Deion Sanders accuses estranged wife of assault, to press charges

 The estranged wife of former football star Deion Sanders was arrested on domestic violence-related charges Monday night, hours after Sanders sent a series of bizarre tweets saying she assaulted him.

In one of the messages posted on his verified Twitter account, Sanders even posted a picture of what he said were his children filling out complaints to give to police in Texas.

"Pray for me and my kids now! They just witnessed their mother and a friend jump me in my room," the first tweet, posted at 6:15 p.m., read. "She's going to jail n I'm pressing charges!"

Two minutes later, Sanders tweeted again.

Pilar Sanders was booked into jail Monday night on suspicion of assault family violence.

"I'm sad my boys witnessed this mess but I warned the police department here that she was gone try n harm me and my boys. This is on my mama!" it said.

Shortly after that, Sanders tweeted a picture that showed him and his two boys, ages 10 and 12, filling out paperwork.

"Filling out police reports now! Thank God for this platform to issue the Truth," the caption read.

Pilar Sanders was booked into jail Monday night on suspicion of assault family violence, a misdemeanor, according to booking records at the Collin County Jail.

Bond was set at $264.

"I can tell you that there are two sides to every story and the truth will come out in court," Larry Friedman, an attorney for Pilar Sanders, said Tuesday.

Deion Sanders played for several NFL teams including the San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons. He was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame and currently works as an analyst for the NFL Network.

During much of his NFL career he also was an outfielder with four Major League Baseball teams, and played in a World Series with the Atlanta Braves.

The NFL Network as well as Sanders' business manager, Constance Schwartz, declined to comment about the incident.

But a clearly emotional Sanders spoke to Dallas television station KXAS Monday night and appealed for help.

"My kids, they are scared for their life," Sanders told the station. "They just saw two women jump their dad in his own house, in his room, in my room. It's sad."

"I got locks on my doors right now," he added. "Is somebody going to have to die? Is it going to be me before the court does something and get this woman out of my house? It's absurd."

The couple has three children together. Sanders also has two other children from an earlier relationship.

The couple married in 1999 and starred in a reality show, "Deion & Pilar Prime Time Love," that aired on the Oxygen network.

The marriage, however, soured, and the two are in the midst of a very public, bitter divorce.

In February, Pilar Sanders filed a suit against her husband and his aunt, Laura Jones. She said the aunt attacked her in their 10-bedroom, 29,000-square-foot home in Prosper, Texas, while Deion Sanders watched.

At the time, the two-sport star tweeted that his wife was the aggressor and the aunt was in the home merely to fix his phone.

Pilar Sanders also filed a separate suit against her husband and his daughter, Deiondra, after she called her stepmother a "gold-digging (expletive)" and "the number one gold digger of the year" in Twitter posts.

In the second suit, Pilar Sanders demanded $200 million in damages for libelous and slanderous comments. She claims that her husband "endorsed Deiondra's false statements" and himself tweeted he was "tired of all (Pilar's) lies and foolishness."

76 arrested in Capitol protest over Medicaid cuts

Seventy-six people, including actor Noah Wyle, were arrested Monday at a demonstration protesting cuts in Medicaid proposed by the House Republican leadership, authorities said.

Hundreds of demonstrators filled the ornate rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building for the protests. The 76 were arrested on suspicion of unlawful conduct and demonstrating in a Capitol building, police said.

Wyle, formerly of "ER" and current star of "Falling Skies," was among those handcuffed and taken away. Police said he and most of the others would face a misdemeanor fine and be released after processing.

The rally against the proposed cuts in Medicaid was organized by ADAPT, the Americans with Disabilities for Attendant Programs Today. A statement handed out during the event called for "accountability," against the House's proposed one-third cut to federal Medicaid spending.

"Today, I took part in an effort by ADAPT to bring attention to the Medicaid cuts that have been made by many states and are threatened to be made on a federal level," Wyle said in a statement.

"To institutionalize a disabled American costs four times as much than to give assistance for independent living. This issue is about civil rights, not about medicine. People who have the ability to live in integrated, affordable and accessible housing should have the right to do so."

