3 people dead, rapper Trae the Truth injured in strip club shooting

By Andrea Watkins, Reporter

 

HOUSTON (FOX 26) -

Five people were shot at a southwest Houston strip club and three of them died at the crime scene. Among the injured is rapper Trae Tha Truth, FOX 26 News has learned.

The shooting victims who were killed were identified as two males and one female. Trae Tha Truth and another male were taken to hospitals; one of them was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital while the other was taken to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital and has since been released so that he can speak with Houston Police Department homicide detectives.

While Trae Tha Truth was one of the shooting victims, FOX 26 has learned he has recovered from his injuries. A person with the Twitter handle @LowLifeDynasty posted a picture at 5:50 a.m. Wednesday with the following caption: Everybody TRAE is ok. Minor gunshot wound. In the posted photo, Trae The Truth wearing a hospital gown and smiling while seated upright on a hospital bed.

The shooting took place early Wednesday morning at Scores Cabaret in a shopping center on Westpark Drive near Ace Street.

Vietnam law bans smoking in public

Vietnam has passed a law banning smoking in public places and all tobacco advertising, an official said Tuesday.

The law, passed by 440 out of 468 national assembly deputies on Monday, also makes it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under 18 years old, said the parliamentary official, who did not want to be named.

It will take effect from next May, state media said.
Smoking in public places -- including schools, hospitals, office buildings and on public transport -- was banned once already in 2010 by a government decree, which also raised tax on tobacco and restricted the sale of cigarettes.

But that order was widely ignored, with smoking in public places widespread and cigarettes available at small kiosks on nearly every street in the capital Hanoi.
The anti-smoking campaign group Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) welcomed the new law -- the full text of which has not yet been released -- saying it was a "historic and important milestone" for the country.

"We are very happy about this development," SEATCA director Bungon Ritthiphakdee said, adding that the final version of the law was strong and in line with the WHO-Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

According to SEATCA, there are currently 15.3 million smokers in Vietnam. Some 47.4 percent of adult males smoke.

Tobacco kills 40,000 people per year in Vietnam and that figure is expected to rise to 70,000 per year by 2030, according to local media reports.

NBA competition committee discusses postgame flopping penalties

Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili execute the rare "Whispering Lion" flopping technique (Layne Murdoch/ Getty).
To some NBA fans, flopping is a scourge upon the NBA. Like pump-faking or playing with other superstars, it degrades the ideals of competition on which sport is founded. If the NBA wants to be taken seriously and move beyond record ratings, they must do something drastic.
Luckily, David Stern and his handpicked competition committee are meeting this week to discuss potential fixes. On Monday, they talked specifically about how to hand out punishments after games. From Brian Mahoney for the Associated Press:

The NBA commissioner believes too many players are deceiving referees into calling fouls by falling down, or flopping. So he and the league's newly reformed competition committee met Monday for a discussion about how it can be prevented.
One option, Stern said, is a ''postgame analysis'' in which a player could be penalized if it was determined he flopped. The league retroactively upgrades or downgrades flagrant fouls after review, and along those lines he said that perhaps a player could receive a message from New York saying: ''Greetings from the league office. You have been assigned flopper status.''
''No, I'm joking, but something like that,'' Stern said. ''That sort of lets people know that it's not enough to say 'it's all part of the game.'''

My own joking aside, it would be good if the league could crack down on flopping. I'm not convinced that it's a major issue for the NBA, but it'd be best if it weren't so prevalent. On the other hand, the postgame plan helps underline exactly why it will be hard to stop flopping.

Under this proposal, one man (perhaps suspension/fine czar Stu Jackson) would have to assess all questionable flopping instances on any night. But if flopping is as common as some believe, then that would be a time-consuming process, particularly on nights with 10 or more games. Can a centralized situation do that much work? Would the league have to enforce selectively to make it manageable? Is that fair?

On top of that issue, the entire use of flopping is that it makes the intentional look unintentional. Even when divorced from the clamor of in-game officiating, assessing a charging or blocking foul for intent is a tricky task. Can we really know if a player meant to fall? What should we make of situations where there is legitimate foul-worthy contact and embellishment? Where do they draw the line? If players are allowed to appeal flopping rulings (which seems necessary, especially for this type of transgressions), then we could see arguments over intent usually kept to courtrooms and theological conferences.
In this case, the solution to the War on Flopping might prove much more controversial and difficult to rein in than the crime itself. The NBA and its fans have every right to cry foul over flopping, but they'd do well to consider the unintended consequences of enforcement.

