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National Record Store Day 2013

National Record Store Day 2013: Support Your Local Music Store

By Tiffany Hagler-Geard
@THGEARD
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While most people are downloading and listening to music on ipods and through online streaming sites like Pandora and Spotify these days — there’s nothing like spending a day in a record store.
Created in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners, National Record Store Day is intended to “celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the US and thousands of similar stores internationally,” according to RecordStoreDay.com.
Held every third Saturday in April, participating independent record stores across the country offer special vinyl and CD releases and other items are made exclusively for the day.
For a list of participating stores, visit Record Store Day.
RELATED: Dust and Grooves: Vinyl Record Collectors from Around the World
National Record Store Day 2013: Support Your Local Music Store

National Record Store Day 2013: Support Your Local Music Store

The first collector ever shot for Dust and Grooves, Joel Oliveira, is seen holding a Cem Karaca 7-inch record. Originally from Brazil, Oliveira moved to New York City 12 years ago, starting as a shoeshine boy in Grand Central Station. His love for music and vinyl gave him a real hope and purpose in life. He is the guru of psychedelic Brazilian music, and is the owner of “Tropicalia in Furs” record shop in New York City’s East Village. ( Photo by : Eilon Paz)

Exorcising the demons from his shoot-first past, Melo seals Game 1 with a dish

Carmelo Leads Knicks To Game 1 Win

NEW YORK -- Carmelo Anthony motioned for Kenyon Martin to run a pick-and-roll, and yes, Kevin Garnett had seen that tired movie before. Garnett could have followed Martin's hard dive to the basket, but he knew what more than 19,000 fellow witnesses inside Madison Square Garden knew:
Anthony was going to honor his basic basketball instinct. Melo wouldn't be Melo if he didn't launch another shot.
Anthony stood at the top of the key with 36 points already in his hip pocket, and not a single assist to his name. Jeff Green was guarding him with 45 seconds left in Game 1, with the New York Knicks leading the Boston Celtics by five. Martin was approaching to set a screen when Garnett measured his critical call, when the proud Celtic made the logical choice of helping Green rather than rolling with the Knick who had virtually no chance of touching the ball.

[+] Enlarge Carmelo Anthony

Suddenly Anthony studied the double-team as the devil on his left shoulder debated the angel on his right. One voice was telling him to be the Melo of the past, a conscience-free scorer who never met a pull-up he didn't like. The other voice was telling him to be the Melo of the present, the one heavily influenced by the selfless and ageless Jason Kidd.
The one willing to throw the pass he has to throw.
The Carmelo Anthony who had lost eight of nine first-round playoff series as a Denver Nugget and Knick would have tried to beat both Celtics off the dribble. The Carmelo Anthony who is favored to win this series, and the next one, fired a more meaningful pass than any delivered last season by that conspicuous courtside fan, Mark Sanchez, the New Yorker who inspired the loudest boo of the day.
It was high and hard and Lord knows how Martin held onto it. Kidd called it a Dez Bryant catch, Tyson Chandler called it a "Joe Flacco to [Anquan] Boldin hook-up," and K-Mart called it a "terrible pass." Whatever.
Martin made the layup with 40.6 seconds to play, and even the most stubborn of Celtic leprechauns lost all hope. Carmelo Anthony had sealed it with a dish. No, the pass wasn't Michael Jordan's to Bill Wennington to win his 55-point comeback game at the Garden in 1995, but it was a promising development all the same.
As he walked out of the building Saturday, Anthony was asked if he would've made that same play in his younger days, or if he would've kept the ball for himself.
"It's hard to think of three or four years ago, but I'm just glad I made the pass today, I'll tell you that," Anthony told ESPNNewYork.com. "It was an instinct thing. I didn't try to force it. I didn't try to make a play on my own and try to attack KG off the pick-and-roll."
Anthony laughed as he made his way to the Garden exit, the burden of his past postseason failures lifted until Tuesday night.
"As a younger player, I don't know," he said. "Now I try to utilize everybody on the team rather than try to do it myself. I know now in order to win, you can't do it by yourself. And that's something I had to grow with and really figure out."

Knicks' Greatest Playoff Moments

From Starks to Reed, we bring you
the Knicks' playoff gems. Top 10

Anthony had no choice but to figure it out, as he entered this series with a 17-37 personal record in the playoffs, a .315 winning percentage. Four hundred and fifty fellow NBA players have appeared in at least 50 postseason games, and all 450 have a better winning percentage than that.
Even if the sides were stacked against him more often than not, Melo wouldn't be human if that record didn't bother him. The Knicks have brought in some established winners to help him tweak his game and approach, to remind him there's no "i" in Anthony, and the 40-year-old Kidd was foremost among them.
A three-time Finalist and one-time champ, Kidd has appeared in 17 consecutive postseason tournaments; only John Stockton (19) and Karl Malone (19) pieced together longer streaks. Saturday, after Kidd's hands were so busy disrupting Boston's offense and shepherding New York's, Doc Rivers awarded him a doctorate in advanced bracketology.
"He beats everyone with his brain," said the Celtics' coach. "He beats them into the ground with his brain."
No coach is saying that about Carmelo Anthony, not yet anyway. And while many around the league have praised Melo for embracing a more team-friendly philosophy this year, a quick review of his stats show he averaged a mere 2.6 assists in the regular season, matching his career low from 2004-05.
But this is one of

