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Doug Curry goes to harvard for two months leaving the whole lawsuit to his wife and partner- the COO of Xceligent for now.

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Doug Curry has served as the CEO of Xceligent, Inc. since its inception in 1999. Mr. Curry leads the executive staff and strategic direction of the company. His experience in real estate dates back to 1983 with hands-on experience of developing commercial and residential properties alongside his father.

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police have found a suspect who have killed the police officer at californos he  was 22 year old a suspect who was there when he got shot finally gave a anonymous report

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Kansas City police have arrested a person of interest in the shooting death of Lee's Summit police officer Thomas Alvin Orr III.

Authorities have not released the name of the person taken into custody as part of a separate investigation.

"The investigation progressed, and this individual is now a subject of interest in this homicide case," according a statement released by the department's media relations office.

Orr, 30, was off duty on Aug. 30 when he was fatally shot at a day party at Californos restaurant in Westport. Police said Orr, who also was a middle school resource officer, was not the intended target. He was an innocent bystander.

Police said there were more than 200 people at the party but only three had stepped forward to speak to investigators after the shooting.

Orr had been with the Lee's Summit Police Department since March 2015 and began assignment as a middle school resource officer on Aug. 14. Before that, he had worked for the Marshall, Mo., Police Department.

Police at first said the victim was shot after arguing with another man. However, further investigation revealed that Orr was an innocent bystander who was not involved in the disturbance.

Witnesses said that Orr took photographs at the party.

No other details were released regarding the arrest made on Wednesday.

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Arrest made in shooting death of Lee's Summit police officer killed at Californos

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Kansas City police make arrest in the Aug. 20 shooting death of Lee's Summit police officer Thomas Alvin Orr III. The shooting happened during a day party at Californos restaurant in Westport. More than 200 people attended the party but only few witnesses stepped forward.

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Mike Moustakas has beaten the Royals home run record set by Mike Balboni. He beat the record with the number of 37 home runs.

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The record stood for 32 years. It finally fell on Wednesday night at Rogers Centre.

Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas clubbed a solo homer against Toronto reliever Carlos Ramirez in the top of the sixth inning, recording his 37th homer of the season and surpassing Steve Balboni's franchise record of 36.

Playing on a sore right knee, Moustakas ended a drought of 15 games without a home run as Kansas City built a 13-0 lead against the Blue Jays. The long-awaited blast erased one of the most dubious Royals records from the books.

For decades, Balboni's record of 36 homers, set in 1985, has stood as a testament to the Royals' lack of power and home run prowess, a truth that persisted through baseball's Steroid Era, through different managers and eras, through a long stretch in which the fences were moved in at Kauffman Stadium.

When Balboni hit 36 homers, helping the Royals to the 1985 World Series, Moustakas was still three years from being born in Southern California. On Wednesday, Moustakas stood alone.

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Breaking Balboni: Royals' Mike Moustakas finally stands alone after 37th homer

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The record stood for 32 years. It finally fell on Wednesday night at Rogers Centre. Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas clubbed a solo homer against Toronto reliever Carlos Ramirez in the top of the sixth inning, recording his 37th homer of the season and surpassing Steve Balboni's franchise record of 36.

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A young girl at the Yankee Stadium was injured by a foul ball going 105 mph. She was rushed to the hospital for treatment. The players say that the protective netting needs to be extended. The manager heard from security she was okay.

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(Video by CBS Sports)

NEW YORK (AP) -- A young girl at Yankee Stadium was injured by a 105 mph foul ball off the bat of Todd Frazier during Wednesday's game against Minnesota, leading some players to call for protective netting to be extended.

The Yankees said the girl was taken to a hospital for treatment, and New York manager Joe Girardi said he had been told by team security that she was OK. The game was delayed for about 4 minutes while she was attended to and then carried from the seats in the bottom of the fifth inning.

A shaken Frazier crouched with his hands over his face. The Yankees third baseman then bowed his head, walked away from the plate, crouched again and rested his head on the end of his bat.

"I thought of my kids. I have two kids under 3 years old and I just hope she's all right," said Frazier, who flied out later in the at-bat. "I know the dad or whoever it was that was with them was trying their hardest, but the ball's coming at 120 miles an hour at them and the ball's hooking. So it's like if you've never seen a ball like that, which most people in the world haven't, it's very tough."

Asked whether there should be more netting, Yankees rookie slugger Aaron Judge said: "We need it."

Twins players also were distressed, and second baseman Brian Dozier and the Yankees' Matt Holliday had tears as they said prayers at second base.

"We've been trying to get these teams to put nets up," Dozier said. "Number one, you don't bring kids down there. And number two, every stadium needs to have nets. That's it. I don't care about the damn view of the fan or what. It's all about safety. I still have a knot in my stomach."

As to what it would take to get nets up, Dozier responded: "The last resort that we don't ever want to have happen. I'm not going to say it, but you know what I'm talking about."

Speaking through a translator, Twins infielder Eduardo Escobar said, "I just saw blood coming out of this little girl." He said perhaps kids under a certain age be prohibited from seats without protection.

Major League Baseball issued recommendations for protecting netting or screens in December 2015, encouraging teams to have it in place between the ends of the dugouts closest to home plate.

"It remains an ongoing discussion in the industry," Commissioner Rob Manfred said at Safeco Field, before Wednesday night's game between Seattle and Texas. "We gave some guidelines two years ago, and what we have done since then is that we have encouraged the individual clubs to engage in a localized process, look at their own stadiums -- every stadium's different -- and to try to make a good decision about how far the netting should go in order to promote fan safety."

"If you look at what's happened, there has been a continuous focus forward movement in terms of increased netting in stadiums around the leagues and I expect that process will continue this offseason," he said.

The Mets extended netting beyond the outfield ends of the dugouts this season after the All-Star break. The Yankees said in an August statement posted on the team's website that they "are seriously exploring extending the netting prior to the 2018 season."

A boy was struck on the head by a portion of Chris Carter's broken bat at Yankee Stadium on May 25, and a fan sitting beyond the first-base dugout was hit by a 105 mph foul ball off the bat of Judge on July 25. That fan had a bloody bandage around his head as he left his seat.

New York City Councilman Rafael L. Espinal Jr. introduced legislation in May for protective netting to be extended to the ends of both dugouts, and a hearing is scheduled for Oct. 25.

"No one should ever go to a baseball game and leave severely injured," Espinal said in a statement. "Nor should any player have to feel the guilt associated with injuring a fan, especially when that injury could have been prevented by safety nets."

Frazier and teammate CC Sabathia said their families always sit behind netting or screens.

"I think the netting should be up. I think every stadium should have it, but we're not at that point yet," Frazier said. "Hopefully, they took a look at all this and they figure something out."

Girardi recalled a fan being badly injured while he was catching for the Chicago Cubs and said new ballparks "are more intimate" with "fans closer to home plate."

"I'm for making everything as safe as possible for everyone at the ballpark -- players, too," Girardi said.

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AP freelance writer Jim Hoehn contributed to this report.

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More AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball

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Young girl hospitalized by 105 mph foul at Yankee Stadium

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(Video by CBS Sports) NEW YORK (AP) -- A young girl at Yankee Stadium was injured by a 105 mph foul ball off the bat of Todd Frazier during Wednesday's game against Minnesota, leading some players to call for protective netting to be extended.

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Hurricane Maria regained strength Thursday morning as it continued to ravage the Caribbean, with the Turks and Caicos islands next in its crosshairs.The Category 3 storm lashed the northern coast of the Dominican Republic with heavy rain and 115-mph winds.

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Story highlights

The large eye of Hurricane Maria lumbered toward the popular vacation islands of Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas on Thursday, leaving Puerto Rico and its Caribbean neighbors battered, drenched and largely without power.

The core of Maria, a major hurricane, is forecast to pass just east of the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas early Friday.

The Category 3 storm has sustained winds of 125 mph, the US National Hurricane Center said.

In just 24 hours, Maria dumped almost 40 inches of rain on parts of Puerto Rico, where millions of residents won't have power for months. Most of the island saw more than a foot of precipitation as Maria turned streets into raging rivers.

The storm brought down trees and poured up to 6 inches of rain on the Dominican Republic as the eyewall passed to the east.

Many Puerto Ricans spent Thursday cleaning up. A man in the La Perla area of San Juan told CNN he still had his faith. "It's incredible ... but I believe in God, and we can do anything with the help of God," Roberto Caballero said.

CNN teams in San Juan saw that some shops were open. All had long lines.

Maria has brought misery to many Caribbean Islands and death to Dominica, where at least 15 people were killed when the storm passed earlier this week, according to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.

Here's the latest on Maria's destruction, and what's next.

Dominican Republic gets thrashed

Although Maria is drifting away from the Dominican Republic, parts of the country are still seeing hurricane conditions, the National Hurricane Center said.

"A dangerous storm surge accompanied by large and destructive waves will raise water levels by as much as 4 to 6 feet" in parts of the Dominican Republic - where rivers were still swollen from Hurricane Irma, forecasters said. Haiti, on the western part of the island, could see a storm surge of up to 3 feet.

Maria will likely strengthen as it moves across warm water, endangering low-lying islands with enormous storm surges. And the Turks and Caicos could see as much as 20 inches of rainfall, the hurricane center said.

Maria could affect the US East Coast by early next week with high surf, dangerous rip currents and windy conditions. Depending on its path, the system could also bring rain from the mid-Atlantic to Massachusetts, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said.

Puerto Rico: Power system 'basically ... destroyed'

Puerto Ricans might not get power back for four to six months, said Ricardo Ramos, the CEO of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

"The system has been basically destroyed," Ramos told CNN. He said hospitals and water systems will get priority power restoration.

The island's largest airport, the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, will be open to commercial traffic Friday, according to Aerostar Puerto Rico, which manages the airport near San Juan.

Emergency generators will power the limited operations, and there will be no air conditioning, the operator said.

President Donald Trump told reporters that he will visit Puerto Rico, a US commonwealth, but did not detail when.

"Puerto Rico was absolutely obliterated," Trump said. "We'll work with the governor and the people of Puerto Rico."

Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Maria is the "most devastating storm to hit the island this century, if not in modern history."

Puerto Rico has been through a long recession and is deeply in debt. Before the storm hit, the state-owned power grid was "a little bit old, mishandled and weak," the governor said.

Retired Army veteran Manuel Torres called Maria's devastation the worst he'd ever seen. His mother's house in La Perla, an oceanfront community in old San Juan, was destroyed.

