Body in Fla. sinkhole "not possible to recover"

Updated at 7:20 p.m. ET

SEFFNER, Fla. The effort to find the body of a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole under his Florida home was called off Saturday and crews planned to begin demolishing the four-bedroom house.

The 20-foot-wide opening of the sinkhole is almost completely covered by the house and rescuers feared it would collapse on them if they tried to search for Jeff Bush, 37. Crews were testing the unstable ground surrounding the home and evacuated two neighboring homes as a precaution.

Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said heavy equipment would be brought in to begin the demolition Sunday morning.

"At this point it's really not possible to recover the body," Merrill said, later adding "we're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole."

Reporter Ashley Porter of CBS affiliate WTSP-TV in Tampa, Fla., reported that crews dropped a camera and listening devices into the hole, but there were no signs of life.

Jessica Damico, spokeswoman for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, said the demolition equipment would be placed on what they believe is solid ground and reach onto the property to pull apart the house. The crew will try pulling part of the house away from the sinkhole intact so some heirlooms and mementoes can be retrieved.

Bush was in his bedroom Thursday night in Seffner — a suburb of 8,000 people 15 miles east of downtown Tampa — when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five others in the house escape unharmed.

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Man feared dead in sinkhole freak accident

On "CBS This Morning: Saturday," WTSP-TV reporter Grayson Kamm reported that Bush was not planning to stay in the house for long, just a few months, and had been planning to move out Saturday.

On Saturday, the normally quiet neighborhood of concrete block homes painted in Florida pastels was jammed with cars as engineers, reporters, and curious onlookers came to the scene.

At the home next door to the Bushes, a family cried and organized boxes. Testing determined that their house and another was compromised by the sinkhole. The families were allowed to go inside for about a half-hour to gather belongings.

Sisters Soliris and Elbairis Gonzalez, who live on the same street as the Bushes, said neighbors were worried for their safety.

"I've had nightmares," Soliris Gonzalez, 31, said. "In my dreams, I keep checking for cracks in the house."

They said the family has discussed where to go if forced to evacuate, and they've taken their important documents to a storage unit.

"The rest of it, this is material stuff, as long as our family is fine," Soliris Gonzalez said.

"You never know underneath the ground what's happening," added Elbairis Gonzalez, 30.

28 Photos

Sinkholes

Experts say thousands of sinkholes form yearly in Florida because of the state's unique geography, though most are small and deaths rarely occur.

"There's hardly a place in Florida that's immune to sinkholes," said Sandy Nettles, who owns a geology consulting company in the Tampa area. "There's no way of ever predicting where a sinkhole is going to occur."

Most sinkholes are small, like one found Saturday morning in Largo, 35 miles away from Seffner. The Largo sinkhole, about 10 feet long and several feet wide, is in a mall parking lot.

The state sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations — including the area where Bush became a victim — making them even more prone to sinkholes.

Jonathan Arthur, the state geologist and director of the Florida Geological Survey, said other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has additional factors like extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction. "The conditions under which a sinkhole will form can be very rapid, or they can form slowly over time," he said.

But it remained unclear Saturday what, if anything, caused the Seffner sinkhole.

"The condition that caused that sinkhole could have started a million years ago," Nettles said.

Jeremy Bush, who tried to rescue his brother, lay flowers and a stuffed lamb near the house Saturday morning and wept.

He said someone came to his home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other issues, apparently for insurance purposes, but found nothing wrong. State law requires home insurers to provide coverage against sinkholes.

"And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said Friday.

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Man's Body Recovery Effort Ends; Sinkhole 'Unstable'

Authorities have discontinued the rescue effort for a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole when his home's foundation collapsed and said it is unlikely his body will ever be recovered.

"We feel we have done everything we can," Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrell said at a news conference this afternoon. "At this point, it's not possible to recover the body."

Merell said officials would bring in heavy equipment to begin demolishing the home on Sunday.

"We're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole," he said. "It's very deep. It's very wide. It's very unstable."

Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when a sinkhole opened up and trapped him underneath his home at 11 p.m. Thursday.

Two homes next door to Bush's residence were evacuated today after authorities said they had been compromised by the growing sinkhole.

With the assistance of rescuers, the homeowners will be allowed to enter their home for only 30 minutes to gather valuables, authorities said.

Rescuers returned to the site in Seffner, Fla., early this morning to conduct further testing, but decided it was too dangerous for the family initially affected by the sinkhole to enter their home, which was declared condemned.

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While the sinkhole was initially estimated to be 15 feet deep on Thursday night, the chasm has continued to grow. Officials now estimate it measures 30 feet across and is up to 100 feet deep.

The Hillsborough County Fire Rescue has set up a relief fund for all families affected by the growing sink hole.

MORE: How Sinkholes Can Develop

Rescue operations were halted Friday night after it became too dangerous to approach the home.

Bill Bracken, an engineer with Hillsborough County Urban Search and Rescue team said the house "should have collapsed by now, so it's amazing that it hasn't."

RELATED: Florida Man Swallowed by Sinkhole: Conditions Too Unstable to Approach

Using ground penetrating radar, rescuers have found a large amount of water beneath the house, making conditions even more dangerous for them to continue the search for Bush.

Hillsborough County lies in what is known as Florida's "Sinkhole Alley." More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in the area since 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.

Meanwhile, Bush's brother, Jeremy Bush, is still reeling from Thursday night.

Jeremy Bush had to be rescued by a first responder after jumping into the hole in an attempt to rescue his brother when the home's concrete floor collapsed, but said he couldn't find him.

"I just started digging and started digging and started digging, and the cops showed up and pulled me out of the hole and told me the floor's still falling in," he said.

"These are everyday working people, they're good people," said Deputy Douglas Duvall of the Hillsborough County sheriff's office. "And this was so unexpected, and they're still, you know, probably facing the reality that this is happening."

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Thousands celebrate at Australia's gay Mardi Gras

SYDNEY: Drag queens and scantily-dressed dancers joined with politicians and military personnel for Sydney's colourful gay and lesbian Mardi Gras, and to call for acceptance and equality.

Gloomy weather failed to dampen the celebration Saturday night, which exploded in a profusion of lights, dancing and music for its 35th anniversary event along Oxford Street, the hub of Sydney's gay and lesbian nightlife.

More than 9,000 revellers on 108 floats took part in the event which bills itself as the world's biggest night parade, while organisers said 300,000 watched the glitzy spectacle which has its origins in a 1978 protest march.

This year the event was dedicated to those "78ers" who took part in that first march which ended in violence and arrests, and some of the original activists took pride of place at the head of the parade.

"Last night's parade was a cheeky, colourful, irreverent and fun as Sydney expects it to be," said Mardi Gras chief executive Michael Rolik.

Sydney's irreverent Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is a major tourist drawcard for the city, bringing A$30 million into the economy for the city's largest event behind the New Year's Eve fireworks.

For the first time, gay members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) marched in their uniforms for the parade which was hit by cooler temperatures and occasional sprinklings of rain.

"It's absolutely exhilarating. This is about us being proud of the uniform, and it allows us to show how proud we are of the ADF," Squadron Leader Vince Chong from the Royal Australian Air Force said.

Iconic Australian surf lifesavers were also part of the parade which was opened by the Dykes on Bikes motorcyclists who have been participating in the street party for 25 years.

"The message is that the lifesaver is for everybody, gay, straight, bisexual, whoever," said parade participant Grant Beaumont.

"Life saving is very inclusive and you know, we are very proud to be part of the gay community, we love coming to Mardi Gras every year, and being on the show. We just love it."

The parade had a political flavour in election year in Australia, with many calling for gay marriage to be legalised Down Under, while politicians were also represented, among them Greens leader Christine Milne who marched with other parents with gay children.

"Sydney Mardi Gras is well known as a good time, but it's so much more than a street parade," said Mardi Gras co-chair Peter Urmson.

"It's what we do to continue the struggle against discrimination and inequality as it impacts on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex people."

But for thousands of others, the parade is an excuse to enjoy the spectacle and support the gay community, whether they are part of it or not.

