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Lego Basketball

Birthday ceremony party tips for 1 to 10 Ages kids only

1) People’s Party Themes Kids – Elmo and farm animals and Caddaby Abe, one is a fun, lady bug
2) bubble machine instead of live entertainment – young children love bubbles.
3) to keep short. 11 / 2 hours is the max for the party kids at this age.
4) If only there were children in the party then they can not play, but the party of adults could be a few party games for adults. You will have everyone laughing.
5) The course will take a lot of pictures of Holiday birthday boy / girl and guests, but do not forget to take pictures of decorations and cake. It’s a good idea to take pictures of both before the party starts. You want evidence that the hard work!

2 gala birthday
1) People’s Party Themes Kids – Yo Gabba Gabba, I dedicate the party, Little Einstein, the circus, Unicorn
2 Music) – Children love music at this age. Toddler play popular music that they would not recognize (Hot Dog, Hot Diggity Dog from Mickey Mouse Club, and theme music for the Little Einstein, Sesame Street song) and watch the children dance!
3) to keep short. 2 hours is the max.
4) Plan the party around your child’s mood. If your child is a little shy and then invite a few relatives and keep it simple. If your child is a party animal and loves the attention and then invite friends and family.
5) run simple games like Simon Says, a ring around the Rosie duck and goose, duck.
3 Holiday Birthdays
1) People’s Party Themes Kids – Hot Wheels cars – the movie, Backyardigans, Go Diego, Dora the Explorer
2) to get your child involved. Let him choose a topic or help make the invitations. At this age children love to be helpful.
3) Get the timing right – a party in the afternoon until the middle is fine. In the afternoon and usually are obtained Tutes cranky.
4) Entertainment – In this age you can think of in the live entertainment. Some good options and a puppet show, magician, balloon modeling or face painter.
5) gala birthday party last great idea is to dress up! Children love to dress up at this age. Save space with some old clothes and can play a Tutes they love this activity.

5 Holiday Birthdays
1) People’s Party Children – Themes Buzz Light year, The Wizard of Oz, Party Crafts, Party Pirate, Scooby-Doo
2) Since your child is in school and now you can plan a ceremony at the school, as well as a party in the house.
3) in relation to a school to bring cakes (Note that some schools only allow items bought food store). Going through a small bag good for each child containing candy and small game.
4) for the house party and kids make the jewelry of pasta. You have children paint the pasta (any pasta with a hole in it will work). When the dry spinning can be the subject through the pasta and the wearing of the veil!
5) Make sure you get your child’s input when it comes to planning the party. In this age will be happy to see your ideas incorporated in the party.
Holiday Birthdays 6
1) People’s Party Themes Kids – Gymnastics, Karate, and the party cheering, NASCAR, Mission Space Party
2) In this age may want to look at every boy or girl each child. After the age of 5 girls usually want to do different activities than boys. It is not necessary to be a party to gender specific, but it can make planning a little easier.
3) At this age you can consider having a party of children the destination. Kids love fun parties in languages ​​such as indoors, studio gymnastics, karate, or at the studio take.
4) If you’re having a party of children in the home and the weather permits consideration of the party, such as renting a house or bounce the ball pit. For children at this age spend hours bouncing or playing ball in the hole.
5) party games and of course we must try to search for treasure, and hot potato, musical chairs, or the relay. Check out these games as well as:
Birthday gala 7
1) People’s Party Themes Kids Party – sleep, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, tea party
2) gala ceremony marked the birth of 7 seemed a milestone in the maturity of the children, and can no longer be viewed as infants. So, if you’re going to be a big celebration and this gala is to do so. Before 7 they are too young to really appreciate it, but this year it will be.
3) examine the presence of the party girls sleep. Provide activities such as cosmetics, and do their nails or playing Barbie. Allow them to eat junk food and watching a movie pre-teen.
4) for the children to consider having a party in an extraordinary way. And guests, clothing and their favorite superhero and the provision of existing activities on the Spiderman, Batman, Superman, etc..
5) Party Rentals always like to hit the bounce house, ball pit, and the rental of pony or mini put put course.
Holiday 8 Birthdays
1) People’s Party Themes Kids – bowling, Barbie, football, baseball, basketball, skate
2) This is the age the only one who can plan a figure eight party! Make the number eight cake – Take a Tour 2 cakes, cut the center to the use of glass (frozen cakes work best). Cakes put 2 together to form a figure eight. And the party in the rink where children can practice skating figure eight.
3) the destination party is a good idea at this age also. Consider an American girl, and Dave and Busters or bowling.
4) concert art. Provide all kinds of crafts for children to do this can be as simple as mud or building with Legos] or painting pictures of jewelry making and model building. Have different activities so the kids can move around. Make sure you get help with supervision, it can get hectic.
5) Remember to be enthusiastic with each activity and play a lot of music. And enthusiasm to get kids excited about any activity, and music always gets them going!
9 Holiday Birthdays
1) People’s Party Themes Kids – Star Wars, Glamour Girls, Loa in Hawaii, Harry Potter, Transformers
2) If you have a cowboy in the bud or wife try to round the horse until the party. Provide the children with bandanas or cowboy hats when they arrive, serve Western food like BBQ chicken or meat, Western-style. The pony ride in your home or, if possible, take children to the stable.
3) Here are some unique ideas to entertain live – Cartoonist, Karaoke, water slide, and hip-hop or country singer, characters, clothing, kids comedian, impersonator (such as fake Hannah Montana), the artist temporary tattoos (ask parents first), ventriloquist, Airbrush T-shirt artist and live animals.
4) I dedicate decorating is fun activity for children. Make cakes cooked in advance with the fixin such as frost (a couple of different flavors), sprinkles, jelly and writing. Allow children to decorate cakes and then get to eat their creations!
5) Girls love to play grown up in this age even have a tea party for girls. Either search for a language to have time to do so or tea in your home. I say to the girls in the invitation to dress up and then make a tea and finger sandwiches with the crust cut off. Discussion of the rite to drink tea, like putting behind your pinky up!
10 Holiday Birthdays
1) People’s Party Themes Kids – Montana Hanan, Twighligt, Wizards of Waverly Place, American Idol, Jonas
2) This is the ideal age to celebrate the birth of your child at an amusement park. Invite a few friends. Kids will be old enough or tall enough to get many of the rides. Most of the children may have seen an amusement park so far and know what to expect.
3) Chocolate party plan. What child does not love chocolate? Party Chocolate simple plan because everything is like chocolate cake Holiday Birth chocolate, chocolate, favors, chocolate, chocolate fondue fountain, or even chocolate.
4) a great place to get the girls prefer at this age is Claires or any similar accessory shop. You can pick up tons of inexpensive accessories such as barrettes, clips and jewelry.
5) Plan girly party for your daughter. That any party girly entail manicures and pedicures with snacks and fun girly movie like The Princess Diaries. Have a Barbie or two games to play and your daughter will love it!

About the Author

Kids fairy land provide your kids parties Miami And 2 other beautiful locations childrens party Broward and the 3rd one so beautiful place kids birthday party west palm beach

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Basketball Drills & Tips : How to Be a Point Guard

When Design Impacts Performance, Performance Returns The Favor

You could call it the Feng Shui of the NBA. A 50,000 square foot building where glass, wood, technology,and a holistic approach to professional basketball all live under one roof.  Or you could call it the Cleveland Clinic Courts,the practice facility for LeBron and team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

In October of 2007 they moved into their new home where work-flow, connectivity and communication drove every decision in the design and construction of this building. Is there a connection between a building and success? Between improved facilities and an improved record?                        

If there is a connection in pro sports between interior excellence and an excellent record, is there a connection in your professional life? Let’s take a virtual look inside the NBA.

If you are a doubter like me, you look at the two full size side-by-side courts, six nets, a 3,000 square foot weight and conditioning area, a 150-inch HD projection screen, stadium seating, and wonder. How does all of this encourage players, coaches and staff to a higher level of excellence?

A no-excuse policy drives the team and the building. There is no excuse for less than excellence in any aspect of the organization. The essence of their rules and strategies can be applied in your business.

 1. The No-Buddy Rule

Members of the Cavaliers are strongly urged to drive themselves to and from practice, hence the no-buddy rule. Players are “discouraged” from attending practice with a friend, posse or entourage member. Their focus is to be on practice not on who may be waiting for them after practice.

Lesson Learned:  Millionaire athletes respond to winning strategies. Is the no-buddy rule a rule or a strategy? A rule is imposed, a strategy has buy-in. Players appear to understand and comply with this “strategy”. You could say they buy into it. Imagine legislating the driving patterns of “employees”. Do you establish rules or strategies? Do you create buy-in? Are you hesitant to impose what may appear to be strict or archaic ways?

2. Chairs with a Purpose

Players start each practice in the large theater-style team meeting room. Theatre seating consists of chairs designed by Cavalier’s management and that 150-inch screen. The agenda is to begin each practice by watching their own game ‘tape” or opponent’s games. Athletes watch on chairs specifically designed to not recline. And too narrow in which to lounge. This is a business meeting and full attention is expected.

Lesson Learned: Everything about this 50, 000 square foot facility is designed to maximize workflow, connectivity, and communication. Even a building of wood and glass can speak to the synergy of team. Even a building can be designed to move  your business and your agenda forward. Have you looked at every aspect from your chairs to your coffee maker to your clothes?

3. A Football Shaped Locker Room

Most locker rooms are built in the shape of a rectangle or a square. This locker room is designed in the shape of a football. The difference? There are no ends. No ends that drop off and allow a player to drop off and not communicate with other players. One TV graces a wall in the locker room. No individual screens, no individual IPod or mp3 stations. This is a space built for interaction not isolation.

Lesson Learned: The locker room, like the entire facility, is a standing monument to basketball, business, and synergy all coming together. The facility boasts connectivity and communication. I asked Campy Russell, former NBA player, what made a good NBA coach a good coach? He answered with clarity, the ability to communicate. Is communication a high priority for you?

