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Sunday 22 April 2012

Following a four-year manhunt, the UK is awaiting the arrival of Michael Brown, the multi-millionaire fraudster and Lib Dem donor who was living in a Dominican Republic resort under a false name.

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Good morning to everyone and welcome to another edition of your Sunday Morning Liveblog. My name is Jason, and these are my quickly-typed words. Is everybody doing well? Let’s hope so. I really don’t have much of a preamble today, but in the interest of giving everyone something to do this Sunday while I “take one for the team” and watch the parade of horribles on the teevee screen, here is Conor Friedersdorf annual list of the years best journalism. Some of you will recognize some stories we’ve already shared in this space, like Willy Staley’s “A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib As Arbitrage” and Mac McClelland’s “I’m Gonna Need You to Fight Me On This.”

And, of course, while we’re on this subject, our own David Wood won this fancy award you might have heard about for his wonderful “Beyond The Battlefield: Rebuilding Wounded Warriors” series, so if you haven’t already checked that out, please do! I promise to just sit here quitely, typing nonsense, while all of you get your enjoyment on. As always, you all can get together in the comments to talk about these stories or your own, feel free to drop me a line, and if you’re particularly interested in my daily agonies, you can follow me on Twitter.

Okay, let us commence.

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

[More liveblog is coming in just a minute!]

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It doesn’t take a college degree to start tackling Detroit’s problems and making the city a greener, more walkable place. While Wayne State University student Kyle Bartell, a native Detroiter, works to complete his Urban Studies degree, he’s also spending time trying to create public parks.

“Living here in the city, that’s been one of the biggest educators for me,” Bartell said. “It’s given me the first-hand experience of wanting to get involved.”

When Bartell looked at ways Detroit could become friendlier to its residents, he started noticing “desire paths.” Also called social trails, these paths are tread by people walking across land where there are no official walkways. Pedestrians create their own paths simply by wearing down the grass. For examples of the many desire paths in Detroit, see the Sweet Juniper blog.

Rather than forcing people to walk where the concrete lies, Bartell proposes designing around users’ needs to make open spaces more welcoming. A vacant lot at Lothrop Road and Third Street in Detroit’s New Center neighborhood caught his eye for its beautiful trees and the desire path created by people walking between a parking garage and Henry Ford Hospital.

Bartell, along with partners and recent University of Michigan architecture graduates Maria Sviridova and Danny Travis, submitted a proposal to Midtown Inc. to develop and improve the space. And that corner is just the beginning — it’s a project Bartell would like to replicate across the city.

“The momentum to using underutilized space is only up and up, and we want to take advantage of it as much as we can,” he said.

In the meantime, Bartell, Sviridova and Travis decided to take their proposal off-paper. They chose a patch of land at Cass Avenue and Canfield Street in Midtown, on the side of the Knickerbocker building, that has its own desire path. They started improving the land with the owner’s permission.

“We live in the area, and we’re taking it upon ourselves to make it better where we live,” Bartell explained.

The space is technically a vacant lot, not a public park, but they built unique benches and designed a plan for the space to give a concrete, visual example of their ideas for parks across the city.

Bartell, who grew up on Detroit’s northwest side, fondly remembers the parks of his childhood where he would play sports.

“It’s the place-based education that got me motivated to do something and make Detroit better on a more physical level,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer — everyone should want to get involved in making our environments a lot cleaner and safer.”

Also on HuffPost:

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DETROIT — Justin Verlander pitched six innings without allowing an earned run, and the Detroit Tigers salvaged a split of their doubleheader with Texas, beating the Rangers 3-2 in the nightcap Saturday.

Texas routed the Tigers 10-4 in the first game for its eighth consecutive victory, but Verlander (2-1) held off the powerful Rangers, allowing four hits and three walks while striking out eight. The Rangers managed an unearned run in the fourth, but Detroit answered with three runs in the bottom of the inning against Neftali Feliz (1-1).

Octavio Dotel pitched the seventh for Detroit, Joaquin Benoit allowed a run in the eighth and Jose Valverde walked two in the ninth but struck out Josh Hamilton to end it, picking up his fourth save.

Texas third baseman Adrian Beltre left with a strained left hamstring after hitting a second-inning double in Saturday’s opener. He’s not expected to play for the rest of the weekend.

Five days after throwing a 131-pitch complete game in a win at Kansas City, Verlander labored against Texas, throwing his 100th pitch in the fifth inning and reaching 115 before coming out.

He allowed a run on a walk, a passed ball and two flyouts in the fourth, but that was it. Verlander has now gone at least six innings in his last 46 regular-season starts.

Feliz retired the first 10 hitters he faced with ease, but when he hit Brennan Boesch with a pitch in the fourth, his night turned sour. Feliz walked Prince Fielder with two outs and allowed Delmon Young’s RBI single – Detroit’s first hit.

Alex Avila then drew a walk to load the bases, and Ramon Santiago lined a two-run single to left-center field to make it 3-1.

Feliz allowed three runs and three hits in eight innings. He walked four and struck out six.

The Rangers beat Detroit 10-3 on Thursday night in the first game of a four-game set. After a rainout Friday, they picked up right where they left off, scoring eight runs in the first inning of Saturday’s opener against Rick Porcello (1-1).

“They’re hot and they’re aggressive and confident,” Porcello said. “I was unable to come up with an answer.”

Matt Harrison (3-0) allowed three runs and six hits in 7 2-3 innings for Texas, which was 7-0 on the road after winning the first game of the doubleheader. That streak ended thanks to Verlander and Santiago, and Feliz became the first Texas starter to lose. The Rangers’ rotation is now 10-1.