"For the (gay) community, it's a really important... to show that we are not hiding... We are proud of who we are," onlooker Gary Aschmoneit said.

Italian tourist Alessandro Macali said he enjoyed the parade which police said this year had ended with significantly fewer arrests and incidents than previous years.

"It's really nice, I love it," Macali said.

- AFP/ir

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LG notches 10M worldwide sales of LTE-enabled smartphones

LG Electronics announced today it has sold more than 10 million LTE-capable smartphones worldwide as the company grapples with dwindling market share.

The milestone comes a little more than six months after the company announced it had surpassed 5 million sales of LTE-enabled phones.

"Aggressive pushing forward with 4G LTE technology allows LG satisfy the needs of consumers and is a huge factor in our growing success in global LTE smartphone sales," LG CEO Jong-seok Park said in statement. "Having established ourselves as a major industry player, we will continue to expand our footprint in the global LTE market with a wider range of differentiated, high quality LTE smartphones."

LG said it hopes to double its LTE smartphone presence in 2013 as LTE smartphone shipment growth is expected to triple. Strategy Analytics said in December that its research indicated global LTE smartphone shipments would hit 275 million this year.

The company attributed its explosive growth in the segment to its expansion last year into markets such as the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Recent rollouts of the LG Optimus G in more than 50 additional countries also contributed to the milestone.

As impressive as the sales figure is, LG continues to lose ground in the LTE market, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. In the third quarter of 2012, LG's market share fell to 9 percent from 15 percent in the previous quarter. Samsung remained the market leader even though its share fell from 51 percent to 40 percent. Apple brought in 26.7 percent for second place.

The announcement comes on the heels of LG's overhaul of its
Android product line at the Mobile World Congress last month in Barcelona, Spain. LG says it is targeting the spectrum of LTE customers, with its G series for deep-pocketed early adopters, the F series with the mission of "4G LTE for everyone," the lower-end L series, and the Vu
tablets.

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Fla. man presumed dead after sinkhole opens under his bed

SEFFNER, Fla. A man was missing and feared dead early Friday after a large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a house near Tampa.

Jeff Bush is presumed dead after a sinkhole opened under his bed.

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CBS

His brother says Jeff Bush screamed for help before he disappeared.

The 36-year-old man's brother, Jeremy Bush, told rescue crews he heard a loud crash around 11 p.m. Thursday, then heard his brother screaming for help.

"When he got there, there was no bedroom left," Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said. "There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up."

Jeremy Bush called 911 and frantically tried to help his brother Jeff. He said he jumped into the hole and dirt was quickly up to his neck.

"The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care. I wanted to save my brother," Jeremy said. "But I just couldn't do nothing."

An arriving deputy pulled Jeremy Bush from the still-collapsing house.

28 Photos

Sinkholes

"I reached down and was able to actually able to get him by his hand and pull him out of the hole," Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy Douglas Duvall said. "The hole was collapsing. At that time, we left the house."

Engineers worked to determine the size of the sinkhole. At the surface, officials estimated it was about 30 feet across. Below the surface, officials believed it was 100 feet wide.

"The entire house is on the sinkhole," Damico said.

Hillsborough County Fire Chief Ron Rogers told a news briefing that extra-sensitive listening devices and cameras were inserted into the sinkhole. "They did not detect any signs of life," he said.

By early Friday, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue officials determined the home had become too unstable to continue rescue efforts.

Neighbors on both sides of the home have been evacuated.

Sinkholes are common in seaside Florida, whose underlying limestone and dolomite can be worn away by water and chemicals, then collapse.

Engineers condemned the house, reports CBS Tampa affiliate WTSP.

From the outside of the small, sky blue house, nothing appeared wrong. There wear no cracks and the only sign something was amiss was the yellow caution tape circling the house.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesman Larry McKinnon said authorities asked sinkhole and engineering experts, and they were using equipment to see if the ground can support the weight of heavy machinery needed for the recovery effort.

Jeremy Bush stood in a neighbor's yard across the street from the house Friday and recounted the harrowing collapse.

"He was screaming my name. I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him," he said of his brother Jeff.

Jeremy Bush's wife and his 2-year-old daughter were also inside the house. "She keeps asking where her Uncle Jeff is," he said. "I lost everything. I work so hard to support my wife and kid and I lost everything."

Janell Wheeler told the Tampa Bay Times newspaper she was inside the house with four other adults and a child when the sinkhole opened.

"It sounded like a car hit my house," she said.

The rest of the family went to a hotel but she stayed behind, sleeping in her car.

"I just want my nephew," she said through tears.

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Obama Signs Order to Begin Sequester Cuts

President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.

President Obama officially initiated the cuts with an order to agencies Friday evening.

He had met for just over an hour at the White House Friday morning with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.

But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold at midnight.

"This is not a win for anybody," Obama lamented in a statement to reporters after the meeting. "This is a loss for the American people."

READ MORE: 6 Questions (and Answers) About the Sequester

Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.

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Federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Pentagon, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, have all prepared to notify employees that they will have to take one unpaid day off per week through the end of the year.

The staffing trims could slow many government services, including airport screenings, air traffic control, and law enforcement investigations and prosecutions. Spending on education programs and health services for low-income families will also get clipped.

"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama said. "But people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."

The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- has remained the same between the parties for more than a year since the cuts were first proposed: whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.

The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through elimination of tax loopholes and deductions that benefit wealthier Americans and corporations. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs. It's a deep divide that both sides have proven unable to bridge.

"This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over," Boehner told reporters after the meeting. "It's about taking on the spending problem here in Washington."

Boehner: No New Taxes to Avert Sequester

Boehner says any elimination of tax loopholes or deductions should be part of a broader tax code overhaul aimed at lowering rates overall, not to offset spending cuts in the sequester.

Obama countered today that he's willing to "take on the problem where it exists, on entitlements, and do some things that my own party doesn't like."

But he says Republicans must be willing to eliminate some tax loopholes as part of a deal.

"They refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," Obama said. "We can and must replace these cuts with a more balanced approach that asks something from everybody."

Can anything more be done by either side to reach a middle ground?

The president today claimed he's done all he can. "I am not a dictator, I'm the president," Obama said.

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Assad forces take Aleppo village, reopening supply line

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces seized a village southeast of the city of Aleppo on Friday, reopening a supply line to the country's biggest city where they have been battling rebels for eight months, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the capture of Tel Shghaib marked the last step to creating a land supply route north into Aleppo from Hama province, crucial for Assad's forces who have lost control of part of the main north-south highway.

Rebels say they hold most of the city itself and nearly all the rural hinterland. But they have been unable to achieve a decisive victory and complain that they are outgunned and vulnerable to Assad's air force, artillery and ballistic missiles, which killed dozens of people in Aleppo last week.

The United States pledged direct but non-lethal aid to the rebels at a meeting in Rome on Thursday, disappointing Assad's opponents who had hoped for more tangible military support to tip the balance of forces on the ground.

Activists reported another day of fierce fighting around Aleppo, including the military airport at Nairab, three miles north of Tel Shghaib which Assad's forces retook.

"It's a significant gain for the regime," the British-based Observatory's director Rami Abdelrahman said of the army's push north, which reversed many rebel advances when they moved south into Hama from Aleppo province at the end of last year.

Further east, on the Iraqi frontier, government troops also managed to wrest back control of the Yarubiyah border crossing after insurgents seized it 24 hours earlier, he said.

SYRIA COULD FALL APART

The revolt against Assad, which erupted in March 2011 with mainly peaceful protests, has escalated into civil war between mainly Sunni Muslim forces and troops and militias loyal to Assad, from the minority Alawite community whose faith derives from Shi'ite Islam.

The United Nations says 70,000 people have been killed, nearly a million have fled the country and millions more have been displaced or need aid.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday that Syria, a major Arab state on the fault lines of broader Middle East conflict, would fall apart if the government and rebels keep fighting instead of seeking a negotiated peace.

"This is a very small window of opportunity which we strongly support and encourage them to use that. The opportunity may close soon," Ban said in Geneva.

