The Daily Blog

The official ‘Dancing With the Stars’ season 11 cast line-up:
Michael Bolton
Age: 57
Claim to fame: Singer

Margaret Cho
Age: 41
Claim to fame: Comedian/actress (‘Drop Dead Diva’)

Rick Fox
Age: 41
Claim to fame: Former NBA player/actor (‘Ugly Betty,’ ‘The Game’)

Jennifer Grey
Age: 50
Claim to fame: Actress (‘Dirty Dancing,’ ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’)

David Hasselhoff
Age: 58
Claim to fame: Actor/singer (‘Knight Rider,’ ‘Baywatch’)

Florence Henderson
Age: 76
Claim to fame: Actress (‘The Brady Bunch’)

Kyle Massey
Age: 19
Claim to fame: Actor/rapper (‘That’s So Raven,’ ‘Cory in the House’)

Brandy Norwood
Age: 31
Claim to fame: Singer

Bristol Palin
Age: 19
Claim to fame: Spokesperson/daughter of Sarah Palin

Audrina Patridge
Age: 25
Claim to fame: Reality TV star (‘The Hills’)

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino
Age: 29
Claim to fame: Reality TV star (‘Jersey Shore’)

Kurt Warner
Age: 39
Claim to fame: Super Bowl-winning quarterback

(Aug. 31) — Evacuations may be necessary along the East Coast if Hurricane Earl comes too close to shore, federal officials said today.

“We do not have a forecasted landfall, but we do expect impacts along the coast,” Federal Emergency Management Agency head Craig Fugate told reporters, as winds from the approaching storm churned up seas along the coastline from Florida to Massachusetts.

“Evacuations may be required if the storm doesn’t turn,” he said. “Today is the day to make sure you have your family disaster plans, that you check your supplies.”

A hurricane watch was issued this afternoon for most of the North Carolina coast, as the Category 4 storm hurtles toward the U.S. coastline with winds of up to 135 mph, gaining strength in the open ocean after plowing through islands in the Caribbean.Earl could make contact with the East Coast by Thursday. Forecasters do not expect a direct hit but warned that the fast-moving storm could graze states from North Carolina to Maine, creating dangerous winds and flooding and making for a very soggy Labor Day weekend.

By this afternoon, the hurricane was swirling just over 1,000 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and was expected to take a turn toward land later in the day, the National Weather Service said.”Anybody living on the East Coast of the United States should really be paying attention to this storm,” Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center, told The Wall Street Journal.

A NASA satellite snapped an image of Earl moving northward Sunday behind Hurricane Danielle, before striking Puerto Rico and islands in the Caribbean. Earl caused damage to power lines there but no fatalities or serious injuries, according to The Associated Press.Danielle weakened into a tropical storm Monday but created dangerous rip currents along East Coast beaches over the weekend. One surfer in Florida drowned, and a swimmer in Maryland is still missing today after being swept away Saturday in the rough surf.

For now, Earl is moving west-northwest at 14 mph and looks set to largely spare the U.S. and instead peel off eastward into the Atlantic. However, forecasters cautioned that it was too soon to tell for sure and said the trajectory of the storm could change quickly.

“Any small shift in the track could dramatically alter whether it makes landfall or whether it remains over the open ocean,” Wallace Hogsett, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, told the AP.
Forecasters said that if the hurricane tracked farther to the west, Earl would most likely make landfall along the Outer Banks of North Carolina and then weaken before possibly hitting New York’s Long Island or Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, a third storm, Tropical Storm Fiona, formed Monday in the Atlantic with winds of 40 mph but is so far not expected to pose a direct threat to the U.S. coastline. In fact, it may weaken in Earl’s more powerful wake.

FEMA said it was ready to help states evacuate people in case of flooding from Hurricane Earl.

“We’re talking to the states, if they’re going to even have to start talking about evacuating, we have people designated to help them,” Fugate told The Washington Post. “Teams from the West Coast are headed to New England to assist if necessary.”

(Aug. 30) — Continuing a tradition almost as reliable as the winter season itself, the “Farmers’ Almanac” revealed its annual long-term weather forecast Monday, this year predicting an overall “kinder and gentler” season for the contiguous United States.

For the eastern third of the country (New England down to Florida and as far west as the Mississippi River), forecasters predict “much colder-than-normal winter temperatures” — but generally not as frigid as conditions felt last winter, which saw 49 states experience snowfall. New England in particular should be sure to bundle up, as forecasters predict a “cold slap in the face” compared with last year’s uncharacteristically mild winter for the region.

