Arias Liked Some Kinky Sex, She Admits

Though accused murderer Jodi Arias said she sometimes felt "like a prostitute" at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, she admitted today that she often enjoyed their sex life and even suggested sex acts they could try.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez, after a day of aggressive questioning and bickering with Arias, asked her about her own suggestions for her sex life with Alexander, including a phone conversation in which she suggested using sexual lubricant.

Arias, 32, is accused of killing Alexander, but claims it was in self-defense.
Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

"You introduced KY Jelly into the relationship to make it more sexually enjoyable, right? When we're talking about the level of experimentation, it looks like both of you were experimenting together sexually. So when we hear things like, 'I felt like a prostitute,' that's not exactly true, is it?" Martinez said.

"It was often mutual," Arias said. "I didn't feel like a prostitute during, just after."

Jodi Arias Admits to Killing Man, Lying to Police Watch Video

Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video

Martinez showed the jury a text message Arias sent offering to perform oral sex on Alexander, comparing it to a statement she made on direct testimony saying that she once felt like a prostitute when Alexander tossed a piece of chocolate at her and walked away without a word after she performed oral sex.

"How is it you can say you 'felt like a prostitute' when you're moving the relationship ahead like this?" Martinez asked. "The act itself is the same thing, and here you're requesting it. The geography is different, but that aside, isn't it the same act? And you're requesting it?"

"When he (ejaculated) and left afterward I felt like a prostitute. When we mutually went through things together I didn't," she said.

Arias also admitted that she sent Alexander a topless photo of herself after he sent her photos of his penis, and that she only did it after she had her breasts enhanced surgically.

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The testimony came as Martinez continued his efforts to discredit Arias' testimony on the stand, including her statements that she often succumbed to Alexander's sexual fantasies so she wouldn't hurt his feelings. Martinez has focused on portraying Arias as a liar for much of his direct examination.

Arias is charged with murder for killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander at his home in Mesa, Ariz., in June 2008. She claims she killed him in self defense and that he had been increasingly violent and sexually demanding in the months before the confrontation. She also claimed he was interested in young boys.

The prosecution claims she killed him in a jealous rage. She could face the death penalty if convicted of first degree murder.

Jodi Arias Trial See Tempers Flare

Earlier in the day,tempers flared between Arias and prosecutor Martinez as the prosecutor tried to detail Arias' history of spying on her boyfriends, but Arias complained that his aggressive style of questioning made her "brain scramble."

Arias and Martinez, who have sparred throughout two prior days of cross-examination, spent more than 10 minutes bickering over Martinez's word choices and his apparent "anger."

The morning's testimony, and Martinez's points about Arias' alleged spying, were largely interrupted by the spats.

"Are you having trouble understanding me?" Martinez yelled.

"Yes because sometimes cause you go in circles," Arias answered.

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GOP pushes back on Obama sequester warnings, says he should seek deal

Republicans on Monday rejected President Obama’s high-pressure push to avert a series of budget cuts called the “sequester,” saying that Obama was engaged in scare tactics and political campaigning when he should be seeking a deal.

“This is not time for a road-show president,” Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said at a news conference with other House Republicans. “This is time to look for someone who will lead and work with us, because we’re willing to work with them to solve America’s problems.”

The lawmakers criticized Obama for a planned trip Tuesday to Newport News, where Obama will highlight the impact of the cuts on the a military-driven local economy.

A trio of GOP governors also said Obama was hyping the problem.

“I think he’s trying to scare the American people,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

With just days left before $1.2 trillion in budget cuts begin to take effect, that argument was the closest thing to progress Monday. There was a new round of grim political theater — including new warnings from Cabinet secretaries about the potential impact of the cuts — but no deal or substantive negotiations.

A new Washington Post-Pew Research poll shows that the standoff has risks for both sides, but more so for the GOP. Among respondents, 45 percent said they would blame Republicans if the cuts took effect and 32 percent said they would blame Obama. An additional 13 percent said they would blame both sides equally.

