Man executed for stabbing woman to death at her home - click for more

On Thursday a man convicted of murdering a woman by stabbing her repeatedly after breaking into her home about 13 years ago was executed.

TaiChin Preyor, 46, died by lethal injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville, a prisons official said.

The execution was delayed for more than three hours to allow the U.S. Supreme Court time to hear an appeal from Preyor's lawyer to spare his life, which the court rejected.

The execution was the 543rd in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state.

“First and foremost I’d like to say, ’Justice has never advanced by taking a life’ by Coretta Scott King. Lastly, to my wife and to my kids, I love y’all forever and always. That’s it," Preyor was quoted as saying in his final statement by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Preyor was convicted in the 2004 killing of Jami Tackett, 24. He also stabbed a man who was with her, who survived.

"Several of Tackett’s neighbors heard her screaming and saw Preyor when he left her apartment," the Texas Attorney General's Office said.

Lawyers for Preyor launched the appeal at the court on Thursday, arguing that prior counsel was incompetent and included one lawyer who lost his license two decades earlier and another attorney with no death penalty experience who used Wikipedia to navigate the Texas death penalty system.

"His trial counsel ignored glaring references to significant mitigation evidence, depriving jurors of crucial information likely to persuade them to impose a life sentence," Preyor's lawyers said in their filing.

Lawyers for Texas asked the Supreme Court to deny the appeal, saying Preyor had been justly sentenced and should have raised concerns about prior counsel earlier.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Leslie Adler and Richard Pullin)

20 Stavros Niarchos Foundation Academic Excellence Scholarships in Greece, 2017

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation is delighted to offer twenty (20) Academic Excellence Scholarships in the field of Civil Society Organizations. International students are eligible to apply for this scholarship program.

The scholarships are aimed at strengthening scientific research regarding civil society and encouraging young people to follow the example set by Tzanetos Antypas in the field of social work. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation [(SNF) (www.SNF.org)] is one of the world’s leading private, international philanthropic organizations, making grants in the areas of arts and culture, education, health and sports, and social welfare. Since 1996, SNF has committed $2.1 billion, through 3,891 grants to nonprofit organizations in 113 nations around the world.

Course Level: Scholarships are available to postgraduate as well PhD students.

Study Subject: Scholarships are awarded in the field of Civil Society Organizations.

Scholarship Award: The scholarships are allocated as follows:

• Ten (10) scholarships for postgraduate students in the Postgraduate Program «Governance and Public Policy” (€3,500 per student).
• Ten (10) scholarships for Doctoral Candidates (€9,000 per student), who will conduct research on issues of civil society, volunteerism, nonprofit organizations, and NGOs.

Number of Scholarships: Up to 10 postgraduate and 10 doctoral scholarships are available.

Scholarship can be taken in Greece

Eligibility: The following criteria must be met in order for applicants to be eligible for the scholarship:

• Postgraduate students and PhD candidates will acquire high-level academic knowledge and skills in a Department that follows an interdisciplinary approach, in the subjects of economics and modern governance in the European and international context, as well as on the workings of civil society organizations specifically. They will strengthen their theoretical foundations and gain new opportunities to exploit their abilities, in order to enhance their career prospects in the dynamic field of community service.

Nationality: International students are eligible to apply for this scholarship program.

Masters Scholarships

How to Apply: Applications are submitted electronically at pedis-at-uop.gr. Subsequently, the three-member evaluation committee meets in the first week of October 2017, followed the scholarship selection process.

The documents substantiating the applicant’s academic and professional career are not required to be submitted along with the submission of the application dossier but must be made available to the Evaluation Committee when requested. All applications must be submitted electronically by September 30th, of each academic year. The Academic Committee meets in the first week of each new academic year, i.e. in September, and decides on the allocation of scholarships. Those selected during the first stage of the selection process will be called for an interview by the members of the evaluation committee.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation is not involved in the process of candidate selection and evaluation, for which the University of Peloponnese is solely responsible.

Interested applicants will need to submit the following:

• A recently updated curriculum vitae, following Europass standards, which will include academic achievements, volunteering experience, professional career information and any research activity.
• A short “letter of motivation”, (up to 400 words) on why they believe that attending the postgraduate or PhD program will benefit their career in the NGO sector.
• The acceptance of their application to the Postgraduate Program “Governance and Public Policy” or their application for a PhD thesis, by the PSIR GA.
• A letter of recommendation from a person who can assess their professional experience and voluntary action, in collaboration with civil society actors.
• A copy of their income tax return statement for the recent fiscal year.

Application Deadline: The application deadline is September 30, 2017.

48 years later: A look back at the moon landing

                                                   48 years later: A look back at the moon landing

48 years ago, Neil Armstrong took mankind's first step on the moon as a part of NASA's Apollo 11 mission. John Noble Wilford, the New York Times science reporter who covered the moon landing, looks back on what he says he knew was the biggest story he would ever report.

Stephen Farrell, Susan Archer and Josephine SedgwickThe New York Times

From small crimes, cousins allegedly move to killing 4 men

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Two cousins charged in a gruesome crime spree that ended with police unearthing the bodies of four young men buried on a family farm started off committing small crimes.

