Arias Had No Remorse: Prosecutor












Prosecutor Juan Martinez hammered alleged murderer Jodi Arias today with accusations that she felt no remorse when she lied over and over again about killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.


"Ma'am you have a problem with telling the truth don't you?" Martinez asked as his first question today, the 11th day Arias has been on the stand explaining her role in Alexander's death.


"Not typically," Arias responded.


Martinez then took Arias through a series of lies she admittedly told in the days after she stabbed and shot Alexander to death on June 4, 2008, lying to friends, investigators and even Alexander's grandmother, going so far as to send a dozen irises to his grandmother expressing her sympathy.



See the Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial


Arias, 32, has testified that she killed Alexander in self-defense during a violent argument and lied about it out of "shame."


But prosecutors say that the 27 stab wounds, a slashed throat, and two bullets she fired at Alexander's head prove that she murdered him. She could face the death penalty if convicted.


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


Today Martinez tried to raise doubts about Arias' earlier testimony in which she depicted Alexander as an increasingly menacing and sexually demanding lover by grilling her about the lies she told after she killed Alexander.


Martinez pointed out that Arias lied to Detective Esteban Flores of the Mesa, Ariz., police department as he investigated Alexander's death. She initially denied to the detective that she was at Alexander's Mesa, Ariz., home when he was killed, and later said he was murdered by a pair of masked intruders.








Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video









Jodi Arias Remains Calm Under Cross-Examination Watch Video









Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video





"You told (Flores) you would help him, but that was a lie right? You weren't there to tell the truth. You were there for another purpose: to make sure he didn't get the truth.... You were hoping, ma'am, that (Flores) would believe what you were saying so you could walk out of jail," Martinez said.


Arias argued with Martinez, claiming that she lied to investigators out of shame, and lied to friends immediately after the death out of confusion.


"My mind wasn't right during all that period," Arias said referring to the hours immediately following the killing when she drove through the Arizona desert and made phone calls to ex-boyfriend Matthew McCartney and new love interest Ryan Burns.


"It's like I wasn't accepting it in my mind... because I never killed anyone before," she said.


Martinez also suggested that Arias tried to find out the status of the investigation into Alexander's death so that she could know if she were about to be arrested. When a friend of Alexander's called her to report the news about Alexander's death, Arias asked about details into the investigation, the prosecutor said. She also called Alexander's Mormon bishop and asked him what he knew about the case, and then asked friends and family members what they knew, according to Martinez.


"You needed to see what you needed to know to make sure you weren't charged. What purpose would there be for that information other than to benefit you?" Martinez asked. "You called [the bishop] at 3 a.m. You call him and spoke to him because you wanted to get the information about what he knew about the investigation. That was going to help you."


Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial


Martinez also went over lies that Arias told to her friend, Leslie Udy, and Ryan Burns, both of whom she saw in Utah the day after killing Alexander. She talked to both about Alexander as if he were still alive. Martinez pointed out that Arias even made out with Burns in his bedroom during their visit.


But Arias claimed that it was Burns who lied about their encounter.


"And with Mr. Burns, didn't you get on top of him and grind on him?" Martinez asked.


Arias said she was on top of Burns at one point, but they did not "grind."


"Well, when you were romantic kissing, he did put his hand between your legs, didn't he?" Martinez said, referring to Burns' own testimony in court weeks earlier.


"No," Arias said. "It could be that he's full of crap...when he says he got near my vaginal area."


"This is the person who lied to him, to (friends), to Detective Flores, and yet you're telling us someone else is full of crap," Martinez asked incredulously.


"When it comes to that, yes," she said.






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Ancient continent hides beneath Indian Ocean









































The sands of Mauritius are hiding a secret: deep beneath them lurks an ancient continent.












Trond Torsvik and colleagues at the University of Oslo, Norway, analysed grains of zircon found on the island's beaches, measuring the balance of lead and uranium isotopes to work out their age. This showed some formed almost 2 billion years ago – although the volcanic island is no more than 65 million years old.












