From The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio State University janitor who was about to lose his job walked into a maintenance building for his early morning shift Tuesday and shot two supervisors, killing one of them and fatally shooting himself. No students were hurt.

Nathaniel Brown, 51, arrived for work at the nation’s largest university dressed in dark clothing, a hooded sweat shirt and a backpack. He then opened fire in an office suite using two handguns, campus Police Chief Paul Denton said.

Brown spent five years in prison in the 1970s and ’80s for receiving stolen property but lied about it on his job application, records show. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Ohio State had done the required background check on him.

Ohio State released documents from Brown’s personnel file showing that supervisors complained he was tardy, slept on the job and had problems following instructions. The university sent him a letter March 2 informing him that his employment was to end Saturday.

About a half-dozen other employees were in the building when the shooting began, Denton said. He described the shooting as work-related but didn’t describe a motive.

The shooting was reported at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. Police tactical units surrounded the building and found Brown with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a garage bay, Denton said. He was pronounced dead at a campus hospital several hours later.

Brown had been scheduled to work his normal third shift, Denton said.

One of the victims, building services manager Larry Wallington, 48, died at the scene. The other, operations shift leader Henry Butler, 60, was in stable condition at Ohio State University Medical Center, officials said.

Butler wrote a letter Feb. 11 recommending that Brown be terminated, according records released by the university. Even though colleagues had made a special effort to help Brown, he was not improving, the letter said.

Denton declined to say whether other employees were targeted. Police also didn’t describe the contents of Brown’s backpack.

The other employees in the building at the time have been offered grief counseling, Denton said.

“This is a tragic event, and our hearts go out to all of the families,” said Vernon Baisden, assistant vice president for public safety.

Police released two 911 calls. In one, a caller tells the dispatcher that he pulled into the garage and heard gunshots. He identifies Brown as the shooter and says Brown was in the process of being fired.

Brown, who was still on probation as a recent hire, had recently complained to a union representative that his supervisors were being unfair in their evaluation of him, said Richard Murray, president of Communications Workers of America Local 4501, which represents custodial workers at Ohio State.

“He was frustrated and upset, certainly. But he didn’t make any threats or anything,” Murray said. The union couldn’t do more with the case because Brown didn’t file a formal complaint, he said.

Brown was released from prison in 1984 after serving about five years on a charge of receiving stolen property, records show. The case file had been archived, and more information on the crime wasn’t immediately available, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said.

On his job application, Brown checked “no” when asked whether he had ever been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor. A letter from Ohio State offering him the job said it was contingent on a satisfactory criminal background check.

Baisden declined to comment on whether the check was completed. Ohio State’s policy on background checks depends on the type of job position, he said.

Both shooting victims had worked for the university for about 10 years. Family members reached Tuesday declined to comment.

Classes went on as scheduled Tuesday. More than 55,000 students attend the main campus in Columbus. The maintenance building is next to a power plant and across the street from Ohio Stadium, home to the university’s football team.

From The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – The self-dubbed “Jihad Jane” who thought her blond, all-American profile would help mask her plan to kill a Swedish cartoonist is a rare case of a U.S. woman inciting foreign terrorism and shows the latest evolution of the global threat, authorities say.

The suburban Philadelphia woman, Colleen R. LaRose, was accused in Tuesday’s indictment of trying to recruit jihadist fighters, and pledging to murder the artist, marry a terrorism suspect so he could move to Europe and martyr herself if necessary.

Her boyfriend of five years said LaRose had never hinted at Muslim leanings or attended religious services of any kind. Kurt Gorman, 47, of Pennsburg, said that he met LaRose in Texas and that nothing seemed amiss until she moved out of their apartment without warning in August.

“I came home and she was gone. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said Wednesday outside his small business in nearby Quakertown. “She was a good-hearted person.”

The indictment paints a picture of a woman whose devotion to the cause grew as she prowled the Internet and conversed with a loose band of terrorist suspects in Europe and South Asia. She eventually agreed to try killing Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, according to a U.S. official who wasn’t authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

LaRose is “one of only a few such cases nationwide in which females have been charged with terrorism violations,” said U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd.

