Classmate: Accused Mass. teen stayed after school

Parents and Danvers High School students hold candlelight vigil to mourn the death of Colleen Ritzer, a 24-year-old math teacher at Danvers High School, on Wednesday, Oct 23, 2013, in Danvers, Mass. Ritzer's body was found in woods behind the high school, and Danvers High School student Philip Chism, 14, who was found walking along a state highway overnight was charged with killing her. (AP Photo/ Bizuayehu Tesfaye)

Parents and Danvers High School students hold candlelight vigil to mourn the death of Colleen Ritzer, a 24-year-old math teacher at Danvers High School, on Wednesday, Oct 23, 2013, in Danvers, Mass. Ritzer's body was found in woods behind the high school, and Danvers High School student Philip Chism, 14, who was found walking along a state highway overnight was charged with killing her. (AP Photo/ Bizuayehu Tesfaye)

Danvers High School teacher Colleen Ritzeris seen in this undated photo provided by the family of Ritzer. Fourteen-year-old high school student Philip Chism was accused of killing Ritzer, a well-liked math teacher at Danvers High School, in Danvers, Mass., whose body was found in the woods behind the school. Law enforcement officials recovered the remains of 24-year-old Ritzer early Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said. Chism was arraigned Wednesday in Salem on a murder charge and ordered held without bail. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Dale Webster via the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune)

Philip Chism, 14, stands during his arraignment for the death of Danvers High School teacher Colleen Ritzer in Salem District Court in Salem, Mass., Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013. Chism has been ordered held without bail. (AP Photo/Boston Herald, Patrick Whittemore) MANDATORY CREDIT

Danvers High School students hold a candlelight vigil to mourn the death of Colleen Ritzer, a 24-year-old math teacher at Danvers High School, on Wednesday, Oct 23, 2013, in Danvers, Mass. Ritzer's was found in woods behind the high school, and Danvers High School student Philip Chism, 14, who was found walking along a state highway overnight, was charged with killing her. (AP Photo/ Bizuayehu Tesfaye)

Candles and teddy bears are placed at Danvers High School prior to a candlelight vigil to mourn the death of Colleen Ritzer, a 24-year-old math teacher at Danvers High School on Wednesday, Oct 23, 2013, in Danvers, Mass. Ritzer was found slain in woods behind the high school, and Danvers High School student Philip Chism, 14, who was found walking along a state highway overnight was charged with killing her. (AP Photo/ Bizuayehu Tesfaye)

DANVERS, Mass. (AP) — A teacher who was allegedly killed by one of her students had asked him to stay after school the day she was killed, a classmate said Thursday, as students met with grief counselors and tried to come to grips with the slaying of the popular teacher.

Philip Chism, 14, was charged with murder Wednesday in the death of Colleen Ritzer, a 24-year-old math teacher at Danvers High School.

Rania Rhaddaoui sat two seats away from Chism in Ritzer's Algebra I class, the final class of the school day. She said Chism was drawing in a notebook rather than taking notes Tuesday.

"She came over and said, 'I didn't know you draw,' and he said, 'yes,' then later on, she said, 'Can you stay after with me?'" Rhaddaoui said. "Obviously, he stayed after because when I was leaving, he was still at his desk."

She said Ritzer had scheduled a test for Friday, but she was unsure why exactly Ritzer asked Chism to stay after school.

Ritzer never returned home that day. Blood in a second-floor bathroom helped lead investigators to her body, which was dumped in the woods behind the school in a close-knit community about 20 miles north of Boston.

Chism was picked up by police in the early morning hours Wednesday, walking along Route 1 in neighboring Topsfield. His attorney declined to comment outside court Wednesday and did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.

The high school remained closed for classes Thursday, but grief counselors were on hand to offer comfort to students.

Kaitlyn Nash, 16, went to the school to be with her friends. She said students who knew and loved Ritzer were still trying to make sense of what happened. She said she found it particularly frightening that she had theater rehearsal Tuesday afternoon and was at the school when authorities believe Ritzer was killed.

"It's just terrifying," she said. "I know a lot of people don't want to go back to school at this point. I know we have to, and we just need to get on with."

Classes were expected to resume Friday.

Police and school officials told about 800 parents at a meeting Thursday night there will be extra safety measures to reassure returning students, including locked side doors, and more police and counselors on hand.

Rabih Chaghouri, whose daughter is a freshman, said he's confident the school is safe. "This could happen in any neighborhood, any street, anywhere. You never know what goes on in people's heads."

Authorities offered no clues Thursday on Chism's alleged motive. They also would not say how Ritzer was killed.