So where did the grains come from? Torsvik thinks they are from fragments of continental crust beneath Mauritius that melted as the volcanic island formed. The team have named the proposed continent Mauritia.












It's a reasonable idea, says Michael Wysession at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. "It's hard to imagine how zircons could be there any other way."












Journal reference: Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1736


















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































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Castro picks 'young' new heir to take regime into future






HAVANA: Cuban President Raul Castro on Sunday won re-election to what he pledged will be his last term, and finally unveiled a 52-year-old political heir he wants to bring the regime into the future.

"This will be my last term," Castro, 81, told lawmakers after the National Assembly reelected him and named a new regime number two -- Council of State Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, 52.

Choosing the former military man and professor from Villa Clara, who has represented the president on foreign trips in recent months, "marks a final step in configuring the country's future leadership, through the slow and orderly transfer of the main leadership positions to new generations," Castro said.

This is not the transition Cuba's nemesis, the United States, has fruitlessly spent decades and millions of dollars seeking.

Washington has long prodded neighbor Cuba to open up to a multiparty system and market economics, much of the time during the more than 40-year rule of revolution icon Fidel Castro.

Through the Cold War and now for over two decades after it, the United States has kept trying to isolate Cuba to press for democratic change.

It has had a full trade embargo on Havana, the only one-party Communist regime in the Americas, since 1962 to pressure the communist island to open up democratically and economically.

Cuba finally appears poised to have new leadership lined up -- if only it can continue to prop up its dysfunctional economy while keeping the regime afloat.

In addition to depending on Venezuelan aid, Cuba has so far failed to discover oil in its waters that experts say lies beneath the seabed off its Gulf of Mexico coast.

The fate and future of the Cuban regime also depends on the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Cuba's main economic supporter and political ally, who is recovering from cancer surgery.

There is no guarantee a successor would feed Cuba's economy as much as Chavez.

Diaz-Canel, who turns 53 in April, is an electrical engineer by training, a former education minister and the president's de facto political heir seeking to project the Americas' only one-party Communist regime into the future.

Since March, Diaz-Canel has been one of the eight vice presidents on the Council of Ministers.

He took the number two spot from Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 82, who relinquished the post but remains among Cuba's vice presidents.

Diaz-Canel, as political heir, cuts a starkly different profile from the revolutionary leadership, whose members are mostly in their 80s.

If he comes to lead Cuba, he would be the first leader of the regime whose entire life has been under the Castro regime that started in January 1959.

Barring any changes, Diaz-Canel would succeed Raul Castro, who will be 82 in June, if the president serves out his term through 2018.

A careful speaker, the lanky Diaz-Canel also has been a leader of the Communist Youth Union, and went on an international "mission" to Nicaragua during the first leftist Sandinista government.

He rose up the ranks, leading the party in Villa Clara in central Cuba, before being chosen to lead it in Holguin province in the east.

Diaz-Canel was then bumped up to the Politburo in 2003.

There was more new blood among the five vice presidents on the Council of State, in the person of Mercedes Lopez Acea, 48, the former leader of the Communist Party's Havana provincial assembly.

Raul Castro became Cuba's interim president when Fidel took ill in 2006. He formally became president in 2008.

The National Assembly, whose members ran for office in October unopposed, also chose Esteban Lazo, 68, as their new speaker.

Seen as an ideological hardliner, he is also the regime's most prominent Afro-Cuban leader.

"The choice of Lazo to lead the National Assembly confirms that the approach to any ideological change is a really cautious one.

Lazo has been all about ideological orthodoxy," said professor Arturo Lopez-Levy, at the University of Denver in the US state of Colorado.

On Friday, Raul Castro surprised some by joking publicly about resigning.

"I am going to resign. I am about to turn 82. I have the right to retire. Don't you believe me?" Castro said.

