Baby Found Home Alone In Beltzhoover ? CBS Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ? Pittsburgh police are trying to determine whether an infant and a toddler were left home alone Wednesday afternoon in Pittsburgh?s Beltzhoover section.

Officials say it happened at a home in the 300-block of Michigan Street.

KDKA-TV?s Harold Hayes reports that police were called on reports that the infant, which was taken into the custody of CYS, was abandoned.

The mother of the infant and the mother of a toddler reportedly left the children in the care of babysitters.

But a young man, who came to the house and had fallen asleep, became alarmed when he awakened and found the babysitters had left.

It?s when he went to call police that a number of people became alarmed.

?An officer had been on the street on an unrelated incident. He was informed by a gentleman that there were children left at a residence unattended, and we?re still working on investigating where the parents of these two children are at,? said Sgt. William Bair, of Pittsburgh Police. ?We believe that the parents had left two younger children, they left them to babysit ? an 11- and 12-year-old ? and those two females that were supposed to babysit had left the residence.?

?Basically, what we have is two kids that were left in the house, a baby a few months old and another baby close to 2-years-old. They were left with a babysitter, at that time. I believe it was a 10-year-old, there?s a discrepancy as to whether it was a 10- or 14-year-old young lady,? said Richard Carrington, a Beltzhoover resident.

?Once she saw the young man had woken up, she basically left the house and left the kids with the young man. So, the understanding was that no one was left with the kids,? he added. ?The young man was here with the kids when he walked down off the porch to flag down the police; obviously, there was no one at the house at that time cause he was flagging down the police.?

The toddler is now back with relatives, but the infant remains in the custody of CYS officials.

Meantime, police are still trying to sort it out exactly what happened.

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Graham Nash Works | Arts & Entertainment | Atlantic City Weekly

Neil Young by Graham Nash

Photo by Copyright Graham Nash 2012

Graham Nash has been playing with Crosby, Stills and Nash since 1968. Although he and his at-the-time new band mates ? Crosby, a former member of the Byrds; Stills of Buffalo Springfield, and Nash of the Hollies ? would become one of the biggest radio and concert sensations of the late 1960s and 1970s through today, the trio ? which would also work with Neil Young for many projects ? wasn?t quite ready for its first concert:?

The Atlantic City Pop Festival, held at the Atlantic City Race Course in Mays Landing, just before Woodstock in August 1969.?

?We didn?t play it,? says Nash, on a tour stop with CSN in Providence, Rhode Island. (The band is on the road through October and returns to the Borgata in Atlantic City on Saturday, June 30.)?

Although CSN was to debut live at the A.C. Pop Fest, with its name listed on the festival?s official posters and T-shirts, etc., Nash doesn?t quite remember the circumstances. ?

?I?m not sure to be honest,? he says. ?I?ve been asked this question twice within the last month. ? I believe that we needed more practice. Don?t forget Woodstock was only the second gig we ever played together live. ?

?I think we might have needed more rehearsal or something. Something was going on and we didn?t play that Atlantic City [date, but] there were people who swore they saw us there!??

Aside from singing and playing on such classic tunes as ?Almost Cut My Hair,? ?Teach Your Children,? ?Our House? and ?Chicago,? Nash has been interested in art and photography for decades. ?

Although he has had exhibits of his photography in the past, his paintings ? mainly acrylics ? are being unveiled for the first time beginning this Thursday (June 28) in Stone Harbor.?

While CSN plays the Borgata, Nash?s exhibit ?The Art of Graham Nash? will be on display at Ocean Galleries (9618 Third Ave., Stone Harbor) through Sept. 30. ?

However, on July 1, Nash will be at the gallery in person for a reception between 7-10pm where he will sign purchased art.?

?This exhibit has never been seen before,? says Nash. ?These paintings. I?ve been working on this [exhibit] for about a year and a half now.?

?This whole experience is fresh. It was amazing to me that when the gallery owners came out to my house in Los Angeles and saw my work it was their response that got me excited because, I mean, they?re supposed to know what they?re doing ? they?ve had an art gallery for a couple decades now and they?re this excited! It was shocking to me.? ?

So Nash decided to share his intriguing imagery with the world.?