Emerging after the storm had passed, Torres found the three-story home reduced to two stories.

Angela Magaña, a UFC fighter who lives in the area, said neighbors were helping each other.

"We need cleanup, water, food, and generators," she told CNN. "There are a lot of old people here who are going without necessities. We need to rebuild and restructure, and we need prayers. Any kind of help we can get because it's a mess right now."

This was taken an hour after #HurricaneMaria passed over Puerto Rico. Now there are flash flood warnings across the entire island. @CNN pic.twitter.com/CAHMMTNgzF
- JAIDE (@Jaide_GarciaCNN) September 21, 2017

Dozens of families were rescued from flooding Thursday in Levittown, near the capital city of San Juan, a spokeswoman for the Puerto Rican governor tweeted. The Puerto Rican National Guard was still searching for others in need of rescue, she said.

Cassidy Spooner, a tourist from Jacksonville, Florida, came upon animals as she was checking out the damage in Luquillo on Thursday.

"The dog was looking for food. I saw her find raw bacon in the street and eat it," she said. Spooner told CNN she saw kittens and cats near a house nearby that appeared to have cat food, but the felines looked skinny and scared.

Neighbors were trying to take care of the animals, she said.

Army Reserve Brig. Gen Dustin Shultz told "CNN Tonight with Don Lemon" there are 4,500 reserve soldiers on Puerto Rico to assist the National Guard.

Dominica: 'The need is great'

Prime Minister Skerrit said Dominica was almost completely devastated.

"First of all, every village in Dominica, every street in Dominica ... is affected by the hurricane," he told ABS TV/Radio, based in Antigua and Barbuda. "We have no running water, no electricity, no power, we have very limited communication services." Skerrit's own home was demolished in the storm.

There is desperate need for food, water and medical supplies on the island of 73,000 residents, officials said.

"The need is great," said Philmore Mullin, head of Antigua and Barbuda's National Office of Disaster Services. "We know of casualties, but not in detail. We've heard of many missing, but we just don't know much at the moment."

Skerrit is "homeless" and "bunking up in an area called St. Aroment," government spokesman Charles Jong said.

A flight Wednesday over Dominica showed thousands of trees had been snapped and were strewn across the landscape, leaving the island stripped of vegetation.

CNN also saw evidence of dozens of mudslides, although not in population centers. The usually blue-green sea in many places had turned a muddy brown.

US Virgin Islands: 24-hour curfew in place

Maria also annihilated homes on the US Virgin Islands. On Thursday, Gov. Kenneth E. Mapp announced a 24-hour curfew, effective immediately, on the four main US Virgin Islands - St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. John and Water Island.

"Your presence on the roads during the curfew hours will only hamper clean-up efforts and could delay the distribution of critically needed supplies," Mapp said.

One of the hardest hit islands was St. Croix. Maria didn't just obliterate homes, it knocked out vital communication lines, resident Murillo Melo said.

"Here on the island and on the mainland, people are trying to get in contact with friends and relatives," he said. "People are desperate to get some news from their friends and relatives."

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Trump declared the US Virgin Islands a major disaster area and ordered federal aid to supplement recovery efforts.

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Puerto Rico cleans up as Turks and Caicos brace for Hurricane Maria | CNN

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The large eye of Hurricane Maria lumbered toward the popular vacation islands of Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas on Thursday, leaving Puerto Rico and its Caribbean neighbors battered, drenched and largely without power. The core of Maria, a major hurricane, is forecast to pass just east of the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas early Friday.

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Dozens of of children went missing in Mexico City at an elementary school after a earthquake partially flattened the school. They found 25 but four survived.

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NBC News 1 hr ago Alexander Smith and Gemma DiCasimirro and Rima Abdelkader and Sandra Lilley and Vivian Kim and Associated Press and Corky Siemaszko

© Carlos Cisneros

The hunt for dozens of missing children at a Mexico City school partially flattened by a powerful earthquake became a race against time on Wednesday as the death toll rose to at least 225.

Firefighters, police officers and volunteers pulled at least 25 bodies, all but four of them children, from the Enrique Rebsamen school in the south of the capital.

Crews wearing hard hats worked their way through pancaked concrete slabs as family members and teachers searched lists of children to see who was accounted for.

Dr. Pedro Serrano, one of the volunteers, told The Associated Press that he managed to crawl into the crevices of the tottering pile of rubble and made it into a classroom, but found all of its occupants dead.
PHOTOS: Desperate Rescuers Dig Through Rubble After Powerful Mexico Quake
"We saw some chairs and wooden tables," he said. "The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults - a woman and a man."

Eleven people were rescued alive from the school, but 30 others were still missing as of 2 a.m. ET, according to Mexico's education minister, Aurelio Nuño Mayer.

A crowd of anxious parents outside the gates shared reports that two families had received WhatsApp messages from girls trapped inside, but those reports could not be confirmed.

Rescuers brought in wooden beams to shore up the fallen concrete slabs so they wouldn't collapse further and crush whatever airspaces remained.

Similar rescues were underway across the city, with volunteers displaying an almost reckless courage as they crawled inside the ruins of collapsed buildings to save survivors who had been buried alive. Outside what had been a four-story building at the corner of San Luis Potosi and Medellin Streets, one such volunteer waited for the sign to go in.

"Yes, I'm willing to get inside right now," the brave man told NBC News, dressed in a hard hat and dust-covered denim jacket. "If there is somebody alive right now, we're going to get in."

Asked why, the man had an answer at the ready.

"Because I'm Mexican," he said. "Somebody is alive in there. Somebody has to do it."

The magnitude 7.1 temblor came on the 32nd anniversary of the deadliest earthquake in Mexico's modern history, which killed 5,000 people in 1985.

Officials had been holding evacuation drills to mark the event just hours before Tuesday's quake.

"A drill at 11 a.m. and an earthquake at 1 p.m.," said Valerie Perez, 23, a student who ran from her apartment in Mexico City. "This is the most powerful thing I have ever seen in my life."

An even more powerful earthquake struck last month, Mexico's strongest in 100 years. But the damage was less widespread and the death toll remained below 100.

While considerably weaker, Tuesday's earthquake was deadlier and more destructive.

The head of the national civil protection agency said on Twitter early Wednesday that the nationwide death toll stood at 225, including 94 in Mexico City.

The Enrique Rebsamen school was one of 44 buildings that collapsed across Mexico City alone, and around 40 percent of the capital and 60 percent of nearby Morelos state were without electricity, government officials said.

On Mexico City's Reforma Avenue, thousands fled office buildings as they swayed under the stress of the tremor. In the neighborhood of Roma, rescue workers cheered after finding a woman alive under rubble. They then quieted down to listen for calls from other survivors.
PHOTOS: Powerful Earthquake Shakes Mexico City
In the Roma Norte district, 30 people were pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed employement agency but two dozen others were still missing. Families have been waiting outside all night for news on their loved ones.

Laura Rodriguez, 62, said her street was quiet one day after Tuesday's chaos and upheaval.

"Unbelievable," said Rodriguez about the scene in her neighborhood of Narvarte after several buildings collapsed following the earthquake.

"At least one person was rescued while we were standing there," she added, describing how neighbors and military personnel were working together to try to rescue people amid fears that the collapsed structures could have dangerous gas leaks.

Unfortunately, Rodriguez found out that a friend who lived by herself in a nearby building was among the victims who died. "The rescue squad found her around 3 a.m.," she said.

Across the region, some 3,400 soldiers were deployed to help in the rescue effort, said Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera.

At one site, shopping carts commandeered from a nearby supermarket were used to carry water to rescuers and take rubble away.

Robert W. Bouman was in Mexico City visiting family when the quake struck - the second he had experienced in Mexico in just two weeks.

"It's an incredibly terrifying and scary experience," Bouman, 31, told NBC News. "This time, the quake was much more violent. We had trouble standing and walking. It was impossible to maintain your balance."

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was on a flight to Oaxaca when the quake struck and said in a tweet that he was immediately returning to Mexico City to assess the situation. The government declared an "extraordinary emergency" for the city, where as much of 40 percent people were without power.

President Donald Trump, who has clashed with Peña Nieto over his repeated calls for a border wall between their countries, sent his support in a tweet.

God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you.
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2017

Much of Mexico City is built on former lakebed, and the soil can amplify the effects of earthquakes centered hundreds of miles away.

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Mexico Quake Turns Classroom Into Coffin, Rescuers Scramble for Survivors

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NBC News 1 hr ago Alexander Smith and Gemma DiCasimirro and Rima Abdelkader and Sandra Lilley and Vivian Kim and Associated Press and Corky Siemaszko © Carlos Cisneros The hunt for dozens of missing children at a Mexico City school partially flattened by a powerful earthquake became a race against time on Wednesday as the death toll rose to at least 225.

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David Meade a specialist in research and investigations claims that the world is going to end this weekend. He believes there will be a constellation over Jerusalem signaling the beginning the end of the world.

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The Washington Post 10 hrs ago Kristine Phillips

David Meade, the self-described "specialist in research and investigations," has earned a fair amount of publicity online for predicting that catastrophic events will soon befall Earth.

Among his claims: On Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017, a constellation - a sign prophesied in the Book of Revelation - will reveal itself in the skies over Jerusalem, signaling the beginning of the end of the world as we know it. Meade believes that by the end of October, the world may enter what's called a seven-year tribulation period, a fairly widespread evangelical belief that for seven years, catastrophic events will befall Earth.

He also claims that a planet called Nibiru, which has been debunked by NASA as a hoax, is headed toward Earth. When it passes Earth later this year, Meade claims, catastrophe in the form of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves and others will ensue.

All of this is "the story of the century," Meade said on his website, but he says it's distorted and misrepresented by the mainstream media. He said some publications have exaggerated his words and falsely reported that he believes the world will end this weekend.
Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today's most popular stories on The Washington Post
So who is David Meade?

He doesn't say much about himself, at least not any specific, verifiable information

When asked where he lives, he said only that he's in "the heart of a major disaster zone" after Hurricane Irma. When asked where he went to college, he said only that he studied astronomy at a university in Kentucky and declined to say which campus, citing safety concerns.

His website says he worked in forensic investigations and spent the past 10 years "writing special reports for management" for Fortune 1000 companies, but he ignored questions about which companies those were or what he currently does for a living.

