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The National Christmas Tree that was planted near White House a year ago has died and is now being removed. Federal officials have confirmed this.

The National Park Service says the Colorado blue spruce died of “transplant shock.” It came from a tree farm in New Jersey last year and was planted on the Ellipse just south of the White House in March 2011.

The tree replaced a tree that had stood on the Ellipse since 1978 but was destroyed by high winds in February 2011.

Workers are removing the dead tree Saturday. The National Park Service says it has already identified a Colorado blue spruce to replace the tree and will plant the new National Christmas Tree in October, just in time to be decorated for the holiday.

The track superintendent at Churchill Downs cancelled morning training for the Kentucky Derby and its 13-race card after a night of thunderstorms.

Butch Lehr (LEE’-ehr) made the decision early in the morning as crowds began to line up outside the historic Louisville track. Saturday is the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby.

The main track, which is dirt, was labeled sloppy at 8 a.m. EDT. The Derby will be run at 6:24 p.m. EDT, with the National Weather Service calling for mostly cloudy skies, a high near 85 and a 50 percent chance of pop-up rain.

Hundreds of thousands of race fans, topped off by a bevy of celebrities, are expected to converge at Churchill Downs. Last year, more than 164,000 people attended, an all-time high.

A tragedy like the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner “will not happen again,” the shipping line’s boss said Saturday as he unveiled a new luxury vessel to the public.

A huge public relations exercise marked the entry into service of the 114,500 tonne Costa Fascinosa, sister-ship of the ill-fated Costa Concordia which ran aground and capsized off northwest Italy on January 13 with the loss of 32 lives.

Weeks later another ship from the Costa fleet, the Allegra, was disabled when a fire broke out in the engine room in the Indian Ocean and had to be towed to the Seychelles.

Owners Costa Crociere, owned by US giant Carnival Corp., are being sued by scores of the 3,200 passengers aboard the Costa Concordia while prosecutors in Italy are investigating nine people including the captain and three executives.

Cruise operators saw their bookings drop after the disaster and have tightened up safety measures, but Costa Crociere boss Pier Luigi Foschi said Saturday reservations were back to their former level.

The Costa Concordia accident “should never have happened and will not happen again,” he said, adding that the company was at the “full disposal” of Italian authorities investigating the tragedy.

Work on refloating the Costa Concordia will take nine to 12 months before it can be towed away from the Tuscan island of Giglio, a protected maritime area.

Announcing the award of the contract to US-owned Titan Salvage, Foschi said last month that environmental protection would have top priority during the operation.

Foschi on Saturday said the operation would be one of the “toughest ever attempted.”

Italy’s Tourism Minister Piero Gnudi, who was present at the launch, said credit must be paid to the Costa shipping line, whose behaviour since the Concordia tragedy “has been irreproachable”.

With 17 decks and 290 metres long, the Costa Fascinosa can carry 3,800 passengers and 1,100 crew. The ship cost 510 million euros ($667.4 million) to build, the company said.

Source : Yahoo News

A teenager accused of bludgeoning his parents with a hammer before hosting a party at their home signs jailhouse autographs exclaiming “It’s hammer time,” calls himself “hammer boy,” and says he has seen and talked to the devil, a fellow inmate told police.

The inmate, Justin Toney, described 18-year-old Tyler Hadley’s jailhouse fame in interviews outlined in investigative files released by prosecutors.

Hadley has pleaded not guilty in the bludgeonings last July of Blake and Mary-Jo Hadley. Toney told investigators that Hadley is known as “Hambo” and “Bamm-Bamm” by other inmates and that he has given autographs, including some on news articles about his case.

Every time a new inmate is admitted, Toney said in the Feb. 21 interview, Hadley makes an introduction.

“What’s up man?” Toney quoted Hadley as saying. “You know who I am? I’m the hammer boy.”

The inmate says Hadley has given differing accounts of why he allegedly committed the crimes. First, he said, Hadley blamed it on medication he was on. Later, though, he said Hadley explained it was because he wanted to have a party and knew his parents wouldn’t let him.

“All this to have a party?” Detective Kristin Meyer of the Port St. Lucie Police asked. “That’s what he said,” Toney replied.

Toney said Hadley told him he’d been contemplating the killings for about three weeks and had considered using a garden tool instead.