Across the Western states (Pacific Coast to the Rockies), a “milder-than-normal” winter is expected. The Midwest and central states should expect about normal winter temperatures.

“Overall, it looks like it’s going to be a kinder and gentler winter, especially in the areas that had a rough winter last year,” managing editor Sandi Duncan told The Associated Press.

The 194-year-old Maine-based publication, which claims 80 to 85 percent accuracy (a good reason to listen up), is also predicting that three storm tracks will emerge during the winter season.

So how many people were at Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” Rally Saturday? Estimates range from “tens of thousands” to “hundreds of thousands,” depending on the news agency. On ‘The Glenn Beck Program’ (Weekdays, 5PM ET on Fox News) the Beckster staked his claim for half a million. “What you saw, was a minimum of 500,000 people,” Beck said, in explaining what had transpired.After using photographs of the crowd as evidence that there were more people in the crowd than certain news reports acknowledged, Beck seemed to back off his claim of 500,000 plus, just a bit.  “We’ll never know the exact number,” Beck explained. “But anyone with eyes can see this crowd was in the hundreds of thousands.

WASHINGTON (Aug. 30) — Food and Drug Administration investigators have found rodents, seeping manure and even maggots at the Iowa egg farms believed to be responsible for as many as 1,500 cases of salmonella poisoning.

FDA officials released their initial observations of the investigations at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms on Monday. The two farms recalled more than half a billion eggs after salmonella illnesses were linked to their products earlier this month.

The reports released by the FDA show many different possible sources of contamination at both farms, including rodent, bug and wild bird infestation, uncontained manure, holes in walls and other problems that could have caused the outbreak. Several positive samples of salmonella have been found at both farms.The agency released the initial observations as their investigations concluded Monday. Officials said they still cannot speculate on the cause of the outbreak but said the farms not only violated their own standards but also new egg rules put in place this summer.

Among the observations of the investigators:

- Live rodents and mice at both farms;

- Structural damage and holes in many locations at both farms, allowing wildlife access;

- Escaped chickens tracking manure through the houses;

- Employees not changing clothing properly when moving from one location to another and not sanitizing equipment properly;

- “Live flies too numerous to count” on egg belts, in the feed, on the eggs themselves at Wright County Egg;

- Dead and live maggots “too numerous to count” on the manure pit floor in one location at Wright County Egg;

- Manure piled four to eight feet high in five locations at Wright County Egg, leaning against and pushing open doors that allowed wildlife to enter the laying houses;

- Nonchicken feathers in a laying house and wild birds flying in and out of two facilities at Wright County Egg;

- Manure seeping through the foundation to the outside of laying houses in 13 locations at Wright County Egg;

- Rusted holes in feed bins and birds flying over the feed bins at Wright County Egg;

Animal feces and access to wildlife are normally the main concern of investigators looking for causes of an outbreak, as illnesses such as salmonella originate from feces. Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods, said in a briefing for reporters Monday that the agency cannot say how these conditions compare to other egg farms around the country but he believes they are “significant deviations from what is expected.”

The agency has not traditionally inspected egg farms until there has been a problem. But the FDA will now inspect all of the nation’s largest farms by the end of next year, the Obama administration announced last week.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Aug. 29) — A standoff was under way Sunday in a tiny southeast Alaska village after a man fatally shot two of the village’s four full-time police officers the night before, then barricaded himself in his home, local officials said.

Hoonah police officers Tony Wallace and Matt Tokuoka died after the shooting late Saturday, said Bob Prunella, acting city administrator. Prunella didn’t know what led to the shooting but said it was witnessed by Wallace’s mother, who was visiting from Florida, and Tokuoka’s wife and children.The suspect, 45-year-old John Marvin Jr., barricaded himself in his home, and Alaska State Troopers and other law enforcement agencies were at the scene, authorities said.

 Hoonah Police Deparment/APOfficer Tony Wallace, here in an undated photo, was fatally shot on Saturday night. Fellow officer Matt Tokuoka was also killed.

There was no sign of a quick end to the standoff, Prunella said Sunday evening.

“This could go on for a while,” he said. “They really want to get him alive.”

Troopers were urging residents in the shoreline community of about 800 to stay away from the area.