-AFP/sb



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Jimmie Johnson comes out on top






















Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos


Daytona 500: The best photos





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STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Jimmie Johnson led 17 laps, says he was confident in his car

  • Danica Patrick becomes first woman to lead green-flag lap at the race

  • Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a runner-up for the third time in four years

  • Some fans injured in Saturday incident were scheduled to attend race, official says




(CNN) -- Racing at the Daytona International Speedway can be like playing the lottery against 42 other drivers who all have a ticket, all seem to have an equal shot at winning.


While luck can certainly help, so does experience, something Jimmie Johnson put to use as the laps wound down in NASCAR's season-opening and most prestigious race of the season.


Johnson won the Daytona 500 on Sunday, edging out Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished second for the third time in four years.


Johnson, who won the race for the second time, led 17 laps on the track where speeds are limited by a restrictor plate. The result is close racing, with cars separated by hundredths of a second.


It's a race that often involves a big wreck near the end, so Sunday drivers were content to line up one by- ne and go around and a round and around for the first 180 laps. Then Johnson took over.


"I had a lot of confidence leading the train," Johnson said of being the first car in line as drivers raced around the 2 1/2-mile track. "I knew I had a fast car."


Bleacher Report: Johnson finds way to win


His crew chief, Chad Knaus said that despite the uncertainty of racing this season with the latest generation of NASCAR cars -- which are lighter and sleeker -- they knew for weeks what they wanted to do.


"Jimmie did a great job of following that plan," said Knaus, who sat out the team's 2006 Daytona 500 win because of a suspension.


Bleacher Report's snap reaction









Danica Patrick through the years







































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Danica Patrick, the first woman to win the pole position at the Daytona 500, led three times, including five laps under green -- also becoming the first woman to lead a lap at the race not under a yellow flag caution. She finished eighth, the highest finish ever for a female driver at the race.


"At the end of the day, it was a solid day," she said. "We stayed basically in the top 10 all day, so it was nice."


Crew chief Tony Gibson beamed after the race.


"She did great under pressure," he said.


Bleacher Report: Danica Patrick proves her chops


Earnhardt did his best to earn his second win in the "Great American Race," but his last-lap charge came up short. With just over a mile to go, Earhardt, followed by veteran driver Mark Martin, went low on the track. With Martin's car pushing Earnhardt's the two pushed into contention, but Johnson maneuvered in front of his teammate Earnhardt.


The 54-year-old Martin crossed the finish line third.


"We just kinda ran out of steam out of (turn) four," Earnhardt said. "We made a good move, but there just was not enough race track."


Some of the fans who were injured by flying debris Saturday during a crash late in the Nationwide Series Drive4COPD 300 were to attend the Daytona 500, speedway president Joie Chitwood said Sunday morning.


At least 28 fans were injured when more than a dozen cars piled up in the final curve of Saturday's race. Some of the debris went over a 22-foot-high fence that was built in 2010, and some of it went through holes as the fence was mangled when a car slammed into it and bounced back onto the track.


Saturday's wreck occurred when several closely packed cars were jostling for position at top speeds of about 175 mph. They got tangled up, setting off a dangerous chain reaction that ensnared several vehicles.


Driver Kyle Larson's vehicle ended up flying into a fence that separates the track from spectators. The car broke into pieces, including tires and a fiery engine.


Larson walked away from the crash, even after the front part of his No. 32 car was gone. He and the other nine drivers involved told reporters that they were checked at a medical tent on the Daytona infield and released.







Read More..

Danica Patrick, first woman to lead a lap at Daytona 500

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., left, hugs his girlfriend Danica Patrick before her start in the NASCAR Nationwide Series auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. / AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.Danica Patrick made more history at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday.

She became the first woman to lead a lap and was the highest female finisher in the famed Daytona 500. She led five laps and finished eighth. Janet Guthrie had the previous best finish for a woman in the Daytona 500 — 11th in 1980.




