News Corp. is officially breaking up with itself

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Friends reel from shooting of teen lesbian couple

Courtesy of Jillian Manuel

Rainbow ribbons, goodbye messages, flowers and cut-out hearts were left near the site where police believe Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, were shot last week in Portland, Tex.

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

Friends and family of two teenage girls in a same-sex relationship who were shot in the head in a South Texas park expressed shock and grief Tuesday over the incident in which one of the young women was killed and the other severely injured.

Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, were found in knee-deep grass in a nature area in Portland by a couple Saturday, said Portland Police Chief Randy Wright, who confirmed to msnbc.com details first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller Times.

---

Rainbow ribbons, goodbye messages, flowers and cut-out hearts were posted around the site where they were found. On Friday, a candlelight vigil and walk will be held for Chapa and Olgin.

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?It?s something that I think all of us are going to carry with us for a while,? Frank Reyna, a friend of both girls, told msnbc.com. ?It?s going to take a while to get past this, the idea that there is somebody still out there that did this to these two amazing, beautiful people and that they?re walking free right now.?

Olgin, originally from Ingleside but recently living in Corpus Christi, died; Chapa, of Sinton, was rushed to a hospital where she had surgery and was in serious but stable condition on Sunday, local NBC affiliate kristv.com reported. Wright said Chapa was still in the hospital on Monday.

Police are investigating the shooting of two teenage girls in a same-sex relationship in a small Texas community along the Gulf of Mexico. KRIS reporter Lindsay Curtis has the story.

Wright said police had recovered a bullet casing from a large-caliber gun at the scene, but they haven?t found the weapon. A resident living nearby reported hearing two loud bangs Friday before midnight but believed?they were?from firecrackers, the newspaper said.

?If we had a name, you know, we?d be having a different conversation right now. But we have not been able to gather enough information to identify a suspect yet,? Wright said Monday. ?It appears as if ? this was not just a random attack but that?s something that we really have to develop over time.?

Courtesy of Jillian Manuel

A makeshift memorial was set up near the site where police believe Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, were attacked last week in Portland, Tex.

Two calls placed Tuesday to Wright seeking an update on the case were not immediately returned.

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park

Chandler Nunez, who noted that Olgin was one of her best friends in high school, said she was in shock.

? ? I cannot imagine anyone who would want to hurt such a loving and caring person,? she wrote to msnbc.com. ?This was incredibly unexpected and the lack of answers makes this tragedy all the more frustrating.?

Friends told kristv.com that the pair had been a couple for five months. Wright said he didn?t have any information about their relationship, noting that ?we understood from their friends that they were (in a romantic relationship). I know from ? Mollie?s parents that they were very close.?

Reyna, a 19-year-old university student, said he grew up with Chapa, and met Olgin his sophomore year of high school. He described Chapa as an athlete who played softball, and said Olgin, now a student at a nearby university, was focused on academics but also was a big joker. He last saw them together at a local coffee shop in May, which was the first time he saw them out as a couple.

?I?m glad that that was the last time that I saw Mollie in person, that that?s the memory that I can live with for the rest of my life, knowing that I saw her happy,? he said.

The couple?s relationship ?was a readily accepted thing,? he added, and was not what their friends focused on.

?We focused on their personalities and how they got along with everybody else ? their kindheartedness and their ability to just make other people smile and make each other smile,? he said. ?We didn?t care ? what they were, it?s who they were.?

When asked if police had been able to determine if the girls' sexuality played any role in the shootings, Wright told msnbc.com on Monday: ?That?s always something that we?re looking for, but as of this point, we have not been able to establish that that had anything to do with the attack.?

He also said they had been in communication with Chapa. He noted all indications were that ?third parties? were involved in the assault.

The park, more of nature area with some parts overgrown and no lights, was often frequented by visitors during the day, but not at night. It is located along a bluff overlooking a bay, Wright said, with some homes situated nearby.

?We?re not really sure how they got to the point that they were found,? he said. ?It is a scenic overlook with a wooden deck and there is a place at the edge of the deck where you can actually go down a very steep incline into a grassy area that leads down to the shoreline and that?s where they were found.?