LaRose, 46, of Pennsburg but with close ties to south Texas, has been held without bail since her Oct. 15 arrest in Philadelphia.

Authorities said the case shows how terrorist groups are looking to recruit Americans to carry out their goals.

“Today’s indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

LaRose had targeted Vilks and had online discussions about her plans with at least one of several suspects apprehended over that plot Tuesday in Ireland, according to the U.S. official.

Irish police said Wednesday those arrested were two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name.

A U.S. Department of Justice spokesman wouldn’t confirm the case is related to Vilks. At least three Swedish newspapers published the Muhammad cartoon Wednesday, arguing that it had news value or was a free-speech symbol.

The indictment charges that LaRose, who also used the name Fatima LaRose online, agreed to try killing the target on orders from the unnamed terrorists she met online, and traveled to Europe in August to do so.

LaRose indicated in her online conversations that she thought her blond hair and blue eyes would help her move freely in Sweden to carry out the attack, the indictment said.

LaRose as a convert to Islam who actively recruited others, including at least one unidentified American, and her online messages expressed her willingness to become a martyr and her impatience to take action, according to the indictment and the U.S. official.

Killing the target would be her goal “till I achieve it or die trying,” she wrote a south Asian suspect in March 2009, according to the indictment. Her federal public defender, Mark T. Wilson, declined to comment Tuesday.

“I’m glad she didn’t kill me,” Vilks told The Associated Press on Wednesday, saying the suspects appeared to be “low-tech.” He said he has built defense systems in his home to thwart would-be terrorists, including a safe room and electrified barbed wire.

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said the indictment doesn’t link LaRose to any organized terror groups.

In recent years, the only other women charged in the U.S. with terror violations were lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted of helping imprisoned blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman communicate with his followers, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist found guilty of shooting at U.S. personnel in Afghanistan while yelling, “Death to Americans!”

But neither case involved the kind of plotting attributed to LaRose — a woman charged with trying to foment a terror conspiracy to kill someone overseas.

Stewart has insisted she is “not a traitor,” while Siddiqui has accused U.S. authorities of lying about her.

LaRose called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video in which she said she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said. According to the 11-page document, she agreed to obtain residency in a European country and marry one of the terrorists to enable him to live there.

She moved to Europe in August with Gorman’s stolen passport and intended to give it to one of her “brothers,” the indictment said. She hoped to “live and train with jihadists and to find and kill” the targeted artist, it said.

LaRose also agreed to provide financial help to her coconspirators in Asia and Europe, the indictment charged.

LaRose had an initial court appearance on Oct. 16 but didn’t enter a plea. No further court dates have been set.

By Lisa Fernandez, mercurynews.com

Lawrence Wang used to hate the shrill sounds of the flute. He’d clamp his hands over his ears to drown out his sister’s piano playing. During music lessons, he’d fidget and fight with his teacher.

Members of "Magic Makers" perform at a special needs performance of the Jungle Book at the Mexican Heritage plaza in San Jose Saturday Mar. 6, 2010. From left are, Lawrence Wong, 20, Bernard Smith, 23, Chiling Wu, 19, and Anthony Nakamoto, 16. These teens aren't just any rock stars. They're autistic and they play music pretty well without even practicing. Their mothers call them "music savants" who simply listen to a song on YouTube and then play it, to the standing ovations of their friends and families, some of whom doubted these kids would ever fit in normally. (Photo by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)

On Saturday, though, he tapped his feet while blowing happily on his saxophone, a member of an unusual band of special-needs performers.

Those who love Wang and his peers are thrilled to see how music calms their autistic nerves and becomes a unifying force in a world where they often don’t easily fit.

“Don’t ever give up on your children,’’ said Lawrence’s mother, Anna Wang of Fremont, who through her son, now 20, has become a prominent Silicon Valley autism activist.

“You’ve got to open them up to possibilities. We so often write them off. It doesn’t do our children justice. God has gifts for everyone.’’

Later this month, Wang and 21 others have gigs at the East Side Union High School District and at a Santa Clara restaurant with the predominantly autistic band, the Magic Makers.

