DAGUPAN CITY Two armed men shot and killed Urbiztondo town Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr., his police escort and an electrician on Saturday near an area in the town where the mayor was supposed to hold his 25th wedding anniversary party today, Sunday.

Balolong was at the back of the towns convention center around 8:50 a.m. when armed men in a Toyota Innova drove up and opened fire, police said.

The mayor was inspecting the venue for his wedding anniversary and for the wedding of his son, Urbiztondo Councilor Voltaire Balolong, which were to take place simultaneously.

The gunmen alighted from the Innova and had calmly approached the mayor before they opened fire, according to a witness.

The witness said Balolong managed to scamper away but was felled by another shot. One of the gunmen approached Balolong and shot him at point-blank range, the witness said.

Targets

Police said Balolong and his escort, Police Officer 1 Eliseo Ulanday (not Umanday as earlier reported), were the apparent targets of the attack. Edmund Meneses, a supermarket electrician, was caught in the barrage of the bullets.

The attack also wounded Jose Vigilia, an employee of CSI Supermarket, and Rogelio Esguerra, a soy drink vendor.

Balolong was immediately taken to Elguira General Hospital in San Carlos City. But Dr. Samuel Elguira, owner of the hospital, said the mayor was already dead when he arrived in the hospital about an hour later, 9:55 a.m.

He had 27 gunshot wounds in his chest, his back and his arms, Elguira said.

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Pangasinan mayor killed on eve of anniversary, sons wedding

DAGUPAN CITYTwo armed men shot to death Urbiztondo town Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr, his police escort, and an electricianat 8:50 a.m. on Saturday (June 7)near an area where he was supposed to hold his 25th wedding anniversary on Sunday.

Urbiztondo town Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr. Photo from urbiztondopangasinan.gov.ph

The slain mayor was at the back of the towns convention center building when armed men drove up in a vehicle and opened fire, police said. Balolong was inspecting the venue for his wedding anniversary, as well as the wedding of his son, Councilor Voltaire Balolong, that would havesimultaneouslytaken place.

The gunmen alighted from a black Toyota Innova, and had calmly approached the mayor before they opened fire, according to a witness.

The witness said the slain mayor managed to scamper away but he was felled by another shot. One of the gunmen approached Balolong to shoot the mayor at point blank range.

Balolong Jr. and PO1 Eliseo Umanday were the apparent targets of the attack, but Edmund Meneses, a supermarket electrician, was caught in the barrage of the bullets.

The attack also injured Jose Vigilia, an employee of the CSI Supermarket, and Rogelio Esguerra, a taho (soy drink) vendor.

Balolong was immediately taken to the Elguira General Hospital in San Carlos City. But Dr. Samuel Elguira, hospital owner, said that Balolong was already dead when he arrived in the hospital at about 9:55 a.m.

He had 27 gunshot wounds, in his chest and his back, Elguira said in an interview at Aksyon Radyo Pangasinan here.

Senior Superintendent Sterling Raymund Blanco, provincial director, said investigators were already in the area.

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Pangasinan town mayor shot dead

The National Party has announced that Alfred Ngaro will be its candidate for the Te Atatu electorate at the 2014 General Election.

Mr Ngaro was selected by a meeting of local party members tonight.

"Alfred has been tireless in representing Aucklands diversity, ensuring that all communities have a strong voice in Government. His experience makes him an outstanding candidate, and he will be a great representative for Te Atatu if elected in September," said Northern Regional Chair Andrew Hunt.

"National won the party vote here last time and well be working hard to do it again by getting all our supporters in Te Atatu out to vote."

"I also want to thank Tau Henare for his dedication to the electorate as a List MP over the past nine years."

Mr Ngaro said he was honoured to receive the nomination and was looking forward to the challenge ahead.

"Its incredibly humbling to be chosen to contest the seat for National and Te Atatus communities," said Mr Ngaro.

"Under John Keys leadership, this National-led Government is delivering real opportunities for West Aucklanders.