The government and opposition have both edged away in recent weeks from their previous rejection of dialogue. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday the government would even talk to armed rebels and opposition coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib has said he is ready to meet Assad's representatives.

But Syrian officials say any serious talks must be on Syrian soil under state control, and have shown no readiness to discuss Assad's departure - the central demand of the opposition. For rebel fighters, who do not answer to exiled civilian opposition leaders, Assad's exit is a precondition for any negotiations.

"I continue to urge the Syrian parties to find their way to the negotiating table. The horrors of the last months and years prove beyond doubt: the military solution in Syria is leading to the dissolution of Syria," Ban said.

He also called on the U.N. Security Council, paralyzed by a standoff between the United States and European allies on one side, pushing for U.N. action against Assad, and Russia and China, who have backed Assad, to unite and address the crisis.

Moscow criticized Thursday's meeting in Rome of largely anti-Assad Western and Arab states for taking positions and steps which "directly encourage extremists" to topple the government by force.

But the Kremlin also said presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama had told their foreign ministers to keep in close touch and seek new initiatives to end Syria's civil war.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday Washington would provide non-lethal aid including medical supplies and food to rebel fighters, as well as $60 million to help the civilian opposition provide services including security, education and sanitation.

The European Union said it had amended sanctions on Syria to allow the supply of armored vehicles, non-lethal military equipment and technical aid.

The steps still fell well short of what rebels are looking for - more arms, and prompted the opposition to postpone a Saturday meeting where they had been due to choose a prime minister to head the administration of rebel-held territory.

Alkhatib said he was tired of hearing Western concerns over the growing role of Islamists in the Syrian rebel ranks - one of the main obstacles to greater military support, saying it paled into insignificance alongside the prolonged civilian suffering.

"Many sides...focus (more) on the length of the rebel fighter's beard than they do on the blood of the children being killed," he said, standing next to Kerry after their meeting.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Anti-whalers say Japanese fleet heading north

SYDNEY: Militant anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said Japan's entire harpoon fleet had left the Antarctic whale sanctuary on Saturday and was heading north, suggesting that their annual hunt may have come to an end.

Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd's director-turned-observer, said this year would likely see the lowest haul by the Japanese whalers in history, with "no more than 75" of the mammals killed due to the group's campaign of harassment.

That compares with a catch of 267 last year -- 266 minke whales and one fin whale -- and is dramatically below the target of 935 minke whales and up to 50 fin whales set for this season by Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research.

"The entire Japanese whaling fleet is now north of sixty degrees and out of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary," Watson said.

"Is whaling over for the season? We are not positive but we are 80 per cent sure that it may be over."

"This campaign will see the lowest take by the Japanese whaling fleet in the entire history of their Antarctic whale hunts."

Watson said the Korean-owned, Panamanian-flagged supply tanker the Sun Laurel was currently 48 hours from the factory ship Nisshin Maru, with a four-day return trip to the whaling sanctuary looking increasingly unlikely.

"This would leave about a week to kill whales and with the weather quickly deteriorating it would hardly be worth the effort."

Watson said Sea Shepherd had seen the Japanese kill just two Minke whales, and they had only had two days of unobstructed hunting in the whole season, which began in late December.

"My conservative estimate of the number of whales killed this year is no more than 75. It could be much lower but certainly not higher," he said.

Watson described the campaign, in which each side accused the other of ramming attacks, as "enormously successful" and said Sea Shepherd would "continue to follow the whaling fleet north to ensure that they do not return to kill whales."

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has chased the Japanese fleet hunting whales off Antarctica for several years in a bid to stop the animals being slaughtered.

Japan says it conducts vital scientific research using a loophole in an international ban on whaling, but makes no secret of the fact that the mammals ultimately end up as food.

- AFP/ck

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Crave Ep. 111: Man vs. jetpack

Man vs. jetpack, Ep: 111

Subscribe to Crave:

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A German inventor has built a DIY jetpack, so we hop onboard. Also, we get a first look at "Star Wars" pinball for iOS and
Android, and "Star Trek" fans win a major space battle when they vote to name a Pluto moon "Vulcan." All that and more on this week's episode of Crave.

Crave stories:

- Google Nexus fired into space to see if screams are audible

- Myo gesture-control armband uses muscle power

- Star Wars Pinball coming tomorrow to Android, iOS (video)

- Get a ball's-eye view with camera in football

- Trekkies conquer contest to name Pluto moons

- Inventor gets off the ground with homemade jetpack

- First-person Mario video will blow your mind

- Crave giveaway: Two leather iPad cases from Kavaj

Social networking:

- Stephen on Twitter

- Stephen on Google+

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In sequestration's 11th hour, finger-pointing reigns in Congress

With less than 12 hours before sequestration becomes an official federal mandate, the prospects of lawmakers reaching a deal to avert sweeping, across-the-board spending cuts are virtually nonexistent. But as the so-called "sequestration" takes on a feel of increasing inevitability in Washington, politicians on both sides of the aisle are scrambling to assign blame for what many believe could lead to dire economic consequences.

In a series of press briefings and floor speeches today, lawmakers took to the microphone to blast their political counterparts for proposed theft, moral bankruptcy, and professional incompetence.

Play Video

Defense-related small businesses feel sequester pinch

"How much more money do we want to steal from the American people to fund more government?" asked House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a press briefing this morning. "I'm for no more."

Boehner, towing the Republican line, assigned blame to the president for having allegedly "insisted" on the sequestration, and to Democrats for derailing Republican alternatives to avert it.

"It is the president's sequester," Boehner said. "The House has acted twice over the last 10 months to replace these cuts with smarter cuts. We've done our job... I'm happy to talk to the president, I'm happy to work with the president, but the House has done its job."

While the idea for sequestration did originate in the White House, both Republicans and Democrats supported the idea, with 174 House Republicans - including Boehner - voting in its favor. The House did pass two bills to avert the cuts, as Boehner said, but neither of them would have had any support from Democrats in the Senate, and White House would likely have vetoed them. Moreover, both are currently invalid because they were passed in the last congressional session.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meanwhile, blasted Republicans for allegedly doing worse than just "kick the can down the road" on the issue.

"They're nudging the potato across the table with their noses," she accused. "We come to Washington to be legislators, representatives of our district and to be legislators. And somehow that piece is missing from what the Republicans are doing - they're just making noise... Either they don't want to legislate or they don't know how to legislate."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who earlier today was rebuffed in an offer to bring to the Senate floor both Republican and Democratic bills on averting sequester if the votes were held at majority thresholds, went after Republican motives for rejecting his idea.

"Are Republicans really filibustering a vote on replacing the sequester?" he asked on the Senate floor. Later, in a press briefing, he added: "The Republicans want the sequester to go forward!"

Reid will hold a vote for the Democratic proposal this afternoon, but that bill is not expected to garner the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, and is expected to go nowhere.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued that Reid and fellow Democrats want their bill to fail - "so they can go around the country blaming Republicans for a sequester the president himself proposed.

"They're so concerned about preventing anything from actually passing the Congress that they've limited the ability of senators on both sides to debate this issue openly and to offer different ideas," he contended.

In reality, both sides are refusing to compromise. President Obama is expected to sign a directive making sequestration official tomorrow, at which point he will meet with congressional leaders from both parties to discuss the way forward. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will also release a report detailing the specifics of sequestration tomorrow.

If a deal can be worked out before April, when some of the impacts of sequestration will begin to feel real, much of the potential damage will be averted. But there's a lot of ground to make up in the next 30 days: As of now, the two parties don't have a lot to say in agreement on the subject. Just this afternoon, the White House endorsed the Democratic Senate plan while threatening to veto a GOP proposal.

In the meantime, the blame game continues.

"House Republicans deserve to be called to task for leaving the American people in the lurch," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to reporters today.

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Arias Recounts Each Moment of Stabbing, Slashing

Accused murderer Jodi Arias was forced to recount today each detail of how she killed her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, including re-enacting how he allegedly tackled her when she shot him, leaving her crying in her hands on the witness stand.

During hours of dramatic cross-examination by prosecutor Juan Martinez, Arias bawled as he asked her about stabbing, slashing and shooting Alexander on June 4, 2008.