4. No Bloomin’ Onion Here

Players eat many meals at their practice facility. How much control do the Cavalier’s have over what the players eat?  David Painter, Facility Manager, says in this building, 100%. Some players have favorite meals, like Anderson and his egg white omelets. It is clear that the Cavaliers are not eating bloomin’ onions when they eat in their “house”.

Lesson Learned: The Cavalier management considers every detail important. Most players have their own personal chef. In their case, their body is truly their business. Staying in good enough shape for one more play-off game or one more season can reap huge financial dividends. For all of us, aren’t our bodies our business? What do you serve at your meetings and retreats? Food to facilitate learning or food to sabotage learning?

 5. Underwater I-Spy

A huge underwater treadmill is a highlight of the rehab wing. Underwater cameras record a player’s workout from every angle. The DVD is then sent to the player’s doctor to be reviewed: how is the knee, is the ankle holding weight?

Lesson Learned: This union of rehab and technology is one of the few in the NBA. The Cavalier management has looked at every detail and tested rules, strategies, brick and mortar to bend to their philosophy. Do you?

 “When design impacts performance, performance returns the favor.” This phrase was developed for the introduction of the Infiniti G Sedan. How does design impact performance in your business? Is performance returning the favor? On to the play-offs.

About the Author

As president of Electric Impulse Communications, Inc., she helps individuals and corporations supercharge their leadership performance. She can help you identify your competitive edge to improve individual and company performance.

“Nobody can do it better or makes YOU better than Leslie Ungar,” says Lynda Hirsch, nationally syndicated columnist and TV guest.

Ungar hosts a monthly Time/Warner television show called Civic Forum. This show and her work within the corporate world provide access to executives and how they think. She writes a monthly column for the Florida based magazine Affluent, and is often interviewed and quoted frequently in regional and national media. Now a member of the National Speaker’s Association, her interest in the role of communication began in the sixth grade. She wrote a play about the role that the lack of communication played in Custer’s Last Stand, and her best friend played the role of Custer’s horse!

Ungar serves as adjunct faculty at The University of Akron. Her undergraduate and Master’s Degree are both in Communication and Rhetoric. Her dad still wants to know what rhetoric is!

Florene Sports – Basketball With Net – Greeting Cards-6 Greeting Cards with envelopes $10.49 Basketball With Net Greeting Card is measuring 5.5w x 5.5h. Greeting Cards are sold in sets of 6 or 12. Give these fun cards to your friends and family as gift cards, thank you notes, invitations or for any other occasion. Greeting Cards are blank inside and come with white envelopes….

Little Sport Baby Shower Invitations – Set of 20 $35.80 Baby Shower Invitations: A baby boy shower invitation for the sports fan, Little Sport features an adorable, barefoot boy surrounded by everything to make him an All-Star:…

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Lehigh Guard CJ McCollum Previews USA Basketball World University Games

Fantasy Basketball 101: Basic Rules and Facts About the Game

Fantasy basketball has become a popular source of entertainment for sports fans and can rival the NBA itself, or at least for the citizens of online gaming. To help you brush up in fantasy basketball or aid beginners out there who are just learning what the game is all about, here are some fantasy basketball technical rules.

Fantasy Basketball Number of Teams

For public teams, there is a typical number of teams in a league which can range anywhere from 10 to 12. On the other hand, in private leagues, the number is based on the general consensus of the players. These private leagues are the ones that accept new fantasy basketball general managers via invitation only.

Fantasy Basketball Drafts

There are two ways to pick a team in fantasy basketball. The first one is called the snake draft. The snake draft begins with a first round pick with each manager choosing his NBA player in order. In the second round, the manager who had the last pick in the first round will be the first to pick and this goes on until all the players are filled in the fantasy basketball teams. The order is reversed with each turn in order to eliminate the manager with the first pick to have all the advantage.

Meanwhile, in the action draft, the fantasy basketball manager will have an agreed upon budget, usually $260. This will be used to fill out the team’s needed players. Each NBA player will be auctioned by the managers and the participants get the player who pays for him the most. A great feature of this type of drafting is that everyone has a chance to draft a player unlike in the snake draft. The process takes longer than the snake draft though.

Fantasy Basketball Roster Size and Composition

The number of players in a fantasy Basketball Team is called a roster size. This roster size is the same across all teams in the league. When we say roster composition, that is the amount of players in each position that a team can use. These include positions such as point guard, shooting guard, power forward, center and small forward.

There are some leagues that only need five players in a team which is basically one in each position. These challenge the fantasy basketball GMs to skillfully assemble the best starting line up on a weekly basis.

There are other leagues in a fantasy Basketball Game which permit as much as 12 or even 15 players in a team. These particular leagues assign one or more bench players. The statistics from real life NBA will not be counted on a player in a bench position in fantasy basketball. However, once you have the player in your roster, no one can grab the player even if he is just a bench player.

About the Author

Fantasy sports is growng popular everyday.NBA,NFL,NHL and MLC fantasy sports contest are now live at Fantasy Factor. build your fantasy sports team and enter to win real cash daily or weekly!

Is the people to people ambassador sports program B.S. or is it legit?

I got this invitation in the mail that said i was invited to play basketball in austria by way of the people to people ambassador sports program….I was just wondering if this is legit or B.S………thnx i suspect that it is B.S. but the website looked real, authentic, and beliveable, plz just give me your opinion….the website is www.sportsambassadors.org

It is not B.S. it was started by dwight D. Eisenhower to promote cultural exchange between the U.S. and other countries. I was a sports ambassador in holland in 2007 and it was awesome but the program cost about $5,000 dollars so that is the bad part.

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Harlem Globetrotters Electronic Basketball

Basketball Stadium Dynamic Signage

Digital out of home (Dooh) is a prosperous business industry and no more so than in sports stadiums. With the massive increase of sporting arenas including football, basketball, baseball and soccer venues using electronic advertising for a wide range of capabilities, this allows the sports organizers to make the spectators experience a very memorable and positive one.

Because of the enormous benefits of dynamic outside advertising, is is feasible to offer real-time information and marketing media, using this technology puts the arena at a distinct benefit, as their network of digital signage displays presents the information to a captive audience.

Here are some of the capabilities electronic outdoor marketing is used for in a sports stadium:

Scoreboard information.
Providing real-time facts on the state of play, making it probable for late arrivals at the sports venue, as well as people in the restroom are up to speed with the game or match

Upcoming games information.
Using digital signage, it can display the upcoming fixtures of matches or  games as well as marketing lower priced ticket prices for loyal fans, this helps all fans to have the first refusal of tickets for high demand matches.

Advertising.
A digital signage network can be used by third parties such as the on-site fast food restaurant marketing their meal deals to starving spectators, producing an extra profit stream for the events organizers or the stadium owners

One major trouble in that due to the open design and concrete construction of the stadium or venue they are not well matched for digital signage. These venues are open to the weather and the electronics used in dynamic advertising will demand to be shielded from these severe and inhospitable places.

This is why stadium owners are exploring the protective LCD enclosure that will deliver a micro-climate, keeping the electronic marketing hardware safe from the outdoor weather conditions. These units will store both the tv screen and the advertising player in one unit and the owners of the venue are not constrained to a certain brand of hardware, making it a more practical solution.

Each protective housing comes with a typical VESA mount inside, so that all flat panel screens no matter if they are commercial or a home-based TV will fit into the cabinet.

An LCD enclosure makes it possible for almost anyone from siting a plasma, LCD or even an LED back lit screen outdoors, they offer all the safeguard needed from the weather and are capable of working with temperatures in the range of -20 to 150 Fahrenheit.  

Thanks to an LCD enclosure’s defensive qualities, they are being mounted in arenas throughout the world including the Usa NFL and British Football League stadiums, as well as Canadian Ice hockey rinks.

About the Author

The author is the leading manufacturer a range of LCD enclosure, this range of product is supplied to digital signage integrators throughout the world, now they also offer an indoor solution a digital poster, but it does not have the protection of an LCD enclosure.

i need the football game = to the huffy electronic single Basketball Game;?

to be played indoors where a football is thrown at a target? through a hole? or something with aim involved

Here is an option-

http://www.amazon.com/Executive-Football-Target-Toss-Game/dp/B000ODS4WE/ref=pd_sbs_sg_img_1

Executive Football Target Toss Game
E&B Gifts

Price: $34.99
Availability: In Stock. Ships from and sold by Target. Gift-wrap available.
Product Features

* Pass the time or inspire a little creative thinking with this portable game
* Made primarily of polyester
* For the all-around player who can go from pocketing a ball on the yard line to throwing a touchdown; play solo, 1-on-1 or team against team
* Comes with 3 soft footballs and pop-up frame for instant set-up without tools
* 30.25Lx29W”

There are a few others like-

http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Football-Pitching-Passing-Target/dp/B000X1VOME/ref=pd_sbs_sg_title_2

http://www.amazon.com/Easton-5-Foot-Pop-Up-Multi-Sport-Training/dp/B000F3E5OY/ref=pd_sbs_sg_title_3

and at

http://www.nextag.com/football-toss-game/search-html

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Hollywood Hoopz

Practicing Basketball with Ankle Weights

If you are one of those people who are obsessed about basketball and playing incredibly, you might also want to jump high and dunk the ball each time you have attempted of doing so. Luckily, for you, improving your basketball skills by jumping high is possible.

If you did not have to shoot the ball into the basket, “basketball” would not be much of a sport. The whole goal of the game is to get hold of the ball before anyone else does and dunk it right there successfully. You can do this by getting hold of ankle weights which always help.

To find ankle weights will not be a problem, as they are easily accessible from any sport shop. Once you have purchased a pair and worn it for the first time, keep in mind to slow down your speed, and do not move around the way you do usually, or else you might injure yourself.

How ankles weights help in jumping higher is easy to figure out. While you are wearing them, they increase the weight of your feet, making your legs accustomed to carry around the new heavier feet. A soon as you remove them and relief them from the weight, your legs seem to perform better and get speedy due to the decrease in weight.

While the ankle weights are wrapped around you, they serve to provide strength to your leg muscles in order to improve their ability.

