'Whitewash' storm as the PC cleared of killing Ian Tomlinson is sacked at last for misconduct... but keeps his police pension

• Scotland Yard holds police disciplinary proceedings in public for first time
• Pc Simon Harwood, 45, hit Mr Tomlinson, 47, with his baton and pushed him to the ground during the G20 protests in London in 2009
• Metropolitan Police disciplinary panel finds he committed gross misconduct and dismisses him without notice
• But panel decides not to consider allegation that Harwood's actions inadvertently caused or contributed to Mr Tomlinson's death
• Mr Tomlinson's family dismiss proceedings as a 'whitewash' and vow to take civil action 
• Harwood has already been acquitted of Mr Tomlinson's manslaughter

Three missing after NSW boat capsizes

Hopes are fading for three men who went missing on a late night fishing trip off the NSW south coast.

Efforts to locate the men, who were not wearing lifejackets when their dinghy capsized, were suspended on Monday night but will resume at St Georges Basin on Tuesday morning, police say.

A fourth man on the trip managed to make it to shore after he was rescued by a local resident who heard his cries for help early on Monday.

An air, land and sea search was launched for the other three men - aged 19, 26 and 29 - but on Monday evening they remained unaccounted for.

Police believe the four men had been drinking alcohol before they set out from the Sanctuary Point boat ramp at 10.30pm (AEST) on Sunday.

Police said when the boat was about 200 metres offshore, one of the men stood up and leant over the side, causing the boat to capsize and throwing all four men into the water.

A 22-year-old man was rescued about 2.30am (AEST) on Monday after a resident onshore heard his cries for help and went out on a paddle board.

"He found the guy clinging to the vessel," a police spokesman told AAP.

The spokesman said the dinghy was only equipped with oars and it was understood none of the men were wearing life vests.

The rescued man was treated for hypothermia by the Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopter service.

Helle Ib: Giftigt spil – men ingen klare beviser

De to første dage i Skattesagskommissionen har absolut ikke skabt klarhed over, hvem der lækkede de fortrolige oplysninger i Thorning-Kinnocks skattesag – eller om daværende skatteminister Troels Lund Poulsens (V) spindoktor Peter Arnfeldt ”tilbød” Ekstra Bladet indblik i dele af indholdet.

Ekstra Bladets påstand svækkes af manglende beviser. Til gengæld har offentligheden fået indblik i, hvor beskidt det politiske spil på Christiansborg kan udfolde sig.

Two big health insurers team up in acquisition [The Kansas City Star]

A planned acquisition of Coventry Health Care Inc. by fellow insurer Aetna Inc., announced Monday, will give Aetna access to more Medicaid and Medicare

business -- programs expected to grow under national health reform.

But what local consumers are likely to notice first is that the $5.7 billion deal will reduce by one the number of major health care insurance carriers in

the Kansas City market.

"In the local fully insured marketplace, especially for small groups, that brings us down to Blue Cross and Blue Shield, UnitedHealth, Humana and Aetna,"

said David Power, a broker with the Power Group in the Kansas City area. "We'll have one less option to show clients to compare plans and rates, and that

means less competition."

Mike Brewer, president of Lockton Benefit Group, said that in the local middle market, involving companies of up to 5,000 people covered, he'd add Cigna as a

competitor, but he agreed that reduced competition was among the first things that came to mind when he heard of the deal.

"Consolidation does tend to erode competition a little, but the upside may be Aetna having a little more muscle to work with in the marketplace," Brewer

said.

Aetna sent notes to its brokers that said, in part, "In the foreseeable future, it is business as usual -- nothing changes." The purchase is subject to

approval from Coventry shareholders and federal and state regulators.

Aetna is the nation's third-largest health insurer based on enrollment numbers, ranking it behind UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint nationally. In Missouri

and Kansas, the Blues have the largest premium share and will continue to be the biggest after the Aetna deal is done.

What's attractive to Aetna in the deal is Coventry's 932,000-strong Medicaid enrollment. Since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the health care overhaul

legislation, millions more Americans are expected to become eligible to participate in the state- and federally funded program for persons identified as poor

and disabled.

Just since the court's decision, WellPoint, which offers Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 14 states, said it intended to acquire Amerigroup Corp. Industry

analysts expect more consolidations as insurers try to bolster their government business.

Aetna called the Coventry acquisition a "fabulous" deal, even if the November elections change the future of health reform.

Aetna also would gain Coventry's Medicare business at a time when the big, aging baby-boom generation is becoming eligible for that program. Coventry has

about 1.5 million people enrolled in its Medicare prescription drug coverage.

According to statistics supplied by the carriers, Aetna has more than 18 million medical policy members, nearly 13.6 million dental members, and more than

8.6 million pharmacy members. The acquisition would add Coventry's nearly 3.8 million medical members and nearly 1.5 million Medicare Part D members.

Aetna shares rose 5.3 percent in Monday trading to $40.06, and Coventry shares jumped about 20 percent to $41.86.