Autism is a bioneurological disease often marked by impaired social behavior, such as making scant eye contact and speaking repetitively. As the 1988 film Rain Man demonstrated, autistic people can also have genius-like qualities. In that Academy-Award winning film, the lead character, played by Dustin Hoffman, was gifted in memory and math.

Some of the Magic Makers are gifted in music.

Wang’s mother calls him a “music savant.” He doesn’t practice.

He doesn’t sight-read. And he still mostly argues with his music teachers during lessons. But pop in a CD, and in an instant “Lawrence hears the music and almost simultaneously transposes it,’’ his mother said. “It’s really weird.’’

It may be a little weird at first, said David Ladd Anderson, the band’s director, but it’s also wonderful.

“These guys can sing and play at a really high level,’’ said Anderson, who is also a wildly popular music teacher at Buchser School in Santa Clara, where he started a dancing group for kids with special needs 10 years ago. “The singers have perfect pitch. The musicians give 100 percent effort even if they don’t look or talk to each other much.’’

On Saturday, Wang and his three autistic friends didn’t need to look at each other much as they jammed on Disney’s The Jungle Book’s tunes at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose. They joined a larger performance put on by Angels on Stage, a theater troupe of children with special needs.

As the performers entertained the audience from the balcony, you’d never know Wang picked up the saxophone three months ago and rarely practices. He hit the notes and kept up with the steady beat of drummer Chi-Ling Wu, 19, of San Jose.

In between sets, you might notice that Wang is autistic. He didn’t really want to answer questions about his musical talents. Instead, he slouched over a video game and kept asking his mother if they’d be back in the car by 4 p.m. after the show, as she had promised.

“He likes things a certain way every day,’’ Anna Wang said. “These performances mess up his schedule.’’

Fellow musician Anthony Nakamoto of San Jose, is much more gregarious than Wang. When meeting a stranger for the first time, this 16-year-old asks rapid fire: What kind of car do you drive? What model? What make?

Then, on stage, he transforms into a rock star. To watch him play the electric guitar, xylophone or, as he did Saturday, the marimba is to be amazed. Although he rarely practices and learns his favorite Beatles tunes simply by clicking on YouTube, he’s fun to watch, banging his sticks with amazing zest and zeal.

“You know, he doesn’t communicate with other kids except for music,’’ said his mother, Hiroko Nakamoto. “His communication tool is music. It’s just great therapy.’’

Donna Smith of San Jose always feels better when the music starts for her 23-year-old son, Bernard. To her, Bernard seemed agitated being in a theater with lots of strangers.

He sat by himself at one point, whispering aloud to himself before the show.

But just talk to him about music. Ask him what his favorite song is. He won’t just answer. Instead, in perfect, angelic pitch, he’ll break out the Monkees’ hit “Daydream Believer.”

“Bernard’s excellent,’’ his mother said, adding that he plays with a few other mainstream jazz groups. “He’s good enough to be professional, except for his autistic behavior.

He’s easily frustrated. He gets anxious. He stresses and he paces. But as soon as the music starts, the problems go away.’’

OKCULAR, Turkey – A strong, pre-dawn earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6 struck eastern Turkey on Monday, killing 51 people as it knocked down stone and mud-brick houses and minarets in at least six villages, the government said.

The earthquake surprised many people as they slept, crumpling buildings into piles of rubble. Panicked survivors fled into the narrow village streets, some climbing out of windows, as more than 50 aftershocks measuring up to 5.5 and 5.3 magnitude rattled the region.

The Kandilli seismology center said the quake hit at 4:32 a.m. (0232 GMT, 9 p.m. EST Sunday) near the village of Basyurt in Elazig province, about 340 miles (550 kilometers) east of Ankara, the capital.

The government initially put the death toll at 57 but later lowered it to 51. It gave no explanation for the discrepancy. In addition to the deaths, about 34 people were being treated for injuries from the quake, Turkey’s crisis center said.

The worst-hit area was the village of Okcular, where 17 people were killed. As relatives rushed in for news of their loved ones, authorities blocked off the area so ambulances and rescue teams could maneuver on the village’s narrow roads. Residents lit fires to keep warm in the winter cold.