Obama, for his part, has insisted that any sequester replacement must balance spending cuts with new measures to raise tax revenue. Republicans have insisted that it should not. On Monday, Obama urged a visiting group of state governors to lobby their congressional delegations.

“Here’s the thing — these cuts do not have to happen,” Obama said Monday, speaking to a gathering of the nation’s governors. “Congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit of compromise.”

The sequester is a package of spending cuts worth $85 billion for the current fiscal year and $1.2 trillion over the next decade. It was designed as a poison pill, not a real-world policy. The idea, back in 2011, was that broad cuts would be so unappealing that Washington lawmakers would be motivated to replace them with new and less-disruptive reductions.

“I don’t think the public realizes how stupid these cuts are,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said in an interview Monday with “CBS This Morning.”

“Limping from one budget crisis to another doesn’t do anything for this economy,” he added.

One reason for the lack of progress is that, on Capitol Hill, the deadline doesn’t quite feel like a deadline. In other recent budgetary showdowns, such as the debt-ceiling fight in 2011 and the “fiscal cliff” crisis this winter, there were hard deadlines with immediate, unpleasant consequences. Miss them, and Congress risked a national default or large tax hikes.

This deadline is different. Even if the sequester takes effect as scheduled on Friday, it could be weeks before the first employees are furloughed and the first effects are felt by the public. That could leave plenty of time for Congress to reverse or modify the cuts.

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DKNY apologizes for using photos without permission

NEW YORK: Donna Karan New York apologised Monday for having displayed, without permission, portraits taken by a New York photographer in its Bangkok shop windows.

The fashion house also announced, in its statement, that it was donating $25,000 to a charity chosen by and in the name of the photographer, Brandon Stanton.

Stanton, who was alerted to the Bangkok display by a fan, wrote a post Monday morning on the Facebook page of his blog "Humans of New York," condemning the use of his photos without his authorisation.

The photographer said that, several months ago, DKNY had offered him $15,000 to buy 300 photos to display in their shop windows around the world, but that he refused, judging the offer insufficient.

"I don't want any money. But please REBLOG this post if you think that DKNY should donate $100,000 on my behalf to the YMCA in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn," he wrote.

By Monday afternoon, Stanton's post was shared more than 35,000 times on Facebook, prompting DKNY's response.

The company apologised, saying the Bangkok store had mistakenly used the images from an internal mock-up.

"We apologize for this error and are working to ensure that only the approved artwork is used," the statement said.

Stanton, 27, launched his blog featuring his photos of people and life in New York City in 2010. The blog's Facebook page has more than 560,000 "likes."

-AFP/sb

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Isro does it again, 7 SATS in orbit

A five-minute delay to pre-empt an encounter withdebrisdid not dampen the spirit at Sriharikota on Monday as the satellite launch vehicle PSLV-C20 took to the skies to catapult seven satellites into orbit,including Indo-Frenchsatellite SARAL.

While initially the control room at Sriharikota was bristling with activity, a deadsilence prevailed as launch time drew close. While initially the launch time was slated for 5.56pm, the PSLV, dubbed workhorse of the Indian Space Research Organisation, took off at 6.01pm after Isro officials got wind of some debris, close to three hours before the scheduled lift-off time.

Five minutes is a significant amountof timeduring a launch since any object in space at above 500km moves at 8km per second. The delay ensured that the rocket reached the altitude after thedebrishad moved away.

Besides the Indo-French satellite with ARgos and ALtika (SARAL), India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C20), on its 23rd flight, also launched six commercial payloads from Austria, Britain, Canada and Denmark into a 785km polar sun synchronous orbit.

With seven satellites in total, this is the second highest number of satellites to be flown on a PSLV. In April 2008, it put in orbit 10 satellites, including the national Cartosat-2A, on the PSLV-C9 rocket.

The 668.5kg 44.4-metre tall rocket, with a lift-off mass of 229.7 tonnes, has been configured in a 'core-alone' format without solid strap-on motors. According to officials this is the ninthcore-aloneflightof a PSLV.

