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1,"'Abhorrent' bottle attack on young Rangers fan before Celtic game —  Police have described a bottle attack on an 11-year-old Rangers fan before Sunday's League Cup semi-final game with Celtic as ""abhorrent"". Kraig Mackay suffered a large cut to his head after being hit by the bottle while walking in Aitkenhead Road, Glasgow, at about 14:00 on Sunday. Pictures on social media showed Kraig with a large gash and a bandage on his head. Police have appealed for help to find the person responsible. The boy was walking with his family and a number of other Rangers fans when a bottle was thrown at the group. It struck the 11-year-old on the head and he was taken by ambulance to the Royal Hospital for Children where he was treated for a large cut and later released. 'Totally unacceptable' Police Scotland Ch Supt Brian McInulty said: ""The incident involving the assault of the 11-year-old boy whilst he was walking to the game is completely unacceptable and understandably has shocked the communities of Glasgow. ""Let's be clear - this was an attack on a young boy who could possibly be left with a scar. This is abhorrent, and the person, or persons, responsible need to be caught."" Det Insp Colin Hailstones added: ""At the time, the area was obviously very busy and there are people who will know who is responsible for this crime and I would appeal to them to come forward to police with their information. ""This attack is totally unacceptable and although we don't believe that the young boy was specifically targeted, the bottle was deliberately thrown at the crowd of supporters who were simply making their way to the match to enjoy the game."" Ibrox mascot Rangers manager Mark Warburton said Kraig would join the club as the mascot at Ibrox on Wednesday night and watch the game from the directors' box. Ch Supt McInulty added: ""Whilst the majority of genuine football fans behaved well yesterday, from a crowd of 50,697, there were 18 arrests for minor public disorder including people having had too much to drink."" A 27-year-old man was arrested in connection with an alleged sectarian breach of the peace and a 17-year-old man was arrested for allegedly being in possession of a pyrotechnic device. A further 16 men, aged between 17 and 68 years, were arrested for minor public order offences. The men are expected to appear at Glasgow Sheriff Court. The game was won 1-0 by Celtic."
2,"'Afghan Girl' in iconic National Geographic photo arrested in Pakistan —  Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN)The Afghan woman, whose striking green eyes in a National Geographic cover photo made her face known around the world, is under arrest in Pakistan. Sharbat Gula was 12 when photographer Steve McCurry captured his iconic image of her living in a refugee camp for Afghan nationals in Peshawar, Pakistan. Now in her 40s, Sharbat Gula -- also known as Sharbat Bibi -- was arrested in Peshawar on Tuesday for falsifying documents and staying illegally in Pakistan, officials said. If convicted, Gula could be jailed for up to 14 years or be deported, said Zia Awan, a human rights lawyer based in Karachi. Sharbat Gula in the women's jail of Peshawar. Last year, Gula was arrested on similar charges, but was later released. McCurry, the photographer, said he is committed to helping her legally and financially. ""I object to this action by the authorities in the strongest possible terms,"" he said in a statement. ""She has suffered throughout her entire life. Her arrest is an egregious violation of her human rights."" Mounting pressure on refugees The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Afghanistan told CNN it would only be able to assist in the case if Gula registers as a refugee. ""Sharbat Gula falls under the 'undocumented migrants' umbrella,"" said Duniya Khan with the agency's Pakistan office. ""The UNHCR cannot intervene since she is not a registered refugee."" The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which assists undocumented migrants, says the arrest -- although legal if the ID card is proven to be false -- is symptomatic of the mounting pressure on Afghan refugees in Pakistan to return home. ""It is a sign of the times in Pakistan, that it has now reached someone who was something of a celebrity in the '80s, someone more high profile than the average,"" said Nicholas Bishop, project development officer for the IOM in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch said since July 1, Pakistan has repatriated 370,000 Afghans, nearly 220,000 of them registered refugees. ""They are joining more than one million internally displaced Afghans who are struggling to survive in a country still wracked by conflict and crushing poverty,"" the group said in a statement. Millions of Afghans have sought shelter in Pakistan over the years as their country became ravaged by conflict, HRW added. CNN has reached out to the Pakistani Interior Ministry for comment, but hasn't heard back. CNN's Zahir Shah contributed to this report."
3,"'My whole family has been wiped out': Victims of Dreamworld tragedy revealed as witnesses recall heartbreaking cries of girls who watched their mothers die on Thunder River Rapids ride —  Two young girls, aged 10 and 13, were miraculously thrown to safety from the doomed Thunder River Rapids ride at Dreamworld on Australia's Gold Coast and watched in horror as the four adults in their raft were killed. A malfunction with the ride's conveyor belt is suspected to have caused the six-person raft to flip, crushing and drowning two men, aged 38 and 35, and two women, aged 42 and 32, about 2.20pm on Tuesday. Those killed include Canberra woman Kate Goodchild, 32, her brother Luke Dorsett, 35, his partner Roozi Araghi, 38, and another woman.  The New Zealand Herald has named Cindy Low, 42, from Kawerau, as the fourth victim. She was believed to be holidaying in Queensland at the time.  One of the children thrown to safety from the raft was Ms Goodchild's daughter. She howled in horror as she watched her mother die, according to News Corp.  Top police officials said it was 'almost a miracle that anybody came out of that', saying they may have escaped through 'the providence of God or somebody'.   Both girls were recovering in hospital on Tuesday night. The tragedy happened after the raft the six people were riding on turned over and flipped, Assistant Queensland Police Commissioner Brian Codd said.   '(It fell) back on top of those persons and those persons (were) variously caught in machinery.' The catastrophe was captured on CCTV cameras and the footage would be reviewed as part of the investigation. The theme park is closed indefinitely.   The mother of the Dorsett siblings, Kim, took to Facebook to express her grief.  'My family have been completely wiped out,' she said. 'I have three children and two of them are now gone. 'My eight-month-old granddaughter is never going to know her mother and that truly breaks my heart.' Ms Dorsett's husband, daughter, and newborn baby girl, had to be consoled by paramedics. Families were being informed of the tragedy on Tuesday night.    Radio broadcaster Dom Knight, an old university friend of Mr Araghi, remembered him as a 'passionate, funny, brilliant man with an unquenchable love of retro pop'.  Other friends described Mr Araghi and Mr Dorsett as the 'most loving couple', 'intelligent and witty, filled with life and hope'.   Witnesses to the tragedy said they saw a young girl was wandering alone at the ride's exit calling out for her mum shortly afterwards.  A woman could be seen 'hanging by her foot, crushed from the ride'. Bystander Claire Wooley said she helped a child she believed was the daughter of one of those killed,Sunshine Coast Daily reported. Another witness said 'there were kids on board screaming while their mum was like trapped under'. A malfunction with the ride's conveyer belt was believed to have caused the tragedy, Queensland Ambulance acting supervisor Gavin Fuller told a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. flume be turned over and flipped, resulting in it falling back on top of those persons and those persons being variously caught in machinery - and I don't want to go into too much graphic detail.    The four adults and two children were in a raft that collided with an empty raft that had become stuck, Courier Mail reported. Reports suggest their raft flipped, crushing two of the adults. The other two adults were trapped in the conveyor belt underwater. Visitors to the theme park have claimed the ride had been plagued by mechanical issues earlier in the day. Lisa Walker said she had tried to board the ride with her daughter Kaylah, 25, and said rafts were piling up against each other, she told The Australian. 'Earlier in the day it had broken down,' the same witness told Sydney Morning Herald. 'It had broken down and we went back a couple of times to this particular ride. 'We were standing on the bridge watching and the water had stopped. 'There was no rapids.' The accident happened 10 minutes after she and her daughter left the scene, Lisa said. Another woman told Nine News engineers were called to the ride earlier in the day. 'They drained all the water out and then had to refill it back up, and then we were allowed to go. But, yeah, we were stuck there for about 30-40 minutes at least,' the woman said. Todd Reid, Inspector Regional Duty Officer, could not confirm reports the ride had been faulty earlier in the day. 'I'm not aware [if that's true], but that will be part of the investigation and that will be one of the aspects we will be looking at,' he said. The horrific accident happened towards the end of the ride. Mr Fuller, of Queensland Ambulance, would not elaborate on any of the injuries the four adults suffered. 'They sustained injuries incompatible with life,' he said. Dreamworld staff had drained water from the ride in an attempt to save the trapped passengers and desperately tried to treat two of those injured before paramedics arrived. The park was evacuated and hundreds of shocked patrons streaming out. Dreamworld will be closed until further notice. CEO of the theme park, Craig Davidson, said the team was 'deeply shocked and saddened by this and our hearts and our thoughts go to the families involved and to their loved ones'. The ride's annual maintenance, conducted by independent workplace health and safety engineers, had been done just three days before the accident, a Dreamworld spokesperson said. A certification was provided, which Daily Mail Australia has requested a copy of. Specialist forensic and scientific officers, as well as detectives were at the scene on Tuesday evening. Investigators have been interviewing a number of witnesses at nearby police stations with support services also being offered. The State Coroner and the Queensland Government's Forensic Pathologist also attended the scene. Police will prepare a report for the coroner. Dreamworld owners Ardent Leisure shares fell 7.8 per cent on news of the tragedy. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he was 'very saddened to learn of the tragic accident'. 'Theme parks are a place for family fun and happiness, not tragedy. This is a very, very, sad, tragic event. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives,' Mr Turnbull said in a statement. 'This is a very sad day, and we trust there will be a thorough investigation into the causes of this accident over the days to follow.' Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the news was 'heartbreaking'. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she had heard the scene was 'horrific' and said counsellors were being rushed to Dreamworld to calm the 'many, many witnesses'. Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said it was a 'very sad day for our city' in a statement. 'Our thoughts are with the families of those affected – and the emergency staff in attendance.' Shocked US Olympic gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz said he had been on the ride just a few minutes before the accident. 'Dude, just got off a ride 15 mins ago that has 1 person seriously injured and 2 others trapped,' he wrote on Twitter. A similar Dreamworld ride called Rocky Hollow Log Ride was shut down in April for a weekend after a man almost drowned, according to The Courier Mail. A Queensland Ambulance spokeswoman said at the time the man swallowed water after he fell from the ride. The Thunder River Rapids ride was built in 1986 and is said to be a 'moderate' with a maximum speed of 45km/h, according to Dreamland. Visitors as young as two-years-old are allowed to go on the ride. People sit on circular rafts that seat six."
4,"'RHONY' STAR JULES WAINSTEIN Estranged Husband Sued ... ALLEGEDLY MADE BIG BUCKS OFF HER APT. —  Jules Wainstein's ex tried to pull a fast one by renting out an NYC apartment he had no business hawking because SHE owns it ... according to a new lawsuit, but he denies any wrongdoing. Michael Wainstein is being sued by Jonathan Sheffer -- a famous conductor -- who says he needed to lease a place for his nanny, and Michael offered the pad ... at a premium. In the suit, Sheffer says Michael demanded more than $20k for rent, security deposit and broker fees. Sheffer agreed and signed the lease, but according to the docs ... he had maintenance issues with the place, which led to his big discovery -- Michael wasn't the owner. Sheffer thinks Michael was taking the cash for personal use. He's suing for a complete refund, plus damages. Wainstein's attorney tells us Sheffer's the one in the wrong, and claims he breached the terms of the lease and is simply looking for ""a creative way to cancel his obligations."" He adds ... Michael denies all the allegations, and plans to file his own lawsuit against Sheffer."
5,"'Swam for their life': More survivors of Leviathan II tragedy sue tour operator —  The latest lawsuit filed against a Tofino whale-watching tour company whose boat capsized last year, killing six people, paints a terrifying picture of the moments immediately after the vessel capsized. In his claim, plaintiff Robert Goodfellow says he was on the portside of Leviathan II’s upper deck when the captain positioned the boat in shallow water over a reef near Vargas Island on Oct. 25, 2015. The captain had stopped for the purpose of viewing sea lions, but the ship was “pitching and rolling in significant breakings created by the shallow reef,” according to court documents. That same day, Parks Canada reported wind speeds of up to 30 knots with recorded wave heights of two to three metres in the waters off Tofino, the suit says. Goodfellow was seasick and about to move into the lower enclosed cabin of the boat around 3:45 p.m. when a swell rose into a larger wave over the reef, striking the starboard side of Leviathan II and causing it to heel over. The vessel rolled violently, tossing around some passengers including the other plaintiff in the suit, Marya Levin. Goodfellow struck a portside rail and was “suddenly fully submerged for a considerable period of time beneath the sea as the vessel rolled,” the suit says. “Robert and Marya remained submerged below the sea water out of breath and in shock until they were able, eventually, to see ocean surface light and swam for their life to the surface,” it says. Both surfaced near the vessel near two other passengers named in the suit as “Mr. Thomas and his son Stephen,” who were seated on the upper deck, referencing 50-year-old David Thomas and his 18-year-old son Stephen, both British nationals. “Marya pushed a second cushion toward Mr. Thomas and his son, who was clinging to him, but as the overturned sinking vessel drifted toward them, they were in danger of being struck by rotating propellers,” the suit says. The pair say they kicked hard away from the vessel while clutching a cushion, but sea conditions were rough. Marya spotted a lifejacket floating near the wave break on the rocks and reached over a passenger’s body to get it, then the pair swam away from the rocks to a life raft about 100 metres away. The pair were surrounded by leaked oil and among the damages specified in the suit, say they suffered injuries from breathing and swallowing the oily water. “Through determination and will to survive, Robert and Marya, after some 45 minutes, reached the lifeboat where three crew members were already on board,” the claim says. Both are now seeking damages from Jamie’s Whaling Station, the tour operator, due to physical, mental and emotional trauma. They say the capsizing and injuries were caused by the fault, neglect, recklessness, negligence and breach of contract by the company. Among the injuries, Goodfellow says he suffered head trauma, injuries to his knee and left hip, bruising and contusions all over his body, hypothermia and lung-related issues from the oily water. Several other lawsuits have already been filed by survivors of the tragedy. Ian Charles and Jill Zaparyniuk from Edmonton have also filed a suit, detailing their attempts to escape the sinking ship. Two German passengers, Christian and Dirk Barchfield, have filed a class-action suit against company owner Jamie Bray and the boat’s captain, citing post-traumatic stress disorder. None of the allegations in the lawsuits have been proven in court. Jamie’s Whaling Station has called the sinking of the vessel an “act of god.”"