Carrie Kimball-Monahan, a spokeswoman for Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, said the case was still being investigated.

Chism had moved to Massachusetts from Tennessee before the start of the school year and was a top scorer on the school's junior varsity soccer team.

Jean McCartin, a Danvers School Committee member, said the school has extensive programs to help ease the transition for new students who may have problems but there was no information about Chism that would have presented any red flags.

"He just presented himself to us like any other student would," she said Thursday. "And that's what I think is so hard for the administration right now. You know, their hearts are breaking because they just didn't know he was in need, if he was in need. ... No one knows why he would have behaved in this way and done such a terrible thing."

Students were also puzzled. Chism's teammates on the soccer team have said he was soft-spoken and nonviolent.

Rhaddaoui said Chism was quiet, and she never saw him raise his hand in math class. She said they were also in the same history class, where he told classmates he spoke three languages: English, Portuguese and Japanese.

Mark Nolan, of Clarksville, Tenn., who coached Chism in a local youth soccer program for several years when Chism was 9 or 10, said there was nothing unusual about him.

"He didn't stand out; he wasn't a troublemaker," Nolan said. "He had no problem with other kids. He wasn't overly aggressive."

Nolan recalled that Chism's father was in the military and his mother was a social worker. Both parents attended their son's soccer matches, Nolan said.

Caio Silva, a Danvers High School senior and varsity soccer player, said he knew both Chism and Ritzer. He said he and his teammates are helping each other.

"A lot of the guys are really shocked, a lot of guys are down, really upset," he said.

"It's just really sad," he said. "A lady that was really sweet and a kid who was really sweet. It just doesn't really match up. It's really sad."

The manager of Hollywood Hits Theatres in Danvers said Chism went to the theater late Tuesday afternoon and bought a ticket to see Woody Allen's new movie, "Blue Jasmine."

Scott Przybycien said police came to the theater Tuesday night and said they had information that Chism had been at the theater. Przybycien said the theater's surveillance video showed Chism entering the theater at about 4:15 p.m., paying $8.00 in cash for a movie ticket, then leaving the building at about 6:15 p.m., after the movie ended. Authorities believe Ritzer was killed after school ended at about 2 p.m., but they have not released a specific time.

"He didn't stand out in any way," Przybycien said. "There was no reason for any business to be concerned. He looked like a normal, everyday customer coming in to watch a movie."

Ritzer was described as an enthusiastic, caring teacher who stood outside her classroom and said hello to all students, whether they were in her classes or not.

"She was very approachable," Rhaddaoui said. "She was always smiling. She always made the best of every situation."

Ritzer's family released a statement Thursday, asking the media to respect their privacy as they make arrangements "to celebrate Colleen's vibrant life."

Chism appeared briefly in court Wednesday for arraignment on a murder charge and was ordered held without bail.

Ritzer was the second teacher allegedly killed by a student in the U.S. this week. A Sparks, Nev., middle school teacher was shot Monday, allegedly by a 12-year-old student.

___

Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Boston, Rodrique Ngowi in Danvers, and Travis Loller in Clarksville, Tenn., contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-24-Teacher%20Killed-Mass/id-66256c0a1efd4705b82ae299714102bc
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Watch Kanye West Propose to Kim Kardashian!

Since news broke that Kanye West proposed to Kim Kardashian, we've been dying to see footage of the scene, which included a 50-piece orchestra and fireworks -- and now it's here!

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/watch-kanye-west-propose-kim-kardashian/1-a-550653?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Awatch-kanye-west-propose-kim-kardashian-550653
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Both sides agree: No major budget deal foreseen

WASHINGTON (AP) — On this, GOP budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan and top Senate Democrat Harry Reid can agree: There won't be a "grand bargain" on the budget.

Instead, the Wisconsin Republican and the Nevada Democrat both say the best Washington can do in this bitterly partisan era of divided government is a small-ball bargain that tries to take the edge off of automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.

Official Capitol Hill negotiations start next week, but Ryan and Reid both weighed in Thursday to tamp down any expectations that the talks might forge a large-scale agreement where several previous high-level talks have failed.

Long-standing, entrenched differences over taxes make a large-scale budget pact virtually impossible, according to lawmakers, their aides and observers who will be monitoring the talks.

Republicans say they simply won't agree to any further taxes atop the 10-year, $600 billion-plus tax increase on upper-income earners that President Barack Obama and Democrats muscled through Congress in January. Without higher taxes, Democrats say they won't yield to cuts in benefit programs like Medicare.

