loud and feverish. “Obama hates America” would be just one of the indignant responses from outraged conservatives. So, one wonders, where is the outrage now? This wasn’t even an off-the-cuff gaffe. Trump has previously said almost exactly the same thing, in a Morning Joe interview, back in December of 2015. While praising Putin for running his country as “a leader” (unlike Obama, according to him), Trump continued: “I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, a lot of killing, a lot of stupidity.” This all runs counter to a bedrock belief among conservatives ― the idea of “American exceptionalism.” According to this near-religious belief, America is the best country the world has ever been graced with, nothing America ever does is in any way wrong, and we are the greatest country in the world, by any measure. Period. Any facts to the contrary are nothing short of hatred for America, because America is so unquestionably exceptional. To be sure, most of the American public believes this to some extent or another. Mostly this is ignorance ― simply not knowing that many other countries are, in fact, better in measurable ways that what we have here in America. This is why world travel is such an eye-opening experience for so many Americans, because they see for themselves the reality, unvarnished by the American exceptionalism veneer. Those that have eyes to see (and the budget to afford foreign travel) can come to the realization that some things are actually better in other countries. But back at home, the very idea runs counter to the exceptionalism catechism. It is dismissed out of hand by the high priests of American exceptionalism. But what really enrages them is any suggestion that American motives and ideals might not have always been the highest and most moral on the entire […]

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Like Many Americans, A Judge On The Court Weighing Trump’s Refugee Ban Was A Refugee

Judge Alex Kozinski isn’t assigned to the three-judge panel considering a federal court’s halt of the travel ban. LOS ANGELES ― A federal judge who sits on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is set to rule on a block of President Donald Trump’s refugee ban, came to the United States as a refugee when he was a boy. All of the judges on the panel descended from immigrants, but Judge Alex Kozinski is likely the only one who specifically entered the country as a refugee. Kozinski, one of the most well-respected judges on the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, fled with his parents, Moses and Sabine, from communist Romania in 1962. Kozinski has spoken publicly about his immigration experience for years, even joking that he went from being a committed communist as a boy to an “instant capitalist” after his first trip outside of the Iron Curtain to Vienna ― on his way to the United States ― where he was introduced to “bubble gum, chocolate and bananas.” Alex with his father, Moses, and his mother, Sabine, about a year before the Kozinskis left Romania. But his journey came full circle on Monday when HIAS ― a refugee agency that has been assisting Jews and others fleeing persecution since 1881 ― filed a legal brief with the 9th Circuit in strong opposition to Trump’s travel ban. HIAS was the same group that helped to resettle the Kozinski family, eventually helping them get all the way to the United States. Until contacted by The Huffington Post, HIAS officials were unaware that one of the children it helped decades ago was now serving on the court to which it was appealing. Officials at HIAS searched their records and found official documentation of arrival for the Kozinski family. HIAS provided it to The Huffington Post, and it is printed here with the permission of Judge Kozinski. The Kozinski family arrived in Baltimore in late October 1962. Alex was just 12, Moses was 47 and Sabine 43. “[HIAS] was very generous and kind to us in all respects,” Kozinski told The Huffington Post of his journey to America. Kozinski recalled that the paperwork, all arranged and prepared by HAIS, was completed in Vienna around 1962. The agency then supported the Kozinskis while Moses and Sabine sought employment. “Then we came to the U.S. on a Sabena four-propeller airliner ― it took about 18 hours to cross the Atlantic, with one stop somewhere in Newfoundland,” Kozinski said. The Kozinskis landed in New York, where they passed through customs, like so many immigrants before them and after them. They briefly settled in Baltimore, where HIAS continued to support the family until Moses and Sabine found steady work. “Our caseworker was named Mrs. Friedman,” Kozinski said. “I remember her quite well. She smoked Parliaments.” After about five years in Baltimore, the Kozinskis moved to California in search of warmer weather. They’d settle in the Los Angeles area, where Moses would open a grocery […]

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These Are The Attacks Trump Says Went Underreported. You’ll Recognize A Few.

