The Daily Blog

NFL Looking Into Players’ Casino Investment.

DOTHAN, Ala. — The NFL is investigating the reported investment by at least 25 NFL players in an Alabama casino that has been shut down.

League spokesman Greg Aiello confirms the investigation Friday, a day after Yahoo! Sports reported that wide receivers Terrell Owens, Santonio Holmes, Santana Moss and other players had invested some $20 million in Country Crossing casino. The report also named defensive tackle Gerard Warren and linebacker Adalius Thomas.

NFL rules bar employees from involvement with any gaming operation. Players violating that rule could be subject to fines or suspensions and have to give up their investment.

Country Crossing owner Ronnie Gilley and two of his lobbyists have pleaded guilty to offering legislators millions in bribes.

China Probes Sale Of ‘Illegal Children’.

A southern Chinese province has begun investigating a report that officials had seized at least 16 babies born in violation of strict family planning rules, sent them to welfare centers and then sold them abroad for adoption.

The children in Longhui county near Hunan province’s Shaoyang city had been taken away by officials since 2005 after their parents were accused of breaching the one-child policy or illegally adopting children, the Caixin Century magazine reported.

The local family planning office then sent the children to local welfare centers, which listed them as being available for adoption, the report said, adding the office could get 1,000 yuan ($154) or more for each child.

Some of the seized children were the sole children of couples who were often away working in the cities, the magazine added.

At least one migrant worker said she had found her daughter had been adopted abroad and was now living in the United States, it said. The welfare centers could receive as much as $3,000 for each child placed in overseas adoption.

“Before 1997, they usually punished us by tearing down our houses for breaching the one-child policy, but after 2000 they began to confiscate our children,” it quoted villager Yuan Chaoren as saying.

The Shaoyang government is now investigating the case, the popular tabloid the Global Times reported on Tuesday, though it quoted one official as denying any involvement in child trafficking.

“When we found illegal birth children, we fined the parents in accordance with the law,” the anonymous official told the newspaper, without elaborating.

Provincial officials, whose promotion is closely linked to the effectiveness of measures to stop people from having more babies, have often been criticized for using violence or coercion to enforce tough family planning policies.

Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist, drew international attention when he took on officials over forced abortions in his home province of Shandong and was jailed. He was released in September, more than four years after being convicted of damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest, and has been held under virtual house arrest in his village ever since.

With a population expected to peak at 1.65 billion in 2033, China has been cautious about dropping its one-child policy that was implemented to spare the country the pressures of feeding and clothing hundreds of millions of additional people.

China already allows a number of exceptions to the policy, and some experts have called for a greater relaxation to tackle the problem of a population aging before it can first become rich.

($1 = 6.494 yuan).

Rageh Almurisi, Unruly American Airlines Passenger, Also Had California ID.

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal agents are investigating the background of a California man with a Yemeni passport who pounded on the cockpit door of an American Airlines flight as it approached San Francisco before a flight attendant tackled him, police said Monday.

Rageh Almurisi, 28, does not have any clear or known ties to terrorism, and investigators have not established a possible motive, San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said.

Almurisi, of Vallejo, Calif., got up from his seat and went toward the cockpit door 10 minutes before the flight from Chicago was supposed to land on Sunday night, authorities said.

Almurisi was yelling unintelligibly as he brushed past a flight attendant on his way toward the cockpit, Rodriguez said.

A male flight attendant tackled him, and other crew members and passengers, including a retired Secret Service agent and a retired San Mateo police officer, helped subdue him as he banged on the door, police said.

“They were able to get him to the ground and a flight attendant put him in plastic handcuffs,” Rodriguez said.

Andrew Wai, a passenger aboard the flight, described a chaotic scene, telling KGO-TV that passengers were screaming and crying. “Flight attendants were trying to soothe different passengers,” he said. “We were all looking at our lives flash before our eyes.”

Wai said Almurisi appeared “fidgety” when he saw him on the way to the bathroom earlier in the flight.

