Pompeii

WHO'S IN THE NEWS: ▫️17th man arrested in Paxton’s online child predator sting PAXTON — The number of men arrested in the Paxton Police Department’s online undercover sting operation targeting child predators has risen to 17. On Thursday, Dec. 29, Paxton police arrested Dylan C. Conerty, 26, of Decatur, on charges of traveling to meet a minor, indecent solicitation of a child, solicitation to meet a child and exploitation of a child. https://www.fordcountychronicle.com/articles/featured/17th-man-arrested-in-paxtons-online-child-predator-sting/ ▫️GRAPHIC: Former deputy accepts plea deal to 100 years in prison for child sex crimes LIVINGSTON PARISH, La. - Former Livingston Parish sheriff’s deputy Dennis Perkins has agreed to a sentence of 100 years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea in a case that stunned the entire community when details first emerged in 2019. Perkins pled guilty to second-degree rape, sexual battery of a child under the age of 18, sexual battery of a child under the age of 13, video voyeurism, mingling of harmful substances, and production of child pornography. » https://www.13abc.com/2023/01/03/graphic-former-deputy-accepts-plea-deal-100-years-prison-child-sex-crimes/ » https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/01/03/graphic-former-deputy-accepts-plea-deal-100-years-prison-child-sex-crimes/ » https://www.wafb.com/2023/01/03/dennis-perkins-expected-plead-guilty/ ▫️Struthers man Russell Miller facing charges in sex sting YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A Struthers man is facing charges following an undercover human trafficking investigation. Russell Miller, 41, is charged with engaging in prostitution, possession of criminal tools and voyeurism. https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/struthers-man-facing-charges-in-sex-sting/ ▫️Registered sex offender arrested for rape, kidnapping in Wyoming County Police said William Synder, 54, of Middlebury, violated a protection order and held a woman at a home in Perry for more than two days. Police arrested Snyder Dec. 28 and charged him with rape, criminal sex act, kidnapping and criminal contempt. https://13wham.com/news/local/registered-sex-offender-arrested-for-rape-kidnapping-in-wyoming-county-perry-middlebury ▫️Woman Escapes Horror After Being Held Hostage For 5 Days By Man She Met Online Tomball, Texas – On December 29, 2022, deputies with Constable Mark Herman’s Office responded to an apartment complex in the 24200 block of Kuykendahl Road in reference to a female victim that was severely assaulted by a male suspect she met on an online dating platform, identified as Zachary Mills. Further investigation revealed that she arrived at his residence on December 24th and was held her against her will until she was able to escape and seek help from a neighbor on December 29th. She was then transported to a local hospital to have her injuries treated. https://breaking911.com/woman-escapes-horror-after-being-held-hostage-for-5-days-by-man-she-met-online-sheriff/ ▫️Sex offender seen with high school girls' basketball team now in custody CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. - A convicted sex offender turned himself in early Wednesday morning after the CBS 6 Problem Solvers were tipped off that the man had been helping the Thomas Dale High School varsity girls' basketball team during recent games and practices. Isaac T. Outten, 43, turned himself into law enforcement in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at about 3:30 a.m., according to Virginia State Police. » https://www.wtvr.com/news/problem-solvers/problem-solvers-investigations/isaac-outten-girls-basketball-january-03-2023 » https://www.yahoo.com/news/police-search-sex-offender-seen-220517376.html ▫️Police: Man sex trafficked two women in Eau Claire A 30-year-old Eau Claire man has engaged in sex trafficking at least two women in Eau Claire and other states, police say. Leonard D. Caston Jr. was charged Tuesday in Eau Claire County Court with a felony count of solicitation of prostitutes. A warrant has been issued for Caston’s arrest. https://www.leadertelegram.com/news/front-page/police-man-sex-trafficked-two-women-in-eau-claire/article_f6bea15e-060c-5367-8e88-41d74e24bee0.html ▫️18-year-old accused of sex trafficking 13-year-old girl A Florida woman was arrested Monday after she convinced a 13-year-old girl to escape from their foster home before forcing her to have sex with adults in Broward County, according to detectives. Hannah Rose Marie Ellsworth, 18, is facing charges of sex trafficking of a minor, promoting the sexual performance of a child, and four counts of lewd battery of a minor between the ages of 12 and 16, county court records show. » https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/crime/fl-ne-woman-arrested-sex-trafficking-13-year-old-20230104-p7ccjgdgqja33pdgpu4zgqvppi-story.html » https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article270710197.html ▫️ Former director of Manchester children’s museum gets prison on child pornography charge The former executive director of the Lutz Children’s Museum in Manchester was sentenced five and one-half years in prison Tuesday for distributing child pornography, according to federal authorities. Robert Eckert, 56, of West Hartford, also was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in Bridgeport to five years of supervised release, according to federal authorities. » https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/Lutz-Children-Museum-Manchester-Eckert-child-porn-17691918.php » https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/former-childrens-museum-director-sentenced-to-prison-for-distributing-child-pornography/2946945/ » https://news.yahoo.com/former-director-manchester-children-museum-211800037.html ▫️Former Riverside County School Counselor Arrested on Sexual Assault Charges In February 2021, a victim filed a report with law enforcement officials alleging that Ruben Rico Franco, 62, a former counselor at a Banning school, sexually assaulted the complainant from the ages of 10 to 14. Law enforcement officials believe there may be additional survivors impacted by former school counselor Ruben Rico Franco. Anyone who was victimized or has information on a sex crime committed by Franco is urged to call the Banning Police Department at 951-922-3170. » https://www.dlawgroup.com/riverside-county-school-counselor-arrested-sexual-assault/ » https://ktla.com/news/local-news/former-counselor-at-riverside-county-school-arrested-on-suspicion-of-sexual-assault/ ▫️Rocky Ridge man gets 45 years in prison for sexually exploiting girls A Rocky Ridge man was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison on Tuesday for the sexual exploitation of two minors to produce child pornography, officials said. Dennis James Harrison, 40, pleaded guilty in August 2022 to exploiting two preteen girls, according to a news release from the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/rocky-ridge-man-gets-45-050100613.html ______________________

