Rodman headed back to N. Korea
Rodman headed back to N. Korea
CHICAGO (AP) — Dennis Rodman is preparing to thrill North Korean fans during an exhibition basketball tour there late next month.
Though he ducked questions in an interview with The Associated Press about whether his Christmas-time visit would be used for propaganda purposes by Kim Jong Un, the 29-year-old leader of one of the world’s most repressive regimes, Rodman said he’ll be accompanied on the trip by a dozen or so former NBA players. But he refused to name names.
“I have seven people right now,” Rodman said. “I talked to a couple of guys last week. Lot of guys are saying, ‘OK, great. I’ll go. We’ll go.’ But I’m not saying this to get people to go over there to prove a point — ‘OK, great, let’s go over there and make a difference.’
“No-o-o-o-o-o,” he continued. “Let’s go over there because this is a great opportunity for everyone to see a different culture. … ‘This country is so bad. This city is so bad.’ OK, great, come see it and tell the world when you come back, ‘Hey, it’s not as bad as you think.’”
Calif. serial killer receives death
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) — A judge sentenced a man to death Friday in the decades-old killings of four women with matching initials, saying the serial killer has “made this world a worse place.”
Marin County Superior Court Judge Andrew Sweet called 79-year-old Joseph Naso an “evil and disturbed man” as he issued the sentence, the Marin Independent Journal reported. Jurors had recommended the death penalty.
Sweet said Naso inflicted “abhorrent and repugnant levels of suffering and cruelty” on the victims.
“You being in this world, Mr. Naso, has made this world a worse place,” Sweet said.
The former photographer was convicted of strangling four prostitutes in Northern California with matching initials: Roxene Roggasch, Carmen Colon, Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya.
Naso represented himself at trial, often coming off as confused and ornery. He called five witnesses, but did not testify himself.
In his closing argument, he told the jury he was no monster and did not kill the women.
On Friday, he said the prosecution was a “hate crime” against him, and he shouldn’t have been arrested or charged.
Obama, Cyrus ‘least influential’
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dennis Rodman is at the top of a list no one wants to be on. He’s been named GQ’s No. 1 least influential celebrity of 2013.
The 52-year-old former basketball player who has visited Kim Jong Un in North Korea was selected as the top pick in the magazine’s third annual list of the least influential celebrities, which also includes twerking pop star Miley Cyrus, President Barack Obama, and celebrity chef Paula Deen. GQ called Rodman a “Q-list celebrity willing to commit borderline treason just to hang out with a dictator who himself aspires to be a Q-list celebrity.”
Deen, whose cooking empire imploded this year after she admitted to having used the N-word to describe black employees, came in at No. 2 on the list behind Rodman, while former sexting U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner took the No. 3 spot.
Cyrus, who garnered attention at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards for her provocative performance with a foam finger, won the No. 6 position for “basically trying every inane strategy she could think of to rile up America’s few remaining pearl clutchers.”
Obama came in at No. 17 because “nothing gets done.”
Tesla CEO says car to be cleared
DETROIT (AP) — The leader of upstart automaker Tesla Motors is confident that its Model S car is safe and will be cleared by a federal investigation into two battery fires.
CEO Elon Musk said the fires, which occurred when metal road debris pierced the underbody of the cars at highway speeds, are extreme cases. He doesn’t expect a recall and said his engineers are not working on any fixes for the battery-powered cars.
“In both cases it was a large piece of metal essentially braced against the tarmac,” Musk said in an interview Friday.
No one was hurt in the fires, which happened along freeways near Seattle and Nashville, Tenn. starting Oct. 1. Another fire happened in Mexico after the driver ran through a concrete wall at more than 100 mph.
Musk said no one has ever been hurt in a Model S crash, which shows there’s no safety problem for drivers or passengers. The only other reason to investigate is economic loss from the fires, but that’s not an issue because Tesla amended its warranty to cover fire loss in crashes, Musk said.
“I’m not saying it can’t happen again,” he said. “I’m saying in any kind of low-speed impact, you’re fine. Any car, Model S or not Model S, the underside is going to get significantly damaged if you drive over a large metal object.”
Musk described the weeks since the fires as “torture.” He said the crashes have received an unreasonable amount of media attention given that no one was injured. He understands that a new technology such as electric cars will get more scrutiny, “but not to the insane degree that we’re receiving.”
Tesla’s stock price has dropped by 37 percent since the first fire. Some investors and analysts also were disappointed by the company’s third-quarter results.
But Musk said the stock’s value, which earlier in the year had risen 470 percent to $194.50, got too high and the market is correcting it. “I believe I said several times that the valuation was more than we had any right to deserve,” said Musk, a billionaire who co-founded PayPal and started SpaceX. “I was not the one who thought the valuation should go up to such levels.”
Tesla shares closed Friday down 72 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $121.38.