?Why not let other people see them?? Nash says. ?You know? It?s brand new to me and it?s going to be exciting.??

Exciting for southern New Jersey folks as well, as the Ocean Galleries exhibit is the world premiere of Nash?s paintings of images and people such as Neil Young. ?

Nash says he is already working on another exhibit of different works.?

?I?ve done another exhibit of very serious work that I?ve been doing,? says Nash. ?

?Almost brutal images of things that disturb me. ... It?s hard to say what they are. They are a combination of painting and photographs and images that I made collages of ? interesting work. And there will only be seven pieces in the entire exhibit. Six of them will be four-feet-square and one image will be four-feet-high by 12-feet long.??

Aside from the images that will be on display at Ocean Galleries this summer, Nash?s Web site shows more than 40 photographs the 70-year-old multi-faceted artist has taken over the years.?

?I?ve been a photographer longer than I?ve been a musician,? says Nash. ?The first portrait that I ever took where I thought I had something was of my mother when I was 11.??

On the Web site, there is a photo of Bob Dylan playing live at Madison Garden for the George Harrison-organized Concert for Bangladesh. ?

?Oh, yes I was there. That?s Leon Russell there behind him. I was there to purely watch George pull off a piece of wonderfulness. It was a great, great concert.??

So, has Nash shown any of his subjects his paintings of them??

?No, neither David [Crosby] or Stephen [Stills] Neil [Young] or Joni [Mitchell] have seen any of these. It?s kind of wild; it would be interesting to hear their reaction.? The Neil Young image was painted from a photograph Nash took of the musician ?years ago.??

RELATED: INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN STILLS ('IT'S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN')

?I really like it and I blew it up larger on canvas and painted it. There are several in there because not only are they all different colors and different interpretations, but I wrote a line from a Neil song into every painting.??

One of the Neil Young images is called ?Neil Young ? Hurricane,? which is a line from his song, ?Like a Hurricane.? There is also Neil Young ? Old Man, with, along his shoulder line, I?ve written a line from his song ?Old Man.? Just pushing it all forward.?

Like fellow musician Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, who also has a southern New Jersey art exhibit (at the Golden Nugget Atlantic City through July, see images here), Nash prefers acrylic paint to oils. ?

?Right now, I?m loving acrylic,? says Nash. ?I don?t do [work] in oil. I?m too impatient. It takes too long to dry. It takes days to dry. It drives me crazy.??

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90 still missing after boat capsizes off Indonesia

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? A boat carrying about 200 people capsized south of Indonesia and scores were feared drowned Thursday in an apparent attempt to reach Australia to seek asylum. Indonesian and Australian navies launched efforts to rescue survivors.

An Australian navy patrol boat and three cargo ships had rescued 110 survivors by late Thursday and were taking them 200 kilometers (120 miles) south to the Australian territory of Christmas Island, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Jo Meehan said.

She declined to comment on any bodies discovered. She said the patrol boat would return to the scene of the sinking to continue the search for survivors through the night.

The boat capsized about halfway between Christmas Island and Indonesia, Meehan said.

It was not immediately clear where the passengers were from.

Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean, is closer to Indonesia than the Australian mainland. It is a popular target for a growing number of asylum seekers, many from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, who attempt to reach Australia on overcrowded fishing boats from Indonesia ? sometimes with deadly consequences.

"There's about 40 on the hull and the rest are in the water," Western Australia state Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said earlier. "Some of the very early reports suggest that up to 75 people may have drowned, but I do stress that they're unconfirmed at this stage."

O'Callaghan said bodies had been seen in the water. "We can't confirm that they've died, but it's likely," he said.

Western Australian police were being sent to Christmas Island to attempt to identify bodies, he said.

Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency, said two Indonesian warships had been dispatched to scene. He said Indonesia has sent notice to all cargo ships passing near the area to help, but he was not sure whether any had reached the disaster scene.

Prakoso said the boat was reportedly carrying 206 people, but added that he could not yet say their country of origin or from where they departed.

Australia sent a defense aircraft equipped with life rafts, an Australian Customs Service surveillance aircraft and two navy patrol boats.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who is seeking ways to stem the flow of asylum seekers to Australia, discussed the apparent tragedy with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Brazil where they are both attending a United Nations environment summit.