The PSLV put the 407-kg Indo-French satellite with ARgos and ALtika (SARAL) into orbit in 1077-72 seconds. SARAL will help study ocean surface and the environment using the two devices — ARgos and the ALtika. The French ALtika altimeter works on the principle of RADAR,emitting microwave pulse and picking up signals that bounce back. The time taken for the signal to return provides the distance between satellite and the sea. "This way we'll be able to measure the height of the waves and assess changes in the ocean,"said an Isro official.

Of the six smaller satellites, two each are from Canada and Austria and one each from the U K and Denmark. This includes NEOSSAT from Canada which will detect and track either near-earth asteroids or satellites in geostationary orbit.

President Pranab Mukherjee, who witnessed the launch, hailed Isro for its track record and wished the team success in its future ventures.

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Sharks Warn Off Predators By Wielding Light Sabers

Diminutive deep-sea sharks illuminate spines on their backs like light sabers to warn potential predators that they could get a sharp mouthful, a new study suggests.

Paradoxically, the sharks seem to produce light both to hide and to be conspicuous—a first in the world of glowing sharks. (See photos of other sea creatures that glow.)

"Three years ago we showed that velvet belly lanternsharks [(Etmopterus spinax)] are using counter-illumination," said lead study author Julien Claes, a biologist from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain, by email.

In counter-illumination, the lanternsharks, like many deep-sea animals, light up their undersides in order to disguise their silhouette when seen from below. Brighter bellies blend in with the light filtering down from the surface. (Related: "Glowing Pygmy Shark Lights Up to Fade Away.")

Fishing the 2-foot-long (60-centimeter-long) lanternsharks up from Norwegian fjords and placing them in darkened aquarium tanks, the researchers noticed that not only do the sharks' bellies glow, but they also had glowing regions on their backs.

The sharks have two rows of light-emitting cells, called photophores, on either side of a fearsome spine on the front edges of their two dorsal fins.

Study co-author Jérôme Mallefet explained how handling the sharks and encountering their aggressive behavior hinted at the role these radiant spines play.

"Sometimes they flip around and try to hit you with their spines," said Mallefet, also from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain. "So we thought maybe they are showing their weapon in the dark depths."

To investigate this idea, the authors analyzed the structure of the lanternshark spines and found that they were more translucent than other shark spines.

This allowed the spines to transmit around 10 percent of the light from the glowing photophores, the study said.

For Predators' Eyes Only

Based on the eyesight of various deep-sea animals, the researchers estimated that the sharks' glowing spines were visible from several meters away to predators that include harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), and blackmouth catsharks (Galeus melastomus).

"The spine-associated bioluminescence has all the characteristics to play the right role as a warning sign," said Mallefet.

"It's a magnificent way to say 'hello, here I am, but beware I have spines,'" he added.

But these luminous warning signals wouldn't impede the sharks' pursuit of their favorite prey, Mueller's bristle-mouth fish (Maurolicus muelleri), the study suggested. These fish have poorer vision than the sharks' predators and may only spot the sharks' dorsal illuminations at much closer range.

For now, it remains a mystery how the sharks create and control the lights on their backs. The glowing dorsal fins could respond to the same hormones that control the belly lights, suggested Mallefet, but other factors may also be involved.

"MacGyver" of Bioluminescence

Several other species use bioluminescence as a warning signal, including marine snails (Hinea brasiliana), glowworms (Lampyris noctiluca) and millipedes (Motyxia spp.).

Edith Widder, a marinebiologist from the Ocean Research and Conservation Association who was not involved in the current study, previously discovered a jellyfish whose bioluminescence rubs off on attackers that get too close.

"It's like paint packages in money bags at banks," she explained.

"Any animal that was foolish enough to go after it," she added "gets smeared all over with glowing particles that make it easy prey for its predators."

Widder also points out that glowing deep-sea animals often put their abilities to diverse uses. (Watch: "Why Deep-Sea Creatures Glow.")