Other methods include engaging in exercises while wearing weights, such as going for a jog, or practicing jumping high for reaching the basketball board. The practice that is done with the heavy weight comes in handy when you have taken them off and are in the court.

Many also do increase the ankle weight, but this usually leads to injuries and problems as the knees may not be able to carry around so much weight. Thus, it is best to stick to the usual weight so that you do not end up creating problems for yourself, being unable to play.

About the Author

Jeannie Yiu is an expert writer on anything about the travel luggage. Check out her recent blog post about the Rimowa luggage here.

Why do you think that a GREAT sports town like Pittsburgh does not have a Basketball Team?

I am PROUD to be born and raised in the “Steel City”, but I have yet to figure out why Pittsburgh has never taken that step.
Our Pitt Panther basketball team is “Extremely popular” in both attendance, and merchandising!
Everyone I know follows the NBA, and I myself am a lifelong basketball maniac! I ALWAYS wanted to be an NBA cheerleader like Carmen Electra!

Write a letter to Lynn Swann and Terry Bradshaw. Get active in the community. Start a buzz to get a team. Stranger things have happened. You could be the hero of Pittsburgh basketball. Cool, eh?

Nice profile, btw.

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Murder Of Meredith Kercher

Meredith Kercher

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, known to her friends as “Mez”, was born on 28 December 1985 in Southwark, London, England, and lived in Coulsdon, South London. She had two older brothers, John and Lyle, and an older sister, Stephanie. Kercher attended the Old Palace School in Croydon and then the University of Leeds. As part of the ERASMUS student exchange programme, she went to the University of Perugia to complete her degree course in European Studies. She appeared in a music video for singer Kristian Leontiou’s song “Some Say” shortly before her death. In Perugia, she lived in a flat on the upper floor of a house at Via della Pergola 7, sharing with two Italian women. Amanda Knox moved in when she came to study at the University for Foreigners.

Kercher’s funeral service was held on 14 December 2007 at Croydon Parish Church, with more than 300 people in attendance. She has since been awarded a posthumous degree by the University of Leeds.

John Kercher, the victim’s father, is a freelance journalist and her mother Arline Kercher is a housewife, born in India.

Murder and investigation

Timeline and police investigation

Kercher was murdered on the evening of 1 November 2007. The pathologists put her time of death at around 23:00.

On 1 November, Kercher had spent the early evening with some friends, watching the film The Notebook and eating a home-made pizza. Just before 21:00, she left with a friend to walk home. The two parted company near her friend’s flat and Kercher walked the 500 yards (460 m) towards the house alone. Around 21:30, Meredith called her mother in England, but at 22:00, her UK mobile phone dialed another number only once, a wrong number: her London bank without the international prefix, which was the first entry in her phone index. At 22:13, her UK phone received an incoming message, through a different mobile station shared with an adjacent neighborhood, but Meredith never answered.

An elderly neighbour heard a scream on the night of the murder, which she later said “was so chilling, I felt as if I was in a house of horrors”. Soon after, she “heard running on the metal staircase and then running through the leaves going in the other direction”. She concluded that these were the footsteps of “at least two people”.

At midday on 2 November, at 12:07 Amanda Knox called Kercher’s UK phone, then called housemate Filomena saying the front door of the cottage had been left open and there was some blood. She also called her mother, although it was around 4am in Seattle. Later, the Italian Post and Communications Police came to investigate the discovery of two mobile phones in a nearby garden, one of which was registered to Kercher. They arrived at the house in Via della Pergola 7, where Kercher lived, at 12:35. Knox and Sollecito were standing outside and told them that the premises had been burgled, that a window had been broken and that there were drops of blood in several rooms. At 12:51 and 12:54, Sollecito made 2 calls to the Carabinieri military police, reporting a possible burglary.

The police investigated the upstairs flat, which they concluded, apart from Kercher’s bedroom and the nearby bathroom, had been “thoroughly cleaned with bleach”. There was blood in several rooms, a bloody footprint in the smaller bathroom, an unflushed toilet in the large bathroom, broken glass in the third bedroom, and blood near Kercher’s locked bedroom. The lower left pane of housemate Filomena’s bedroom window had been smashed, with broken glass near a large stone in a bag on the floor, and the room appeared ransacked. The washing machine was found to be on final cycle with Kercher’s clothes inside, but not the clothes she was wearing when attacked. When Filomena returned circa 1 pm, she said nothing had been taken.

The door to Kercher’s room was forced open. The police found Kercher lying beneath a duvet “soaked in blood”, with pools and smears of blood around the room. Others were told not to enter, as the area was secured for investigation. The Carabinieri police arrived, and the forensic lab in Rome was contacted to process the scene. Police said at the time that Kercher was found wearing only a cotton shirt rolled halfway up, and they concluded her throat had been slit with a shard of glass or a pen-knife. They subsequently concluded, from dried blood-spatter patterns and bra-strap marks, that she had been wearing two cotton-mesh shirts rolled up, above her bra, at the time of the murder, and that the apparent break-in at the flat had been staged.

An early police theory was that Kercher had met her killer the previous night during Halloween festivities.

Knox and Sollecito were interviewed several times by the police on the day the murder was discovered and the following two days. On 5 November 2007, Knox voluntarily accompanied Sollecito to the police station where he gave a statement, in the course of which he said that he did not know for sure that Knox was with him on the night of the murder. The police then decided to question Knox and began the interview at 23.00 that evening. Knox was interviewed twice during the night of 56 November, firstly by the judicial police and then, later, in the presence of a prosecutor. During these interviews, Knox made statements implicating Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a bar-restaurant named Le Chic, at which she occasionally worked. She said that she had accompanied Lumumba to Kercher’s house and had been in the kitchen and heard screams while Lumumba committed the murder. The contents of these statements was widely reported in the press at the time. Knox later claimed that both statements were made under duress and that she had been coerced into implicating Lumumba: she said that she had been struck twice on the back of the head during the questioning and called a “stupid liar.”. This is denied by the police who have now responded with a defamation charge. The conduct of these interviews remains an area of controversy in the case, with Knox’s lawyer, when summing up at the end of her trial, stating that they lasted a total of 53 hours, involving a fearfilled and stressful experience for Knox.

Knox was formally arrested later on the morning of 6 November. Some time afterwards she made a written note to the police, explaining that she was confused when she made the earlier statements, saying “I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion”. However, she still seemed to incriminate Lumumba, saying: “I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik [Lumumba], but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele’s house.” She went on to say “I see Patrik as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don’t remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night.”

This written note was admissible at the trial of Knox and Sollecito. However, following a ruling by the Court of Cassazione, the statements made to police during the night of 56 November were not: one because she was being interviewed as a witness and the other because no lawyer was present. Nevertheless, the judge (at the Knox trial) ruled that both statements were admissible in Lumumba’s civil case against Knox, which was being tried in the same court at the same time as the criminal trial of Knox and Sollecito.

Lumumba was arrested on 6 November 2007 as a result of Knox’s statements. He was detained for two weeks until the arrest of Guede. Initially doubts about his alibi were reported in the press, but ultimately he was completely exonerated.

The upstairs flat

The upstairs flat at Via della Pergola 7 (in Perugia, Italy). The blue square (at right ) is a corner shower, in the bathroom with no window, where a few blood smears were found.

The house at Via della Pergola 7 was investigated, along with the residence of Sollecito and Guede’s former flat. The house was on an open hillside below the city centre, near a motorway on the edge of town. Kercher shared the upstairs flat with Knox and two long-time Italian friends who rented the flat in August 2007. It was accessed via a path at the top of some steps, to a parking lot, and included a foyer, a kitchen-living room area, two shared bathrooms with sink, toilet and bidet (one had a bathtub, the other, adjacent to Kercher’s room, a shower) and four bedrooms. There was a laundry room, with a washing machine, next to the larger bathroom. The outdoor balcony extended along the main hallway, which opened via windowed doors to the outside, overlooking the town hillside and valley below.

Kercher rented one of the upstairs bedrooms since she had arrived in late August. Amanda Knox rented the remaining room, and returning from Germany, moved in on 20 September 2007, when she met Kercher.

The house was closed as a crime scene on 2 November 2007, and Knox was unable to retrieve her jacket, clothes, PC or other items. After the Knox-Sollecito jury visited in April 2009, the house was released, remodelled and re-occupied at the end of 2009.

Forensic investigation

The investigating judge assigned to the case read the pathology report at a preliminary hearing for the suspects and found that Kercher’s carotid artery had not been ruptured in the attack, and that she likely died a “relatively slow and agonising death.” The autopsy results concluded that it took her several minutes to die, as she inhaled her own blood. Her hyoid bone was broken, her superior thyroid artery had been severed by a stab wound, her lungs filled with blood causing asphyxiation and she had suffered bruising to her vagina and perineum.

The body had been found on the floor of Kercher’s bedroom, lying on the back, with head towards the front wall and left foot towards the back wall, along the doorway. Blood pools, smears, finger streaks, drips, blood spatter and footprints were found in various locations in the room.

The forensic pathologist, Dr. Lalli, initially concluded that the pattern of bruises, defensive wounds/cuts, and stab wounds could not indicate whether one or multiple attackers had been present. There were larger cuts on her right hand, possibly as defensive wounds (with no one restraining her right hand), but only small cuts on her left hand. Both hands were covered in blood, as if holding her neck after it was stabbed. Dr. Lalli concluded that strangulation was attempted before the stab wounds were made. The large blood pools at the wardrobe cabinet, with hair formations and strap marks on the floor, were considered evidence that the death occurred outside the wardrobe, but that the body had been further disrobed and moved near the bed, after some blood patterns had set. Her clothes were not piled to the side, but rather, placed separately between the body and the doorway.

On November 19, 2007 it was reported in the press that Rudy Guede’s fingerprint left in Kercher’s blood had been matched to a print in Guede’s file at the register of foreign residents at Perugia town hall. Guede left a bloody left hand print on a pillow found behind the victim’s head. The DNA of Rudy Guede was found in many locations in the bedroom. His DNA was found on and inside Kercher’s body Guede’s DNA was also found on Kercher’s shirt and bra (right side and severed strap)and mixed with Kercher’s blood splatter. Guede’s DNA was also found on Kercher’s handbag (purse). Guede was an acquaintance of the residents of the ground floor of the cottage, a group of 4 young Italian male students, one of whom had been dating Kercher.

