Man fell in love with Manti Te'o, pretended to be girlfriend

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For the last two weeks, the story of Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend has unraveled one layer at a
time.

The Notre Dame linebacker spoke, then a
Long Beach woman whose pictures were used in the ruse came forward. But the
biggest questions could be answered only by a
22-year-old man from Palmdale -- the man Te’o and the woman alleged was the
mastermind behind the hoax.

Now Ronaiah Tuiasosopo has broken his
silence publicly, saying he fell “deeply, romantically in
love” with the Heisman Trophy runner-up in an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw
set to air later this week.

“Here we have a young man that fell deeply,
romantically in love,” McGraw told the “Today” show Wednesday. “I asked him straight up,
‘Was this a romantic relationship with you?’ And he says, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Are
you then, therefore, gay?’ And he said, ‘Well, when you put it that way, yes.’
And then he caught himself and said, ‘I am confused.’”

The new revelations come a day after
Tuiasosopo’s attorney, Milton Grimes, told The Times his client “feels as
though he needs therapy and part of that therapy is to come out of the closet,
so to speak, and tell the truth.” Grimes said Tuiasosopo is seeing a medical
professional.

“His point is that he wants to heal,”
Grimes said. “He knows that if he doesn’t come out and tell the truth, it will
interfere with him getting out of this place that he is in.”

The comments add another twist to a story
so bizarre, reporters from across the country
bombarded Tuiasosopo’s family and friends after Deadspin.com revealed earlier
this month that Te’o’s girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, did not exist.

Tuiasosopo, the report said, was the
mastermind behind the hoax and used photos from an old high school classmate
and social media to connect Kekua with Te’o.

Te’o repeatedly spoke to the media,
including The Times, about his girlfriend, the car accident that left her
seriously injured and the leukemia that led to her September death. The tale
became one of the most well-known stories of the college football season as
Te’o led his team to an undefeated season and championship berth.

Te’o has denied any role in the ruse,
saying he spent hours on the phone with a woman he thought was Kekua.

Grimes confirmed his client pretended to be
Kekua, insisting it was possible that Tuiasosopo disguised his voice to sound
like a woman, similar to role-playing or method-acting techniques.

“I don’t think it’s so unusual that a
person could imitate that voice of a person of a different sex,” Grimes said.

Grimes offered no explanation as to why his
client hatched the plan but said he never wanted to hurt Te’o.

“He did not intend to harm him in any way,”
Grimes said. “It was just a matter of trying to have a communication with
someone.”

Those who know Tuiasosopo said they were
baffled when they learned of his involvement in the hoax. Neighbors and former
high school coaches described him as popular, faith-driven and family-oriented.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about it,”
said Jon Fleming, Tuiasosopo’s former football coach at Antelope Valley High.
“It’s all speculation. He’s goofy just like any other kid. The question that comes
up in my mind is: ‘What could he possibly gain from doing something like this?’
It would really surprise me. What would he gain?”

Grimes said he warned his client that he
could face legal consequences for admitting that he falsified his identity on
the Internet. But Tuiasosopo insisted that going public was something he had to
do.

“This is part of my public healing,” Grimes
quoted Tuiasosopo as saying.

In a short clip of the TV
interview obtained by The Times, McGraw asks Tuiasosopo why he ended
his relationship with Te’o.

“For many reasons,” Tuiasosopo said. “There
were many times where Manti and Lennay had broken up before.... They would
break up, and then something would bring them back together, whether it was
something going on in his life or in Lennay’s life -- in this case, in my
life.”

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India Ink: No Knowledge of Pakistan Complaints, Indian Officials Say

Following the recent killings of Indian and Pakistani soldiers near the Kashmir border, a local newspaper reported classified United Nations documents show that the cycle of violence between troops of the two countries has continued despite the cease-fire in 2003.

The Hindu, a national English-language daily newspaper, said Wednesday that Pakistan has repeatedly complained to the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan about the killings of at least 18 of its soldiers, including four beheadings, by Indian forces between 2000 and 2011. The United Nations group was set up in 1949 to monitor cease-fire violations between the two countries.

Indian officials denied the report on Wednesday.

In the worst flare-up since the 2003 cease-fire, Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged gunfire near the Line of Control earlier this month, resulting in deaths on both sides. At the time, India accused Pakistan of beheading one of its soldiers, a charge Pakistan denies.

Among the complaints it filed, Pakistan alleged in 2003 that Indian forces decapitated one of its soldiers, the Hindu said.

The Hindu also reported that Pakistan also complained that Indian forces decapitated two civilians during a massacre in the village of Bandala in 1998, which claimed 22 civilian lives.