Adidas "Shackle" Sneakers is accused of promoting Racism... what u think?

A new Adidas sneaker has sparked outrage, with sneaker fans accusing the brand of promoting racism. The Roundhouse Mid "Handcuff" shoe, created by controversial New York designer Jeremy Scott, features a plastic orange shackle that attaches to each ankle. The $350 sneakers hit stores in August, but Adidas promoted them on their official Facebook page on June 14 with this quote: "Tighten up your style with the JS Roundhouse Mids, dropping in August. Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?" While the brand may be making a cheeky statement about shoe theft, many are equating these binding devices with slavery and prisoners. At press time the "Handcuff" sneaker image has over 36,000 Facebook likes, but many of the comments are angry and disapproving.



JS Roundhouse Mid

Body Discovered Four Years After Suicide

Man's body lays undiscovered in home for FOUR YEARS after suicide - and is only discovered by realtor who came to repossess house

• David Carter, who would have been 45 this January, quit his job and told friends he was moving to New Mexico in late 2007
• His bills and taxes went unpaid for four years before anyone went in the house to start the foreclosure process
• Found Carter's 'nearly skeletonized' body on the stairs

By Meghan Keneally

A man's body has been found in his home after it lay undiscovered there for four years following his suicide.
David Carter, who neighbours said was well-liked, told friends he was moving from his home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to New Mexico in 2007.
A real estate worker who went into his suburban home to repossess it last week - after bank officials finally realised he hadn't paid the bill for four years - and found his remains. 
He is believed to have shot himself with a handgun.

The body of David Carter was found in his house and is thought to have killed himself in 2007

The employee of the Milwaukee County treasury office- who entered his home in the West Allis neighborhood in order to start the repossession process- found Mr Carter's 'nearly skeletonized' remains on his stairway, a gunshot in his head, and a handgun on his chest.
No bill or income tax has been paid by Mr Carter since late 2007, so that is the approximate date-of-death that officials have given him, but there is no way to be exact. 

 

'We're trying to figure it out, too. How could it go this far?' said local government worker Michael Czaplewski.

'It's one of those things where it falls between the cracks, I guess,’ he told the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.

Unexpected: The city of Milwaukee mowed his lawn and shovelled his snow since he went missing, and sent bills totalling $37,000 for the services that went unpaid

Though Mr Carter clearly did not maintain the house, the city took it upon themselves to shovel and mow his lawn through the years and then charged him for those services; his bill is now $37,000 for the years of maintenance.
Mr Carter, whose 45th birthday would have been January 23 of this year, lived and studied in Milwaukee, and school records show him attending the local high school and earning a college degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
As an only child raised by a single mother, Mr Carter had few close relatives after his mother died following a battle with cancer in 1997.
Mr Carter's cousin, Kevin O'Neill, said that he became emotionally withdrawn and began drinking heavily after his mother's death.

His remains were found last week when a city employee came to the house to start the foreclosure process

In spite of his grief, he moved on to work as a nuisance control officer for the city of Milwaukee from 1999 to 2007. He resigned from that job in September 2007 and said he was planning to move to Albequerque, and then he disappeared. 
'The people closest to him knew he moved so nobody ever did bother to think that anything was wrong with him,' said his high school friend Teresa Bornheimer.
Since his body was found, more details are being discovered as people try to understand how he could have been dead in his own house for four years without anyone noticing.
Medical records show that he was listed as the father of a girl who is now 14 years old. He and the mother never married and the mother, whose name has not been released, said that the last time she saw him was in 2006.

Certain: His 'nearly skeletonized' body was identified using dental records

Though he clearly was not a constant part of the girl's life, he did keep her in his thoughts as investigators found a note which had a list of his possessions that he bequeathed to her.
'My jaw just dropped when I found out. I told myself maybe it's a bum living at the house,' said Ms Bornheimer. 
The decomposed body was identified as Mr Carter using dental records.
The profits from the sale of his house, which originally belonged to his mother, will go to the county but because of the discovery that he had a daughter, she could likely challenge the county for the profits.

