Hasta La Gadget!

A soccer referee named Ibrahim Chaibou walked into a bank in a small South African city carrying a bag filled with as much as $100,000 in $100 bills, according to another referee traveling with him. The deposit was so large that a bank employee gave Mr. Chaibou a gift of commemorative coins bearing the likeness of Nelson Mandela.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Police used tear gas and water cannon on Saturday to push back crowds of protesters who defied a warning by Turkey’s prime minister and gathered in Istanbul and Ankara on the anniversary of last year’s nationwide anti-government demonstrations.

Riot police fired tear gas on hundreds of protesters on a main pedestrian street leading to Istanbul’s main square, Taksim, following a stand-off with police. Clashes also erupted in the capital Ankara, where police used water cannons against a group of stone-throwing protesters. Dogan new agency video footage showed police, some in plain clothes, detaining several people in the two cities.

Large numbers of police blocked access to Taksim, and news reports earlier said authorities planned to deploy some 25,000 police officers and up to 50 anti-riot water cannon vehicles around the city to thwart the demonstrations. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned activists to keep away from the square, saying authorities were under strict orders to prevent protests.

“I am calling on my people: don’t fall for this trap. This is not an innocent environmental action,” Erdogan said.

In late May and June last year, hundreds of thousands of Turks took to the streets denouncing Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic leadership and demanding more democratic freedoms. The protests were sparked by opposition to government plans to uproot trees at Taksim Square’s Gezi Park and build a shopping center.

Fanned by outrage over the often brutal reaction by police, the demonstrations soon spread to other cities and developed into Turkey’s biggest protests in decades. Thousands were wounded and at least 12 people have died in anti-government protests in the past year.

Despite the ban, hundreds of people tried to reach Taksim.

In a speech in Istanbul earlier, Erdogan said: “If you go there, our security forces are under strict orders, they will do whatever is necessary from A to Z. You won’t be able to go to Gezi like the last time. You have to obey the laws. If you don’t, the state will do whatever is necessary.”

Ahead of the protests, CNN correspondent Ivan Watson said he was detained briefly during a live broadcast. He said that police had kneed him and that an officer later apologized.

Turkey’s association of journalists condemned his detention and called the police action “shameful.”

A report this week by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said that more than 5,600 demonstrators were being prosecuted for involvement in the protests while no one responsible for the violence against protesters had been sentenced.

The Turkish authorities “are actively engaging in a witch hunt against those who participated in the protests or spoke out,” said the federation’s president, Karim Lahidji.

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Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

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Follow Butler and Fraser at https://twitter.com/desmondbutler and https://twitter.com/suzanfraser

Jarrod Spector a is making quite a name for himself on Broadway by playing music icons. First, he played a record 1,500 performances as Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys, and this year, he’s nominated for a Best Featured Actor in a Musical Tony for his role as songwriting legend Barry Mann in the Carole King musical Beautiful. But there’s more to the Philadelphia native than capably stepping into the mighty big shoes of mighty big musicians in mighty big productions. To single out one: he has cut two of his own albums (A Little Help From My Friends: Minor Fall, Major Lift) that capture his truly spectacular range as a vocalist. At the Hyatt Time Square in Manhattan, Spector filmed an A-Sides session, discussing his Beautiful Broadway run, his own music, and everything in-between. He also weighed in on a Don King/Carole King collaboration (yes, you read that right) and performed a classic Animals song from the show. Watch the vids below (filmed by (shootmepeter.com), and catch some Spector fever. This guy’s a star.

* A-Sides’ Tony spotlight coverage wraps up this coming week with Rocky star Andy Karl!

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About A-Sides Music

Jon Chattman’s “A-Sides Music” series was established in August 2011 and usually features artists (established or not) from all genres performing a track, and discussing what it means to them. This informal series focuses on the artist making art in a low-threatening, extremely informal (sometimes humorous) way. No bells, no whistles — just the music performed in a random, low-key setting followed by an unrehearsed chat. In an industry where everything often gets overblown and over manufactured, I’m hoping this is refreshing. Artists have included: fun, Rob Zombie, Pharrell Williams, Courtney Love, American Authors, Imagine Dragons, Gary Clark Jr., and more! A-Sides theme written and performed by Blondfire.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — A plan to offer $100 million in tax dollars to lure Barack Obama’s presidential library to Illinois is on the shelf, as lawmakers wrapped up their spring session without advancing the idea.

Democrats in the president’s home state pushed the proposal to compete against rival bids from Hawaii and New York. But it faced opposition from Republicans wary of an expensive and precedent-setting gift — with no immediately identified funding source — for a mostly private endeavor when the state faces serious financial difficulties. Not all Democrats were on board either. Both the Democratic-controlled House and Senate adjourned without calling for any final votes on the measure.

“It wasn’t clear that a state monetary incentive was necessary for a successful (library) proposal,” said Rikeesha Phelon, a spokeswoman for Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat.

Sponsors of the measure vowed to continue their advocacy, but the initiative now must wait despite a June 16 deadline for host proposals to Obama’s library commission.

The state’s influential House speaker, Michael Madigan, who doubles as state Democratic Party chairman, had hoped the library plan would be part of a multibillion-dollar replacement for a five-year statewide construction plan that is expiring. But that larger bricks-and-mortar program also got no traction as lawmakers patched together a 2015 state budget without extending a temporary income tax increase, as Democrats had sought.

Obama was a community organizer in Chicago before he was elected to the Illinois and U.S. Senates. He grew up in Hawaii and went to college in New York, spurring those states to compete for hosting Obama’s legacy.

“In order to show him we’re serious about wanting him in Illinois, we have to do the right thing,” said Illinois state Rep. Monique Davis, a Chicago Democrat and Madigan’s co-sponsor. “We must put forth some good-faith effort.”

Even without approval of a capital plan, Davis wanted a vote before the House adjourned to send a supportive message ahead of the commission’s application deadline. She said she will continue pushing the idea this fall when lawmakers return to Springfield.

Republicans say they welcome the library and the tourists it would attract. But they pointed out that no library dedicated to a modern president received state or federal tax dollars — although Democrats point out public assistance is often offered, such as donated land.

“Bush and Clinton both raised over $200 million in private funds to take care of their library,” said Rep. Joe Sosnowksi, a Rockford Republican. Obama’s “ability to raise that amount and more is without question. For us to chip in half of what a presidential library would cost is an abuse of the taxpayers.”

Madigan cited as precedent the public funding of another presidential library — that of the Prairie State’s other favored son, Abraham Lincoln. That $155 million Springfield showplace was financed with $115 million in state tax money and $32 million in federal dollars.

But Lincoln’s repository is not an official presidential library maintained by the National Archives Record Administration, which has been devoted to presidential facilities beginning with Herbert Hoover.

George Washington’s library at Mount Vernon in northern Virginia operates on private donations, spokeswoman Melissa Wood said, as does the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library in Staunton, Virginia, according to library representative Robert Robinson. Like the Lincoln site, Robinson said the Calvin Coolidge library in Massachusetts is state-run.

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The bill is HB6090.

Online: http://www.ilga.gov.

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Contact John O’Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor

There’s no end to fantasies about living on the moon. Actually possible moon bases , fictional Nazi moon bases , insane Newt Gingrich moon bases . Swedish artist Mikael Genberg has a more modest goal: one, tiny, uninhabited lunar house by 2015.

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