Other forensic evidence included an analysis of the metal clasp of Kercher’s bra (retrieved in a second forensic search on 18 December 2007), which revealed small traces of DNA matching Sollecito or three other unidentified people, and the DNA testing was disputed (as “contamination”) during the trials (see below: DNA disputes about bra clasp).

Chemical analysis revealed slight footprints in the house, which prosecutors said matched the shoes of Knox and Sollecito. Both admitted to having been in the house the day after the murder, and claimed that this was when they stepped in the blood.

Prosecutions

The three convicted persons are currently being held in separate Italian jails while their cases are under appeal. The appeal process is expected to take a period of years. Rudy Guede is being held in Viterbo, Amanda Knox in Capanne prison near Perugia, and Raffaele Sollecito in Terni.

Further information: Italian Criminal Procedure

Rudy Gud background

Rudy Hermann Guede

Born

26 December 1986 (1986-12-26) (age 23)

Abidjan, Cte d’Ivoire

Conviction(s)

Murder and sexual assault

Penalty

16 years imprisonment (originally 30, reduced on appeal)

Status

Conviction under Appeal

Rudy Hermann Gud (in English, usually ‘Guede’), then aged 20, originally from Cte d’Ivoire, was arrested on 20 November 2007 for suspected involvement in the Kercher killing. He was subsequently convicted of murder and sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years, on 28 October 2008. On appeal, the conviction was confirmed but the sentence was reduced to 16 years.

During the week of the murder, Guede was staying in a house a few blocks from Sollecito. Sollecito’s parents had purchased a flat for him on Via del Canerino. However, Guede knew a backstreet route to the Kercher-Knox house which enabled him to avoid travelling near the Sollecito flat.

Guede had come to Perugia at the age of five with his father, Pacome Roger Gud, who worked as a labourer in the 1990s. With no mother to watch him, Rudy was often taken home by his teachers when school ended, until his father returned from work. His father left Italy when Guede was 16, and he was informally adopted by the family of a wealthy local businessman, Paolo Caporali. Caporali stated that he had been disappointed by Guede’s behaviour, describing him as a “tremendous liar”, skipping school and being reluctant to do any work. Guede played basketball for the local team, which Caporali sponsored. Young Rudy was a natural and played basketball for the Perugia youth team in the 2004-2005 season.

Caporali initially had high hopes for Rudy Guede’s future, as he seemed to have integrated well, and spoke fluent Italian with a local Umbrian accent. Rudy even acquired joint Italian nationality, and he sporadically studied accounting and hotelkeeping.

However, Rudy spent more and more time in the big-city nightlife of Milan. His aunt lived in nearby Lecco and Guede sometimes worked in Milan bars. He returned occasionally to Perugia to mingle with the 36,000-student community.

In 2007, Caporali’s family offered Rudy Guede a final job, as a gardener at a family farmhouse bed and breakfast. Yet Rudy hardly ever came to work, and in August 2007 he was fired. One of the four Italian students who lived in the flat below Kercher and Knox said that he remembered Rudy Guede as being a “tall, thin guy who always wore basketball shoes and baggy trousers”. According to Guede, his nickname was “Byron Scott” after the legendary high scorer for the Los Angeles Lakers Basketball Team. However, according to Times Online, Rudy Guede was known as a small-time drug dealer, a drifter with a prior record of petty crime and drug offenses who, according to some witnesses at trial, harassed women and stole from their handbags.

On September 27, 2007, a Perugia bartender heard a noise downstairs in his home and found Guede wandering around with a large knife. He recognised Guede from his work in a nightclub. He confronted Guede, who then ran away.

In early October 2007, there had been a break-in at a nursery school in Milan. During that burglary, a thief stole 2,000 euros and a digital camera. The school’s owner reported it to her local police station. Three weeks later, on Saturday, October 27 (5 days before the murder) she arrived at the school early in the morning with a locksmith to fix the front door. There she was confronted by Rudy Guede standing inside her office, indicative of another break-in, and she called the police. The police questioned and searched Guede. The police found a laptop and mobile phone, plus a large knife that the owner claimed was stolen from the school kitchen.

In the meantime, on the weekend of October 13, there had been a break-in at a Perugia law office. In that burglary, an upstairs double-pane window twelve feet above the ground had been smashed with a large rock. The Perugia police were informed that the thief stole a computer, printer and other items from the law office, and that the alarm system had been disabled. The Milan police later found the laptop computer and a mobile phone stolen from the law office in Guede’s possession, but police released him after fingerprinting and booking for carrying a concealed weapon (16-inch/40-cm kitchen knife) and possession of stolen property.

In Germany, Guede was discovered riding a train without a ticket and was apprehended by the police.

Rudy Gud trial and appeal

Rudy Gud elected for a “fast-track” trial which began on 16 October 2008. He was charged with murder, sexual assault and theft of 300 euros (~US$440), two credit cards and two mobile phones.

Guede’s account was that he had met Kercher the night before the murder at a Halloween party which she had attended with her friends. Kercher, he claimed, spent the latter part of Halloween with him, rather than continuing on with her friends. He said that he and Kercher had scheduled a date for the next evening at her home.

On the night of the murder he claimed to have gone to Kercher’s home, waiting outside until she arrived and let him in. He claimed that they talked in the kitchen and she then went into her bedroom and discovered that money had been taken from her room. Guede claimed that he calmed Kercher so that she did not phone her flat-mates or parents about the missing money. He claimed that he became intimate with the victim in her bedroom but, feeling sick from a bad kebab, he left the room to use the toilet.

He said that he was listening to music on his iPod, might have heard the doorbell ring and did hear Kercher scream. He claimed that he emerged from the bathroom to see a man whom he did not know holding a knife over the victim while she lay on the floor of her bedroom.

Guede claimed that he struggled with the man and that his hand was cut by a knife. He claimed the man then fled, also claimed that the man said, in perfect Italian: “He is black. If a black man is found, then a black man will be found guilty. Let’s go”. Guede claims to have used bath towels to stem the flow of blood from Kercher’s neck and to wipe up blood. He claimed that he then held Kercher as she gave her last utterance: “A-F”, which he wrote on the wall in her blood. He claimed that he left Kercher fully clothed on the bed and that, in haste and panic, he touched almost everything in the victim’s room.

Without calling police or an ambulance for Kercher (he explained that there was no mobile phone nearby and that he was confused ), Guede fled, leaving the front door unlocked. He went home to wash the victim’s blood off his body and clothing. Later, he went out to the Domus and Shamrock nightclubs.

Investigators called Guede’s version of events “a highly improbable fantasy.”

DNA tests indicate that Guede had manually or genitally penetrated Kercher before her murder. His DNA was found mixed with Kercher’s blood at the crime scene, on Kercher’s body, on her bloodstained clothing and on her handbag. His palm print in Kercher’s blood was found near the body. DNA tests also revealed that he had used toilet-paper found in the front bathroom.

A few days after the murder, on hearing news reports, Guede fled Perugia by train to Germany. Interpol traced a computer which he used in Germany to access Facebook in order to reply to a message from a Daily Telegraph journalist. In his message, Guede said that he was aware that he was a suspect and wanted to clear his name. On 20 November 2007, the German transport police arrested Guede on a train near Mainz, Germany, where he was caught traveling without a ticket. Following his arrest, German officials noted a cut on his hand.

Guede had originally claimed that he was wearing Adidas shoes at the time of the murder, but he later stated that his shoes were Nike (which matched the shoe package found in his Perugia flat), and those shoe-prints matched the 3 or 4 blood shoe-prints found inside Kercher’s room. He claimed that he had discarded those shoes in a dumpster in Germany, so they could not be tested for broken glass embedded from the broken window in Kercher’s flat.

Guede’s claims about having planned a date with Kercher were dismissed at trial by Judge Paolo Micheli, because Guede had changed the details of where he claimed to have met Kercher, and because friends who had accompanied Kercher for Halloween testified that no meeting between them had taken place. Details about Kercher’s Halloween activities had been announced on worldwide news and Internet websites prior to Guede’s arrest.

On 28 October 2008, Guede was found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Kercher and sentenced to 30 years in prison. On 22 December 2009, the Corte d’Appello upheld Guede’s convictions but reduced his sentence to 16 years. According to his lawyer, Guede continues to assert that he is innocent and will pursue a second and final appeal to the Corte di Cassazione.

The indictment of Knox and Sollecito was also decided and issued during the Guede trial. From a detailed analysis of the very large number and positions of bloodstains in the flat, and the cuts and bruises sustained by Kercher, Judge Micheli concluded that Kercher had been sexually assaulted and then murdered by multiple attackers. He also concluded that one or more people returned to the crime scene, rearranged the body and tried to fake a break-in, some time after the murder. Judge Micheli concluded that it was suspicious that Sollecito called the Carabinieri military police, saying that a burglary had occurred but “nothing had been taken” when other roommates had not yet returned to inventory their rooms for missing items. He also found suspicious Amanda Knox’s claim to have taken a shower in a room which Sollecito described as having a “pool of blood” on the floor (the blood-footprint on the bathmat).

Amanda Knox

Amanda Marie Knox

Born

9 July 1987 (1987-07-09) (age 22)

Seattle, Washington, US

Conviction(s)

Murder, sexual assault and obstruction of justice

Penalty

26 years imprisonment

Status

Conviction under Appeal

Amanda Marie Knox was, at the time of Kercher’s murder, a 20-year-old University of Washington language student from Seattle, Washington. She was in Perugia attending the University for Foreigners for one year, studying Italian, German and creative writing. She stayed in the bedroom next to Meredith in the Kercher-Knox upstairs flat. Knox had no known association with Rudy Guede, having met him only in passing. Raffaele Sollecito had been the boyfriend of Knox for a few weeks before the murder. Sollecito and Guede had never met.