Canelo vs Trout results: Alvarez unifies titles with decision win

Tonight's main event at the raucous Alamadome in San Antonio lived up to the hype in terms of quality, and had what is likely going to be the best atmosphere of any fight in the world this year, as 39,472 fans (official attendance) made it a truly special night on Showtime boxing.
Canelo Alvarez came out the decision winner over Austin Trout, unifying the WBC and WBA titles by scores of 115-112, 116-111, and 118-109. The WBC's awful open scoring was in effect, so viewers on TV were able to find out that after eight rounds, Trout (26-1, 14 KO) was mathematically out of the fight.
This also allowed Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO) to cruise down the stretch, avoiding risks that he may otherwise have taken had he suspected there was a possibility he could have lost the fight.
It needs to be said that both guys fought well tonight. Canelo did more damage, including putting Trout on the canvas in the seventh round with a beautiful right hand that shook Trout's legs, staggering him to the canvas. It was the first time Trout had been down in his career, and he responded pretty well, with some observers even feeling he did enough in the round to earn a 9-10 score instead of 8-10.
Much of the fight was closely contested, and intense, though rarely exciting in the traditional sense. What stood out in a big way was the defensive work of Canelo Alvarez, whose head movement was much better than ever before, and allowed him to slip a lot of shots. Trout was really unable to connect on anything big, but he also was able to dictate the pace in many rounds, and used his jab to keep the fight at his pace and distance enough that it wouldn't have been hard to score the fight in his favor.
Also notable on that front is that Alvarez, who had the showier moments, did still fight in spurts too often. At times, he looked like the boss, a hard-hitting slugger who could physically push Trout around. At other times, he was stuck in a standstill mode, with Trout maybe not dominating him, but simply doing more work.
It is a hard fight to recap, in that I don't have enormously strong feelings about the outcome. I could see Trout winning, and I could see Canelo winning. It was a good, close fight, a matchup that delivered in the ring as it should have, equaling its on-paper potential.
The only thing I do have a strong opinion on is that open scoring does nobody any favors. The nonsense that it would help eradicate poor judging is clearly just a press release line; it's not like anything has ever been done about bad scores in fights with open scoring. The only difference, really, is that we knew after eight rounds that Trout had lost the fight, unless he managed a miracle knockout. That, to me, both takes the drama out of the fight for a viewer who knows the score, and also allows a fighter to totally change his approach in a fight that looks closer than the scores at ringside are in reality, or at least "reality."
But if there is any great question about the legitimacy of Canelo's win, you only have to ask Trout, who was candid and gracious in defeat.
"He was the better man," Trout told Showtime's Jim Gray. "He was quicker, he was stronger, he was the better man."
Trout said he'd make no excuses. Then, in the upset of the year, he actually made zero excuses. On a night where you could complain about some of what happened on the officiating side (though it should be said that referee Laurence Cole was invisible and did a good job), it was nice to end the evening on a good note. Canelo talked no trash, nor did Trout. They were admirable in victory and defeat.
Alvarez marches forward as a rising superstar. Trout says he'll be back, and given his track record of going further than he's supposed to, I have to believe him.

Thousands of men and women celebrate the legalization of marijuana during a "420" event at Denver's Civic Center …

UPDATE 7:07 pm CT: In the minutes after the shooting, three individuals were shot by an unknown assailant. None of the injuries were described as life-threatening. Approximately seven gunshots were heard shortly before 5pm, less than an hour after the rally's keynote address completed. It was initially reported that two people had been shot, along with one of the individual's pet dog. However, the Denver Police Department tweeted that a third individual, a juvenile, was grazed by a bullet and escorted themselves to nearby hospital.
*****
DENVER, CO. - Ten years ago, Ken Gorman, the founder of Denver’s annual “420 Rally,” stood inside the city’s Civic Center Park with about a dozen supporters as they pushed for marijuana legalization.
Today, an estimated 80,000 individuals gathered in the same location as they celebrated Colorado voters’ decision to legalize the recreational use of cannabis last November.
“This is what freedom smells like,” attorney Rob Corry told the crowd, as he counted down the moments until 4:20pm CT, at which point literally thousands of people simultaneously exhaled marijuana smoke into the air, creating a haze that was visible for blocks away.
“You’re going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records,” rally organizer Miguel Lopez told the crowd, eliciting a roar of cheers and laughter. “More people will have smoked pot at ‘420’ in this location than anytime, anywhere in the history of the world.”
The day's events formally kicked off at just past 10:00am on Saturday morning. And while it was readily apparent that many, if not most, attendees showed up simply for the novelty of smoking marijuana in a large public gathering, there were hundreds of people there to make money off the attendees.
Dozens of vendors quickly set up shop, offering items ranging from marijuana smoking pipes to various food offerings like "giant turkey legs." And one didn't have to walk far without being offered several varieties of marijuana for sale, which is still illegal under Colorado law.
In November 2012, more than a million Colorado voters (55.32 percent) supported the passage of Measure 64, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana in the state. However, the consumption of the drug remains illegal under federal law.
A similar bill passed by a broad margin in Washington State.

An estimated 80,000 people gatehred for the "420 rally" in Denver's Civic Center Park (Eric Pfeiffer/Yahoo New …
And while the thousands of pot smokers using the substance in public is technically a crime, Colorado law enforcement said they were more concerned with ensuring public safety in light of the recent terror attack in Boston.
“We're aware of the events in Boston," Denver police spokesman Aaron Kafer, told the Associated Press. "Our message to the public is that, if you see something, say something."
Lopez and a number of other leaders of the legalization movement said they remain unsatisfied with what they consider the limited scope of Measure 64, which along with forbidding consumption of marijuana in public spaces, contains other restrictions, such as driving while under the influence of cannabis. In addition, Lopez said those individuals imprisoned for past crimes involving the sale, use and distribution of marijuana should be released from jail.
On Monday, several of the event’s organizers will hold another rally outside the Colorado state capital in which they will speak out against the “Driving Under the Influence of Cannabis Bill,” which aims to set a legal limit for the amount of THC a person can have active in their bloodstream while driving. The bill passed the state House in March and is scheduled to be taken up for consideration by the state Senate.
Despite the jubilant mood amongst the rally’s participants, the event was not without its critics.
Smart Colorado, a group that opposed the legalization bill in 2012, released a statement saying the open use of cannabis set a bad image to individuals looking at Colorado.
“We encourage Coloradans to pay attention to the 4/20 rallies by marijuana advocates. These events, which will be covered by national media, will send a clear message to the rest of the nation and the world about what Colorado looks like in the wake of the passage of Amendment 64 last fall,” Henny Lasley, head of Smart Colorado, said in the statement.
“Does the behavior of the participants in these events reflect well on our state? And do they respect the limitations outlined by Amendment 64, which does not allow public and open consumption of marijuana or the use by anyone under 21 years old?”
In addition, there were a number of dubious claims made about the alleged benefits of medical marijuana. While the substance has been shown to alleviate the symptoms of several illnesses, one organizer described the substance as a “cure” for several serious medical conditions, including Crohn’s Disease, arthritis and even cancer.
A second day of similar events is scheduled to take place on Sunday in Civic Center Park but is expected to draw a much smaller number of participants.
"We have the law, the science, we have the people," Lopez told the crowd. “But the war is not over.”