Hamilton hit a three-run homer as part of Texas’ big first inning. Mike Napoli hit a solo shot in the opener, his fifth straight game with a homer. Napoli didn’t start the nightcap, but he did strike out as a pinch-hitter to end his streak.

Hamilton and Napoli each have six homers on the season.

“It’s an awesome thing when we all get going like that,” Texas outfielder David Murphy said. “We’ve got so many bats in our lineup that we’re hard to beat if we keep hitting.”

Porcello entered his start with a 1.84 ERA. It was 6.32 by the time he left. He allowed nine runs – eight earned – and 10 hits before being pulled with nobody out and two on in the second.

NOTES: Texas had a chance to set a team record for best 15-game start, but had to settle for matching the 1989 Rangers’ mark of 12-3. … Detroit LHP Daniel Schlereth worked two innings in the opener, then was optioned to Triple-A Toledo. The Tigers purchased the contract of RHP Thad Weber from Toledo between games. … Porcello’s eight earned runs matched a career worst, and this was the shortest start of his career. … Beltre hasn’t missed a game this season, but he spent time on the disabled list last year with a left hamstring strain and was limited to 124 games in 2011. … Dotel appeared in his 700th game. … Detroit rookie Drew Smyly (0-0) takes on Texas RHP Colby Lewis (2-0) in the series finale Sunday.

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Africa.com:

Going to an Ethiopian restaurant is an interesting experience. It is not just about the food, which is delicious. It’s also about the surroundings, the community, and the touch-and-feel rhythm of eating food with your hands. Do make sure that you go with people you actually like, as you will share the dishes with them. Also, if you are one of those people who believe that everyone else but them carry an inordinate amount of germs, this is probably not the right choice for you, either.

Read the whole story at Africa.com

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BEIRUT — Syrian troops stormed and shelled districts in a suburb of the capital Damascus Sunday, activists said, a day after the Security Council voted to expand the number of U.N. truce monitors from 30 to 300 in hopes of salvaging an international peace plan marred by continued fighting between the military and rebels.

An eight-member team is already on the ground in Syria, and since Thursday has visited flashpoints of the 13-month-long conflict. Fighting generally temporarily stops when the observers visit an area, but there has been a steady stream of reports of violence from towns and regions where they have not yet gone.

“This U.N. observers thing is a big joke,” said Mohammed Saeed, an activist in the sprawling Damascus suburb of Douma, which came under fire from regime troops on Sunday. “Shelling stops and tanks are hidden when they visit somewhere, and when they leave, shelling resumes.”

His comments reflect a widespread lack of faith among many Syrians in international envoy Kofi Annan’s cease-fire plan for ending the violence in Syria and launching talks between President Bashar Assad and those trying to oust him. Syria’s opposition and its Western supporters suspect Assad is largely paying lip service to the truce since full compliance – including withdrawing troops and heavy weapons from populated areas and allowing peaceful demonstrations – could quickly sweep him from power.

So far, the regime has kept up its attacks on opposition strongholds, though on a smaller scale than before the truce deadline.

Saeed said two people were killed Sunday by indiscriminate firing in Douma, which was the scene of intense clashes between rebels and security forces before the U.N.-brokered cease-fire went into effect more than a week ago.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition group with a network of activists on the ground, confirmed the deaths. It said four soldiers were also killed when a roadside bomb hit an armored personnel carrier in the town later Sunday.

The Observatory also reported that security forces killed three people in the northern province of Idlib and one person in the village of Hteita outside Damascus when troops opened fire from a checkpoint.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the attack on Douma. Saeed said loud explosions that shook the city early Sunday caused panic among residents, some of whom used mosque loudspeakers to urge people to take cover in basements and in lower floors of apartment buildings.

The Security Council approved a resolution Saturday expanding the U.N. observer mission from 30 to 300 members, initially for 90 days. The expanded force is meant to shore up the cease-fire that officially took effect 10 days ago, but has failed to halt the violence that the U.N. says has killed more than 9,000 people since March 2011.

Annan on Sunday welcomed the vote, calling it a “pivotal moment” in the process of stabilizing the country and urged all Syrians to uphold the cease-fire.

“The government in particular must desist from the use of heavy weapons and … withdraw such weapons and armed units from population centers,” he said.

He added that the presence of observers would help create the conditions conducive to launching the much-needed political process and called on the Syrian government and the opposition “to prepare to engage in such a process as a matter of utmost priority.”

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has accused Assad of violating the truce, and said Saturday that “the gross violations of the fundamental rights of the Syrian people must stop at once.” Rebel fighters have also kept up attacks.

State-run news agency SANA said Sunday that an officer was killed and 42 others wounded in a roadside bomb explosion that targeted their bus Sunday in northern Syria. Two other explosives were dismantled on the spot on the Raqqa-Aleppo highway, SANA said.

The U.N. eight-member advance team has visited the Damascus suburb of Arbeen, the southern province of Daraa, and the battered opposition stronghold of Homs. The monitors have not visited Douma yet.

Five monitors who toured Homs Saturday encountered unusually calm streets after weeks of shelling, and activists said it was the first quiet day in months. Two observers stayed behind in Homs to keep monitoring the city, after the rest of the team left that evening.

Amateur video posted on the Internet showed the observers walking through rubble-strewn streets lined by gutted apartments buildings. They were thronged by residents clamoring for foreign military help to oust Assad.

In one video, two monitors are seen sitting in a room listening to a Syrian man asking them to stay in Homs.

“We want you to stay, please stay. … When you come, shelling stops, killing stops. It’s our blood,” the man says as an observer nods his head.

Related on HuffPost:

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