Prison Break CHARLES WESTMORELAND

CHARLES WESTMORELAND

ALIAS: D.B. Cooper
BACK NUMBER: 21562
LOCATION: General Population, A-Wing, Cell 13
CRIME: Aggravated Vehicular Hijacking, Vehicular Invasion, Involuntary Manslaughter and Reckless Homicide
SENTENCE: Sixty years to life
TIME LEFT ON SENTENCE: The rest of his natural life
ELIGIBLE FOR PAROLE IN: Twenty six years

NOTES:
Charles Westmoreland is one of Fox River’s longest tenured inmates, currently serving his twenty eighth year.

Westmoreland was originally tried and convicted in Douglas, Arizona and served the first two years of his sentence in the Arizona State Prison at Florence. Because of budget restraints, Arizona had to outsource some of its inmates to other states. As a result, Westmoreland was transferred to Fox River in 1973.

Immediately upon his incarceration in Arizona, there were whispers that Westmoreland was, in fact, the legendary plane hijacker DB Cooper. In 1971, Cooper notoriously held a 727 full of passengers ransom until he was paid $1.5 million, then parachuted from the plane into the woods of the Pacific Northwest, never to be seen again. While there was never enough proof to indict Westmoreland for Cooper’s crime, there was just enough circumstantial evidence to suspect him. And that suspicion followed him to Fox River.

It isn’t easy to be an inmate whom others suspect to be a millionaire. Other prisoners constantly harass him. He’s been threatened, assaulted, one time he suffered a broken nose from another inmate who tried to extort money from him. In recent years, the physical threats have subsided. Part of that has to do with his advanced age. But after three decades of steadfast denials, many inmates have come to the simple conclusion that Charles Westmoreland is not, in fact, D.B. Cooper.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Inmate has permission to keep grey cat (Marilyn) as it was grandfathered in before Fox River prohibited pet ownership.

"Slum tourism" stirs controversy in Kenya

NAIROBI (Reuters) - It's the de rigueur stop off for caring foreign dignitaries. It reached a worldwide audience as a backdrop to the British blockbuster "The Constant Gardener".

Any journalist wanting a quick Africa poverty story can find it there in half an hour. And now at least one travel agency offers tours round Kenya's Kibera slum, one of Africa's largest.

"People are getting tired of the Maasai Mara and wildlife. No one is enlightening us about other issues. So I've come up with a new thing -- slum tours," enthused James Asudi, general manager of Kenyan-based Victoria Safaris.
Reuters Pictures
Photo

Editors Choice: Best pictures
from the last 24 hours.
View Slideshow

But not everyone in Kenya is waxing so lyrical about the trail of one-day visitors treading the rubbish-strewn paths, sampling the sewage smell, and photographing the tin-roof shacks that house 800,000 of the nation's poorest in a Nairobi valley.

Indeed, the recent well-meaning visit of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon -- coming hard on the heels of other foreign celebrities including even U.S. comedian Chris Rock -- drew a stern editorial from Kenya's leading newspaper.

"What is this fascination with Kibera among people who do not know what real poverty means?" asked the Daily Nation.

"More to the point, how do Kenyans themselves feel about this back-handed compliment as the custodians of backwardness, filth, misery and absolute deprivation?"

Electronic gadgets may dominate New York Toy Fair

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Preschoolers will be able to access the Internet safely, while older children might have more fun learning to play guitar, thanks to new toys due to be unveiled next week at one of the world's biggest toy fairs.

As an estimated 14,000 buyers from 7,000 retailers descend on the annual American International Toy Fair in New York over the next week, they could be forgiven for thinking they walked into the Consumer Electronics Show by mistake.

For this may be the year when electronic toys, already an important segment, become a much more dominant force.
Reuters Pictures
Photo

Editors Choice: Best pictures
from the last 24 hours.
View Slideshow

After years of watching children abandon their toys at earlier ages for MP3 players, cell phones and video games, toy makers should still be able to eke out some sales growth this year after deftly managing to combine elements of traditional toy play with electronics, industry experts said.