Krystle Campbell of Arlington 'was always right there if you needed her'

Krystle Campbell of Arlington 'was always right there if you needed her'

Her voice trembling and hoarse from crying, Patricia Campbell stood on her Medford porch Tuesday afternoon and tried in a few emotional phrases to make the world understand what was lost when the bomb explosions at the Boston Marathon killed her 29-year-old daughter, Krystle Marie Campbell.“You couldn’t ask for a better daughter,” she said, each sentence a visible struggle. “I can’t believe this has happened. She was such a hard worker at everything she did.” Then words failed and she paused, looking up from her notes. “This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. Krystle Campbell, who grew up in Medford and moved about a year ago to Arlington, was on Boylston Street near the Marathon finish line with her friend Karen on Monday, said Krystle’s grandmother, Lillian Campbell of Somerville. Continue reading below

Krystle Campbell, shown in July 2012, would have turned 30 on May 3. She was known as a tireless worker and a loyal friend and relative.

After the bombs detonated, Krystle and Karen were side by side on the ground when medical personnel arrived, and somewhere en route from the sidewalk to Massachusetts General Hospital, someone mixed up their names.
When Krystle’s father, William Campbell Jr., went to Mass. General after the explosions, officials initially told him she was seriously injured and might lose a leg. But when they let him in, he saw it was Karen — not Krystle — in the room, Lillian Campbell said, “and my son was devastated.”
For years Krystle Campbell had been a general manager and catering manager for the Jasper White Summer Shack restaurants, working mostly at the Hingham and Cambridge locations. She put in long hours, “70, 80 hours a week,” her grandmother said, and often took the lead coordinating parties and graduations the restaurants catered.
She still made time for family and friends, though, and “was one of those people who always have to be doing something for somebody,” her grandmother said.
Krystle, she added, “was special. She’s a hard worker and she was always right there if you needed her. All you had to do was call Krystle, and she was there.”
That was the case when Lillian Campbell needed assistance after an operation a few years ago. She was living alone, after her husband died in 2005.
“She took care of me for almost two years after I had an operation,” Lillian Campbell said. “She moved right into my house with me for two years.”
“That girl is Class A,” she added. “She was the best. Not because she’s my granddaughter. She was like that with all of her friends, and she had a lot of them.”
Born in Somerville, Krystle Campbell grew up in Medford, where her parents had purchased a house, her grandmother said.
“She was so cute. She was just full of life,” Lillian Campbell said. “She loved being around people. She was a people lover, even as a little girl. She always had a lot of friends around her. She loved music, and she loved life, Krystle did. She was always bouncing and always happy.”
Her father was a plumber, but illness has curtailed his work in recent years, Lillian Campbell said. Krystle’s mother had worked in food services for many years at Harvard Business School, according to a spokesman there.
While at Medford High School, Krystle began working as a waitress, her grandmother said.
“The event was sad enough,” Roy Belson, the Medford school superintendent, said of the explosions at the Boston Marathon. “To find out one of those who died was from Medford, it makes it even more personal.”
After Krystle Campbell graduated from high school in 2001, she went to college for a couple of years. On her Facebook profile, she said she had attended the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Her grandmother said Krystle left college and began working at the Summer Shack. In an online LinkedIn profile, Krystle Campbell listed her Jasper White’s Summer Shack job titles as general manager at the Hingham location and catering manager.
“Krystle touched my life, and the lives of all our employees with her constant smile and joyful personality,” White said in a statement Tuesday. “She was beloved by all of us, and we will miss her deeply. We also extend our heartfelt sympathy and send our prayers out to her family.”
Lillian Campbell said Krystle moved to Arlington about a year ago, and recently switched jobs to work at Jimmy’s Steer House in Arlington.
On May 3, Krystle would have turned 30, her grandmother said.
“We were getting ready to celebrate,” she said.
Lillian Campbell said her granddaughter’s absence will be particularly pronounced during family gatherings to celebrate birthdays and holidays.
Every holiday, she said, “we’re all together, and Krystle was right there helping everybody, helping get the food ready.”
In addition to her mother, father, and grandmother, Krystle Campbell leaves her brother, William Campbell III of Medford.
Medford Mayor Michael J. McGlynn said the city and the Medford Clergy Association will host a prayer vigil at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Grace Episcopal Church for those killed and injured in the Marathon explosions.
Dozens of reporters and camera operators had gathered in front of the Campbell family’s house on Park Street Tuesday when Patricia Campbell stepped out onto the porch. To her left, her son, William, draped an arm over her shoulders to comfort her. To her right, her brother John Reilly stood vigil. She tried to read from a piece of paper.
“She had a heart of gold,” Patricia said. “She was always smiling and friendly.”
In an interview by phone earlier Tuesday, Krystle’s grandmother spoke with similar emotion.
“I said to my son when I saw him this morning, ‘You know, it’s not right. My granddaughter shouldn’t die before me,’ ” Lillian said. “No mother should bury their children, I don’t care who they are. No grandmother or anybody.”

Mental Health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Become Concerns After Boston ...