Air Marshals are being removed from planes and sent to southern border

Louise M. Calliari, age 94 of DuBois, PA died Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at Christ the King Manor. Born on May 13, 1928 in Penfield, PA , she was the daughter of the late Thomas and Carmella (Flamio) Camise. Louise was a waitress at the Keystone Restaurant and the M&M Restaurant in DuBois for many years. She was an avid Pittsburgh Pirate and Steeler fan. Louise is survived by three children (Thomas Calliari and his wife Doris of Brockway, PA; Susan Calliari and her husband Kenneth Flanick of Powell, OH; and Cheryl Burkes and her husband Ernie DuBois, PA), and several grandchildren and great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her son (Gary Calliari), three brothers, two sisters, a grandson (Brian Calliari), and a great grandson (Lane Palmer). There will be no public visitation. A memorial service will be announced at a later date at the convenience of the family. Memorial donations may be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Way, Memphis , TN 38105. The Baronick Funeral Home and Crematorium, Inc. is in charge of arrangements. Online condolences can be sent to http://baronickfuneralhome.com/condolence

Rylee Rebecca Grimm, a baby girl, arrived at 11:10 PM Sunday, January 1, 2023 at the Maternal and Child Center at Penn Highlands DuBois. The parents, Ryan and Taylor Grimm of St. Mary's were excited to have their new baby. “The whole experience at Penn Highlands DuBois was magical,” shared Taylor. “The staff was so helpful and Rylee is absolutely perfect.” Baby Rylee weighed 7.9 pounds and was 21 inches long.

The Police - Full Concert - 06/15/86 - Giants Stadium

WHO'S IN THE NEWS: ▫️Multiple cases involving sex offenders filed in Madison County EDWARDSVILLE – A number of cases related to sex offenders, mostly failure to register, were recently filed by the Madison County State’s Attorney’s Office. https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Multiple-cases-involving-sex-offenders-filed-17687627.php ▫️Report: Terrell Hills PD tracked down child sex assault suspect in Europe TERRELL HILLS, Texas – A child sex assault suspect wanted on multiple felony charges here was arrested after a detective for Terrell Hills police used cell phone information to locate him in Europe. Florentin Dita, 36, was arrested upon returning to the United States in September on felony charges of possession of child pornography, indecency with a child - exposure and publish/threaten to publish intimate visual material. https://www.ksat.com/news/ksat-investigates/2023/01/02/report-terrell-hills-pd-tracked-down-child-sex-assault-suspect-in-europe/ ▫️Arrest made in Merrick County related to sexual abuse child in Iowa LINCOLN, Neb. - Herbert G. Eddards, 44, is facing multiple charges, including sexual abuse of a child in the second degree, assault with intent to commit sexual abuse and lascivious acts. https://www.klkntv.com/arrest-made-in-merrick-county-related-to-sexual-abuse-child-in-iowa/ ▫️Calhoun couple arrested on sexual exploitation of children charges On Thursday, Dec. 29, William Sandridge, age 42, and Allyn Sandridge, age 41, of Gordon County, were arrested and each charged with eight counts of sexual exploitation of children by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit. The GBI CEACC unit was assisted in the execution of this search warrant by the Calhoun Police Department, the Polk County Police Department, and the United States Secret Service. https://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/calhoun_times/news/police_fire/calhoun-couple-arrested-for-sexual-exploitation-of-children/article_5b5938a2-88a3-11ed-a7ff-c7ea0e14eb0d.html ▫️Thai Woman Pleads Guilty to Her Role in International Sex Trafficking Conspiracy ST. PAUL, Minn. – Sumalee Intarathong has pleaded guilty to her role in a large-scale international Thai sex trafficking organization, announced United States Attorney Andrew M. Luger. According to court documents, the criminal organization conspired to make money by compelling hundreds of women from Bangkok, Thailand, to engage in commercial sex acts in various cities across the United States. Before her arrest in Belgium on August 5, 2016, Intarathong, 61, served as a boss/trafficker for the organization. https://pbjlearning.com/2023/01/01/thai-woman-pleads-guilty-to-her-role-in-international-sex-trafficking-conspiracy/ ▫️Florida lawyer sentenced to probation after pleading to 34 counts of child pornography charges Tampa, Florida: 52-year-old attorney Chris Ragano "refused to confess" to the wrongness of his actions despite pleading to 34 charges related to child pornography as a part of an Alford plea. https://www.realdarknews.com/florida-lawyer-sentenced-to-probation-after-pleading-to-34-counts-of-child-pornography-charges/ ______________________