Courtesy of Kristen Veit

Charlene Camp, Hilary Avila, Myracle Taylor, Bailey Sanders, Jillian Manuel, Tim Robinson (behind Manuel), Kristen Veit, LuAnn Garza, Valerie Tanon and Franceska Hiracheta were some of the couple's friends and well-wishers who created a memorial at the site around where police believe the young women were attacked last week in Portland, Tex.

While people in the South Texas community prepare for their memorial service, another candlelight vigil for the pair has been organized by Cleve Jones, a gay civil rights activist who conceived the AIDS Memorial Quilt, for Wednesday evening in San Francisco.

"You were taken too soon," Megan Olgin, who identified herself as Olgin?s sister on Facebook, wrote in a post. "I love you and always will. You're my guardian angel. I love you little sister. Forever and always ?"

Editor's note: Chapa's friends spell her name as Kristene, though the Portland police list it as Christine. Calls placed to the police to clarify were not immediately returned.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

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Wife testifies for Texas stand-your-ground convict

Raul Rodriguez sits in court in the beginning of his trial at Harris County Criminal Courthouse on Monday, June 25, 2012, in Houston. Relatives of Rodriguez, who claimed Texas' version of a stand-your-ground law allowed him to fatally shoot a neighbor after an argument about a noisy party, told jurors Monday he was not an abusive person and always stressed the importance of gun safety. He faces up to life in prison for the 2010 killing of Kelly Danaher. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Mayra Beltran)

Raul Rodriguez sits in court in the beginning of his trial at Harris County Criminal Courthouse on Monday, June 25, 2012, in Houston. Relatives of Rodriguez, who claimed Texas' version of a stand-your-ground law allowed him to fatally shoot a neighbor after an argument about a noisy party, told jurors Monday he was not an abusive person and always stressed the importance of gun safety. He faces up to life in prison for the 2010 killing of Kelly Danaher. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Mayra Beltran)

Raul Rodriguez, right, stands with his attorney Bill Stradley as he is found guilty of killing Kelly Danaher Wednesday, June 13, 2012, in Houston. A jury convicted Rodriguez of murdering his neighbor during a confrontation outside the neighbor's home two years ago, rejecting his claim that he was within his rights to fatally shoot the man under Texas' version of a stand-your-ground law. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Brett Coomer) MANDATORY CREDIT

HOUSTON (AP) ? The wife of a man who claimed Texas' version of a stand-your-ground law allowed him to fatally shoot a neighbor told jurors Tuesday her husband is very remorseful about the deadly incident.

Raul Rodriguez, 46, faces up to life in prison after being convicted of murder in the 2010 killing of Kelly Danaher.

"I hear him cry at night. I hear him have dreams and nightmares about what happened ... it tears him up. He's not the same," Donna Rodriguez testified as the punishment phase of her husband's trial continued Tuesday. Both Rodriguez and his wife cried as she testified.

Rodriguez, a retired Houston-area firefighter, went to Danaher's home to confront him about the noise coming from a birthday party there. He got into an argument with Danaher, a 36-year-old elementary school teacher, and two other men who were at the party.

In a 22-minute video he recorded the night of the shooting, Rodriguez can be heard telling a police dispatcher "my life is in danger now" and "these people are going to go try and kill me." He then said, "I'm standing my ground here," and shot Danaher. The two other men were wounded. A jury convicted Rodriguez on June 13.

Rodriguez's reference to standing his ground is similar to the claim made by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who is citing Florida's stand-your-ground law in his defense in the fatal February shooting of an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin. Rodriguez's case, however, was decided under a different kind of self-defense doctrine.

During the trial, prosecutors have portrayed Rodriguez as a neighborhood bully who took a gun to complain about loud music and could have safely walked away from the confrontation in Huffman, an unincorporated area about 30 miles northeast of Houston, any time before the shooting. Defense attorneys argued Rodriguez, who had a concealed handgun permit, was defending himself when one of the men lunged at him and he had less than a second to respond.

Prosecution witnesses, including former co-workers and neighbors, told jurors during the punishment phase that Rodriguez was abusive, a bad neighbor and once shot a dog.

Thirteen witnesses for Rodriguez have contradicted those claims, saying he was not abusive or a gun fanatic and that he shot the dog when it threatened his family.

Donna Rodriguez specifically denied claims that her husband had pulled a gun on his ex-wife and another neighbor over a different noise complaint, had been abusive to their children and that he walked around their neighborhood, including to a school bus stop to pick up their children, with his handgun in plain view, intimidating people.