"There are many examples of animals using bioluminescence for a whole range of different functions," she said.

Mallefet agrees, joking that these sharks are the "MacGyver of bioluminescence."

"Just give light to this shark species and it will use it in any possible way."

And while Widder doesn't discount the warning signal theory, "another possibility would be that it could be to attract a mate."

Lead author Julien Claes added by email, "I also discovered during my PhD thesis that velvet belly lanternsharks have glowing organs on their sexual parts."

And that, he admits, "makes it very easy, even for a human, to distinguish male and female of this species in the dark!"

The glowing shark study appeared online in the February 21 edition of Scientific Reports.

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Americans Targeted for Allegedly Running Underage Prostitution in Philippines

Arthur Benjamin is sitting at the edge of a small stage, wearing a lavender Hawaiian shirt and nursing a bottle of San Miguel Light beer. The 6-foot-6 mustachioed Texan lazily watches the half dozen or so girls dancing rather unenergetically around the stage's pole.

"I forgot your gift again, it's in the car," Benjamin says to one of the girls on stage, shouting above the pop music blaring from the speaker system.

The small, dingy bar, which Benjamin says he owns, is called Crow Bar. It's in a rundown part of the picturesque Subic Bay in the western Philippines, about a three hour drive from the capital, Manila. Home for 50 years to a United States naval base, Subic Bay has become synonymous with foreigners looking for sex in the long string of bars that line the main road along the coast.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

The bars in this area are often packed with older foreign men ogling the young Filipina women available for the night for a "bar fine" of around 1,500 Filipino pesos, or just over $35. Many of the bars are owned and operated by Americans, often former military servicemen who either served on the base or whose ships docked here until the base was shuttered under political pressure in 1992.

Most of the prostitutes working in the bars are indeed 18 or older. But in the Philippines, just a small scratch to the surface can reveal a layer of young, underage girls who have mostly come from impoverished rural provinces to sell their bodies to help support their families.

Benjamin, 49, is, according to his own statements, one of the countless foreigners who has moved beyond just having sex with underage girls to owning and operating a bar where girls in scantily-clad outfits flaunt their bodies for patrons.

"My wife recently found out that I have this place," he tells an ABC News "Nightline" team, unaware they are journalists and recording the conversation on tiny hidden cameras disguised as shirt buttons.

Benjamin said that a "disgruntled waitress" had written his wife on Facebook, detailing his activities in Subic Bay.

"She sent her this thing saying that I have underage girls who stayed with me, that I [have anal sex with them], I own a bar, I've got other girls that I'm putting through high school, all this other crap," he said.

"All of which is true," he laughed. "However, I have to deny."

He sends a text message summoning his current girlfriend, a petite dark-skinned girl called Jade, who he said is just 16 years old. Benjamin says he bought the bar for her about a year ago and while most still call it Crow Bar, he officially re-named it with her last name.

"She needed a place to stay, I needed a place to do her. I bought a bar for her," he says, explaining that she lives in a house out back by the beach.

"You're not going to find anything like this in the States, not as a guy my age," he said as he looked down at Jade. "Ain't going to happen."

Benjamin is the latest target of Father Shay Cullen, a Catholic priest with a thick Irish brogue and fluency in the local language, Tagalog. Through his non-profit center called Preda, he's been crusading against underage sex trafficking in the Philippines for 40 years.

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Legislative branch prepares for spending cuts

Lawmakers will return to work Monday after a week-long break, with $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect in four days.

Congressional offices and agencies have remained largely quiet on the issue compared with the executive branch, where top officials — from President Obama to Cabinet members such as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta — have warned against the budget cuts known as sequestration, in speeches and with testimonies before congressional committees.

But that doesn’t mean the legislative branch would escape cuts.

The sequester would not affect lawmaker salaries, since their pay does not come from discretionary spending. But the reductions would hit their individual offices, as well as all legislative-branch agencies such as the Library of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office and U.S. Capitol Police.