Twitter Files #12 1.THREAD: The Twitter Files Twitter and the FBI “Belly Button” 2.By 2020, Twitter was struggling with the problem of public and private agencies bypassing them and going straight to the media with lists of suspect accounts. 3.In February, 2020, as COVID broke out, the Global Engagement Center – a fledgling analytic/intelligence arms of the State Department – went to the media with a report called, “Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.” 4.The GEC flagged accounts as “Russian personas and proxies” based on criteria like, “Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,” blaming “research conducted at the Wuhan institute,” and “attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.” 5.State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. ZeroHedge, claiming the episode “led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.” ZH had done reports speculating that the virus had lab origin. 6.The GEC still led directly to news stories like the AFP’s headline, “Russia-linked disinformation campaign led to coronavirus alarm, US says,” and a Politico story about how “Russian, Chinese, Iranian Disinformation Narratives Echo One Another.” 7.“YOU HAVEN’T MADE A RUSSIA ATTRIBUTION IN SOME TIME” When Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub complained Twitter hadn’t “made a Russia attribution” in some time, Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth said it was “revelatory of their motives.” 8.“WE’RE HAPPY TO WORK DIRECTLY WITH YOU ON THIS, INSTEAD OF NBC.” Roth tried in vain to convince outsider researchers like the Clemson lab to check with them before pushing stories about foreign interference to media. 9.Twitter was also trying to reduce the number of agencies with access to Roth. “If these folks are like House Homeland Committee and DHS, once we give them a direct contact with Yoel, they will want to come back to him again and again,” said policy director Carlos Monje. 10.When the State Department/GEC – remember this was 2020, during the Trump administration – wanted to publicize a list of 5,500 accounts it claimed would “amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation” about COVID, Twitter analysts were beside themselves. 11.The GEC report appeared based on DHS data circulated earlier that week, and included accounts that followed “two or more” Chinese diplomatic accounts. They reportedly ended up with a list “nearly 250,000” names long, and included Canadian officials and a CNN account: 12.Roth saw GEC’s move as an attempt by the GEC to use intel from other agencies to “insert themselves” into the content moderation club that included Twitter, Facebook, the FBI, DHS, and others: 13.The GEC was soon agreeing to loop in Twitter before going public, but they were using a technique that had boxed in Twitter before. “The delta between when they share material and when they go to the press continues to be problematic,” wrote one comms official. 14.The episode led to a rare public disagreement between Twitter and state officials: 15.“IT MAKES SENSE TO PUSH BACK ON GEC PARTICIPATION IN THIS FORUM” When the FBI informed Twitter the GEC wanted to be included in the regular “industry call” between companies like Twitter and Facebook and the DHS and FBI, Twitter leaders balked at first. 16.Facebook, Google, and Twitter executives were united in opposition to GEC’s inclusion, with ostensible reasons including, “The GEC’s mandate for offensive IO to promote American interests.” 17.A deeper reason was a perception that unlike the DHS and FBI, which were “apolitical,” as Roth put it, the GEC was “political,” which in Twitter-ese appeared to be partisan code. “I think they thought the FBI was less Trumpy,” is how one former DOD official put it. 18.After spending years rolling over for Democratic Party requests for “action” on “Russia-linked” accounts, Twitter was suddenly playing tough. Why? Because, as Roth put it, it would pose “major risks” to bring the GEC in, “especially as the election heats up.” 19.When senior lawyer Stacia Cardille tried to argue against the GEC’s inclusion to the FBI, the words resonated “with Elvis, not Laura,” i.e. with agent Elvis Chan, not Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) unit chief Laura Dehmlow: 20.Eventually the FBI argued, first to Facebook, for a compromise solution: other USG agencies could participate in the “industry” calls, but the FBI and DHS would act as sole “conduits.” 21.Roth reached out to Chan with concerns about letting the “press-happy” GEC in, expressing hope they could keep the “circle of trust small.” 22."STATE... NSA, and CIA" Chan reassured him it would be a “one-way” channel, and “State/GEC, NSA, and CIA have expressed interest in being allowed on in listen mode only.” 23."BELLY BUTTON" “We can give you everything we’re seeing from the FBI and USIC agencies,” Chan explained, but the DHS agency CISA “will know what’s going on in each state.” He went on to ask if industry could “rely on the FBI to be the belly button of the USG." 24.They eventually settled on an industry call via Signal. In an impressive display of operational security, Chan circulated private numbers of each company’s chief moderation officer in a Word Doc marked “Signal Phone Numbers,” subject-lined, “List of Numbers.” 25.Twitter was taking requests from every conceivable government body, beginning with the Senate Intel Committee (SSCI), which seemed to need reassurance Twitter was taking FBI direction. Execs rushed to tell “Team SSCI” they zapped five accounts on an FBI tip: 26.Requests arrived and were escalated from all over: from Treasury, the NSA, virtually every state, the HHS, from the FBI and DHS, and more: 27.They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned. Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry: 28.“WE DON’T DO THIS” Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however. 29.Twitter honored almost everyone else’s requests, even those from GEC – including a decision to ban accounts like @RebelProtests and @bricsmedia because GEC identified them as “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government,” respectively: 30.The GEC requests were what a former CIA staffer working at Twitter was referring to, when he said, “Our window on that is closing,” meaning they days when Twitter could say no to serious requests were over. 31.Remember the 2017 “internal guidance” in which Twitter decided to remove any user “identified by the U.S. intelligence community” as a state-sponsored entity committing cyber operations? By 2020 such identifications came in bulk. 32.“USIC" requests often simply began “We assess” and then provided lists (sometimes, in separate excel docs) they believed were connected to Russia’s Internet Research Agency and committing cyber ops, from Africa to South America to the U.S.: 33.One brief report, sent right after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year, flagged major Russian outlets like Vedomosti and Gazeta.ru. Note the language about “state actors” fits Twitter’s internal guidance. Главные новости - Газета.RuГлавные новости дня из Москвы и регионов, информационная лента новостей, новости России и мира, события дня и последнего часа, аналитика, комментарии, видео.http://Gazeta.ru 34.Some reports were just a paragraph long and said things like: “The attached email accounts… were possibly used for “influence operations, social media collection, or social engineering.” Without further explanation, Twitter would be forwarded an excel doc: 35.They were even warned about publicity surrounding a book by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin, who alleged “corruption by the U.S. government” – specifically by Joe Biden. 36.By the weeks before the election in 2020, Twitter was so confused by the various streams of incoming requests, staffers had to ask the FBI which was which: 37.“I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR WORK LOAD”: Requests poured in from FBI offices all over the country, day after day, hour after hour: If Twitter didn’t act quickly, questions came: “Was action taken?” “Any movement?” 38.Wrote senior attorney Stacia Cardille: “My in-box is really f--- up at this point.” 39.It all led to the situation described by @ShellenbergerMD two weeks ago, in which Twitter was paid $3,415,323, essentially for being an overwhelmed subcontractor. Twitter wasn’t just paid. For the amount of work they did for government, they were underpaid. 40.For more on the #TwitterFiles, check out @bariweiss, @ShellenbergerMD, @lhfang, and @davidzweig. For more on this story, read TK News by Matt TaibbiRegular news and features by award-winning author and investigative reporter. Click to read TK News by Matt Taibbi, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of readers.http://www.taibbi.substack.com • • •