6,"'They Were Just Like Us, and They Lost Everything' —  Can empathy for refugees be taught? A few weeks ago, I scrambled to evacuate my area with the only five items I could grab—my phone, passport, water, money, and medicine—in the 30 seconds before I had to flee. Many of the roughly 65 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people around the world today have had to make panicked choices like these; more than 4,000 have died at sea in overcrowded boats and rafts attempting to reach Europe from the Middle East. On Thursday last week, more than 200 additional people lost their lives in two separate shipwrecks off Libya. But my own “escape” was far away from that, on the safety of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had organized the Forced From Home exhibit. The aim was, in part, to put the staggering numbers of the crisis into tangible terms for those of us who don’t have to contemplate actually being forced from home. So I took on the identity of an asylum-seeker from Honduras while my tour guide, Ahmed Abdalrazag, pled with the group to hurry up. If we were really fleeing, he explained, our time would be up and it might be too late. We got on a raft like the ones in which so many have risked, and lost, their lives in recent years—though this one stayed on dry land—and later, we were detained at a fenced border where our various legal classifications determined our future. At each stop, hardships from the journey forced us to give up one item, until we were left empty-handed in front of staged refugee tents—where in real life another series of ordeals await those who make it that far. MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, the international aid group and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is touring the exhibit through five U.S. cities this fall, with a series of West Coast stops planned for next year. So far, according to an MSF spokesman, more than 17,000 people have attended, including over 3,400 students. MSF provides medical and related humanitarian aid in over 60 countries, often in dangerous circumstances—the group describes its mission as assisting “victims of conflict, natural disasters, epidemics, or healthcare exclusion.” In Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan recently, MSF-supported hospitals and the people who work there have themselves been victims of conflict. With the Forced From Home exhibit, MSF is trying to communicate, in concrete terms, the reality of people fleeing from those places and elsewhere, including Burundi, South Sudan, and Central America. Official action to mitigate this reality has been frustratingly slow. It has been more than two years since the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) first reported that the number of displaced people worldwide had surpassed the figures following World War II.  But as my colleague Uri Friedman wrote in September, the UN General Assembly only recently held its inaugural Summit for Refugees and Migrants, and the declaration that emerged from the meeting delays specific measures by UN member states for two more years. The timeline of the UN plan is not comforting to the refugees or concerned observers. The crisis figures are familiar, but remain unfathomable—one in 113 people displaced “by conflict and persecution in 2015;” and 54 percent of 21 million refugees from just three volatile countries: Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia. It’s easy to be numbed by the numbers. Or even actively repelled—across Europe and the United States, 2016 has seen a surge of anti-refugee protests and rhetoric conflatingrefugees and terrorists—sentiments that influence elections and produce significant legislative and societal results. In a sense, the refugee crisis has helped generate a corresponding crisis in empathy. But if national and international political solutions seem sluggish or even impossible, what hope is there for refugees in the meantime if not for the empathy of individuals? Where there is a confluence of human suffering and nationalistic backlash, can empathy be taught, sparked, or successfully deployed? The MSF exhibit can be seen as a test of these questions. It creates an empathetic response by tying the visitor’s experience to an individual’s—each participant is assigned a specific displaced person’s identity, and each tour is given by an aid-worker who has served in an MSF camp. Throughout the journey, the guides share their own personal stories about people they lived with, worked with, and ministered to, further illuminating the individual suffering behind the numbers. Abdalrazag, a physician with MSF originally from Iraq, first got involved with the organization when he was in a camp as a refugee. On his tours, he talks about a friend of his who, after living in a refugee camp tent for years, so desperately missed a wall to lean his back on that he hugged the first wall he saw in his new home. After the tour, Abdalrazag admitted that this was his own experience, one he sometimes obscures because his memories are painful to recount. Another guide, Sarah Khenati, a psychologist with MSF-France who has worked in the Central African Republic (CAR) and the West Bank, shares a story on her tours about a woman who was raped and impregnated while fleeing her home, then involves her groups in the ensuing MSF discussion about how best to treat the woman after her psychotic breakdown. Tatiana Chiarella, an MSF nurse from Brazil who has been touring with the exhibit, explained how she sees the value of these kinds of personal stories: “For people living in the U.S., or even my people in Brazil, we are so far from the situation that you may hear their stories but you don’t realize it could happen to any one of us.” The people she treated “were just like us, they were doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers, and suddenly this happened—they have war in their countries and they have to flee for their life and for their families—and they lost everything.” Maybe it’s strange to shift the discussion of a massive problem down to the granular level, especially when the world needs a response to match the scale of the crisis. Yet individuals generate a human response that statistics can’t. Updated crisis figures from UNHCR don’t go viral. Images of a drowned Syrian toddler on a beach in Turkey, or a wounded boy in an Aleppo ambulance, do. And they focus observers, however briefly, on the human cost of conflict.   Still, the problem is bigger than the tragedies of Alan Kurdi and Omran Daqneesh, so the question remains whether concentrating on a single victim can generate an empathy that expands to include others suffering outside those particular frames. According to Jamil Zaki, assistant professor of psychology and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, even though empathy is a fundamental human emotion, people are not exactly wired for a globalized response. “When we evolved, we were in small groups of interdependent individuals, so the people that you would run into and subsequently empathize with were probably family or extended family,” he explained. “And nowadays, we’re given the unprecedented opportunity to empathize, reach out to and help, not just the people who are right around us, but people all around the world. That’s a really enormous challenge as well as an opportunity, and I think that sometimes, our more evolutionarily old or primitive … emotional responses are not really perfectly designed for the modern world.” This is even true of people who are already inclined to be sympathetic to refugees—the people, in other words, likely to visit an exhibit like MSF’s in the first place. On the tour I took, I met Cameron, a student from Charleston, South Carolina, who said: “It pains me to see how unaccepting communities can be of refugees especially when a good amount of people in the U.S. can trace their ancestry to people who left their home because of economic or political issues.” He added, “I think it definitely made me more empathetic and understanding because you only get so much information from the news and other media sources.” U.S. President Barack Obama, in his 2006 Northwestern University commencement speech, called attention to what he saw as a national “empathy deficit.” He advised the graduates that, in a culture that does not encourage empathy, “as you go on in life, cultivating this quality of empathy will become harder, not easier.  There’s no community-service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You’ll be free to live in neighborhoods with people who are exactly like yourself, and send your kids to the same schools, and narrow your concerns to what’s going in your own little circle.” That warning came 10 years ago; five years before the Syrian Civil War began, and eight years before UNHCR first identified a new record in the number of refugees worldwide. As David Desteno wrote for The Atlantic last summer, a recent study from the University of Michigan found, based on empathy assessments of 13,000 college students between 1979 and 2009, that “levels of compassion and empathy are lower now than at any time in the past 30 years, and perhaps most alarming, they are declining at an increasing rate.” If we think of empathy as malleable, it’s an emotion that we can actively choose to engage with and develop. The barrier that the MSF exhibit and other calls to empathy might bump up against is our basic wiring: If our relationship to empathy is naturally individual and impulsive—Zaki describes it as “staccato”—how do we create the sustained empathy suited to an ongoing and outsized crisis? Will the impact of an exhibit like Forced from Home—or photos of children whose lives have been ended or upended by war—be momentary or lasting? And what difference does any one person’s feelings make to finding a genuine solution? Some of the answers may lie in the way we think about empathy. If we think of it as malleable, it’s an emotion that we can actively choose to engage with and develop. Zaki emphasizes that empathy can be strengthened with practice: “Empathy is under our control more than we think it is. ... It’s our responsibility to exercise empathy responsibly, and it’s an opportunity for us to connect with more and more people if we work hard at building it.” Most importantly, Zaki says, “convincing people that they can build their empathy actually helps them to build [it].” He points to training programs that can change people’s responses to others’ suffering. A sampling of these empathy interventions across the country range from increasing care for homeless people in the Bay Area, to teaching empathy in middle schools to prevent bullying, to training police officers in Washington state to have compassion for citizens with mental illness so that they can be helped or hospitalized rather than arrested, though it’s too early to judge their effects. The refugee and the empathy crises can—but don’t have to—leave us with an action crisis. Even if MSF succeeds in generating empathy, the feeling by itself is not a solution. Still, it’s hard to see how there can be a solution without it."
7,"'This isn't Pompeii, this is Aleppo' —  As 200 airstrikes hammered Aleppo last weekend, activists and aid workers posted dozens of pictures and videos online. Each of them heartbreaking, each helping to convey the horror of the besieged Syrian city. On Friday afternoon, a photo emerged of Brahim Sawas and his 10-year old son, Mahmoud, who had fallen victim to the war. They were covered in blood and dust, the pressure of the rubble holding their final postures in place. ""This isn't Pompeii, this is Aleppo,"" one social media user wrote. A family devastated   The tragedy of this family doesn't end there. Another image shows Sawas' 8-month-old baby, Muhammad, buried under rubble in a separate room as Syrian Civil Defense workers try to recover the child's body from the dirt and dust. Um Mahmoud, Sawas' wife and the mother of the two dead boys, survived the airstrike along with her daughter. The mother and daughter were sleeping in the same room with the 8-month-old baby. Weekend of horror Sawas and the two boys were among more than 300 people killed last weekend in a new wave of violence. The deadly strike that hit the family home at 5 a.m. Friday in eastern Aleppo's rebel-held neighborhood of Qaterji was the first of a series of hundred. One activist from Aleppo described to CNN a level of bombing never seen before in a conflict that began more five years ago. In response to the surge in airstrikes, activists took to Twitter, using an Arabic hashtag that translates to #HolocaustAleppo and sharing pictures and videos from the city. Some had mistakenly described the photo of the father and son as that of a mother clutching her baby."
8,"'This was a sad but avoidable tragedy'; kennel was warned about ventilation problems, trainer says —  Management and ownership at a Saskatoon dog kennel were warned about more than a dozen serious problems with their animal care methods in the months before this weekend’s death of 14 large breed dogs. “This was a sad but avoidable tragedy. I tried to prevent something like this,” said Fred Glawischnig, a certified master trainer and kennel care expert who said he presented his concerns to Playful Paws Pet Centre officials in January. The SPCA also received a copy of Glawischnig’s complaints, but SPCA executive director Patricia Cameron said the shelter is unable to pursue those types of allegations. Kennels are completely unregulated in Saskatchewan. “Under the law, we have no power to do that,” Cameron said. “If you are entrusting your animal to a facility, it’s up to the owner to investigate.” On Saturday morning, staff at Playful Paws Pet Centre in Sutherland walked in to an upper flow room to find 14 large breed dogs dead. The previous afternoon, an employee said the windowless room was getting uncomfortably hot as it has several times before. Before staff headed home for the evening, they were told to place fans in the room and close the door. The room did not cool. A malfunction in the building’s rooftop heating system caused it to get hotter and hotter. The dogs, which included Sarah Gee’s 10-month-old German Shepherd cross named Aurora, died of heat exhaustion. “She was a big, energetic dog. She was a big part of my life,” Gee said. “I’m disappointed no one was working overnight. That was my impression.” Carson Friesen, whose katahoula named Kali also died, expressed a similar concern. “I was under the impression they were under constant supervision,” he said. Kali was rescued from a shelter a year ago, and Friesen’s three-year-old daughter, Ella, loved taking care of her. Ella would feed and walk the dog, and prepare her bed every night. “That dog was her princess, her everything,” Friesen said. “We thought dropping (Kali) off there was a good thing to do. I regret that decision.” Playful Paws manager Bonnie Clark said she can’t imagine the pain of the affected owners. “It was severe. We are all just devastated,” said Playful Paws Pet Center manager Bonnie Clark Saturday. “We care about these animals.” Clark, whose eyes were filled with tears during a brief interview, said there was a “malfunction in the heating system.” The upper-floor room where the deaths occurred has been closed off. The business, however, will remain open, she said. When asked if there had been previous problems or concerns raised about the room or the facility, she said she had to get back to notifying owners. Clark said City of Saskatoon animal control officials have been notified. Clark said more information will likely be available in the coming days. “We have nothing to hide,” she said. A post on the Playful Paws Facebook page Saturday afternoon apologized to owners and explained the situation of the faulty heater. “I feel really, really bad. I’ve been crying all morning,” said an employee of Playful Paws who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’re our customers’ dogs. They’re someone’s pet.” Playful Paws is a day and long-term care facility for dogs, cats and other animals. It also offers grooming and veterinary services. Many people who used the service posted this weekend on social media saying they were surprised because the service seemed good. Glawischnig said customers don’t see the full picture. In January 2016, Glawischnig accepted a job at Playful Paws. He said he was appalled by some of the conditions and practices. After three days, he made a list and had a meeting with management and ownership. Lack of fresh air and ventilation, especially in that room housing more than a dozen large breed dogs, was a chief concern. He said air should be exchanged completely several times an hour. “Heating and air movement – they’re some of the most important things in a kennel,” he said. “This is not just frustrating. It’s heartbreaking. I wish I could have done more.” Glawischnig said he quit when officials refused his suggestions. He took his list to the SPCA hoping an investigation would force reforms. Cameron said the SPCA and other groups are “often frustrated” by the limits of the legislation on the subject. There are no rules for kennels. The SPCA can only investigate cases of abuse, cruelty and other serious, imminent matters. The SPCA is part of a coalition urging the provincial Ministry of Agriculture to reform the legislation to better protect animals. “Hopefully, we’ll see some movement,” Cameron said. She extended her condolences to all of the owners, noting surveys which show 75 per cent of owners consider pet a member of the family. “This is all very heartbreaking. You just feel sick about it.”"
9,"'Utter devastation' after major quake, aftershocks hit New Zealand —  A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake pummeled central New Zealand early on Monday, killing at least two people, damaging roads and buildings and setting off hundreds of strong aftershocks.   Emergency response teams flew by helicopter to the region at the epicenter of the tremor, which struck just after midnight some 91 km (57 miles) northeast of Christchurch in the South Island, amid reports of injuries and collapsed buildings.   ""It's just utter devastation, I just don't know ... that's months of work,"" New Zealand Prime Minister John Key told Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee after flying over the coastal town of Kaikoura, according to Brownlee's Twitter account. He described landslips in the area as ""just horrendous"". In a statement seen by Reuters, Key said of the likely damage bill: ""You’ve got to believe it’s in the billions of dollars to resolve.""   Powerlines and telecommunications were down, with huge cracks in roads, land slips and other damage to infrastructure making it hard to reach the worst-affected areas.   A tsunami warning that led to mass evacuations after the original quake was downgraded after large swells hit New Zealand's capital Wellington, in the North Island, and Christchurch.   Wellington was a virtual ghost town with workers ordered to stay away while the city council assessed the risk to buildings, several of which were damaged by the tremor. There were concerns that loose glass and masonry could be dislodged by severe weather hitting the capital, with 140 km per hour (85 mph) winds forecast.   Hundreds of aftershocks, the strongest a 6.2 quake at about 1.45 p.m. local time (0045 GMT), rattled the South Pacific country, fraying nerves in an area where memories of a deadly 2011 quake are still fresh.   Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand's ruggedly beautiful South Island, is still recovering from the 6.3 quake in 2011 that killed 185 people.   New Zealand's Civil Defence declared a state of emergency for the Kaikoura region, centered on a tourist town about 150 km (90 miles) northeast of Christchurch, soon after Monday's large aftershock.   Kaikoura, a popular spot for whale watching, appeared to have borne the brunt of the quake. ""Our immediate priority is ensuring delivery of clean water, food and other essentials to the residents of Kaikoura and the estimated 1,000 tourists in the town,"" Brownlee said.   The Navy's multi-role vessel HMNZS Canterbury was heading to the area, he said.   Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) said a 20-person rescue team and two sniffer dogs had arrived in the town. A second team was on standby in Christchurch, USAR said in a statement.   Police in the area around Christchurch reported 19 burglaries of homes and commercial properties after the quake as residents headed for higher ground.   ""It is extremely disappointing that at a time when people are facing such a traumatic event and communities are coming together to support one another, there are others who are only interested in taking advantage,” Canterbury District Commander Superintendent John Price said in a statement.   TWIN QUAKES   Hours after the quake, officials said a slip dam caused by the quakes that had blocked the Clarence River north of the town had breached, sending a wall of water downstream.   A group of kayakers missing on the river was later reported safe.   New Zealand's Geonet measured Monday's first quake at magnitude 7.5, while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.8. The quakes and aftershocks rattled buildings and woke residents across the country, hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter.   Geonet said four faults had ruptured, with one at the coast appearing to have slipped as much as 10 meters (33 feet). Government research unit GNS Science said the overnight tremor appeared to have been two simultaneous quakes which together lasted more than two minutes.   New Zealand lies in the seismically active ""Ring of Fire"", a 40,000 km arc of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Ocean. Around 90 percent of the world's earthquakes occur within this region.   Stock exchange operator NZX Ltd said markets traded normally, although many offices in the capital were closed. The New Zealand dollar initially fell to a one-month low before mostly recovering.   Fonterra, the world's biggest dairy exporter, said some its farms were without power and would likely have to dump milk.   Prime Minister Key postponed a trip to Argentina, where he had planned to hold a series of trade meetings ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in Peru this week, as he met disaster officials.   At least one of those killed was found in a house in Kaikoura that ""collapsed like a stack of cards"", Kaikoura Hospital's Dr Christopher Henry told Fairfax media. Two other people were pulled alive from the same building.   New Zealand media reported one of the pilots taking rescuers to the area was Richie McCaw, the recently retired captain of New Zealand's world champion All Blacks rugby team.   ""At one point, the railway was way out over the sea - it had been pushed out by (land) slips. It would not have been a nice place to be at midnight last night,"" McCaw told the New Zealand Herald after helping fly the USAR team to Kaikoura."