The morning after the deadly Boston Marathon explosions, Joyce Maguire Pavao called local hospitals and the Red Cross, rushing to find victims.
Family and friends who had been near the attack were unscathed, but Pavao, a psychologist who usually works in child welfare, was looking for something else: people who needed help recovering from trauma.
"It's like an experience in an war zone, a bomb on a sidewalk," said Pavao. "It's traumatic for the people that were involved, for those hurt, for those who saw them get hurt, for the people that helped afterwards."
After two bombs packed with pellets exploded near the finish line of the city's marathon Monday, killing three people and injuring more than 170, the recovery continues. The streets are being cleaned of debris, hospitals are tending to victims with burns and severed limbs, and law authorities are investigating a terrorist act. But as Boston slowly returns to normal, people like Pavao are tending to an often less visible effect of disaster: post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health issues that can emerge in weeks, months and years after the trauma.
"There is so much we know about PTSD these days, and there are so many instances in our world that are traumatic. If we acknowledge them and find the best way to address them, we can save people from having residual, difficult problems," said Pavao. "Horrible images are ingrained in people's minds, and there will be memories and triggers. But you can manage them better if you have assistance, if you have someone to talk to."
Across Boston, trauma counselors, disaster chaplains and mental health professionals were dispatched to hospitals, churches and recovery resource centers to help those who are spiritually and emotionally drained, and in shock.
Not far from the blast sites is the Park Plaza Castle, a historic Victorian building that's become a makeshift resource center for victims, where Boston officials are offering shelter to displaced residents and information on counseling. In New York and across several states, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a 24-hour, toll-free "disaster distress helpline" (1-800-985-5990). Though it had only logged a few dozen calls since Monday, volume had doubled by Tuesday, officials said.
"Trauma is a completely natural response to an unnatural event, and most people are resilient," said Lloyd Sederer, medical director of the New York State Office of Mental Health. "But you need to help people understand what happened, that these are predictable symptoms and that there are ways to take care of yourself."
Sederer, who administered mental health programs in New York City after Sept. 11 and is currently organizing similar resources for Hurricane Sandy victims, said many witnesses to the Boston attack may have trauma symptoms in the days and possibly weeks after the bombings, including a general sense of fear, mental replays of the experience and nightmares. But he cautioned that a minority could develop longer-lasting PTSD and related symptoms, such sudden debilitating flashbacks, anxiety, social isolation and drug and alcohol abuse.
"The (physically) closer you are to the experience, the more it is potentially life-threatening to you or the closer you get to witnessing a life-threatening or deadly event, the more likely you will remember it indelibly," he said. "The most important resources are your own family and community. It helps to talk to someone to understand what you have gone through."
That's one of the reasons for the disaster distress hotline, said Anne Mathews-Younes, who directs mental health services for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The administration, which also runs National Suicide Prevention Hotline, first launched the disaster line during the BP oil spill. It's been manned continuously since then, but has seen a spike since Monday.
"We know from experience with Hurricane Katrina that sometimes we don't immediately experience our stress or distress. Sometimes it has taken people up to two years to realize they are not feeling or acting like themselves," said Mathews-Younes. "It can be a simple as people lacking energy or not sleeping enough. We train people to give reassurance."
Experts said isolation is one of the worst things for those who have experienced the tragedy. They point to the candlelight vigils and prayer gatherings in the Boston region throughout the week as immediate, organized ways to cope.
Boston resident Charlotte Robinson, whose family left the marathon uninjured, described herself as "dazed" by the attack and planned to mourn at a memorial service at the Israeli consulate Tuesday evening. After she saw dozens of ambulances rush by her home in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood to aid victims on Monday, Robinson said she felt as though she was in a "horrible nightmare." But recounting the experience with her partner, Marilyn, has helped her process it, she said, and she's looking forward to reflecting with other residents.
"It's a somber time and it's tough to see your city like this," she said, "but it feels better if we come together."

American Airlines Resumes Flights After a Computer Problem

American Airlines was forced to ground all of its flights for several hours on Tuesday after a nationwide problem with its computer systems. By late afternoon, its computers were back up and its operation were slowly coming back to life.

More than 400 flights were canceled and scores more were delayed after a systemwide problem that started around midday and lasted until around 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Still, the airline said it expected cancellations and delays to last through the rest of Tuesday as it tried to restore a normal schedule.

American said the problem was caused by an inability to gain access to its reservations system, called Sabre. The electronic system, often described as the brains of an airline, is responsible for bookings and reservations, but also manages a wide variety of functions related to flights, including printing boarding passes, online check-ins, ticketing, and tracking bags.

While the cause of the problem was not immediately clear, the airline emphasized that the flaw was not related to the bomb attacks in Boston on Monday. Safety officials at airports around the country were on high alert Tuesday. A suspicious package at La Guardia Airport in Queens, for instance, caused the main terminal to be evacuated briefly, causing an hourlong delay on some flights, officials said.

Sabre said American’s system problem did not come from its computer systems. Other airlines, including Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, use the reservation system and have not experienced any problems, said Nancy St. Pierre, a spokeswoman for Sabre.

Such nationwide breakdowns are rare but not unprecedented, particularly when airlines merge. United Airlines experienced similar problems last year when its reservation systems failed repeatedly as it merged them with those of Continental Airlines.

But while American Airlines, which is still reorganizing in bankruptcy, has agreed to merge with US Airways, the two airlines are nowhere close to integrating their systems because the planned merger still needs to clear regulatory hurdles.

American said that its network system had experienced “intermittent problems,” which led it to ground the fleet. The airline said it would waive fees for passengers who wanted to change their reservation on Tuesday and give refunds to those people who wished to cancel their flight.

At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, thousands of passengers were stranded and waiting for flights, some of which were being canceled. Some passengers described being stuck for long stretches on planes on the runway unable to take off or, having landed, initially unable to move to a gate.

Gate agents at Dallas were as uninformed as the passengers were, reduced to getting information from the airline’s Facebook page. “My best guess is y’all’s best guess,” one agent said.

Kelly Bixler, 34, a project coordinator for an architectural firm, had flown from Texarkana, Tex., to Dallas en route to Milwaukee on business but after waiting hours for her connection decided to rent a car and drive back to Texarkana. “There are so many people so upset,” she said. “They just want to go home. This is crazy.”

Matt Wyglendowski, 42, a sales manager for Hitachi trying to fly to Indianapolis, was angry that the airline was not more forthcoming about the event. “It’s ridiculous when you know more about what’s going on than the ticket people,” he said as he checked his smartphone. “I got the update on Facebook 20 minutes before they notified people.”

Mr. Wyglendowski said he had planned to drive from Indianapolis to his business meeting in Ann Arbor, Mich., to save money. “God knows when I’m going to get to Ann Arbor now,” he said.

