Oscar Pistorius' brother on trial for road death

VANDERBIJLPARK, South Africa (AP) ? The brother of double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius went on trial in a South African court Wednesday for the death of a woman in a road collision in 2008.

Carl Pistorius, who faces a charge of culpable homicide, or negligent killing, wore a dark suit and was accompanied by his sister, Aimee. Oscar Pistorius, who was charged with murdering his girlfriend on Feb. 14, was not present. The Olympian hasn't been seen in public since he was granted bail at Pretoria Magistrate's Court on Feb. 22. His lawyers plan to challenge his bail restrictions on Thursday.

Initial proceedings in Carl Pistorius' case at Vanderbijlpark Magistrate's Court south of Johannesburg focused on a request by South Africa's national broadcaster, SABC, to show the trial proceedings live on national television or record them for later use.

Magistrate Buks du Plessis said reporters could attend the trial but turned down the SABC request, saying he wanted to guard against "emotional hype" and that any public interest in the trial stemmed only from the intense interest in the murder case against Oscar Pistorius. News photographers were not allowed to cover the trial while it was in session.

"He's not a celebrity in his own right," du Plessis said of Oscar's brother. Addressing Carl Pistorius, the magistrate then said: "Apologies to you, sir."

Carl Pistorius smiled and nodded.

Defense lawyer Kenneth Oldwadge said the legal team for Oscar Pistorius had been "overwhelmed by the media," and that similar press scrutiny would make it difficult to work in court during the older brother's case. Oldwadge cited a comment by the judge in Oscar Pistorius' bail hearing that the media treated the athlete like some kind of unusual "species" instead of a human being.

Prosecutors say Carl Pistorius was driving an SUV in March 2008 when he collided with a female motorcyclist. The woman, Marietjie Barnard, died in a hospital. Although the culpable homicide charge against Carl was initially dropped, it was reinstated this year because forensic evidence and reports from the accident scene became available, according to prosecutors.

The Pistorius family said last month that Carl deeply regretted the incident but insisted it was a "tragic accident." He was not under the influence of alcohol, the family said.

Oscar's legal team filed an appeal against some of his bail conditions on March 7, objecting to him being not allowed to travel outside of South Africa even though a magistrate said he was not a flight risk when granting him 1 million rand ($108,000) bail. They're also challenging an alcohol ban and a ruling that Pistorius cannot speak with residents at the gated estate where he shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp dead in the early hours of Valentine's Day.

The athlete denies murdering Steenkamp and says he shot her by mistake, fearing an intruder was in his home. Prosecutors say he killed her intentionally following an argument.

Oscar Pistorius must appear in court again on June 4.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-27-OLY-Pistorius-Shooting/id-7bad90da01eb4534b60c6aabb5e0f11c

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Boehner after Obama meeting: No new taxes

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Friday, March 1, 2013, following a meeting with President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders regarding the automatic spending cuts. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Friday, March 1, 2013, following a meeting with President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders regarding the automatic spending cuts. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? House Speaker John Boehner, emerging Friday from a White House meeting with President Barack Obama and congressional leaders, declared that higher taxes won't be part of any deal to solve the country's budget mess.

No closer to a deal to undo $85 billion in automatic spending cuts taking effect Friday, Boehner said the House will move ahead next week with legislation to keep the government running beyond March. He said he hopes the country won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown.

Boehner's office, in a statement describing the meeting, said he and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Obama they're willing to close loopholes but only to lower taxes overall, not to replace spending cuts. Obama and congressional leaders agreed that Congress should pass a bill funding the government while they keep working on a way to replace the spending cuts, Boehner's office said.

His office said Boehner told the president the best way to resolve the cuts now would be through the regular lawmaking process, rather than congressional leaders cutting a deal with Obama.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-01-Budget%20Battle-Boehner/id-126e4f26779c4f36a7ec2378b476c770

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New dinosaur species: First fossil evidence shows small crocs fed on baby dinosaurs

Feb. 28, 2013 ? A South Dakota School of Mines & Technology assistant professor and his team have discovered a new species of herbivorous dinosaur and today published the first fossil evidence of prehistoric crocodyliforms feeding on small dinosaurs.