Agencies that have sent letters to employees have noted similar strategies: imposing hiring freezes, reducing travel expenses, trimming funding for technology upgrades and reworking some contracts.

Furloughs stand out as one of the greatest concerns among federal workers, because they mean less pay for the year and fewer days for employees to do their jobs.

Some congressional agencies have said they expect to avoid unpaid leave if the sequester happens, while others have said they may resort to the measure for a few days.

The Government Accountability Office told employees in a memo last week that furloughs probably wouldn’t be necessary for the agency, based on the latest estimates for a reduction target.

“We have been allocating our funds since the start of the fiscal year in a very conservative manner, recognizing that sequestration might go into effect,” Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro said in the memo.

“We project that we would no longer require furloughs at GAO this year to absorb the potential reduction associated with sequestration,” Dodaro added.

Likewise, a spokesman for the Architect of the Capitol said in an e-mail last week that the organization doesn’t think furloughs will be necessary to meet the reduction target.

What remains to be seen is just what the reduction targets would be. The latest estimate from the White House budget office said the sequester would require across-the-board cuts of “roughly 5 percent for non-Defense programs.”

The Congressional Budget Office calculated 5.3 percent for the same category.

Even based on those estimates, some legislative agencies don’t think they can avoid furloughs under the sequester.

The Library of Congress last week warned its employees that the cuts would probably require four days of unpaid leave, with individual workers scheduling one of those days in coordination with supervisors, while the other three would come during library closings at times when the facilities would normally be open.

The Government Printing Office wasn’t so specific, saying by e-mail that “furloughs may also have to be implemented” in addition to plans for a hiring freeze, limits on overtime and reductions in travel and training.

Although the sequester could have an impact on lawmakers’ local and Capitol Hill offices, it remains unclear how many members of Congress would impose layoffs, furloughs or pay cuts to meet the reduction targets. Only those who expect to avoid such measures commented for this report.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said his office prepared for the sequester during the past year by stopping pay raises, reducing travel, eliminating its staff retreat and cutting back on mailings — resorting to more cost-effective digital communications instead.

“We’ve kept awfully lean this year just on the assumption that this might happen,” Cole said. “We’ll make the adjustments, but we won’t have to furlough and we won’t reduce services in terms of case work or answering constituent questions.”

The automatic cuts were established with the intent that they would be so undesirable that lawmakers would be motivated to reach a budget compromise. But with the cuts days away and Democrats and Republicans as far apart as ever, observers say the reductions appear to be inevitable.

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N. Korea nuclear test a threat to Koreans' survival: Park

SEOUL: South Korea's new president Park Geun-Hye on Monday labelled North Korea's nuclear test a threat to the survival of the Korean people, but vowed a "step-by-step" policy of engagement with Pyongyang.

"North Korea's recent nuclear test is a challenge to the survival and future of the Korean people," Park said in her inauguration speech after being sworn in as South Korea's first female president.

- AFP/ck

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Copter deal fixer specializes in India

NEW DELHI: Security services in Algeria, commercial promotions in India, supply of specialized personnel in the Middle East and more.

Guido Haschke, the Swiss resident who was allegedly one of the key middlemen in the VVIP helicopter deal with India, almost sounds like a global consortium with several specializations across the globe in the internal documents of Finmeccanica group. Or was he a key conduit for funneling out money from the Italian group`s various companies?

According to internal documents of Finmeccanica group reviewed by TOI, Haschke and his companies were paid at least 2.65 million euros (approx Rs 18.55 crore) between 2005 and 2011 for several activities across several countries. These are besides the payments that were made to companies such as IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix, and other front companies.

The documents point towards an extremely cozy relationship between the Italian-US citizen and the consortium. It also shows the blessings enjoyed by Haschke from the Finmeccanica top brass, especially former chairman Giuseppe Orsi, which emerges in the several taped conversations between Hashcke and other suspects during the ongoing Italian probe.