U.S. toy sales in 2006 crept up to $22.3 billion from $22.2 billion, driven by 22 percent growth in the youth electronics category, market research firm NPD Group said this week.

"One of the big trends continues to be electronics and especially music," independent toy industry consultant Christopher Byrne said. "You're looking at kids who want to be involved in music. They want to be rock stars."

Byrne said the success of Walt Disney Co.'s pop music acts "Cheetah Girls" and "Hannah Montana" bodes well for Mattel Inc.'s "I Can Play Guitar System," which teaches children to play guitar by matching colored images shown on a TV screen.

China's rich spend big to celebrate Valentine's Day

By Alfred Cang

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Once considered a symbol of the decadent West, Valentine's Day is becoming big business in newly affluent China.

Nowhere more so than in Shanghai, China's showcase city for the economic reforms of the last three decades, a financial hub which is once more rediscovering its glory pre-World War II days when it was known as the Paris of the East.

This Valentine's Day, Shanghai banker Richard Fan will be buying his wife a 40,000 yuan ($5,146) Cartier wrist watch.
Reuters Pictures
Photo

Editors Choice: Best pictures
from the last 24 hours.
View Slideshow

"I think it's a better gift than some 10,000 or 20,000 yuan ($1,300-$2,600) meal," said Fan, 37.

"A gift you can use daily looks much more concrete," he added, blithely.

The watch's price tag is 12 times more than the average Chinese farmer earns in a year.

Among Valentine's Day gift ideas on offer in Shanghai is a $1,000 wine-and-dine package that includes limousine transfers, personal butlers and candle-lit dinners at private concerts.
"People who earn more in Shanghai require something different for their special days," said Joan Pan, a manager at the JW Marriott Hotel, situated on the city's fashionable Nanjing Road, home to outlets of Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel.

This year for Valentine's Day, the hotel is offering a 28,888 yuan ($3,700) package, including an overnight stay in either its Chairman's Suite or the Presidential Suite.

Expensive? Not nearly as much as one hotel which last year offered a Valentine package for a staggering 188,888 yuan ($24,000). The night included a romantic cruise on a luxury yacht along the waters of the Huangpu River.

Even some in the industry were shocked by that extravagance.
Reuters Pictures
Photo

Editors Choice: Best pictures
from the last 24 hours.
View Slideshow

"It attracted attention for sure, but I'm not sure it gave people a positive impression," said one Shanghai-based hotel manager, who declined to be identified.

STAR-CROSSED LOVERS

Street cleaner, Xiao Hu, earns about 800 yuan ($103) a month, a sum barely enough to cover the cost of a Valentine's Day dinner at an exclusive Shanghai restaurant.

She, like a majority of Chinese left behind by the economic boom that has brought wealth to a lucky few, is too busy struggling to make ends meet to celebrate a Western love festival.

U.S. delays F-22 Raptor fighters arrival in Japan

KADENA AIR BASE, Japan (Reuters) - The arrival of 12 U.S. F-22 fighter planes at a U.S. air base on Japan's southern island of Okinawa was delayed on Sunday without word on a new date for their first deployment outside the United States.

The U.S. Air Force's newest fighter planes had been scheduled to arrive at the weekend at the U.S. Kadena Air Base.

But a statement from the Air Force in Okinawa said the aircraft had turned back to Hawaii for operational reasons, without elaborating. They were still scheduled to be deployed.

The three-month deployment of the stealth fighters comes as diplomats struggle to reach agreement at talks in Beijing aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear arms program, although military officials have said there was no direct link to the negotiations.
Reuters Pictures
Photo

Editors Choice: Best pictures
from the last 24 hours.
View Slideshow

"What the F-22 deployment does is ... make the (U.S.-Japan) alliance stronger, and that is a factor for dealing with the complexities of North Korea," U.S. Forces Japan Commander Lieutenant-General Bruce Wright told journalists in Tokyo last week.