"At this stage, details are sketchy but what is apparent is there has been a large loss of life at sea," she said. "This is a very distressing and tragic incident."

In December 2010, an estimated 48 people died when an asylum seeker boat broke up against Christmas Island's rocky coast.

Last December, about 200 asylum seekers were feared drowned after their overcrowded ship sank off Indonesia's main island of Java.

___

Associated Press Writer Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Who's landing the big interviews after Oprah?

FILE - This undated image originally released by Harpo, Inc. shows host Oprah Winfrey posing with Paris Jackson, daughter of the late pop icon Michael Jackson in Los Angeles. Winfrey interviewed Jackson for an "Oprah's Next Chapter," special which aired on June 10 on OWN. (AP Photo/Harpo Inc., George Burns)

FILE - This undated image originally released by Harpo, Inc. shows host Oprah Winfrey posing with Paris Jackson, daughter of the late pop icon Michael Jackson in Los Angeles. Winfrey interviewed Jackson for an "Oprah's Next Chapter," special which aired on June 10 on OWN. (AP Photo/Harpo Inc., George Burns)

FILE - An undated image from video originally released by Harpo, Inc., shows host Oprah Winfrey, left, embracing Bobbi Kristina, daughter of the late singer Whitney Houston during an interview in Atlanta, Ga. The exclusive interview was shown on "Oprah's Next Chapter," on the OWN network on March 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Harpo, Inc., file)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Since Oprah Winfrey packed up the couch that Tom Cruise jumped on and ended her daytime talk show last year, no one has truly filled her role as the top go-to person in television for major celebrity and news interviews.

Now someone is trying to claim that spot ? and would you believe it's Oprah again?

Faced with the potential failure of her money-pit cable network OWN, Winfrey is working the phones hard to secure big-name interviews for her show, "Oprah's Next Chapter." Back-to-back episodes last Sunday featured the Kardashian family and rapper 50 Cent, and the Kardashians will be back this weekend. Michael Jackson's daughter Paris and the late Whitney Houston's family made news with their interviews in recent weeks.

The open question is whether she can have the same cultural impact on a smaller stage. Winfrey's daytime talk show was generally seen by around 6 million people in her final years; "Oprah's Next Chapter" with the Kardashians was seen by 1.1 million viewers, according to the Nielsen company.

"I am sure that people have a conversation about that when they are exploring their options," said Sheri Salata, OWN president. "The one constant we have ... is that you have the opportunity to sit down with Oprah."

Winfrey's daytime show wasn't all about interviews, of course. But in her last few seasons, she sat down for conversations with the likes of Tina Fey, Elizabeth Edwards, Michelle Obama, Madonna, Denzel Washington, Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Branson and Beyonce.

The audience was primarily women but, as Cruise proved with his eager declarations of love for Katie Holmes in 2005, the cultural impact could spread beyond the afternoon.

"Doing an interview on one of those shows was like Johnny Carson asking you to come sit with him after you've done your stand-up," said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "If there was any equivalent to playing the Palace at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, being on 'Oprah' might have been it."

While Thompson said that "half the people can't find OWN on their cable television," that may underestimate Winfrey. The "Oprah's Next Chapter" episode with Houston's family in March premiered to 3.5 million people, Nielsen said. Many others heard about it or saw clips.

Winfrey's presence in daytime was a mixed blessing for veteran Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman. Most of his clients wanted to be on "Oprah" and were convinced they had a story she wanted to hear. When they did, it was great.

When they didn't, not so great. "It was a ton of pressure," he said, "and there's a part of me that is happy the pressure has lifted."

Now he can suggest a media strategy with interviewers who can reach his clients' target audiences. Bragman often goes retro, preferring the news divisions at broadcast television networks.

Ellen DeGeneres is probably the leading personality in daytime now, but her show is about entertainment. Dr. Phil and Anderson Cooper get some interviews, as does "The View" and "The Talk."

None has the impact that Winfrey had on a consistent basis, said Bill Carroll, an expert in the syndication market for Katz Media.

Also missing from the scene is CNN's Larry King, who didn't have the same juice as Winfrey but had a friendly reputation that made him a popular stop for people with hard stories to tell. King's replacement, Piers Morgan, is not as established and is dragged down by CNN's ratings problems.