“The village is totally flattened,” village administrator Hasan Demirdag told private NTV television.

Ali Riza Ferhat of Okcular said he was woken up by the jolt.

“I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn’t open. I came out of the window and started helping my neighbors,” he told NTV television. “We removed six bodies.”

Television footage showed rescue workers and soldiers at Okcular lifting debris as villagers looked on. Rescuers dug into the dirt to find the body of an elderly man and quickly covered him with a sheet. Two women sat on mattresses wrapped in blankets. The temblor also knocked down barns, killing farm animals.

Another 13 people were killed in the village of Yukari Demirci, Gov. Muammer Erol said, adding that by noon everyone had been removed from the rubble.

“Everything has been knocked down, there is not a stone in place,” said Yadin Apaydin, administrator for the village of Yukari Kanatli, where he said at least three people died.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kandilli Observatory’s director, Mustafa Erdik, urged residents not to enter any damaged homes, warning they could topple from aftershocks that Erdik said could last for days.

Erdogan blamed the region’s mud-brick buildings for the many deaths and said the government has instructed its housing agency to construct quake-proof homes in the area.

He said ambulance helicopters, prefabricated homes and mobile kitchens were being sent, and Turkey’s Red Crescent aid group rushed in tents and blankets.

The quake was also felt in the neighboring provinces of Tunceli, Bingol and Diyarbakir, where residents fled to the streets in panic and stayed outdoors. Schools were closed for two days in the region. In Tunceli province, students were sent home after the quake caused a school’s walls to crack, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which lies on top of two main fault lines. In 1999, two powerful earthquakes struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.

The Elazig quake followed deadly temblors in Haiti and Chile, but Bernard Doft, the seismologist for the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in Utrecht, said there was no direct connection between the three.

Richard Luckett, a seismologist from the British Geological Survey, said there has not been a spike in global seismic activity.

“If there was a big increase in the number of magnitude 6.0s in the past decade we would know it because we would see it in the statistics,” Luckett said. “We haven’t seen an increase in 7.0s either.”

He said scientists often see strong quakes but they don’t get reported because the damage or death toll is minimal.

“The point is that earthquakes are common and always have been,” he said.

In other Turkish earthquakes, a 5.7-magnitude one in 2007 damaged buildings in Elazig and a 6.4-magnitude one in 2003 killed 83 children when a school dormitory collapsed in Bingol. The collapse was blamed on poor construction.

Following the assassination of a Hamas operative, Dubai police will use voice and face profiling to detect Israelis arriving with foreign passports, the police chief said Monday. Israelis have always been forbidden from traveling to the United Arab Emirates on their passports, but dual-nationals could use their alternative passports to enter the country.

Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said that travelers suspected of being Israeli will not be allowed into the Gulf country even if they arrive on another passport. The Emirates will “deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship,” Tamim said. Dual nationality is fairly common in Israel.

The move follows the killing of a senior Hamas operative in Dubai, blamed by the Emirates authorities on Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in a Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20. The authorities have identified at least 26 suspects of the alleged hit squad that traveled to Dubai.

The hit squad used fake identities and forged European and Australian passports to kill al-Mabhouh. At least 15 of the suspected killers share names with Israeli citizens, further fueling suspicions the Mossad was behind the hit. “It is disgraceful how the killers abused European (and other) passports and UAE soil to assassinate,” Tamim told reporters at the sidelines of a security conference in Abu Dhabi. “We will not allow those who hold Israeli passports into the UAE no matter what other passport they have,” Tamim said.

He did not explain what procedures would be used to identify the Israeli visitors, except that the police will “develop skills” to recognize Israelis by “physical features and the way they speak.” It was also unclear if the measure would apply to Israeli athletes competing in international sports events in the Emirates and how it could affect Israel’s participation in international meetings. Last month, Israel’s Shahar Peer was allowed to play in a Dubai tennis tournament, a year after the event’s organizers were fined $300,000 for denying her a visa to participate in the international tournament. Security concerns had been cited at the time but were later overruled.

Many Israelis hold passports of other countries, allowing them to travel to states that have no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, including all Arab countries, save Egypt and Jordan. Israel has maintained a policy of ambiguity on the killing, neither confirming or denying involvement.