Genesis - Abacab

The Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, PA by Tim Pavlic II

The “physician misinformation bill,” which has just gone into effect as law in California, prevents doctors from sharing the risks associated with mRNA experimental “vaccines.” In other words, doctors could have their medical licenses revoked for telling the truth. Unbelievable!!

In Brazil ... Lula sworn in Lula Becomes Brazil’s President, With Bolsonaro in Florida https://www.rsn.org/001/lula-becomes-brazils-president-with-bolsonaro-in-florida.html

Shirley J. Bush, Age 83 of DuBois, PA died Saturday, December 31, 2022 at Christ the King Manor with her loving and devoted husband by her side. Born on December 20, 1939 in DuBois, PA, she was the daughter of the late Marlin and Olive (Frantz) Strouse. On July 26, 1959 she married Raymond C. Bush. He survives. Shirley graduated from Roseville High School in Roseville, CA in 1957 and she retired from Heller Springs Company after 25 years of service. Prior to that she spent 10 years at BF Goodrich in DuBois, PA and was a tax preparer for many years. Shirley was a member of Christ Lutheran Church in DuBois. She enjoyed reading, exploring the genealogy of her family and loved her dogs. In addition to her husband, Shirley is survived by two children (Jeffrey L. Bush and his wife Donna of DuBois, PA and Gloria J. Dimick and her husband Thomas S. of State College, PA), four grandchildren (Nathan Bush and his wife Jamie, Yvonne Marshall and her husband Dan, and Tyler and Thomas R. Dimick), and three Great Grandchildren (Logan and Nolan Bush and Henry Marshall). Shirley was preceded in death by her parents and twin brothers (Martin and Marlin Strouse). Visitation will be held on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 from 2 – 4pm and 6 – 8pm at the Baronick Funeral Home & Crematorium, Inc. A funeral service will be held on Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 11am from the funeral home with Pastor Amy Miller officiating. Burial will follow in Beechwoods Cemetery. Memorial donations can be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105 and/or Christ Lutheran Church Youth Fund, 875 Sunflower Drive, DuBois, PA 15801. Online condolences can be made to http://baronickfuneralhome.com/condolence

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Cleveland Rocks (Cleveland, OH 12.30.22)

It was foggy last night in the Juniata Valley, central Pennsylvania. Taken from Jacks Mountain overlook. > Bill Sisson

One Thing, Jesus Christ Fr. Ben Daghir Will Post Weekly Articles HERE Every Monday! Article 3 - Second Series - January 2nd, 2022 by Fr. Ben Daghir Editor’s Note: Fr. Ben Daghir wrote this letter to mothers at a parish program on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 2022. Dear mothers, St. Marys, Pennsylvania, 1997, Walmart: My twin brother, Luke, and I were just five years old. We were with our mother, Roben Daghir, as she was heading into Walmart to get groceries for our family. When my mother, my brother, and I walked through the Walmart front door she let go of our hands and went for a grocery cart. In an instant, Luke and I were gone. We ran off in opposite directions throughout Walmart. Our mother started to cry. Twenty-five years later, Luke and I recently hugged our mother after spending time with her during Thanksgiving break. Luke let go of her hand and went back to the seminary in Baltimore. I let go of her hand and traveled back to DuBois to celebrate Mass. Funny how things change over time. Funny how she doesn’t have to chase us anymore. Motherhood, much like how God works in our lives, must be a marathon approach. It must be a journey, an adventure. It demands patience, I know this for certain - my brother and I are quite good at testing it in our mother. It also demands so much more, every son knows this. Abraham Lincoln is credited with the words, “Everything I am or hope to be, I owe to my mother.” Twenty-five years ago when our mother let go of our hands, my brother and I ran into Walmart without a destination. Now, we let go of her hand with a purpose, a mission, a passion, an adventure. These are all words for a vocation which is fostered in the hands of a delicate balance. Mothers always balance holding and letting go. My mom knows when to hold my hand and when to let go. My mother has held onto my hand at times when I wanted to let go, and she has let go of my hand at times when I wanted to hold on. Like Lincoln, who I am and who I hope to be, I owe to my mother because of her remarkable gift of holding and letting go which has helped me to discover God’s plan. To all mothers, know how important you are to the Church in helping your children discover God’s unique plan for them. Fr. Ben Daghir Diocese of Erie ======================== Fr. Ben Daghir is a priest for the Diocese of Erie. He is a graduate of Elk County Catholic High School in Saint Marys, Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, and St. Mary's Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland. He considers writing one of his favorite hobbies.

Pastor Bob Joyce Sermons A Time and A Place (Sermon 1-1-2023)

That's because BIG PHARMA would not be making any money of those cures. They had to downplay them because if there was a cure they could NOT do an emergency use for the vaccine which they have been pushing for 2 years without any REAL true data.