10,"1 Police Officer Dead, 1 Wounded After Western Pennsylvania Shooting —  One police officer was killed and another was wounded when they were “ambushed” while responding to a domestic dispute in western Pennsylvania, the authorities said on Thursday. Hours later, a man and a woman were found dead inside a home nearby.   A Pennsylvania state trooper, Melinda Bondarenka, told reporters that the officers from the Canonsburg police department had been responding to a domestic dispute around 3 a.m. on Thursday when they were “ambushed upon their arrival,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Little information was given as to the nature of the dispute, and the man and the woman found dead in the home were not identified.   The officer who was killed, Scott Leslie Bashioum, 52, was killed by a gun shot wound, according to the coroner’s report. He was pronounced dead shortly after 4 a.m. at Canonsburg Hospital. Dan Laurent, a spokesman for the Allegheny Health Network, said that the other officer who was shot was flown to Allegheny General Hospital, a nearby trauma center. There was no further word on his condition on Thursday.   The Associated Press reported that local schools in the town, about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, were canceled while S.W.A.T. officers spent hours searching for the man who had opened fire on the officers. There were reports that the man found dead inside the home was the suspect, but they could not be immediately confirmed.   Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania said that he was in touch with the Pennsylvania state police and that he sent his “deepest condolences to the officer tragically killed.”   According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, at least 57 police officers have been killed by firearms so far in 2016, up from 35 in all of 2015. Last week, two police officers in Iowa were shot and killed when a man who had a history of confrontations with the police opened fire on their patrol cars."
11,"13 civilians killed by cross-border shelling in Kashmir, say India, Pakistan —  India and Pakistan say 13 civilians have been killed in cross-border shelling from both sides of the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir.   At least seven civilians on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) were killed Tuesday and 15 others injured in shelling that came from the Pakistani side, according to local Indian authorities. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that six civilians on the Pakistani side had been killed by shelling from India Monday, and eight injured. Could India and Pakistan go to war? Women killed 'inside their homes' The casualties on the Pakistani side were in the Nikial and Jandrot areas, the statement said, adding that Pakistan's Director General had summoned India's Deputy High Chief Commissioner on Tuesday to strongly condemn the ""unprovoked ceasefire violations."" Of the Indian casualties, five civilians were killed in heavy shelling in the Ramgrah sector of India's Samba district, Sheetal Nanda, Samba's district magistrate, told CNN. Nine others were injured in the area. Two women were also killed in shelling in the Manjakote area of Rajouri district, according to Johnny Williams, deputy inspector general of police in the district. ""The two ladies were inside their homes when shells landed there. They died on the spot,"" he said, adding that three others were injured in the strikes. Three civilians were also injured in India's Poonch district, police chief J.S. Johar told CNN. Neither side has responded to the allegations of ceasefire violations. The latest clashes come at a time of heightened tension between the neighbors over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region that has been disputed territory between India and Pakistan for the past 70 years. Both of the nuclear-armed countries hold separate parts of the region and have fought two wars, in 1947 and 1965, over their claims. They came close to a third, in 1999. Tensions have flared since 19 Indian soldiers were killed in September in an attack by armed militants on an army base in Uri, about 63 miles (102 kilometers) from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the aftermath, India launched what it described as a ""surgical strike"" across the Line of Control to attack what it said was a terrorist launching pad. Pakistan denied that the target was a terrorist base, pointing out that two of its soldiers were killed. Amid the continuing fallout, India has relocated more than 10,000 people from around the disputed border area, and a top Bollywood director has refused to hire Pakistani actors."
12,"2 HURT IN PARATRANSIT BUS CRASH IN DELAWARE —  Police are investigating a crash involving a paratransit bus in Newark, Delaware.   It happened before 8:30 a.m. Monday in the unit block of Red Mill Road.   Video from the Action Cam showed the DART bus parked on the side of the road.   A black sedan with significant front-end damage was located nearby.   State police tell Action News two people from the bus were taken to Christiana Hospital.   There was no immediate word on the extent of their injuries.   The crash remains under investigation."
13,"2 U.S. troops killed fighting Taliban in Afghanistan; civilians hit by airstrike —  KABUL — At least 26 Afghan civilians were killed and many others injured in airstrikes early Thursday while NATO and ­Afghan forces were battling ­Taliban fighters in northern Kunduz province, Afghan officials and witnesses said. Two American service members also died in ground clashes there, U.S. military officials confirmed. Details of the incidents were murky, with conflicting reports on the number of casualties and no official account of the airstrikes. Some local officials claimed that up to 100 civilians were killed or wounded in a series of airstrikes around Kunduz city. [NATO and government forces are increasingly responsible for Afghan civilian deaths] A portion of the strategic provincial capital was briefly overrun by insurgents last month, and Afghan troops assisted by U.S. forces have been trying to clear them from the area. The confusing and deadly ­drama recalled the tragic events in Kunduz just over a year ago, when the Taliban overran the city and Afghan and NATO forces were trying to beat them back. In the chaos, a U.S. airstrike mistakenly targeted an emergency hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders, killing 42 patients and staff members.  As of late Thursday, NATO officials had not confirmed or commented on the reported deaths of the civilians, who were said to be members of several families living in a neighborhood near the city. Photographs published on the Internet showed the bodies of small children crumpled on a blanket and being carried in a cart by weeping adults.  Angry relatives of the victims attempted to parade their bodies through the city to the provincial governor’s residence in a protest caravan, but they were stopped by security forces, Amruddin Wali, a member of the provincial council, said in a telephone interview.  A security official in Kunduz said an “operation against the opponents” resulted in the deaths of more than 20 civilians from “various families.” Ghulam Rabbani, another provincial council member, said 36 people were killed. Other officials said homes in various locations were destroyed by the strikes. [Kabul not spared Taliban strikes] U.S. military officials in Kabul confirmed that two U.S. service members were killed and two others wounded when they came under insurgent fire. “Despite today’s tragic event, we are steadfast in our commitment to help our Afghan partners defend their nation,” said Gen. John W. Nicholson, the senior U.S. military commander here, referring to the deaths of the U.S. troops.  Late Thursday afternoon, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, the chief spokesman for Resolute Support, the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan, issued a statement that referred to airstrikes by “friendly forces” but did not confirm any civilian casualties. It said all information on that matter should come from Afghan officials. The NATO mission’s mandate is to assist, advise and train Afghan defense forces in their war against insurgents. Almost all foreign combat troops withdrew at the end of 2014, leaving Afghan troops facing an aggressive Taliban militia. “As part of an Afghan operation, friendly forces received direct fire and airstrikes were conducted to defend themselves,” Cleveland’s statement said. “We take all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously. As this was an Afghan operation, we’ll work with our partners to investigate but refer you to them for additional details in the near term. We’ll provide updates as we have them.” The senior Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Dawlat Waziri, said three Afghan special forces members were killed in fighting with the Taliban. He said he had no information on civilian deaths.  A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said three Taliban fighters were targeted by the Afghan and foreign forces and were then killed in a firefight in which Afghan and American troops also died. He said a large number of civilians also were killed. Pajhwok Afghan News quoted a farmer in Kunduz named Taza Gul as saying: “I was working on my farm when the bombardment started. On coming home, I saw seven members of my family, including women and children, killed in the raids.”  After the deadly 2015 airstrike in Kunduz, a U.S. military investigation led to the disciplining of 16 military members who were said to have made mistakes leading to the strike. Doctors Without Borders called the attack a war crime."
14,"2 divers found dead in Florida cave system —  The signs tell divers the area is dangerous. Even experienced ones have died there.   Ten people, including two who were found Monday, have had fatal incidents inside the Eagle's Nest cave dive area in Western Florida since 1981. The Hernando County Sheriff's Office said Patrick Peacock and Chris Rittenmeyer went diving on Sunday afternoon with a third man, who reported the duo missing. Search and rescue divers found their bodies the next day in a ""very dangerous and complex area of the cave system,"" the sheriff's office said. Peacock and Rittenmeyer had come from Fort Lauderdale for a three-day dive at Eagle's Nest, a famous dive spot near Weeki Wachee, located in the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area, about 60 miles north of Tampa. Both men were experienced divers who had both dived Eagle's Nest several times, the sheriff said. The third diver, Justin Blakeley, told authorities the three divers were supposed to meet at 3 p.m. Sunday, but Peacock and Rittenmeyer failed to show. Blakeley went back to the meeting spot every 30 minutes throughout the afternoon before calling police at 6 p.m. Becky Kagan Schott, an experienced cave diver and professional photographer who has dived Eagle's Nest about 20 times in her career, said the cave is a destination for many divers. ""Eagle's Nest is an alluring cave and many divers aspire to dive there someday,"" she said. ""It's like dropping down into a whole new world as you swim through giant passageways that have taken tens of thousands of years to form."" Kagan Schott also cautioned that training and experience is paramount before attempting a dive at Eagle's Nest. ""Certified cave divers train hard so that when issues arise they have the muscle memory and experience to deal with them,"" Kagan Schott said. ""Even with that experience things can go wrong, but as cave divers we all know the risks before we go."" According to Kagan Schott, 125 feet below the surface, near the area known to divers as the Debris Cone, is a permanently posted sign with an image of the Grim Reaper along with the stern warning, ""There's nothing in this cave worth dying for! Do not go beyond this point."" The area was off limits for divers from 1999 to 2003, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which said the area had been compared with Mount Everest because it is beautiful but difficult. Diving expert Chuck Walls told CNN affiliate WFTS that only highly trained divers should attempt to dive there. He added that even skilled divers can be affected at dangerous depths. ""It's called martini's law for us old timers. For the new comer, it's nitrogen narcosis,"" Walls told the Tampa-based station. ""You have a lack of judgment and lose some of your inhibitions. Some people may even freeze up and do what we call 'white out.'"" Police have not said how the men died. The two divers were found more than 250 below the water's surface. Autopsy results have not been disclosed. Their deaths appear to be the first since a father and son died at the Eagle's Nest on Christmas 2013. According to CNN affiliate WFLA, they were trying out diving equipment they received as presents. WFTS reported some people have called for the area to be closed again while cave diving enthusiasts have said people know the risks and the site should be open for the people who have the training and experience. When CNN inquired with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, asking whether the site might be closed, spokeswoman Susan Smith didn't comment. She offered the department's sympathies to the relatives of the two divers. ""Our thoughts and prayers go out to these families,"" she wrote in an email."
15,"2 men critical after being shot in North Philly —  Two men were hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday afternoon after being shot in the Swampoodle section of North Philadelphia, police said.   The shooting occurred on the 2100 block of Indiana Avenue at about 3:20 p.m.   A 58-year-old man was shot twice in the stomach and was taken by private vehicle to Temple University Hospital, police said. Another man, whose age was not known, was shot once in the back and was also taken to Temple, police said. Police said no weapon was recovered and no arrests were reported."
16,"20 Iconic Moments In Women's Sport That Made Everyone Cheer —  Over the years there has been a greater level of interest in women's sport and that's partly down to the athletes themselves, who, as we will soon profile, have overcome various obstacles and challenges to get to where they are today. Think Maria Sharapova, who, in recent years has become one of the highest-paid athletes in the world having emigrated to America with her dad aged only 7. Or the Italian diver Tania Cagnotto, whose signature good looks have given her fame beyond her wildest dreams. Yes, female athletes are all the rage at the moment and as well as gracing us with their athletic abilities many have made millions from various endorsements, including high-profile modelling gigs.  With that in mind, here are 20 iconic female athletes, many of whom were involved in some of sports' most iconic moments. 1. Ronda Rousey Before a loud-mouthed Irishman by the name of Connor McGreogor came onto the scene, the face of UFC was arguably that of the famed and fearless female fighter, Ronda Rousey. The American, who in 2015 was the third most searched name on Google, started her mixed-martial-arts career as a judo fighter and won bronze at the 2008 Bejing Olympics before eventually transitioning to cage fighting. After making her UFC bow in 2012, Ronda Rousey went 11 matches undefeated, with each of her wins coming in the first round before she suffered a surprising defeat to underdog Holly Holm.  Since her fame, Ronda has also appeared in many movies, with a notable role coming in the much-criticised Entourage movie. Aside from Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, Rousey is female sport's most famous name. 2. Maria Sharapova For a sport that has done many things to further the prominence female athletes, in only right we feature another one of its stars. Maria Sharapova, born in Russia but raised in Florida, became one of the youngest Grand Slam winners in history when she beat Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final, aged just 17. What it spawned for Maria and female tennis was a multitude of attention. In fact, along with the Williams sisters, female tennis became one of the most watched sports in the world, and part of the attraction came from Maria's widespread appeal and by the mid 00's, the Russian ace and four-time slam winner was topping every athlete rich list imaginable. As of today, the 29-year-old remains the wealthiest female athlete of all time, which is iconic in the sense that until very recently, female athletes, no matter how talented they were, were only being paid a fraction of what was on offer in the male game. 3. The Williams Sisters Sisters and all-round megastars Venus and Serena Williams changed female tennis in ways perhaps only the legendary Billy Jean King has surpassed the moment they first came onto the scene in the late 1990s. Potent forces in both doubles and singles, the world, has become accustomed to seeing their opponents blown away by their macho-like aggression and breathtaking athleticism which has led the sisters to win almost every title out there. But the feared duo is as much a force in tennis as they are in the women's game, and in recent years, Serena's domination and hogging of the number 1 ranking have seen her become of one the highest-earning athletes in the world, surpassed by only a handful of males. 4. Gretchen Bleiler Before Gretchen Bleiler came onto the scene, female participation in snowboarding largely consisted of pretty women holding up placards before the men did their thing. Thankfully Gretchen Bleiler changed that when she became the first to land the death-defying ""crippler 540"" in competition and would go on to become one of the sport's most celebrated athletes, winning gold at four consecutive Aspen games as well as silver in the Halfpipe competition at 2006's Winter Olympics.  The American's remarkable medal, coupled with her Hollywood looks has garnered the athlete an impressive 133k Twitter followers, and many have since credited her with elevating her sport into a more mainstream audience.  5. Dara Torress  If Michael Phelps is the king of the pool, then Dara Torress can surely make a case for being its queen. As well qualifying and then competing in five Olympic games (1984, 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2008), she's also collected medals in all five of them. Being one of only two Americans to achieve such a feat- the other being the skeet shooter Kim Rhode- Torres' current Olympic medal collection stands at 12 and is also a former world record holder in three events. 6. Simone Biles As the most decorated American gymnast, Biles attracts attention from all of America's major media outlets whenever she performs, and such an interest in her talent was richly rewarded when she mesmerised the judges and indeed the many millions at home watching when performing at the Rio Olympics. In total, her medal haul amounted to an incredible four golds, which came in the individual all-around, vault,  floor and team competition. Unsurprisingly, Biles' spellbinding displays, most notably in day one of the Olympic trials, made her an overnight sensation, with many magazines and newspapers believing Biles can one day match her fellow compatriot Serena Williams in career earnings. But Biles would likely have taken more heart from an article written by The Guardian's Bryan Armen, who labelled the 4ft 8in Biles 'the best athlete in America.'  7. Billie Jean King Billie Jean King was a major pioneer in women's sport ever since the 39-time Grand Slam winner set up and won the infamous 1973 'battle of the sexes' match against the notoriously pugnacious tennis player, Bobby Riggs. Watched by a global television audience of over 100m people, King went on to beat Riggs in straight sets, and many have since viewed the match as a watershed in not only the game of tennis but the whole of women's sport. By 2007, for instance, grand slam prize money in tennis was the same for both men and women while other sports where female participation is prevalent have strived for similar equality, with many governing boards asking for King's advice on how best they can further the careers of their female stars. 8. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh The dynamic and fearsome American duo have long been considered the greatest volleyball team of all time, a reputation that has only been cemented over the years following consecutive gold medals at the last three Olympics and World Championships. The pair first came to prominence when they ran rings around every opponent at the 2008 Olympics, which would see them take the gold without losing a single set. After 2012's triumph, the celebrated duo decided to part ways after Misty-May's decision to retire.  