The group wants House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to require states to provide long-term alternatives to nursing homes and institutions that are often mandated by Medicaid rules.

Instead of home and community support when she's older and unable to live on her own, protester Madeleine McMahan of Pennsylvania told CNN, "My generation? The Baby Boomers? we're looking at nursing homes if we don't do something about it."

She spoke in handcuffs, waiting for police to escort her to an elevator for arrest processing.

Also in handcuffs and a wheelchair, Denise McMullin-Powell of Delaware said lawmakers proposing the Medicaid cuts are "completely ignoring that we even exist in the stupid budget that they have."

She said "it's worth getting arrested, it's worth dying for, but they're gonna kill us first because of the cuts. If we can't stay in our home, if we can't get the things we need through Medicaid, we will die in the streets without that type of thing."

Wyle said, "This effort is to end the longstanding bias of the Medicaid system toward institutions and away from community care. The real shame is to see so many productive, intelligent people expending their energy on the fight for basic services to ensure their survival."

Gotye thinks 'Glee' botched his song

Things we know Gotye doesn't like: cardboard boxes, dinkiness, and "Glee's" version of his #1 single "Somebody That I Used to Know."

The Belgian-born Australian artist criticized Darren Criss and Matt Bomer's cover of the runaway hit, telling the Sunday Herald Sun that the show "made it sound dinky and wrong."

"They did such a faithful arrangement of the instrumentals," the singer admitted. "But the vocals were that pop 'Glee style,' ultra-dry, sounded pretty tuned."

"And the rock has no real sense," he continued. "Like it's playing to you from a cardboard box."

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Gotye song reached the top of Billboard's Hot 100 in its fifteenth week on the charts -- which was the week directly following the "Glee" episode. (Then again, he did appear as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" that week as well).

The Glee version, meanwhile, debuted at 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at 10 on the Digital Songs chart.

Study: Mexican immigration to United States slows to standstill

 Net Mexican immigration to the United States has slowed to a standstill, according to a report released Monday.

The number of immigrants coming from Mexico to the United States has steeply declined while the number of Mexicans leaving the United States has increased sharply, the Pew Hispanic Center said.

"These developments represent a notable reversal of the historic pattern of Mexican immigration to the U.S., which has risen dramatically over the past four decades," the center's report says.

Many factors are probably behind the trend, the report said, including rising deportations, greater enforcement at the border, growing dangers associated with border crossings, the weakened U.S. job market and a long-term decline in Mexico's birth rates.

The 1.37 million Mexican immigrants who came to the United States between 2005 and 2010 was about half the number who immigrated during previous five-year periods, according to the analysis, which was based on national population surveys in the United States and Mexico.

Meanwhile, from 2005 to 2010, 1.39 million Mexicans and their families left the U.S. to return to Mexico, the report says. That's more than double the number of people who did it during a five-year period the decade before, the report says.

The report also notes, citing figures from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, that the number of Mexicans apprehended trying to cross the border illegally has plummeted in recent years, from more than 1 million in 2005 to 286,000 in 2011.

While analysts said for years that immigration from Mexico to the United States was dwindling, the Pew report says 2010 Mexican census data offer some of the first "hard evidence that flows back to Mexico had grown over the same period."

London Marathon death: donations surge thanks to social media

 Donations to the fundraising page of a young woman who died less than one mile (1.6km) from the London Marathon finishing line, are heading towards the $1 million mark.

As news of Claire Squire's death spread across social media sites, so too did the link to her Just Giving fundraising page, sparking a flurry of donations reaching more than £400,000 ($650,000) and rising fast by Tuesday afternoon.

The hairdresser, from North Kilworth in Leicestershire, died near St James's Park on the final stretch of the 26.2 mile (42km) course on Sunday.

The 30-year-old, who had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro just last month, collapsed as she ran up Birdcage Walk -- the final stretch covered by competitors before reaching Buckingham Palace and turning on to The Mall.

Paramedics were unable to revive her and she died at the scene. The cause of death is not yet known.

News of the tragedy quickly spread on Twitter and Facebook, helping prompt a flood of donations to her chosen charity, the Samaritans.

The donations, which initially stood at £500 ($800), surged throughout Monday and Tuesday as publicity spread through social and conventional media sources.