Barbara Walters, a First Among TV Newswomen, Is Dead at 93 She broke barriers for women as a co-host of the “Today” show, a network evening news anchor and a creator of “The View,” all while gaining her own kind of celebrity. By Alessandra Stanley Published Dec. 30, 2022Updated Dec. 31, 2022 Barbara Walters, who broke barriers for women as the first female co-host of the “Today” show and the first female anchor of a network evening news program, and who as an interviewer of celebrities became one herself, helping to blur the line between news and entertainment, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 93. Her publicist, Cindi Berger, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause. ABC News, where Ms. Walters was a longtime anchor and a creator of the talk show “The View,” reported the death earlier. Ms. Walters spent more than 50 years in front of the camera and, until she was 84, continued to appear on “The View.” In one-on-one interviews, she was best known for delving, with genteel insistence, into the private lives and emotional states of movie stars, heads of state and other high-profile subjects. Ms. Walters first made her mark on the “Today” show on NBC, where she began appearing regularly on camera in 1964; she was officially named co-host a decade later. Her success kicked open the door for future network anchors like Jane Pauley, Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer. Ms. Walters began at NBC as a writer in 1961, the token woman in the “Today” writers’ room. When she left NBC for ABC in 1976 to be a co-anchor of the evening news with Harry Reasoner, she became known as the “million-dollar baby” because of her five-year, $5 million contract. The move to the co-anchor’s chair made her not only the highest-profile female journalist in television history, but also the highest-paid news anchor, male or female, and her arrival signaled something of a cultural shift: the moment when news anchors began to be seen less as infallible authority figures, in the Walter Cronkite mold, and more as celebrities. A disgruntled Mr. Reasoner privately dismissed her hiring as a gimmick. Gimmick or not, the ABC experiment failed. Chemistry between the co-anchors was nonexistent, ratings remained low, and in 1978 Mr. Reasoner left for CBS, his original television home, and Ms. Walters’s role changed from co-anchor to contributor as the network instituted an all-male multiple-anchor format. Shortly after that she began contributing reports to ABC’s newsmagazine show “20/20.” In 1984 she became the show’s permanent co-host alongside Hugh Downs, her old “Today” colleague. But it was her “Barbara Walters Specials” more than anything else that made her a star, enshrining her as an indefatigable chronicler of the rich, the powerful and the infamous. The specials, which began in 1976, made Ms. Walters as famous, or nearly as famous, as the people she interviewed. At a time when politicians tended to be reserved and celebrities elusive, Ms. Walters coaxed kings, presidents and matinee idols to answer startlingly intimate questions. She asked Jimmy Carter, shortly after he won the 1976 presidential election, if he and his wife slept in separate beds. (They did not.) She asked Prime Minister Morarji Desai of India whether it was true that he drank his own urine for medicinal purposes. (It was.) Ms. Walters was a celebrity journalist who reveled in the role — driving a motorcycle with Sylvester Stallone, dancing the mambo with Patrick Swayze, riding a patrol boat with Fidel Castro across the Bay of Pigs. She was the reporter who urged Mr. Carter to “be good to us” and asked the former White House intern Monica Lewinsky — in an interview that attracted some 50 million viewers — why she kept that stained blue dress that had figured in the sex scandal involving President Bill Clinton. Throughout her career Ms. Walters raised eyebrows — and competitors’ ire — by courting high society and cultivating friendships with high-placed officials. The Shah of Iran was a friend; so were Roy Cohn and Brooke Astor. She was the only female television reporter on President Richard M. Nixon’s trip to China in 1972. When the former Israeli foreign minister Moshe Dayan died in 1981, Ms. Walters lent his wife, Raquel, a black dress for the funeral. Her ambition and competitive spirit never let up. She was in Vietnam on vacation when Michael Jackson died in 2009, and sped across 8,000 miles and many time zones to sit with the Jackson family at the memorial in Los Angeles — and to host a special tribute on “20/20.” She continued to pop up in the gossip pages, notably when she tried to intervene in a vitriolic spat between her “View” colleague Rosie O’Donnell and Donald J. Trump in 2007. (With Mr. Trump, Ms. Walters could be both tough, challenging his acumen as a businessman in 1990, and gushing, comparing his family in one “20/20” segment to “American royalty.”) “The View” was yet another ratings triumph for Ms. Walters, who created it with Bill Geddie and served as an executive producer in addition to frequently appearing on camera as a member of the show’s all-female panel, which over the years also