Research by Clint Boyd, Ph.D., provides the first definitive evidence that plant-eating baby ornithopod dinosaurs were a food of choice for the crocodyliform, a now extinct relative of the crocodile family. While conducting their research, the team also discovered that this dinosaur prey was a previously unrecognized species of a small ornithopod dinosaur, which has yet to be named.

The evidence found in what is now known as the Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument in southern Utah dates back to the late Cretaceous period, toward the end of the age of dinosaurs, and was published today in the online journal PLOS ONE. The complete research findings of Boyd and Stephanie K. Drumheller, of the University of Iowa and the University of Tennessee, and Terry A. Gates, of North Carolina State University and the Natural History Museum of Utah, can be accessed online (see journal reference below).

A large number of mostly tiny bits of dinosaur bones were recovered in groups at four locations within the Utah park -- which paleontologists and geologists know as the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Kaiparowits Formation -- leading paleontologists to believe that crocodyliforms had fed on baby dinosaurs 1-2 meters in total length.

Evidence shows bite marks on bone joints, as well as breakthrough proof of a crocodyliform tooth still embedded in a dinosaur femur.

The findings are significant because historically dinosaurs have been depicted as the dominant species. "The traditional ideas you see in popular literature are that when little baby dinosaurs are either coming out of a nesting grounds or out somewhere on their own, they are normally having to worry about the theropod dinosaurs, the things like raptors or, on bigger scales, the T. rex. So this kind of adds a new dimension," Boyd said. "You had your dominant riverine carnivores, the crocodyliforms, attacking these herbivores as well, so they kind of had it coming from all sides."

Based on teeth marks left on bones and the large amounts of fragments left behind, it is believed the crocodyliforms were also diminutive in size, perhaps no more than 2 meters long. A larger species of crocodyliform would have been more likely to gulp down its prey without leaving behind traces of "busted up" bone fragments.

Until now, paleontologists had direct evidence only of "very large crocodyliforms" interacting with "very large dinosaurs."

"It's not often that you get events from the fossil record that are action-related," Boyd explained. "While you generally assume there was probably a lot more interaction going on, we didn't have any of that preserved in the fossil record yet. This is the first time that we have definitive evidence that you had this kind of partitioning, of your smaller crocodyliforms attacking the smaller herbivorous dinosaurs," he said, adding that this is only the second published instance of a crocodyliform tooth embedded in any prey animal in the fossil record.

"A lot of times you find material in close association or you can find some feeding marks or traces on the outside of the bone and you can hypothesize that maybe it was a certain animal doing this, but this was only the second time we have really good definitive evidence of a crocodyliform feeding on a prey animal and in this case an ornithischian dinosaur," Boyd said.

The high concentrations of tiny dinosaur bones led researchers to conclude a type of selection occurred, that crocodyliforms were preferentially feeding on these miniature dinosaurs. "Maybe it was closer to a nesting ground where baby dinosaurs would have been more abundant, and so the smaller crocodyliforms were hanging out there getting a lunch," Boyd added.

"When we started looking at all the other bones, we starting finding marks that are known to be diagnostic for crocodyliform feeding traces, so all that evidence coming together suddenly started to make sense as to why we were not finding good complete specimens of these little ornithischian dinosaurs," Boyd explained. "Most of the bites marks are concentrated around the joints, which is where the crocodyliform would tend to bite, and then, when they do their pulling or the death roll that they tend to do, the ends of the bones tend to snap off more often than not in those actions. That's why we were finding these fragmentary bones."

In the process of their research, the team discovered through diagnostic cranial material that these baby prey are a new, as yet-to-be-named dinosaur species. Details on this new species will soon be published in another paper.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Clint A. Boyd, Stephanie K. Drumheller, Terry A. Gates. Crocodyliform Feeding Traces on Juvenile Ornithischian Dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Kaiparowits Formation, Utah. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e57605 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057605

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/F3jLe2V-sTc/130228171504.htm

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