“Sadly, two police officers lost their lives. We hope to end this standoff without any further tragedy,” Col. Audie Holloway, head of the troopers, said in a statement.Tokuoka left the home of his father-in-law, George Martin, just before the shooting. The 39-year-old officer was off-duty and had spent the evening there before leaving with his wife and two children, Martin said.

Soon after they left, Martin heard two shots. Wallace went down and Tokuoka told his wife and children to get away and then he was shot as well, Martin said.

“I imagine he was trying to administer help to this other officer when he got hit,” Martin said.Prunella didn’t know how Wallace’s mother happened to witness the shooting.

Wallace, 32, died during surgery in Juneau, 40 miles east of Hoonah, and Tokuoka died early Sunday at a clinic in the Native village, according to Martin.

“The whole town’s in shock,” he said. “I’ve been getting calls all day. It’s a bad situation.”

Martin said his home is just a block and a half from Marvin’s. He didn’t know why the officers were ambushed but said police have had run-ins with Marvin in the past. He said Marvin lives alone.

Alaska State Troopers were leading a multi-agency response, and spokeswoman Megan Peters said a warrant was issued for Marvin’s arrest. The Coast Guard transported the Juneau Police Department’s SWAT team to the village, Peters said.
Prunella said the deaths leave the Tlingit community with just two full-time officers - the police chief and a trainee. He said the southeast Alaska town of Wrangell sent some officers to help out as needed.

Wallace was originally from Ohio and one of the few hard-of-hearing officers in the nation, according to officials at Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, where he attended the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. He also was a wrestler and was inducted into the RIT Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008.

He first joined the Hoonah police force in 2006, leaving for personal reasons after seven months, according to a September 2009 interview in the RIT University News. He rejoined the department in 2008, where he served as the small department’s evidence officer, and was recently designated as a breath-test maintenance technician.”I have had tremendous support from my fellow police officers and have gained their confidence by proving every day that a person with my hearing deficiency poses no problems on the job,” Wallace said in the RIT interview. “I have always believed that I could do the job of a police officer and here I am.”

NEW ORLEANS (Aug. 29) — President Barack Obama says he isn’t worried about a recent poll showing that nearly one-fifth of Americans believe he is a Muslim.

Obama, who is a Christian, says “the facts are the facts.” In an interview broadcast Sunday on “NBC Nightly News,” the president blamed the confusion over his religious beliefs on “a network of misinformation.”

Obama says he wouldn’t get much done if he spent all his time chasing after rumors, like persistent accusations that he wasn’t born in the United States.

He says he can’t go around with his “birth certificate plastered on (his) forehead.” And he says he has faith in “the American people’s capacity to get beyond all this nonsense.”

Strengthening Hurricane Earl will slam the northeastern Caribbean from tonight through the early part of the week before passing dangerously close to the East Coast of the United States later in the week. Hurricane warnings are in effect for the northern Leeward Islands. Earl will move through that area tonight into Monday with strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical storm warnings and hurricane watches are in effect for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The center of the hurricane will pass to the northeast of these areas, but the southern part of the storm will result in at least tropical-storm conditions. Earl had sustained winds of 85 mph, but National Hurricane Center forecasters are expecting that Earl will grow stronger as it tracks northwestward during the next couple of days. Earl will likely be the second major hurricane of the season on Monday, following quickly on the heels of Hurricane Danielle. Current forecasts predict that the storm will peak at sustained winds of approximately 125 mph on Thursday.

MEXICO CITY (Aug. 28) — Federal authorities said Saturday they will take over the investigation into the massacre of 72 migrants at a ranch in northern Mexico because evidence suggests drug traffickers were responsible.

They also said an Ecuadorean migrant who was the lone survivor has refused Mexico’s offer of a humanitarian visa and will return to his native country.
Government security spokesman Alejandro Poire said drug cartel involvement would make the killings a federal crime.

The government “will continue its frontal assault against these organizations so that terrible events like those that occurred this week will not be repeated,” Poire said. One suspect, who claimed to be 16, was captured at the scene of the massacre and is in custody. Three other suspects and a marine were killed during a raid on the ranch.Federal authorities said they will wait for survivor Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla to recover from a gunshot wound in the neck and then help him leave Mexico.

Lala, who is under heavy guard, told investigators Monday that about 10 men who identified themselves as members of the Zetas drug gang traveling in five vehicles intercepted the migrants on a highway in Tamaulipas, a Gulf coast state bordering Texas.
They tied up the migrants, took them to the ranch and demanded they work for the gang, Lala told investigators. When most refused, they were blindfolded, ordered to lie down and shot.