Kerri Welsh would go on to compete with new partner April Ross at the Rio Games, although the two ended up losing in the semi-final. 9. Katherine Schweitzer After Katherine Switzer's coach had warned her that she was too 'fragile' to run a full-length marathon, Switzer thought better and became the first woman to compete in the Boston Marathon when she defied the all-male criteria. However, in 1967, the time the incident took place, women were barred from competing and the race organiser Jock Semple chased her down once he noticed what Switzer was doing. But it was the heroics of her boyfriend and the other male runners who won over the world with their actions, as they stopped Semple from reaching her. It wouldn't be until 1972 that women were allowed to compete.  10. Tania Cagnotto Tania Cagnotto first made waves in Italy as a talented 15-year-old diver when she qualified for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Despite only finishing 18th, the Italian star would go on to win a gold medal at the 2015 FINA world championships, becoming the first Italian to do so. Now retired after winning silver and bronze at the 2016 Olympics, the 31-year-old has been a major celebrity in her homeland for some time.  In fact, after doing a raunchy shoot for Playboy Italy in 2013, the crowd in attendance at one of her competitions cheered after a disappointing dive shortly after the photos were released, but she couldn't understand why. 11. Hope Solo Being a goalkeeper in the world of soccer often means a lot of criticism and not much praise, but female goalie Hope Solo proved that isn't always the case. Instead, the American shot-stopper would go on to become one of the most decorated female athletes, a feat that was achieved when she made a string of match-winning performances in the 2008 Olympics and ultimately helping her team take gold. And the same was true in London four years later. The US team, with captain Solo at the helm, would take another gold at the 2012 Olympics, and further cement the U.S. as the best team in women's soccer. Now retired, Hope can hold her head high having amassed a plethora of international records including most appearances (202), starts (190), wins (153) and shutouts (102).  12. At the London 2012 Olympics, Every Country Had Female Athletes Representing Them When female athletes from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Islamic Sultanate of Brunei were first allowed to compete at the Olympic Games in 2012, it proved a turning point in women's sport. For the first time in Olympic history, every country had female athletes on their roster, and many viewed it at as the final step in eradicating gender inequality in sport. Admittedly, the Saudi female athletes were forced to have a male guardian accompanying them as well as wear a ""Sharia-compliant"" sports kit that covered their hair, but it no doubt proved a start of better things to come. 13. Danica Patrick Winning In the dangerous and often high-octane world of high-speed racing, sports like Formula 1, NASCAR, and INDYCAR have long been viewed as a macho sport dominated by courageous men, so when Danica Patrick became one of only a select of women to compete in American-open-wheel-racing, many heads were turned. Indeed, while Danica's gender was a main point of interest, it was her winning exploits on the track that turned someone first known as a professional female driver into a sporting sensation when she finished first in the Japan Indy. The famous victory meant that she became the first (and only) woman to win an IndyCar Series race and if that wasn't impressive enough, she took third place in the Indianapolis 500 the following year. Danica has also forged a successful career for herself in the NASCAR Spring Cup Series, and famously finished 8th in the Daytona 500, the highest ever for a female driver.  14. Flo Jo The late Florence Griffith-Joyner was arguably the female equivalent of Usain Bolt during the1980s because every time she ran another record as almost guaranteed to be broken.  Also sharing a similar charisma to the Jamaican, Flo Jo, as she was endearingly nicknamed, was also someone who thrived off pressure and the limelight that came with it and famously accepted her 1988 Olympic medals sporting her trademark elongated fingernails. Her career reached its peak after the success of her record-breaking exploits at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, in which she won three medals. The victories would come with world records in both the 100m and 200m.  Her times of 10.49 seconds in the 100m and 21.34 in the 200m are yet to be broken.  15. Mo'ne Davis Mo'ne Davis became the first African-American female to play in baseball's Little League Wolrd Series and was also the first girl to pitch a winning game when she pitched an impressive 70-mile-per-hour fastball. Due to the significance of her achievement, Davis attracted national attention and even landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The magazine identified her as ""Sports Kid of the Year"" and at only 15-years-old, Mo'ne has already done much to convince girls her age that taking part in sport shouldn't be seen as a bad thing. 16. Becky Hammon Becky Hammon enjoyed a successful career in America's premier female basketball league but is more known for being the first full-time assistant coach when The San Antonio Spurs sought her services. Many have since viewed Hammon's appointment as a precedent for future female employment within men's sport. 17. Diana Nyad Swimming long distances isn't for the fainthearted and one person who knows that all too well is Diana Nyad, who became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage. The 2013 achievement, which was 35 years in the making having unsuccessfully tried on five separate occasions, marked another significant moment in women's sport. As well as Nyad's record, the 63-year-old was praised for her persistence, with hypothermia, violent storms, stinging jellyfish and the likely possibility of being eaten by sharks all getting in her way on the other five occasions.  18. Molly Huddle As one of the world's premier marathons, New York City's marathon (and half-marathon) attracts thousands of entrants. In 2016, Olympic long-distance runner Huddle competed in the women's half-marathon. But not only did she show up or even run a respectable time- she won with a time of 1.07.41. If Molly were seven seconds faster with her finish, she would have broken the female half-marathon American record set by Dena Kastor, who won the 2006 Berlin Half Marathon with a time of 1.07.34 19. Kelly Kulick Many may sniff their noses at the assertion that bowling is a sport, let alone one that is played professionally, but that shouldn't take away the achievements of Kelly Kulick who has dominated in a game mostly seen as the preserve of kids and middle-aged men. 20. Nadia Comăneci The last person on this list is someone whose contribution to the female sporting world will forever be remembered At only 14, the Romanian gymnast scored a perfect 10 from the judges for her performance on the uneven bars and was the first perfect score in the sports' history. Now 54, the former athlete has twice been presented with the Olympic Order, which aims to reward those for distinguished commitments to the Olympic movement."
17,"28 Days in Chains —  In this federal prison, inmates have a choice: live with a violent cellmate or end up in shackles.          On Feb. 3, 2011, corrections officers at Lewisburg federal penitentiary in rural Pennsylvania arrived outside Sebastian Richardson’s cell door. With them was a man looking agitated and rocking back and forth. He stared down at Richardson, who at 4 feet, 11 inches was nicknamed “Bam Bam.”  The man, officers told Richardson, was his new cellmate. The two would spend nearly 24 hours a day celled together in a concrete room smaller than a parking space. Richardson, 51, didn’t know his new cellmate’s name, only that he also went by a nickname: ""The Prophet."" He had a habit of screaming songs or shouting the spelling of words for hours, as though competing in his own private spelling bee. There were also rumors that he had assaulted more than 20 previous “cellies.” “He’s Lewisburg’s weapon,” said former Lewisburg inmate Deangelo Moore. “If he like you, he like you. But if he don’t, he’s your worst enemy.” “Every cellie he get he always end up fighting,” said Lenelle Gray, another former Lewisburg inmate. “He was just crazy.” So when officers told Richardson to cuff up and step aside to make room for his new cellmate, he refused. Richardson later claimed in a lawsuit1 that the guards took The Prophet away and then returned 30 minutes later with reinforcements. They moved him to a laundry area to be stripped, searched, and put in paper clothes. Richardson yelped in pain as they then placed him in hand and ankle cuffs, clicking them tighter until they cut into his wrists and Achilles tendon. A chain, locked high on his chest in a practice known among staff as “T-rexing,” forced his arms into an awkwardly high bend and made it hard to breathe. Officers then walked him, haltingly, to a cell where another man was being held in identical shackles. lawsuit 1 The details of Richardson's story are laid out in a lawsuit he filed against the Bureau of Prisons and the agency's response to that lawsuit — and are reinforced by Richardson's letters from prison and interviews with former inmates. According to inmates' lawyers, Lewisburg staffers, and more than 40 current and former prisoners — who made similar claims in lawsuits, court testimonies, government audits, or letters and interviews with The Marshall Project and NPR — restraints are used as punishment at Lewisburg, often for those who refuse their cell assignments. Inmates have no say over who shares their cell, even if guards place them with someone who has a violent history, is from a rival gang, or is suffering from a severe mental illness. If they try to refuse a cellmate out of fear, as Richardson said he did, they are locked into metal “ambulatory restraints” for hours or days until they relent. Seven prisoners said that they were threatened with or subjected to a punishment far more painful than ambulatory restraints, a form of punishment that at other prisons is used as a short-term last resort for uncontrollable inmates. It is known as “four-pointing” and consists of having each limb cuffed to a corner of a concrete slab or bed frame. Richardson was freezing in the new cell. He claimed that guards left the window open when they locked him in. His paper uniform was no match for the Pennsylvania winter air. It didn’t help that the uniform was soaked with urine; in restraints, he wasn’t able to pull his pants down to use the toilet. Richardson’s cuffs also made the top bunk an impossible reach. So when the other prisoner would take the bottom bed, Richardson did the only thing he could: He would curl up on the concrete floor. Guards came every two hours to check on him. Richardson said they ignored his complaints: his swelling hands, his soiled clothes, his cut ankles. Instead they reiterated his options — be locked in a tiny cell with a violent man or cope with the restraints. Richardson remained cuffed for 28 days. The Special Management Unit where Richardson was housed was created in 2009 for “dangerously violent, confrontational, defiant, antagonistic inmates,” according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. Richardson, serving a 35-year sentence for drug trafficking, was transferred there in March 2010 for assaulting a corrections officer; in his telling, he was intervening in a fight between a guard and another inmate. The aim of the SMU is to increase safety at other federal prisons by culling their most problematic inmates and putting them through a three-step rehabilitation program (if an inmate breaks a rule or gets into a fight, he may have to repeat a step). Prisoners are assigned a series of workbooks and journal entries to be completed in-cell on topics like “The Con Game,” the “criminal lifestyle,” and anger management. BOP lectures play over inmates’ radios, instructing them on everything from diversity to parenting. At Lewisburg, the vast majority of those inmates are in “double-cell” solitary, housed with another prisoner in cells as small as 6 feet by 10 feet for nearly 24 hours a day. The cells were originally built for just one person, but officials doubled up the SMU inmates in order to teach them to “successfully coexist,” according to the prisoner handbook. It also helped alleviate overcrowding — high-security federal prisons are overstuffed by more than 50 percent. As a result, prisoners in the SMU share excessively tight cells; between the bunks, sink, toilet, desk, and the roommate, there is barely room to stand. “When I use the toilet, his feet are on my knees,” said Moore, the former Lewisburg inmate. Inmates get a brief reprieve from the closetlike conditions every week for medical care, three showers, and five hours in a “recreation cage.” Double-cell solitary is a common practice in federal prisons, where more than 80 percent of the nearly 11,000 inmates in restricted housing have a cellmate. But Lewisburg has the added danger of housing some of the bureau’s most volatile prisoners. “I’ve gone to as many as three, four cell fights in a day, a lot more than you would at any other institution,” said a current SMU corrections officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job. Guards in SWAT gear are often seen running down the tier with pepper balls and handcuffs to break up brawling cellmates, including the prisoner who was found kicking a roommate lying in the fetal position, the prisoner who tore off half of his cellmate's ear, and the inmate who slashed his cellmate with a razor blade. According to incident reports obtained by The Marshall Project and NPR, officers responded to 228 in-cell fights and assaults with restraints or pepper spray in 2014 and 2015. At least 19 inmates were treated for injuries such as a collapsed lung, a broken rib, multiple stab wounds, and head injuries. Since the SMU opened, there have been more than 800 recorded inmate-on-inmate assaults — a rate six times higher than all federal prisons. And in that time, at least four inmates have been killed by their cellmates. In August, the Bureau of Prisons announced changes to the SMU in response to recommendations made by the Department of Justice. The new policy limited the length of the rehabilitation program to 12 months and ensured that prisoners who failed to advance on schedule cannot be held in the SMU for longer than two years. Prisoners are also supposed to receive more thorough mental health screenings before and during their time in the unit. But the conditions that inmates are held in, and the practice of using restraints against them, remain unchanged. At other facilities, if an inmate objects to his cellmate out of concern for his safety, he may be given a disciplinary notice for disobeying orders, be held in a cell by himself while officers investigate his complaints, or be ignored altogether. Restraints of any kind are meant to be used briefly and as a last alternative. “The inmate who refuses to cell with someone ordinarily receives an incident report for ‘Refusing A Program Assignment,’ which is a moderate severity infraction,” wrote Jack T. Donson, a former Bureau of Prisons official and current correctional consultant, in an email. “Restraints should not be applied simply because they refuse a cellmate.” The procedures in the SMU leave inmates with few, difficult options: They can verbally refuse their cellmate and risk being restrained. Or they can live with someone they fear, risking attack. Some resort to throwing the first punch, in plain view of guards, knowing that the officers will have to separate them — a strategy that often lands them in restraints, too. Incident reports show that at least 48 men attacked their cellmate directly in front of officers in 2014 and 2015. “I’ve been practicing for almost 30 years, and my clients tell me Lewisburg is the worst place they’ve ever been,” said assistant federal public defender D. Toni Byrd, who has represented several Lewisburg defendants and sits on the board of the Lewisburg Prison Project, a prisoners’ rights nonprofit. “If you did to your dog what they do to men here, you would be arrested.” The BOP declined multiple interview requests for this story. In response to detailed questions about The Marshall Project and NPR’s findings, spokesman Justin Long said he could not comment on pending lawsuits. “The Bureau ensures inmates in its custody are treated fairly and with dignity,” Long wrote in an email. “Allegations of mistreatment are thoroughly investigated and appropriate action is taken if such allegations are proven true.” Long noted that the SMUs are “non-punitive” units meant for inmates with a history of violence. In February 2014, former Lewisburg inmate Royce Brown, who was sentenced to 20 years on drug and gun possession charges, said he had been housed with a “gunner” — someone who masturbates when a woman walks down the tier. During the 18 days they lived together, tension and frustration mounted. “We were stuck looking at each other waiting for it to pop,” Brown said. “It was torture just being in the cell with him.” Brown said that one morning, his cellmate told him, “We can’t live in the cell together no more. I’m gonna make ‘em gas us.” Brown asked to be moved, but guards ignored his requests. Brown knew the protocol: If he attacked his cellmate in front of corrections officers, they would be forced to remove him. “I [hit] him a few times and I put him on the ground,” Brown said. “Now they have to separate us.” Surveillance footage shows more than 30 officers ran down the tier as some shot pepper spray and pepper balls into Brown’s cell to break up the fight. Brown stuck his hands out of the slot to be cuffed and was removed by guards wearing gas masks and blue and black sweatshirts that read “The Big House.” “I tried to deal with this the right way,” Brown told an officer as staff bound his limbs, tears and mucus dripping from his face. “Lieutenant, I tried to get you to talk to me.” As guards chained his hands, ankles, and chest, Brown yelled out in pain. “God damn these are tight. I can’t even breathe.” Brown remained restrained for more than 24 hours after hitting his cellmate, one of several times he was shackled at Lewisburg. A year and a half after coming home, he still has scars on his wrists and stomach. The Lewisburg Prison Project, which has a two-person staff, received 962 letters from Lewisburg prisoners in 2015 and makes regular visits to the penitentiary. They often hear the same complaint. “You are placed in a cell with shackles so tight, I’ve seen probably 30 guys at Lewisburg months later who have open wounds,” said Dave Sprout, a paralegal at the project who is in charge of inmate visits and correspondence. “Many guys can’t eat, they can’t use the bathroom.” At least two men have filed lawsuits alleging that they were forced to drink from the toilet when they could not operate the sink in their restraints. Another Lewisburg inmate filed a lawsuit claiming that the ambulatory restraints were so tight he passed out and still suffers from nerve damage in his hands. He was restrained, he said, for trying to avoid a dangerous cell assignment. A 2014 independent audit of solitary in federal prisons, commissioned by the Bureau of Prisons, noted that a “significant percentage” of Lewisburg inmates they interviewed complained about the overuse and harsh application of restraints. “The high number of reported incidents … suggests the need for further investigation,” auditors wrote. In their response, BOP officials did not comment on that aspect of the audit. Then in November 2015, the D.C. Corrections Information Council, a city government agency that inspects facilities where Washington, D.C. prisoners are housed (the district has no prisons of its own), concluded that the SMU was in violation of federal use-of-force policies. Seventeen D.C. inmates said officers abused restraints, with several recounting how they had been held for days at a time in chains that caused nerve damage in their hands and feet. One prisoner showed investigators his scars and said his three days in restraints was “the most agonizing experience of my life.” Another told investigators that he was held in restraints for refusing a cellmate, and was “forced to defecate and urinate in his pants because the restraints were so tight he could not remove [the pants].” The Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that all of the allegations were investigated, and none were substantiated. But some staffers don’t deny that the prison relies on restraints. “If you allow inmates to dictate the terms under which they get a cellie, then you’re not in control,” the