Knox’s parents visited her frequently during her pre-trial detention, steadfastly maintaining her innocence.

Knox was arrested on the morning of 6 November 2007. The prosecution against Knox and Sollecito contended that they were involved with Guede in the sexual assault and murder of Kercher, in an attempted sex orgy in which Kercher would not cooperate, and that they had returned to the crime scene to move the body and stage a break-in. Knox contended that she was not present during the murder, had no association with Guede, and had no reason to murder Kercher, whom she regarded as her friend. Knox’s defence claimed that there was no evidence placing Knox in the bedroom where the murder occurred.

Knox’s DNA was found on two of the knives kept in Sollecito’s kitchen drawer for cooking, and a small amount of Kercher’s DNA was found on one of the two. At trial, the defence countered that Knox’s DNA would normally be on the knife because she used knives for cooking at Sollecito’s apartment. The defence also challenged the Kercher DNA sample as being too small to be reliable. Knox and Sollecito’s defence teams also asserted that this knife was not the lethal weapon because it did not match two of the three wounds and tested negative for blood. However, a forensic evidence expert for the prosecution testified that it was compatible with one of the wounds on Kercher’s neck, but that two other wounds might have been inflicted by a different weapon;

There was no forensic evidence, such as DNA, hair, fibre, blood or skin, directly indicating that Knox had been in the bedroom where Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and murdered. The only fingerprints of Amanda Knox found in the apartment were consistent with her use of the apartment as a resident, including one matched to a glass in the kitchen sink, but Knox’s fingerprints were not found in Kercher’s bedroom.

Mixed samples of Knox’s DNA and Kercher’s blood were found in the apartment, including in the bathroom sink and in Filomena Romanelli’s room. The defence argued that Knox’s DNA should be expected to be present there in the ordinary course of her use of the apartment and bathroom as a resident of the cottage.

Knox attracted attention for her demeanour during police questioning and the trial. For instance, she was observed cartwheeling while waiting to be questioned by police. However, Knox and her family explained this as a yoga type exercise intended to reduce tension in a distressing situation. It was also reported that Knox had earlier written a story about the drugging and rape of a young woman for a school assignment and posted it online. Knox admitted to using marijuana on occasion, including the evening on which Kercher’s murder occurred.

On 4 December 2009, Knox was convicted by the Corte d’Assise of Perugia of all counts except theft and was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Knox now has available to her two levels of appeal of her conviction in accordance with the rules of Italian Criminal Procedure. The first appeal is to the Corte d’Appello (Court of Appeals), which will retry the case, including making findings of fact in a trial de novo. The judgment of the appeals court can then be appealed to the Court of Cassation, which is the Supreme Court of Italy. It is anticipated that the appeals process will take a period of years.

Raffaele Sollecito

Raffaele Sollecito

Born

26 March 1984 (1984-03-26) (age 25)

Giovinazzo, Italy

Conviction(s)

Murder and sexual assault

Penalty

25 years imprisonment

Status

Conviction under Appeal

Raffaele Sollecito, from Giovinazzo, Bari, was 23 years old and nearing the completion of a degree in computer engineering at the University of Perugia at the time of the murder. He had been the boyfriend of Knox for about two weeks before the time of Kercher’s murder. Sollecito is from an affluent family, the son of a urologist from Bari. Sollecito did not know Guede and claimed never to have heard of his name prior to news reports about the murder.

Sollecito claimed that he was in his flat and spent the evening using his computer on the night of the murder. Detectives have said that his alibi is not substantiated by records of his internet service provider, though a private detective working for Sollecito disputed this. The defence has argued that the hard drives of three computers belonging to Sollecito and Knox, destroyed by the prosecution’s computer expert when he performed examinations of them, had contained exculpatory evidence. Like Knox, Sollecito admits to having smoked marijuana on the day of the murder.

The prosecution claimed that his shoe-print was found in blood on a bed linen in Kercher’s room, and that his DNA was on a severed bra clasp, but the DNA testing was disputed (as “contamination”) during the trials (see below: DNA disputes about bra clasp). The shoe-print also matched Guede’s Nike shoe-print with the cloth folded to appear as a narrowed print.

On 4 December 2009, Raffaele Sollecito was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Like Knox, Sollecito will next proceed through the two level appeal process in accordance with the rules of Italian Criminal Procedure.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito trial

The trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito began on 16 January 2009, with much attention from the media. In November 2008, they had been indicted by Judge Paolo Micheli, who had presided over the Guede trial in October 2008. They were charged with murder, sexual assault, simulating a crime (burglary), carrying a knife, and theft of 300 euros (~US$440), two credit cards and two mobile phones.

Personnel involved

The head prosecutor in the trial was Guiliano Mignini. He had led the interview with Amanda Knox in which she implicated Patrick Lumumba.[citation needed] Mignini was convicted of abuse of office and the bugging of journalists in relation to a separate case on 22 January 2010.

The chief judge was Giancarlo Massei. Deputy judge at the trial was Beatrice Cristiani. A panel of eight judges (the two professional judges and six lay judges) was assembled to hear the case and determine the verdicts. Amanda Knox was represented in Italy by attorneys Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova. Raffaele Sollecito was defended by attorney Giulia Bongiorno. Investigations had been assisted by personnel from Rome. The forensic biologist Patrizia Stefanoni, who had collected evidence at the crime scene, testified during the trial. There were many other witnesses, including the other two housemates in the Kercher-Knox flat (Romanelli and Mezzetti) and residents of neighbouring properties.

Courtroom events

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (February 2010)

In October 2008, well prior to the start of the trial, a judge in the case, Paulo Micheli, gave an interview to an Italian newspaper published in Perugia, Messaggero Umbria, indicating that he believed Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were present at the murder of Kercher. Nevertheless, on 16 January 2009, Knox’s and Sollecito’s lawyers began the actual trial before Judge Giancarlo Massei by proclaiming their clients’ innocence. Hearings were held nearly every two weeks (except for a summer break) until 4 December 2009. Rudy Guede attended the trial, but declined to testify in the trial. During the first session, judge Giancarlo Massei rejected a request by the Kercher family to hold the trial behind closed doors. He ruled that the trial would be public, but with closed sessions to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Knox testified for the first time on 12 June 2009, pleading her innocence. She told the court that she had been with Sollecito in his apartment on the night of the murder. Knox testified that she regarded Kercher as her friend and had no motive to kill her. She also testified that during her interrogation by the police and prosecutor she had been intimidated, threatened with incarceration and hit on the head, causing her to give false testimony implicating Patrick Lumumba.

The Corte Suprema di Cassazione had ruled her remarks during part of her initial questioning were inadmissible because no lawyer had been present. They were, however, admissible in the concurrent action against Knox for falsely accusing Lumumba. Her voluntary handwritten note, partially retracting her statements was also available to the court during the trial.

On 2627 June 2009, 2 Perugia lawyers and a school director testified that Rudy Guede had been caught with a large stolen knife (16-inch, 40-cm) inside a closed Milan school on 27 October 2007 (5 days before the murder) with a laptop PC reported stolen 14 October 2007 from a Perugia law office burgled with a rock breaking an upstairs window. The Perugia police were notified Guede had the laptop, plus a mobile phone also stolen from the Perugia office with the broken window. However, Guede was released by the Milan police, and not transferred to the Perugia police, as testified by the two Perugia lawyers (attorneys) at the Knox/Sollecito trial hearing on 26 June 2009 and by the school director 27 June, who testified money was also missing from the office. Hence, the reports of Guede holding a woman’s watch, a hammer, a stolen knife and stolen property from a prior upstairs-window burglary could be confirmed by Milan police, Perugia police, and the 2 solicitors whose PC, printer and mobile phone were reported stolen on 14 October 2007. One of the solicitors testified that Guede appeared at his doorstep after the burglary and claimed that he had bought both the PC and mobile phone at a Milan train station (200 miles or 320 km away, in far northern Italy).

On 4 December 2009, Knox was convicted by the Corte d’Assise of Perugia of all counts except theft and was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Sollecito was found guilty of all five charges attributed to him and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The decision was delivered by the presiding judge at around 11:45 pm local time, following 13 hours of deliberation. The final hours leading up to the verdict were closely covered by American television stations across the country utilizing “countdown” clocks on their screens.

Various controversies

Theories on motive for the murder

A source of controversy in the case has been the lack of motive to explain why Knox and Sollecito would want to murder Kercher. The prosecution’s theory on the motive varied during the course of the investigation and the trial. The initial theory centered on a Halloween ritual sex orgy killing, then later evolved into a sex game turned violent theory. The prosecution later claimed that the killing was motivated by Knox’s alleged desire for revenge against a roommate who was too prissy and critical of Knox.

The hearing on the indictment of Knox and Sollecito was held in closed session in October 2008. Following this, Sollecito lawyer Luca Maori described the prosecution’s theory on the motive for the murder as being part of a “satanic rite”. Although the prosecution has never used the term “satanic” in open court, it has been widely reported in the press and linked with the fact that the murder occurred on the day after Halloween, late on All Saints Day (All Souls Day).

The Italian newspaper Messaggero Umbria, in an article on October 19, 2008, quoted Mignini as follows: “…the three, and especially Sollecito, were very susceptible to ‘cultural’ influences….That night was the feast day of the Saints, the Catholic ‘heir’ to the Celtic new year Samhain, with all the implications which are focused on the eve of the feast day, that is the night between October 31 and November 1.”

The Italian newspaper La Nazione wrote on October 20, 2008 that, according to the police theory, “Meredith could have died on the evening of October 31st because that night was favorable for a ’sexual rite’ in accordance with the traditions of Halloween.”