Indian army spokesperson Col. Jagdeep Dahiya described the article as “erroneous and speculative.”

“The Indian Army is highly professional and does not indulge in un-soldierly acts as alleged in the article,” he said. “The very fact that Pakistan has not raised such issues in bilateral interactions since 1998 bears testimony to allegations leveled against the Indian army being misleading,” he said.

Col. Dahiya also said that there is an existing mechanism to regulate conflict near the line of control between India and Pakistan. “The article seems to have been based on one-sided allegations made by the Pakistan army to UNMOGIP,” he said, an organization whose status is questionable.

Sitanshu Kar, spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Defense, said that he had no knowledge of Pakistan’s complaints to the United Nations group, and that he had not been contacted for The Hindu article. “It’s the first time I’m hearing about this,” he said. “I have not seen any such document.”

Syed Akbaruddin, the spokesman for the India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said that India did not have any formal exchange with the United Nations Military Observer Group. “We feel that Unmogip has outlived its relevance,” he said. The country’s relationship with the organization ended after India and Pakistan entered the 1972 Simla Agreement, in which both countries said they would resolve their disputes bilaterally.

Mr. Akbaruddin added that Pakistan had not raised these complaints directly with India. “Frankly, this is not a discussion we have had diplomatically,” he said.

An official at the United Nations organization’s office in Srinagar refused to comment on the report, or whether such complaints by Pakistan had been received. Calls made to the group’s office in Delhi were not answered.

Lt. Gen. Baljit Singh Jaswal, who from October 2009 to December 2010 led the Northern Command, which supervises troops in Jammu and Kashmir, said that India had engaged in no cross-border violations during that time.

General Jaswal, now retired, added that Pakistan had violated the cease-fire “numerous times” and that India had exchanged retaliatory fire.

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RIM starts glitzy BlackBerry 10 launch parties

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd on Wednesday kicked off a string of global launch parties for a long-delayed line of smartphones it says will put it on the comeback trail in a market it once dominated.

The new BlackBerry 10 phones will compete with Apple‘s iPhone and devices using Google‘s Android technology, both of which have soared above the BlackBerry in a competitive market.

They boast fast browsers, new features, smart cameras and, unlike previous BlackBerry models, enter the market primed with a large app library.

(Writing by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Frank McGurty)

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Kate's Perfect Nose Inspires Women to Have Plastic Surgery

By Andrea Billups

01/30/2013 at 10:00 AM EST

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

REX USA; AFP/Getty; REX USA

The dresses she wears fly off the shelves. Her hair is the envy of women around the world. And she's even helped boost sales of hosiery in the U.K.

So is it any wonder that women also want Kate's nose?

British plastic surgeons say requests for the Duchess of Cambridge's "near perfect" and petite nose have tripled since 2011, according to the Daily Mail, which has interviewed several women who said having a similar eye-catching royal profile was exactly the look they sought as they underwent rhinoplasty.

"Her nose is straight with a cute, rounded tip and is perfectly in proportion to her face," plastic surgeon Maurizio Persico said. "This gives Kate an attractive and striking profile."

"Plus, she always looks happy and confident in photos, which is especially appealing to women whose own appearance makes them unhappy – those who feel self-conscious about larger or crooked noses, which they believe dominate their faces," Persico added.

According to psychologist Carmen Lefevre, who studies facial attributes and behavior at the University of St. Andrews, it's not just because Kate's a princess that her nose inspires envy.

"The symmetry of Kate's nose, the angle between her lip and the tip of her nose and the minimal amount of nostril on show, are all near-perfect," Lefevre told the paper.

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.

Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after getting a double-arm transplant.

Wounded by a roadside bomb in 2009, the former soldier said he could get by without legs, but he hated living without arms.

"Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don't have that, you're kind of lost for a while," the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Doctors don't want him using his new arms too much yet, but his gritty determination to regain independence was one of the chief reasons he was chosen to receive the surgery, which has been performed in the U.S. only seven times.

That's the message Marrocco said he has for other wounded soldiers.

"Just not to give up hope. You know, life always gets better, and you're still alive," he said. "And to be stubborn. There's a lot of people who will say you can't do something. Just be stubborn and do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."

Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the team that conducted the surgery, said the new arms could eventually provide much of the same function as his original arms and hands. Another double-arm transplant patient can now use chopsticks and tie his shoes.

Lee said Marrocco's recovery has been remarkable, and the transplant is helping to "restore physical and psychological well-being."

Tuesday's news conference was held to mark a milestone in his recovery — the day he was to be discharged from the hospital.