included Whoopi Goldberg, Meredith Vieira and many others. The show, which is in its 26th season, is now seen in several countries and has inspired imitations. From Hepburn to Arafat The list of famous people Ms. Walters coaxed into going on camera with her is long. It includes Michael Jackson, Katharine Hepburn, Princess Grace of Monaco and Barbra Streisand. She interviewed every American president and first lady from Richard and Pat Nixon to Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, during his presidential campaign; world leaders like Margaret Thatcher, Boris N. Yeltsin, Yasir Arafat and Muammar el-Qaddafi; and famous criminal defendants like Claus von Bülow, Jean Harris, Mike Tyson, Mark David Chapman, and Erik and Lyle Menendez. From 1981 to 2010, she presented an annual Oscar-night special that included interviews with nominees and other celebrities. When she announced that the 2010 Oscar special would be her last, she explained that celebrity interviews had become ubiquitous — and that celebrities were not what they used to be. “Too often,” she said, “the celebrity is a celebrity because he or she just came out of rehab; otherwise they are not interesting. I didn’t want to do that.” She did, however, continue her annual “10 Most Fascinating People” specials, which began in 1993. In the final special, in 2015, Caitlyn Jenner topped the list, but she declined to be interviewed; Ms. Jenner was already negotiating an interview with Diane Sawyer, Ms. Walters’s longtime professional rival. In her heyday, few turned down the chance to be interviewed by Ms. Walters, but there were others who got away. Ms. Walters said in her autobiography, “Audition” (2008), that her greatest ungotten “gets” were Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, whom she knew socially but could never persuade to go on camera, and Diana, Princess of Wales, who, despite all Ms. Walters’s powers of persuasion, instead gave her first interview after her separation from Prince Charles to Martin Bashir of the BBC. She had other regrets. She told The Toronto Star in 2010 that she was sorry that in 2000 she had pressed the Latin pop star Ricky Martin to say whether he was gay; he evaded the question and did not come out until 10 years later. She said in her autobiography that in retrospect she was also sorry that she had decided not to broadcast the 1976 tape of a White House tour that Betty Ford, the first lady, gave her while visibly drunk. “If I were interviewing a first lady today, and she was obviously inebriated, I would certainly air it,” she wrote. “Times have changed.” Image Ms. Walters with Fidel Castro in 1977. The list of famous people she coaxed into going on camera with her is long. Credit...ABC News “Having it all” was not part of the cultural lexicon when Ms. Walters began combining career and family. She and her second husband, the theatrical producer Lee Guber, raised a daughter, Jacqueline, during her time at “Today.” She was married three times in all, and between marriages she dated many prominent and powerful men, among them Senator John Warner of Virginia and the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. In “Audition” she revealed that in 1973 she began a long, secret affair with Senator Edward W. Brooke III of Massachusetts, who was married at the time. She is survived by her daughter, Jacqueline Danforth. Many a male colleague groused that Ms. Walters used her femininity and social connections to get ahead, but she had a drive that would almost certainly have propelled her to fame no matter what. She was a perfectionist and a worrier who did her own research, wrote her own questions on index cards and was often her own best editor. Her ferocity paid off, notably when she obtained the first joint interview with President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel as they were negotiating the terms of what would become their historic 1979 peace agreement. Ms. Walters boasted that CBS, desperate to compete, persuaded the two leaders to sit down together again with Cronkite. One measure of her fame was her ubiquity as a target of parody on “Saturday Night Live.” Gilda Radner was the first cast member to impersonate her, as Baba Wawa, in acknowledgment of the difficulty Ms. Walters had pronouncing her R’s and L’s. (The impression did not amuse Ms. Walters.) It was not just the way Ms. Walters spoke that Ms. Radner parodied. She also tapped into the contradictions in Ms. Walters’s on-air persona: her slightly affected enunciation layered on top of a tabloid reporter’s unsqueamish appetite for juicy gossip. She was later impersonated on the show by Cheri Oteri, Rachel Dratch and Nasim Pedrad. But by 2014, her opinion of her imitators had clearly softened. That May, days before her final appearance on “The View,” she made her “S.N.L.” debut. Appearing on the “Weekend Update” segment, she declared that it had been an honor “to see my groundbreaking career in journalism be reduced to a cartoon character with a ridiculous voice.” The writers of “S.N.L.” were far from her only critics. Many objected to Ms. Walters’s cozy, at times cloying manner with guests, as well as