A short biography on a website called Planet X News says he studied "astronomy, among other subjects" at the University of Louisville. (The university said it cannot verify whether a person was a student there.) The website also says Meade enjoys "relating science and the Bible," and he believes that Nibiru, which he also calls Planet X, is a "perfect marriage of the two."

"I was raised Catholic and all Catholics believe the Bible," Meade wrote on his website.

He's also critical of the young generation, which he said has been "dumbed down by TV, commercials, sports and so forth."

"What amazes me is that this new generation does not engage in critical thinking ... They don't read. They don't understand anything," he wrote. "Very sad, really."

He's written more than a dozen books

Amazon.com lists 13 books under Meade's name, all of which were self-published through EBookit.com and are fewer than 200 pages.

(Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

The most recent one, " Planet X: The 2017 Arrival," boasts of " absolutely amazing revelations," a " page-turner " that purports to examine proof of Nibiru's existence.

Meade also delved into political conspiracy theories.

In his book, " The Coup D'etat Against President Donald J. Trump," Meade asserts that a shadow government is trying to overthrow Trump and purports to expose "high-stakes collaboration of fifth-columnists, orchestrated by the controlled media and globalists such as billionaire George Soros." He said the book explores "the covert background of the Deep State" and reveals who funds "clandestine operations" against Trump, whom Meade described as someone who "knows everything."

In another book, " The Coming: Clinton Economic Collapse," which was published before the presidential election, Meade warned of wars and economic collapse under Hillary Clinton.

His YouTube channel has a handful of videos promoting his books.

Scientists and people of faith have debunked Meade's claims

NASA senior space scientists David Morrison has long debunked the claim that a planet called Nibiru is on track toward Earth.

In a sharply worded video in which he urged people to "get over it," Morrison gave simple explanations. For one, astronomers would have already seen Nibiru by now, he said, and if it does exist, we'd be looking at an entirely different solar system because its gravity alone would destabilize the orbits of planets such as Earth, Venus and Mars.

"Instead, in the inner solar system, we see planets with stable orbits," Morrison said. "We see the moon going around the Earth."

Meade has been referred to as a "Christian numerologist" by some media articles. Ed Stetzer, a professor and executive director of Wheaton College's Billy Graham Center for Evangelism, said there's no such thing.

"I have four graduate degrees in these areas," Stetzer said. "Never have I heard of this expression."

Meade said he never called himself a "Christian numerologist."

He also railed against critics, saying in an email to The Washington Post that the "mainstream church" is "so dumbed down that they lost their ability to engage in critical thinking decades ago."

In another email, he urged a reporter to read his book, his articles and his website.

"That will give you all of the profile information you need to study and report on this - probably the greatest story of the century in my opinion," he told the reporter.

Meade's claims are not new, and he's not the only one making them

That's according to Robert Joustra, an international studies professor at Redeemer University College in Ontario, who had written a book about apocalyptic narratives.

Meade, himself, said so. He wrote on his website:

We were taught the Book of Revelation is true. The Popes believe it is true. Protestants know it is true - it is taught in Sunday school. This is not 'new information.' Actually it's Bible 101. Even Hollywood knows what is to come. They have produced a dozen end of days movies, such as 2012. This is not 'new news.' To anyone who thinks it is, my question is: 'How long have you lived on this planet?'

Claims about Nibiru, for example, have been around for a while. The Post's Joel Achenbach wrote:

A visionary who channels aliens popularized the Nibiru concept back in the 1990s, and the actual name "Nibiru" was plucked from the writings of the late Zecharia Sitchin (he used to mail me letters occasionally), who discerned evidence for such a planet in ancient Sumerian writings.

What this all says is that those who engage in apocalyptic predictions don't just make things up out of nothing. They rely on mainstream information, like the Book of Revelation, Joustra said. But many, like so-called numerologists, find obscure references in the Bible to make predictions about the future.

Joustra said he personally does not place much value in apocalyptic predictions, but he understands the impulse of many to delve into them. Predictions of the apocalypse aren't just about the end of the world. To many, they're about making sense of the world.

"It's supposed to be about the pulling back of the curtain, kind of revelation of the true thing," Joustra said. "It's a deeply religious kind of thing, and it has a long ancient pedigree. ... It's a search for a new meaning. ... There's a very long history to this kind of thing."

It's also not novel to Christianity, or to the United States, Joustra said.
Read more: Earth's revenge and demons in the wind: the most baffling theories about Hurricane Irma More people searched the Bible for "end times" because of same-sex marriage than because of Trump People are seriously wondering whether God is punishing us with the 2016 election Don't panic, humanity's 'doomsday' seed vault is probably still safe

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The man whose biblical doomsday claim has some nervously eyeing Sept. 23

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The Washington Post 10 hrs ago Kristine Phillips David Meade, the self-described "specialist in research and investigations," has earned a fair amount of publicity online for predicting that catastrophic events will soon befall Earth. Among his claims: On Saturday, Sept.

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Puerto Rico is already in an 11-year economic recession. Now it must start rebuilding after Hurricane Maria left the island knocked out flat.

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Puerto Rico is already in an 11-year economic recession. Now it must start rebuilding after Hurricane Maria left the island knocked out flat.

The island was completely without electricity Wednesday.

"This is total devastation," said Carlos Mercader, a spokesman for Puerto Rico's governor. "Puerto Rico, in terms of the infrastructure, will not be the same."

The total extent of the damage isn't known yet, but the visuals are telling: Roofs blown off, flooded streets, shattered windows, debris and remnants of palm trees strewn about. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the island since 1932.

Estimates of the financial toll are likely to start coming in over coming days. But the price tag will be large.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Congress and private insurance firms will take on the lion's share of that cost. But Puerto Rico's cash-strapped local government will have to take on some costs, too.

"We don't know what the aftermath of the hurricanes will be, but there will clearly be federal help to rebuild the infrastructure of both the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico," says John Mousseau, an expert on Puerto Rican debt at Cumberland Advisors, a firm based in Florida.

Puerto Rico is already suffering through an epic economic crisis. There's no way it could foot the entire bill itself. In May, it filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The government owes $74 billion to bondholders and it hasn't made a payment in over a year. It is trying to work out a payment schedule with an oversight board installed by Congress. This past summer, the island's government and the oversight board bickered over what the board called a lack of progress in a debt payment plan.

The island suffers from severely high unemployment -- more than 10% -- and an exodus of residents who have fled to the mainland U.S. for better job opportunities. Over 400,000 residents have left the island since 2004 -- 89,000 last year alone, according to the Pew Research Center. The current population is about 3.4 million.

There is a ray of hope in the gloom. Some experts say Maria's aftermath is an opportunity for Puerto Rico to rebuild roads, bridges and other infrastructure that desperately needed a makeover.

Plus, the recovery and reconstruction efforts could create much-needed jobs on the island.

"It's almost like wiping the slate clean," says Cate Long, founder of the Puerto Rico Clearinghouse, an independent research firm focused on the island's debts. "All the rebuilding will boost the economy."

CNNMoney (New York) First published September 20, 2017: 6:13 PM ET

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Puerto Rico: 11 years in recession and now no electricity

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The island was completely without electricity Wednesday. "This is total devastation," said Carlos Mercader, a spokesman for Puerto Rico's governor. "Puerto Rico, in terms of the infrastructure, will not be the same." The total extent of the damage isn't known yet, but the visuals are telling: Roofs blown off, flooded streets, shattered windows, debris and remnants of palm trees strewn about.

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Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans stunned by a hurricane that knocked out power for the whole island. Hurricane Maria hit Wednesday morning with a category 4 storm with 155 mph winds.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans stunned by a hurricane that knocked out power for the whole island and paralyzed the U.S. territory with landslides, flooding and downed trees vowed to slowly rebuild amid an economic crisis as rescue crews fanned out Thursday.

In the capital of San Juan, towering eucalyptus trees fell nearly every other block over a main road dotted with popular bars, restaurants, and coffee shops, some of which were damaged. Outside a nearby apartment building, 40-year-old tourism company operator Adrian Pacheco recounted how he spent eight hours in a stairwell huddled with 100 other residents when the hurricane ripped the storm shutters off his building and decimated three balconies.

"I think people didn't expect the storm to reach the point that it did," he said. "Since Irma never really happened, they thought Maria would be the same."

Hurricane Irma sideswiped Puerto Rico on Sept. 6, leaving more than 1 million people without power but causing no deaths or widespread damage like it did on nearby islands. Maria, however, blew out windows at some hospitals and police stations, turned some streets into roaring rivers and destroyed hundreds of homes across Puerto Rico, including 80 percent of houses in a small fishing community near the San Juan Bay, which unleashed a storm surge of more than 4 feet.

"Months and months and months and months are going to pass before we can recover from this," Felix Delgado, mayor of the northern coastal city of Catano, told The Associated Press.

The sound of chain saws began to fill the silence that spread across San Juan late Wednesday afternoon as firefighters began to remove trees and used small bulldozers to lift toppled concrete light posts. Some neighbors pitched in to help clear the smaller branches, including Shawn Zimmerman, a 27-year-old student from Lewistown, Pennsylvania who moved to Puerto Rico nearly two years ago.

"The storm didn't bother me," he said. "It's the devastation. I get goosebumps. It's going to take us a long time."

Maria has caused at least 10 deaths across the Caribbean, including seven in the hard-hit island of Dominica and two in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe. Puerto Rico's governor told CNN one man died after being hit by flying debris. No further details were available, and officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Maria weakened to a Category 2 storm later in the day but re-strengthened to Category 3 status early Thursday with winds of 115 mph (185 kph). It was centered about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and moving northwest near 9 mph (15 kph).

The hurricane was still dumping rain overnight Wednesday in Puerto Rico, where crumbled red roof tiles lay scattered across many roads, and curious residents sidestepped and ducked under dozens of black power lines still swaying in heavy winds. But they posed no danger: Maria caused an island-wide power outage, with officials unable to say when electricity would return.

Puerto Rico's electric grid was crumbling amid lack of maintenance and a dwindling staff even before the hurricanes knocked out power. Many now believe it will take weeks, if not months, to restore power.

Edwin Rosario, a 79-year-old retired government worker, said an economic crisis that has sparked an exodus of nearly half a million Puerto Ricans to the U.S. mainland will only make the island's recovery harder.

"Only us old people are left," he said as he scraped a street gutter in front of his house free of debris. "A lot of young people have already gone...If we don't unite, we're not going to bounce back."