Immigration Commissioner Cecilia Romero said Friday that Lala had been offered a humanitarian visa to stay in Mexico, but his mother said the 18-year-old begged her to arrange him to come to the United States, where she lives. The AP is not using the woman’s name or her location to avoid putting her in potential danger.The mother said she has been in contact with the Ecuadorean consulate, but officials there said they could only help him return to Ecuador.

Investigators have so far identified 34 of the dead: 16 Hondurans, 12 Salvadorans, five Guatemalans and a Brazilian.

Only some had ID on them; investigators were collecting DNA from the rest in hopes of being able to make positive identifications.

In Honduras, worried relatives visited the Foreign Ministry seeking news on relatives believed to be in Mexico.

Maria Cruz was looking for word about her son, Denis Moreno, 34, who last contacted her from a city along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I hope he is not on the list,” she told a Honduran television station, sobbing. “I hope not.”

Fabiana Carcamo told local media she had been notified that her 40-year-old brother, Miguel Angel Carcamo, died in the massacre. She said he left Honduras Aug. 3 and after some difficulties made it to Mexico. His plan was to reach the United States.

Carcamo left behind four children between the ages of 4 and 15 in his hometown of El Guante, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of the capital, Tegucigalpa.”I talked with Miguel Angel on Aug. 3. He told me not to cry, that he would call me when he got there and that he would help me,” said another sister, Ana Cristina.

Migrants frequently send money to support relatives back home.

Gangs have long kidnapped migrants and demanded payment to cross their territory. But the Mexican government says the cartels are increasingly trying to force vulnerable migrants into drug trafficking, a concern also expressed by U.S. politicians demanding more security at the border.Mexican agents have rescued 2,750 migrants this year, some stranded in deserts and others held captive by criminal gangs, said Romero, the immigration commissioner.

In Tamaulipas alone, 812 migrants kidnapped by drug gangs have been rescued, she said. Many told authorities the cartels tried force them into drug trafficking.

The escalating danger has scared off many would-be migrants, resulting in a sharp drop in the number of people from Central America and elsewhere traveling through Mexico trying to reach U.S. soil, according to Romero.

The Zetas were founded by former Mexican army special forces soldiers and have become a lethal drug gang that has taken to extorting migrants.

The cartel controls much of Tamaulipas, a cattle-ranching state that is the last leg for migrants running the gauntlet up the Gulf coast to Texas.

Drug violence has spread throughout Mexico. On Saturday, police in the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero found a man’s dismembered body on the trunk of a car and his head on the roof.

The body was found near the state capital of Chilpancingo, along with a handwritten message. The area has witnessed a turf battle between several drug gangs that often leave notes at murder scenes that threaten rivals or officials.

On Friday, police found a total of 15 bodies throughout Guerrero state.

MIAMI (Aug. 28) — Hurricane Danielle is far out over the Atlantic but the Category 2 storm is bringing dangerous rip currents to the U.S. East Coast.

Lifeguards had to rescue dozens of swimmers off the Florida coast. Danielle’s maximum sustained winds were near 105 mph (165 kph) on Saturday. It is about 330 miles (535 kilometers) east-southeast of Bermuda and is forecast to pass well east of the island. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami has discontinued a tropical storm watch for the island.

Farther out in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Earl is nearing hurricane strength with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (105 kph). It’s expected to become a hurricane Sunday.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for several islands in the eastern Caribbean, including St. Maarten, Antigua and Montserrat.

KABUL, Afghanistan -U.S. and Afghan troops repelled attackers wearing American uniforms and suicide vests in a pair of simultaneous assaults before dawn Saturday on NATO bases near the Pakistani border, including one where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack last year.The raids appear part of an insurgent strategy to step up attacks in widely scattered parts of the country as the U.S. focuses its resources on the battle around the Taliban’s southern birthplace of Kandahar.

Luck wasn’t on Paris Hilton’s side this weekend in Sin City, when Las Vegas police pulled over the car she was in just before midnight and allegedly found a white powder in her purse that, upon testing, proved to be cocaine. The celebutante was then arrested on suspicion of possessing cocaine, and booked into the Clark County detention center, according to ABC News. She was soon released on bail.