Katie Couric, whose daytime talk show starts in the fall, could be Winfrey's true heir as an interviewer in daytime. Her lengthy tenure at NBC's "Today" show makes her able to deftly switch from world leaders to actors to quirky celebrities enjoying 15 minutes of fame. "Not many people can do that," Bragman said.

First things first, however. Couric needs to build a show and prove that people want to watch her. Establishing booking superiority before Couric starts could benefit Winfrey.

While "Today" and CBS' "60 Minutes" are able to land strong interviews, no television organization has been as aggressive as ABC News in seeking the big "gets." The latest example is this week, with the network giving a prime-time platform to Chris Cuomo's interview with former presidential candidate John Edwards' mistress Rielle Hunter.

Diane Sawyer was rewarded last summer when her interview with Jaycee Dugard, who had been held captive by a sex offender for 18 years, had the best summertime ratings of a newsmagazine since 2004. Her November interview with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords about recovering from being shot in the head was seen by more than 12 million people.

There's more to ABC's efforts than filling a void left by Winfrey, said Eric Avram, who runs the network's interview bookings. Still, he doesn't miss her.

"Oprah obviously had an enormous presence and her iconic show was one of our biggest competitors," he said.

ABC usually gives its interviews wide exposure, on shows like "Good Morning America," ''World News" and "Nightline," and will often give interview subjects an hour in prime-time. ABC News' content sharing deal with Yahoo! also guarantees a wide web presence for the stories.

Having Couric in-house enabled ABC News to secure interviews with some British royal family members this spring, but delicate issues loom. Couric will remain with ABC News but her first allegiance will be to her talk show, which is syndicated and will be seen on some non-ABC stations. That leaves unclear whether ABC will be able to use interviews that Couric gets.

While ABC is doing well now, Bragman said not to underestimate NBC and the competition between the two. "They are both working very hard now," he said.

So is Winfrey, Salata said.

"If somebody has a rough story and wants to be more than a movie star or more than a pop singer, they know they're going to get that opportunity with Oprah," she said. "That is a huge advantage. That really does keep us in the game with all the big interviews."

Associated Press

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Sentence Handed Down to Real Estate Ponzi Schemer

Joseph Mazella, Staten Island, New York, has been sentenced for running a $14 million real estate Ponzi scheme.

As previously reported on Mortgage Fraud Blog, Joseph Mazella was the founder and president of the Great Atlantic Group, Inc., a Staten-Island based real estate and financial consulting company. Evidence at the trial proved that Mazella told prospective investors that he would invest their money in real estate projects, including projects in Trenton, New Jersey, a warehouse in Utica, New York, and a golf course in Greene County, New York. Mazella told his victims that their money would be safe and that he would pay them a fixed rate of return.

In exchange for their investment, Mazella issued notes to investors that were supposedly backed by mortgages on the properties and encouraged several investors, typically senior citizens, to apply for reverse mortgages on their residences and to invest the proceeds with him. From approximately January 2007 until approximately December 2010, investors gave Mazella more than $14 million. By January 2007, though, Mazella was operating Great Atlantic as a Ponzi scheme in which he paid returns to investors from existing investors? deposits or money paid by new investors. Mazella also used investors? money to pay his personal expenses, including payments for a Porsche, mortgages on his personal residences and family expenses.

?When this defendant needed money to fund his personal lifestyle, he sought out victims from among the elderly. He promised this vulnerable class of victims security and stability. Instead he took many of their life savings and sources of future support to fund his own extravagant lifestyle. Those who engage in this criminal activity will face significant prison sentences,? said United States Attorney Loretta E. Lynch. Ms. Lynch extended her grateful appreciation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which led the government?s investigation.

Mazella was sentenced by Chief United States District Judge Carol B. Amon. A federal jury in Brooklyn returned guilty verdicts against Mazella on charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud after a three-week trial in February.

The sentence was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

The government?s case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys John Nowak, Winston Paes and Mary M. Dickman.

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Some may be unable to access Apple's iCloud services

1 day

Rosa Golijan

Uh oh! According to a status message on Apple's iCloud support page, some folks may be unable to access the service.