"If we focus on some big, grand bargain then we're going to focus on our differences, and both sides are going to require that the other side compromises some core principle and then we'll get nothing done," Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee, said in an interview Thursday. "So we aren't focusing on a grand bargain because I don't think in this divided government you'll get one."

In an interview Thursday with Nevada public radio station KNPR, Reid, the Senate majority leader, agreed that a large-scale grand bargain wasn't in the cards.

"They have their mind set on doing nothing, nothing more on revenue, and until they get off that kick, there's not going to be a grand bargain," Reid said. "We're just going to have to do something to work our way through sequestration."

Ryan, his party's vice presidential nominee a year ago, and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., are two of the key congressional figures in the talks. They both say they're seeking common ground between the sharply different Republican and Democratic budgets.

Common ground, however, is a much different concept than compromise. It involves finding ideas upon which they can agree rather than compromising principles such as Republican opposition to tax increases or the unwillingness by many Democrats to consider cutting future Social Security benefits by decreasing the annual cost-of-living adjustments.

Instead of a broad agreement encompassing tax hikes and structural curbs on the growth of benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid, Ryan says he's seeking a "smaller, more achievable objective."

The talks, he said, also will focus on alleviating another upcoming round of automatic spending cuts and replacing them with longer-term cuts.

Sequestration mostly hits so-called discretionary spending, the money approved by Congress each year to run agency operations. Ryan wants to cut autopilot-like spending on entitlement programs like Medicare to ease sequestration's effects on both the Pentagon and domestic programs.

"I think we all agree that there's a smarter way to cut spending" than sequestration, Ryan said. "If I can reform entitlement programs where the savings compound annually ... that is more valuable for reducing the debt than a one-time spending cut in discretionary spending."

The automatic spending cuts are required because a 2011 deficit-reduction supercommittee failed to reach an agreement. The cuts would carve $91 billion from the day-to-day budgets of the Pentagon and domestic agencies in 2014 compared with the spending caps set by a 2011 budget deal. The Pentagon would absorb almost 60 percent of the cuts.

While the first official meeting of the larger House-Senate negotiating team is scheduled for next week, Ryan and Murray have been talking already.

Republicans are looking at a bushel basket of cuts to Medicare health care providers contained in Obama's budget. They also have voiced support for curbing Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, an idea Obama has backed, but only in the context of a broader deal in which Republicans would allow tax increases. That proposal won't fly in the current talks.

There are also several supercommittee ideas like curbing Postal Service cost overruns, making federal workers contribute more to their pensions and raising premiums on higher-income Medicare beneficiaries.

Democrats, meanwhile, are wary of using cuts to Medicare and other entitlement programs to ease cuts in the defense budget. Negotiators still might explore curbing generous military retirement, health care and prescription drug benefits as a way to restore cuts to readiness and procurement of weapons systems.

"Congressional Democrats and the White House, rightly in my view, don't want to use domestic entitlement cuts to offset easing or eliminating the defense side of sequestration on top of the nondefense discretionary side," said Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

• Politics & Government
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• Barack Obama

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/both-sides-agree-no-major-budget-deal-foreseen-071050829--politics.html
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Twitter Sets Its IPO Price, Valuing Company At Around $11 Billion

In this Nov. 8, 2011, photo, NASA fan David Parmet signs his name on a Twitter logo during a tweetup event for about 50 of NASA's Twitter followers at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Brock Vergakis/AP

In this Nov. 8, 2011, photo, NASA fan David Parmet signs his name on a Twitter logo during a tweetup event for about 50 of NASA's Twitter followers at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Brock Vergakis/AP

Twitter announced today that it plans on selling 70 million shares at $17 to $20 each, during its initial public offering.

Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal did the math and it means that the company is looking to raise about $1.4 billion and values itself at about $11 billion at the high end. This is the biggest tech IPO since Facebook went public in May of 2012.

Bloomberg reports:

"'They're picking a slightly lower valuation to ensure that the IPO goes up on the first day of trading,' Francis Gaskins, president of IPODesktop.com, said in an interview. 'I would definitely buy them in the offering at this valuation.'

"The six-year-old short-messaging site, which draws more than 230 million monthly active users and has transformed the way people communicate, is taking advantage of renewed appetite for social-media stocks to sell a 13 percent stake. While the company has more than doubled revenue annually, it hasn't yet turned a profit and the pace of user gains is slowing. Still, Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo is betting the service's popularity on mobile phones will help lure advertisers."

Of course, Facebook didn't fare so well during its early days, so investors are watching Twitter closely. The Journal adds:

"Facebook's shares began tumbling shortly after its IPO. In part, the offering was affected by a glitch at the Nasdaq Stock Market. NDAQ 0.00% But some traders and investors also said that Facebook's raised price and expanded size of the offering caused them to sell.