The extent of the damage is unknown given that dozens of municipalities remained isolated and without communication after Maria hit the island Wednesday morning as a Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds, the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in over 80 years.

Uprooted trees and widespread flooding blocked many highways and streets across the island, creating a maze that forced drivers to go against traffic and past police cars that used loudspeakers to warn people they must respect a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew imposed by the governor to ensure everyone's safety.

"This is going to be a historic event for Puerto Rico," said Abner Gomez, the island's emergency management director.

Previously a Category 5 with 175 mph (281 kph) winds, Maria hit Puerto Rico as the third-strongest storm to make landfall in the U.S., based on its central pressure. It was even stronger than Hurricane Irma that storm roared into the Florida Keys earlier this month.

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A stunned Puerto Rico seeks to rebuild after Hurricane Maria

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Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans stunned by a hurricane that knocked out power for the whole island and paralyzed the U.S. territory with landslides, flooding and downed trees vowed to slowly rebuild amid an economic crisis as rescue crews fanned out Thursday.

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The post read, "If blacks in this country are so offended no one is forcing them to stay here. Why don't they pack up and move back to Africa where they will have to work for a living. I am sure our government will will pay for it! We pay for everything else."

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Teacher fired after racist Facebook post

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A Mississippi teacher has been fired after a racist comment appeared on her Facebook page.

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In Sri Lanka, their minister admits illegal adoption trade. Up to 11,000 babies and children have been sold to European families. Both the parents and the European families were given false information making it extremely hard to find there biological parents when they get older.

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Sri Lankan authorities have admitted in a Dutch documentary that thousands of babies born there were fraudulently sold for adoption abroad in the 1980s.

Up to 11,000 children may have been sold to European families, with both parties being given fake documents.

Some were reportedly born into "baby farms" that sold children to the West.

Sri Lanka's health minister told the Dutch current affairs programme Zembla he would set up a DNA database to help children find their birth mothers.

About 4,000 children are thought to be have ended up with families in the Netherlands, with others going to other European countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the UK.

One adoptee called Rowan van Veelen, told the BBC earlier this year that he had travelled back to Sri Lanka to try to find his birth mother 27 years on.

He was part of a Netherlands-based social media network that tried to match Sri Lankan birth mothers to their estranged adopted children.

"The adopted children and the mothers got the wrong information, which makes it really hard," he explained.

"We want to make a DNA bank with all adopted children from [the] Netherlands who can search if we have siblings there.

"Then we could ask other countries like Sweden, Denmark and Germany to give their DNA also in the bank too."

Adoption documents 'falsified'

The Dutch filmmakers from Zembla started looking into the allegations after the Dutch Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles advised the government in November 2016 to consider banning foreign adoptions because of unethical practices in some of the children's origin countries.

Norbert Reinjens, a researcher for Zembla, told the BBC that they had found evidence that all kind of documents were falsified by adoption authorities - including birth certificates, the names of children and the identity of biological parents.

"In some institutions there were 'acting mothers' who were paid to pretend to be the biological parents while handing them over," he said.

In the documentary locals allege that some hospital workers worked alongside the networks.

Some new mothers at a hospital in Matugama, western Sri Lanka, were reportedly told their children had died, when they were actually sold abroad for adoption.

One woman told the documentary makers she was paid 2,000 rupees (£23; $30) by someone connected to the hospital to act as a baby's mother.

Looking for answers
Azzam Ameen, BBC Sinhala, Negombo
Many mothers had come to the western coastal city of Negombo from all over Sri Lanka in search for answers. They had heard of a visiting group trying to find their missing children. They had barely any documents. One mother had a picture of her child taken in 1989, but had no other information on the child's adoptive family or location.

One mother told me she checked the adoption papers of her daughter and found all the information to be false. It seemed that a "fake mother" had been produced in court for the adoption.

Another woman confessed to have accepted money to claim she was the mother of a girl. She said she did it as she was desperate for cash.

Only mothers had showed up, not fathers. Most of the women said they had to give up their babies for adoption because their husbands had abandoned them in the first place.

In Sri Lanka, we often hear about happy reunions of Dutch adoptees and Sri Lankan parents in newspapers. But after talking to these mothers it became clear there could have been a massive scandal in the '80s and '90s.

Sri Lanka temporarily banned intra-country adoptions in 1987 when one "baby farm" was raided, and 20 newborns were found inside.

Reports from the time said the women there were being held in "prisonlike conditions", surrounded by a 10 ft (3m) wall.

Sri Lankan Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne denied the government held any responsibility or knowledge of the networks.

But in an interview with the documentary makers he said he would look into setting up a special office to try to match the children involved.

"It is very wrong, it is against human rights of those families - so that has to be investigated. I myself will take the responsibility for that investigation."

One mother, Renuka Abeysinghe, told the BBC that her daughter was taken in 1992.

"I will be very happy if I meet her again. I gave her for adoption because we were poor and we didn't have a way to live.

"They told me they took her to Germany but we had no information after that."

Another, Ms Sirimavathi said she was alone when she gave up her daughter.

"I don't have parents, and all my close relatives were abroad when I got my child. I didn't have anyone. I didn't have a place to stay, " she said.

"I cried a lot when giving away the baby, still I am crying.

"My wish is to see her once, I don't want anything from her."

The Dutch State Secretary for Security and Justice confirmed to Zembla he was looking into the allegations.
Additional reporting from Azzam Ameen, BBC Sinhala

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Sri Lanka babies 'were traded illegally'

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Sri Lankan authorities have admitted in a Dutch documentary that thousands of babies born there were fraudulently sold for adoption abroad in the 1980s. Up to 11,000 children may have been sold to European families, with both parties being given fake documents. Some were reportedly born into "baby farms" that sold children to the West.

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Hurricane Maria hit the Dominican republic with lots of rain and 115 mph winds. It is likely to strengthen with the warm water coming up.

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Story highlights

The large eye of Hurricane Maria lumbered toward the popular vacation islands of Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas on Thursday, leaving Puerto Rico and its Caribbean neighbors battered, drenched and largely without power.

The core of Maria, a major hurricane, is forecast to pass just east of the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas early Friday.

The Category 3 storm has sustained winds of 125 mph, the US National Hurricane Center said.

In just 24 hours, Maria dumped almost 40 inches of rain on parts of Puerto Rico, where millions of residents won't have power for months. Most of the island saw more than a foot of precipitation as Maria turned streets into raging rivers.

The storm brought down trees and poured up to 6 inches of rain on the Dominican Republic as the eyewall passed to the east.

Many Puerto Ricans spent Thursday cleaning up. A man in the La Perla area of San Juan told CNN he still had his faith. "It's incredible ... but I believe in God, and we can do anything with the help of God," Roberto Caballero said.

CNN teams in San Juan saw that some shops were open. All had long lines.

Maria has brought misery to many Caribbean Islands and death to Dominica, where at least 15 people were killed when the storm passed earlier this week, according to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.

Here's the latest on Maria's destruction, and what's next.

Dominican Republic gets thrashed

Although Maria is drifting away from the Dominican Republic, parts of the country are still seeing hurricane conditions, the National Hurricane Center said.

"A dangerous storm surge accompanied by large and destructive waves will raise water levels by as much as 4 to 6 feet" in parts of the Dominican Republic - where rivers were still swollen from Hurricane Irma, forecasters said. Haiti, on the western part of the island, could see a storm surge of up to 3 feet.

Maria will likely strengthen as it moves across warm water, endangering low-lying islands with enormous storm surges. And the Turks and Caicos could see as much as 20 inches of rainfall, the hurricane center said.

Maria could affect the US East Coast by early next week with high surf, dangerous rip currents and windy conditions. Depending on its path, the system could also bring rain from the mid-Atlantic to Massachusetts, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said.

Puerto Rico: Power system 'basically ... destroyed'

Puerto Ricans might not get power back for four to six months, said Ricardo Ramos, the CEO of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

"The system has been basically destroyed," Ramos told CNN. He said hospitals and water systems will get priority power restoration.

The island's largest airport, the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, will be open to commercial traffic Friday, according to Aerostar Puerto Rico, which manages the airport near San Juan.

Emergency generators will power the limited operations, and there will be no air conditioning, the operator said.

President Donald Trump told reporters that he will visit Puerto Rico, a US commonwealth, but did not detail when.

"Puerto Rico was absolutely obliterated," Trump said. "We'll work with the governor and the people of Puerto Rico."

Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Maria is the "most devastating storm to hit the island this century, if not in modern history."

Puerto Rico has been through a long recession and is deeply in debt. Before the storm hit, the state-owned power grid was "a little bit old, mishandled and weak," the governor said.

Retired Army veteran Manuel Torres called Maria's devastation the worst he'd ever seen. His mother's house in La Perla, an oceanfront community in old San Juan, was destroyed.

Emerging after the storm had passed, Torres found the three-story home reduced to two stories.

Angela Magaña, a UFC fighter who lives in the area, said neighbors were helping each other.

"We need cleanup, water, food, and generators," she told CNN. "There are a lot of old people here who are going without necessities. We need to rebuild and restructure, and we need prayers. Any kind of help we can get because it's a mess right now."

This was taken an hour after #HurricaneMaria passed over Puerto Rico. Now there are flash flood warnings across the entire island. @CNN pic.twitter.com/CAHMMTNgzF
- JAIDE (@Jaide_GarciaCNN) September 21, 2017

Dozens of families were rescued from flooding Thursday in Levittown, near the capital city of San Juan, a spokeswoman for the Puerto Rican governor tweeted. The Puerto Rican National Guard was still searching for others in need of rescue, she said.

Cassidy Spooner, a tourist from Jacksonville, Florida, came upon animals as she was checking out the damage in Luquillo on Thursday.

"The dog was looking for food. I saw her find raw bacon in the street and eat it," she said. Spooner told CNN she saw kittens and cats near a house nearby that appeared to have cat food, but the felines looked skinny and scared.

Neighbors were trying to take care of the animals, she said.

Army Reserve Brig. Gen Dustin Shultz told "CNN Tonight with Don Lemon" there are 4,500 reserve soldiers on Puerto Rico to assist the National Guard.

Dominica: 'The need is great'

Prime Minister Skerrit said Dominica was almost completely devastated.

"First of all, every village in Dominica, every street in Dominica ... is affected by the hurricane," he told ABS TV/Radio, based in Antigua and Barbuda. "We have no running water, no electricity, no power, we have very limited communication services." Skerrit's own home was demolished in the storm.