Donna Rodriguez, who was being treated for breast cancer when the fatal shooting happened, also testified about her husband's service in the U.S. Navy, his work as a firefighter and how a work accident left him disabled with injuries to his neck, spine, shoulder and back. She also testified her husband got along with his neighbors and once rushed to the aid of one who had suffered a heart attack.

She was expected to be the last defense witness. Prosecutors were expected to present a couple of rebuttal witnesses before closing arguments.

Texas' version of a stand-your-ground law is known as the Castle Doctrine. It was revised in 2007 to expand the right to use deadly force. The new version allows people to defend themselves in their homes, workplaces or vehicles. It also says a person using force cannot provoke the attacker or be involved in criminal activity at the time. Legal experts say the expansion in general gave people wider latitude on the use of deadly force.

Associated Press

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European court upholds most of Microsoft fine

FILE - This set of flagpoles sits at one of the entrances to Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Wash., in this Oct.19, 1998 file photo. The General Court of the European Union has upheld most of a massive fine against Microsoft Corp. by the European Commission's competition watchdog in 2008. In a ruling Wednesday, June 27, 2012, it rejected Microsoft's appeal but did cut the fine by ?39 million to ?860 million ($1.1 billion). (AP Photo/Joe Brokert, File)

FILE - This set of flagpoles sits at one of the entrances to Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Wash., in this Oct.19, 1998 file photo. The General Court of the European Union has upheld most of a massive fine against Microsoft Corp. by the European Commission's competition watchdog in 2008. In a ruling Wednesday, June 27, 2012, it rejected Microsoft's appeal but did cut the fine by ?39 million to ?860 million ($1.1 billion). (AP Photo/Joe Brokert, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2007 file photo Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates speaks during a ceremony in Bucharest, Romania. A European court on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 upheld most of a massive fine levied against Microsoft by the European Commission's competition watchdog, closing a case against the software giant that began in 1998. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2011 file photo, European Union Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels. A European court on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 upheld most of a massive fine levied against Microsoft by the European Commission's competition watchdog, closing a case against the software giant that began in 1998. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

FILE - This set of flagpoles sits at one of the entrances to Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Wash., in this Oct.19, 1998 file photo. The General Court of the European Union has upheld most of a massive fine against Microsoft Corp. by the European Commission's competition watchdog in 2008. In a ruling Wednesday, June 27, 2012, it rejected Microsoft's appeal but did cut the fine by ?39 million to ?860 million ($1.1 billion). (AP Photo/Joe Brokert, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) ? A European court on Wednesday upheld most of a massive fine levied against Microsoft by the European Commission's competition watchdog, closing a case against the software giant that began in 1998.

In an appeals ruling, the General Court of the European Union rejected Microsoft Corp.'s request to dismiss the fine levied in 2008, but did trim it by ?39 million to ?860 million ($1.1 billion). Counting two earlier fines, the case has wound up costing Microsoft a grand total of ?1.64 billion.

That's the most ever resulting from a single antitrust case in Europe, though in 2009 Intel Corp. was hit with the largest single fine, ?1.09 billion.

The court in Luxembourg said its decision "essentially upholds the Commission's decision and rejects all the arguments put forward by Microsoft in support of annulment."

The ?860 million fine is a "penalty for noncompliance" with the watchdog's 2004 order for Microsoft to make computer programming code available that would allow competitors' products to interface properly with Microsoft's server software.

Microsoft did so, but at a price the Commission said was so exorbitant it amounted to not complying.

The court upheld that finding, but said Microsoft deserved a small break because of a letter the Commission sent in 2005 saying the company didn't have to freely distribute code that wasn't its own and was freely available elsewhere. That letter gave Microsoft some room to think it was okay to continue acting the way it had until 2004, and should have been "taken into account in determining the gravity of the conduct found to be unlawful," the written decision said.

The Commission's top regulator Joaquin Almunia said the judgment "fully vindicates" his office's action against Microsoft and "brought significant benefits to users."

"A range of innovative products that would otherwise not have seen the light of day were introduced on the market," thanks to the Commission, he said.

Microsoft was less enthusiastic.

"Although the General Court slightly reduced the fine, we are disappointed with the Court's ruling," the company said in a statement.