The socialite, 29, was in the passenger seat of a car driven by a male thought to be her boyfriend, nightclub owner Cy Waits. Why was Hilton pulled over near the Wynn Hotel and Casino in the first place? Las Vegas police spokesman Marcus Martin told the Associated Press cops thought they smelled marijuana coming from the car: “Officers noticed a vehicle leaving a smoke trail of a controlled substance [and] made a stop based on that.” He added that a crowd gathered to witness the police stop after Hilton was recognized by passers-by.
According to TMZ, Hilton has hired “powerful Vegas lawyer” David Chesnoff (whose past clients include Suge Knight and Vince Neil) to handle her case. And despite the fact that Hilton was the only woman in the vehicle when authorities pulled it over, she is reportedly insisting that the purse wasn’t hers.

Forty-seven years ago today, hundreds of thousands of Americans joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and witnessed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech, which summed up the hopes of generations.

Today, crowds are repeating that trek – by bus, train, car and plane — to the nation’s capital, with their own hopes and dreams about what America should stand for.Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin — two conservative stars known more for their divisive political views than for their King-like stands for social justice — will lead Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally to pay tribute “to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.”At the same time, the National Action Network plans a “Reclaim the Dream” rally in Washington to honor King and the civil rights movement in its own way. Its leader, the Rev. Al Sharpton, acknowledges Beck’s right to rally, but not his claim to a part of King’s legacy.
One thing all sides and Glenn Beck himself can agree on: Beck is not Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nevertheless, when Beck and Palin speak to a crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, just like that day in 1963, the symbolism will be unmistakable.

ALBANY, N.Y. -Gov. David Paterson could face a criminal charge over his testimony surrounding tickets he secured last year from the New York Yankees for the opening game of the World Series.The state’s former chief judge, acting as a special counsel, called Paterson’s testimony “inaccurate and misleading” and has asked a district attorney to consider a perjury investigation.That doesn’t necessarily mean that Paterson, who rose to office in 2008 when Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution scandal, will ever be charged, though. Former prosecutors say perjury is a notoriously difficult charge to prove, if it’s pursued at all.”If everyone in that Capitol who lies is going to be charged with perjury, the district attorney better hire a lot more prosecutors,” said David Grandeau, former head of the state’s lobbying commission and a widely respected investigator of misconduct in a capital that’s earned a national reputation for it.In a report Thursday, former state Chief Judge Judith Kaye noted four of five of Paterson’s tickets to the World Series opening game between the Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies were paid for shortly afterward, following a press inquiry from the New York Post newspaper.Kaye said there’s a question whether the Democratic governor gave “intentionally false testimony” to the state Commission on Public Integrity about having written an $850 check in advance for two tickets.However, Kaye said the perjury issue was “clouded” by the way Paterson’s testimony was given, with the entries read aloud to the legally blind governor. If Paterson had personally examined the check used to pay for two tickets, which was not in his handwriting, that “would have been obvious to the governor,” she said.Paterson’s private attorney, Theodore Wells Jr., said Paterson didn’t lie, and he noted Kaye’s report doesn’t recommend bringing charges or conclude Paterson intended to give false testimony.”We are therefore hopeful that (Albany County District Attorney David) Soares will ultimately conclude that no criminal charges are warranted,” he said.Paterson eventually paid for the tickets, but the question is if he had always planned to and if testimony about the tickets was truthful.Former Albany County prosecutor Paul DerOhannesian II, a defense attorney not involved in the Paterson case, called perjury “a tough charge.” But he added that “certainly politicians and celebrities are more susceptible to these charges.”He noted that a jury was deadlocked on all but one of 23 charges in the corruption case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a charge of lying to the FBI. But he also said the Albany County district attorney, a Democrat, will have great discretion to decide if there’s a basis for pursuing perjury against the governor, whose term ends Dec. 31, and if it’s in the public’s best interest.In Paterson’s case, DerOhannesian said “there certainly is a basis … many individuals get charged with less.”Grandeau said getting the baseball tickets probably didn’t violate state law because Paterson was acting as part of his official duties. But he said the stories that followed from the governor’s chamber are most troubling.”So if the governor did nothing wrong, deal with the public fallout of the governor taking free Yankees tickets,” Grandeau said.He noted, however, that a perjury case would be complicated because the case involves what check the legally blind governor was shown, what he had in his hand and what he had filled out.Publicly handling the fallout was Paterson’s communications director, Peter Kauffmann, who resigned shortly after, saying he could not “in good conscience” stay. He didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday.The state Commission on Public Integrity staff recommended last week that Paterson be fined more than $90,000 in civil penalties for soliciting and accepting the tickets in violation of ethics law.The Albany DA is separately reviewing the possible criminal case. Spokeswoman Heather Orth had no comment.Paterson abandoned his bid for a full term shortly after this investigation began, saying he couldn’t let the probe during a campaign distract him from the state’s fiscal crisis. He also was and remains mired in low poll ratings.This is just one of the scandals facing Paterson in a rocky term since he ascended to the office in March 2008. Paterson has escaped calls for his resignation over rumors of sex and drug escapades that were never proved and over his role and that of state police in a domestic violence case involving one of his longtime top aides.Shortly after Paterson took office, he made a public airing of past marital infidelities when he and his wife were separated and of some drug use in his youth. He said he made the disclosures to avoid having his past used against him as governor.Paterson, 56, spent more than 20 years in the state Senate as one of its most respected members even as he led the Democrats from minority status to the cusp of winning the majority, which Democrats did in the 2008 elections.Kaye’s investigators also found “two apparently backdated checks and an apparently backdated cover letter” sent to the Yankees to pay for tickets but concluded that does not warrant consideration of criminal charges. The evidence indicated the letter and checks were written by Paterson aide and friend David Johnson, who declined to cooperate with investigators.Paterson had told commission lawyers that he had staff call to request tickets and did not pay for his own.”This was the first game of the World Series,” Paterson said. “It’s always a national event, like the Academy Awards or, you know, governor’s state address or something like that.”