her apparent determination to bring her interviewees to tears. Ms. Walters even made Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of allied forces in the Persian Gulf war, cry when she asked about his father in 1991. But the ratings were always on her side. Nightclubs and Cheap Rentals Ms. Walters said she had inherited both her ambition and her insecurities from her father, Lou Walters, a Boston booking agent and vaudeville impresario who founded the Latin Quarter nightclubs in Boston, New York and Miami and whose fortunes rose and fell, dragging the family from Florida manors and penthouse apartments on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to shabby rentals in Miami. “I was old enough to recognize how other families lived, and they were not like mine,” she wrote. Barbara Walters was born in Boston to Mr. Walters and Dena (Seletsky) Walters on Sept. 25, 1929. In her memoir she wrote that her father, though “not especially good-looking,” exuded a “certain elegance,” being always “impeccably dressed” and having retained his English accent — “very appealing then as now.” Her mother — “quite striking,” she wrote — had been working in a men’s neckwear store when she met her future husband. The couple — both were children of Jewish immigrants who had fled anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe — remained married for nearly 60 years despite a “torturous relationship,” Ms. Walters wrote. Barbara attended private schools in New York and public schools in Miami. There were trips to Europe and Broadway openings; there was hobnobbing with celebrities; there were also tax collectors who seized the family car, the furniture and even the dining room chandelier. Her childhood, she said, was shaped by her complicated relationship with her elder sister, Jacqueline, who was mentally disabled. She died in 1985. When Ms. Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1951 with a degree in English, her father was broke again, and she needed to find a job to support her parents and her sister. “I wanted to be normal,” she once told Newsweek. “I wanted to make the marriage and have the children and be one of the popular girls.” Like many women of her time and education, she started as a secretary, at a public relations firm. That led to a stint in the publicity department of CBS and then a writing job on “The Morning Show,” where Ms. Walters was occasionally brought out of the writers’ room: once in a bathing suit when a model ran late, another time to interview survivors of the wreck of the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria. She was hired by “Today” in 1961. At the time, the show had always had an on-camera “girl,” usually an actress or a pageant winner (Ms. Walters called them “tea pourers”), and Ms. Walters’s job was to write for them. She was occasionally seen on camera herself — she covered Jacqueline Kennedy’s 1962 trip to India and Pakistan — but she was not a full-time member of the on-air team until 1964, when the actress Maureen O’Sullivan abruptly left. Having a proven, if less glamorous, candidate already on hand, the producers gave Ms. Walters the job, without fanfare. Ms. Walters would later recall that at first she had an almost paralyzing fear of being fired. But she was bold when it came to finding a way around barriers. She said Frank McGee, who became host of “Today” in 1971, persuaded the network to mandate that he ask the first three questions of any guest in the studio, worried that viewers might assume that he and Ms. Walters were of equal stature. Ms. Walters began staking out famous people she could interview outside the studio, to get around the three-question rule. After Mr. McGee’s death in 1974, Jim Hartz replaced him as anchor, and Ms. Walters was officially, if belatedly, designated co-anchor. ‘Ahead of the Game’ At her peak, Ms. Walters was extravagantly rewarded — and extensively criticized — for bringing showbiz pizazz to news programs, but networks’ mores followed her lead. She did not change; the industry did. Ms. Walters in 2006. “If I was, perhaps, atop of the game, I also had the advantage of being ahead of the game,” she wrote in her autobiography.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times By the end of her career, Ms. Walters saw herself as a guardian of old-school journalistic values. She complained that for her final “20/20” interview as co-host, in 2004, ABC News chose Mary Kay Letourneau, a schoolteacher who went to jail for having an affair with a student, over President George W. Bush. Ms. Walters ended her autobiography on a reflective note, saying that in the age of internet news, cellphone videos and blog journalism it would be difficult for any one journalist to have the kind of career she had. “If I was, perhaps, atop of the game,” she wrote, “I also had the advantage of being ahead of the game.” On May 12, 2014, four days before her last day on “The View,” the ABC News building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan was renamed the Barbara Walters Building. “I’m not going to cry,” Ms. Walters said at the ceremony. “I make other people cry, but I’m not going to cry.”