The Boeing 737 carrying 162 people landed safely at 9:10 p.m. and the man was taken into police custody. The flight came from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, authorities said.

Almurisi carried a Yemeni passport, Rodriguez said.

The incident comes amid concerns that extremists will try to mount attacks in retaliation for American commandos killing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last week.

Yemen, a nation at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, has been a focus of U.S. officials because one of the most active branches of al-Qaeda operates in the remote part of the country.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Monday that Almurisi was carrying California identification and was from Vallejo, Calif., a city about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco.

During the scuffle, Almurisi got some bruises and was checked at a hospital before being taken to San Mateo County Jail, where he was being held on Monday on suspicion of interfering with a flight crew, a federal offense, according to authorities.

No one else was hurt and the airport continued operating normally with security levels unchanged, the officer said.

There were two other mid-air disturbances.

A 34-year-old man from Illinois tried to open a plane door on a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Chicago. Investigators questioned him, but did not file charges.

There was a security scare about a Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit to San Diego, prompting it to land in Albuquerque, N.M., but authorities found “no suspicious devices,” authorities said. No one was arrested.

Los Angeles TV Writer Found Dead at Hawaii Resort.

HONOLULU — Police in Hawaii are investigating the death of a Los Angeles writer and producer who was found in a room at an unnamed Waikoloa resort.

According to a statement from police on the Big Island, 50-year-old Aron Abrams was found dead Christmas morning after police and emergency personnel were summoned. An autopsy is set for Friday.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports that Abrams was a writer and co-executive producer of “Everybody Hates Chris.” The program, starring Chris Rock, was nominated in 2006 for “Best New Series” by the Writers Guild of America.

He also was a supervising producer of “Grounded for Life,” co-producer of “3rd Rock from the Sun,” and a consulting producer of the long-running animated Fox series “King of the Hill.”

TSA Probes Pilot Critical of Airport Security.

SAN FRANCISCO - Federal authorities are investigating a pilot who posted videos on YouTube that were critical of security at San Francisco International Airport, the pilot’s attorney said Friday.

Don Werno of the Santa Ana-based law firm Werno and Associates said the Transportation Security Administration is looking into whether his client revealed sensitive information.

The pilot remains employed with a major airline, but he has withdrawn from a program that trains flight crew to help prevent hijackings after authorities confiscated his federally issued firearm, Werno said. He declined to release the pilot’s name, citing concerns about the man’s job.

The TSA wouldn’t answer questions but said in a statement it is responding to the situation and is confident in the security at San Francisco International Airport.

“As to access control at SFO, TSA is confident in the tools the airport has implemented and reminds passengers there are security measures in place that are both seen and unseen.”

The pilot posted several videos on YouTube in late November or early December that showed how ground crew members can enter secure areas by swiping security cards and without undergoing further screening. He notes in the footage that pilots undergo intense screening, but then have access to ax-like weapons that are stored in the cockpit in case of emergencies.

One of the videos, which number more than six, was of federal air marshals and sheriff’s deputies who came to the pilot’s home earlier this month to seize his federally issued firearm. The pilot had been allowed to carry the weapon on board as part of a program after 9/11 that trains certain flight crew to serve as “federal flight deck officers” to prevent hijackings.

Werno said his client was upset about what he feels is lax security for ground crew, including baggage handlers, working at SFO while flight crews and passengers are subject to intense screening.”The airport should be a security zone where everything that comes into the airport perimeter is checked,” he said.

The pilot removed the videos from YouTube after the TSA objected.

The pilot, a 50-year-old Sacramento-area native, has worked for a major airline for the past 10 years and continues to fly, according to Werno. He has been advised by his airline not to disclose his identity.

In its statement, the TSA said it “responded and took action in this situation because the pilot in question was a FFDO (federal flight deck officer).”

“FFDOs must be able to maintain sensitive security information as a condition of the FFDO program,” the agency said. It did not elaborate.