"Weve been focussed on bringing more jobs and better public services to the region, and I am committed to ensuring that Te Atatu has a strong local voice in National at the election."

Alfred Ngaro - Biographical Notes

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National selects Alfred Ngaro as Te Atatu candidate

Republicans and Democrats have decided on their candidates in the race to replace Precinct 4 County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson: KROV-FM general manager Democrat Tommy Calvert and Republican Tim Wilson, mayor of Kirby, will face off in November.

The field for the two major parties originally crowded with nine candidates was narrowed in last week's primary runoff elections as Wilson edged Windcrest mayor Alan Baxter with 52 percent of the vote in the Republican primary and Calvert cruised past SAISD board member Debra Guerrero with 65 percent of the Democratic vote.

Matt Lerma of the Green Party, the third candidate on the November ballot, was nominated by convention March 15.

For his part, Wilson, who's also a CPS Energy electrician, said that if elected, he wants to focus on diverting the county's focus from big projects to more basic needs.

This government shouldn't be about special projects, special interests, and special areas of the county, Wilson said. Stuff like streetcars, the San Pedro creeks are these the best things to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on?

It's time to fasten our belts, and that begins at the top, Wilson added. We need to sit down and come up with a plan to prioritize what we actually need.

This means focusing on expanded fire and police coverage for the 60-plus unincorporated neighborhoods across Precinct 4, Wilson said. He also plans to push for basic improvements to infrastructure, such as road repairs and street lighting.

We need to fight for street lights in neighborhoods, Wilson noted. We have kids walking home, playing out there at night, and lights make that safer for them.

Police and fire (coverage), that has to be No. 1, he added. That's what people expect.

Calvert said that if elected in November, he was looking forward to fighting for a neglected area.

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Calvert, Wilson set for November showdown

Jimmy McManus slides up his shorts and points a laser at his inked thigh to show how he can blast off unwanted tattoos.

The part-time electrician began offering the service at Chapel Tattoo in Melbourne eight months ago to address a byproduct of the global body art boom: tattoo regret. Removing the skin designs has become a roaring trade, with one in seven people expressing misgivings -- some enough to spend thousands of dollars for several searing laser sessions.

Its a painful reminder to choose your tattoos a bit more carefully, McManus, 30, says of the procedure hes just demonstrated on his leg.

Chapel Tattoo isnt the only studio to begin offering to undo its handiwork, entering a new line of business as ultrahigh-powered lasers pioneered by dermatologists make the procedure safer and more bearable. The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery estimates its practitioner-members did about 96,000 removal procedures last year, 52 percent more than in 2012.

Tattoo removal is big business, said Andrew Timming, an associate professor at the University of St Andrews school of management in Scotland. Tattoo parlors doubling as removal shops are a brilliant business model because it creates its own demand.

It also drives growth in laser devices. Revenue from sales of aesthetic equipment by publicly traded companies expanded 20 percent annually from 2009 to 2012 and is now worth about $1.25 billion, according to Cutera Inc. (CUTR), a supplier of laser and light-based medical devices from Brisbane, California. Israels Syneron Medical Ltd. (FDG) says its the industry leader, with 28 percent of the global market.

One in five U.S. adults has a tattoo, according to a 2012 online survey of 2,016 Americans by the Harris Poll. Thats up from 16 percent in 2008. Many may end up changing their mind. Thirty-seven percent of people with inked skin regretted it after about 14 years, according to a survey of 580 people in the U.K. published in a letter to the British Journal of Dermatology last December.

Tattoo-regret seems to take about 10 years to set in and, since tattoos were widely popular in the early 2000s and still are today, my suspicion is that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, said Will Kirby, a dermatologist and medical director at Dr. Tattoff Inc., which runs a 10-store chain of tattoo-removal centers in the U.S.