Peter Popham, writing in The Independent said that Prosecutor Mignini “decided only a few days after Kercher died that the murder was the culmination of an orgy in which Knox, Sollecito and one other person were involved”. He references Il Tempo newspaper’s account of the closed session where they say that Mignini told the court that the murder, as premeditated and was in addition a ite celebrated on the occasion of the night of Hallowen. A sexual and sacrificial rite…In the intention of the organisers, the rite should have occurred 24 hours earlier on Hallowen itself ut on account of a dinner at the house of horrors, organised by Meredith and Amanda Italian flatmates, it was postponed for one day. The presumed assassins contented themselves with the evening of 1 November to perform their do-it-yourself rite, when for some hours it would again be the night of All Saints.123]

According to one report of the closed hearing: “Mr Mignini saw the scene so clearly in his mind that he was able to describe it to the judge in detail: Meredith on her knees before the wardrobe, Rudy holding her immobile, Raffaele grasping one arm, Amanda in front of her, pricking her throat teasingly with the knife until the blade in her hand struck home.” “To prove it,” he told the judge, “the only thing missing was a video camera in the room.”

Press reports also stated that prosecutor Mignini claimed that police had found a hoard of the Japanese anga comics in Sollecito apartment. Mignini claimed that many depicted the brutal slaying of naked ampire women with blood covering furniture and walls in his view, the way detectives found Kercher. Mignini theorized that Sollecito and Knox had been influenced by the comic books to kill Kercher, who had worn a vampire costume on Halloween.

Judge Micheli, who conducted the hearing on the indictment of Knox and Sollecito, dismissed as antasy prosecutor Mignini’s claims that the sex game in which Kercher is alleged to have died was inspired by Satanic rites, Halloween rituals or violent Japanese anga comics about dead vampires.

Subsequently, at the commencement of the trial, prosecutor Mignini presented a theory that the murder was motivated by a sex game turned violent. However, at the conclusion of the trial, prosecutor Mignini changed the motive to a desire on Knox’s part to retaliate against Kercher for being too “prissy” and critical of Knox. Mignini told the jury that he could imagine Knox saying to Kercher: “Ah, you were pretending to be such a little saint…Now we are going to show you.” A second prosecutor conceded that the motive was not known.

Guede’s entire fast-track trial and some parts of the trial of Knox and Sollecito, where the attack on Kercher was described in detail, were held as closed sessions without journalists, or the public, being present, so the full details of the prosecution’s theories are not in the public domain.

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (December 2009)

Claims of police mistreatment

On her fourth day of questioning, Amanda Knox, then a 20-year-old student, was questioned at various times during the night of 5 and 6 November 2007. Knox testified on 12 June 2009 that she had accompanied Sollecito to the police station for his interview by the police because she did not want to be alone. While working on her schoolwork, she was approached by the police and taken into a separate room where police officers began questioning her. According to Knox, she was questioned first by a large group of police officers and then by prosecutor Mignini.

Knox testified that during her interrogation by the police she was subjected to a great deal of pressure and intimidation, was called a “stupid liar” and was hit on the head twice. According to Knox, the police told her that they had solid evidence that she was at the scene of the murder and that her inability to remember being there might be due to a traumatic mental block interferring with her memory. Knox claimed that she was pressured, with the threat of 30 years in prison, to recall suggested details. According to Knox, that pressuring led her to make certain statements and then later to make her written declaration of 5:45 am on 6 November 2007, still with no sleep, placing herself at the murder scene and implicating Patrick Lumumba as the murderer of Kercher. Knox had no lawyer or official interpreter present to assist her. She claimed that she had been dissuaded from seeking an attorney. Since by 5:45 am Knox was a suspect, Italian law prohibited her interrogation without her attorney present, so that part of her interrogation was unlawful.

Hours later, Knox retracted some of her statements. She explained in a written note that the intimidation she had experienced during the interrogation had caused her fear and confusion. Knox wrote in part:”In regards to this “confession” that I made last night, I want to make clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn’t remember a fact correctly. I understand that the police are under a lot of stress, so I understand the treatment I received.”

A female police officer testifying at the trial denied that Knox was pressured, and said, she had questioned Knox “firmly but politely.” She also said that Knox had been given chamomile tea and cakes from a vending machine, and later had breakfast in the police station, over the course of the 14-hour interrogation. When describing her interrogation to her family, Knox told them: “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

The prosecution denied Knox’s claims of having been coerced or intimidated into accusing Lumumba. In January 2010, Knox and her legal team were informed that due to her testimony at the trial she would be charged with defamation of the police and face a further criminal trial. If found guilty, the penalty is a fine and/or a prison sentence of between two and six years. The prosecutor and/or police are also prosecuting, suing or investigating (or have threatened to do so) both of Knox’s parents and other individuals or news organizations for making statements the prosecutor or police consider defamatory.

DNA disputes about bra clasp

The Rome forensic lab made an analysis of the metal clasp of Kercher’s severed bra strap (retrieved in a 2nd forensic search on 18 December 2007), which revealed small traces of DNA matching Sollecito or three other unidentified people;

The defense argued that the DNA on the metal clasp, which had been severed from the bra, could have been contaminated when it was moved on the floor, six weeks after the murder, or in the forensic laboratory in Rome. The judge at the trial of Rudy Guede acknowledged that the DNA sample was considered small, but described the claim of contamination at the laboratory as making “no sense”, since there was no material from which such contamination could have come, and so “the risk would have been the loss of traces found there, not the risk of somehow discovering new traces”. However, the judge did not address the issue of leftover or transferred DNA from numerous other Sollecito personal items being analyzed in the Rome laboratory, before the clasp was retrieved on 18 December 2007. Also, two witnesses testified that, when the body was found, one of the postal-police officers immediately stepped past Sollecito at the doorway, into the room (without shoe-covers) to check for life-signs under the quilt (although during the trial, the officer denied such entry), and the bra clasp had been moved about 1m (39 inches) across the floor when recovered 47 days later.

Claim of bleaching of the crime scene

The police originally claimed that the flat of Kercher and Knox had been cleaned with bleach, in an attempt to destroy evidence. However, blood smears, drops, and blood footprints were found in several rooms of the flat, including: the entrance area, Filomena’s room, Kercher’s hallway, Kercher’s room, and the nearby bathroom. During the Knox-Sollecito trial, several witnesses talked about the possible use of bleach. Police found two bottles of bleach at Sollecito’s apartment. Sollecito’s former housekeeper testified at trial that she had asked Sollecito to buy bleach months earlier for general housekeeping purposes and that when she stopped working for Sollecito in September 2007, there were one and a half bottles of bleach at his house.

Mobile phone evidence

Phone records of Amanda Knox revealed calls on the day of the killing between her and Patrick Lumumba, her manager at the Le Chic bar, which were discussed during her police interview as possible evidence of a pre-planned rendezvous. The judge in the Guede trial explained the lack of calls with Guede by saying Guede’s phone was in the possession of the police days before the murder.

The death of Kercher was estimated at approximately 11 p.m. The prosecution noted that Knox and Sollecito turned their phones off on the evening of the murder at around 8:40 pm. Phone records showed that Sollecito’s phone was off 3 nights in October, at approximately 7-7:30 pm.

Media coverage

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (December 2009)

The case has received extensive media coverage in Italy, Britain and the United States, with Knox receiving significantly more attention than Sollecito or Guede. Knox has been portrayed in some articles as a femme fatale who took part in killing her friend in a sex game and alternatively as an innocent young girl caught up in unjustified court proceedings in a foreign country. Following the crime, Knox’s MySpace website became the subject of media scrunity.

Just after the guilty verdict, the New York Times reported, “Ms. Knox is often portrayed as an innocent girl unwittingly caught up in the Kafkesque Italian justice system. But even one of her lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said that he believed the trial was fair. He added that he isagreed with news media coverage that depicted it otherwise.”

The Italian press[who?] described Knox’s media appeal by saying that she had “the face of an angel – but the eyes of a killer”. The BBC spoke of “feverish media coverage”, describing Knox as “that most-loved of villains – the middle-class monster whose appearance hides a diabolical soul.”

Peter Popham wrote an opinion piece for The Independent in which he raised doubts about the evidence against Knox and Sollecito and claimed that the prosecution’s leaking of details about the case to the media was intended to prejudice public opinion and “makes miscarriages of justice horribly likely”. Timothy Egan wrote in the New York Times that the Italian media frenzy and tabloid sensationalism against Knox had tainted public perceptions of her.

Knox’s family has claimed that she was convicted because of a wider culture clash. Italy’s judicial process was criticised by Knox’s supporters. The Knox family engaged the services of a Seattle-based public relations firm in order to counter what they perceived as a media bias against her.

Anne Bremner, spokeswoman for the “Friends of Amanda” support group, criticised the Italian media for its presentation of the case against Knox. Bremmer stated that the “character assasination” directed against Knox by the Italian media had impaired her chance of obtaining a fair trial because the jury had not been sequestered and was exposed to such sensationalized reporting of the case.

Reactions to the trials and convictions

Soon after the verdict, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell of the State of Washington released a statement expressing her concerns:

am saddened by the verdict and I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial. The prosecution did not present enough evidence for an impartial jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Knox was guilty. Italian jurors were not sequestered and were allowed to view highly negative news coverage about Ms. Knox. Other flaws in the Italian justice system on display in this case included the harsh treatment of Ms. Knox following her arrest; negligent handling of evidence by investigators; and pending charges of misconduct against one of the prosecutors stemming from another murder trial.”

Cantwell indicated her intention to seek assistance from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Secretary Clinton herself has not commented on the case, but a spokesman for the US Department of State stated at a press conference on 7 December 2009 that the State Department has followed this case very closely and will continue to follow the case during the appeal process. He stated that the State Department’s role is to ensure that any American citizen is treated fairly, according to local law. He added that, in this case, “It is still in the early days but…we haven’t received any indications necessarily that Italian law was not followed”. He also stated “This is an ongoing process” and “It does not mean that we are not going to have some kind of statement as the process goes forward.” The State Department has stated its intention to hold ongoing discussions about the case with Senator Cantwell and to continue staying in contact with the Knox family to monitor the situation during the appeal process.

Another major public figure in the U.S. commenting on the case is Donald Trump. Trump is a billionare business magnate, owner of Trump Towers and Trump Place in Manhatten, and celebrity star of the television show The Apprentice. He also is the owner of Trump World Tower, a residential skyscraper across the street from the United Nations building in Manhatten. During a televised interview on March 1, 2010 Trump stated:

“I think the president should get involved. This [verdict] is a miscarriage of justice. I think the president should absolutely get involved, and I think people should boycott Italy. They should not go to Italy. This is not a close call that she may be guilty. She’s not guilty.”