Without such a considerate approach from Finmeccanica, he couldn`t have won so many diverse contracts. There is no clear indication yet that Haschke and his companies had all these capabilities shown in the contracts.

India definitely was his main playground. Haschke had several contracts with Finmeccanica group companies in India at least until March 2012 when details of the scandal began to emerge in Italian media. Investigations show that Haschke and his companies handled kickbacks of 21 million euros in the Rs 3,546 crore deal for buying 12 VVIP helicopters for the IAF in 2010. Christian Michel, a UK citizen based in Dubai, handled another 30 million euros in kickbacks, according to Italian investigators.

AgustaWestland entered into three consultancy agreements between December 2005 and September 2007 with Haschke in India. According to a report submitted to the Finmeccanica board after the scandal broke, these were "concerning scouting for the sale of civilian helicopters in India, for which fees totalling 400,000 euros were paid". The report told the board, "Those agreements have no connection with the subsequent supply of the 12 helicopters discussed" in the controversy.

Alenia Aermacchi, the aerospace arm of Finmeccanica, paid Haschke 300,000 euros in financial year 2011-12 under what is called a "service agreement". It is not clear what specific services Haschke provided to the company, which is pitching its C-27J transport aircraft to the Indian military.

Another Finmeccanica company OtoMelara, which is looking to supply its land and naval systems to Indian forces, had a "service agreement" with Haschke in the 2011-12 financial year for 58,000 euros. Ansaldo Energia, the power engineering company of Finmeccanica group, entered into two commercial support contracts and one contract for the supply of specialized personnel with Haschke in India. Under a contract signed on June 15, 2006, he was paid 202,000 euros for "acquisition of an order from a private Indian party". A second contract dated January 15, 2011 was for supply of spare parts for a plant in India, with a fee of 249,000 euros.

Ansaldo Breda, which is into road and rail systems, entered into a commercial promotion contract in India from November 1, 2008 to October 31, 2009, and paid Haschke 120,000 euros. Haschke`s contracts with Finmeccanica group companies were not just limited to India.

Ansaldo Energia, through its Abu Dhabi branch, had a contract for "specialized personnel" for assembly and work site activities in the Middle East and North Africa with Haschke. The agreement started from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2006 at an annual cost of 600,000 euros. Ansaldo Energia also had a contract with Haschke for security services for a work site in Algeria during 2007-2010, and he was paid a total fee of 1.14 million euros.

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Picture Archive: Dorothy Lamour and Jiggs, Circa 1938

Dorothy Lamour, most famous for her Road to ... series of movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, never won an Oscar. In her 50-plus-year career as an actress, she never even got nominated.

Neither did Jiggs the chimpanzee, pictured here with Lamour on the set of Her Jungle Love in a photo published in the 1938 National Geographic story "Monkey Folk."

No animal has ever been nominated for an Oscar. According to Academy Award rules, only actors and actresses are eligible.

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier from last year's best picture winner, The Artist, didn't rate a nod. The equines that portrayed Seabiscuit and War Horse, movies that were best picture contenders in their respective years, were also snubbed.

Even the seven piglets that played Babe, the eponymous star of the best picture nominee in 1998, didn't rate. And the outlook seems to be worsening for the animal kingdom's odds of ever getting its paws on that golden statuette.

This year, two movies nominated in the best picture category had creatures that were storyline drivers with significant on-screen time. Neither Beasts of the Southern Wild (which featured extinct aurochs) or Life of Pi (which featured a CGI Bengal tiger named Richard Parker) used real animals.

An Oscar's not the only way for animals to get ahead, though. Two years after this photo was published, the American Humane Association's Los Angeles Film & TV Unit was established to monitor and protect animals working on show business sets. The group's creation was spurred by the death of a horse during the filming of 1939's Jessie James.

Today, it's still the only organization that stamps "No Animals Were Harmed" onto a movie's closing credits.

Editor's note: This is part of a series of pieces that looks at the news through the lens of the National Geographic photo archives.

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