Microsoft was initially fined ?497 million along with the 2004 order, then it was penalized another ?280.5 million for noncompliance in 2006, and then another ?899 million in 2008.

The company has already booked provisions for all the fines and penalties and after the ruling it has no active outstanding quarrels with European regulators.

"In 2009 Microsoft entered into a broad understanding with the Commission that resolved its competition law concerns," the company said.

Most notably in the 2009 deal, Microsoft ended an investigation into allegedly abusive practices for bundling its Internet Explorer web browser along with its operating systems. Microsoft agreed to instead offer customers a range of browsers to choose from.

In a sign of the times, Microsoft itself turned to the watchdog in 2012, asking it to investigate Google Inc. for anticompetitive practices. Microsoft alleged that Google was demanding unreasonable fees to license its technologies and asking courts to pull Microsoft products from shelves if they don't pay up. Google shot back with a similar request for the Commission to again investigate Microsoft last month.

Many observers say companies such as Apple Inc., Google and Microsoft are increasingly acting as "patent trolls," using the legal and regulatory systems as tools to thwart competitors as part of their wider struggle for market share.

Almunia said in February "the Commission will continue to keep a close eye on the behavior of all market players in the sector, particularly the increasingly strategic use of patents."

Associated Press

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No HCR Today (talking-points-memo)

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Biggest Mac: McDonald's at Olympics is the biggest

Rachel Lucian, assistant manager of the newly constructed McDonald's restaurant at the Olympic Park in east London, poses for the photographers, Monday, June 25, 2012. The restaurant is designed to be reusable and recyclable after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Rachel Lucian, assistant manager of the newly constructed McDonald's restaurant at the Olympic Park in east London, poses for the photographers, Monday, June 25, 2012. The restaurant is designed to be reusable and recyclable after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Jill McDonald, CEO of McDonald's UK, backdropped by the newly constructed McDonald's restaurant at the Olympic Park, poses for the photographers in east London, Monday, June 25, 2012. The restaurant is designed to be reusable and recyclable after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

The Olympic Stadium is seen from the newly constructed McDonald's restaurant at the Olympic Park in east London, Monday, June 25, 2012. The restaurant is designed to be reusable and recyclable after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

A view of the newly constructed McDonald's restaurant at the Olympic Park in east London, Monday, June 25, 2012. The restaurant is designed to be reusable and recyclable after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

LONDON (AP) ? The McDonald's at the London Olympic Park is supersized ? but not, its critics say, super-healthy.

The fast-food giant, a top Olympics sponsor with exclusive rights to sell branded food products inside the venue, said Monday its two-story restaurant at the games will be its biggest and busiest in the world, seating 1,500 diners and serving up to 14,000 people a day.

But despite complaints by British doctors, the food choices at the Olympics are largely identical to McDonald's fare around the world ? Big Macs, milkshakes, fries and chicken nuggets.

The only addition to the menu is iced fruit smoothies, which haven't yet been introduced in other British McDonald's.

The Academy of Royal Medical Colleges recently said that having McDonald's sponsor the Olympics sends the wrong message ? not least in Britain, which is battling increasing obesity. The group also criticized London Olympic organizers for accepting sponsorships from Coca-Cola and brewer Heineken, the official drinks sellers at the games.

McDonald's says it is offering its menu mainstays of burgers and fries, alongside healthier options because people enjoy the familiarity. It also prints out calorie information per item on its menu boards.

"We do offer a breadth of menu," said Jill McDonald, chief executive at McDonald's UK. "You can see on the menu here we have grilled chicken wraps, we have salads, fruit smoothies as well as the more indulgent recipes that people know and love."

McDonald's will bring in 2,000 of its best staffers to run four outlets at the Olympics venue: the vast flagship, another restaurant for spectators, one in the Athletes' Village and a fourth in the Media Center.

All will be dismantled after the games end, and executives stressed the efforts to which designers have gone to ensure that the restaurants conform to Olympic organizers' sustainability ambitions.

Three-quarters of the furniture and fittings at the flagship are set to be reused in other McDonald's restaurants after the games, and special waste-sorting facilities will ensure that most garbage gets recycled, executives said. All the beef will come from British farms, and the chocolate used in muffins will be fair-trade.