Mere hours after President Donald Trump claimed Western media underreported acts of terrorism, the White House on Monday released a curated list of 78 violent incidents from the past three years to back up those allegations. However, several, including the attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris and Nice, were major news events for days or weeks both domestically and abroad. The dossier, which White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer promised to deliver to reporters after Trump’s remarks, was first tweeted by journalists from CNN. Here’s the list the White House sent of attacks they feel “did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources.” pic.twitter.com/lj8eOZQfnY — Kevin Liptak (@Kevinliptakcnn) February 7, 2017 A White House spokesperson told The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein that the list comprised “ISIS or ISIS-related attacks on Western targets from [2014-16], ***MOST*** of which were not widely reported on.” (The emphasis is theirs.) The list was released in response to remarks Trump made earlier Monday to military leaders gathered at U.S. Central Command. In the address, the president blamed the media for intentionally underreporting terrorist attacks in an effort to downplay the threat posed by the Islamic State to readers. “They have their reasons,” Trump said. “You’ve seen what happened in Paris and Nice. All over Europe, it’s happening,” Trump said in his remarks, which The Washington Post notes were delivered off-script. “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.” However, most of the incidents included have been covered extensively by media outlets around the world, including at HuffPost, including the 2015 shootings in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people; the bombing at the Brussels airport that killed 32 last April; and the 2014 shootings on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill that left two dead. The Hill notes that the list includes both well- and lesser-known events, like an attack on an Italian priest in Bangladesh and the shooting of an American citizen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to show the frequency of such attacks, and says that Spicer told reporters aboard Air Force One there were “a lot of instances that have occurred where I don’t think they’ve gotten the coverage they deserved.” The list doesn’t specifically cite instances in which the media may have intentionally underreported on acts of terrorism, as Trump alleged. The Trump administration faced criticism Monday night for not only including events that were reported extensively but also for focusing on Western targets. According to the Global Terrorism Database, parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East experienced terrorist attacks far more frequently in 2015 than did Europe and North America. And the Global Terrorism Index, a list produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace and based on data from the Global Terrorism Database, found most terrorist activities in 2015 occurred in five countries: Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. The European country most affected by terrorism […]

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From NPR’s Latino USA: The Dream 9

Steve Pavey, Hope in Focus Photography, stevepavey.com In 2013, nine young undocumented activists walked from Mexico up to border officials in the United States and demanded to be let in and granted asylum. They were wearing their graduation caps and gowns—a uniform that had become the unofficial symbol of the DREAMer movement. They walked arm in arm, flanked by reporters and cameras. If their plan failed, they risked never being able to return to the United States, the country where they grew up, ever again. All nine were DREAMers—meaning they were brought to the U.S. without papers as children, and grew up considering it their home. Many didn’t find out they were undocumented until they were in their later teens, and were applying to college or a job without a social security number. Six of the Dream 9 had previously left the U.S. because their situation became too difficult, and now they wanted to get back. The other three were members of an activist group called the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, thought of by some as the most radical of the Dreamer groups. They flew into Mexico just to participate. The Dream 9 took activism around youth immigration farther than it had ever been taken before. What they were doing was not only risky, but difficult. In the end, their action landed them in detention and in the national spotlight. During President Trump’s 2016 campaign, he talked about removing DACA—the Obama executive order that shielded hundred of thousands of DREAMers from deportation. Since then, he’s changed position on how he’ll address the situation, and for now, we don’t know exactly what will happen. With DACA and the DREAMers poised to be back in the center of the national conversation, Latino USA revisits “The Dream 9” to explore what it means to be young and undocumented in the United States today. Latino USA first aired this episode in October 2015. © 2017 npr

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Sean Spicer Accuses Immigration Order Protesters Of Being Paid

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday dismissed protests against the administration’s travel ban as being nothing more than “paid” demonstrations. During an interview with Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” host Brian Kilmeade asked Spicer whether people were being paid to protest the order, which banned travel from seven Muslim-majority countries into the U.S. “Oh, absolutely,” Spicer said. “I mean, protesting has become a profession now.” He added: “They have every right to do that, don’t get me wrong, but I think that we need to call it what it is. It’s not these organic uprisings that we’ve seen through the last several decades. The tea party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid, Astroturf-type movement.” Americans took to the streets for a second weekend on Saturday to protest President Donald Trump’s order, which has been temporarily suspended by a federal judge and is being reviewed by an appellate court. Anti-Trump gatherings were reported in Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Salt Lake City, St. Louis and outside the president’s resort in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he spent the weekend. Last week, thousands of people descended on the White House on Sunday afternoon for a rally followed by a march down Pennsylvania Avenue. Thousands more marched in cities and outside airports across the nation in protest of the order, which had caused families and refugees to be detained or otherwise prevented from entering the country. Hundreds of volunteer lawyers descended on airports to provide free legal services to those in need. If someone had been able to organize a sustained nationwide protest that involved hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of cities and airports across the country, as Spicer claimed, that would certainly qualify as an extraordinary feat. Trump took a similar stance against the protesters last week. “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” the president tweeted, after a protest at the University of California at Berkeley turned violent. A Republican member of Congress even found a way to use the same line. Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) last week complained about the heat he was receiving back home in his district over his desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act. “There’s paid protesters … paid activists on the far left, not my Democratic friends I go to church with. They’re being paid to go around and raise havoc,” Brat said after the town hall. But there is danger in dismissing the significance of such protests (and bad poll numbers, as Trump did Monday) outright. In 2009, for example, Barack Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs took a stance similar to Spicer’s, referring to tea party-organized disruptions at Democratic congressional town halls as “Astroturf” and “manufactured anger.” We all know how that turned out. How will Trump’s first 100 days impact you? Sign up for our weekly newsletter and get breaking updates on Trump’s presidency by messaging us here.

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