Peter Baker contributed reporting.

Envelope tests positive for ricin at Washington mail facility

Washington (CNN) -- An envelope that tested positive for the deadly poison ricin was intercepted Tuesday afternoon at the U.S. Capitol's off-site mail facility in Washington, congressional and law enforcement sources tell CNN.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was told the letter was addressed to the office of Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi. A laboratory in Maryland confirmed the presence of ricin after initial field tests indicated the poison was present, according to Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer.

However, the FBI said additional testing is needed as field and preliminary tests produce inconsistent results.

"Only a full analysis performed at an accredited laboratory can determine the presence of a biological agent such as ricin," according to the bureau. "Those tests are in the process of being conducted and generally take from 24 to 48 hours."

In a statement late Tuesday, the U.S. Capitol Police said more tests would be conducted at the Army's biomedical research laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The letter had a Memphis, Tennessee, postmark and no return address, Gainer wrote in an e-mail to senators and aides.

Sen. Claire McCaskill told reporters after a briefing for lawmakers that a suspect has already been identified in the incident, but a knowledgeable source said no one was in custody Tuesday night.

Letter laced with ricin sent to Senate

Envelope to Senator positive for poison

Wicker, the junior senator from Mississippi, has been assigned a protective detail, according to a law enforcement source.

A primer on ricin

Postal workers started handling mail at a site off Capitol Hill after the 2001 anthrax attacks that targeted then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, among others. Senators were told the post office would be temporarily shut down "to make sure they get everything squared away," McCaskill, D-Missouri, said Tuesday afternoon.

"The bottom line is, the process we have in place worked," she said. Members will be warning their home-state offices to look out for similar letters, she added.

A previous ricin scare hit the Capitol in 2004, when tests identified a letter in a Senate mailroom that served then-Majority Leader Bill Frist's office. The discovery forced 16 employees to go through decontamination procedures, but no one reported any ill effects afterward, Frist said.

Ricin is a highly toxic substance derived from castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms -- an amount the size of the head of a pin -- can kill an adult. There is no specific test for exposure and no antidote once exposed.

It can be produced easily and cheaply, and authorities in several countries have investigated links between suspect extremists and ricin. But experts say it is more effective on individuals than as a weapon of mass destruction.

Ricin was used in the 1978 assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov. The author, who had defected nine years earlier, was jabbed by the tip of an umbrella while waiting for a bus in London and died four days later.

Wicker, 61, was first appointed by former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour to the U.S. Senate in December 2007 after the resignation of then-Sen. Trent Lott. He was then elected to the seat in 2008 and won re-election in 2012 to a second term.

Before joining the Senate, he was a U.S. representative in the House from 1995 to 2007. Before that, he served in the Mississippi Senate.

CNN's Rachel Streitfeld and Matt Smith contributed to this report.

Pat Summerall, legendary NFL announce

(CNN) -- Pat Summerall, the football player turned legendary play-by-play announcer, died Tuesday. He was 82.

He was best known as a broadcaster for teaming with former NFL coach John Madden for 22 years. Summerall also worked for years alongside former player Tom Brookshier and became the voice of the NFL in the 1970s and 1980s, calling most of the league's signature games.

Summerall called games for CBS, Fox and ESPN and worked more than 10 Super Bowls.

As a player, he was a placekicker and played 10 seasons for the Chicago Cardinals and New York Giants from 1952 to 1961. He scored more than 500 points as an NFL player.

A look back at those we have lost in 2013.

Pat Summermall, the NFL football player turned legendary play-by-play announcer, was best known as a broadcaster who teamed up with former NFL coach John Madden. Summermall died April 16 at the age of 82.

Comedian Jonathan Winters died on April 11 at age 87. Known for his comic irreverence, he had a major influence on a generation of comedians. Here he appears on "The Jonathan Winters Show" in 1956.

Annette Funicello, one of the best-known members of the original 1950s "Mickey Mouse Club" and a star of 1960s "beach party" movies, died at age 70 on April 8. Pictured, Funicello performs with Jimmie Dodd on "The Mickey Mouse Club" in1957.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a towering figure in postwar British and world politics and the only woman to become British prime minister, died at the age of 87 on Monday, April 8.

Designer Lilly Pulitzer, right, died on April 7 at age 81, according to her company's Facebook page. The Palm Beach socialite was known for making sleeveless dresses from bright floral prints that became known as the "Lilly" design.

$Film critic Roger Ebert died on April 4, according to his employer, the Chicago Sun-Times. He was 70. Ebert had taken a leave of absence on April 2 after a hip fracture was revealed to be cancer.$ Film critic Roger Ebert died on April 4, according to his employer, the Chicago Sun-Times. He was 70. Ebert had taken a leave of absence on April 2 after a hip fracture was revealed to be cancer.

Jane Nebel Henson, wife of the late Muppets creator Jim Henson and instrumental in the development of the world-famous puppets, died April 2 after a long battle with cancer. She was 78.

Shain Gandee, one of the stars of the MTV reality show "Buckwild," was found dead with two other people in Kanawha County, West Virginia, on April 1. He was 21.

Music producer and innovator Phil Ramone, right, with Paul Shaffer, left, and Billy Joel at the Song Writers Hall of Fame Awards in New York in 2001. Ramone died March 30 at the age of 72.

Writer/producer Don Payne, one of the creative minds behind "The Simpsons," died March 26 at his home in Los Angeles after losing a battle with bone cancer, reports say. He was 48.

Gordon Stoker, left, who as part of the vocal group the Jordanaires sang backup on hits by Elvis Presley, died March 27 at

University of Delaware's Elena Delle Donne selected 2nd in WNBA Draft

BRISTOL, Conn. (AP) - April 15, 2013 (WPVI) -- Brittney Griner left an indelible mark on women's college basketball. Now she's ready to take on the pros.