"You would acknowledge that Mr. Alexander was stabbed, and that the stabbing was with the knife, and it was after the shooting according to you, right?" Martinez said in rapid succession.

"Yes, I don't remember," Arias said, covering her face with her hands.

"Do you acknowledge the stab wounds, and we can count them together, were to the back of the head and the torso?" Martinez said, flashing a photo of Alexander's bloodied body onto the courtroom projector. " Do you want to take a look at the photo?"

Arias, burying her face in her hands and shutting her eyes on the stand, mumbled, "No."

Alexander's sisters, seated in the front row of the gallery, also looked away, crying.

Arias, 32, is accused of killing Alexander on June 4, 2008 out of jealousy. He was stabbed 27 times, his throat was slashed and he was shot in the head twice.

Arias claims she killed in self-defense after Alexander had become increasingly violent with her. She could face the death penalty if convicted.

Martinez also forced Arias to demonstrate in court today how she claims Alexander lunged at her "like a linebacker," causing her to fire the gun at him. The pair argued over how exactly Alexander was positioned, and Martinez pushed her to explain what she meant.

"He lunges at me like a linebacker," Arias said.

"Like a linebacker, what does that mean?" Martinez asked.

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"He was low. It was almost like he dove," she said, and trying to explain it further, added, "He was like a linebacker is the only way I can describe it unless I get up to act it out which I'd rather not do."

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

"Go ahead and do it," Martinez said. "Just stand. Go ahead."

Judge Sherry Stephens initially cleared the court as Arias demonstrated and then Martinez had her do it again after the jury and spectators were allowed back into the courtroom.

Standing and moving away from the witness box, Arias bent at the waist and spread out her arms and meekly made a slight lunging motion.

According to her testimony, Arias fired the gun as Alexander rushed at her, tackling her to the ground. She said she does not remember how she stabbed or slashed him.

It was a day of dramatics and anger as the prosecution pressed Arias on the details of the killing, with Martinez ending the afternoon of questioning by accusing Arias of lying throughout her direct testimony.

At one point Arias dissolved into tears, unable to answer pointed questions when shown a photo of Alexander's body lying crumpled in the bottom of the stall shower.

After a short pause, Martinez asked dryly, "Were you crying when you were shooting him?"

"I don't remember," Arias moaned.

"Were you crying when you stabbed him?" he said. "How about when you slashed his throat?"

"I don't remember, I don't know."

Martinez pressed on, "You're the one that did this right? And lied about all this right?"

"Yes."

"So then take a look at it," he barked.

Arias did not answer Martinez's question, crying into her hands instead. The judge, after a moment, called for the lunch recess to take a break from the testimony. Arias' attorney walked over and consoled her, telling her to "take a moment."

Until that moment, Arias had given vague answers to Martinez as he asked about the hours leading up to the murder. Arias, 32, has testified that she drove to Alexander's house on June 4, 2008, for a sexual liaison, that she had sex with Alexander and the pair took nude photos before an explosive confrontation ended with her killing him. She claims she doesn't remember stabbing Alexander, but insists it was in self-defense.

Martinez questioned her claims, asking exactly what they argued about and who encouraged whom to take the nude photos. He pointed out that Arias told Detective Esteban Flores of the Mesa police department that she had to convince Alexander to take the nude photos in the shower, but that she testified on the stand that Alexander had wanted them.

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Taiwan turns plastic junk into blankets, dolls

TAIPEI: Some 40 people stand ankle-deep in used plastic bottles in the yard of a recycling station in Taipei, stamping them flat in the first step of a process that will transform the junk into usable goods.

At the station operated by Taiwan's largest charity group Tzu Chi Foundation, hundreds of volunteers help sort and recycle plastic waste along with used glass bottles and electronic appliances.

"Plastic bottles won't be decomposed even if they are buried for 1,000 years so we started to recycle and re-use them to reduce garbage and pollution," said Chien Tung-yuan, a spokesman for the foundation.

"The used bottles are being treated and processed in a 13-step procedure to be made into textiles such as blankets and clothes and even dolls."

Tzu Chi runs 5,400 recycling stations across Taiwan with the help of more than 76,000 volunteers and has distributed more than 460,000 blankets made from plastic bottles since 2007 for relief use at home and abroad.

For the volunteers in charge of crushing the plastic bottles, who are from two nearby nursing homes for the mentally ill, the recycling work has also become part of their therapy, Chien said.

"They come in twice a week as the simple task helps them concentrate and stabilise their emotions. It's not only therapeutic for them but also for a very good cause."

Taiwan started recycling plastic more than a decade ago and today it boasts more than 70 percent recycling rates, according to the Environmental Protection Administration.

In 2011, 193,000 tonnes of used plastic were collected and turned into raw materials worth Tw$5.0 billion ($172 million).

Taiwan made international headlines with the "eco-fabric" used to make the jerseys for nine teams in the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa.

-AFP/sb

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Best Buy takeover talks said to have ended without deal

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze.

(Credit:
Best Buy)

It appears that Best Buy founder Richard Schulze will not be resuming control of the struggling electronics retail giant any time soon.

Negotiations between the Best Buy and Schulze's investment group have concluded without an agreement for taking the company private, sources with knowledge of the matter told The New York Times, although they cautioned that talks could resume in the future.

Schulze, who founded Best Buy in 1996 and served as CEO until 2002, still owns 20 percent of the company and had proposed paying between $24 and $26 per share in cash to acquire the outstanding shares he doesn't own -- a premium of as much as 40 percent over today's closing price of $17.50. Schulze told the company's board last August that he would pay up to $8.8 billion for the big-box electronics chain, saying he was "deeply concerned about the direction of the company."

However, The Times' sources said the investment group's interest soured several weeks ago on the debt involved in the takeover effort

Schulze stepped down as chairman last year after getting caught up in a scandal involving former CEO Brian Dunn. During its investigation, Best Buy found that Schulze had learned of Dunn's relationship with a female employee but didn't inform anyone, prompting the board to ask him to step down.

CNET has contacted Best Buy for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Best Buy was originally due to release its fourth-quarter and fiscal 2013 earnings today, the same day as Schulze's deadline to submit a buyout offer. The Richfield, Minn.-based company pushed its presentation back a day, fueling speculation that a deal was at hand. However, a company spokesperson told the Star Tribune that the surprise delay was intended only to allow the bid deadline to expire.

With more than 1,400 stores, the company has been struggling to compete with online retailers.

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Federal budget cuts free illegal immigrants from detention

(CBS News) -- The federal budget cuts expected to take effect this Friday are not simple. For example, hundreds of illegal immigrants are being released from detention because the administration says it can't afford to keep them.

Until recently, Fredi Alcazar was one of those detained. An illegal immigrant from Mexico, Alcazar spent a month in jail after a traffic stop near Atlanta last December. He now wears an electronic monitoring band on his ankle. The device lets immigration officials know where he is at all times.

(watch: Releasing illegal immigrants over budget cuts, below)

Alcazar was released unexpectedly in January.

"I was surprised they released me," Alcazar recalled. "They didn't say anything."

Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not tell CBS exactly how many detainees they released ahead of for Friday's automatic budget cuts. They also declined to say where or when the releases occurred.

Those let go, like Fredi Alcazar, are required to wear electronic tracking devices, regularly call immigration officials or visit ICE offices.

"We started getting calls all of a sudden they had been released," said immigration advocate Dulce Guerrero. "We were very much in shock."

The early release of detainees was a surprise to Guerrero.

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"These folks are no criminals," she said. "These folks in there are moms, dads, students, community members who are in there for no license, for a broken tail light."

But some members of Congress are demanding ICE provide information on each detainee's case.

"When you release these people and expect them to show up at a court proceeding at a later date, we found before that 90 percent of them don't show up," said Congressman Michael McCaul, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Besides Georgia, CBS did learn that many releases were in Arizona, California and Florida. Immigration advocates said that "supervised release" costs about $14 a day compared to about $160 a day to keep detainees in jail.

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Arias Prosecutor Too Combative, Experts Say

He has barked, yelled, been sarcastic and demanded answers from accused murderer Jodi Arias this week.