By Barbara Manners, First Fridays, New Haven

Lots of Folks Love Phil Ochs: CT Folk’s First Fridays Concert Series Presents a Tribute to the Man and his Music

If you lived through the 60’s and had even the slightest awareness of the war raging half way across the world, you would remember Phil Ochs. Whether you supported or opposed the Vietnam War at the time, Ochs was the smart, satirical, and musical embodiment of the anti-war movement.

With songs like “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” “Draft Dodger Rag,” “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends,” “Changes,” and “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” Phil was unafraid to skewer the hypocrisy he saw on the right, on the left, and in the center. He received enthusiastic acclaim at venues like the Newport Folk Festival and Carnegie Hall despite the informal blacklisting treatment he received from TV and most commercial radio stations. Along with Joan Baez, he became the singing voice of the anti-war movement as he appeared at major rallies from coast to coast.

To J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, who kept an extensive file on him, he was anti-American. To many he was a truth-telling hero whose early and tragic death in 1976 left us bereft, wondering if there would ever be another songwriter who could transform the topics of the day into timeless message that transcend any particular era.

The songs of Phil Ochs should be part of your life. Whether you remember the man himself or want to get hip to him now you’ll enjoy and embrace his songs on Friday, Apr.

9, when Phil’s sister Sonny Ochs presents “Phil Ochs Song Night” at First Fridays, New Haven located at First Presbyterian Church. The evening, which begins at 7:30 pm, features a number of today’s most prominent “topical” songwriters singing a collection of Phil Ochs’ songs and their own originals. All of these songs are driven by politics and timeless truths. Artists will include Pat Wictor, Kate McDonnell, Kim & Reggie Harris, Greg Greenway, John Flynn, Nancy Tucker, and Magpie.  Tickets are $16 in advance, $12 for seniors and students at www.ctfolk.com, and $20 at the door. For further information call 203 431-6501.

Does “majority rules, minority rights” apply to the sugar-beet industry? The USDA has been left to decide.

More than half the country’s sugar comes from sugar-beets, and nearly all commercial sugar-beet farms use seeds that are genetically engineered to resist herbicides. These plants contain a gene in their DNA that makes them resistant to the same chemicals that kill their competitors in the garden: weeds.

However, smaller, organic farms that provide a market for non-engineered crops are threatened by the massive use of genetically modified, or GM, crops. Wind can carry pollen from GM plants, like sugar beets, and contaminate organic crops nearby.

Frank Morton, owner of Wild Garden Seed, produces 150 varieties of organic seeds for farms across the country. Morton said in a recent interview that “if biotech traits show up in my seeds, then my seeds are worthless.” He also pointed out that if traits from his plants show up in conventional or biotech seeds, their value isn’t destroyed. “It’s an asymmetrical relationship we have here,” he continued.

Some organic farmers have planned to protect their interests. Zelig Golden, a lawyer with the Center for Food Safety, said they plan to convince the court to ban the sale of GM sugar-beet seeds until the USDA can properly protect consumers and farmers alike.

Many environmentalists argue that GM crops can be an ease on the environment, because less pesticides and herbicides are necessary, which can be detrimental to the surrounding ecosystems. Even more say that there is no use for a market for organic sugar-beets, because genetically engineered sugar-beets have no known harmful side-affects for consumers.

But the fact remains that there is a market for organic foods: the consumer may no longer desire a tainted product. Organic foods sell because they are guaranteed to grow without the use of genetic modification or chemicals. Without that guarantee, the market will disappear. Whether or not the market should exist in the first place is not the question at hand. The challenge for the USDA is to protect the existing market in order to protect the livelihood of organic farmers.

According to the Organic Farming Research Foundation, organic farming provides 2% of the nations crops and remains the fastest growing sector of agriculture. In 2007 there were approximately 13,000 certified organic producers in the U.S., and that number is rising. This $12.8 billion industry is under constant threat of crop contamination, as well as the 13,000 farmers and small companies that depend upon it.