The Phoenix Mercury took Baylor's star center with the top pick in the WNBA draft Monday night. Despite knowing she was going first, the two-time AP Player of the Year admitted she was extremely nervous.
"It's a dream come true, I'm like a little kid in Disney World the first time meeting all the characters," Griner said. "Sitting at the table they said 15 seconds and my heart started beating so fast. I was grabbing the tablecloth underneath."
The 6-foot-8 phenom finished as the second all-time scorer in women's NCAA history, with 3,283 points. She is the top shot-blocker ever, shattering both the men's and women's college marks with 748. She also had a record 18 dunks - including 11 this season. WNBA president Laurel Richie opened the draft offering the league's thoughts and prayers to those affected by the bombings in Boston. She said earlier in the evening that the WNBA had discussions whether to hold the draft, deciding to go ahead with it.
And then soon after the draft started she announced Griner as the first choice.
Griner joins a very talented Mercury squad that was plagued by injuries most of last season. Star Diana Taurasi played in only eight games and Penny Taylor missed the entire year while recovering from an ACL injury. Candice Dupree also missed 21 games because of a knee injury.
"I'm ready to get there and ready to learn from (Taurasi)," Griner said. "I got to play with her a little bit at USA Basketball. I'm ready to feed off her and give all I can to the Phoenix Mercury.
Phoenix had the second-worst record and a 28 percent chance of getting the first pick. Washington, which had the worst record in the league picked fourth.
"We have a team of All-Stars already," Phoenix Mercury president Amber Cox said. "To add her to the mix solidifies us for a long time. When Phoenix comes to town it will be must see basketball."
The Mercury have had the first pick in the draft two other times, including 2004 when they drafted Taurasi.
It was an eventful day for Griner. Not only was she the top pick, but she bumped into her skateboarding idol Tony Hawk, who was also at ESPN.
"Getting drafted being the No. 1 overall pick that was above it, but Tony's right there at No. 2," Griner said.
Like Phoenix, Chicago added a budding star in Elena Delle Donne with the No. 2 pick to an already stacked roster that just missed making the playoff last season. The 6-foot-5 forward, who can play multiple positions was second in the nation in scoring (26.0) and averaged 8.5 rebounds. She finished her career at Delaware with 3,039 career points - fifth all-time in NCAA history.
"This is a phenomenal team I'm joining, mentors who will help me out along the way," Delle Donne said. "I'll learn a ton from these players. We definitely have a great team. I felt I was a good puzzle piece for this team. You don't say where you want to go before it was happening, but Chicago was my pick and I wanted to go there really badly."
Tulsa took Notre Dame guard Skylar Diggins with the third pick. Diggins averaged 17.1 points, 6.1 assists and 3.1 steals while helping the Irish reach the Final Four the past three seasons.
"When I entered Notre Dame we had lost in the first round of the tournament the year before," Diggins said. "At the end of my career we had brought the program back to an elite level. I'm looking forward to get to Tulsa and show my leadership skills and do whatever coach Klopp wants me to do."
While the first three picks were almost a lock, the rest of the draft was a bit more of a mystery with no clear-cut choices going in.
Washington took Ohio State guard Tayler Hill fourth.
"I didn't know for sure," Hill said. "I talked to a few WNBA coaches. I talked to coach Thibault a few times and he was excited about me. I'm excited, really a feeling you can't explain."
The New York Liberty and new coach Bill Laimbeer took Texas A&M's Kelsey Bone fifth and then two picks later drafted Oklahoma State's Toni Young. Seattle, which will be without Lauren Jackson and Sue Bird this season because of injuries took Maryland's Tianna Hawkins in between the Liberty picks.
San Antonio took Syracuse center Kayla Alexander eighth, Cal's Layshia Clarendon went ninth to Indiana. Los Angeles took Kentucky's A'dia Mathies 10th. Connecticut drafted UConn forward Kelly Faris 11th and Minnesota closed out the first round picking Nebraska's Lindsey Moore.
"There's no question that this draft class has potential to be a moment in time and we'll look back 10, 20 years and remember that class that came in with Brittney, Skylar and Elena," Richie said. "Having spent the last two days with a couple of the other prospects there are a couple surprise in there too."
This was the first season that the draft was televised in primetime.
Training camps open May 5, with the league's 17th season set to being on May 24.

Source: Reggie Bullock declaring for NBA draft

North Carolina junior forward Reggie Bullock has decided to enter the 2013 NBA draft, a source told Yahoo! Sports on Monday night. Reggie Bullock addresses the media during the 2013 NCAA tournament. (USA Today)

A formal university announcement is expected as soon as Tuesday.
Bullock, 22, has gone back and forth on his decision, but ultimately decided in the past 48 hours to make the move into the pros. North Carolina coaches tried to convince Bullock to remain for his senior year and improve his draft status, but Bullock, a 6-foot-7 small forward, made the choice to leave now.

Bullock is considered a late-first to early second-round draft pick, league executives tell Yahoo! Sports. For North Carolina, Bullock averaged 13.9 points on 48 percent shooting as a junior.
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Times Wins Four Pulitzers; Brooklyn Nonprofit Is Awarded a Reporting Prize

In a sign of the changing news business, an independent nonprofit organization based in Brooklyn, InsideClimate News, won the prize for national reporting for its coverage of dangers posed by oil pipelines.

The fiction prize, which was not awarded last year, went to Adam Johnson for “The Orphan Master’s Son.” The prize for general nonfiction was awarded to “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America,” by Gilbert King.

The Star Tribune in Minneapolis won two Pulitzers, one for local reporting on the rise in infant deaths at badly regulated day care centers and another for editorial cartooning by Steve Sack. The Wall Street Journal won one Pulitzer Prize for Bret Stephens’s commentary on politics and American foreign policy.

The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for Philip Kennicott’s criticism of art and the social forces that underlie it, including an examination of the allure of violence and misfortune in an essay after the Newtown school shootings called “Why Do We Stare?”

The fourth award for The Times went to John Branch for his feature “Snow Fall,” on a fatal avalanche in the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, which, the Pulitzer committee noted, was “enhanced by its deft integration of multimedia elements” including extensive video, animation and graphics. This is the third highest number of Pulitzer Prizes that The Times has won in a single year. (It won five in 2009 and seven in 2002.)

The Denver Post won in the breaking news category for its coverage of the theater shootings last summer in Aurora, Colo. The Pulitzer committee recognized how The Post’s reporting staff used social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and video to “capture a breaking story and provide context.” A finalist in the same category was the staff of The Hartford Courant for its coverage of the Newtown school massacre.