And in doing so, prosecutor Juan Martinez and his aggressive antics may be turning off the jury he is hoping to convince that Arias killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, experts told ABCNews.com today.

"Martinez is his own worst enemy," Mel McDonald, a prominent Phoenix defense attorney and former judge, told ABC News. "He takes it to the point where it's ad nauseam. You have difficulty recognizing when he's driving the point home because he's always angry and pushy and pacing around the courtroom. He loses the effectiveness, rather than build it up."

"He's like a rabid dog and believes you've got to go to everybody's throat," he said.

"If they convict her and give her death, they do it in spite of Juan, not because of him," McDonald added.

Martinez's needling style was on display again today as he pestered Arias to admit that she willingly participated in kinky sex with Alexander, though she previously testified that she only succumbed to his erotic fantasies to please him.

Arias, now 32, and Alexander, who was 27 at the time of his death, dated for a year and continued to sleep together for another year following their break-up.

Arias drove to his house in Mesa, Ariz., in June 2008, had sex with him, they took nude photos together and she killed him in his shower. She claims it was in self-defense. If convicted, Arias could face the death penalty.

Jodi Arias, Prosecutor Butt Heads in Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Maintains She 'Felt Like a Prostitute' Watch Video

Jodi Arias Admits to Killing Man, Lying to Police Watch Video

Martinez also attempted to point out inconsistencies in her story of the killing, bickering with her over details about her journey from Yreka, Calif., to Mesa, Ariz., including why she borrowed gas cans from an ex-boyfriend, when she allegedly took naps and got lost while driving, and why she spontaneously decided to visit Alexander at his home in Mesa for a sexual liaison.

"I want to know what you're talking about," Arias said to Martinez at one point.

"No, I'm asking you," he yelled.

Later, he bellowed, "Am I asking you if you're telling the truth?"

"I don't know," Arias said, firing back at him. "Are you?"

During three days of cross examining Arias this week, Martinez has spent hours going back and forth with the defendant over word choice, her memory, and her answers to his questions.

"Everyone who takes witness stand for defense is an enemy," McDonald said. "He prides himself on being able to work by rarely referring to his notes, but what he's giving up in that is that there's so much time he wastes on stupid comments. A lot of what I've heard is utterly objectionable."

Martinez's behavior has spurred frequent objections of "witness badgering" from Arias' attorney Kirk Nurmi, who at one point Tuesday stood up in court and appealed to the judge to have a conference with all of the attorneys before questioning continued. Judge Sherry Stephens at one point admonished Martinez and Arias for speaking over one another.

Andy Hill, a former spokesperson for the Phoenix police department, and Steven Pitt, a forensic psychiatrist who has testified as an expert witness at many trials in the Phoenix area, both said that despite his aggressive style, Martinez would likely succeed in obtaining a guilty verdict.

"When it comes to cross examination, one size does not fit all," said Pitt. "But if you set aside the incessant sparring, what the prosecutor I believe is effectively doing is pointing out the various inconsistencies in the defendant's version of events."

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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West still wary

ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran was upbeat on Wednesday after talks with world powers about its nuclear work ended with an agreement to meet again, but Western officials said it had yet to take concrete steps to ease their fears about its atomic ambitions.

Rapid progress was unlikely with Iran's presidential election, due in June, raising domestic political tensions, diplomats and analysts had said ahead of the February 26-27 meeting in the Kazakh city of Almaty, the first in eight months.

The United States, China, France, Russia, Britain and Germany offered modest sanctions relief in return for Iran curbing its most sensitive nuclear work but made clear that they expected no immediate breakthrough.

In an attempt to make their proposals more palatable to Iran, the six powers appeared to have softened previous demands somewhat, for example regarding their requirement that the Islamic state ship out its stockpile of higher-grade uranium.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said the powers had tried to "get closer to our viewpoint", which he said was positive.

In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry commented that the talks had been "useful" and that a serious engagement by Iran could lead to a comprehensive deal in a decade-old dispute that has threatened to trigger a new Middle East war.

Iran's foreign minister said in Vienna he was "very confident" an agreement could be reached and Jalili, the chief negotiator, said he believed the Almaty meeting could be a "turning point".

However, one diplomat said Iranian officials at the negotiations appeared to be suggesting that they were opening new avenues, but it was not clear if this was really the case.

Iran expert Dina Esfandiary of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said: "Everyone is saying Iran was more positive and portrayed the talks as a win."

"I reckon the reason for that is that they are saving face internally while buying time with the West until after the elections," she said.

The two sides agreed to hold expert-level talks in Istanbul on March 18 to discuss the powers' proposals, and return to Almaty for political discussions on April 5-6, when Western diplomats made clear they wanted to see a substantive response from Iran.

"Iran knows what it needs to do, the president has made clear his determination to implement his policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon," Kerry said.

A senior U.S. official in Almaty said, "What we care about at the end is concrete results."

ISRAELI WARNING

Israel, assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, was watching the talks closely. It has strongly hinted it might attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to ensure that it cannot build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any such aim.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said economic sanctions were failing and urged the international community to threaten Iran with military action.

Western officials said the offer presented by the six powers included an easing of a ban on trade in gold and other precious metals, and a relaxation of an import embargo on Iranian petrochemical products. They gave no further details.

In exchange, a senior U.S. official said, Iran would among other things have to suspend uranium enrichment to a fissile concentration of 20 percent at its Fordow underground facility and "constrain the ability to quickly resume operations there".

The official did not describe what was being asked of Iran as a "shutdown" of the plant as Western diplomats had said in previous meetings with Iran last year.

Iran says it has a sovereign right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and wants to fuel nuclear power plants so that it can export more oil.

But 20-percent purity is far higher than that needed for nuclear power, and rings alarm bells abroad because it is only a short technical step away from weapons-grade uranium. Iran says it produces higher-grade uranium to fuel a research reactor.

Iran's growing stockpile of 20-percent-enriched uranium is already more than half-way to a "red line" that Israel has made clear it would consider sufficient for a bomb.

In Vienna on Wednesday, a senior U.N. nuclear agency official told diplomats in a closed-door briefing that Iran was technically ready to sharply increase this higher-grade enrichment, two Western diplomats said.

"Iran can triple 20 percent production in the blink of an eye," one of the diplomats said.

The U.S. official in Almaty said the powers' latest proposal would "significantly restrict the accumulation of near-20-percent enriched uranium in Iran, while enabling the Iranians to produce sufficient fuel" for their Tehran medical reactor.

This appeared to be a softening of a previous demand that Iran ship out its stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium, which it says it needs to produce medical isotopes.

Iran has often indicated that 20-percent enrichment could be up for negotiation if it received the fuel from abroad instead.

Jalili suggested Iran could discuss the issue, although he appeared to rule out shutting down Fordow. He said the powers had not made that specific demand.

The Iranian rial, which has lost more than half its foreign exchange value in the last year as sanctions bite, rose some 2 percent on Wednesday, currency tracking websites reported.

(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Yeganeh Torbati in Almaty, Georgina Prodhan in Vienna, Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Australian government pension fund dumps tobacco

SYDNEY: The Australian government's pension fund for public servants Thursday announced it would sell off its A$222 (US$228) million holdings in tobacco companies following the nation's move towards plain packaging.

The Future Fund, which manages some A$80 billion in retirement savings for government workers, said it had decided to "exclude primary tobacco producers from its investment portfolio" after a review of its holdings.

"The board noted tobacco's very particular characteristics including its damaging health effects, addictive properties and that there is no safe level of consumption," said fund chairman David Gonski.

"In doing so the board also considered its investment policies and approach to environmental, social and governance issues."

It relates to shares worth A$222 million in 14 companies engaged in tobacco production -- 0.3 per cent of the fund's total holdings -- including the four giants that took legal action against Australia's plain packets plan.

Health groups and Australia's left-wing Greens party had questioned the fund's investment in tobacco as inconsistent with public values following the shift in December to plain packaging for tobacco in a bid to curb smoking.