2013 Pagani Huayra first drive... "monster"

2013 Pagani Huayra first drive

By Angus MacKenzie | Motor Trend – Fri, Jun 15, 2012 2:37 PM EDTPrint

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It's tempting to dismiss the Pagani Huayra as another fringe hypercar -- another exclusive, expensive, pointless toy for the collector who's bored with his Ferraris and wants to tool around to the country club in something his rich buddies don't have. Tempting, that is, until you drive it.

The Huayra is the follow-up to the Zonda, the debut model from self-taught supercar auteur Horacio Pagani. It features an all-new chassis with a central monocoque made from titanium-infused carbon fiber, and the wheelbase has been stretched 2.75 inches over the Zonda. The suspension is pure race car stuff: double wishbones milled from billets of a copper-rich aluminum alloy called Avional, with pushrod-actuated Ohlins shocks.

The carbon bodywork was styled by Pagani himself, and features active aerodynamics -- flaps at each corner of the car that can move independently and alter downforce according to inputs from sensors that measure speed, lateral and longitudinal acceleration, roll, and steering angle. The suspension will also automatically lower the nose to increase the car's angle of attack and increase downforce at speed.

Here's the simple math: The Huayra weighs less than 3000 pounds (dry) and has 720 horsepower. Oh, and it also has more than 737 lb-ft of torque, courtesy of a new 60-degree, 6.0-liter twin-turbo V-12 developed expressly for the car by the engine wizards at AMG, replacing the 7.3-liter naturally aspirated AMG V-12 in the Zonda. The mid-mounted engine drives the rear wheels through a seven-speed, single clutch automated manual transmission built by Xtrac, the British company that makes trannys for F1 cars and Le Mans prototypes.

There was some wrangling over the new engine's configuration. Horacio Pagani didn't like the idea of turbos, and didn't like the naturally aspirated V-8 AMG first proposed as a replacement for the Zonda's 7.3. He wanted a V-12, but AMG engineers were insistent that to meet emissions and fuel consumption standards through the next decade, the engine had to have forced induction. AMG clearly knew what it was talking about. At cruising speeds, the Huayra is one of the most fuel-efficient supercars in the business, says Pagani, brandishing figures fresh from the test lab showing it has achieved 21 mpg (U.S.) on the Euro highway cycle.

Nailing the gas in the Huayra is like lighting the afterburners on an F-15, though. The new V-12, codenamed M158 in AMG-speak, will pull cleanly and smoothly from as little as 1000 rpm, but once the tach needle swings past the 2500 mark and the turbos get into their comfort zone, the thrust is epic and utterly relentless all the way to 6000 rpm. I didn't go past 160 mph more than once on the bumpy, busy autostrada near Bologna, but the Huayra got there without breaking sweat; a casual canter en route to its claimed 230 mph top speed.

More impressive than the Huayra's raw speed on the autostrada, however, is its agility on the winding two-lanes. This is a big car -- 181.2 inches long and 80.2 inches wide, rolling on a 110.2-inch wheelbase -- but its low mass -- it weighs about 200 pounds less than a Ferrari 458 Italia, and a whopping 1300 pounds less than a Bugatti Veyron -- means it darts and weaves through the twisties like Jerry Rice on a crossing route. Factor in that weapons-grade torque and a complete absence of turbo-lag, and the Huayra will destroy a canyon road using only second and third gears.

Which is just as well, because the seven-speed automated manual transmission is the car's weakest link. Sure, it's light -- at 211 pounds, the single-clutch unit is less than half the weight of the 458 Italia's dual-clutch 'box -- and the F1-style transverse gearset keeps most of the transmission's mass inside the wheelbase, but the speed and finesse of its shifts are nowhere near as good as those of the Ferrari. It feels like a first-gen Lamborghini automated manual -- slow and clumsy in auto mode, thumpingly brutal in manual mode if you keep your foot on the gas through the shifts.