"Twitter is aiming for an IPO price that avoids Facebook's fate, but also one that doesn't produce an enormous 'pop,' or first day jump, people familiar with the company's thinking have said. A big pop can be a sign that the company didn't raise as much money as it could have."

Facebook offered its stock at $38 each. It took more than a year for the company's price to break that ceiling. It is now worth about $52.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/24/240563839/twitter-sets-its-ipo-price-valuing-company-at-around-11-billion?ft=1&f=1019
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Exclusive- Boeing gets $20.7 billion worth of 737 Max commitments from China: sources

By Siva Govindasamy

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Boeing Co has secured commitments for around 200 of its 737 Max aircraft, the upgraded variant of its best-selling short-haul planes, from multiple Chinese customers, said two sources familiar with the deals.

The deals are worth a combined $20.7 billion at list prices and must be approved by the Chinese government, a usual practice for aircraft orders in the country, before the customers can be identified, the sources said.

These are the first commitments for the 737 Max from China, the world's fastest-growing airline market. Officials from both Boeing and Airbus, which makes the A320 that competes with the 737, have said China is likely to overtake the United States as the world's largest market over the next 20 years.

The commitments come from a range of customers including state-owned airlines via the national procurement agency, China Aviation Supplies Holding Company, as well as leasing firms associated with the country's banks, the sources said.

China Aviation Supplies could not be immediately reached for comment.

Airlines such as Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines are all operators of the current models of the 737 in the country.

Committing to the aircraft while waiting for the government to approve their fleet growth plans allow the airlines to secure some of the earlier delivery slots for the 737 Max, for which there have been 1,567 orders.

A Boeing spokesman declined to comment on the deal, and would only say, "discussions with customers are confidential."

The 737 Max has been upgraded with new CFM Leap engines, and has several other enhancements that make it a more fuel-efficient aircraft than the existing models. CFM is a joint venture between GE Aviation and Snecma.

Boeing said in a report in August that there are 1,650 single-aisle aircraft in China, with existing orders for another 700. These fly on domestic and regional routes of up to five hours.

The planemaker also forecast that China will take delivery of 3,900 single-aisle aircraft over the next 20 years.

The 737 Max competes with the Airbus A320 neo, the re-engined variant of the European planemaker's popular single-aisle aircraft.

Airbus said last month it has commitments for 100 A320 neo, including 60 from flag carrier Air China and 20 from leasing firm ICBC Leasing.

China is also developing its own single-aisle narrow-body aircraft, the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (Comac) C919, to compete with the A320 and 737. The first flight has been delayed to 2015, with the deliveries not expected to begin until a few years after that.

(Editing by Ryan Woo)

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• China Southern Airlines
• China Eastern Airlines

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-boeing-gets-china-commitments-737-max-jets-021152487--finance.html
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Jamie Dornan Cast as Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey: E.L. James Confirms News on Twitter

No "Grey" area here -- Jamie Dornan's Fifty Shades role is official! As Us Weekly confirmed earlier on Thursday, Oct. 24, the Once Upon a Time actor has been tapped to replace Charlie Hunnam as Christian Grey in the highly anticipated film adaptation of E.L. James' erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. And now James herself has confirmed the news on Twitter!

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"Stow your twitchy palms ladies...our man is here," she tweeted to her 431,000 followers. "Welcome to #TeamFifty @JamieDornan1."

PHOTOS: Remember these breakout stars?

Dornan, 31, beat out several other hunky actors vying for the coveted role of Christian Grey following Sons of Anarchy star Hunnam's sudden exit earlier this month. Among the rumored contenders? Australian up-and-comer Luke Bracey and Into the Woods star Billy Magnussen.

PHOTOS: Shirtless hunks

"The audition process was an embarrassment of riches," a source told Us Weekly. "There were some fierce performances!"

None fiercer than Dornan's, apparently. "Everyone trusts that he'll make an excellent Christian and will do the role justice," the source said of the Irish actor, who'll star opposite Dakota Johnson's Anastasia Steele. "His contract is set -- this has the potential to make him a huge star."

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/jamie-dornan-cast-as-christian-grey-in-fifty-shades-of-grey-el-james-confirms-news-on-twitter-20132410
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'Fifty Shades' New Guy: 8 Things We Learned From Jamie Dornan's Twitter

MTV News browsed the actor's Twitter to learn more about him.


By Jocelyn Vena

Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1716128/jamie-dornan-fifty-shades-of-grey-twitter.jhtml

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