Almost 40,000 donations have been made on Squire's fundraising page, with many people including heartfelt messages of sympathy to the tragic woman's family.

She had chosen to run for the Samaritans after her mother Cilla volunteered with the charity for 24 years.

She had posted on her fundraising page: "hi guys as you all know i am running the london marathon it was just going to be for fun. but its a fab opportunity to raise money for my charity the samaritans if everyone i know could donate £5.00 ($8) that would be a great help and change lives."

Catherine Johnstone, chief executive of the Samaritans, said the charity had been overwhelmed by the response.

"We desperately wish that it was not under these circumstances but we have been overwhelmed by the response from people donating in Claire's memory," she said.

"These donations will be put into a tribute fund and, following discussions with the family, will go towards projects they feel would have been important to Claire."

Devastated friends described Squire as a keen charity fundraiser who last month climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for the Royal Air Force Association

"Claire was larger than life, fun-loving, bubbly, happy, cheerful, kind, giving, thoughtful. She was just the most amazing person in the world - the best friend I have ever had," friend Victoria Hauser told 5 News.

"She was a giver, all the time. It's been never-ending. She's done the Great North Run, she's done a climb on Kilimanjaro, she's done a marathon previously for the Children's Society."

Around 37,500 runners took part in the marathon and Squire's death is the 10th since the race began in 1981. She is the only woman to have died in the marathon.

The most recent death was that of David Rogers, a 22-year-old fitness instructor, in 2007.

Hacking inquiry puts British minister in spotlight

  The Cabinet minister who oversees British broadcasting came under fire Tuesday after the inquiry into the News Corp. hacking scandal revealed extensive contacts with the company while he weighed a controversial merger.

Hundreds of pages of e-mails painted a picture of a back channel between Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Frederic Michel, a top employee of James Murdoch, then head of News Corp.'s British newspaper operations. At the time, the company was seeking to take full control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, and the documents suggest that News Corp. was getting inside information from Hunt, who had the power to block the acquisition.

In one January 2011 e-mail released Tuesday, Michel told Murdoch that he had gotten "absolutely illegal" information about government plans related to the takeover, which was scuttled by the hacking scandal.

Hunt is a member of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party, and a top official of the Labour opposition called for his resignation after Tuesday's disclosures. Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader and the party's "shadow secretary" for culture, media and sport, issued the call in the House of Commons.

But Cameron has full confidence in Hunt, whose portfolio includes the upcoming Olympic Games in London, Downing Street spokesman Craig Oliver said.

Murdoch, the son of News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch, defended the company's contacts with Hunt during his Tuesday appearance before the Leveson Inquiry. Murdoch told the inquiry that there was no "quid pro quo" with political figures who could advance the company's business interests.

"The question of support for an individual newspaper for politicians one way or another is not something that I would ever link to a commercial transaction like this," he said. "Nor would I expect that political support one way or another to ever translate into a minister behaving in an inappropriate way, ever. I would never do business that way."

Murdoch's biggest paper, the Sun, endorsed Cameron's Conservatives in the 2010 election that brought them to power. But he said Hunt followed the advice of independent regulators "at every single decision point" in the BSkyB review.

Murdoch also told the inquiry that he had had drinks with Cameron at a pub before he became prime minister and dined with him once he was in office. He was also pressed on his relationship with other British politicians, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and he denied having lobbied them improperly about his family's business interests.

Alleged armored truck shooter caught

A fugitive accused of stealing $2 million from an armored truck he was driving and killing his partner was caught early Tuesday in Florida, according to the FBI.
Kenneth Konias Jr., 22, was arrested in Pompano Beach by the FBI, the Broward Sheriff's Office and a South Florida Violent Crimes Task Force. He had been on the run since the robbery and homicide almost two months ago, according to FBI spokesman John Gillies.
Between $1.3 and $1.5 million was recovered with him, along with two guns, the FBI reported.
Konias is believed to have shot his partner, Michael Haines, in the head February 28 before stealing cash from the Garda armored vehicle in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 Armored truck guard shot, $2M gone
According to a criminal complaint, a witness heard a gunshot coming from an armored truck carrying deposits about 1 p.m. ET. Surveillance video shows the vehicle in the parking lot where the shot was heard.
The truck was later discovered under a Pittsburgh bridge by the company's employees and two detectives. Haines was dead inside the vehicle, authorities said.
Last month, Pittsburgh police discovered about $24,000 at Konias' grandmother's gravesite and more than $200,000 at his parents' home.
Konias is accused of criminal homicide, theft of the victim's gun and robbery of the cash inside the armored vehicle.