2013 Pagani Huayra first drive

• Print

The Huayra's steering isn't quite as tactile as that of the Zonda, but that's because Pagani has deliberately dialed some snooze factor into the chassis in recognition of the way most Huayra owners will actually drive the cars. When pushed hard into turns, the Huayra will eventually develop mild understeer, which Horacio Pagani prefers to the snap oversteer that usually bedevils mid-engine supercars at the limit. "It's safer," he says simply. The brakes, monster carbon-ceramic units developed in partnership with Brembo, are stellar. You can grenade the pedal time after time, and they just keep coming back for more.

Our tester was running on the standard P Zero tires specially developed for the Huayra by Pirelli. The optional P Zero Corsas have proven 20 percent faster on the track, says Pagani, but are 10 percent less efficient in the wet. If I had the money for a Huayra, I'd probably opt for the Corsas to give the car a touch more front end bite on initial turn in, and drive my Bentley Conti GT on rainy days.

Our tester was also only the fifth Huayra ever built. The Pagani shop is tiny and it's production methods artisanal, so development is ongoing. Andrea Galletti, who spent 10 years working for the Ferrari F1 team and helped develop the 599XX, said the variable front ride height settings will be changed to alter the car's angle of attack and improve stability at speed (I mentioned I had been chasing the front end around more than I had expected above 140 mph on the rough autostrada), and that anti-roll bar settings would also be changed to improve initial turn-in response.

A sport + mode is also being developed that will lower the car 10mm, eliminate the auto upshift (which currently happens when you hit the redline in either comfort or sport manual mode), and switch off both traction control and ABS. Galletti also acknowledged that for the typical Huayra customer -- someone who collects supercars and might drive them fast only occasionally -- the transmission needs work to improve comfort and response, particularly when the Huayra is being cruised around town. Among the changes under discussion is a shorter first gear so the engine doesn't rev as high before the clutch engages from a standstill.

Pagani currently holds 14 orders for the Huayra from U.S. customers (out of a total of 95 worldwide), its million dollar-plus price tag notwithstanding. U.S. market homologation, which includes the adoption of two-stage airbags, is expected to be completed by the end of this year, and the first U.S. spec Huayra is expected to be delivered by mid-2013. (The carbon/titanium central tub is so strong it has been used in seven crash tests so far, says Pagani proudly. They simply removed the buckled front and rear subframes after each test, and bolted on new ones.)

Before I drove my first Pagani 10 years ago, an early Zonda, I was a skeptic. I had expected a glorified kit car -- fast, but half-baked. I was surprised at how complete the Zonda felt. It drove and rode and steered like a real car developed by a real car company with thousands of engineers and a basement full of Cray supercomputers at its disposal. The Huayra is no different. Pagani may be tiny -- just 53 people work at the factory at San Cesario sul Panaro, just outside Modena -- but the Huayra is a real car. It has air conditioning and sat-nav and a stereo, all the mod-cons you'd expect in a modern supercar. It's a car in which you could comfortably knock off 1000 miles a day, and feel fresh enough for a chilled Dom Perignon before dinner.

But that's not what makes the Pagani Huayra special. What makes it special is that it's the singular product of one man's singular passion. "We are a design and research company based on the Renaissance theory of art and science working together," says Argentine-born Horacio Pagani. "That's not our idea -- it's 500 years old. We take our inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci." Pagani has thought through every single detail of this car -- his one-on-one walkthrough of the Huayra's technical highlights lasted more than three hours. He is truly autodom's Renaissance man (he named his first son Leonardo): part designer, part engineer, mostly self-taught, totally obsessed.

How else could you explain the fact that every one of the Huayra's 1400 titanium bolts has the Pagani logo etched on it (the pre-production bolt set used on the first five cars cost $112,000 -- per car); that Pagani spent nearly $900,000 developing a unique fuel system designed to eliminate the threat of fires in a crash; that the Huayra has a bespoke battery that's 26 pounds lighter than the one used in the Zonda (the old one cost $125, the new one is more than $1800). There are 1001 other examples I could quote, so just take it from me: The Huayra's detailing and workmanship is simply incredible. It makes a Ferrari look frumpy, a Veyron like a Volkswagen.

A Pagani is more than just a car. It is a rolling work of art, painstakingly created and beautifully rendered. Some Zonda models are now worth considerably more than what their owners paid for them, which perhaps proves the point that great art always goes up in value. But driving the Huayra is a lot more fun than looking at a painting on the wall.

Atlanta Beat Battle June 2012