But authorities don't know why the 20-year-old suspects escalated from offenses like break-ins and jewelry heists to allegedly killing their victims and burying them in two pits so deep beneath the ground that a backhoe and dozens of people were needed to sift through the dirt.

Police found the missing men after a grueling, five-day search in sweltering heat and pelting rain.

For Cosmo DiNardo, whose lawyer said he confessed to all four killings in exchange for being spared the death penalty, brushes with the law began in his early teenage years.

He was about 14 when the Bensalem Police Department first had contact with him. He had more than 30 run-ins with its officers over the next six years, department director Frederick Harran said, although court filings reflect only the minor infractions and traffic stops that came after age 18.

Honolulu Fire: At Least Three Killed in High-Fire Blaze Yahoo View•July 15, 2017

The fire broke out at a Honolulu high-rise condominium building on Friday, sending flames and smoke billowing out from the tower's upper floors and causing people to flee to safety.
Investigators look to piece together what caused the fire as the mayor says the law exempting buildings built before 1974 from sprinkler requirements may need to be amended.

Nikki Haley: ‘We can’t trust Russia, and we won’t ever trust Russia’

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is offering a remarkably different account of President Trump’s meeting at the G-20 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin than other U.S. and Russian officials, claiming Trump told Putin that the United States believes that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election and that the Kremlin needs to quit interfering in the U.S. democratic process.

“What he did was bring up right away the election meddling, and he did that for a reason,” Haley said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “One, he wanted to basically look him in the eye, let him know that, yes, we know you meddled in our elections. Yes, we know you did it, cut it out. And I think President Putin did exactly what we thought he would do, which is deny it. This is Russia trying to save face. And they can’t. They can’t. Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections.”

Haley’s description runs counter to the versions offered by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Trump himself.

While Trump said Sunday that he “strongly pressed” Putin about Moscow’s meddling, the president has also expressed doubt about who was behind it.

Trump urges 'energy dominance' as he promotes exports, jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Thursday it is taking steps to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans as President Donald Trump continues to push for U.S. "energy dominance" in the global market.

The Interior Department is rewriting a five-year drilling plan established by the Obama administration, with an eye toward opening areas in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans that now are off-limits to drilling. It's one of six initiatives that the president unveiled Thursday in hopes of generating more energy exports and jobs.

"The golden era of American energy is now underway," Trump said in a Thursday speech at the Energy Department. "And I'll go a step further: The golden era of America is now underway, believe me. And you're all going to be a part of it in creating this exciting new future."

U.S. oil production has boomed in recent years, and exports of oil and natural gas are surging, primarily because of improved drilling techniques such as fracking that have opened up production in previously out-of-reach areas. Trump has pledged to ramp up production further, withdrawing from the Paris climate change agreement because of the limitations that it could have placed on the burning of fossil fuels.

While Trump has promised that the initiative will create millions of jobs, the energy sector employs fewer workers than it did a decade ago despite the recent boom. The Labor Department said there are 655,300 jobs in mining coal and extracting oil and natural gas, down from a peak of 1.18 million jobs in 1981.

As the administration celebrated a self-proclaimed "energy week," Trump said more steps are needed to "unleash" domestic reserves and remove government regulations that could prevent the U.S. from achieving global dominance in energy.

Trump and other officials say they are confident the country can pave the path toward energy dominance by exporting oil, gas and coal to markets around the world, and promoting nuclear energy and even renewables such as wind and solar power.

The president said Thursday that his administration has also approved construction of a new petroleum pipeline to Mexico. The State Department said it had issued a permit to NuStar Logistics for the construction and operation of the New Burgos Pipeline, which would have the capacity to deliver 108,000 barrels a day and would cross the U.S.-Mexico border near Peñitas, Texas.

Trump suggested the pipeline would run beneath the wall he intends to build along the U.S. southern border to limit illegal immigration, human trafficking and drug smuggling.

"And that will go right under the wall, right?" Trump said.

He said that Sempra Energy signed an agreement to negotiate the sale of natural gas to South Korea and that the Energy Department is approving two applications to export natural gas from a Louisiana terminal. His administration will also perform a complete review of nuclear energy policy and seek to address barriers to financing coal plants overseas, as well as opening up offshore drilling.

Trump signed an executive order in April to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, reversing restrictions imposed by President Barack Obama. Trump has also pushed to revive U.S. coal production after years of decline. Coal mining rose by 19 percent in the first five months of the year as the price of natural gas edged up, according to Energy Department data.

A report released in January by the Energy Information Administration said the country is on track to become a net energy exporter by 2026, although the White House said Tuesday that net exports could top imports as soon as 2020.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said increased offshore drilling could provide more than enough revenue to offset an $11.5 billion maintenance backlog in national parks.

"There's a consequence when you put 94 percent of our offshore off limits," Zinke said in a speech this week. "There's a consequence of not harvesting trees. There's a consequence of not using some of our public lands for creation of wealth and jobs."