Stephanie, who works in Melbournes film industry, expects to pay about A$2,000 ($1,850) for as many as 10 laser sessions to remove an orange-sized tattoo around her navel. The red, yellow and black stylized sun cost her about A$150 17 years ago.

I am happy to spend anything to get rid of it because I have to look at it every day and it makes me cringe, said the 35-year-old, who asked not to be identified by her last name to protect her privacy. I dont really want a tattoo. And I dont have the stomach I had when I was 18.

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Boom in tattoo laser removal

Posted: May 26 Updated: Today at 12:04 AM He enjoyed a privileged childhood, endured forced labor, rose in the military and then to power.

By Peter Finn The Washington Post

Wojciech Jaruzelski, the expressionless Polish general behind dark glasses who imposed martial law in 1981 to crush the independent trade union Solidarity and nearly eight years later participated in the negotiated revolution that led to the fall of communism in Poland, died Sunday at a military hospital in Warsaw. He was 90.

click image to enlarge

Polands last communist leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski, photographed in 2009, died in a military hospital in Warsaw on Sunday.

The Associated Press

A hospital spokesman announced the death. The general had a stroke this month and had previously been treated for cancer.

Jaruzelski, the scion of landed gentry, was deported to the Soviet Union as a forced laborer in 1941 and returned to Poland later in World War II as a committed communist in the ranks of the Soviet-created Polish First Army.

Starting in the 1950s, he rose rapidly in the military and political establishments of the new Peoples Republic of Poland. After the Soviet-backed governments fall in 1989, Jaruzelskis past was at the center of post-communist debates about historical reckoning and justice.

MOSCOW'S STOOGE, OR PATRIOT?

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Polands Wojciech Jaruzelski, 90, led crush of Solidarity

Polands last Communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski has died at the age of 90.

General Jaruzelski had been in ill health for some time and had been hospitalised in recent years with serious health problems.

Jaruzelski made his mark on history when he declared martial law in a crackdown on the trade union opposition movement known as Solidarity.

The man behind that movement was Lech Walesa, an electrician by trade.

Walesa organised illegal strikes at the Gdansk shipyard in protest at poor living standards and to defend workers rights.

Jaruzelski later took control of the army and the Polish Communist Party and was named as prime minister.

Amid severe economic hardship, he banned protests and industrial action and jailed Solidaritys leaders.

An estimated 100 people died during Polands 19 months under martial law.

The then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began to shift towards changing the Soviet Union with his ideas of Glasnost Perestroika.

Finally it was the Soviets who imposed negotiating with Solidarity on the allied Polish military government.

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Poland's General Jaruzelski has died, aged 90

Wojciech Jaruzelski, the expressionless Polish general behind dark glasses who imposed martial law in 1981 to crush the independent trade union Solidarity and nearly eight years later participated in the negotiated revolution that led to the fall of communism in Poland, died Sunday at a military hospital in Warsaw. He was 90.

A hospital spokesman announced the death. The general had a stroke this month and had previously been treated for cancer.

Gen. Jaruzelski, the scion of landed gentry, was deported to the Soviet Union as a forced laborer in 1941 and returned to Poland later in World War II as a committed communist in the ranks of the Soviet-created Polish First Army.

Starting in the 1950s, he rose rapidly in the military and political establishments of the new Peoples Republic of Poland. After the Soviet-backed governments fall in 1989, Gen. Jaruzelskis past was at the center of post-communist debates about historical reckoning and justice.

Gen. Jaruzelski was accused of being Moscows stooge, and his political foes repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to have him punished for his role in the bloody suppression of protests against the system. He defended himself as a patriot who was forced into the impossible choice of smothering Solidarity himself or watching the Soviet army do it. He said he feared a Soviet invasion would result in carnage; his critics dismissed that as a convenient mirage.

I served the Poland that existed, Gen. Jaruzelski said in one of his many exculpatory assessments of his record.

Some saw something incorruptible in the ascetic and disciplined officer.