FBI: More than 300,000 could lose Web access by July

n the wake of a multi-million-dollar online scam, more than 300,000 computer users worldwide could find themselves without Web access this summer.

Luckily for them, it will only take a few clicks to clean things up.

The FBI announced that it's created a website where users can check whether they're infected with malware and remove it if they are. Check your computer here -- http://www.dcwg.org. The site was at times difficult to access on Monday, presumably due to heavy traffic.

Let us explain: In November, six Estonian nationals were arrested on charges of fraud after a two-year FBI probe called Operation Ghost Click.

They're accused of infecting computers worldwide with malware called DNS Changer, which opened up the computers to viruses. The alleged crooks used the access to direct users to their own servers and manipulate online advertising, racking up more than $14 million in illegal income, according to the FBI.

"They were organized and operating as a traditional business but profiting illegally as the result of the malware," an unnamed FBI agent said in a news release about the arrests. "There was a level of complexity here that we haven't seen before."

The FBI originally estimated the scam had hit millions of computers worldwide, but has since scaled back those estimates to hundreds of thousands. They think about 350,000 computers are still infected, including 85,000 in the United States.

The U.S. computers included some at government agencies, including NASA.

Last month, the FBI announced that it had set up temporary "clean" servers to make sure the users impacted by the attack didn't lose Web access. Those servers will be shut down on July 9, and anyone still infected will be unable to access the Internet afterward.

If it had merely shut down the rogue servers, many of those infected wouldn't have been able to access the Web at all, the FBI said.

Most infected users on the FBI servers may not have noticed anything different, although the malware itself may have made their Web access slower and disabled their anti-virus software.

Domain Name System, or DNS, servers are what online computers visit to reach the website they are seeking. By routing them to rogue servers, criminals can control which websites a computer visits.

By visiting the website set up by the FBI, users can click to see if their computer is infected. An image with a green background appears if they're OK, while a red one shows up if they're not. If infected, they're then directed to information on how to remove the malware.

The case against the accused scammers is still pending in federal court. One of them was extradited last week from Estonia to New York to face charges.

Imprisoned former Ukraine prime minister on hunger strike, alleging cell beating

 
Yulia Tymoshenko, Former Ukrainian prime minister, said she had been on a hunger strike after being beaten in prison

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, serving a seven-year sentence after last year's conviction on a charge of abuse of authority, has been on a hunger strike for four days because she was beaten unconscious in prison last week, she said Tuesday.

But the prosecutor said Tuesday that his office immediately investigated Tymoshenko's claim and didn't find proof to substantiate her allegations.

A medical expert was sent, but Tymoshenko refused an examination, said Gennady Tyurin, general prosecutor of Kharkiv region.

He said he has declined to open a criminal case.

"The investigation is over," Tyurin said.

 Former Ukrainian PM found guilty

Last October, a Ukrainian court found Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of authority for signing gas contracts with Russia and sentenced her to the seven-year prison term.

Prior to the alleged beating, Tymoshenko was discussing with officials a transfer Monday to a hospital for health reasons, she said.

But on Friday evening, her cell mate left the cell, and then "three sturdy men" entered, threw a bed sheet over her, dragged her off the bed and applied "brutal force," she said in a statement.

"In pain and despair, I started to defend myself as I could and got a strong blow in my stomach through the bed sheet," she said in a statement.

Tymoshenko was dragged "into the street," she said. "I thought these were the last minutes of my life. In unbearable pain and fear I started to cry and call out for help, but no help came."

She fell unconscious, and when she came to, she was in a hospital ward, she said.