Trump has stated on his website “TrumpUniversity” that he is personally boycotting Italy as a result of the verdict.

Knox, her family and supporters in the U.S. and around the world maintain that she has been unjustly convicted.

John Kercher, Meredith’s father, has described the suggestion of anti-American bias during the trial as “ludicrous”, saying: “The Americans seem completely ignorant to the fact that there was a mass of evidence other than the DNA. I don’t blame them because they are going on what they have seen and read. But it is upsetting for my family”.

On 9 December 2009, when visited in prison by Democratic Left Italian Member of Parliament Walter Verini, Knox reportedly stated that, although disappointed by the verdict, her “rights were respected” in the trial and that she still has had faith in Italian justice.

During a prison visit from a delegation of the Italy-USA Foundation, Knox is reported to have said: am waiting and always hoping. I don understand many things, but I have to accept them, things that for me don always seem very fair.176]

Most of the mainstream UK media reported on the guilty verdicts and included quotes from the Kercher and Knox families on their reactions while some focused more on the Kercher family’s reaction to the verdict. In the days immediately following the verdict, they published various opinion pieces, mainly focusing on Knox, with some sympathetic toward her and others not. The weekly Perugia court hearings were suspended, pending a 90-day documentation period before appeals can be filed, and media interest in the case in the UK then rapidly dwindled. Media interest remains high in the U.S..

Civil actions

Kercher’s family filed a civil suit for US$33 million (approximately 20 million or 22 million) against anyone found guilty of the murder.

Patrick Lumumba, the man Knox originally accused of murdering Kercher, sued Knox for more than $500,000 (approximately 300,000 or 330,000) in damages, but the outcome of the civil action was that the court ordered Knox to pay Lumumba 40,000 (approximately $60,000 or 36,000) compensation. Lumumba also pursued compensation from the Italian authorities for unjust imprisonment and the loss of his business and, in December 2009, a court awarded 8,000 (approximately equivalent to US$12,000 or 7,200 as of December 2009) in damages. In February 2010, Lumumba announced that he would be taking his claim for compensation from the Italian authorities to the European Court of Human Rights.

Detailed forensics

The Italian forensic police (in Italian source: Servizio di Polizia Scientifica), from Rome (100 miles or 160 km north of Perugia), were immediately contacted to process the crime scene on 2 November 2007. They also processed evidence seized from other sites. The various investigations included:

Kercher/Knox house on Via della Pergola

(the downstairs was also searched; see above: The upstairs flat)

1st visit: 23 November 2007 (body examined 1am 3 November)

2nd visit: 18 December 2007 (bra clasp re-found under Kercher desk)

Sollecito’s flat (apartment) on Via Garibaldi, purchased by parents

Guede’s flat (found empty package for Nike shoes)

Sollecito’s automobile (found no evidence of blood or knives)

Lumumba’s pub Le Chic (closed November-December 2007)

Each site was closed for a different length of time. Intruders broke into the main crime scene multiple times, such as in February 2009, when they ransacked the upstairs and left 4 kitchen knives and candles in various rooms.

Detailed timeline

The following is a list of events that occurred on 12 November 2007, with each event documented by a footnote to the source:

18:00 Amanda Knox leaves Raffaele Sollecito’s house (mobile phone locator)

18:27 Raffaele Sollecito interacts with his laptop to watch the film “Amelie” at home.

20:18 Amanda Knox in Via Ulisse Rocchi receives a text message (sms) from manager Lumumba telling her not to come to work that night.

20:30 Amanda Knox travels back to Via Garibaldi to the apartment of Raffaele Sollecito.

20:35 Amanda sends text message (sms) reply to Patrick Lumumba

20:35 Knox mobile phone is inactive (in prior weeks, Sollecito’s is off 3 times at 7-7:30pm)

20:42 Sollecito turns off his mobile phone, still at home in Via Garibaldi.

21:10 Last use of Raffaele Sollecito’s computer (according to prosecution)

20:55 Kercher friend Sophie arrives home after leaving Kercher walking along street

21:15 Kercher returns to flat after seeing DVD film with friends (estimated time)

21:30 Kercher calls her mother in UK

22:00 Kercher UK mobile phone dials her London bank but wrong prefix code prevents call

22:13 Kercher’s UK mobile phone receives call (unanswered) through another mobile station

22:25 Rudy Guede claims he left Meredith dying around this time & went home along backstreets

22:30-23:00 Kercher dies around this time (according to coroner time estimate)

00:10 Kercher’s 2 mobile phones are left in garden at Via Sperandio[citation needed]

02:30 Rudy Guede is seen dancing at “Domus” nightclub (3 hours after the death)

04:00 Rudy Guede is again seen at “Domus” nightclub

06:02 Sollecito mobile phone turned on & receives father’s text msg (sms) from prior night

06:04 both Knox/Sollecito mobile phones are on now & can receive calls

10:30 Amanda Knox claims she returns home and finds front door open but no one answers inside; Knox claims she takes shower in dark small bathroom (no window)

10:58 Lana B. arrives at the police station with phone #1 (Vodafone registered to Filomena R.)

10:?? Amanda Knox goes to larger bathroom #2 and notices toilet #2 unflushed

11:38 Postal police trace phone #1 to Filomena R. who lived at 7 Via della Pergola

11:50? Amanda Knox brings Sollecito over; Knox/Sollecito both try to climb to look in MK window

11:55? Sollecito confused that Knox says toilet #2 is clear now

11:50 Postal police record that Lana B. & daughter (called) say they do not know this Filomena

12:00? Postal police are called by Lana’s daughter about finding phone #2 (UK) in garden

12:07 Amanda Knox calls Meredith Kercher UK phone

12:08 Knox calls Romanelli open door/blood

12:11 Amanda calls the Italian phone that Meredith had borrowed from Filomena

12:11 Amanda calls MK’s UK phone again

12:12 Filomena calls Amanda.

12:15-30 Filomena R. makes two attempts to telephone Kercher

12:20 Filomena calls Amanda (again)

12:35 2 Postal police claim they arrive outside flat, meet Knox/Sollecito who talk of glass/blood

12:46 Postal police station logs receipt of mobile phone #2 delivered by neighbor’s daughter

12:47 Amanda Knox calls her mother in the US (4:47am Seattle time)

12:50 Sollecito calls his sister in the Carabinieri, a different branch of the Italian police

12:51 Sollecito calls “112″ Carabinieri (military police) about burglary

12:54 Sollecito calls “112″ Carabinieri, again, about burglary

12:5x Knox/Sollecito claim they talk to postal police about glass & show bloodspots

12:55 Filomena boyfriend Marco Z. & Luca A. (boyfriend of Paola G.) arrive at flat

12:55 Filomena R. and her friend Paola arrive at the flat (now total of 8 people inside)

13:xx An electric cord plug extends under Kercher’s bedroom door, laying near a hall outlet

13:00? Postal police say they lack evidence to kick in the door & damage property.

13:10 Postal police, Paola, Filomena, Marco Z., Luca A. & Sollecito gather in hall at Kercher’s door

13:15 Luca A. kicks door (4 kicks?) & Italians see into dark room, but Knox is in kitchen

13:15 Marco Z. yells, “Sangue! Sangue! …Blood!”

13:15 Filomena R. exclaims “Un Piede! Un Piede!” (“A foot!”) seen on floor under quilt.

13:15 Postal police see the horror of all the blood

13:15 Postal Inspector seen lifting duvet covering Kercher’s body (denied in court)

13:16 Postal police tell everyone to leave the flat (to go outside). Soon, the Carabinieri police arrive outside the flat.

Details of Kercher’s room

As the main crime scene, the bedroom of Meredith Kercher was extensively analyzed on 23 November and 18 December 2007.

In Kercher’s bedroom, the body had been found on the floor, lying on the back, with head towards the front wall and left foot towards the back wall (along the doorway). Blood was found on numerous items in the room, including:

some white tennis shoes, blue jeans and a white severed bra on the floor, a zippered blue shirt, and two towels partially or totally soaked in blood. On the bed there was a book with blood at the corner plus two blood patches on the mattress sheet, between a white terrycloth towel with blood smears and a beige woman’s handbag of imitation leather (Italian: una borsa da donna in similpelle). Around the floor were patches of blood (some with the imprints of “hair formations”) and 3 floormarks with blood “signs of concentric circles” (Italian: segni circolari concentrici) considered to be a foot trail of three bloody shoeprints. Underneath the body was a white pillow, containing a blood handprint. Dried blood pools were found around the wardrobe case in the outside corner of the room, with leather boots standing in the blood.

The DNA of Rudy Guede was matched at many locations in the bedroom. His DNA was matched on and inside Kercher’s body, on her shirt, her bra (left side and severed bra clasp), on the zipper of her handbag (purse) and mixed with Kercher’s blood spatter. His partial palm print in Kercher’s blood was found on a pillow under the body, matched from the 27 October 2007 booking, when Guede had been fingerprinted and charged with carrying a concealed weapon (large kitchen knife) and the sto

About the Author

I am an expert from China Hardware Suppliers, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as mesh car grills , thermos grill part.

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Flex Offense – Basketball Play

I teach piano to a bright but quiet five year old who seems to summarize what I witness in fingering from this age group.

My experience only serves to underline and affirm the theorem that it is unwise to introduce fingering too early or too quickly.

This child, let’s call him Brian, (not his real name) has been enthusiastic about piano from the first day. Even though he is so young that he has to have Mom sit next to him, (and sit on a phone book) he smiles and clearly loves the sounds coming out of the piano.

For several months we have explored Piano by Number, and started to venture slowly into reading music using my books and the Bastien Series. He’s just barely sure of where Middle C is, yet can struggle his way through reading the notes in the first pages of the Bastien book, using, of course, his pointed index fingers.

But reading music tires Brian greatly, and I can see he is relieved to play games and play by number after we have been reading music for even a few minutes.