Summer of LeBron Ends With Gold

The Spanish balloon popped when LeBron James hammered home a dunk late in the fourth quarter. For James, who had relished his role throughout the Olympic

tournament as a facilitator rather than a scorer, it was a rare show of might, as if to punctuate the fact that, yes, he was still LeBron—the NBA's Most

Valuable Player, an NBA champion, and now, after two weeks in London, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
James made his exit from Sunday's game shortly after dunking, and in the waning moments of Team USA's 107-100 gold medal victory over Spain, he and coach

Mike Krzyzewski embraced in front of the bench. It had been a hard-fought contest, the sort of nip-and-tuck, counterpunching affair that James and his

teammates said they wanted.

"A lot of teams have won gold easy," said James, who finished with 19 points, seven rebounds and four assists. "We didn't want it that way."

Olympic basketball can be a tough sell for fans back home: Team USA wins? Well, that was expected. But a loss? "It is a disaster," assistant coach Mike

D'Antoni said. The tournament had been more exhibition than sport as the U.S. steamrolled its way into the final, winning its games by an average of 35.7

points. But the game with Spain was different. Spain had the Gasol brothers, Marc and Pau. Spain had experience. And Spain had motivation: The game was a

rematch of the 2008 gold-medal game that the U.S. won.
One of the major plot lines was whether Spain's size would give the U.S. problems. But Krzyzewski and his staff stuck to their game plan: Team USA would go

small. It was one of the principles that Jerry Colangelo, chairman of USA Basketball, kept in mind when he and Krzyzewski assembled the roster.

"As the big man fades into the sunset around the world," Colangelo said, "there won't be any choice but to go with quickness and speed."

The wisdom of that gamble was apparent at the start of the fourth quarter when the U.S. mounted a 12-4 run to break open a one-point game. Whether it was

James working his way to the basket or Kevin Durant sinking his fifth 3-pointer or point guard Chris Paul dribbling past the 7-foot-tall Pau Gasol, Spain

could no longer contend.

It was a physical game. Recalling one of Marc Gasol's four first-half fouls, Carmelo Anthony said Gasol "tried to take my leg off." But the Americans

eventually found the space to run the court and separate themselves. "The closer the game got, the more intense we got," said Bryant, who had 17 points and

three 3-pointers.
That makes 14 gold medals in 17 Olympic appearances for Team USA, which got a game-high 30 points from Durant. Paul, who finished with 11, described the

London Games as the most fun he has had as a player. "I hate that in a couple months, these guys are going to be my enemies," he said.

Krzyzewski, 62-1 as Team USA's coach since taking over the program in 2006, joined Henry Iba as the only U.S. coaches to lead the team to gold in consecutive

Olympics. He hedged afterward when asked about his announced plans to step down from his position. "The thing that I would want to do with Jerry, and will

do, is take some time to evaluate everything," he said. "I think I can get a great meal out of this."

Over the past seven years, one of Krzyzewski's most important partnerships has been with James. As a 19-year-old in 2004, James was a bit player on a U.S.

team that settled for bronze at the Athens Games. Once Krzyzewski came aboard, James was instrumental in the national team's success. He got other NBA

megastars to buy into the ethos of the Olympics.

"I've just seen him grow immensely," Krzyzewski said. "He's the best player and he's the best leader and he's as smart as anyone playing the game right now."

He cited how James played the final five minutes of the Spain game with four fouls. He knew not to pick up his fifth.

There was an air of finality to the postgame festivities. James said he wasn't certain if he would be with the team in 2016, and it might not be his choice.

FIBA is said to be considering an age limit. Colangelo said he expects to know more in December.

After James checked out of the game, he celebrated by dousing Krzyzewski with water, then climbed to his spot on the podium. It was a fitting last act during

this, the Summer of LeBron—he went out on top.

Charles Zentai case the last Nazi pursuit

The 90-year-old Perth man had been accused of beating a Jewish teenager to death and throwing his body in the Danube River in Nazi-occupied Budapest in

November 1944.

Yesterday, the High Court ruled that the government could not order Mr Zentai's extradition to Hungary because the offence of "war crime" did not exist under

Hungary's laws in 1944.

The decision draws to a close the era of Nazi war crimes prosecutions in Australia - a troubled hunt that resulted in four failed court cases over 25 years

at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.

At its height, from 1987 to 1992, a Special Investigations Unit set up by the Hawke government examined up to 800 cases of suspected Nazi-era war criminals

living in Australia, but a lack of hard evidence and the unreliability of aged witnesses made it difficult to lay charges.
Some questioned whether Australia's heart was really in the hunt to prosecute crimes committed half a century earlier. A 2006 US-government commissioned

report accused Australia of having "an ambivalent" attitude to hunting Nazi war criminals and a "lack of the requisite political will".

Mr Zentai said yesterday he was stunned and happy at the High Court's decision but his life had been ruined by the case.

But the ruling infuriated the Jewish community. Efraim Zuroff, from the Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, labelled it a black day for Australian

justice and a terrible day for survivors of the Holocaust.