There aren't too many details available at this point. Apple's support page explains that only some users are affected by the issue and that "[n]ormal service will be restored ASAP."

BGR's Jonathan Geller writes that iCloud, iMessage, and even Apple's developer portal are affected but no one on msnbc.com's tech/sci team (nor any of the friends I hastily messaged) encountered any issues with any of the services.

We have reached out to Apple for comment.

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

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FACT CHECK: Where Obama, Romney missed mark

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama accused Republicans of paying for wars "on the nation's credit card" even though he has used the same plastic for the same purpose, and for many others. Mitt Romney defied logic and statistics in claiming the huge stimulus package did not create private-sector jobs.

In dueling speeches from Ohio on Thursday, the presidential contenders at times offered skewed accounts of the nation's economic course and the record of recent years.

A look at some of their claims and how they compare with the facts:

ROMNEY: "That stimulus didn't work. That stimulus didn't put more private-sector people to work."

THE FACTS: There is no doubt that Obama's $800 billion-plus stimulus, enacted in February 2009, created both public-sector and private-sector jobs, even if not as many as its sponsors had hoped. The director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, recently estimated that the stimulus saved or created more than 3 million jobs. Princeton University economist Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimated that the stimulus, together with the bank bailout started by President George W. Bush and continued by Obama, saved or created more than 10 million jobs.

Part of the stimulus was directed toward retaining teachers and other public workers. But the package included plenty of construction and other "shovel-ready" projects with private workers, not public employees, wielding the shovels.

___

OBAMA: "Our businesses have gone back to basics and created over 4 million jobs in the last 27 months."

THE FACTS: True as far as it goes, but the claim inflates Obama's record of private-sector job creation by ignoring huge losses early in his presidency.

By going back 27 months, Obama starts counting at the low point of employment for the private sector in February 2010 and tracks how far it has come. But counting farther back, since the end of the recession in June 2009, private-sector job gains have been much more modest, 3.1 million. That's a more meaningful measurement to economists.

Overall, the economy has lost 1.37 million jobs ? 784,000 in the private sector ? since Obama was inaugurated.

___

ROMNEY: "China and the nations of the European Union over the last 3 1/2 years have made real inroads in Latin America and other places in the world with trade agreements and negotiated trade agreements, 44 different trade agreements being negotiated by China and European nations with other nations around the world. Guess how many trade agreements our president's negotiated? None. None."

THE FACTS: To be sure, Obama hasn't opened new trade negotiations, but he's finished several big ones, overcoming opposition from fellow Democrats to do so. Under his watch, the United States has made inroads in Latin America, too.

After taking office, he worked to revive a free-trade deal with Colombia that had been negotiated by his Republican predecessor but left to languish without congressional approval, and sought similar progress with South Korean and Panamanian free-trade pacts. The president held off on submitting the three deals to Congress as his administration tried to negotiate more palatable terms to Democrats. He finally submitted them in 2011 and Congress approved them in the fall.

___

OBAMA: "We were told that it was OK to put two wars on the nation's credit card; that tax cuts would create enough growth to pay for themselves. ... The failure to pay for the tax cuts and the wars took us from record surpluses under President Bill Clinton to record deficits. And it left us unprepared to deal with the retirement of an aging population that's placing a greater strain on programs like Medicare and Social Security."

THE FACTS: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, begun by Bush, helped push the nation's fiscal picture into deficit. The Bush tax cuts lowered revenues, contributing to early deficits as well, and those revenues stayed below the rate of economic growth in subsequent years.

Meanwhile, the wars kept taking their toll on spending, ultimately driving the deficit to a historic high of $1.4 trillion in the 2009 budget year. That deficit also was driven by the recession, which was already well under way.

After Obama took office, he also paid for the wars by borrowing. What's more, the recession has increased deficit spending on programs that automatically ramp up during an economic downturn, such as food stamps and Medicaid. Borrowing also was required for the stimulus package.

As he winds down the wars, Obama is not exactly cutting up the credit card. In his State of the Union speech, he proposed using half of the money that would have gone to pay for the wars on a massive infrastructure plan.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Christopher S. Rugaber contributed to this report.

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