Next comes several years of rehabilitation, including physical therapy that is going to become more difficult as feeling returns to the arms.

Before the surgery, he had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

"We'll get it back together. We've been through a lot worse than that," his father, Alex Marrocco, said.

For the next few months, Marrocco plans to live with his brother in an apartment near the hospital.

The former infantryman said he can already move the elbow on his left arm and rotate it a little bit, but there hasn't been much movement yet for his right arm, which was transplanted higher up.

Marrocco's mother, Michelle Marrocco, said he can't hug her yet, so he brushes his left arm against her face.

The first time he moved his left arm was a complete surprise, an involuntary motion while friends were visiting him in the hospital, he said.

"I had no idea what was going through my mind. I was with my friends, and it happened by accident," he recalled. "One of my friends said 'Did you do that on purpose?' And I didn't know I did it."

Marrocco's operation also involved a technical feat not tried in previous cases, Lee said in an interview after the news conference.

A small part of Marrocco's left forearm remained just below his elbow, and doctors transplanted a whole new forearm around and on top of it, then rewired nerves to serve the old and new muscles in that arm.

"We wanted to save his joint. In the unlucky event we would lose the transplant, we still wanted him to have the elbow joint," Lee said.

He also explained why leg transplants are not done for people missing those limbs — "it's not very practical." That's because nerves regrow at best about an inch a month, so it would be many years before a transplanted leg was useful.

Even if movement returned, a patient might lack sensation on the soles of the feet, which would be unsafe if the person stepped on sharp objects and couldn't feel the pain.

And unlike prosthetic arms and hands, which many patients find frustrating, the ones for legs are good. That makes the risks of a transplant not worth taking.

"It's premature" until there are better ways to help nerves regrow, Lee said.

Now Marrocco, who was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, is looking forward to getting behind the wheel of his black 2006 Dodge Charger and hand-cycling a marathon.

Asked if he could one day throw a football, Dr. Jaimie Shores said sure, but maybe not like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

"Thanks for having faith in me," Marrocco interjected, drawing laughter from the crowd.

His mother said Marrocco has always been "a tough cookie."

"He's not changed that, and he's just taken it and made it an art form," Michelle Marrocco said. "He's never going to stop. He's going to be that boy I knew was going to be a pain in my butt forever. And he's going to show people how to live their lives."

___

Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., contributed to this report.

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Video: Bikers shut down freeway for marriage proposal

With the help of his biker friends, a motorcyclist briefly shut down the 10 Freeway in West Covina to propose to his girlfriend amid a cloud of pink smoke. Now the California Highway Patrol is investigating.

Videos of the Sunday afternoon proposal were posted on YouTube and have collected thousands of views.

Now CHP investigators are reviewing the videos, said Officer Jose Barrios. Possible citations include impeding or blocking traffic, he said.

"It's illegal," Barrios said. "They're not allowed to do that."

Barrios said the CHP had no immediate information on any accidents caused by the proposal.

In an interview with Power 106 on Monday, the happy couple — identified by multiple media outlets as Hector Martinez and Paige Hernandez — said they had not yet been contacted by law enforcement.

Martinez said he first got the idea for the proposal in October. After recruiting some help — and asking the couple's families to watch from an overpass — he told his now-fiance the trip was "just another Sunday ride."

"When he got off and took off his helmet, that's when I was confused," Hernandez told the radio station. "I saw everybody on the bridge, so I was like, 'What's going on?'"

It's not the only freeway show gaining attention in California. In Oakland,
CHP officers are looking for the drivers who spun doughnuts in the
northbound lanes of Interstate 880 over the weekend. Videos of that
"sideshow" incident have also gone viral.

For L.A., Barrios said, the motorcycle proposal was a first.

"There's
a lot of odd things that happen on the freeway," Barrios said. "This
doesn't happen every day, obviously, otherwise it'd be a huge issue. We haven't seen something like this."

ALSO:

Doctor shot to death in Newport Beach exam room identified

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Chris Brown, Frank Ocean to be interviewed in brawl investigation

— Kate Mather

Follow Kate Mather on Twitter or Google+.

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The Lede Blog: Syria President's Wife Pregnant, Lebanese Newspaper Says

Just as tens of thousands of Syrians are scrambling to get themselves and their children out of war-ravaged Syria, President Bashar al-Assad and his glamorous wife, Asma, apparently are taking the opposite approach. They are having a baby, according to a Lebanese newspaper sympathetic to the Assad family.