He was perhaps the only man in Poland who was a Communist because he believed in communism, journalist Tina Rosenberg wrote in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Haunted Land: Facing Europes Ghosts After Communism. Even Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, the generals onetime nemesis, thought Gen. Jaruzelski loved his country but was born in the wrong era.

A young nationalist aristocrat

Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski (pronounced VOI-chekh, VEE-told, yah-roo-ZEL-skee) was born July 6, 1923, and grew up on an estate in eastern Poland. Local peasants bowed to the family as they passed in their carriage on the way to Sunday Mass, he recalled.

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Wojciech Jaruzelski, Polands last communist leader, dies at 90

African Burying Ground project continues to move forward

PORTSMOUTH A new utility pole on Chestnut Street that signals the start of relocating overhead lines on the road is a tangible sign of work to come on the African Burying Ground project.

The pole at the corner of State and Chestnut streets was relocated by the city's public works crews, in consultation with the state archaeologist. In the weeks to come, as the city procures permits from various utilities, the goal is for most of the overhead lines to be moved to the sides of the street to "improve the view shed," said Community Development Director David Moore.

"The amount of coordination and work it takes to get something like that done is significant," he said. "It's a great dry run" for the future burying ground project.

Meanwhile, Assistant City Manager Dave Allen said he would "hope to have clarity within the next month" on the next steps for the burying ground project itself.

A memorial park is expected to be built at the Chestnut Street site, where the remains of 13 Africans were discovered during utility work in 2003. Eight of those bodies were exhumed and are being stored to be reinterred when the park is built.

The African Burying Ground Committee has since raised $1.1 million to build the park.

The city is currently going through the process to procure a general contractor for the project. Requests for qualifications, or RFQs, were submitted this spring by a number of teams that include a general contractor, landscape firm, electrician, paving company, mason and metal worker.

A committee that includes city employees and burying ground committee members reviewed those RFQs, and several teams were subsequently asked to submit proposals.

Allen said the committee is currently reviewing those proposals and interviewing the teams. Allen and Moore made clear that they can't comment further on the process until after a team is chosen.

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Portsmouth power pole a sign of future park

Pete Ricketts, the republican nominee for Nebraska Governor, visited Beatrice Wednesday.

This was the first visit to Gage County for the Omaha businessman since his win in the May 13 primary elections. Ricketts will meet democratic nominee Chuck Hassebrook in the Nov. 4 general election.

Ricketts said one of the major differences between he and his opponent is their opposing stances on the expansion of Medicaid. Ricketts said instead of expanding the social health care program, hed like to see a bigger spotlight shed on job training.

Im more about getting people off government dependency and give them this job training and skills to take those jobs, Ricketts explained. We have lots of jobs available all across the state, especially if you have skills in being an electrician, or a welder or a machinist. We can help people get that job training to be able to take those jobs.

Ricketts said his opponent also supports raising the minimum wage. Ricketts said during his travels across the state, hes met numerous business owners against the raise.

Ive talked to business owners who say my income doesnt go up if you raise the minimum wage. Ill either have to take my prices up, or lay people off or both, Ricketts said. It just hurts the very people youre trying to help. We have a very, very different approach there.

Ricketts is the former president of Ameritrade. He said his experience in the private sector gives the upper hand in devising strategies for sustainable tax relief for Nebraska.

If were going to have sustainable tax relief, which is something we need to have in the state, we have to cut our costs at state government, Ricketts said. Ive done that in the real world. Thats what we did at Ameritrade to be able to grow the company. We took leveraged technology and best business practices to drive down the cost and do a better job of delivering services.

Ricketts said he wants to use his time as governor to cut high income taxes, which serve as an expansion barrier for Nebraskas businesses.

I was talking to a company in Kearney that said Pete, we just did a big expansion, but we probably wont make that same decision again because in Nebraska youre too expensive. Between property taxes and income taxes, we have other choices of states we can expand in, and well probably go somewhere else next time.

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Ricketts visits Beatrice