The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., received its first Pulitzer, winning in the public service category for its reporting on how off-duty police officers were often speeders who endangered the lives of residents.

The prizes were especially valued in 2012 because so many news organizations were battling their own financial troubles. The Washington Post won one award and was a finalist for four others, even as the company endured a change in executive editors and found its financial situation under scrutiny. In an interview, Mr. Kennicott said that The Post had made sure that he felt that these financial and management changes would not affect his ability to focus on his work.

While the board that administers the Pulitzers started including online-only news sites in its awards in 2009, InsideClimate News.com is by far the smallest of such winners. InsideClimate News described itself as a five-year nonprofit organization financed by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Marisla Foundation and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. Its newsroom currently includes only seven full-time journalists.

David Sassoon, founder and publisher of the news site, said his staff celebrated on a telephone conference call because they work from their homes.

“We’re just thrilled with this recognition,” Mr. Sassoon said in a telephone interview. “It really helps a small outlet like us.” How? “Hopefully we’ll be able to raise more funds, to expand, which is what we want to do.” He joked that now that they have a Pulitzer, “more sources will call us back.”

The publishing industry was watching the fiction award closely after the Pulitzer board declined to award the prize in 2012. In addition to the winner, “The Orphan Master’s Son,” there were two finalists: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,” by Nathan Englander, and “The Snow Child,” by Eowyn Ivey. Tom Reiss won the biography prize for “The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal and the Real Count of Monte Cristo.”

Ayad Akhtar won the drama award for “Disgraced,” a play about a corporate lawyer who long disguises his Pakistani Muslim heritage, and Sharon Olds won the poetry award for “Stag’s Leap.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 15, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. He is Steve Sack, not Steve Sacks.

Bogus IRS emails run rampant in lead-up to tax day

Tax time is phishing season.

The number of fraudulent emails sent by scammers purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service has skyrocketed leading up to the April 15 tax deadline.
It is estimated that 95% of email sent since Jan. 1 purporting to be from the IRS is actually bogus, the USA Today reported. The fake messages, which sometimes use the tax agency’s official logo, often state that unclaimed refunds await the recipient.
“We identified an error in the calculation of your tax from the last payment, amounting to $419.95,” one such email sent Friday to this reporter stated. “In order for us to return the excess payment, you need to create a e-Refund account after which the funds will be credited to your specified bank account.”
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Unfortunately, many Americans are swindled each year after they send away personal information.
“As tax season begins this year, we want to be clear that there is a heavy price to pay for perpetrators of refund fraud and identity theft,” IRS acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller said on the IRS’ website. “We have aggressively stepped up our efforts to pursue and prevent refund fraud and identity theft, and we will continue to intensely focus on this area. This is part of a much wider effort underway for the 2013 tax season to stop fraud.”

IRS.gov

The IRS is urging people not to open attachments or click on links in emails they receive that ask for more tax information.

Some scams try to get victims to provide information so tax refunds can be diverted to criminals. Other links sent by email that include a URL containing “IRS” more than likely contain malware.
"Like the sun rises in east and sets in the west, every year, come April, phishers who specialize in tax fraud come out to try to get you," Patrick Peterson, CEO of Internet security company Agari, told USA Today.
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The best way to steer clear of thieves at tax time is to assume that anything coming out of the blue from the IRS is fraudulent.
“All unsolicited email claiming to be from either the IRS or any other IRS-related components such as the Office of Professional Responsibility or EFTPS, should be reported to phishing@irs.gov,” the IRS states on its website.
The IRS urges anyone who receives an email requesting more information not to reply, open attachments or click on any links.
"They'll send e-mail confirming they've received your tax return and need more information," Limor Kessem, cybercrime and online fraud specialist at RSA's anti-fraud command center in Tel Aviv, Israel, told USA Today. "That's an e-mail you should delete immediately

Law and Politics: Obama's new Gitmo problem

While the Guantánamo Bay prison camp has faded as a political issue, the conditions there have been dramatically deteriorating. For several months, prisoners have been mounting intense protests, in response to grievances with guards and frustration with their legal status. They have conducted hunger strikes, battled with guards, and thwarted the camp’s surveillance system.
On Saturday, U.S. officials decided the prisoners had gone too far. Officials raided the camp, emptying prison cells, and forcing some detainees into isolation.
The Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg, who has covered Guantánamo for over a decade, reports that while the U.S. has sought to provide more humanitarian conditions for detainees, the recent tensions reflect frustration with the endless legal limbo in the camp:

By the time President Barack Obama took office, the prison camps had established communal confinement in a prison called Camp 6 that was more in the spirit of the Geneva Conventions, with … TV, books and, for well-behaved captives, wristwatches…But [there have been] mounting tensions at the camp… following a particularly aggressive cell search held Feb. 6.
…Lawyers for the captives said a wide-ranging hunger strike was underway, and some described seeing long-held, once plump prisoners wasting away before their eyes. The strike, they said, was sparked by what the captives considered abusive searches of their Qurans … fueled by years of frustration at their status of legal limbo.

Rosenberg reports that there are 43 prisoners on hunger strike. The U.S. is now force-feeding 13 of them, in order to keep them alive. The guards have also lost a measure of “control over life” in the prison, Rosenberg reports: ”The captives could be seen systematically disobeying communal camp rules. They covered surveillance cameras in individual cells with cereal boxes. They refused to admit food carts to the cellblocks.”
Obama officials emphasize that they had advance notice about recent changes at the prison, such as moving detainees into individual cells, and they are monitoring developments closely. That may be fine for crisis management, but there is very little talk about actually addressing the core problems at Guantánamo Bay.
About 166 prisoners remain in the camp today. That reflects progress–over 700 men have been imprisoned there–but also stalemate. Twelve years after the Afghanistan war began, these remaining prisoners are people who have been cut off from their entire world, mostly without any trial to address the charges against them, let alone their guilt or innocence. And that’s not all.
It is well known that many detainees are not high-ranking terrorists. As early as 2003, Donald Rumsfeld privately objected to how many “low-level enemy combatants” wound up in the prison. According to a comprehensive 2006 analysis of Defense Department data, most detainees were not affiliated with terrorist groups. (The report was from Seton Hall University, applying a terrorist definition was based on the U.S. government’s terrorist list.)
A high error rate, of course, does not mean the prison should just be emptied.
Nor could it, since Congress severely restricted the Obama administration’s options for transferring detainees. As one former National Security Council official told me last year, “Congress has put up as many roadblocks as possible to keep the Guantanamo Bay prison open.”
So the prison stays open, while the door to fair trials is pretty much closed. A reassessment of Guantánamo justice is long overdue