(Aug. 26) — Police have arrested a parolee in the fatal shooting of Yoseph Robinson, a Brooklyn liquor store clerk who died defending his girlfriend during a holdup.

Eion Klass, 33, was charged Wednesday with murder and criminal possession of a weapon, The New York Times reported today. He had served time for robbery and attempted murder and was paroled last October, according to state records.

Klass lived three doors down from where Robinson worked in the Midwood section of Brooklyn and would often drop in, according to the Daily News. Police say Robinson, a 34-year-old Jamaican who had turned away from a life of street crime and drugs after converting to Judaism, was shot while trying to protect his girlfriend from the robber, who had pointed a gun at her and demanded her jewelry.

Robinson had become known in the community for his efforts to build bridges between blacks and Jews after leaving behind the world of hip-hop and becoming a devout Orthodox Jew. He had been working on his memoirs, which he hoped would serve as an inspiration for Jews and blacks to work together.

“I’m glad they caught a suspect,” Robinson’s friend Avraham Silverberg told the New York Post. “The only thing is … I don’t even know why they released him in the first place.”

Police said they received tips that Klass might be the killer and traced his license plate before arresting him Tuesday. While questioning Klass, police also charged him with another robbery in Brooklyn in June, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the Daily News.

Robinson’s burial was scheduled to take place today in Jamaica.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins are the NFL’s most valuable franchises, according to a report by Forbes. Despite league-wide team values falling by approximately 2 percent, the Cowboys’ net worth rose from $1.65 billion to $1.8 billion in the past year, just ahead of Washington’s $1.55 billion net worth.

The complete list of team values, courtesy of Forbes.com (numbers rounded up to the nearest million):

1. Dallas, $1.8 billion
2. Washington, $1.55 billion
3. New England, $1.37 billion
4. New York Giants, $1.18 billion
5. Houston, $1.17 billion
6. New York Jets, $1.14 billion
7. Philadelphia, $1.12 billion
8. Baltimore, $1.07 billion
9. Chicago, $1.07 billion
10. Denver, $1.05 billion
11. Indianapolis, $1.04 billion
12. Carolina, $1.04 billion
13. Tampa Bay, $1.03 billion
14. Green Bay, $1.02 billion
15. Cleveland, $1.02 billion
16. Miami, $1.01 billion
17. Pittsburgh, $996 million
18. Tennessee, $994 million
19. Seattle, $989 million
20. Kansas City, $965 million
21. New Orleans, $955 million
22. San Francisco, $925 million
23. Arizona, $919 million
24. San Diego, $907 million
25. Cincinnati, $905 million
26. Atlanta, $831 million
27. Detroit, $817 million
28. Buffalo, $799 million
29. St. Louis, $779 million
30. Minnesota, $774 million
31. Oakland, $758 million
32. Jacksonville, $725 million