Tymoshenko went on her hunger strike the day after the beating, Saturday, she said.
She stopped taking food "to draw attention of the democratic world to things happening in the center of Europe, in the country named Ukraine," she said.
Tymoshenko charged that "the president of Ukraine is steadily and pedantically building a concentration camp of violence and lack of rights."
She is asking for a "public international investigation" into the administration of President Viktor Yanukovych and added, "we must do everything possible to remove the Yanukovych regime."
In April 2011, the Ukraine's Prosecutor General's office opened a criminal case charging Tymoshenko with signing overpriced gas deals with Russian energy provider Gazprom that inflicted damages to the country amounting to more than 1.5 billion hryvnas (almost $190 million at the current exchange rate) and that Tymoshenko had allegedly no right to sign.
The court ruled Tymoshenko must repay the money, and she is banned from holding public office for three years.
Tymoshenko narrowly lost to Yanukovych in a presidential election in February 2010, and she became his fiercest opponent.
She has repeatedly brushed off all charges against her as political, calling the trial a "farce" and naming the judge a "stooge of Yanukovych's administration," appointed to "fabricate" the case.
Amnesty International has slammed the verdict as "politically motivated" and called for the release of Tymoshenko, who was prime minister from January to September 2005 and December 2007 to March 2010.

First criminal charges filed in BP oil spill

The first criminal charges have been filed in connection with the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster two years ago, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Former BP engineer Kurt Mix was arrested in Texas on two counts of intentionally destroying evidence requested by authorities, specifically the alleged deletions of messages focusing on work to stem the oil flow.

Charges were filed in Louisiana against Mix, 50, of Katy, Texas. He was scheduled to appear in a Houston courtroom at 3 p.m. EDT.

An estimated 4.9 million barrels (206 million gallons) of crude oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico after the April 2010 explosion that killed 11 men aboard the drill rig Deepwater Horizon, which eventually sank.

Oil spewed into the sea for nearly three months before a cap was placed on the BP-owned Macondo well, nearly a mile beneath the surface.

"The department has filed initial charges in its investigation into the Deepwater Horizon disaster against an individual for allegedly deleting records relating to the amount of oil flowing from the Macondo well after the explosion that led to the devastating tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico," Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

"The Deepwater Horizon Task Force is continuing its investigation into the explosion and will hold accountable those who violated the law in connection with the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history."‪

Mix, a drilling and completions BP project engineer, "worked on internal BP efforts to estimate the amount of oil leaking from the well," the department said. He also had been "involved in various efforts to stop the leak," including the unsuccessful "Top Kill" project "to pump heavy mud into the blown-out wellhead to try to stop the oil flow."

BP told Mix to retain all information concerning Macondo, including his text messages.

But around October 4, 2010, Mix deleted from his iPhone a "text string containing more than 200 text messages with a BP supervisor" after he found out a vendor working for BP's lawyers was to collect his "electronic files."

"The deleted texts, some of which were recovered forensically, included sensitive internal BP information collected in real time as the Top Kill operation was occurring, which indicated that Top Kill was failing," the Justice Department said.

The court documents say Mix deleted one text from the end of the first day of Top Kill, on May 26, 2010, that said, "too much flowrate -- over 15,000."

"Before Top Kill commenced, Mix and other engineers had concluded internally that Top Kill was unlikely to succeed if the flow rate was greater than 15,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD). At the time, BP's public estimate of the flow rate was 5,000 BOPD -- three times lower than the minimum flow rate indicated in Mix's text," the department said.

When Mix learned that a vendor working for BP's outside counsel was about to image his iPhone last August, he "allegedly deleted a text string containing more than 100 text messages with a BP contractor with whom Mix had worked on various issues concerning how much oil was flowing from the Macondo well after the blowout.

"By the time Mix deleted those texts, he had received numerous legal hold notices requiring him to preserve such data and had been communicating with a criminal defense lawyer in connection with the pending grand jury investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster," the department said.

Mix would face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count if he is convicted.

BP issued a statement Tuesday saying it "is cooperating with the Department of Justice and other official investigations into the Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill."

It added that it "had clear policies requiring preservation of evidence in this case and has undertaken substantial and ongoing efforts to preserve evidence." It said it would have no comment on the allegations against Mix.