29 Photos


Danica Patrick






Play Video


Danica Patrick on making NASCAR history



"You spend a lot of time thinking about what to do when the time comes," Patrick said. "I kept asking up above what was working. You needed a hole, you needed people to help you out. I had a little bit of help today here and there, but I felt like if I was going to dive low, I had a feeling I was going to get freight-trained. ... At the end of the day, it was a solid day."

Patrick, the former IndyCar star and current Sprint Cup rookie, was in position to make a run at winner Jimmie Johnson in the final laps. But Patrick faded, dropping from third to eighth as more experienced drivers passed her.

"We stayed basically in the top 10 all day long," she said. "You can't really complain about that. It was nice."

Patrick stayed out of trouble in a 200-lap race that saw several top contenders knocked out early.

Patrick started the "Great American Race" on the pole after becoming the first woman to qualify in the top spot. She failed to lead the first lap, though, falling behind three-time race winner Jeff Gordon.

  • Danica Patrick crashes in Daytona qualifier

  • Daytona 500: Danica Patrick in spotlight
  • Nonetheless, it was a big moment for NASCAR and Patrick.

    But Patrick got her chance to be out front near the midway point. Fans were on their feet as Patrick beat Michael Waltrip to the front of the field on a restart. She led laps 90 and 91 and three more later before making a pit stop.

    Patrick also made history as an IndyCar driver. She led 19 laps as a rookie in the 2005 Indianapolis 500, becoming the first woman to lead open-wheel racing's premier event. She finished fourth.

Read More..

Pistorius' Brother Facing Own Homicide Trial












The attorney for Oscar Pistorius' family said today that the Olympian's brother is facing a culpable homicide charge relating to a 2008 road accident in which a motorcyclist was killed.


Carl Pistorius, who sat behind his younger brother, Oscar, every day at his bail hearing, will now face his own homicide trial for the accident five years ago, which his attorney, Kenny Oldwage, said he "deeply regrets."


Carl Pistorius is charged with culpable homicide, which refers to the unlawful negligent killing of another person. The charges were initially dropped, but were later reinstated, Oldwage said in a statement.


Full Coverage: Oscar Pistorius Case


Pistorius quietly appeared in court on Thursday, one day before his Paralympic gold-medalist brother was released on bail, Oldwage said. His next appearance is scheduled for the end of March.






Liza van Deventer/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images











'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Oscar Pistorius Out on Bail Watch Video











Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case Watch Video





It was the latest twist in a case that has drawn international attention, after 26-year-old Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who ran in both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, was charged with the premeditated murder of his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.


On Saturday, Carl Pistorius' Twitter handle was hacked, according to a family spokeswoman, prompting the Pistorius family to cancel their social media accounts.


Steenkamp's parents speak about the Valentine's Day shooting that ended their daughter's life in a sit-down interview on South African television tonight.


On Saturday, the model's father, Barry Steenkamp, told the Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper that Pistorius will have to "live with his conscience" and will "suffer" if his story that he shot Steenkamp because he believed she was an intruder is false.


RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Key Elements to the Murder Investigation


After a four-day long bail hearing, Pistorius was granted bail Friday by a South African magistrate.


The court set bail at about $113,000 (1 million rand) and June 4 as the date for Pistorius' next court appearance.


Pistoriuis is believed to be staying at his uncle's house as he awaits trial. As part of his bail conditions, Pistorius must give up all his guns, he cannot drink alcohol or return to the home where the shooting occurred, and he must check in with a police department twice a week.



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Amazon to open market in second-hand MP3s and e-books






















A new market for second-hand digital downloads could let us hold virtual yard sales of our ever-growing piles of intangible possessions






















WHY buy second-hand? For physical goods, the appeal is in the price – you don't mind the creases in a book or rust spots on a car if it's a bargain. Although digital objects never lose their good-as-new lustre, their very nature means there is still uncertainty about whether we actually own them in the first place, making it tricky to set up a second-hand market. Now an Amazon patent for a system to support reselling digital purchases could change that.