TurboTax goes offline before tax day

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:00:00 -0700

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Aubrey Plaza Pulls a Kanye West, Crashes Will Ferrell at MTV Movie Awards

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:00:00 -0700

Parks and Violations! Aubrey Plaza paid tribute to Kanye West at the MTV Movie Awards in Culver City, Calif. on Sunday, April 14 -- bum-rushing the stage in the middle of Will Ferrell's acceptance speech for his Comedic Genius Golden Popcorn award. In the bizarre bit, the 28-year-old Parks and Recreation actress hopped on the stage, barefoot, and grabbed Ferrell's statue. "What's happening?" Ferrell, 45, asked as the crowd chuckled nervously. The Anchor Man star held firmly onto his award in the awkward tug-of-war with Plaza, who had a drink in her other hand. "Are you okay?"
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Plaza -- not saying a word during the exchange -- quickly gave up the fight and returned back to her front row seat. Ferrell cracked that things went down "just like during rehearsals." (The star had her new film's title, The To Do List, scrawled across her chest.)

Aubrey Plaza "pulls a Kanye" on Will Ferrell at the MTV Movie Awards on April 14, 2013 in Culver City, California.

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"I think she wanted to tell me something important, but there was no message," Ferrell later joked backstage to MTV. "It was just a lot of hot liquor breath. And, then, and a little bit of sweat. And then she ran away. But the ship sailed on."
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Cracked Plaza via Twitter: "Thanks for the advice @kanyewest went better than planned!"

Hunger Games: Catching Fire trailer released

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0700

Reading on mobile? Watch on YouTube
The Hunger Games was dubbed "the new Twilight" prior to the arrival of Gary Ross's debut instalment on the big screen last year. Yet the film's slick depiction of a post-apocalyptic society in which the "dandyish" 1% thrill to the bloodthirsty televised battles of a group selected from the downtrodden general populace made for surprisingly enticing material.
Now the first full trailer for sequel Catching Fire has been released, debuting last night at the MTV Movie awards, with recent Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence once again front and centre as Katniss Everdeen. Having survived the deadly arena and really narked off the powers that be in the first movie, our heroine now finds herself preparing to be paraded round the various districts of Panem while the mean old Capitol bods work out what on earth to do with her.
Suzanne Collins's 2009 sequel novel spent far too many pages justifying its own existence, so fingers crossedFrancis Lawrence's film will avoid making the same mistake and put Everdeen back where the action is as soon as possible. The trailer nicely teases the decision by chief bad guy President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and new sidekick Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to introduce a special supergames – named the "quarter quell" – in which victors from the past 25 years or so compete again in an ultra-nasty, extra-vicious new arena until the last one is standing.
One area where Hunger Games has mirrored Twilight is in studio Lionsgate's decision to rush the follow-up into production while appetite remains strong, a move that saw Ross walk away from the series last year. Whether Hunger Games now follows that other young adult saga into a series of insipid sequels remains to be seen. But it doesn't bode well that producers have already moved to split the final instalment, Mockingjay, into two parts.
On the other hand, Lawrence is a more-than-competent director and Catching Fire has the much-hyped Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) alongside Slumdog Millionaire's Simon Beaufoy as screenwriters. That's two Oscar-winners to concoct one teen-aimed sci-fi romp. If Katniss can defy the odds and escape the dreaded arena once again, how hard can it be for them to deliver a decent part two

MTV Movie Awards 2013 Best Moments: Rebel Wilson & More (VIDEO)

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:00:00 -0700

Watson received the Trailblazer award, and, after joking about looking back at her career and realizing “how bad my hair was in the first Harry Potter film,” she delivered a crucial, inspiring piece of advice: “Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it’s a process. I was the girl in the front of the class who was the first person to put her hand up, and it’s often not cool to be the person who puts themselves out there, and I’ve often gotten teased mercilessly. But I found, ultimately, if you truly pour your heart into what you believe, even if it makes you vulnerable, amazing things can and will happen.” Trailblazer might sound like a made-up award, but at least Watson said something meaningful.

Anne Frank House Says Visit By Justin Bieber Was 'Positive'

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Representatives of the Anne Frank House on Monday praised Justin Bieber for his visit to the museum after a weekend in which a message he left on a guestbook there set off a maelstrom of criticism.
A short note posted Monday on the Facebook page of the Anne Frank House said: “The Anne Frank House was pleased to welcome Justin Bieber to the Anne Frank House last Friday. We think it is very positive that he took the time and effort to visit our museum. He was very interested in the story of Anne Frank and stayed for over an hour. We hope that his visit will inspire his fans to learn more about her life and hopefully read the diary.”
On Saturday the house, which is in Amsterdam, said in a Facebook post that Mr. Bieber visited there on Friday before he performed a concert in Arnhem. He wrote in a guestbook: “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.” (That is, one of Mr. Bieber’s fans.)
That brief message drew many angry comments from people who said Mr. Bieber did not respect the sanctity of the house and was using Anne Frank to reflect on his own celebrity. ” Glad he went,” one commenter wrote on the Facebook post, “but, the last sentence is VERY self serving. he missed the lessons of Anne totally.”
Mr. Bieber has not yet commented on the visit but Annemarie Bekker, a spokeswoman for the Anne Frank House, told Reuters that she and her colleagues were “a bit overwhelmed” by the response that his comments drew.
“He’s a 19-year-old boy taking the effort to come and see the museum,” Ms. Bekker said, “and we’d like to point that out, and I think it’s quite innocent what he put down.