Harmful long-term effects of GM crops on consumers and on the environment are still unknown; we haven’t been using them long enough to have witnessed those kind of impacts. Protecting organic farms is a priority. However, shutting down commercial production of sugar-beets, and possibly all GM crops nationwide is not an option either; think about the other 98% of crops that are either genetically engineered or exposed to chemicals. Therefore, a compromise is in order. Protecting both industries should be the USDA’s main interest, not eliminating one.

TAIJI, Japan – The Japanese fishing village featured in The Cove, which won an Oscar for best documentary, defended its practice of hunting dolphins Monday as a part of its tradition.

A dolphin demonstrates a flip at a dolphin pool in Taiji, southwestern Japan, where visitors can play with the animals Monday, March 8, 2010. The Japanese fishing village featured in "The Cove," which won an Oscar for best documentary, defended Monday its practice of hunting dolphins as a part of its tradition. Residents of this remote village nestled on the rocky coast expressed disgust at the covertly filmed movie, which they said distorted the truth, though few acknowledged seeing it in its entirety. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

The covertly filmed movie, which mixes stunning underwater shots of gliding dolphins with grisly footage of their slaughter, also claims that dolphin meat is laden with toxic mercury.

Residents of this remote village nestled on the rocky coast of southwestern Japan expressed disgust at the film, which they said distorted the truth, though few acknowledged seeing it in its entirety.

The mayor’s office handed out a statement that said Taiji’s dolphin hunt is lawful and argued that the movie contained statements that were not based on science. Otherwise, most town officials refused to talk.

“There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world,” the statement read. “It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories.”

Director Louie Psihoyos said The Cove isn’t meant to bash Japan but that it is “a love letter to the Japanese people.”

“Our hope is the Japanese people will see this film and decide themselves whether animals should be used for meat and for entertainment,” Psihoyos said backstage after receiving the Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

The town of Taiji kills about 2,000 dolphins every year for their meat. Some are captured and sold to aquariums.

The Japanese government, which allows about 19,000 dolphins to be killed each year, acknowledges that dolphin meat is contaminated with mercury, but denies it’s dangerous unless consumed in huge quantities.

In September, amid an international outcry following the screening of the movie abroad, villagers released several dozen dolphins that had been caught. But locals say they will continue with the hunt.

The movie has not yet been released in Japan, but it will start showing here in June at 20 to 30 theaters nationwide. It was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October, where viewers gave it mixed reviews.

Still, most Japanese don’t know about the annual dolphin hunt, and dolphin meat is hardly eaten in Japan.

Takeshi Kato, president of Unplugged in Tokyo, which is distributing the film in Japan, said the faces of dozens of Taiji residents are being blurred out for the Japan version of The Cove to ward off possible lawsuits under Japanese law that protects privacy.

“Our purpose is not to attack the people of Taiji,” he said.

“If this movie can serve as an opportunity for people to find out, it would be great,” he told The Associated Press Monday.

He said he hopes the film will help open the debate in Japan on preserving nature, including dolphins and whales.

“Receiving the top award in the movie industry will work as a big plus for our efforts to show this movie in Japan,” he said.

Two Japanese who appear in the film — a local councilman and a scientist based in northern Japan — expressed disappointment in how they were portrayed in the film, and said they were interviewed under false pretenses. Both say they have asked the filmmakers to remove footage of them from the movie.

Psihoyos was unable to get permission to access the cove where the dolphins are killed. Fishermen blocked it with barbed wire and fences. So he and his film team secretly broke into the restricted area — which is in a national park — at night to set up cameras that capture the slaughter.

The movie’s star is Ric O’Barry, the dolphin trainer for the 1960s Flipper TV show, who over the last decades has been campaigning for the release of dolphins around the world from captivity.

Various numbers in the film such as mercury levels in dolphin meat are also being contested. In the Japanese version, words that show up as subtitles are being added at the end of the movie to tell viewers that research may produce various results.

Japanese government officials also defended the fishermen’s right to hunt dolphins and called the film unbalanced.

“There are some countries that eat cows, and there are other countries that eat whales or dolphins,” said Yutaka Aoki, fisheries division director at Foreign Ministry. “A film about slaughtering cows or pigs might also be unwelcome to workers in that industry.”