The fund has previously jettisoned holdings on ethical grounds, selling off its stock in 10 defence companies that manufactured cluster munitions and land-mines in 2011.

Similar moves against tobacco firms were taken by the Norwegian government's pension fund in 2010.

Australia estimates there are 15,000 deaths nationally each year from tobacco-related illnesses and that smoking costs more than A$30 billion a year in healthcare and lost productivity.

- AFP/ck

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Urine sample app lets users detect diseases with iPhones

The Uchek app lets users take urine samples with their smartphones.

(Credit:
Uchek)

Ever thought a smartphone could detect what was in your urine? Well, now it can. A new iPhone app developed by MIT entrepreneur Myshkin Ingawale, unveiled at the TED conference this week lets people take urine samples with their mobile device.

Obviously, pee and electronics don't mix, so this app instead uses the smartphone's camera to determine what's in urine. Dubbed Uchek, the app involves the user peeing into a cup, putting a color-coded urinalysis strip into the cup, taking of photo of the results, and then letting the app work its magic.

Uchek can detect up to 25 diseases, such as diabetes, urinary tract infections, and pre-clampsia. It can also measure the levels of glucose, proteins, ketones, and more. According to Wired, 1,200 sample tests showed that the app was more accurate than humans interpreting the color-coded strips.

Ingawale's goal is to help people become more aware of what health issues they might have or track their existing conditions. Ideally, it would be extra information to give to a doctor.

"The idea is to get people closer to their own information," Ingawale said at the TED conference, according to Wired. "I want people to better understand what is going on with their bodies."

Uchek is currently working its way through Apple's approval process and Ingawale is also working on an
Android app, according to Wired. The app will cost 99 cents and users can buy a packet of strips and a color-coded user guide for $20.

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Kelly wins Dem. nod for ex-Rep. Jackson Jr.'s seat

CHICAGO Former Illinois legislator Robin Kelly captured the Democratic nomination Tuesday in the race to replace disgraced ex-U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., after a truncated campaign season where she got a boost from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's super PAC.

The nomination all but assures that she'll sail through the April 9 general election and head to Washington, because the district is overwhelmingly Democratic. The Republican nomination is also being chosen Tuesday night.

From a crowded field of candidates in the Chicago-area district, Kelly emerged early as a leader on gun-control issues. The former state representative from Matteson, a south Chicago suburb, favors an assault weapons ban.

During the campaign, Bloomberg's super PAC, Independence USA, poured more than $2 million into the race by airing anti-gun ads in her favor and against another Democratic front runner, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson. Halvorson, who unsuccessfully challenged Jackson in a primary last year, is against such a ban.

After casting her ballot in the snowy weather that pelted the region Tuesday, Halvorson warned that if the ads were successful Bloomberg would try to "buy seats" across the country. "We can't let that happen," she said.

Another Democratic front runner, Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale, also took issue with the ads, saying people are "extremely upset" that someone from New York is trying to tell people in Illinois how to vote and predicting that there will be a "backlash."

Guns were a leading issue at candidate forums and email blasts from candidates, even as Jackson's legal saga played out in court and frustrated voters who've seen two other congressmen in the office leave under an ethical or legal cloud.

Jackson resigned in November, after a months-long medical leave for treatment of bipolar disorder and other issues, then pleaded guilty earlier this month to charges that accused him of misspending $750,000 in campaign money on lavish personal items, including a Rolex watch and fur coats.

Jackson's exit created a rare opening in a district where he was first elected in 1995. The primary featured 14 Democrats, including former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds, who held the seat in the 1990s but served prison time after being convicted of fraud and for having sex with an underage campaign volunteer. There were four Republicans on the ballot.

Voters heading to the polls Tuesday indicated that guns, ethics and economic woes were on their minds.

Mary Jo Higgins of south suburban Steger said she voted for Halvorson because the former congresswoman is "the only Democrat who believes in the Second Amendment."

But Country Club Hills minister Rosemary Gage said she voted for former state Rep. Robin Kelly because Kelly is "standing with (President Barack Obama) and trying to get rid of guns."

"It's really bad in Chicago and across the country," Gage said. "Too many children have died."

The issue of ethics was also on the minds of voters, particularly as Jackson's legal saga has been playing out in federal court. David Berchem, a retired painter, said he voted for Halvorson because he believes she would represent all residents of the district and was "as honest a person as you can find."

Beale voted at a school in Chicago, while Kelly voted early.

Beale touted his record as a job creator for the South Side ward he represents in Chicago's City Council. That's the reason Juanita Williams, who went to school with Beale, voted for him Tuesday, saying he helped bring a Wal-Mart to the area. The 47-year-old assistant teacher also said Beale has regularly provided school supplies and Christmas gifts to needy students.

Election officials in the three counties covering the district reported no problems at the polls, even though voters and poll workers had to contend with a blustery mix of snow and sleet. Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation deployed extra resources to keep polls accessible.

Turnout at the polls was low, and election officials said the weather might have kept some voters on the fence at home. The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for much of northern Illinois and streets and sanitation workers deployed extra resources to keep roads to polls clear.

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Inside Organized Retail Crime Raids

We used to call it shoplifting, but these days the foot soldiers of retail crime rings are known as boosters. Police even have an acronym for these operations: ORC, which stands for Organized Retail Crime.

"It's just like a Fortune 500 company," said Sergeant Eric Lee of the Gardena Police Department in Gardena, Calif. "All of this is just organized."

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

Police say big retail stores, from Walgreens to J.C. Penny, are getting hit by highly sophisticated shoplifting networks that steal and resell everything from underwear to razors to milk. According to the National Retail Federation, theft can amount to annual losses as high as a $37 billion for retail businesses.

"Every store in every city has to go through this," Lee said. "They wait until no one's paying attention and they walk out."

Tide detergent is currently a hot target because it is compact, expensive and easy to sell on the streets for profit, police said. The Street name: "liquid gold."

"Sometimes we get rings that just do alcohol," Lee said. "And then we get some that do just meat and seafood."

Investigators say boosters move the loot for cents on the dollar to fencing operations -- the black market resellers of the stolen goods -- which sell the stolen merchandise in plain sight in stores. Boosters, fencers, Mr. Bigs, all of those involved in these shoplifting operations can potentially make millions a year from boosting and re-selling stolen goods.

Craigslist Crackdown: Cops Go After Thieves Watch Video

Alleged Underage Prostitution in Philippines Watch Video

And Mike Swett is on the case. A former Riverside County sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles, Swett was badly injured in a car wreck and now works as a full-time private investigator on the ORC beat who has worked with Target, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx. Stores hire him to do his own undercover police work, catching thieves before involving local law enforcement.

"Kind of like working a narcotics case, it's like you've got low-level, mid-level and then top dog," Swett said. "We like to go after the top dog and the only way to get to the top dog is mid-level first."

At his command center -- his apartment -- Swett showed off the boxes upon boxes of tapes and photographs he has collected, the fruits of countless silent stake-out hours.

Swett said he has been casing two joints in L.A. for months, both alleged to be mid-level fencing operations. "Nightline" was invited to ride along with him when he sent undercover agents in for a final reconnaissance mission.

At some stores and shopping malls, clerks do little to stop shoplifters and often let them run, which has contributed to the growing fencing operations.

"[The stores] don't want their employees to get injured," Swett said. "So oftentimes they will call the police, but by the time we get there they are already in their car and they are gone."

This leaves professional investigators like Swett to put the pieces together and bust open the gangs to lead over-stretched police departments to the prey.

When raid day arrived, a motorcade of squad cars departed from the Gardena, Calif., police department and pulled up to one fencing operation. Swett said the merchandise being sold was boosted goods.

"There is Victoria's Secret, expensive Victoria's Secret, the gift sets," he said, pointing down a line of tables. "J.C. Penny, Miramax, its real stuff not counterfeit."

He spotted a bottle of Katy Perry brand perfume, which usually retails for around $90 but one seller had it priced at $59.

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Blaze in illegal Kolkata market kills 13: officials

KOLKATA: A fire swept through a six-storey building housing an illegal market in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata on Wednesday, killing 13 people who were unable to escape the inferno, local officials said.