There is desperate need for food, water and medical supplies on the island of 73,000 residents, officials said.

"The need is great," said Philmore Mullin, head of Antigua and Barbuda's National Office of Disaster Services. "We know of casualties, but not in detail. We've heard of many missing, but we just don't know much at the moment."

Skerrit is "homeless" and "bunking up in an area called St. Aroment," government spokesman Charles Jong said.

A flight Wednesday over Dominica showed thousands of trees had been snapped and were strewn across the landscape, leaving the island stripped of vegetation.

CNN also saw evidence of dozens of mudslides, although not in population centers. The usually blue-green sea in many places had turned a muddy brown.

US Virgin Islands: 24-hour curfew in place

Maria also annihilated homes on the US Virgin Islands. On Thursday, Gov. Kenneth E. Mapp announced a 24-hour curfew, effective immediately, on the four main US Virgin Islands - St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. John and Water Island.

"Your presence on the roads during the curfew hours will only hamper clean-up efforts and could delay the distribution of critically needed supplies," Mapp said.

One of the hardest hit islands was St. Croix. Maria didn't just obliterate homes, it knocked out vital communication lines, resident Murillo Melo said.

"Here on the island and on the mainland, people are trying to get in contact with friends and relatives," he said. "People are desperate to get some news from their friends and relatives."

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Trump declared the US Virgin Islands a major disaster area and ordered federal aid to supplement recovery efforts.

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Puerto Rico cleans up as Turks and Caicos brace for Hurricane Maria | CNN

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The large eye of Hurricane Maria lumbered toward the popular vacation islands of Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas on Thursday, leaving Puerto Rico and its Caribbean neighbors battered, drenched and largely without power. The core of Maria, a major hurricane, is forecast to pass just east of the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas early Friday.

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“You Just Can't Shake It”

For the first time, Seahawks running back Eddie Lacy opens up about his agonizingly public struggle with weight.

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It's 75 degrees and beautiful in Renton, Washington. The sky is clear and blue. When new Seahawks running back Eddie Lacy climbs out of his Corvette and waves to me in a park near his condo, I notice he's brought a towel. It's a small towel, tan and about the size of a dishrag. We find an empty bench, near the playground, and take a seat. As Lacy speaks in an affable baritone, he holds the towel gently in his thick hands, occasionally massaging it like he wants assurance it's still there.

Eventually he explains that he gets nervous when he does interviews, and he sweats when he gets nervous. So he came prepared today.

Lacy had to think long and hard before agreeing to meet up and talk like this. There is a good chance, each of us concedes, that this interview will just give his trolls a fresh batch of ammunition. Social media has done wonders in recent years to bridge the gap between fans and professional athletes, but increased intimacy comes with drawbacks, and nobody understands that better than Eddie Lacy.

"I could pull up my Twitter right now and there would be a fat comment in there somewhere," he says. "Like I could tweet, 'Today is a beautiful day!' and someone would be like, 'Oh yeah? You fat.' I sit there and wonder: 'What do you get out of that?'"

When the internet turns one of your most personal flaws into a meme, how the hell do you possibly escape it?

Ever since his weight became a public topic during his four years in Green Bay -- which included two 1,100-yard seasons -- Lacy had read those kinds of comments and brooded in silence, convinced he couldn't win. Responding would only give his tormentors a smirk of satisfaction, knowing they'd wounded him. If he worked hard, got back in shape through yoga and P90X, maybe then the jokes would fade.

Except they didn't fade. If anything, they multiplied.

And while he lost weight -- albeit slowly -- getting down to where he wanted (around 240 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame) and keeping it off was a miserable slog during his Packers years. In the meantime, people photoshopped pictures of Lacy's stomach to make it seem like he had a Santa Claus physique. Someone searched through his Twitter account and noticed that back in college he had an affinity for Chinese food, and he loved tweeting about it. They screenshotted every tweet and made a collage that quickly went viral.

"I always called it China food," Lacy, 27, says with a grin. "There is no way around it, I love sesame chicken and shrimp fried rice so much. It's awesome."

He chuckled at first, but the collage also stung. It kept showing up in his feed, an endless cycle of snark, rebooted each day. "It sucks," Lacy says. "It definitely sent me into a funk. I wish I could understand what they get out of it."

When Lacy left the Packers in free agency and signed with Seattle, agreeing to periodic weigh-ins as part of a one-year contract laden with incentives, his fight to shed the pounds he'd put on after ankle surgery became something of a recurring national joke. He stood to make $55,000 every time he hit a weight goal, but at some point he started to feel indifferent about the money. Instead, the monthly ritual of turning his weight into a public spectacle began to feel a bit like a public shaming.

He assumed the weigh-ins would stay private, between the team doctors and Seahawks coaches. But the first time he weighed in, he remembers the result getting out within 20 minutes. Even his agency tweeted it out when he passed the first two weigh-ins, despite the fact that its client was hardly thrilled to share the news.

"I hate that it has to be public," Lacy says. "Because it's like, if you don't make it, what happens? Clearly you don't get the money, but whatever. I don't really care about that. It's just more the negative things that are going to come."

It's uncomfortable for Lacy to delve into all this, to put his struggle into any kind of context that feels relatable. In part, that's because he stopped opening up to people when he was in high school, shortly after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his house in Gretna, Louisiana, upending his family's life and leaving him with no emotional anchor, no real place to call home. It took years for him to sort through the impact of that upheaval. The recent hurricane disaster scenes opened up some of those old wounds.

"It pretty much brought back everything that happened to me," Lacy says of Hurricane Harvey. "Nobody's life will ever be the same there. It just sucks."

He agreed to chat, however, in part because he knows he's talking to a kindred spirit. We've both stared in misery at a chicken breast and a salad, reluctantly fighting off the urge to add french fries. We've both learned to dread looking down between our toes and seeing the cold, hard numbers stare back from the scale, almost taunting us. We're both around 6 feet, 245 pounds, and don't look fat per se, but we sure as hell ain't skinny. Guys like us don't garner much sympathy. There's no backlash when we're the butt of sitcom jokes. It's easy to look at us and assume a lack of willpower, a weakness in our character. And in our darker moments, we can't help but wonder: "Are those people right?"

The difference between us, though, is that I wrestle with my fried-food demons mostly in private. Lacy is bombarded with insults every time he opens an app on his phone.

"You just can't shake it," he says. "And no matter what, you can't say nothing back to them. You just have to read it, get mad or however it makes you feel, and move on. I could be 225 and they'd still be like, 'You're still a fat piece of s---.'"

Lacy was never lazy as a kid growing up in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna. He was always moving, always on his bike zooming around the neighborhood. He wouldn't even sit still long enough to watch sports on TV. He got bored. He preferred to be out in the yard playing sports. He and his friends did everything -- football, basketball, baseball. (One of Lacy's closest childhood friends, Joe Broussard, is a Triple-A pitching prospect for the Dodgers.) "I used to be small and skinny, and I had braids like Allen Iverson," Lacy says. "I really thought I was going to be like AI."

After school, he and his brothers would race home, watch 30 minutes of cartoons -- Dragon Ball Z was his favorite by far -- then play outside until the streetlights came on and their parents ordered them inside. According to his mom, Wanda, Lacy was one of the happiest, most outgoing kids in the neighborhood.

"He was always such a playful kid," Wanda says. "His teachers would tell me, 'Eddie does his work, but as soon as he's done, he's distracting the class.' He loved to make people laugh. He was always a little jokester."

Everything changed, though, at the start of Lacy's freshman year of high school in 2005. With Katrina looming, the Lacys escaped to Beaumont, Texas, to stay with family, leaving behind their three-bedroom brick house in Gretna. They watched the news footage from afar, wondering when -- then if -- they'd return. It would be weeks before that was possible, and when they did come back to collect what was left, they wore masks because the stench was so strong. Their home was destroyed, most of their stuff looted. They stayed in Texas until the money ran out, then moved in with Lacy's aunt in Baton Rouge for a spell. Ten people shared a house with three bedrooms and one bathroom. Eventually, they moved into a tiny trailer in Geismar, a small town 30 minutes south of Baton Rouge. "I honestly just shut down," Lacy says.

Wanda and her husband, Eddie Lacy Sr., knew their son was hurting, that he wasn't making friends and was angry at the world, but there wasn't much they could do. The whole family was just trying to survive. The football field became an outlet for Lacy. He ran with anger, unleashing his frustration on poor defenders, eventually earning a scholarship to Alabama.

Wanda was a big believer in therapy, but Lacy didn't want to talk to anyone. So she asked him one day if he'd at least be willing to scribble down his feelings and frustrations in a journal as a form of release. He agreed, but he also had a request.

The ceiling of Lacy's childhood bedroom had been covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. Every night, he lay awake in the trailer, staring at the dark ceiling, missing his old bedroom. Was there any way, he asked, she could find more of those stickers? It took Wanda several weeks, but eventually she spotted some in a Winn-Dixie in Baton Rouge. While he was at school, she covered his ceiling and walls with them. Lacy was so happy, the happiest he'd been in months, maybe years. "I look up and I feel like I'm in the sky," Lacy told his mom. "Everything seems OK when I'm looking up."

If there was one other thing that made him feel safe and back to normal, it was gathering with his family for home-cooked meals. Even though his mom was going to nursing school up in Baton Rouge, she made it home every day to prepare dinner.

"It was southern Louisiana cooking, so nothing healthy," Lacy says. "No vegetables to speak of, I'll tell you that. Typical dinner might be fried chicken, red beans and rice. Or pork and beans. Fried pork chops. Everything that is not good for you that tastes good, you know? Crawfish too. That was probably my favorite. I could eat crawfish literally every day."

Looking back, he can't help but wonder whether his eating habits might have been different if he'd grown up someplace where healthy eating is more widely emphasized. But his family was in the same classic trap as so many families struggling to feed a big group on a small budget.

"It was all bad stuff, but it was cheaper, so we didn't have to spend a lot of money on it," Lacy says. "Even if we had gone the healthy route, how long could we have sustained it? Maybe a couple weeks, or maybe a month. Everything we ate, my mom made us eat bread with it because she knew it would fill us up and we would feel less hungry later. She had to feed us, and she did the best she could."