The Raptor -- said to be the most expensive fighter ever built -- is a "very formidable asset, with very formidable capability compared to any other fighter," Wright said.

The planes are able to gather data from multiple sources to track, identify and kill air-to-air threats before being detected by radar, and have significant surface-strike capability, according to the U.S. Air Force Web site.

Japan is looking to replace its F-15 fighters and Wrignt said the F-22 was one option.

On Saturday, over 200 people gathered for a peaceful protest outside the air base, with signs reading "Raptor, Go Home". Residents of Okinawa often complain of crime, noise, pollution and accidents associated with U.S. bases stationed in the southern prefecture.

Dramatic rise in accidental drug-overdose deaths reported

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Unintentional fatal drug overdoses in the United States nearly doubled from 1999 to 2004, overtaking falls to become the nation's second-leading cause of accidental death, behind automobile crashes, the government reported.

The number of accidental drug overdose deaths rose from 11,155 in 1999 to 19,838 in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report was based on death certificates, which do not clearly detail which drugs played the greatest role. But CDC researchers said they believe sedatives and prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin were the chief cause of the increase.

OxyContin has been blamed for hundreds of deaths across the country in recent years, becoming such a scourge in Appalachia that it is known as "hillbilly heroin."

Deaths from falls climbed between 1999 and 2004 at a more modest rate, from 13,162 to 18,807, the CDC said. Motor vehicle crashes accounted for 40,965 fatalities in 1999 and 43,432 in 2004.

The South had one of the lowest fatal drug overdose rates in the nation in 1999, but it doubled by 2004. The South now ties the West for having the highest rate -- about 8 per 100,000 population.

"This is the first study really to describe the large relative increases in poisoning mortality rates in rural states. Historically, the drug issue has been seen as an urban problem," said Dr. Len Paulozzi, a CDC epidemiologist.

The federal report, issued this week, noted that accidental drug overdoses remain most common in men and in people 35 to 54. But the most dramatic increases in death rates were for white females, young adults and Southerners

Other findings:

• The death rates for men remained roughly twice the rate for women, but the female rate doubled from 1999 to 2004 while the male rate increased by 47 percent.

• The rate for white women rose more dramatically than for any other gender group, to 5 deaths per 100,000 population.

• The rate of overdose deaths among teens and young adults, ages 15 to 24, is less than half that of the 35-to-54 group. But it rose much more dramatically, climbing 113 percent in the study years, to 5.3 deaths per 100,000 population.

About 50 percent of the deaths in 2004 were attributed to narcotics and hallucinogens, a category that includes heroin, cocaine and prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin.

Earlier research suggests that deaths from illegal drugs appear to be holding steady.

"There is a misperception that because a drug is a prescription medicine, it's safe to use for non-medical reasons. And clearly that is not true," said Dr. Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown, a pain medicine expert at Atlanta's Emory Crawford Long Hospital.

.

Students use IM-lingo in essays

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) -- Middle school teacher Julia Austin is noticing a new generation of errors creeping into her pupils' essays.

Sure, they still commit the classic blunders -- like the commonly used "ain't." But an increasing number of Austin's eighth-graders also submit classwork containing "b4," "ur," "2" and "wata" -- words that may confuse adults but are part of the teens' everyday lives.

This "instant messaging-speak" or "IM-speak" emerged more than a decade ago. Used in e-mail and cell phone text messages, most teens are familiar with this tech talk and use it to flirt, plan dates and gossip.

But junior high and high school teachers nationwide say they see a troubling trend: The words have become so commonplace in children's social lives that the techno spellings are finding their way into essays and other writing assignments.

"The IM-speak is so prevalent now," said Austin, a language arts teacher at Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Orlando. "I'm always having to instruct my students against using it."

Vicki A. Davis, a high school teacher at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia, said she even finds the abbreviated words in term papers.

"I'm Southern, but I wouldn't use the sayings, "squeal like a pig" or "kick the bucket," in formal writing (because) some people may not understand," Davis said. "IM-speak should be treated the same way."