"The death toll in the Surya Sen Market fire has jumped to 13," state fire services minister Javed Khan told AFP. "The market has only one exit point and those who stayed in the market at night were trapped after the fire broke out."

Hundreds of firefighters were at the scene of the blaze near the railway station in the centre of the former colonial capital of India, where decrepit and poorly maintained buildings are vulnerable to fires.

The victims of Wednesday's blaze were thought to be men who were sleeping in the building when the fire broke out at around 04:00 am (2230 GMT) director of fire services for West Bengal state Gopal Bhattacharya told AFP.

"The market housed in the two floors of the building has no legal sanction," he explained.

In late 2011, 90 people were killed when a fire engulfed a hospital in Kolkata while in March 2010 a huge blaze on one of the city's most exclusive streets left at least 43 dead.

- AFP/ck

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Feds strike a deal with alleged illegal streaming site operator

Homeland Security banner that goes on seized domain name sites.

(Credit:
Screenshot by David Carnoy/CNET)

After taking down Channelsurfing.net and arresting its alleged owner in 2011, the Feds now seem to be easing up. Before going to trial, the government struck a deal earlier this month with the alleged site owner Brian McCarthy.

In a "Deferred Prosecution" memo filed on February 11, which was obtained by TorrentFreak, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara writes that "after a thorough investigation, it has been determined that the interest of the United States and your own interest will best be served by deferring prosecution in this District. Prosecution will be deferred during the term of your good behavior and satisfactory compliance with the terms of this agreement."

Channelsurfing.net was seized in February 2011 during a massive Department of Homeland Security crackdown on sports streaming sites that were allegedly infringing on copyright laws.

At the time, Bharara said in a statement, "The illegal streaming of professional sporting events over the Internet deals a financial body blow to the leagues and broadcasters who are forced to pass their losses off to the fans in the form of higher priced tickets and pay-per-view events... the seizures of these infringing Web sites reaffirm our commitment to working with our law enforcement partners to protect copyrighted material and put the people who steal it out of business."

Shortly after the site's seizure, McCarthy was arrested and accused of criminal copyright infringement, according to TorrentFreak. Channelsurfing.net did not actually stream sports itself but instead linked to external sport streams.

It's unclear why the feds are letting McCarthy off the hook. Under the terms of the deal he came to with the government, he has to show good behavior, find a legal job, not violate any laws, and steer clear of anything to do with illegal Internet streaming. He also has to pay back $351,033, which he allegedly made via Channelsurfing.net, according to TorrentFreak.

Under its program "Operation In Our Sites," the Department of Homeland Security has continued to crack down on illegal sports streaming sites over the past couple of years. Last February, it seized 307 Web sites that either live-streamed sports or sold fake NFL paraphernalia. It also arrested a man who allegedly operated nine of the streaming sites on criminal copyright infringement charges.

According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more than 700 domain names have been seized since "Operation In Our Sites" launched in 2010.

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Iran news agency covers up Michelle Obama at the Oscars

The Iranian government had lots to say about last night's best picture winner at the Oscar's, "Argo."

They dismissed Ben Affleck's film about the 1979 Iran hostage crisis as an "advertisement for the CIA," claimed it had an unflattering portrayal of the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and said the win was endorsed by the U.S. government because it was introduced by First Lady Michelle Obama.

They also had some opinions on what the first lady was wearing.

Anyone who watched the Oscars saw that Obama wore a sparkling silver gown, showing off her trademark bare arms. The image shown by Iranian state news agency Fars showed Obama wearing a similar dress, but with covered arms -- clearly photoshopped.

This isn't the first time images produced by Western companies have been photoshopped to comply with the conservative culture of Muslim governments. Last October, Ikea apologized for removing pictures of women in its furniture catalog distributed in Saudi Arabia.

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Americans Targeted for Allegedly Running Underage Prostitution in Philippines

Arthur Benjamin is sitting at the edge of a small stage, wearing a lavender Hawaiian shirt and nursing a bottle of San Miguel Light beer. The 6-foot-6 mustachioed Texan lazily watches the half dozen or so girls dancing rather unenergetically around the stage's pole.

"I forgot your gift again, it's in the car," Benjamin says to one of the girls on stage, shouting above the pop music blaring from the speaker system.

The small, dingy bar, which Benjamin says he owns, is called Crow Bar. It's in a rundown part of the picturesque Subic Bay in the western Philippines, about a three hour drive from the capital, Manila. Home for 50 years to a United States naval base, Subic Bay has become synonymous with foreigners looking for sex in the long string of bars that line the main road along the coast.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

The bars in this area are often packed with older foreign men ogling the young Filipina women available for the night for a "bar fine" of around 1,500 Filipino pesos, or just over $35. Many of the bars are owned and operated by Americans, often former military servicemen who either served on the base or whose ships docked here until the base was shuttered under political pressure in 1992.

Most of the prostitutes working in the bars are indeed 18 or older. But in the Philippines, just a small scratch to the surface can reveal a layer of young, underage girls who have mostly come from impoverished rural provinces to sell their bodies to help support their families.

Benjamin, 49, is, according to his own statements, one of the countless foreigners who has moved beyond just having sex with underage girls to owning and operating a bar where girls in scantily-clad outfits flaunt their bodies for patrons.

"My wife recently found out that I have this place," he tells an ABC News "Nightline" team, unaware they are journalists and recording the conversation on tiny hidden cameras disguised as shirt buttons.

Benjamin said that a "disgruntled waitress" had written his wife on Facebook, detailing his activities in Subic Bay.

"She sent her this thing saying that I have underage girls who stayed with me, that I [have anal sex with them], I own a bar, I've got other girls that I'm putting through high school, all this other crap," he said.

"All of which is true," he laughed. "However, I have to deny."

He sends a text message summoning his current girlfriend, a petite dark-skinned girl called Jade, who he said is just 16 years old. Benjamin says he bought the bar for her about a year ago and while most still call it Crow Bar, he officially re-named it with her last name.

"She needed a place to stay, I needed a place to do her. I bought a bar for her," he says, explaining that she lives in a house out back by the beach.

"You're not going to find anything like this in the States, not as a guy my age," he said as he looked down at Jade. "Ain't going to happen."

Benjamin is the latest target of Father Shay Cullen, a Catholic priest with a thick Irish brogue and fluency in the local language, Tagalog. Through his non-profit center called Preda, he's been crusading against underage sex trafficking in the Philippines for 40 years.

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Italy faces stalemate after election shock

ROME (Reuters) - Italy faced political deadlock on Tuesday after a stunning election that saw the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo become the strongest party in the country but left no group with a clear majority in parliament.

The center-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani won the lower house by around 125,000 votes and claimed the most seats in the Senate but was short of the majority in the upper house that it would need to govern.

Bersani claimed victory but said it was obvious that Italy was in "a very delicate situation". Party officials said the center-left would try to form a government but it was unclear what its options would be.

Neither Grillo, a comedian-turned-politician who previously ruled out any alliance with another party, nor Silvio Berlusconi's center-right bloc, which threatened to challenge the close tally, showed any immediate willingness to negotiate.

World financial markets reacted nervously to the prospect of a government stalemate in the euro zone's third-largest economy with memories still fresh of the financial crisis that took the 17-member currency bloc to the brink of collapse in 2011.

Italy's borrowing costs have come down in recent months, helped by the promise of European Central Bank support but the election result confirmed fears that it would not produce a government strong enough to implement effective reforms.

Grillo's surge in the final weeks of the campaign threw the race open, with hundreds of thousands turning up at his rallies to hear him lay into targets ranging from corrupt politicians and bankers to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In just three years, his 5-Star Movement, heavily backed by a frustrated generation of young Italians increasingly shut out from permanent full-time jobs, has grown from a marginal group to one of the most talked about political forces in Europe.

Its score of 25.5 percent in the lower house was just ahead of the 25.4 percent for Bersani's Democratic Party, which ran in a coalition with the leftist SEL party and it won almost 8.7 million votes overall, more than any other single party.

