spritz rico

Monday, October 21, 2013

Killer 'clowns' murder Mexican ex-drug capo

La Paz (Mexico) (AFP) - Gunmen disguised as clowns at a children's party shot dead the eldest brother of Mexico's once powerful Arellano Felix drug cartel family, authorities said Saturday.

Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, 63, was gunned down at a family event Friday in Cabo San Lucas, a tourist resort in the Baja California peninsula, state special investigations prosecutor Isai Arias told reporters.

"He was hit by two bullets, one in the thorax and one in the head," Arias said.

Relatives identified the former Tijuana drug cartel lieutenant's body, Arias said, adding that there have been no arrests in the case.

The gunmen were dressed as clowns when they shot Arellano Felix at the party in the luxurious Casa Oceano tourist residence, agents close to the case told AFP.

The Arellano Felix brothers once dominated drug trafficking between Mexico and California through their brutal Tijuana cartel, inspiring characters in the Steven Soderbergh movie "Traffic."

Most of the Arellano Felix brothers have been either killed or arrested, leaving the cartel in tatters. Infighting also weakened the group.

Francisco Rafael's murder is likely "due to unpaid old debts, and old retributions" from the times that the Arellanos were at the height of their power between 1990 and 2000, said Raul Benitez a drug trade expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Nicknamed "El Menso" (The Dummy), Francisco Rafael was arrested in 1980 in San Diego, California, for allegedly selling drugs, but slipped back to Mexico when he was released on bail.

In 1993 he was arrested in Mexico and jailed on drug charges. In 2006 he was extradited to the United States and was sentenced to six years in jail after confessing to selling drugs to an undercover agent.

In 2008 he was released, earning time off his sentence for good behavior, according to his attorney at the time, and repatriated to Mexico.

Benitez said that it was unlikely the former drug lord was back in the trade again.

The Tijuana Cartel "has been completely dismantled, with all of its leaders in prison either in the United States or in Mexico," Benitez said.

One of the brothers, Ramon, was killed in a police shootout in 2002. Three other brothers are in US prisons, including Eduardo, who was sentenced to 15 years by a California court in August for money laundering.

Rivals, especially Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa Federation which also began around 1990, have since eclipsed the Tijuana group and taken over most of its territory.

The Sinaloa group, based in the western state of Sinaloa, is Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, rivaled only by the paramilitary Zetas, who are most active in northeastern Mexico.

Security experts however believe the remnants of the cartel survive in the key border city of Tijuana.

They believe the rump cartel is now run by the brothers' sister Enedina and her son Fernando, known as "The Engineer."

Violence linked to drug trafficking and organized crime has left more than 70,000 dead in Mexico over the past seven years.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-ex-drug-lord-shot-dead-100117008.html
Category: Janet Yellen Ios 7 Jailbreak Navy Yard shooting Placenta jeff bezos

S&P 500 reaches all-time high after US debt deal

NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market hit an all-time high Thursday as investors put the government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis behind them and focused on corporate earnings.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 11.61 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 1,733.15 — a record close.

The market rose throughout the day as investors got back to focusing on corporate earnings and economic data. American Express and Verizon rose the most in the Dow Jones industrial average after reporting earnings that beat expectations from financial analysts.

The Dow ended the day down two points, or 0.01 percent, to 15,371.65. The index of 30 big U.S. companies was held back by declines in IBM, Goldman Sachs and UnitedHealth.

IBM's third-quarter revenue fell and missed Wall Street's forecast by more than $1 billion. The stock closed down $11.90, or 6 percent, to $174.80. Earlier, it had touched its lowest level of the past year — $172.57

Goldman Sachs also weighed down the index. The investment bank's revenue fell sharply as trading in bonds and other securities slowed. Goldman fell $3.93, or 2.4 percent, to $158.32.

The focus on earnings is a change of pace for Wall Street, which had been absorbed in Washington's political drama over the last month.

Now that the U.S. has avoided the possibility of default, at least for a few months, earnings news is expected to dominate trading for the next couple weeks. So far, only 79 companies in the S&P 500 have reported third-quarter results, according to S&P Capital IQ. Analysts expect earnings at those companies to increase 3.3 percent over the same period a year ago.

"I don't think we can completely close the door on the debt ceiling chapter just yet, but we can get back to the stuff that really matters," said Jonathan Corpina, who manages trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for Meridian Equity Partners.

Other indexes also posted big gains. The Nasdaq composite closed up 23.71 points, or 0.6 percent, to 3,863.15.

The Russell 2000 index, which is made up of primarily smaller, riskier companies, also hit an all-time high. It closed up 9.85 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,102.27 and has risen nearly 30 percent this year.