THE BIG LIE THAT KEEPS ON LYING ....

John Landini, Jr. age 92, of DuBois, PA, died Friday, December 30, 2022 at Penn Highlands DuBois Hospital. Born on December 7, 1930 in Brockway, PA, he was the late son of John and Philomena Catalono Landini. On August 25th, 1956, he married the love of his life, Nellie (McCluskey) Landini in St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church. He was a sergeant in the United States Army and served his country during the Korean War. When he returned home, he worked at multiple places including Nabsico and Owens-Illinois Brockway Glass in the Engine Room. John was a member of the Brockway American Legion and was a member and usher at Saint Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church. John was a devoted husband, loving father, and affectionate grandfather. John was an avid hunter and fisherman, an expert gardener, and had an ultimate sweet tooth. John was also a man of immense faith and kindness. John is survived by three children: John Landini and his wife Karen of DuBois, David Landini and his wife Elizabeth of Portage, and Mary Rose Narus and her husband Anthony of Linglestown, ten grandchildren: Chelsea, Jacob, Patrick and his wife Christa, Sarah, Aubree, Brandon, Nathan, Ryan and his wife Shannon, Jordan, Sydney and her husband Andrew, and two great grandchildren: Nora and Roland. He was preceded in death by his wife, Nellie Landini, two brothers Michael and Jacob “Jack” Landini, three sisters: Helen Ralston, Dolly Stine, and Mary Mathews, and a nephew, Michael Veltri. Visitation will be held on Monday, January 2, 2023 from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Baronick Funeral Home & Crematorium, Inc. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Tuesday, January 3, 2023 at 10 a.m. at St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church with Msgr. Richard Siefer as celebrant. Burial will follow in St. Catherine Cemetery where full military honors will be accorded by the members of the DuBois Area Honor Guard. Memorials may be placed with Christ the King Manor, 1100 West Long Ave., DuBois, PA 15801 Online condolences can be made to http://baronickfuneralhome.com/condolence