“He said he seen the devil,” Toney said. “He said he talked to the devil and the devil talked to him.”

Still, there are glimpses of a different Hadley in the files. Toney said Hadley would sometimes bring him a ramen noodle cup, and often expressed remorse for his alleged crimes. In a log of a jailhouse visit with his older brother, Ryan, Hadley tells his brother he loves him and tells him to tell others he says hello and loves them too. Kelly Reynolds, who was interviewed by police but whose relationship to Hadley wasn’t made clear, said he was an altar boy.

Hadley’s public defender, Mark Harllee, did not return a call Friday seeking comment.

Hadley told a friend interviewed by police, Daniel Roberts, that his father had punched him in the face several times and had shown signs of injuries at times, according to the files. But Toney said Hadley told him he’d never been beaten or molested, and Ryan Hadley called his parents “awesome” and his brother a “pathological liar.”

Police have said about 60 people gathered for a party at Hadley’s house after his parents were killed, playing beer pong, smoking cigars and drinking. Friends described Hadley as being in a good mood and hospitable.

Toney said Hadley claimed to have spent $2,000 on drugs and alcohol for the party, describing it as “so much fun.” He said Hadley knew he had “shocked the world” and realized something about his parents as he allegedly attacked them with a hammer.

“I said, ‘Did they try to stop you?’” Toney asked about the attack. “And he was like, ‘No, that’s how I knew that they really loved me.’”

New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) is one of the world’s premier destinations for artistic and historical exhibitions. But this epicenter of worldly culture is not above admitting the occasional mistake. Even when the correction comes from one curious 13-year-old boy.

The Hartford Courant reports that 13-year-old Benjamin Lerman Coady found an error in the Met’s Byzantine Gallery during a recent visit. The seventh-grader is a fledgling history buff who recently studied the Byzantine Empire in school.

While checking some of the dates on the map, Coady noticed that sections featuring Spain and Africa were missing.

Before leaving the museum, Coady attempted to inform the museum that the map was inaccurate. “The front desk didn’t believe me,” he told the paper. “I’m only a kid.”

However, Coady received an email from the museum’s senior vice president for external affairs, notifying him that his request was being forwarded to the museum’s medieval affairs department for further review.

A few months later, Helen Evans, the Met’s curator for Byzantine art, sent Coady an email: “You are, of course, correct about the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire under Justinian,” she wrote.

Evans even invited Coady back to the museum to meet with her in person. She says the Met is working on updating the map but isn’t sure when a new, more accurate rendition can be put on display.

So, what lesson did Coady take from his experience? “If you have a question, always ask it,” he told the paper. “Always take chances.”

Thankfully, he has already been arrested. A New York man has been arrested after troopers clocked him driving his bike at 170 mph on the Thruway.

State police say a trooper first observed the motorcyclist going 166 mph Wednesday afternoon in the southbound lanes of Interstate 87 just south of Albany. The trooper pursued the biker and was able to get the Suzuki motorcycle’s license plate number and a description of the rider when he slowed down in traffic.

But the man sped off again, and other troopers clocked him going as fast as 170 mph. Troopers eventually stopped him in New Paltz.

When they told him how fast he was going, McCarthy allegedly told them his motorcycle ‘could easily go over 190 miles per hour.’

Police charged Nikkolaus McCarthy of Charlton with fleeing police, reckless driving, speeding and operating a motorcycle without a license.

He was being held in jail on $20,000 bail. It couldn’t immediately be determined if he had a lawyer.

According to the Herald-Record, McCarthy was driving a 2007 Suzuki.

This guy couldn’t even get a license but sure know how to cause panic in a highway. Thank God no one was hurt. If this guy wants to ride high speed bikes, why don’t he join the Superbike ?

A vicious snake is being blamed for the power outage in Oklahoma City. Officials say the snake slithered into an Oklahoma City electric substation and knocked out power.

About 10,000 customer lost power overnight.

Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. says the power outage affected customers in northwest Oklahoma City at about 2 a.m. Thursday. A spokesman tells Oklahoma City television station KWTV (http://is.gd/RQN3E5 ) that workers found a snake in the transformer at the Lone Oak substation.

OG&E says power was restored to all customers by 3 a.m.