Market analysts think the 16-day partial shutdown of the government caused billions of dollars of damage to the economy. Government employees were furloughed, contracts were delayed, and tourism declined at national parks.

Analysts at Wells Fargo said the shutdown likely lowered economic growth by 0.5 percentage point.

There remain broader concerns that Democrats and Republicans won't be able to draw up a longer-term budget. The deal approved late Wednesday only permits the Treasury Department to borrow through Feb. 7 and fund the government through Jan. 15.

"The agreement represents another temporary fix that pushes fiscal uncertainty into the early months of next year," Wells Fargo analysts said.

Despite the worries, signs of normalcy returned to financial markets Thursday.

The one-month Treasury bill was back to trading at a yield of 0.01 percent, about where it was a month ago, and down sharply from 0.35 percent on Tuesday.

Usually a staid, conservative security, the one-month T-bill was subjected to a wave of selling at the beginning of the month. Investors feared the T-bill would be the first piece of government debt to be affected by a U.S. default if the debt ceiling was breached and the federal government could no longer pay its obligations.

The yield on the more closely-watched 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.60 percent from 2.67 percent Wednesday.

Among other stock moves:

— Verizon rose $1.65, or 4 percent, to $48.90. The telecommunications company earned an adjusted 77 cents per share for the recent quarter, beating expectations of financial analysts.

— UnitedHealth Group dropped $3.82, or 5 percent, to $71.37. The health insurance giant narrowed its 2013 profit forecast, instead of raising it, giving some analysts pause.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/p-500-reaches-time-high-us-debt-deal-195559819--finance.html
Tags: nobel peace prize Bobby Cannavale Miley Cyrus Vmas 2013 usher Derek Medina

This Next Generation Conveyor Belt Sushi Restaurant Is the Future

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants are usually only worth going to once in your life. The sushi is hardly ever amazing since it spins on the belt over and over again while the dishes you actually want might be snatched ahead of you so you never get to eat it. Not to mention plates stacking on your table, plastic covers getting in your way and the lack of personalized orders. It's a gimmick! It's okay though, Japan has figured out those problems with this next generation conveyor belt sushi restaurant.

Along with the usual conveyor belt offerings, this restaurant also has a high speed belt that'll zip out your custom orders (ordered via tablet, of course) immediately. Think of it as the fast lane on the highway. But for raw fish. The restaurant also collects your plates table side, just insert them into a receptacle and it'll calculate your tab for you. There's even a mini-game where you get a spin of the wheel for prizes after you finish five dishes.

Quality of the sushi aside (which we don't know), it's a near perfect representation of what we once imagined the future of restaurants to be: waiter-less, machine operated fun eating capsules where you can get whatever you want (as long as it's sushi in this case, I guess). [World News via The Atlantic Wire]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-next-generation-conveyor-belt-sushi-restaurant-is-1447553106
Tags: Brian Hoyer Kerry Washington never forget Colin Kaepernick serena williams

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Superman to Asterix: Comics tell immigrant story

PARIS (AP) — Superman and Asterix have more in common than meets the eye, according to a new exhibit at Paris' Immigration History Museum.

Comic sketches and magazines from 1913 to the present show how comic books the world over were shaped by the immigrant story, from French Asterix's "foreign" Polish and Italian authors, to American Superman's Eastern European co-creators.

Drawing on 500 sketches and documents from some 117 artists, the exhibit opening Wednesday explains how immigrants on the fringes of society were attracted to the subculture of comic books.

"The whole history of comic books is the history of immigration," said curator Helene Bouillon.

Comic characters themselves are also often masked allegories for being foreign, from Asterix, the yellow-haired Gaul who fights Romans and travels around the world, to the alien Kal-El, who tries to live on earth among humans despite his super powers, the exhibit argues.

"Superman is the super immigrant. who comes from planet Krypton with super powers but who is faced with the feeling of being in exile" Bouillon said.

The exhibit also shows how the medium became more serious in the second half of the 20th century, using the medium to express uncomfortable truths about society's tolerance.

It includes original illustrations from Iran-born cartoonist Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical novel "Persepolis," which tells the bleak story of a young girl fleeing to Europe against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. A film based on the novel won the Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival in 2007.

"This idea of pictures being maybe simpler or being caricatures allows some authors to say things that would maybe be too awful to put in a novel or in photography," Bouillon said. "You have to make people laugh to accept the very difficult stories."

___

Thomas Adamson can be reached at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/superman-asterix-comics-tell-immigrant-story-081955917.html
Tags: ufc thursday night football denver post sons of anarchy