When Lacy arrived at the University of Alabama in 2009, it was the first time since Katrina that he felt comfortable in his surroundings. He made friends, and he was thrilled to get out of that trailer. But on the field, he was overwhelmed. Defensive linemen were faster than he was, and he'd never lifted weights, just getting by on his natural strength and talent. Now the Crimson Tide coaching staff was pushing him to exhaustion. He second-guessed his decision to come to Tuscaloosa nearly every day.

"It was the worst year of my life," Lacy says. "But it just shows if you push your body, it responds. For four years, you have somebody telling you what to do, make you as big as you can, as strong as you can, as fast as you can be. They try to make this bionic person, basically. But it just shows if you push your body, it responds."

Once he made it to the NFL -- drafted in the second round by the Packers after running for 1,322 yards and 17 touchdowns as a junior, capped by winning Offensive MVP honors in Bama's BCS championship victory over Notre Dame in January 2013 -- Lacy could hardly believe how easy practices were. After his first Packers workout was over, he thought to himself: "This is all we have to do?"

Looking back, he concedes he could have done a better job of pushing to stay closer to his ideal weight. But at the same time, he was succeeding. He was the NFL offensive rookie of the year in 2013. He ran for a combined 2,317 yards his first two seasons, rolling downfield like a bowling ball but with the feet of a dancer. To watch him lower his shoulder into a defender, then pirouette into a balletic spin move, was like seeing a work of football art. At times, he looked like a reincarnation of Jerome Bettis, the Steelers running back who rumbled into the Hall of Fame.

The Packers, though, didn't see it that way. They were initially supportive of Lacy's fight to keep his weight down, but their patience eroded. When Lacy's production dipped in his third year, coach Mike McCarthy made it clear in a season-ending news conference that Lacy could either lose weight or lose playing time. "He's got a lot of work to do," McCarthy said. "His offseason last year was not good enough, and he never recovered from it. He cannot play at the weight he played at this year."

The two cleared the air in private, with McCarthy expressing regret for calling his running back out in a news conference, and Lacy insists now that no hard feelings lingered. He says he was ultimately motivated by the whole thing.

But the fat jokes mushroomed. No one saw him as a charming-if-chubby wrecking ball like Bettis. "I don't get it," Lacy says. "[Bettis] is a Hall of Famer. I guess times are just different. They really don't have big backs anymore."

Lacy showed up for the 2016 season in excellent shape, having dropped 22 pounds in the offseason by doing P90X workouts, and he declared he was done talking about his weight. There were no complaints about his play either, as he averaged 5.1 yards a carry through five games. But when an ankle injury in October led to season-ending surgery, all his hard work was quietly erased.

"I literally couldn't do anything for months," Lacy says. "I obviously just got bigger. I can't do nothing about it. All you can do is lay down and eat. What are you supposed to do?"

He decided a change of scenery might be good for everyone and told the Packers he'd explore free agency after the season. When he began visiting teams and a few of them asked him to step on a scale, even Lacy was a bit surprised at what he saw: He weighed 267.

"Sometimes I wish I was a person with high metabolism who could just eat whatever they want and can't gain a pound," Lacy says. "You've got certain teammates who are like, 'Man, it don't matter what I eat, I can't gain weight.' And I'm like, 'It don't matter what kind of diet I'm on, it's super hard for me to lose weight, and it's so easy for me to put it back on.'"

Should you feel sympathy for Lacy, or skepticism and scorn?

On one hand, a professional athlete's body is the engine that drives his economic value. If you can't maintain that engine, it doesn't make you a bad person -- more than a third of Americans are overweight -- but professional sports will be a challenge. Most of us don't follow sports to see people we can relate to. We expect peak physical excellence. There have been exceptions -- golfer John Daly comes to mind -- but very few. Even Babe Ruth was frequently ridiculed for being out of shape.

On the other hand, it's not like Lacy isn't trying. He's lost more than 20 pounds since signing with the Seahawks. He doesn't see how weighing less will make him more effective, and 245 is as low as he needs to be, according to his contract.

Still, during every team dinner, Lacy dutifully grabs a grilled chicken breast and a salad and tries to ignore his teammates as they pile chicken wings and spaghetti and ice cream onto their plates. Lacy says he hasn't had Chinese food in "forever," so long ago he can't even remember. Yet every single day this offseason, someone was happy to remind him of that old life, the days when he could eat whatever he wanted.

"People are always tweeting at me stuff like: 'I'm about to go get China food, shout out to Eddie,'" Lacy says. "Or, 'Hey, Eddie, this China food is why you weigh 260 pounds.' You want to say, 'Dawg, that was five years ago. How is something that happened [then] still relevant?' But nobody cares. The negativity is always there, whether you're doing good or you're going through a funk."

"I sit there and wonder: 'What do you get out of that?'"
- Lacy on the constant weight comments he receives
In this era of social media, once you become a meme, it doesn't really go away. The internet never forgets. Lacy is mostly at peace with that. He posted his Beachbody workouts on Twitter and Instagram this past offseason, knowing he'd be mocked. (He was.) He does find snippets of encouragement in the handful of positive comments: "Every one of those gave me a little more courage," Lacy says.

Even after a promising preseason, the trolls returned en masse on his Instagram after a disappointing performance (five carries for just 3 yards) against his former team in Seattle's first game: Eddie Lacy needs to go vegan like yesterday! Maybe you shoulda put the Eddie Burgers from A&W down and you'd still be on the Packers' roster. And they swarmed on Twitter after he was a healthy scratch in Week 2: Eddie Lacy getting millions to be a lazy fat f---.

If he's being honest, though, there is a part of him that kind of likes being big.

Sometimes Lacy likes to imagine there is a kid out there following his career, maybe someone who is a little thick around the waist and not blessed with great metabolism but who has quick feet and great balance. Someone wants to make that kid a lineman, but he wants to stay at running back. Maybe he lives in a trailer, feeling lost and displaced, but he stares up at the stars on his ceiling at night, dreaming of the unlikely but not impossible.

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For the first time, Seahawks running back Eddie Lacy opens up about his agonizingly public struggle with weight.

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Sporting Kansas City hosted the New York Red Bulls last night in the Lamar Hunt Open Cup. In the first half SKC was up 1-0 in the second we made it 2 then they scored. Shortly after there goal the game was over. they had won 3 other championships so that made it 4.

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Denny Medley/USA Today Sports

The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup has offered up endless drama over the years, and the 2017 final added another memorable chapter on a muggy night in Kansas City.

Sporting Kansas City outwitted the New York Red Bulls in a blood-and-thunder first half, racing out to an early lead via a Latif Blessing header. And Daniel Salloi's clever touch past Ryan Meara in the second stanza was enough to hold off a late Red Bulls charge led by Bradley Wright-Phillips, as the home side sweated out a 2-1 victory at Children's Mercy Park to claim their fourth Open Cup title, and their third in the past six years.

Conversely, it marks the latest chapter in big-game frustration for New York, whose two-decade-plus wait for a championship trophy continues.

Goals

25' - SKC - Latif Blessing | WATCH

66' - SKC - Daniel Salloi | WATCH

90+1' - NY - Bradley-Wright-Phillips

Next Up

SKC: Sunday, Sept. 24 - vs. LA Galaxy (2 pm ET | FOX, FOX Deportes in US, MLS LIVE in Canada)

NY: Saturday, Sept. 23 - at Columbus (7:30 pm ET | MLS LIVE)

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Sporting KC 2, New York Red Bulls 1 | 2017 US Open Cup Final Recap

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The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup has offered up endless drama over the years, and the 2017 final added another memorable chapter on a muggy night in Kansas City.

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Boxing legend Jake LaMotta passed away on Tuesday. He was known for his middleweight championship in the late 1940's. LaMotta was 89-14 with four draws. "He was a great man, sensitive and had eyes that danced right up to the end. I love him, God rest in his soul." said his wife Denise Baker.

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Boxing legend Jake LaMotta, who inspired the 1980 Oscar-winning film "Raging Bull," died on Tuesday. He was 95.

LaMotta's wife, Denise Baker, confirmed his death to ABC News and said he died from complications of pneumonia.

The family is in the planning stages of his memorial and funeral and will celebrate his life in Miami and New York, Baker said.

LaMotta was a world middleweight championship in the late 1940s, but was a well-known brawler before winning the title. His six iconic fights against Sugar Ray Robinson spanned almost a decade.

In all, LaMotta was 83-19 with four draws.

His legacy was heightened after he retired from boxing in the mid-1950s. He decided to try his hand at acting and was cast in more than a dozen films. In 1980, he became the inspiration for Robert De Niro's Oscar-winning performance in Martin Scorsese's epic "Raging Bull."

"He was a great man, sensitive and had eyes that danced right up to the end. I love him, God rest his soul," Baker said of his illustrious career, adding, "He never went down!"

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Jake LaMotta, boxing legend and inspiration for 'Raging Bull,' dead at 95

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Boxing legend Jake LaMotta, who inspired the 1980 Oscar-winning film "Raging Bull," died on Tuesday. He was 95. LaMotta's wife, Denise Baker, confirmed his death to ABC News and said he died from complications of pneumonia. The family is in the planning stages of his memorial and funeral and will...

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While "Kill for Thrill" murderer Michael J. Travaglia's death gave momentary relief to a surviving victim, memories of terror still haven't left her 38 years later.

Store clerk Mary Campbell of Murrysville, Pennsylvania was robbed at gunpoint by Travaglia and partner John C. Lesko at the Stop N Go on Route 66 at Route 22 in Delmont.

Campbell said she still believes Travaglia's and Lesko's bloody, eight-day murder spree that claimed four victims, which started in late December 1979, could have started with her a few weeks earlier.

Except for one thing: Two men happened to enter the Stop N Go store at just the right time on that Dec. 9 morning. Both Lesko and Travaglia were put on death row in 1981. They were convicted, retried and convicted again for killing an Apollo police officer and three others between Dec. 27, 1979, and Jan. 3, 1980.

But rather than being executed, Travaglia died in a state prison Sept. 4 of natural causes. Lesko remains on death row, having won several appeals over the years. Campbell said she noticed that Travaglia and Lesko had visited the store about three times in the days before the robbery.

"It was always between 2 and 3 a.m. and when they came in at about 5, I knew something wasn't right," said Campbell, then in her 30s. Travaglia pulled a gun. "He stood over me holding a revolver with a long, dark barrel. His face was evil incarnate, and I had the feeling they were in drug withdrawal," she said.

"I asked them not to hurt me and told them I was the mother of two sons, ages 10 and 11," Campbell said. "It didn't matter to them." Lesko used a small hatchet to chop a small, red safe out of the counter near Campbell. "I was begging for my life.