Amazon's move comes after last year's European Union ruling that software vendors cannot stop customers from reselling their products. But without technical support, the ruling has had no impact. In Amazon's system, customers will keep their digital purchases – such as e-books or music – in a personal data store in the cloud that only they can access, allowing them to stream or download the content.












This part is like any cloud-based digital locker except that the customer can resell previous purchases by passing the access rights to another person. Once the transaction is complete, the seller will lose access to the content. Any system for reselling an e-book, for example, would have to ensure that it is not duplicated in the transaction. That means deleting any copies the seller may have lying around on hard drives, e-book readers, and other cloud services, since that would violate copyright.












Amazon may be the biggest company to consider a second-hand market, but it is not the first. ReDigi, based in Boston, has been running a resale market for digital goods since 2011. After downloading an app, users can buy a song on ReDigi for as little as 49 cents that would costs 99 cents new on iTunes.












When users want to sell an item, they upload it to ReDigi's servers via a mechanism that ensures no copy is made during the transfer. Software checks that the seller does not retain a copy. Once transferred, the item can be bought and downloaded by another customer. ReDigi is set to launch in Europe in a few months.












Digital items on ReDigi are cheaper because they are one-offs. If your hard drive crashes and you lose your iTunes collection you can download it again. But you can only download an item from ReDigi once – there is no other copy. That is the trade-off that makes a second-hand digital market work: the risk justifies the price. The idea has ruffled a few feathers – last year EMI sued ReDigi for infringement of copyright. A judge denied the claim, but the case continues.


















Used digital goods can also come with added charm. ReDigi tracks the history of the items traded so when you buy something, you can see who has owned it and when. ReDigi's second-hand marketplace has grown into a social network. According to ReDigi founder John Ossenmacher, customers like seeing who has previously listened to a song. "It's got soul like an old guitar," he says. "We've introduced this whole feeling of connectedness."












It could be good for business too if the original vendors, such as iTunes, were to support resale and take a cut of the resell price. Nevertheless, Amazon's move bucks the industry trend. Microsoft's new Xbox, for example, is expected not to work with second-hand games.












But the market could change rapidly now that Amazon's weight is behind this, says Ossenmacher. "The industry is waking up."












This article appeared in print under the headline "Old MP3, one careful owner"




















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































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Michelle Obama's dance moves go viral on YouTube






WASHINGTON - A video clip of First Lady Michelle Obama grooving with a dressed-in-drag Jimmy Fallon on his late-night comedy talk show on Saturday has gone viral on YouTube.

In the video, the pair, each clad in conservative slacks and cardigans, and Fallon with a long brown-haired wig, perform a routine dubbed "Evolution of Mom Dancing," to promote Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" youth fitness and nutrition campaign.

The dance moves -- with names like "The 'Go Shopping, Get Groceries,'" and "The 'Out of Sync Electric Slide'" according to titles splashed on the bottom of the screen -- progress from a simple side-to-side step and ends with Fallon stalking off set as Michelle Obama rocks a smooth "Dougie."

The clip, which has already been viewed nearly a half million times since being posted Saturday and "liked" more than 10,000 times, has prompted effusive comments about the first lady and her first family.

"For the first time... we have a first lady with soul," wrote zestydude87.

And Rina Lubit wrote, "it may be just me but i really love the presidential family. they just really seem like sincerely good and chill people."

In an interview later on the show, Michelle Obama rates her husband's dance skills a "B," saying "he's got, like, three good moves."

Michelle Obama also touts her "Let's Move!" campaign, saying it has seen progress since she launched it three years ago, but there is still work to do.

"Over the past three years, we've seen a culture shift. Now people understand that this is an issue," she said.

"We've got better lunches in the schools, we've got companies putting grocery stores in under-served communities. We've got our athletes, our Olympians, working to get our kids more active. It's really heartening to see."

Obesity is a major health problem in the United States, where one in three adults and almost one in five children is overweight.

Among other initiatives for "Let's Move," the first lady, an attorney by training, has planted the White House's first garden since World War II and written a book with healthy recipes.