In Sequoia National Forest, not too far from California’s Yosemite waterfalls in the redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are slowly taking over. They have commandeered U.S. public land to grow millions of their own marijuana plants and have smuggled immigrants into the country to cultivate the crops. It has been said that pot has been growing on U.S. lands for decades although Mexican traffickers have stepped it up to the next level in recent months. Currently, traffickers and drug gangs are using armed guards and trip wires to protect thousands of plants.

Not too long ago, Mexican drug gangs also took over the methamphetamine trade in which they have grown mega gardens. According to the California Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, Mexican traffickers have expanded the marijuana trade.

In 2004, The Associated Press and law enforcement officials across the country reported having seen an increase in the scale of large marijuana farms. In 2008 alone, the Drug Enforcement Administration police confiscated and destroyed up to 7.6 million pot plants. Data suggests an increase in marijuana production, both domestically and across our borders.

To make it easier on traffickers, the drug gangs grow marijuana in the U.S. to save on smuggling expenses. This also allows gangs to reproduce their crops in the local market.

All of the sites are far from the eyes of law enforcement, where the growers can take the time that is needed to grow more potent marijuana. Some farmers of these fields use illegal fertilizers to help the plants grow faster, which allows for more distribution.

Many of the farms are heavily guarded with crude explosives and are patrolled by guards armed with AK-47’s. Despite this, there are vast amounts of pot still being smuggled into the U.S from Mexico. Federal officials have reported nearly daily hauls of several hundred to several thousand pounds seized along the borders.

Cheryl Palmer, Vice President of Club Quarters Inc, thinks the World Center Hotel is not only a business investment, but a rebirth. Others of New York City find the hotel to be a terrible reminder of a tragedy the United States has yet to forget.

In this photo taken March 5, 2010, the World Center Hotel, far right, overlooks the World Trade Center construction site in New York. With rooms boasting views directly out on the construction, the hotel's proximity to the site of the Sept. 11 attacks is being used as a marketing tool. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Visitors to the World Center Hotel website might realize right away the purpose of the 169 room hotel. With glossy high resolution photographs of damage and destruction, the business owners of the World Center Hotel hope to attract much of the tourism industry that has surrounded the site of Ground Zero since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

For almost all guests, the stay at the hotel would be a 24 hour experience, with full views of the construction, soundproof windows to keep out most of the noise, and special curtains to drown the light reflecting off twisting pieces of metal and debris. Hallways would be decorated with pictures and memorials of the terrorist attacks and hotel patrons would have a chance to dine on a balcony overlooking most of the destruction. The aerial view will be one of the first times civilians will have the opportunity to actually see Ground Zero without obscuring fences.

The nearby Millenium Hilton, which was standing during the terrorist attacks nine years ago, has attempted to not use the attacks as a means of publicity and marketability.

General Manager Jan Larsen spoke out against the World Center Hotel in a recent interview. “People are sensitive to maybe being perceived as taking advantage of a tragedy by utilizing that in any kind of promotional information,” Larsen said. “We still get customers here who didn’t realize we were across the street from ground zero, and they get emotional about it.”

The owners of the World Center Hotel feel as if the building is a step in the right direction. Ground Zero, which has remained mostly untouched for the past nine years, will be home to trees and plants at the beginning of the 10th anniversary of the attacks. The memorial will open up in 2011. Freedom Tower is currently under construction. Changes are coming, and those in charge of the World Center Hotel feel their business is just another change.

A Baltimore salesman interviewed by The Associated Press about the issue said, “You could say it’s depressing, but you could also say it’s been nine years, the Freedom Tower is going up and there’s going to be a memorial. We’re looking toward the future.” Cheryl Palmer added, “They will have all those mixed emotions. But I think at the end of the day what people leave here with is the rebuilding.”

With costs as low as 179 dollars on weekdays and 99 dollars on weekends, many feel the new hotel will draw in at least 4,000 visitors at a given time. Reservations have now opened online despite continued disputes amongst the New York community. Only time will tell if the World Center Hotel will be a shimmer of hope amidst the damage that is ground zero or another terrible mark on New York’s history.