They had me lay down behind the counter, and Travaglia leaned down with the pistol," Campbell said. "I was meant to be their first victim." Later, she said, police and others told her she wasn't killed because of two men who came at the right instant. On that frosty morning before dawn, Richard Stevenson, of Greensburg, and Larry Clawson, of Delmont, stopped at the store to buy cigarettes and chocolate milk on their way to work for a tech company in Pittsburgh.

They remember holding the door for Lesko, formerly of Homestead, who was using both hands to carry a heavy, paper bag. "We thought that was odd. What could you buy that would weigh so much?" Clawson asked Friday from his residence near Raleigh, N.C. "We didn't notice Travaglia. But when we walked in we saw doughnuts all over the floor and we knew something was wrong," Stevenson said from his Greensburg residence. Clawson said the smaller man, who he later learned was Lesko, came out first, followed by the taller man, Travaglia, then of Washington Township. "We hardly noticed them," the former Delmont resident said.

"Then I heard someone ask, "Are they gone?" Clawson found Campbell laying on the floor behind the counter: "I've just been robbed. Lock the front door!" They only got about $800. Clawson said she spent 10 minutes bound as she sat on the floor, having been forced there at gunpoint after Lesko tied her hands. Days later, senseless killing starts The killing spree was under way by the end of the month.

On Dec. 27, 1979, the men killed Peter Levato of Pittsburgh's North Side in Loyalhanna Township after they kidnapped him outside of a Pittsburgh bar. Then on New Year's Day 1980, the hitchhiking pair were picked up by Marlene Sue Newcomer of Connellsville. They got the ride near Delmont; authorities found her body in her vehicle in a downtown Pittsburgh parking garage. The next day, they kidnapped William Nicholls of Mt. Lebanon from outside a Pittsburgh bar and drowned him in a Indiana County lake.

The men were finally caught in a seedy hotel in Pittsburgh on Jan. 3 -- but not before they shot Apollo police officer Leonard Miller to death. Memories of the robbery were seared into Campbell, even as she lived her life with her family.

They lived in Texas, northwest of Fort Worth, for more than 20 years after the robbery. In 2005, authorities flew Campbell from Texas to testify at a retrial for Lesko and Travaglia at the Westmoreland County Courthouse in Greensburg. Campbell recalls District Attorney John Peck telling the jury that she was the only living survivor of their terror. She was the last witness to testify against Travaglia in his new sentencing trial, for slaying Miller. She told the jury that she was terrified.

"I was very much afraid for my life," Campbell recalled. "I know in my heart they intended to kill me because I could identify them." After the robbery, Mary Campbell and her husband, Earl, had a third child, and many grandchildren since.

Today, Campbell and her husband live in Shippenville, Clarion County. She is 72 years old. Lesko remains on death row at the state prison in Graterford, Montgomery County.

"My wish has been that Travaglia and Lesko would both be in their graves before I die." Chuck Biedka is a Tribune-Review staff writer.

Reach him at 724-226-4711, cbiedka@tribweb.com or via Twitter @ChuckBiedka. ___ (c)2017

The Valley News-Dispatch (Tarentum, Pa.) Visit The Valley News-Dispatch (Tarentum, Pa.) at www.triblive.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Robbery victim who escaped death at hands of Pa. "Kill for Thrill" murderers recounts ordeal

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While "Kill for Thrill" murderer Michael J. Travaglia's death gave momentary relief to a surviving victim, memories of terror still haven't left her 38 years later. Store clerk Mary Campbell of Murrysville, Pennsylvania was robbed at gunpoint by Travaglia and partner John C. Lesko at the Stop N Go on Route 66 at Route 22 in Delmont.

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Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president notorious for his strict drug policy, said in a speech Wednesday that police could kill any of his children if it is proven they are involved in drugs. “My orders are to kill you if you are caught, and I will protect the police who kill you,” he reportedly said. His son Paolo was reportedly accused of having a role in an organized crime syndicate, a charge he denies.

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Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president notorious for his strict drug policy, reportedly said in a speech Wednesday that police could kill any of his children if it is proven they are involved in drugs.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Duterte said he warned his 42-year-old son about his stance.

"My orders are to kill you if you are caught, and I will protect the police who kill you," he reportedly said. His son Paolo was reportedly accused of having a role in an organized crime syndicate, a charge he denies.

Duterte reportedly wanted to make clear to his countrymen that his family is not above the law.

"That's better ... so I can say to the people: 'There, you keep talking. That's my son's corpse,' he said.

The report comes after it appeared Duterte was softening his drug crackdown. He fired back on critics, saying his war was being sabotaged by outside groups.

He distanced himself from the death of 14-year-old Reynaldo de Guzman, who was found with around 30 stab wounds after being missing for two weeks. Duterte suggested someone else murdered the teenager as his government does not allow extrajudicial killings.

"Take a closer look at it. It is not our work. I do not allow it. We follow the law," Duterte said at a public event, PhilStar reported. "There is somebody that is orchestrating something to destroy us. It is intentional. It is a sabotage."

It was a change of tune from a president who last month - just two days after the murder of two teenagers - said police were allowed to kill "idiots" who violently resisted arrest, Fox News reported.

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Duterte reportedly orders cops to kill son if drug smuggling 'rumors' are true

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Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president notorious for his strict drug policy, reportedly said in a speech Wednesday that police could kill any of his children if it is proven they are involved in drugs. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Duterte said he warned his 42-year-old son about his stance.

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The London metropolitan police has now arrested its 6th suspect in last weeks Underground train bombing.They arrested a 17 year old man suspect under section 41 of the Terrorism act and began a search of the Thornton Health property.  None of the 6 men who were arrested have no connection with the attack but are gonna remain in custody at the South London police station.  The whole terror threat has been lowered from critical to severe  over the weekend, but police has warned the whole public to remain vigilant.

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London Metropolitan police arrested a sixth suspect in last week's Underground train bombing in the early hours of Thursday morning.

After serving a warrant at an address in Thornton Heath, police arrested a 17-year-old male suspect under section 41 of the Terrorism Act and began a search of the property.

The arrest follows less than a day after a 48-year-old man and a 30-year-old man were arrested in Newport, South Wales, when officers executed a warrant at the address where the two men were located.

A 25-year-old man was arrested Tuesday evening, also in Newport, at a different address.

A 21-year-old man was arrested on Saturday in Hounslow, a borough in West London, by detectives with the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, and earlier Saturday police had evacuated a house in a London suburb as well as part of the Port of Dover after arresting an 18-year-old man that morning in the southeastern coastal city.

None of the six men who have been arrested in connection with the attack have been publicly identified. All remain in custody at a South London police station.

Thirty people were injured in the September 15 attack on a train at Parsons Green Underground station in London. Police said an apparent bucket bomb exploded during the Friday morning commute, injuring 30 people. All of the injuries were considered minor. Authorities said the bomb did not fully explode, likely limiting the number of casualties.

The terror threat was lowered to severe from critical over the weekend, but police warned the public should remain vigilant.

"This continues to be a fast-moving investigation. A significant amount of activity has taken place since the attack on Friday," said Commander Dean Haydon, head of the Met Counter Terrorism Command.

"We urge the public to report any suspicious activity to the police by calling us, in confidence, on 0800 789 321, or in an emergency by dialling 999," Haydon said in a public statement.

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6th man arrested in connection with London Underground attack

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London Metropolitan police arrested a sixth suspect in last week's Underground train bombing in the early hours of Thursday morning. After serving a warrant at an address in Thornton Heath, police arrested a 17-year-old male suspect under section 41 of the Terrorism Act and began a search of the...

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US navy submerings are diching a muti-millon dollor system for Microsoft's Xbox One controlers. The photonic masts of sumering are hard to contul so the will use xbox controlers.

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Virginia-class submarines, equipped with some of the U.S. Navy's most highly advanced and sophisticated technology, will soon use Microsoft Xbox 360 controllers to operate the periscope.

Unlike the traditional rotating tube periscope, these submarines use photonic masts that display the images on screens, so multiple Navy personnel can view at once.

But the problem with the photonic masts is that they're controlled by a complex joystick, which junior officers and sailors described as "clunky" and "real heavy," Lt. j.g. Kyle Leonard, the USS John Warner's assistant weapons officer, told the Virginian-Pilot.

In addition, the current system used to operate the photonic mast and imaging panels costs about $38,000, the newspaper reported.

The idea of using an Xbox controller stemmed from a collaboration effort between Lockheed Martin and Navy officials looking for a less expensive solution, and a way to incorporate everyday technology.

"That joystick is by no means cheap, and it is only designed to fit on a Virginia-class submarine," Senior Chief Mark Eichenlaub, the USS John Warner's assistant navigator, told the Virginian-Pilot. "I can go to any video game store and procure an Xbox controller anywhere in the world, so it makes a very easy replacement."
Click here for more from the Virginian-Pilot.

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US Navy to use Xbox controllers on highly sophisticated submarines

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Virginia-class submarines, equipped with some of the U.S. Navy's most highly advanced and sophisticated technology, will soon use Microsoft Xbox 360 controllers to operate the periscope. Unlike the traditional rotating tube periscope, these submarines use photonic masts that display the images on screens, so multiple Navy personnel can view at once.

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An 8 year old boy cancer survivor met the stranger who donated her bone marrow to him for the very first time. AJ was diagnosed with leukemia on his 4th birthday. The transplant ended up being successful, and after 270 days in the hospital, A.J. found out he was cancer-free.

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An 8-year-old cancer survivor met the stranger who donated her bone marrow to him for the very first time on " Good Morning America" today.

"Thank you for saving my life," A.J. told his donor, Alex Momany, during the emotional meeting.

"It was my pleasure," Momany, 24, replied.

A.J., 8, was connected with Momany through the Be the Matc h Bone Marrow Registry.

Until this point, A.J.'s family and Momany had only communicated on the phone, but now they're "looking forward to sharing life with her" A.J.'s mom, Alexa, said on " GMA."

"It's overwhelming," A.J.'s father, Jeff, said while fighting back tears. "We've thought a lot about meeting you and getting to know you more, and we're so excited and so thankful."

A.J.'s battle against leukemia

A.J. was diagnosed with leukemia on his 4th birthday, Alexa told ABC News. The family asked to only be identified by their first names for privacy reasons.