Lewisburg guard said. “[Officers] don’t think twice about putting someone in restraints if they’re insubordinate or if they’re not being compliant with the rules,” said Marc Marchioli, who worked as a physician assistant at Lewisburg from October 2012 to May 2014. “You have to remember these guys are dangerous people. If they don’t cuff up, it’s considered a direct threat.” Marchioli said that officers applied restraints correctly — but that inmates caused their own injuries when they tried to move. “The more they wiggle, the more damage they end up doing.” Last year was a particularly violent one at Lewisburg. In August 2015, Jimmy Barker, serving a 13-year sentence for fraud, died after a fight with his cellmate. BOP documents obtained by The Marshall Project and NPR show that Barker had been in a psychiatric hospital three times and attempted suicide twice, but that a Lewisburg psychologist found no evidence of serious mental illness before placing him in a double cell with another inmate. Then in October, Gerardo Arche-Felix was killed by his cellmate. Arche-Felix, 57, was serving a five-year sentence for attempted entry after deportation and had been at Lewisburg since April 2014. He had tried to cross the border in 2012 to rejoin his family in Utah after being sent to Mexico two years earlier. He was also a diagnosed schizophrenic and said he had not been given his medication for much of his time in Lewisburg. Prison documents show that psychology staff in the SMU repeatedly found Arche-Felix to have “no significant mental health issues,” though he had previously been under an involuntary treatment order in a Utah state prison and was forced to take antipsychotic drugs. Without medication, Arche-Felix could be erratic, agitated, and paranoid. “It’s been more than a month I don’t take my meds,” he wrote in a letter to his daughter, Jana Oman, in September 2014. “I need my meds or I’ll lose my mind.” “It was hell. You could hear it in his voice every time he spoke on the phone or read a letter,” Oman said. “Little by little, he was just falling apart.” Because of his mental health problems and slight, 5-foot-8-inch frame, Arche-Felix was especially vulnerable to attacks from other prisoners. “My cellmate went crazy on me and started to beat me up while I was asleep. He is younger and taller and stronger than me,” he wrote in November 2014. He often ended up in restraints, according to his family, for his erratic behavior. “He told my aunt that he would be handcuffed on his ankles and around his wrists and they would be chained together,” Oman said. “He’d be like that for days.” Arche-Felix’s sister, Kiana Arche, said her brother grew more afraid the longer he spent in the SMU. At Lewisburg, his options were to accept the cellmates he desperately feared or end up shackled in a cell. One day he called his sister and told her, “‘Call this nurse and please tell her they need to move me from here,’” she recounted. “‘This not right. I’m so scared. I’m not supposed to be here.’” Oman received a call the morning of October 14, 2015, from the prison chaplain, who told her that her father was dead. Days later, she read in the newspaper that his death was a suspected homicide. Prosecutors have since confirmed they are investigating his cellmate for murder. On Arche-Felix's death certificate, his cause of death reads ""strangulation by ligature."" After seven days in restraints, Sebastian Richardson remained determined. He would not be put in the same small cell with The Prophet or any other violent prisoner. So officers tried something else. A team of guards took Richardson to a room, painted floor to ceiling in pink, a shade designed to soothe aggressive behavior. In the center of the room was a bed frame topped with a thin pad. As is protocol, guards laid Richardson on the bed and bound each limb to one of its corners. Because he was so short, the restraints were even more painful because his arms and legs had to stretch farther to reach each post. Officers then draped a paper blanket over him before leaving the room and locking the door. He was left to stay in the pink room, splayed and immobile. Richardson screamed out in pain as he was being chained down. He claimed one officer again opened the window before leaving the room, as other prisoners have accused guards of doing. His requests for water and a bathroom break were ignored, leaving him shivering in his soiled paper uniform. The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Richardson was four-pointed but denied his description of the conditions. They claimed he was placed in more severe restraints for threatening to assault staff. Richardson was pinned down for a total of eight hours. He was then put back into ambulatory restraints for three more weeks. He said he was uncuffed only once, to take a shower. “They placed the restraints on me so tight ... my hands had puffed up. Each finger looked like the Valasic [sic] pickles ... not the smaller ones, the medium size,” he later wrote to Dave Sprout of the Lewisburg Prison Project about restraints at Lewisburg. “My wrists were so swollen the cuffs were stuck in them.” On March 2, 2011, almost a month after he’d been cuffed, Richardson agreed to live with any cellmate they gave him. At one point, he was housed with someone he said had not been given his psychiatric medication. The inmate stayed up all night talking to himself. After that cellmate was moved, Richardson claimed that officers tried to get him to live with someone who had stabbed him on the rec yard of another facility. Richardson refused and ended up in restraints again. This time, he was held in shackles for 16 days, one of which was spent four-pointed. Richardson claimed this cycle continued several more times during his two-and-a-half years in the SMU. “It is my desire to get through this violating, unstable, dangerous environment, but not at the cost of jeopardizing my safety and life,” Richardson wrote in a letter to Sprout. “[They] said they will keep putting me in 4-points until I go where they put me.” In December 2011, the Lewisburg Prison Project and the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, a legal aid organization, filed a federal lawsuit over the prison’s use of restraints, with Sebastian Richardson as the lead plaintiff. The case is ongoing. In response to the suit, Bureau of Prisons officials denied that Lewisburg staff are placing inmates in restraints as punishment. The bureau also objected to the claim that restraints are applied in a way that injures or prevents prisoners from eating, drinking, or using the toilet. “Inmates in ambulatory restraints are able to take care of basic human needs without staff intervention,” they wrote. A kind of relief came to Richardson in September 2012, when he was transferred out of Lewisburg to the supermax prison in Florence, Colo., the highest-security prison in the country. There, inmates are locked down in a single cell for almost 24 hours a day. Though Florence has been called “America’s Toughest Prison,” for many in Lewisburg’s SMU, it’s seen as an escape. At Florence, they can live alone, free from the constant threat of violence. As Richardson wrote in a letter to Sprout, “anywhere is a better place to be.”"
18,"3 U.S. military trainers killed in gunfire by security units at Jordan base —  At least three U.S. military trainers in Jordan were fatally shot by security forces Friday when their vehicle failed to stop at the gate of a military base, Jordanian and U.S. officials said.   The U.S. military service members “came under fire” as they approached a Jordanian training facility, said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. Few other details about the incident were given. Cook said U.S. and Jordanian authorities were investigating the cause.   Earlier, Jordan’s military said there was “an exchange of gunfire” after the vehicle’s driver ignored demands to stop outside an air base in southern Jordan. A Jordanian officer was injured, the statement said.   Other details of the incident at the King Faisal Air Base were not immediately clear. Investigators were trying to piece together the events, including whether a possible miscommunication was to blame.   The U.S. official said two of the service members died later in Jordan’s capital, Amman, where they were airlifted for treatment.   Jordan is a close ally of the United States, and military training by U.S. personnel is common. Jordan is also part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in neighboring Syria.   [Prominent Jordanian writer gunned down]   The U.S. Embassy in Amman said in a statement it was “in contact with the appropriate Jordanian authorities, who have offered their full support.”   A U.S. diplomat in Amman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said American and Jordanian officials “do not believe” the incident was terrorism-related, but he offered no further details.   The King Faisal base, about 150 miles southeast of Amman and near the border with Saudi Arabia, has long been used for joint exercises between Jordan and its various allies, including the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia. The base is also part of the network in Jordan to train Western-backed Syrian rebels.   According to U.S. diplomats and Jordanian officials, there are more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel based in Jordan, the majority serving as advisers to Jordan’s armed forces and Syrian rebel factions.   Jordan’s military has been on high alert since June, when a suicide attacker driving a bomb-rigged truck barreled through Syria’s border with Jordan, setting off a blast outside a Syrian refugee camp that killed seven Jordanian troops. It was the deadliest attack along the tense border, which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have crossed during the more than five-year conflict in their homeland.   In November 2015, a Jordanian police officer opened fire at a police training academy south of Amman, killing two U.S. contractors."
19,"3,800 dead ... and more on the way —  (CNN)Rickety boats that should never have sailed. Unscrupulous smugglers with no regard for life. And desperate people risking everything. That mix of fear, hope and greed has now produced a horrifying record. More people have drowned in the Mediterranean this year than ever before: at least 3,800. That's about 90 a week. It's nearly 13 every day. Here's a look at how we got to this point. Why are they doing it? They have no choice. They are Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, escaping war. They are Nigerians and Eritreans in search of a better life. More than 65 million people have fled their homes; 1 in 3 of them are refugees. We're in the midst of the largest migration of refugees since World War II. The sheer number dwarfs the population of many countries. Would you risk these odds? Even though fewer people are crossing this year than in 2015, more people are dying as they try to make the journey. One person out of every 88 has been lost at sea trying to reach the shores of Greece, Italy or Spain. That means they're 90 times more likely to die on the journey than an American is likely to die of gunshot wounds. Where are they heading? There are three main routes across the Mediterranean. Eastern Route: Last year, the route from Turkey to Greece was the busiest by far, but a deal between the European Union and Ankara has brought the numbers down. Still, it remains a heavily trafficked route. Central Route: Libya has no government, which gives people smugglers plenty of freedom to operate out of north Africa. Traffic has been busy this year between Libya and Italy. Central Route: Libya has no government, which gives people smugglers plenty of freedom to operate out of north Africa. Traffic has been busy this year between Libya and Italy. Western Route: West Africa is far from the Middle Eastern hotspots and poor sub-Saharan African countries that produce most migrants to Europe. And relatively small numbers of people try to reach the continent from there. But even so, a steady trickle crosses the sea at the narrow point south of Spain.  Where are they fleeing from? More than a million people have fled Somalia. Nearly three million have escaped Afghanistan. But it is Syria, wracked by civil war for more than five years, that produces the most refugees: nearly five million. Just how bad is it in Syria? The Syrian refugees may outnumber any other country's refugees, but they make up less than half the number of Syrians driven from their homes by the war. Far more are internally displaced -- still in Syria, but living like refugees in the country. And then, of course, an unknown number of people have been killed in the war. International agencies stopped trying to count the dead years ago. The latest estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number somewhere around 430,000. If that's right, it means about one out of every 50 people in the country has been killed. Where do they go? President Obama vowed that the United States would resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees this year, and by August, the administration was saying it would surpass the target. Justin Trudeau vowed Canada would take 25,000 when he became prime minister last year. But far more are claiming asylum in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would take one million refugees. And all across Europe, refugees from Syria are claiming asylum. But far more stay in the Middle East. Syria's own neighbors host the vast majority of people trying to escape the war. And there's little hope the war will end any time soon -- so the refugees will keep fleeing. And they will keep dying."
20,"375 top scientists warn of 'real, serious, immediate' climate threat —  Yesterday, 375 of the world’s top scientists, including 30 Nobel Prize winners, published an open letter regarding climate change. In the letter, the scientists report that the evidence is clear: humans are causing climate change. We are now observing climate change and its affect across the globe. The seas are rising, the oceans are warming, the lower atmosphere is warming, the land is warming, ice is melting, rainfall patterns are changing and the ocean is becoming more acidic. These facts are incontrovertible. No reputable scientist disputes them. It is the truth. Despite these facts, the letter reports that the US presidential campaign has seen claims that the earth isn’t warming, or it is only a natural warming, or that climate change is a hoax. These claims are false. The claims are made by politicians or real estate developers with no scientific experience. These people who deny the reality of climate change are not scientists.  These claims aren’t new. We see them every election cycle. In fact, for the Republican Party, they are a virtual litmus test for electability. It is terribly sad that the party of Lincoln (the president who initiated the National Academy of Sciences) has been rebuked by the National Academy today. It is sad that the party of Teddy Roosevelt, who created the National Park System, is acting in a way antithetical to his legacy. It is also sad that the party of Nixon, who created the Environmental Protection Agency, now is trying to eliminate that very organization. What is perhaps most sad is that the party of “fiscal conservatism” is leading us on a path that will result in higher economic and social costs for all of us. What we don’t know is what the future will bring. Will the warming be gradual or sudden? Will ocean rise increase at a faster rate or not? Will we continue to see major ice shelf collapse? Increased droughts and heat waves? Will we be able to adapt? A rational decision maker would take action to manage the risks from climate change. This threat is to our health, our communities, and our economies. A changing climate with warming seas and an acidifying ocean will cause real economic losses for our generation and for the future. In the letter, the scientists venture deeper into politics than scientists are generally willing to tread. They describe the inane Republican platform and the foolish position of the Republican nominee Donald Trump. Basically, Trump wishes to scrap our environmental agreements, which have resulted in reductions to our own emissions as well as very strong agreements to reduce global warming through international agreements.  Advertisement Despite the excellent work over the past 7 years, we have not seen the increase in energy prices that the denialists claimed would occur. Instead, we’ve seen huge reductions in the cost of wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources. We were right, they were wrong. We can deliver reliable energy to the USA at a low cost, with less pollution. We scientists have warned the country and the world about the dangers of climate change for decades. We are now seeing our predictions come true. There are no longer any reputable scientists who disagree that humans are the major factor changing the climate.  We have also seen that real action can be taken to reduce pollution. That action will not hurt our economy, rather it has built the new energy economy of the future. Despite this progress, some people want to take us backwards in time – they want to undo our progress. For those who vote in anti-science politicians who attack the scientific experts rather than our pollution problem, your legacy will be the climate change that you could have helped prevent. Those voters will own climate change.  What will that conversation be like with your kids?"
21,"52 killed at religious shrine in Pakistan by ISIS suicide bomber —  A suicide bomb attack killed at least 52 people and injured more than 100 others during a religious ceremony in the remote mountains of Pakistan Saturday evening, according to local law enforcement.   Through its media wing Amaq, ISIS claimed responsibility for the blast on a Sufi shrine in the Lasbela district of Balochistan, 120 miles from Karachi. About 500 people had assembled to perform a Sufi ritual at the Shah Noorani Shrine when the bomb went off, according to Sarfraz Bugti, the home minister of Balochistan province. The remoteness of the region made it difficult to get emergency services to the area, but rescue operations are underway, he said. Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif issued a statement, condemning the blast and ordering federal and provincial authorities to ""bring the perpetrators to task immediately."" Imran Khan, the head of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party and a former cricketer, said the attack hit at the ""core"" of Pakistan's society. In September, Pakistan's military acknowledged for the first time that ISIS had a presence in the country. In October, ISIS attacked a police academy in Quetta, Pakistan killing 61 and injuring 117."
22,"6-WEEK-OLD GIRL FOUND IN SHOE BOX ON PORCH IN LONG ISLAND —  Police are investigating after a baby was found in a shoe box on a Brentwood, Long Island porch this week.   Around 9 p.m. Thursday, a 14-year-old resident who lives in the 400 block of Washington Ave., heard a baby crying on the rear porch, according to Suffolk County Police. He went outside and found a 6-week-old girl, in a shoe box, wrapped in a blanket with a bottle of milk. He told his family, and they brought the baby inside and called 911.   The baby was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore where doctors said she is in good health.   The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information on the case is asked to call (631) 854-8352."
23,"73 killed in tanker explosion in Mozambique —  A fuel tanker exploded in northern Mozambique as residents gathered around to buy fuel from the driver on Thursday, killing 73 people and injuring 110 others, Mozambican media reported.   Dozens of charred bodies were scattered around the blast site in the town of Caphiridzange in Tete province, and government officials believed more bodies might be in surrounding woods, Radio Mozambique reported. Some badly burned people had tried to run into a nearby river, the radio said.   A truck driver from neighboring Malawi had turned off the main road to sell fuel to local residents, who were gathered around the vehicle when the fuel caught fire, according to Radio Mozambique.   Medical teams rushed to the scene of the accident, evacuating the injured in ambulances and other vehicles. Searchers looked for more victims, though their efforts were hampered as night fell.   The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Citing Mozambican reports, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said one theory was that a fire near the tanker set off the blast, while another theory pointed to a lightning strike as residents were collecting the fuel.   A national government task force planned to travel to the accident site on Friday."