"The 5-Star Movement is the real winner of the election," said SEL leader Nichi Vendola, who said that his coalition would have to deal with Grillo, who mixes fierce attacks on corruption with policies ranging from clean energy to free Internet.

RECESSION

"It's a classic result. Typically Italian," said Roberta Federica, a 36-year-old office worker in Rome. "It means the country is not united. It is an expression of a country that does not work. I knew this would happen."

A long recession and growing disillusion with mainstream parties fed a bitter public mood that saw more than half of Italian voters back parties that rejected the austerity policies pursued by Prime Minister Mario Monti with the backing of Italy's European partners.

Berlusconi's campaign, mixing sweeping tax cut pledges with relentless attacks on Monti and Merkel, echoed many of the themes pushed by Grillo and underlined the increasingly angry mood of the Italian electorate.

Stefano Zamagni, an economic professor at Bologna University said the result showed that a significant share of Italians "are fed up with following the austerity line of Germany and its northern allies".

"These people voted to stick one up to Merkel and austerity," he said.

Election rules give the center-left a solid majority in the lower house, despite its slim advantage in terms of votes, but without the Senate it will not be able to pass legislation.

Calculations by the Italian Centre for Electoral Studies, part of LUISS university in Rome, gave 121 seats to Bersani's coalition, 117 to Berlusconi, 54 for Grillo and 22 to the centrist coalition led by Monti.

That leaves no party or likely alliance with the 158 seats needed to form a Senate majority.

Even if the next government turns away from the tax hikes and spending cuts brought in by Monti, it will struggle to revive an economy which has scarcely grown in two decades.

Monti was widely credited with tightening Italy's public finances and restoring its international credibility after the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, whom he replaced as the 2011 financial crisis threatened to spin out of control.

But he struggled to pass the kind of structural reforms needed to improve competitiveness and lay the foundations for a return to economic growth and a weak center-left government may not find it any easier.

(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary and Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Hong Kong court begins hearing on maid residency

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's top court on Tuesday began hearing a challenge to the right of abode law in a long-running case that could pave the way for thousands of foreign maids to claim residency in the city.

The Court of Final Appeal hearing centres on Filipina maid Evangeline Banao Vallejos, who won a High Court ruling in 2011 granting her the right to request permanent residency status, denied to foreign maids until then.

The government appealed against that ruling last March, successfully arguing the authorities had discretionary power to decide who was eligible for residency and that restrictions on maids were not unconstitutional and discriminatory.

Campaigners for the rights of migrant workers argue that Hong Kong's 300,000 maids, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, should not be treated any differently from other foreigners who flock to the former British colony to find work as lawyers, bankers, accountants and managers.

Most of those workers are eligible to apply for permanent residency, granting them additional rights and access to government services once they have lived in the city for at least seven years.

Foreign maids earn a minimum wage of HK$3,920 (US$505) a month and receive benefits such as one guaranteed day off a week but rights groups say they still face discrimination and a lack of legal protection from abusive employers.

A maid's visa is tied to a specific employer, leaving her in a difficult situation if she wants to change jobs, activists say.

Many live with their employers for years and send portions of their pay back to relatives at home, providing a huge source of foreign remittances to the Philippine and Indonesian economies.

Government officials have warned that making domestic helpers eligible for permanent residency could open the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of residency requests from maids, some of whom have lived in Hong Kong for decades.

The case has also highlighted the issue of the city's judicial independence from Beijing.

Some lawmakers had called on Hong Kong to refer the case to mainland authorities for their reinterpretation of the Basic Law, the mini-constitution which sets out the city's semi-autonomous status and rights since its return to China in 1997.

The present case could impact on another controversial right of abode case.

In 1999 the Court of Final Appeal ruled that children of people who have right of abode also have that right, even if their parents were not permanent residents at the time of their birth.

Hong Kong's government asked Beijing to "reinterpret" the Basic Law after claiming an extra 1.6 million people in China could obtain the right of abode, causing a severe social and economic strain on the densely populated city.

Beijing subsequently ruled that children born outside Hong Kong were only eligible for right of abode if at least one parent was already a permanent resident.

However, in 2001 the Court of Final Appeal ruled that children born in Hong Kong to mainland parents had right of abode regardless of whether their parents were legal residents.

- AFP/ck

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Social video startup Viddy lays off a third of its staff

Social video startup Viddy has laid off a dozen employees, or about a third of its work force, as it faces competition from a Twitter app.

The cuts come less than a month after the firing of co-founder and CEO Brett O'Brien, who was rumored to have turned down a buyout offer from Twitter. In a statement, Viddy's board confirmed the staff reductions, which will reportedly focus on marketing and operations:

As the board continues to review Viddy's business, we've identified specific ways to streamline costs which include eliminating some positions. These changes will allow the Viddy team to be focused on bringing the most innovative and engaging social mobile video product to market. Viddy has a strong balance sheet and an exciting product roadmap ahead, including an upcoming new product release, and we have the right team in place to execute moving forward.

Engineers deemed key to development of future products will reported stay with the company, which will be run by co-founders J.J. Aguhob and Chris Ovitz.

Billed as the Instagram of video, the company's apps allow mobile devices to capture and share 15-second video clips that can be enhanced with video and audio filters. The Venice, Calif.-based startup announced in December that it had 40 million users.

However, Viddy has faced increased competition for the past couple of weeks from Vine, an app that Twitter acquired in October and launched last month.

(Via TechCrunch)

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Oscars 2013: Stars dazzle on the red carpet

Stars dazzled on the Oscars red carpet Sunday night in Los Angeles, wearing shades of red and blue, along with neutral tones -- and practically everything in between.

67 Photos

Oscars 2013: Red carpet

"Silver Linings Playbook" actress Jennifer Lawrence opted to wear her hair pulled back as she walked the red carpet in a strapless white Dior Haute Couture gown, reminiscent of a bride's dress. While speaking with host Kristin Chenoweth on ABC's red carpet pre-show, Lawrence mentioned how she was excited to see Sally Field and her new buddy Laura Dern at the Oscars.

Nine-year-old actress Quvenzhane Wallis donned a blue Armani Junior gown, and of course, carried her pooch purse, which has become her staple on the red carpet.

Jessica Chastain, in a stunning Armani Prive gown and vintage Harry Winston jewelry, told the story behind her dress choice. "It came down to old Hollywood for me," she said, adding, "What I love so much about this dress is the pink beads and underneath it's copper."

Chastain wasn't the only actress wearing Armani; Naomi Watts also chose the designer for her beaded gown.

Kerry Washington walked the red carpet in a Miu Miu dress, Christian Louboutin shoes, a Prada bag, earrings by Chopard and a Fred Leighton ring. When asked about her dress' interesting hue, Washington described it as "Coral-ly, red, hot pink and copper...I can't really put a name on the color."

Amanda Seyfried, wearing a fitted Alexander McQueen dress, said on the red carpet, "I can't sit down and I feel like my organs are being pulled out of my body slowly."

"Lincoln" star Field stood out in a red gown, while Jennifer Aniston, also in red, said her Valentino gown felt "very princess." Reese Witherspoon opted for a strapless bright royal blue number with black across to the top, designed by Louis Vuitton. "I saw this dress and I just loved the color, " said Witherspoon, who also donned Louis Vuitton jewelry.

Amy Adams, meanwhile, sported a flowing Oscar de la Renta powder blue dress with tiered layers throughout the large ballskirt.

Prada was a last-minute decision for Anne Hathaway, who said she decided on her blush-colored dress only three hours before her red-carpet arrival. She paired her gown with a sparkly Tiffany necklace.

Jennifer Garner, in a strapless plum Gucci gown, did a bit more planning, telling, Chenoweth, "They made it for me...I loved this from the minute I saw the first sketch."

Halle Berry, in a black and silver-striped Versace dress, said she wanted to go "as a Bond girl to the Oscars."

Gold also made its way onto the red carpet. Rennee Zellweger chose a gold Carolina Herrera gown, one of her favorite designers and one she describes as "easy" to wear.

"Skyfall" songstress Adele, sporting a black gown, joked, "My dress weighs 50 kilos."

Tell us: Who was your favorite on the red carpet?

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