"He was a really healthy boy and ... all of the sudden, in the middle of the night, he woke up with leg pain," Alexa said. "The following day the leg pain was so excruciating that we had to take him to the ER."

Alexa added that in 2013, when they found out it was leukemia, the family was living overseas because A.J.'s father, Jeff, was serving in the military. They came back to the U.S. for treatment following the diagnosis.

"A.J. was so sick. The treatment was so intense," Jeff told ABC News. "Alexa and I were shifting each other out at the hospital."

A.J. eventually went into remission, his mother said. But in the summer of 2015, he relapsed.

"It came back in two locations," Jeff said of his son's cancer. "That's a clear indication that the ... treatment wasn't working."

Alexa added that this was when they knew "that a transplant was really his only option."

"The first step was for all of us to be tested and ... none of us were a match," she added of her, her husband, and her two older children, Sophia and Nate.

The mother said she then turned to Be the Match, a national bone marrow donation organization that helps patients connect with lifesaving donors. To date, Be the Match has facilitated more than 80,000 marrow and core blood transplants.

Through the organization, A.J. was matched with Momany, then a 22-year-old college student from Ohio, who offered to donate her bone marrow to save his life. At the time, the family only knew her age and that she was a woman.

"It felt like a very long road leading up to his transplant day," Alexa said. "He went through a lot of heavy-duty chemotherapy."

Despite going through the grueling treatments, parents say A.J. was still a typical kid, especially enjoying dancing and playing with his toys.

Alexa said she wrote an emotional Facebook post to her son's anonymous donor on the day of her surgery: "I'm thinking of you as you head to the hospital today for your procedure, and I thank you from the very depths of my heart for what you've done for my little boy."

Several days after the surgery, unbeknownst to A.J.'s family, Momany had also written a letter explaining why she chose to donate.

"This boy may somebody be someone's husband, someone's father, grandfather, son-in-law," she wrote of her donor recipient. "Maybe he will take the world by storm and find the cure for cancer ... or maybe he won't. The point is, he is important."

The transplant ended up being successful, and after 270 days in the hospital, A.J. found out he was cancer-free.

"Saying thank you never really feels like enough," Alexa said. "When someone saves your child's life."

Momany, who is getting married on Saturday, invited A.J. and his family to her wedding.

Today, Momany shared her message for anyone contemplating becoming a donor: "It's the right thing to do."

"Don't be afraid to donate. Don't be afraid to join," she said. "You're never going to regret saving someone. There's nothing bad that can come out of donating. It's all positives."

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Boy, 8, meets the bone marrow donor who saved his life

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An 8-year-old cancer survivor met the stranger who donated her bone marrow to him for the very first time on " Good Morning America" today. "Thank you for saving my life," A.J. told his donor, Alex Momany, during the emotional meeting. "It was my pleasure," Momany, 24, replied.

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A student was arrested Monday for using a penny to engrave the letters "HYPT MAEK" in the side of the Lincoln Memorial . The students name was Nurtilek Bakirov and was a student attending Kyrgyz Republic. Kyrgyz Republic is  also know as Kyrgzstan and is a former Soviet Republic that is located in central  Asia. Bakirov was charged with malicious destruction of property and faces 10 years in prison a 25,000 dollar fine.

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A student from the Kyrgyz Republic was arrested Monday for allegedly using a penny to engrave the letters "HYPT MAEK" into the fifth pillar on the north side of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Fox 5 DC reported.

Nurtilek Bakirov, 21, was arrested and charged with malicious destruction of property, the report said. If convicted, the maximum penalty he faces is 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

The report - citing U.S. Park Police - said an officer caught Bakirov the act.

Last month, the Lincoln Memorial was tagged with red spray paint with an anti-law message.

A photo released by the National Park Service shows an expletive followed by the word "law" scrawled on the inside of one of the memorial's columns.

Workers are removing the graffiti using a "gel-type architectural pain stripper safe for use on historic stone." They say treatments will be applied until all evidence of the paint is gone.

The park service told Fox 5 DC that it is determining how to fix the structure.

"We'll have some different options over the next days and weeks to see what if any course of action there is to take, but until we know what that course of action is we can't really comment on the level of effort or amount of money that would be involved to do so," a conservator told the TV station's website.

The Kyrgyz Republic, also known as Kyrgyzstan, is a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia that borders western China.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Lincoln Memorial vandalized by student from Kyrgyz Republic, police say

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A student from the Kyrgyz Republic was arrested Monday for allegedly using a penny to engrave the letters "HYPT MAEK" into the fifth pillar on the north side of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Fox 5 DC reported. Nurtilek Bakirov, 21, was arrested and charged with malicious destruction of property, the report said.

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Virginia-class submarines, equipped with some of the U.S. Navy’s most highly advanced and sophisticated technology, will soon use Microsoft Xbox 360 controllers to operate the periscope.

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Virginia-class submarines, equipped with some of the U.S. Navy's most highly advanced and sophisticated technology, will soon use Microsoft Xbox 360 controllers to operate the periscope.

Unlike the traditional rotating tube periscope, these submarines use photonic masts that display the images on screens, so multiple Navy personnel can view at once.

But the problem with the photonic masts is that they're controlled by a complex joystick, which junior officers and sailors described as "clunky" and "real heavy," Lt. j.g. Kyle Leonard, the USS John Warner's assistant weapons officer, told the Virginian-Pilot.

In addition, the current system used to operate the photonic mast and imaging panels costs about $38,000, the newspaper reported.

The idea of using an Xbox controller stemmed from a collaboration effort between Lockheed Martin and Navy officials looking for a less expensive solution, and a way to incorporate everyday technology.

"That joystick is by no means cheap, and it is only designed to fit on a Virginia-class submarine," Senior Chief Mark Eichenlaub, the USS John Warner's assistant navigator, told the Virginian-Pilot. "I can go to any video game store and procure an Xbox controller anywhere in the world, so it makes a very easy replacement."
Click here for more from the Virginian-Pilot.

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US Navy to use Xbox controllers on highly sophisticated submarines

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Virginia-class submarines, equipped with some of the U.S. Navy's most highly advanced and sophisticated technology, will soon use Microsoft Xbox 360 controllers to operate the periscope. Unlike the traditional rotating tube periscope, these submarines use photonic masts that display the images on screens, so multiple Navy personnel can view at once.

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There was a 7.1 earthquake in Mexico City on Tuesday. So far there has been 245 deaths and more than 1,900 people have received medical attention. Enrique Rebsamen school collapsed as well as other buildings on Tuesday. In the school they found the bodies of 21 children and 4 adults. But they also found a girl that was still alive but trapped under the ruble, so they dropped water and gave her oxygen.

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Search and rescue crews continued the grim task of digging out from Tuesday's massive earthquake in Mexico City as they clung to hope of finding survivors in the rubble two days later.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said late Wednesday night the priority in the country's capital was still on saving lives. Search and rescue crews are working across the city, with more than 50 people rescued from collapsed buildings, according to the president.

The death toll in the 7.1-magnitude earthquake was at least 245 people early Wednesday. Of those, 115 people died in Mexico City, according to Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera.

More than 1,900 people have received medical attention, Pena Nieto said.

Mexico has accepted technical and specialized assistance from many countries, including the United States, Spain, Israel, Japan and several Latin American countries.

"We are all one when it comes to saving a life or helping a victim," Pena Nieto said.

Much of the attention of rescuers in the city was focused on the Enrique Rebsamen school, an elementary and secondary school which collapsed during the quake. The bodies of 21 children and four adults were found in the wreckage of the school, where an ongoing rescue effort was underway overnight after a young girl was found alive -- trapped in the rubble -- Wednesday afternoon.

Rescuers were communicating with the girl and had dropped water bottles and oxygen to her as they worked to free her. The country's minister of education told ABC News that officials believe two other children are located nearby the girl, but they have not heard any definitive signs of life from them.

The Associated Press

Pena Nieto said 95 percent of electricity had been restored to the nearly 5 million customers who lost power due to the quake.

The president outlined a three-part plan Wednesday night for recovering from the quake. 1.) assisting those affected, 2.) an exhaustive assessment of the damage, and 3.) reconstruction starting with the removal of rubble and demolition of buildings.

ABC News' Joshua Hoyos and Matt Gutman contributed to this report.

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Search and rescue work continues across Mexico City in wake of massive earthquake

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Search and rescue crews continued the grim task of digging out from Tuesday's massive earthquake in Mexico City as they clung to hope of finding survivors in the rubble two days later. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said late Wednesday night the priority in the country's capital was still on...

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A truck driver towing a 18 foot long trailer was following his GPS. On Wednesday the truck driver took a wrong turn and found him along the Atlantic city Broadway.

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A truck driver in New Jersey took a wrong turn Wednesday and found himself driving on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, described by police as a nearly 80-feet-long 18-wheeler, reportedly said he was following the directions of his GPS device and found himself on the boardwalk, according to NJ Advance Media.

"It is something that I haven't seen in my 31 years," Ventnor City Police Chief Doug Biagi told NJ Advance Media. "We have seen vehicles up there. We have seen vehicles crashed up there. I have never seen an 18-wheeler that had to be about 80 feet long."

Biagi reportedly said the driver drove nearly three miles down the boardwalk before trying to turn around to realize the truck physically couldn't.
POLICE SEEK 'MAD POOPER' WOMAN JOGGER WHO'S DEFECATING SHAMELESSLY ON PEOPLE'S FRONT LAWNS
It took the city's public works department four hours to remove the truck from the boardwalk, NJ.com reported. The process entailed removing 100 feet of boardwalk railings, detaching the cab from the truck and having a tow truck remove the trailer.

The driver, who was allegedly not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, was issued a number of summonses for improper driving, Biagi said.

Biagi said this is the second truck in two months to drive down the Atlantic City Boardwalk in Ventnor.

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Tractor-trailer makes wrong turn, ends up on Atlantic City Boardwalk

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A truck driver in New Jersey took a wrong turn Wednesday and found himself driving on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. The driver of the tractor-trailer, described by police as a nearly 80-feet-long 18-wheeler, reportedly said he was following the directions of his GPS device and found himself on the boardwalk, according to NJ Advance Media.

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Fears of building's collapse as rescuers race to reach girl trapped under rubble in Mexico. Rescuers are getting closer to pinpointing the exact location of a 12-year-old girl trapped beneath the debris of a collapsed elementary school in Mexico. The magnitude-7.1 quake turned dozens of buildings in central Mexico into dust and debris, killing at least 250 people.