24,"<Title missing> —  Tundra, a 29-year old female polar bear who was living at the Detroit Zoo had passed away Monday morning after battling an illness suddenly caught the day before. The zoo wrote in a Facebook post that zoo officials decided to euthanize her after they noticed a rapid decline in her health while officials tended to her Sunday night and Monday morning. The exact illness she was suffering from has not been determined however, a necropsy will be performed in attempts to figure out the cause. “We are happy we were able to provide Tundra with a great home for the short period of time she was with us,” the zoo said. “Our hearts go out to the animal care staff and visitors – both in Detroit and Indianapolis – who knew and loved her.” Tundra was originally from the Indianapolis Zoo and had arrived at the Detroit Zoo only several months ago. Tundra was moved out of Indianapolis after renovations were being made to the polar bear exhibit where Tundra had lived alone. Staff then decided to relocate her to the Detroit zoo which is advertised to have one of the largest polar bear habitats in North America, called the Arctic Ring of Life. This habitat is a 4-acre exhibit which features indoor and outdoor portions with a pool that holds 300,000 gallons of water. Scott Carter, chief life sciences officer for the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS), told the Indianapolis Star in June: “The Arctic Ring of Life is an incredible facility for this polar bear to spend the remainder of her golden years.” Although Tundra’s time at the Detroit Zoo was short lived, visitors enjoyed seeing her in The Arctic Ring of Life habitat which is also home to two 11-year-old polar bears named Talini and Nuka as well as three foxes and five seals. On Average, polar bears in captivity live between 21-24 years, while wild polar bears pass away at an even younger age of about 15 to 18 years old. Tundra well surpassed this average and lived an unusually long life. The Detroit Zoo says that animals in captivity have a longer lifespan due to better health care and nutrition. World Animal News does not support the captivity of threatened species at zoos unless there is a certified conservation program enacted to protect the species from extinction."
25,"A Black Church Burned in the Name of Trump —  A black church in Greenville, Mississippi, was set on fire on Tuesday night. Fire fighters arrived to find Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church “heavily engulfed in flames,” Mayor Errick Simmons said in an interview;  the fire took nearly an hour to contain. No one was in the church at the time, and no one was injured. On the side of the church, beneath the blackened windows and roof, the words “Vote Trump” have been spray painted.   The fire is being investigated as a hate crime, Simmons said. Federal authorities, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives, are helping local authorities with the investigation, which is part of the standard procedure for church fires. “We’re very cautious in this climate, in this day and time, to make sure we’re very deliberate in investigating matters like this,” Simmons said. This fire was “a direct assault on people’s right to free worship,” he said, and later added during a press conference, “I see this as an attack on the black church and the black community.”    A woman leaves a voting booth with a blue curtain, set in front of hunting trophies, in Danielsville, Pennsylvania The Disturbing Details of Trump’s Alleged Voter-Intimidation Efforts   In September, Simmons said, city officials found the word “nigger” painted on a boat front down by Greenville’s levee on the Mississippi River. The 34,000-person city is predominantly black, and while there is “a concerted, intentional effort for racial reconciliation among the races” in Greenville, he said, there have also been “cowardly acts of folks doing something.” In the days leading up to the election, the city will be placing additional patrols around all places of worship.   By and large, Simmons said, he expects the people of Greenville and the surrounding county of Washington will support Hillary Clinton.     Arson is notoriously difficult to prove. Last summer, when a spate of fires took place at black churches in South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and elsewhere, investigators looked into whether they were religiously or racially motivated crimes—if the fires were intentionally set at all. Unless someone leaves “you a message in some way that makes it very obvious,” a staffer for the National Fire Protection Association told me at the time, it’s hard to know whether or not a burning was motivated by hate.   In this case, though, someone left a calling card about politics. It’s not yet clear who set the fire, if anyone set it; whether the person who set the fire is the same person who wrote the graffiti; or why, if the fire was intentional, Hopewell M.B. Church was the target. One thing is clear, though: At some point, someone decided to attach the name of Trump to a burned black church.   This act comes with heavy symbolism in the United States. Black churches have long been burned in acts of intimidation and hatred; in the Jim Crow South, members of hate groups would leave flaming crosses on churchyard lawns. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, came at a time of extreme racial division in the United States; it was that crime, which killed four young black girls, that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “The black church has always been a symbol of the community,” Simmons said during a press conference. When he met congregants in Hopewell M.B. Church on Tuesday night, “I talked to folks who were fearful. I talked to folks who were  intimidated. And quite frankly, [they] were saddened and crying,” he said. “That should not happen in 2016. It happened in the ’50s. It happened in the ’60s. But it should not happen in 2016.”   Less than a week away from Election Day, America is having to contend with violence. Trump supporters, including some white nationalists, are allegedly planning to monitor polls, especially in places with large populations of black voters, and local political parties have already reported incidents of harassment. This month, a local Republican political office in Hillsborough, North Carolina, was firebombed, with the message “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” spray painted on a building nearby.   This is a tense time in American politics. The burning of Hopewell M.B. Church is a sign of how bad things have gotten, and what may be still to come. “What we have to do is come together,” Simmons said. “The only thing that conquers hate is love.”"
26,"A Close Race for Darrell Issa, the House Mini-Trump —  For more than 15 years, Representative Darrell Issa has not so much as put out a yard sign. A Republican comfortably ensconced in his Southern California seat, he has blown by one challenger after another since being elected in 2000.   The days of his double-digit victories may be over. When the campaign season began, Mr. Issa was on nobody’s list of vulnerable incumbents. Often cited as the wealthiest member of Congress, he is said to be able to bankroll his own campaign. His district has not undergone major demographic changes. And for years, he had promised to be the most vigilant interrogator of the Obama administration from his perch on an oversight committee, which Republicans cheered.   But in this upside-down year, Mr. Issa finds himself suddenly in danger of defeat, a prognosis worsened by his decision to embrace Donald J. Trump.   “It’s a mystifyingly bad campaign that Issa’s run,” said David Wasserman, an editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “And he is in grave danger.” Democrats, who cannot contain their glee at the prospect of his defeat, are trying to make the case that Mr. Issa is not alone. “If Darrell Issa, a long-term member who is well known in his district and outside his district, who is the richest member of Congress, is on the cusp of losing,” said Representative Xavier Becerra of California, a member of House Democratic leadership, “then it’s not just Darrell Issa who’s going down.” Wealthier, white voters in the suburbs dominate Mr. Issa’s district, an idyllic stretch of mountains and coastline between Los Angeles and San Diego, including San Clemente, where a disgraced President Richard M. Nixon went to write his memoirs. About seven hours north, Representative Jeff Denham, a Republican who was first elected in 2010, is also facing a tough re-election fight. His district includes Modesto, a city of 205,000 that was depicted by the filmmaker George Lucas, a native son, in “American Graffiti.” Today, the poverty rate hovers around 19 percent in a district where much of the economy depends on farming — particularly almonds, a crop greedy for water in the drought-stricken Central Valley of California where Modesto lies.   President Obama won at least once in each incumbent’s district — twice in Mr. Denham’s, where some party-agnostic, regionally focused conservative Democrats are more likely to refer to themselves as “valleycrats.” Both districts have a large and growing Latino population, a group that historically is less likely to vote but is expected to do so in this year of antipathy toward Mr. Trump.   Mr. Denham, like Mr. Issa, has expressed support for Mr. Trump — or at least declined to push him away.   California Republicans have no candidate for the Senate because the state’s open primary left two Democrats vying for the seat of Barbara Boxer, who is retiring. Numerous ballot initiatives focused on progressive causes could also give Republicans few reasons to turn out.   “Normal people don’t get motivated by congressional candidates,” said Daniel Schnur, a professor at the University of Southern California, who was the communications director for Senator John McCain of Arizona in his 2000 presidential bid. “They get motivated by the top of the ticket, and then they stick around to vote down ballot.”   The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the House Majority PAC, a Democratic “super PAC,” have invested more than $4 million to defeat Mr. Issa and Mr. Denham. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, recently gave more than $1.6 million to Mr. Denham as part of a nationwide investment to shore up Republican candidates.   Mr. Issa, who endorsed Mr. Trump after previously backing Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, has signed on to the Republican nominee’s national security advisory board. When a 2005 recording surfaced in which Mr. Trump talked about sexually assaulting women, Mr. Issa’s campaign released a statement condemning the remarks as “wholly inappropriate, offensive and unfitting of anyone seeking to lead our nation,” but the congressman did not rescind his support. But he has tried an even more surprising move: embracing Mr. Obama. The former chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Mr. Issa so relished his position as the chief interrogator of the Obama administration during hearings on the Internal Revenue Service scandal and the attacks on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that he used a stick figure in a police officer’s cap as his Twitter avatar. Yet he recently distributed campaign mailers promoting a bill for which he was one of 40 co-sponsors that included a photograph of Mr. Obama signing it into law.   “That is the definition of chutzpah,” Mr. Obama said of Mr. Issa during a fund-raiser on Sunday in the San Diego enclave of La Jolla.   Mr. Issa also dallied on investing in his race, waiting until October to start running ads, Mr. Wasserman said. Mr. Issa’s opponent, Doug Applegate, a retired Marine colonel who served in Iraq, has run ads with the help of significant financial support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.   Mr. Issa is fighting back, highlighting in part accusations made against Mr. Applegate by his former wife in the early 2000s. According to court records, first reported by Politico, she was granted two temporary restraining orders after saying Mr. Applegate had threatened her during a divorce and custody battle.   “You have to look at the first person who responded to those really baseless allegations: It was my ex-wife,” Mr. Applegate said in an interview. “She was offended at the attacks, said that she supported me and was going to be voting for me in November.”   For his part, Mr. Issa is spending money “in a targeted and data-driven way to ensure the best bang for the buck,” Calvin Moore, Mr. Issa’s spokesman, wrote in an email. Like many endangered Republican incumbents, Mr. Denham has danced around whether he supports Mr. Trump, saying he will work with whoever wins in November. “I’ve not weighed into this because I think it’s not my place to weigh into it,” he said.   In a column in The Modesto Bee in August, Mr. Denham said that while he was often troubled by Mr. Trump’s comments, the New York developer was the only candidate who had “at least recognized” the region’s water problem and had selected “an impressive group” of potential Supreme Court justices.   His opponent, Michael Eggman, a beekeeper, has staked his campaign on tying Mr. Denham to Mr. Trump. Walking along the rows of droning bees and almond trees on the farm he inherited from his father, Mr. Eggman gave few policy specifics but did offer a forceful denunciation of Mr. Denham, who beat him by 12 percentage points in 2014.   “To prove the fact that he’s so disconnected from this district, he’s endorsing Trump for president,” Mr. Eggman said. “Trump doesn’t represent the valley values that I know.”   Mr. Denham’s refusal to disavow Mr. Trump has also put him at odds with the editorial board of The Modesto Bee, the largest newspaper in his district. The paper has endorsed him four times — most recently in 2014 against Mr. Eggman, who has never held elected office. But after proclaiming, “If Jeff Denham can’t reject Trump, we must reject him,” the paper endorsed Mr. Eggman in an editorial that referred to Mr. Trump as a “dangerous demagogue.”   Joseph Kieta, the paper’s editor, said that Mr. Denham had been motivated by fear of political backlash more than his constituents’ best interests.   “I cannot believe that he, in his heart of hearts, thinks that Donald Trump, who wants to deport Latinos, is good for his district,” Mr. Kieta said.   “It exposed something about Denham that we didn’t know before,” he added."
27,"A Digital Archive Documents Two Decades of Torture by Chicago Police —  Amid continued accusations of police misconduct, the force must contend with a digital rehashing of a sordid chapter in its history. The Chicago Police Department seems to be continuously embroiled these days in multiple, high-profile investigations of fatal incidents, corruption scandals, and mishandling of critical equipment. Now, the CPD will have to contend with an online, 10,000-document-strong archive of an even more troubling time in its history: the notorious two decades in which officers performed torture.  The Chicago Torture Archive will open this month at the University of Chicago. The massive collection comes from efforts by the People’s Law Office, a civil-rights organization, to gather interrogations, criminal-trial files, civil-litigation documents, works of journalism, and records of activism spurred by the CPD torture cases documented between 1972 and 1991. Briefly stated, over 100 black men were tortured by officers in order to force confessions, drive them to incriminate co-defendants, or to intimidate possible witnesses to police brutality. One of them was Philip Adkins, whose testimony about the hours that followed a 5 a.m. knock on his door is representative of some of the atrocities men like him endured at the hands of police officers. During the space of four to five hours, three detectives picked up, handcuffed, and detained Adkins without officially arresting him, reading him his Miranda rights, or allowing him to contact family or counsel. The physical violence began when “without warning one of them slugged” him while he was handcuffed in the back of a patrol car. The three detectives then drove around parts of Chicago with him in the car, including during a stop at McDonald’s, and interrogated him about suspected criminal activity from the night before. Finding his answers unsatisfactory, one of the detectives started poking him “with great force” in the groin area with a flashlight. As they continued to drive around, two detectives took turns delivering blows to his private parts, knees, elbows, and ribs. The official court transcript of his testimony includes the following exchange: Q: “So they beat you until you urinated on yourself and defecated on yourself?” A: “Yes.” The timing of the archives’ launch aligns well with restorative actions recently undertaken in Chicago. In 2015, some of the cases saw a kind of formal closure with the passing of the Reparations for Burge Torture Victims ordinance by the Chicago City Council; the name refers to Police Commander Jon Burge, who was at the CPD’s helm when acts of torture were carried out. The ordinance’s passage also concluded some 30 years of advocacy on the part of survivors, their descendants, and supporters to have the torture cases formally acknowledged by the city. Susan Gzesh, the archive’s director, said that around the same time, “an entirely energized movement led by young people” emerged in places like Ferguson, Missouri, and groups like Black Lives Matter, Black Youth Project 100, and local coalitions gained prominence. She thinks the advocacy around the Chicago cases can inform other young activists. “The lessons of the long march to justice on these Chicago police torture cases needs to be available to a new generation of advocates and activists to learn from the lessons and mistakes of earlier movements,” Gzesh said. “To bring something out as an archive, a set of cases that were going on for the last 30 years really makes sense right now.” All the materials and documents posted online so far are drawn from court records and defense files provided by attorneys who represented the victims. Once the full collection is online—the materials currently available don’t represent the whole set—the public will have a comprehensive resource it can use to study the cases. But that kind of full disclosure comes with hiccups. Gzesh, for one, cannot confirm that victims and their families were made aware of the archive’s existence. “Their lawyers gave us the materials. I would assume that they have informed their clients that they are putting this stuff up,” Gzesh said. And as far as possible privacy concerns regarding the disclosure of information—such as Social Security numbers, home addresses, and names of family members—she said: “We have to go back over that.” It appears that in curating and digitizing the thousands of files, there was some oversight in checking for such revelatory details. “That was not intentional,” Gzesh said. At the time of this writing, the archive’s homepage included this message: Please note: We are currently in the process of collecting and reviewing documents for this archive. Please check back frequently, as we will be adding documents as they are reviewed. Academics, researchers, historians, and many others will find the trove of information essential to understanding this gruesome chapter in CDP and Chicago history. But it’s also possible that police brass will see important lessons to draw from as it prepares to mend relationships with residents, increase transparency and accountability, and wipe away a blemish that has marred its reputation for too long."