- AFP/ir



Read More..

Water tank body still mystery






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Cause of death deferred, pending further examination

  • Tests show hotel water is free of harmful bacteria, health department says

  • Canadian university says woman not registered in classes this year

  • Water "had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste," one guest says




Los Angeles (CNN) -- Two days after the grisly discovery, the case of the Los Angeles hotel water tank corpse is a mystery with many unanswered questions.


The decomposing body of Elisa Lam floated inside a water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel while guests brushed their teeth, bathed and drank with water from it for as long as 19 days.


A maintenance worker, checking on complaints about the hotel's water, found the 21-year-old Canadian tourist inside one of four water cisterns Tuesday morning, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Rudy Lopez said.


How and where did Elisa Lam die?








Los Angeles robbery-homicide detectives are treating this as a suspicious death for obvious reasons, Lopez said. Falling into a covered water tank behind a locked door on top of a roof would be an unusual accident.


An autopsy was completed, but the cause of death is deferred pending further examination, assistant chief coroner Ed Winter said Thursday. That may take six to eight weeks.


It will be several weeks before investigators have the toxicology lab report which would show whether Lam had any drugs in her system.


Any marks, injuries or wounds may suggest Lam died elsewhere and was dumped into the tank by her killer.


Water in Lam's lungs could be a sign that she drowned, but it might not tell why she was inside the small tank.


One clue comes from security camera video of Lam inside a hotel elevator the last day she was seen.


She is seen walking into the elevator, pushing the buttons for four floors and then peering out of the opened elevator door as if she is hiding or looking for someone. Clad in a red hoodie, Lam at one point walks out of the elevator before returning to it, pushing the buttons again. She then stands outside the open elevator doorway, motioning with her hands, before apparently walking away.


Lam checked into the Cecil Hotel five days earlier, January 26, on her way to Santa Cruz, California, according to police in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.


Why did it it take so long to find Lam?


Lam's parents reported the University of British Columbia student missing in early February. Her daily calls home stopped on January 31, police told reporters on February 6 at a Los Angeles news conference.


Because it was an international case -- and her parents and sister flew to California to find answers -- the case may have gotten more attention than most of the several thousand missing person reports made in Los Angeles each year.


A search of the hotel then found no sign of Lam, including a trip to the roof with a police search dog, Lopez said.


Strange things began happening with the hotel's water supply later in the month, according to Sabina and Michael Baugh, a British couple who spent eight days there until checking out Wednesday. The water pressure dropped to a trickle at times.


"The shower was awful," Sabina Baugh said. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."


The tap water "tasted horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste. It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."


But for a week, they never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."


Knowing now what they didn't know then about the water is sickening, Michael Baugh said. "It makes you feel literally physically sick, but more than that you feel it psychologically. You think about it and it's not good."


Eventually, the hotel maintenance department investigated the water problem, sending a worker to look into the tank, police said. He saw Lam's lifeless body at the bottom.


A hard-working family


Randy Schmidt, a spokesman for the University of British Columbia, said Lam was registered in a class in August, but was not registered in any classes this year, according to records.


"Unfortunately, we do not have much more to say, other than to extend our deepest sympathies to the family," said Schmidt.


According to Los Angeles police, Lam tended to use public transportation.


Teika Steins, manager of a hostel in Toronto, Canada, said Lam stayed a week there in early December. Steins called the young woman friendly and outgoing.


Flowers and signs were left Thursday outside the temporarily-closed Lam family restaurant in Burnaby, British Columbia.


Tanya Grohmann, who works nearby, said she was saddened by the loss and the fact the family did not know what happened to the young woman.


"They are a hard-working family. They immigrated here," she told CNN affiliate CTV. "They've been in the neighborhood for nine years working. ... They're honest people."


Why did hotel stay open after discovery?