He said not one attempt to bring accused Nazi war criminals in Australia to justice had succeeded, and he believed it was now the end of the line.

"We are up against obstacles that are simply impossible," Mr Zuroff said. "If there is no judicial will to bring the criminals from World War II to justice

in Australia, then it won't happen."

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Danny Lamm said the decision would be seen by many as the triumph of narrow legalism over substantive

justice.

In a 5-1 decision, the High Court said that, under Australia's extradition treaty with Hungary, the government could not surrender one of its citizens over

acts capable of giving rise to any form of criminal liability, only for the specific offence for which extradition was sought.

It said that, although the offence of murder existed in Hungary in 1944, Hungary had not requested Mr Zentai's extradition for murder; rather, it had

requested his extradition for the offence of "war crime".

Dissenting judge Dyson Heydon said that point was an "extremely technical one". Justice Heydon said that if Mr Zentai was returned to Hungary and convicted,

an accurate answer if someone later asked him what he was convicted for was "beating a Jew to death in Budapest in 1944".

"The questioner could equally accurately answer: 'That's murder. That was certainly an offence in Hungary in 1944'," Justice Heydon said.

Hungary enacted laws in 1945 that retrospectively introduced the war crimes offence.

Mr Zentai, who is on bail, has denied any involvement in the death of teenager Peter Balazs since details of the claims against him were revealed in The

Australian in 2005.

Some prosecutors in Australia say the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which has mounted a global campaign for Nazi war crimes prosecutions, gave them poorly

researched lists of suspects.

In 1991 charges were laid against Mikolay Berezowsky for alleged involvement in the deaths of 102 Jews in Ukraine. The case did not proceed to trial.

In 1993 the South Australian Supreme Court acquitted Ivan Polyukovich of charges of murdering a Jewish woman in 1942 and being knowingly concerned with the

murder of 850 others. The same year, mass murder charges against Heinrich Wagner were dropped because of his ill-health.

System could warn of solar storms

A warning system with the potential to protect against the devastating and costly effects of a massive solar storm could be on the horizon.

That's according to research published in the journal Astroparticle Physics.

Solar flares can be accompanied by the release of high energy particles - a coronal mass ejection - towards Earth.

Ensuing huge geomagnetic storms could wreak havoc on electronic systems, satellites, power grids and communication networks.

Data from the study, led by Prof Ephraim Fischbach and Prof Jere Jenkins of Purdue University, suggest that the rate of breakdown of radioactive materials

changes in advance of solar flares.

They hope they can use this to develop a system that could predict when a potentially devastating geomagnetic storm might take place. This would allow

authorities to adopt protective measures, such as shutting down satellites, at times of most risk.

But it is unclear how long such a system would take to develop. Prof Jenkins told BBC News: "We're still developing algorithms to pinpoint what type of flare

and magnitude it will be."

Other physicists are more sceptical of the conclusions made by the researchers. Commenting on the findings, Dr Peter Soler, a particle physicist at the

University of Glasgow, said: "I do not believe the actual decay rate is being affected by this."
Radioactive elements - such as uranium - are unstable and break down over time. As they do this they release energy in the form of radiation. Physicists have

long held the view that the rate of breakdown - or decay - for any given radioactive substance is constant.

A chance event led Prof Jenkins to doubt this. He was watching television coverage of astronauts spacewalking at the International Space Station. A solar

flare erupted and was thought to pose a risk to the astronauts. On checking equipment in his laboratory, he was surprised to discover that the rate of

radioactive decay changed before the solar flare.

The current report follows years of painstaking research designed to strengthen this initial observation. "It's the first time the same isotope has been used

in two different experiments at two different labs, and it showed basically the same effect," Prof Fischbach said.

It is unclear how solar particles affect rates of radioactive decay, but Prof Jenkins asserts that "either neutrinos are affecting the decay rate or perhaps

an unknown particle is". Neutrinos are subatomic particles; huge numbers of them are spewed out during a solar flare.

One of the biggest geomagnetic storms on record was the Carrington event of 1859. According to Prof Fischbach: "There was so much energy from this solar

storm that the telegraph wires were seen glowing." He pointed out that "because we now have a sophisticated infrastructure of satellites, powergrids and all

sorts of electronic systems, a storm of this magnitude today would be catastrophic. Having a day and a half warning could be really helpful in averting the

worst damage".

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are around 1,000 satellites in operation above the Earth's atmosphere. Satellites are used for

communication, weather forecasting, navigation, research and reconnaissance.

Solar activity fluctuates over an approximate 11-year cycle. Activity is likely to peak over the next year or so and could bring strong solar storms.
Solar particles also produce one of nature's wondrous spectacles - the auroras - natural light shows in the Earth's atmosphere. The auroras visible in the

northern and southern hemispheres are known as the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and Aurora Australis (Southern Lights), respectively.

The auroras are most visible at high latitudes - usually in the polar regions. However, the intensity of this light show is influenced greatly by the amount

of solar flare activity. According to Prof Fischbach, "the aurora borealis appeared as far south as Cuba" during the famous Carrington event.