28,"A Legal Trade in Ivory Would Wipe Out Elephants, Study Finds —  New research suggests that demand far outpaces the amount of ivory Africa’s elephants could sustainably provide. Legalizing the ivory trade could more quickly make elephants extinct, a study published September 15 suggests. It finds that the demand for ivory is far greater than the amount of ivory that can be harvested sustainably. This contradicts an earlier proposition by ivory trade supporters that a sustainable trade that could meet demand would be possible. “There is no way to harvest sufficient ivory in a controlled way that won’t drive elephant populations to extinctions,” says Phyllis Lee, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom. “Our argument is based on one of the best protected populations of elephants. If we can’t make the ivory trade model work here, it won’t work anywhere.” Elephants are in crisis, and everyone is scrambling to figure out how to save them from extinction. Demand for ivory in Asia means that some 27,000 are killed by poachers each year, and poachers have become more organized and professional. (Related: ""African Elephant Numbers Plummet 30 Percent, Landmark Survey Finds."") Legalizing the ivory trade could more quickly make elephants extinct, a study published September 15 suggests. It finds that the demand for ivory is far greater than the amount of ivory that can be harvested sustainably. This contradicts an earlier proposition by ivory trade supporters that a sustainable trade that could meet demand would be possible. “There is no way to harvest sufficient ivory in a controlled way that won’t drive elephant populations to extinctions,” says Phyllis Lee, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom. “Our argument is based on one of the best protected populations of elephants. If we can’t make the ivory trade model work here, it won’t work anywhere.” Elephants are in crisis, and everyone is scrambling to figure out how to save them from extinction. Demand for ivory in Asia means that some 27,000 are killed by poachers each year, and poachers have become more organized and professional. (Related: ""African Elephant Numbers Plummet 30 Percent, Landmark Survey Finds."") Largest Ever Ivory Burn Destroys 105 Tons In April, the Kenya government destroyed more than 100 tons of elephant ivory in the largest burn of its kind ever, in the hopes of combating the illegal ivory trade and killing of elephants. The burn represented the tusks of more than 6,500 elephants killed, and also included more than a ton of rhino horns. Lee and David Lusseau, a researcher at the University of Aberdeen, used population modeling to determine just how many elephants could be killed for their ivory (because that’s the only way to get ivory) before their deaths start causing the population to decrease. Unlike the model that supports the ivory trade, Lee and Lusseau’s work takes into consideration the age and sex of elephants most likely to be targeted by hunters. For example, older male elephants have more ivory and would be hunters’ first choice. But once the older males have been killed, hunters would need to kill several smaller or younger elephants to get the same amount of ivory as before. That has a greater impact on the population. In their sample of a real-life group of 1,360 elephants in Amboseli, Kenya, their analysis suggests that about 220 to 330 pounds of ivory can be taken sustainably each year. On the other hand, demand for a population of that size, which was estimated based on how many pounds of illegal ivory are seized each year, would be between 900 and 1,300 pounds. That means a sustainable ivory harvest could meet, at most, 37 percent of demand. And that’s a best-case picture. It assumes that demand wouldn’t increase and that poaching would stop if the ivory trade was legalized. And it also assumes each country will have adequate knowledge and expertise to perfectly determine how much ivory exists within its borders, which is the key to setting sustainable quotas. Lee says this points else to the need to focus on reducing demand for ivory more than anything. “We cannot brush aside the fact that poaching has reached industrial scale,” Lee and Lusseau write. “We must urgently work on finding ways to change consumer behavior as the only avenue by which we can resolve the ivory trade tragedy.”"
29,"A Mustard Gas Attack on U.S. troops —  A top U.S. military official confirmed to a Senate committee late Thursday that the Islamic State used a rocket containing mustard gas against U.S. troops in Iraq. The news came as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned Marine General Joseph Dunford about an attack Tuesday on a military base near Mosul, in the country’s north. The general was addressing leaked news reports that investigators had found a black oily substance on a rocket that landed near the perimeter of the base. Dunford told the committee that investigators had assessed the liquid and found “it to be a sulfur-mustard blister agent.” The news is concerning because this is the first time a chemical weapon has been used against U.S. forces in Iraq; though this is not the first time ISIS has used chemical weapons. As The Associated Press reported, Dunford told the committee that while it’s relatively limited, ISIS does have a “chemical warfare network.” From the AP: He noted that last week the U.S. military attacked a former pharmaceutical plant near Mosul in northern Iraq that U.S. officials said the Islamic State was using to produce mustard agent and other chemicals for military use. No soldiers were injured in the attack, nor have any shown symptoms of exposure to mustard gas, a weapon banned by the 1925 Geneva protocol after the horrors of World War I. The gas is produced by burning sulfur and makes corrosive gas that blisters skin and lungs and can cause severe burns. In Syria’s five-year civil war, both ISIS and President Bashar al-Assad are accused of using forms of chemical weapons. Assad kept a chemical weapons stockpile, and he turned it over to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2014. But it’s believed ISIS may have gotten its hands on some of these before the agency took full control. ISIS has fired mustard gas at soldiers and civilians before, as it did last year when it blasted dozens of mortar shells at the Syrian village of Marea. The fighting around Mosul is expected to intensify, as Iraqi forces, backed by U.S. soldiers, push north into the city, which ISIS has controlled since 2014."
30,"A New Death Toll for Smoking —  A new study has found that 28.6 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States are attributable to cigarette smoking.   Researchers calculated the number using the relative risks for 12 smoking-related cancers, including acute myeloid leukemia, mouth cancers, and those of the esophagus, stomach and colon.   Smoking is involved in 22.9 percent of cancer deaths in women and 33.7 percent in men. In all, the authors estimate that 167,133 people died of cancers associated with smoking cigarettes in 2014. (This number does not include deaths from many other diseases linked to smoking.)   There are considerable geographic variations. For example, smoking explains more than 38 percent of cancer deaths in men in Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia and Louisiana, but only 21.8 percent in Utah, 31.6 percent in California and 31 percent in New York.   Every week, we’ll bring you the latest Zika news along with stories that capture the wonders of nature and the cosmos.   Citing a previous study, the authors wrote that tobacco control efforts have been credited with preventing about eight million premature deaths. Yet tobacco control in many parts of the country is quite weak.   Only about a third of states prohibit smoking in public places. No state follows the World Health Organization recommendation to tax cigarettes at 75 percent of the retail price. Only North Dakota devotes the level of funding to tobacco prevention that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends. And only seven states provide comprehensive coverage under Medicaid for cessation treatment.   The picture may be even worse than these numbers suggest because the authors included only cigarettes in their analysis, leaving out cancers caused by secondhand smoke, pipes, hookahs, cigars, smokeless tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery systems.   Moreover, the data depends on self-reports, which may underestimate smoking prevalence. “There are lower numbers in states like Utah and California,” said the lead author, Joannie Lortet-Tieulent, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society, “but there is still room for improvement. Those deaths are avoidable.”   While the influence of the tobacco industry has waned, she added, there are still regions where it has influence.   “Ninety-five percent of the tobacco is grown in the Southern states, where the numbers are highest,” she said. “This political and economic influence has translated into weaker tobacco control policy and cheaper cigarettes where taxes on them are lower.”"
31,"A Palm Oil Company Threatens The Third Largest Population Of Orangutan In Indonesia —  The Sungai Putri, meaning River of the Princess, is an exquisite natural forest located in West Kalimantan, providence of Indonesia. It is about 141,000 acres of forest land, has extensive peat areas of up to 14.5 meters deep at some points, and can provide a home to about 750 to 1750 orangutan. Because of these numbers, it is the third largest population of critically Endangered orangutan Species in the province. Due to the fact that the Indonesia government has committed to protecting peat, forests and orangutans, it is alarming that there is no protection to this forest.   The forest is at critical risk of being cut down by a company named PT Mohairson Pawan Khatulistiwa who have plans to clear more than half of their liscence area to covert into an industrial tree plantation. The company is also planning on building a drainage canal from the north to the south side of the area for which some work has already reportedly began.   The Indonesian government has stated its international and national commitments to reducing carbon emissions and deforestation, protecting and restoring peat swamp forests through the Peatland Restoration Agency established by the president and stabilizing all remaining wild orangutan populations. At the same time, they allowed the company to obtain a lisence permissing the destruction of this forest land, peat and the orangutans who live in that habitat.   A satellite image taken of the land in 2016 confirms that about 58 percent of the 48,440 lisence area still remains covered in tall tree peat swamp forest and the rest is covered in medium height swamp forest, heath forest and hill forest.   At the deepest part of the dome, the peat is 14.5 meters deep, with large areas deeper than 3 meters. Indonesian laws such as the Government Regulation no. 71 of 2014 do not allow peat development in areas with more than 3 meters peat.   Threatened orangutans living in the area also raises much concern. The most recent orangutan survey for the 57,000 Sungai Putri block estimated up to 1,750 orangutans. These orangutans will not survive in areas where all forest is cleared. If conversion plans go ahead, some 500 to 1,000 orangutans will likely die or will be in need of rescue. The Indonesian Orangutan Forum FORINA recently recognized this as the largest population of orangutan located in the region and if they lose their habitat they will have  no other place to go. Indonesia’s current national action plan for orangutans aims to stabilize all wild populations by 2017, and destroying the habitat of one of the largest remaining populations is incompatible with that.   A well known developer Norweigian professor who specializes in tropical forests says, “These developments seem to violate Indonesia’s own legal processes not to mention its international commitments. Claims about absence of forest, peat and endangered species – here and elsewhere – clearly need to be assessed and verified in a transparent manner. Those who dispute the conditions can provide their data”.   Improved management is desperately needed in Sungai Putri. There are lots of illegal logging happening in the area, as are fires. According to the Global Fire Watch data, in 2015 alone, there were about 250 fires that occurred on the margins of Sungai Putri. The risk of more fires would only increase if Sungai Putri was drained and deforested as planned.   There are opposing conflicts regarding the deforestation.  Some people welcome the development of the peatland area because of the potential employment opportunities it can bring as well as the possibility to get compensated by the company for their lost traditional land uses. Others see it differently. However, according to the latest science studies, the development of coastal peatlands will never be sustainable.   Instead of going through with this development, there are other solutions available that would allow Indonesia to fulfill its development and poverty alleviations objectives but they require careful planning and close collaboration efforts between the private sector, governments, non-governmental groups, and local communities. The time to initiate those collaborations and find sustainable solutions for Indonesia is now!"
32,"A Survivor Of Gay Conversion Therapy Shares His Chilling Story —  With two months between us and a Trump administration, it’s time we consider Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s relationship with the many different issues affecting LGBTQ people ― including conversion therapy.    Conversion therapy is not only promoted in the Republican party’s 2016 platform, the most anti-LGBTQ platform in the party’s history, but something Vice President-elect Mike Pence has actively supported while a member of congress. He is also arguably one of the most anti-LGBTQ state elected officials in the country.   So, what exactly is conversion therapy? Why is it so bad? Conversion therapy is a set of practices that intend to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity to fit heterosexual or cisgender standards and expectations ― and it is usually religiously motivated.   Therapy practices can include methods such as talk therapy, electroshock therapy, treating LGBTQ identity as an addiction issue like drugs or alcohol, and more. While certain therapies, like talk therapy, are also legitimate forms of care for people who experience mental health problems, being gay is, of course, not a mental health disorder.   TC, a 19-year-old gay man who spoke to The Huffington Post anonymously for this article in order to protect his safety, is a survivor of conversion therapy practices.   TC was subjected to conversion therapy in 2012 when he was 15 years old after his parents discovered he was gay. The conversion therapy practices took place in the basement of a church after school hours, and were explained to TC and his parents as having two separate components. He told The Huffington Post:   The first step ― which usually lasted six months ― [is] where they “deconstruct us as a person.” Their tactics still haunt me. Aversion therapy, shock therapy, harassment and occasional physical abuse. Their goal was to get us to hate ourselves for being LGBTQ (most of us were gay, but the entire spectrum was represented), and they knew what they were doing.... The second step of the program, they “rebuilt us in their image.” They removed us of everything that made us a unique person, and instead made us a walking, talking, robot for Jesus. They retaught us everything we knew. How to eat, talk, walk, dress, believe, even breathe. We were no longer people at the end of the program. TC said that the conversion therapy sessions would take place every weekday, with shock therapy treatments lasting approximately an hour, and aversion therapy lasting three.   According to Dr. Jack Drescher, a leading specialist and critic of conversion therapy practices, there is not just one set of practices understood to be used in conversion therapy. “People have tried all kinds of things because none them really work,” he told The Huffington Post.   Drescher also said that the majority of research surrounding conversion therapy has taken place on adults who’ve undergone the process, and there is very little research surrounding LGBTQ youth who have been through conversation therapy practices. “But of course you have anecdotal stories,” he said. “Some children have reported running away from home, there have been cases in the news of young people of when their family found out about them or they came out and the family insisted they go to conversion therapy, some of these kids have killed themselves. These are anecdotal reports, but they are troubling reports, of course.”   Their goal was to get us to hate ourselves for being LGBTQ. TC said multiple minors involved in his program ultimately took their own lives.   “They were able to turn us against ourselves,” he said. “This is what drew so many people to suicide. We all shared a sense of loathing towards who we were and who we loved. It wasn’t just your regular ‘I hate myself.’ It was a disgust with the person you were and you wanted to do anything you could to change... Watching people disappear just became a fact of life after a while. You got used to it.”   While data around queer youth suicide and conversion therapy is lacking, research does show that suicide is an epidemic within the LGBTQ community, with rates of suicide four times greater for queer youth and nearly half of trans people having considered suicide at some point in their lives.  Reflecting on the history of conversion therapy practices, Drescher said there was a time when people didn’t believe that there was any harm in trying to change their sexuality. In fact, until the 1990s when many conversion therapists began openly marketing their services, most professional organizations did not comment on the practice.   Today, there are no mainstream psychiatric organizations that accept conversion therapies as a reputable practice. “The people who offer these kind of treatments often are not licensed,” Drescher explained. “They’re not bound by any state regulatory bodies for the kind of work they do.”   The National Center for Lesbian Rights is one such organization that adamantly advocates against conversion therapy.   “Conversion therapy causes serious harms,” NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter told The Huffington Post. “In the short-term, queer youth who go through conversion therapy are being cheated of the opportunity to gain self-confidence and self-esteem, to get support from family members and other adults, and to have normal adolescent developmental experiences around friendship, dating, and other social experiences. In the long-term, the negative health consequences of being subjected to conversion therapy are extremely serious and can include substance abuse, dropping out of school, HIV infection, depression, and suicide attempts.”   Additionally, experts do not believe a person can actually be “converted” or “cured” of gayness or queerness. Dr. Robert Spitzer, one of the most prominent people who advocated for gay cures, actually apologized for his actions and the damage they inflicted in 2012.   “The people who offer these kind of treatments often are not licensed. They’re not bound by any state regulatory bodies for the kind of work they do.” Currently, only five states and the District of Columbia have laws protecting LGBTQ youth from being forced into conversion therapy practices. There is a movement to ban it at the federal level, and President Obama has previously spoken out about the dangers of the practice.   TC escaped conversion therapy by feigning complete rehabilitation after returning to his hometown from a previously planned religious mission trip. Today, he attends a religious university and still identifies as gay privately, a secret from his family who thinks the conversion therapy “worked.”   “I want people to know that conversion therapy is literal torture,” TC continued. “[But] the experience also lit a fire underneath me to prove everyone wrong. I am gay, but I am not worthless. Life will continue no matter what, and the quality of my future depends on the work I put in now, and to prove them all wrong, I need to work my ass off.”   When asked if he had a message for pro-conversion therapy Vice President-elect Mike Pence, TC simply said: “I am a human. Treat me like one.”"