Fourteen-year-old Brandi Concepcion, a pupil of Austin's, said wit, da and dat -- used in place of with, the and that -- sometimes creep into her homework.

"I write like that in the rough draft, but I try to catch the mistakes before I turn in the final draft," she said.

Some educators, like David Warlick, 54, of Raleigh, North Carolina, see the young burgeoning band of instant messengers as a phenomenon that should be celebrated. Teachers should credit their students with inventing a new language ideal for communicating in a high-tech world, said Warlick, who has authored three books on technology in the classroom.

And most avoid those pitfalls once they enter college, said Larry Beason, director of freshman composition at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama.

"Some of the same kids that I teach now were probably guilty of techno spellings in high school," Beason said. "But most students realize that they need to put their adolescent spellings behind them by the time they get to college."

Iran negotiator: Nuclear program 'no threat to Israel'

MUNICH, Germany (AP) -- Iran's nuclear program is not a threat to Israel and the country is prepared to settle all outstanding issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency within three weeks, its top nuclear negotiator said Sunday.

Ali Larijani, speaking at a forum that gathered the world's top security officials, said Iran doesn't have aggressive intentions toward any nation.

"That Iran is willing to threaten Israel is wrong," Larijani said. "We pose no threat and if we are conducting nuclear research and development we are no threat to Israel. We have no intention of aggression against any country."

In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev dismissed Larijani's comments, saying Iran's government was trying to convince the international community to believe that their intentions are benign. "The fact is that they have failed in this attempt and there is a wall-to-wall consensus that the Iranian nuclear program is indeed military and aggressive and a threat to world peace."

Iran insists it will not give up uranium enrichment, saying it is pursuing the technology only to generate energy. The United States and some of its allies fear the Islamic republic is more interested in enrichment's other application -- creating the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

The IAEA, led by Mohamed ElBaradei, has said it has found no evidence that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. But the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency has suspended some aid to Iran and criticized the country for concealing certain nuclear activities and failing to answer questions about its program.

"I have written to Mr. ElBaradei to say we are ready to within three weeks to have the modality to solve all the outstanding issues with you," Larijani said at the forum.

Technical aid suspended

On Friday, the IAEA suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran, a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past.

That decision was in line with U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The suspension must still be approved by the 35 countries on the IAEA's governing board.

"Today we announce to you that the political will of Iran is aimed at the negotiated settlement of the case and we don't want to aggravate the situation in our region," Larijani said. "We know that this issue can be settled in a constructive dialogue and we welcome that."

ElBaradei's Friday report to board members called for the full or partial suspension of 18 projects that it said could be misused to create nuclear weapons. The agency had already suspended aid to Iran in five instances last month.

While the IAEA programs do not involve significant amounts of money, a senior U.N. official familiar with Iran's file said the suspensions carry "symbolic significance" because they are part of Security Council sanctions.

Iran gets IAEA technical aid for 15 projects and 40 more involving multiple other countries. In projects involving other nations, only Iran was affected by the suspensions.

The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany all want Iran to stop its enrichment program. But their approaches have differed over the past year, often straining the joint effort.

Last year, Moscow proposed that Iran move its enrichment work to Russian territory, where it could be better monitored, to alleviate international suspicions.

Larijani said Iran did not reject the Kremlin's plan.

"We would have to have necessary guarantees in place that the fuel would be supplied," he said. "We would not be against such proposals."

In a wide-ranging speech, Larijani blamed the U.S. occupation of Iraq for fomenting terrorism in the region, and said Tehran's influence was having a stabilizing effect on the situation in that country.

"Terrorists are justifying their presence in Iraq because of the occupation, but the Americans are forced to increase the size of their forces because of terrorists. How do we break this vicious cycle?"

Larijani said the violence in Iraq was limited mainly to regions where the main U.S. garrisons were based.

"The secure parts of Iraq have two characteristics -- they border Iran and in those provinces U.S. troops are not present," he said.