He has many favorite songs, which he offers up readily for us to hear. He has memorized them from Piano by Number books, and is very proud and happy to play songs he knows and that his Mom knows, too.

These he plays happily, once again, with his pointed index fingers.

Now that he is starting to read music, I want to just broach the subject of fingering. I don’t include it as a regular part of the lesson, but in very short “previews,” which I always prepare him for with games.

For a few weeks we have been playing five finger games, getting his brain ready for trying to use all five fingers.

As an abstract, Brian can play five fingers up and then down the keyboard with no problem.

But as soon as you try to link this skill to a song, even simple songs like Mary Had A Little Lamb, he loses track of both the music and the fingers.

I backtracked and tried to see if he could use the first three fingers of the right hand as a group, and he could, as long as it was as an abstract, that is, not part of any song the he had to handle simultaneously.

Perhaps now you begin to see how many skills, both physical and mental, that a child must juggle to play the piano.

Then came an interesting discovery, typical of children this age. Brian could go up (to the right) quite easily with those three fingers, but going down (to the left) was awkward and very unfamiliar. It was as if he had to change gears completely to get his fingers to receive the message that they were to reverse direction.

Imagine the ganglia and neurons that were bubbling in his head, trying to grasp what I am asking! It’s actually a miracle that any child can master these things at all, even more so the younger they are.

The key to Brian’s success, in terms of advanced elements such as fingering, is my patience. If I were impatient, he would feel like a failure at fingering already, which he is not.

He is just a kid giving an honest effort to something so difficult that even an adult might find it a little confusing at first.

Now, look at all that I have said about fingering and this lovely child Brian, and realize that all our weeks of experiments were outside the usage of reading music. Had I combined the two, fingering and reading, he would have been overwhelmed and then quickly frustrated. This is probably true of any combination of skills.

The approach I use could be called “scattershot,” in that I keep previewing a new “master” skill, such as fingering, for very short period, perhaps 30 seconds or a minute.

I do this many times, over weeks if necessary, until the base skill (using at least two fingers) becomes boring to the child.

Then we add to that skill (more than two fingers) in the same scattershot fashion until the child has learned to perform the chosen “master” skill (fingering) as best they can, in their own way.

The rules of fingering for younger kids are simple and few. Introduce fingering slowly and not too early.

You should introduce fingering before reading music, as a physical trick or game like using a yoyo or a Frisbee. Make it a fun game-like activity that always seems to pop up. It takes time to get their minds used to fingering, so lay the groundwork early, just not too early, and never at the beginning.

Tell the children that their fingers are like a Basketball Team, and their fingers will work and play together just like a team does.

Much like basketball, piano is a game.

By John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2000 Walden Pond Press. Visit http://www.pianoiseasy.com to see the fun PIANO BY NUMBER method for kids.

John Aschenbrenner is a leading children’s music educator and book publisher, and the author of numerous fun piano method books in the series PIANO BY NUMBER for kids. You can see the PIANO BY NUMBER series of books at http://www.pianoiseasy.com

Twin girls who play basketball, One gets cancer?

I read this book last year about twin girls who are basketball stars at their school. I believe one of the twin’s name was Becky. They had a younger brother, maybe two. The better basketball player of the two ended up getting cancer on her leg, and her boyfriend was a jerk. Does anyone know the title/author of the book? Thanks!

Waiting for Johnny Miracle” by Alice Bach
“Kirkus Reviews Most YA novels about young cancer patients never transcend the subject. This one doesn’t either–it doesn’t seem to try–but it is a remarkably, even refreshingly clear-eyed treatment of the subject. Becky’s pre-cancer life as a high school athlete is not projected in the round, and the boyfriend who deserts her when her sore leg turns out to be malignant is a sketch of shallow self-absorption from the start. Becky’s twin sister Theo, though, is real enough to fill her function as the normal counterpoint, who feels both sympathy and resentment, and who wants to share the experience of the cancer ward but cannot go all the way with her sister. Medically, Becky gets off relatively easily–by all signs, the surgery on her leg has got the cancer in time–but she spends months in and out of the hospital, goes bald from chemotherapy like the other, less fortunate patients, and for the time, comes to find the world of dying teenagers more real than the one Theo still inhabits. Unlike the evasive staff and the forcibly optimistic mothers, the kids are blunt–passing on the news when one of them “croaks,” hooting en masse at the medical soaps on TV, and so on. There’s just one typically touching scene–a dying little girl buries her dolls in kleenex boxes–and that is seen by outsider Theo. Then, toward the end, the patients conspire to give dying Mariela her last wish, which is to lose her virginity to Matt, the popular physical therapist. This whole invention (and especially Matt’s consent) may not quite work, but Bach chooses her man and her timing so that it comes off better than one might expect. More involving, though, is simply the on-target, close-up, day-to-day view of the kids whom chance has turned into cancer patients.
(Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1980)”

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Outdoor Basketball Goals For Your Home Workout

With people who are so caught up with a fast paced lifestyle, the fine line between work and personal life becomes thinner until there is no more line to speak of. Admittedly, this is the case for almost anyone who is a workaholic, and all that bulk of work could even find their way to homes and then back to the workplace. It’s that crazy sometimes. The tendency is that most time is devoted to working at the office or traveling to and fro meetings and leisure time is greatly sacrificed. Also, this can pose a threat to one’s health because over thinking and over doing beyond one’s capacity can be so consuming and draining to one’s physical and mental health. Thus, it is important to spend some time for exercise to get your body and mind going. Lucky for hoop enthusiasts, they can have outdoor basketball goals installed in their backyards for convenience in playing and workout at the same time.

So, imagine yourself going to the conjugal court shared by the community you are in. There is always no guarantee that you were the first one who got there, and when that is the case, you have to wait before they pack up. Also, if it’s your turn, you are pressured by the group waiting on you to finish as well. However, once you have your own equipment at your own space, you can enjoy playing for as long as you want, with as many people you want to invite in. Less pressure but many times the fun.

So whether you are holed up in the office on weekdays, if you are determined enough to stay fit, you can schedule early morning shooting of hoops on your outdoor basketball goals. This way, you keep your body hyped up and ready for work, and then you can proceed to going all out by the weekend, whether with family or friends. You can even host mini tournaments so that you can have something to look forward to every end of the week.

So, are you hyped up with the prospect now? If yes, then you better save up for you to buy your set-up the soonest. Do extensive research on quality brands and products. Read customer feedbacks to see if what the manufacturers say about their quality is already proven and true. This way, your investment will not go to waste. Furthermore, it will be more fun if you allow other members of the family to enjoy shooting hoops as well. So for kids, an adjustable pole I recommended so the height can be manipulated according to who is playing at that time.

So if you want to start on your healthy lifestyle, take note that the only way to do so is to work on it while you are still fully capable. Work is just work, and your body is your most important investment. With outdoor basketball goals, you can make sure that there is something worthy to do even without gym memberships and the like. After all, all play can still be productive as well.

About the Author

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Where can i find Constantinos in Bully Scholarship Edition, for the yearbook photo?

I am now in chapter 5 and I completed the “Comic Klepto” mission long ago, like in chapter 2. I got all the other photos except Gary and Zoe, which I know I can’t get until the end of the game.
I know Constantinos is the mascot and also a little kid who is not affiliated with any clique. But I can’t find him in the school, in the dorm, in the gym or even on the football field. The only time I can find him is during the “shootout” match on the basketball court but I cannot snap a photo of him while playing the mini-game. Where can I find him to actually take the picture???

You have to go to the basketball court and snap a picture before you start the mini game or after its over. Its been a while but if I can remember correctly after he appears in the missions he just stays there.

*ADD*
Your avatar looks like M.Shadows the lead singer from Aveged Sevenfold [the best band ever]:

http://m-shadows.net/layout/3.jpg

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Backyard Basketball Game 7

The Prevalent NBA Video Game 2K10

NBA 2K series game published by 2K Sports is going into its 10th year. Hot Sales in the Season of Summer: nintendo ds accessories and Accessories The latest edition NBA 2K10 invites the most famous basketball player of LA Lakers, Kobe Bryant as the cover spokesman. Last Week My Father Sent for My Mother Kobe seized the fourth champion ring in 2009 season and acquired the MVP title of the finals. Hey! How Can You Overlook Modish Nintendo Dsi ? He will then have fun with the players in the game with his champion corona.What? Shia LaBeouf Also Buy EZ flash vi !

2K Sports especially invites the Houston Rockets player, James White, who is one of the strongest dunker of the NBA history to involve in the production in “NBA 2K10″. Take off at the free throw line and then hand off to finish it as a dunk is a more mundane exercise for him. Therefore, the developing team of 2K asked him to make some highly difficult dunks. White must perform many kinds of actions of dunk. The game designing team will film them to create movies or photos. A variety of dunk actions, which never included in NBA series game that the player is taking off from free-throw line, enhanced the entertainment of the game.

In the main menu of the game, players can look for the information of”NBA Today”. You can see the true condition of NBA, even include news, information of players and so on. All the informations are clear. NBA Today not only enables the players to look up the latest NBA news, but also get them into the game models. “NBA Today” will affect the commentator of the game, Clark Kellogg’s performance as well. For example, when All-Star Game is going to be held, you will hear Clark Kellogg and other commentators start to discuss who has the opportunity to serve as All-Star starter. They even talk about the chance of your team to break into the playoffs, or other aspects’ topics.

In addition, game designers will constantly update team and player’s information, including transactions, injuries and the changing of team starter, rotation lineup and player value. The only thing that the game player needs to do is to trace all these changes.

The biggest change of “NBA 2K10″ is the single career mode of the game. Game players can create your own NBA players and decide trending of his career life, that is, begin to train him from an anonymous rookie. You may get the opportunity of invitation from an NBA team training camp and the process of becoming a superstar will be a long and arduous challenge.

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How do I erase game data from Mario Slam Basketball Ds?

Ive been on option but htere is no way to do it. Any help?

Most of the time you can reset DS game data by pressing
A B X Y L and R at the same time when you first load up the game