The newspaper, Al Akhbar, dropped this news on Monday as a tangential reference in a fawning article describing a visit with President Assad in Damascus, in which he predicts victory in an increasingly bloody insurgency that is almost two years old. “On a personal level, the man seems calm and in control,” said an English-language version of the article on the newspaper’s Web site. “His confidence stands out. Also, there’s the news of the pregnancy of his wife, Asma, which could not be dealt with as a simple personal matter between a couple.” The Assads already have three young children.

The Al Akhbar account provided no further insight into the pregnancy or due date. But the reference seemed to corroborate rumors that Mrs. Assad had conceived in June, which was reported in November by Al Bawaba, an Amman-based news Web site. Mrs. Assad, a 37-year-old former investment banker who was born in London, has not been seen publicly in months. Rumors have repeatedly surfaced that she has left Syria for personal safety reasons.

If the June conception rumors are correct, the Assads expanded their family during some of the worst mayhem in the country. Mr. Assad said for the first time that month that the country was in a state of war. He further antagonized his former friendly neighbor Turkey when Syrian gunners shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean. A rash of high-ranking military officers defected in Turkey, and a Syrian Air Force pilot flew his MiG to Jordan and sought asylum. And the United Nations cease-fire monitoring mission in Syria was suspended because of escalating violence.

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Cricket-Australia board play straight bat to Warne twitter rant

Jan 29 (Reuters) – Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland has defended the organisation following a scathing attack aimed at them by spin great Shane Warne, who panned the board in a series of Twitter rants.

Sutherland added that he was prepared to meet with Warne and discuss the 43-year-old’s criticism of CA’s player rotation policy and his claim that “rubbish” decisions were turning Australian cricket into a “big joke”.

After venting his initial anger on Monday, Warne reiterated his views a day later.

“As I said last night we need cricket people running the team & who understand cricket & what’s required at the top level, not muppets,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

Warne questioned the logic of having former rugby union international Pat Howard as the board’s high performance manager but Sutherland threw his weight behind the former Wallaby back.

“I have every confidence in Pat Howard and his team, and what they’re doing,” Sutherland told local media on Tuesday.

“Personally I find it a little bit disappointing to read about that (Warne’s criticisms) in the fashion that I have.

“Ideally you’d like to be able to sit down with Shane and understand a little bit more deeply his opinions.”

Australia won all three tests in a recent series against Sri Lanka but were held 2-2 in the subsequent one-day internationals after resting skipper Michael Clarke for the first two matches.

The hosts, however, lost both Twenty20 internationals and were left debating the merits of a controversial rotation policy CA has introduced to manage injuries and the workload of their frontline players.

While Warne insisted Australia needed to field their best 11 players every time they stepped out, fast bowling great Dennis Lillee has backed CA’s approach.

“He’s 100 percent in agreement with the selection panel with managing the load and development of players,” Sutherland said of Lillee, who captured 355 wickets in 70 tests.

“Who’s right here?

“You’ve got Shane Warne saying one thing, Dennis Lillee saying another. It’s not a black and white issue.”

Warne retired from test cricket in 2007 after taking 708 wickets in 145 tests. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by John O’Brien)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Camila McConaughey Takes Baby Livingston to the Park (Photo)

By Tim Nudd

01/29/2013 at 10:05 AM EST

Camila Alves and baby boy Livingston

FameFlynet

A lovely 80-degree day in Austin, Texas, was just what Livingston McConaughey needed for a nice stroll in the park.

Camila and Matthew McConaughey's newborn son enjoyed an outing with mom on Sunday – the first glimpse of the couple's third child, who was born Dec. 28.

Camila, who celebrated her 30th birthday on Jan. 28, shared her happiness via Twitter, writing, "Today I am 30 years old, Livingston is 30 days old and I'm blessed with 3 healthy children...I am so thankful and full of joy!"

At the park on Sunday, she mostly kept Livingston covered in a light blanket, and was seen kissing the boy on the head.

Camila, meanwhile, was dressed comfortably in a white shirt, black leggings, sneakers and dark sunglasses.

Matthew was also out and about in Austin on Sunday, looking well on his way back from his dramatic weight loss for a movie role.

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Study says leafy greens top food poisoning source

NEW YORK (AP) — A government study has fingered leafy green vegetables as the leading source of food poisoning illnesses.

However, the most food-related deaths were from contaminated chicken and other poultry.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Tuesday. It's based on an analysis of food poisoning cases from 1998 through 2008. It's the agency's most comprehensive attempt to identify which foods most often carry germs that make us sick.

The CDC estimates roughly 1 in 6 Americans — or 48 million people— gets sick from food poisoning each year. That includes 128,000 hospitalization and 3,000 deaths.

____

Online:

CDC journal: http://www.cdc.gov/eid/

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