McDonald's has been an official Olympics sponsor since 1976, and said it would be using its expertise to provide "high-quality British food" at the games.

__

Sylvia Hui can be reached at http://twitter.com/sylviahui

Associated Press

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Brian Rooney: Not Enough News in The Newsroom

Hollywood has a love-hate relationship with the news business. I've known a lot of actors and writers who are fascinated with the news, but hate the reporters they have to deal with in their professional lives -- the paparazzi, the gossip press, the celebrity reporters who ask the same dumb questions every time.

Hollywood's portrayal of reporters is the industry's revenge.

A few minutes into the first episode of Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom on HBO, news broke about the real-life explosion on British Petroleum's oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, but the newsroom characters just stood around debating the importance of the story in rapid-fire Sorkinese.

I turned to my wife and asked, "What's wrong with this picture?"

She said, "Not one person is on the telephone trying to find out what happened."

Instead, the newsroom staff was waiting for the wire services to post an alert that this was a huge story. A burning oil platform with 11 missing people is the lead story, and they all would have known it.

I'm always torn between being pleased that Hollywood thinks the news business is worthy of interest and dreading the portrayal. With some good exceptions, the entertainment business has not traveled far from the days when reporters were portrayed as a pack of men wearing fedoras with a card saying "press" tucked in the hatband.

With The Newsroom, Sorkin is trying to bring high-mindedness to the news business in the way he brought it to the White House in The West Wing, and he doesn't have to be realistic. Fiction compresses reality to make a point -- life is long and art is short -- but sometimes it's just silly. When they finally got down to doing their jobs, Sorkin's reporters developed information in minutes that in reality would have taken days or weeks to gather. To a real reporter it's laughable.

I'm sure lots of cops, lawyers and doctors also have bristled at Hollywood's treatment of their professions, even when worthwhile issues were explored. But the slow reaction of Sorkin's newsies to the oil platform explosion was like detectives debating whether a murder needed investigation.

Some of the inaccuracies in The Newsroom will bother only someone in the business. As a veteran journalist who worked in Vietnam, Sam Waterston's character never would have said he was "embedded" with an artillery unit. In those days, reporters covered the war uninvited. Worse was the producer who complains to the anchorman that, "You yelled at me in front of the crew." He was lucky. In a real newsroom, the yelling goes on in front of the crew, the secretaries, other reporters, visitors from China and even your mother if she happens to drop by that day.

The problems confronting the news business are much deeper than verbal abuse and whether news producers recognize a story when they see it. Expenses are rising and income is falling. Anchors with multimillion dollar salaries sit in on discussions about whether there's enough money to send a camera crew to a story. Less-experienced reporters are hired in the mistaken belief that elusive younger viewers will watch young faces deliver the news. And the deepest cynicism in television news lives in those executives who have abandoned real news in a mistaken quest to please rather than inform their audience.

Sorkin's The Newsroom touches on some of this in its preachy sharper-than-thou dialogue, but it flies by pretty fast.

For some reason the news business is just hard for Hollywood to get. Reporters are often portrayed in movies as unlikable because they are liars, or willing to give away the location of an Army unit to make a call on their satellite phone. Never mind that the unarmed reporter's life depends on those soldiers.

Reporters are often unlikable, but for better reasons. They are aggressive and impatient. They are rude and shout over other people. They want to know what the hell is going on and they want to know right now. They make cruel but funny jokes about the latest dead celebrity. And they are not sentimental because they've heard and seen too much. Unlike in The Newsroom, the job they do is not accompanied by a gauzy sound track of emotional music. They want the truth. Just tell us how many people are dead.

Real reporters are so much more entertaining than Hollywood's. Back in the late '80s, I was sent to cover an appearance by Raisa Gorbachova, wife of the Soviet premier, after she'd had lunch with the cosmetics magnate Est?e Lauder and a bunch of other powerful American women. One of the reporters asked, "Raisa, will there be d?tente between the U.S. and the Soviet Union?" Trying to avert an uncomfortable political moment, the tiny 82-year-old Est?e Lauder interrupted in her thick Hungarian accent and said, "Mrs. Gorbachev is not here to... " She was interrupted by a New York reporter who blurted out, "Shut up, Estee! We didn't ask you!"

That's the American press I know and love.

?

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