New guests continued to check into the Cecil in the hours after firefighters removed Lam's body from the water tank. But each guest was asked to sign a waiver releasing the hotel from liability if they become ill. "You do so at your own risk and peril," the hotel's release said. Guests who already paid for their rooms would not get refunds if they move out, it said.


CNN's repeated calls to the hotel for comment were unreturned Wednesday and Thursday.


The Los Angeles Public Health Department immediately tested the water supply, but told the manager they could stay open as long as they provided bottle water and warned guests not to drink the tap water.


The results of the testing showed no harmful bacteria in the tank or the pipes, according to Angelo Bellomo, director of environmental health for the department. Chlorine in the city's water may be the reason it is safe, he said.


All of the tanks and pipes in the building still must be drained, flushed and sanitized, Bellomo said. The water will be retested after that process, which should take several days, he said.


Several guests interviewed by CNN on Wednesday indicated the hotel management did not tell them about the body in the water supply they had been drinking and bathing in.


Qui Nguyen learned about it from a CNN reporter Wednesday morning. He decided not to sign the waiver and instead find a new hotel.


Many of its guests are tourists from other countries drawn by the hotel's billing as a "European-style" hotel that is the perfect accommodation for "spend-thrifty travelers."


But if they take Kim Cooper's tour bus ride through the neighborhood, they would hear about the Cecil being the former temporary home to at least two convicted murderers, including "Night Stalker" serial killer Richard Ramirez. Ramirez paid $14 a day to stay on the 14th floor during his 1980s killing spree, Cooper said.


The Cecil Hotel is "in the heart of the action, allowing our guest to embrace the city and the surrounding areas that make Los Angeles famous," according to the description you'll hear when you call there and are placed on hold.


In fact, the hotel is just a few blocks away from the infamous Skid Row district in downtown Los Angeles, but 16 miles from the beaches of Santa Monica, eight miles from Hollywood's Walk of Fame and 12 miles from glamorous streets of Beverly Hills that are prominently featured on the Cecil's website.


If you want a reservation at the Cecil you will have to wait until next month. The website said the hotel is "sold out" until March 1. After then, you can book a room for $65.


Hotel with corpse in water tank has notorious past


CNN's Kyung Lah, Chandler Friedman and Chuck Conder contributed to this report.






Read More..

Severe budget cuts to hit economy at delicate time

(CBS News) As the automatic budget cuts known in Washington as the sequester draws closer, consider this: the federal government does $500 billion worth of business with private contractors, including as many as 120,000 small businesses.

That's everyone from the makers of nearly a million pairs of combat boots each year to the roughly 700 companies in 44 states that make parts for the Boeing C-17 military transport plane.

Jill Schlesinger, editor at large of CBS MoneyWatch, told "CBS Evening News" Saturday anchor Jim Axelrod that the blunt cuts come during a delicate time of the nation's economic recovery.

"Let's say that we're running a town, and we just had to make these across-the-board spending cuts," Schlesinger said. "What if we had to cut 20 firemen at the exact same we're going to cut 20 librarians? I mean, I love the library, but they are not equal, and what this sequestration does is it equalizes the pain across every single agency without a forethought, without saying, 'Wait a minute, what's important to safety? What's important to actually bringing money in the door?'"

The cuts would drag on the nation's economic growth, Schlesinger said.

"The economy is still fragile," she said. "Yes, we have been in recovery for a couple of years, and that's good, but this is not a robustic recovery. We're not growing at 3 or 3-and-a-half percent. We're only growing by 2 percent."

Still, the cuts aren't likely to have as negative of an effect on Wall Street because investors saw them coming, Schlesinger said.

"They've built it into their models," she said. "They've said, 'OK, we're going to give up a half a percent of growth, but we still believe that we will be able to grow enough so companies can make money.'"

A lot of the investors Schlesinger spoke to said that if things take a turn for the worse they suspect that Congress will come together and do something retroactively to potentially delay the cuts.

"No one," she said, "wants to be in office presiding over an economy that goes into a double-dip."

Watch Schlesinger's full conversation with Axelrod in the player above

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