33,"A deeper look inside Wells Fargo's shameful vault —  People my kids' age, who track their money by smartphone, wonder why garish competing bank branches still stud every shopping district in Philadelphia and the suburbs. Now we know: Behind the lollipops and the barred cages where the tellers sit, perverse incentives at many banks turn branches into, not just stores, but sweatshops, pushing products customers don't need and may not have ordered, thanks to admissions by Wells Fargo Bank, the dominant lender around Philadelphia, and veteran bankers. Facing outrage, Wells Fargo has belatedly stalled tens of millions of dollars in stock awards to two top executives after admitting it fired 5,300 low-paid workers over five years for opening phony accounts to meet aggressive sales targets. Why did it take five years? At a five-hour grilling in Congress, Chamber of Commerce Republicans told Wells Fargo CEO/Chairman John Stumpf that he had betrayed capitalism, and made their strident campaigns against regulation look silly. Stumpf admitted to Rep. Keith Rothfus (R., Pa.) that his bank had found nearly 80,000 phony accounts in Pennsylvania. Stumpf tried to say 80,000 isn't a lot, among the bank's two million accounts in Pennsylvania. The bank says it didn't impose fees for most of these accounts. But I'd say Wells Fargo better keep counting, if the stories pouring into my office from his former suburban Philadelphia employees are any sign. And it's not just Wells Fargo. Junior branch bank jobs don't pay much. Tellers make a few bucks above minimum wage. (And no hazard pay: One of my sons walked in on an armed robbery when he worked at WSFS Bank a few summers ago; as he backed out and dialed 911, two of his colleagues were pistol-whipped and had to be hospitalized.) But low-level Wells Fargo bankers paid $25,000 a year could more than double their income by meeting bank quotas for opening new accounts. Store managers conferenced every morning with their district bosses to set daily targets for ""Packs"" - checking, savings, debit card and online accounts, and mortgage and broker referrals. And then, as one ex-manager put it, ""the games would begin."" What would you do? On slow days, enterprising branch employees cruised fast-food outlets and food stores for customers. May I interest you in a savings account? Others would raid customers' private data, looking for signs a depositor might be ready for a home loan. Some forged credit card application signatures. Bankers who hit their targets early might get to go home for the day. Managers who hadn't reached quota by 5 p.m. would have to stay late. Often employees set up extra accounts for friends and family members. Colleagues would swap Social Security numbers for multiple new group accounts. After 60 days - long enough to earn bonus credits - they'd shut these accounts and repeat. Employees who failed to play along got yelled at. Occasionally one was let go, to encourage the rest. ""Did you ever work as a teller?"" Rep. Rothfus asked CEO Stumpf. ""I'm not trained,"" Stumpf said. Maybe Stumpf should go on Undercover Boss, the TV show where you CEOs see what it's like when the little people are squeezed, the congressman suggested. ""Stand in their shoes."" My correspondents liked that suggestion. They also made clear it's not just Wells Fargo. Community banks and big multinationals do it, too. Wells Fargo says it has scrapped that incentive system. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D., N.Y.) asked how low-paid Wells Fargo workers will make up the lost income. We'll come up with a new incentive plan, Stumpf said. Next year"
34,"A humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as the number of displaced climbs —  KABUL — Abdulhalim fled the northern city of Kunduz this month after militants and security forces had been clashing for days. Now he’s 200 miles away in Kabul, sleeping in a tent and living on aid. He is part of a looming humanitarian crisis aid agencies here are struggling to contain. Before the current crisis, more than a million people had already been uprooted last year. This year, at least another million Afghans are “on the move” inside Afghanistan and across its borders, in what the United Nations warns is an alarming new wave of displaced people. Many, like Abdulhalim, fled violence or conflict; others escaped hardships such as poverty or drought. Still others were forced to return from Pakistan and Iran. Even as the numbers grew, Afghanistan agreed to accept ­Afghan asylum seekers deported from the European Union. The deal, signed in October, could lead the E.U. to construct a separate terminal for deportees at Kabul’s international airport, and as many as 100,000 Afghans could return. “This sudden increase [in the displaced] has put a lot of pressure on Afghanistan, which has had 30 years of war,” said Nader Farhad, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency in Kabul. “It’s not easy to put together the infrastructure, to provide the services that are required,” he said, adding that the displaced need everything from food and blankets to jobs and health care. “To the European countries, we say: Instead of investing in the return of Afghans to Afghanistan, tackle the root causes,” Farhad said. If the United Nations and other aid agencies fail to provide emergency assistance, “it will be a humanitarian crisis,” he said. Massive displacement has plagued Afghanistan for years, beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979. That conflict kindled two decades of war. When the United States invaded in 2001, some 4 million Afghans were living in Pakistan and Iran. [Europe pressing harder on countries to take back deported migrants] Many of those refugees later returned, driven by hopes for stability and peace. But now, ­Afghanistan is witnessing some of its worst violence since the United States helped to topple the Taliban. More than 1,600 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2016, according to a U.N. report released in July. That was the highest number of civilian casualties in the first half of a year since the United Nations began keeping track in 2009. The violence has been driven by Taliban assaults on Afghan cities, putting more civilians in the crosshairs. And the clashes have pushed even more people from their homes. “The fighting was intense. There was artillery, rockets, aerial bombardment,” Abdulhalim, 38, said of this month’s days-long battle between Afghan and Taliban forces in Kunduz city. Insurgents briefly seized the city at the same time last year. “My children were screaming, our neighbors’ houses destroyed,” said Abdulhalim, who like many Afghans goes by one name. “We had no option but to leave.” In Helmand province, in the restive south, more than 60,000 people have been displaced this year, according to the United Nations, and militants have fought pitched battles in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. At least 5,000 of those displaced in Helmand were forced out only in the past two months, the United Nations says, and thousands more have fled to neighboring provinces and beyond. “In some provinces, the [armed] groups have more power there, and the government, it is very difficult for us to reach” the affected population, said Sayed Rohullah Hashemi, an adviser to the minister of refugees and repatriation. “We don’t have the capacity to do so, especially in our ministry. The government cannot reach everyone on its own.” In a dusty lot east of Kabul, the U.N. refugee agency has erected a center for the hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees arriving from Pakistan. At least 5,000 refugees cross the border from Pakistan every day. The United Nations gives them a small stipend and vaccinates the children against measles and polio. [Afghan refugees, settled in Pakistan for decades, are being ordered to leave] The influx began after Pakistani authorities announced a deadline for Afghan refugees — of which there were 1.7 million registered with the United Nations — to leave. Many of the refugees had lived in Pakistan for decades, or were even born there after their parents had fled Afghanistan. Jumauddin, 27, was born in Pakistan to Afghan parents. Now he is heading to Kunduz province, to the Khanabad district, where Taliban fighters hold sway. He says he has no choice. “Kabul is too expensive, and maybe in Kunduz I can plow a plot of land,” Jumauddin said. “I know that there was fighting there even last week, but I have no other option.” The government is worried about the return of refugees to areas where insurgents are active. But right now, the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001. “We are facing the return of tens of thousands of Afghans each month. . . . This will add very much to the vicious cycle of insecurity and joblessness,” said Bashir Bezhen, an Afghan analyst and political commentator. Reports have already surfaced of returning refugees clashing with locals over resources and land. The displaced are often rejected, or pushed into squalid camps. They also face the threat of forced eviction and rarely have access to clean water or food. “They are the poorest of the poor. They often live in open air,” the U.N.’s Farhad said. “But they should go back [to their homes] when they feel secure. It has to be voluntary and of their own accord.” In the area where Abdulhalim took shelter, the displaced worried that the government would force them out. The fighting in Kunduz city had subsided, but they couldn’t just pack up and go home. “They want us gone from here, but we don’t have anything, not even the money to get back,” Abdulhalim said. He first fled Kunduz on foot, with his children and the clothes on his back. Bezhen said that the government “is incapable of creating jobs for these people or of improving the economy in the remote places where they live.” He said criminal and terrorist networks will seek out the jobless and displaced youths. “It will push Afghanistan into deeper crisis,” Bezhen said. Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report."
35,"A month after Hurricane Matthew, 800,000 Haitians urgently need food —  FONDTOUTANU, Haiti — There is no food, so along the road through the mountains there are children begging for something to eat. Most of the trucks rumble past with donations for somewhere else. But one stopped here the other day with sacks of rice, beans and dried herring, setting off a stampede. Valleur Noel, a trim, short man with a checkered shirt and a shiny crucifix, climbed to the top of the tailgate and told everyone to calm down. It was futile. His organization, Pwoje Men Kontre, had 412 bags of food, a gift from the German ambassador and U.S. donors. Within minutes there were people pouring through a notch between the mountains, hollering and stumbling down the rocky hillside toward the truck. “No pushing, no pushing!” Noel yelled. “There is enough for everyone!” It wasn’t true. The latecomers got nothing. But many others did, and Figaro Phito, 29, hugged his sack with both arms, like a pillow. “This will keep us alive until another donation arrives,” he said. “Because that is our only way to survive right now.” A month after Hurricane Matthew blasted through southwestern Haiti, the region is a blighted, apocalyptic landscape of wrecked homes and growling hunger. At least 800,000 people need food urgently, according to the United Nations, including more than two-thirds of families in the worst-hit departments of Grand’Anse and Sud. Emergency help is arriving, but there is not enough of it, and it will take several more weeks to reach remote mountain communities where officials say the destruction was total. The desperation is so explosive that truckloads of food and medical supplies have been looted by crowds gathered along the roadways. A teenage boy was killed Tuesday by police in the city of Les Cayes, where hungry crowds burned tires and blocked roads. Haitian police shot four people, one fatally, on Oct. 26 in the coastal village of Dame Marie, where the arrival of an aid shipment sent crowds surging onto the docks. The Oct. 4 hurricane hit some of the poorest places in the Western hemisphere. It smashed fishing villages and shredded mountain hamlets with the force of a bomb blast, obliterating crops, killing livestock and leaving fruit trees as bare as matchsticks. Haiti, a country still digging out from its devastating 2010 earthquake, will need months of emergency aid to stave off famine, according to relief groups and government officials. More than 141,000 storm victims are in shelters, and those are just the ones with someplace to go. “We are sleeping under the trees,” said Jeudina Alexis, 63, who hadn’t eaten in two days but now had a sack of food from Noel to carry home up the mountain. In some towns, 80 to 90 percent of homes were destroyed by Matthew’s 140-mile-per-hour winds. The Category 4 storm converted tin roofing panels into flying razors and broken tree branches into spears. The death toll stands at 546, according to the government, but local officials have reported more than twice that many killed. Some remote mountain villages are so inaccessible that government emergency workers say they will not be able to reach them until the end of November. One man who walked out of the mountains recently after hiking two days told authorities that too many people had died in his town to bury the bodies, so villagers burned them and put the ashes in the river. The United Nations has raised just one-third of the $120 million in emergency funding it says it needs to help 750,000 people, including 315,000 children, get through the next three months. Noel has told his donors he will need to feed people for even longer. “If they plant sweet potatoes and corn, it will be three or four months before they can harvest, but they don’t have seeds,” he said. ‘We are starving, too’ The storm-hit areas have reported at least 3,500 suspected cholera cases in recent weeks, but some of the outbreaks are happening in far-off settlements where help has yet to arrive. The aid organization Doctors Without Borders recently sent staff by helicopter to one village, Pourcine, to investigate reports of a patient with cholera, only to find 20 stricken from it. The disease spreads rampantly once the bacteria enters the water supply. “We are sending materials to contain the epidemic, but there are people dying from cholera every day,” said Emmanuel Massart, the group’s field coordinator in Grand’Anse. It is largely a challenge of distribution. Tim Callahan, the U.S. official in charge of the American emergency response, said the U.S. government has delivered 34 metric tons of water treatment tablets to Haiti, enough to supply the entire country for three months. But getting them to families is another matter because roads are impassable or nonexistent in the worst-affected areas. The 2010 earthquake killed at least 200,000 and damaged many of the government buildings in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The city was largely spared by the recent storm, and that has allowed the Haitian government to take a more active role in directing the relief effort, Callahan and others say. Peter Mulrean, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, said the fact that so many international relief organizations were doing post-quake reconstruction left them better prepared to respond to the hurricane. Unlike in the post-quake period, when aid efforts were often haphazard and inefficient, international relief organizations have been coordinating their donations and activities with Haitian officials, using the network of modern, air-conditioned emergency response centers set up in every region after the earthquake. “We want Haitian institutions to come out stronger than before,” Mulrean said. But the man-made disasters of Haitian politics remain an obstacle. Last year’s contested presidential election led to a political impasse and the installation of a caretaker government. New elections are scheduled for Nov. 20, but it’s hard to see how Haitian officials can deliver and count ballots in hurricane-hit areas. Making matters worse, the public schools that double as polling stations are being used as homeless shelters. At the Lycee Nord Alexis in Jeremie, the battered capital of Grand’Anse, children sleep on the cement floors of classrooms, some naked or clothed in adult-sized T-shirts that hang below the knee. Food comes irregularly. The blind, disabled and maimed lie around in dark, stifling rooms, swarmed by mosquitoes. Guerline Brumaches, 40, was languishing in a corner, naked from the waist up, with a suppurating wound the size of a baseball on her swollen left foot where she had been cut by flying debris. A month-old chemistry lesson was written on the chalkboard above her. Flies nibbled at her foot. “If I lose my foot, I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said. The school had no running water. One of the stairwells had become a latrine. Xavier Charlemagne, 20, said there were several hundred people sleepingevery night in the classrooms and corridors. “We’re not leaving until they give us tarps,” he said. Jeremie is the only town with large-scale daily food distribution in Grand’Anse, in part because it is the only place with armed security to suppress potential rioting. The U.N. World Food Program gives out 1,000 one-month rations of rice, chickpeas and cooking oil each day in the central plaza, in the shadow of a 200-year-old cathedral with a ripped-off roof. But the sight of so many convoys headed to Jeremie has stirred resentment in towns that say they are not getting their share. At one highway junction where a broken-down truck carrying beans had been attacked a day earlier, dozens of young men lingered on a recent day, watching for signs of mechanical trouble among the vehicles groaning up the pass, as if stalking wounded herd animals. “We are starving, too,” said Ricardo Dauphin, 29, alongside dozens of other men in the town of Carrefour Charles, watching U.N. trucks roll by in a cloud of dust, escorted by police and Brazilian soldiers. There is no electricity across a wide swath of southern Haiti where utility lines are down, so at night families burn storm debris and garbage with huge bonfires that leap into the darkness and foul the air. On a muddy hillside near the town of Cavaillon, scores of people have settled in crude lean-tos made of sticks, plastic and tattered bedsheets. The nearby river flooded in the storm, forcing those living along the banks to higher ground. Olicia Jean-Louis, 23, said her widowed mother was washed away in the storm, along with the family’s house and all the secondhand footwear they used to sell in the market. Now Jean-Louis was in charge of her siblings, ages 12, 10, 5 and 2. The youngest ones had started calling her “mama,” she said. None of them had eaten that day, Jean-Louis said. It was raining again, and the 2-year-old boy, naked, leaned into her threadbare blue dress, his nose running. Asked what she would do next, Jean-Louis shook her head. “I will rely on you,” she said. “Can you help me?”"
36,"Actor killed in talk show host's home —  Canadian actor Richard Hong was found dead in a Los Angeles home being rented by George Stroumboulopoulos, a Canadian TV and radio personality, according to Los Angeles Police."
37,"Afghan official: Taliban attack German consulate, killing 6 —  KABUL, Afghanistan — Germany’s consulate in northern Afghanistan was attacked when a suicide car bomber rammed the compound, killing six people and wounding more than 120, Afghan police and the German foreign minister said Friday. Four of the dead — two civilians and two unidentified bodies — were brought to the Balkh hospital, said Dr. Noor Mohammad Faiz. He said 128 people were wounded in the attack. Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said six people had been confirmed dead. He added in a statement that “all German and Afghan employees of the consulate remained unharmed.” The car exploded at the gate of the consulate in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, destroying the gate and wall around 11.10 p.m. Thursday, said Abdul Raziq Qaderi, head of security for Balkh province. The blast destroyed the Mazar Hotel, where the consulate is based, and surrounding buildings. Residents said that casualties were contained because it of the late hour, though an ensuing gun battle raged for around five hours. Steinmeier said fighting took place “on the premises and inside the consulate.” The attack was carried out “by heavily armed terrorists,” he said, adding: “The attackers were fought off by the consulate’s security personnel, Afghan security forces, and German, Georgian, Belgian and Latvian special forces stationed in the city as part of the Resolute Support mission.” President Ashraf Ghani called the attack a “crime against humanity and all international laws.” The United Nations’ assistance mission in Afghanistan also condemned the attack. In a statement it said the injured include 19 women and 38 children. “Most of the injured suffered minor wounds from broken glass while those with serious injuries remain hospitalized,” it said. More than 100 homes and shops were damaged, it said. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Germany has 983 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh province, as part of the NATO mission. Mazar-i-Sharif is the provincial capital and one of the richest and most important cities in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s insurgency has spread from their southern heartland across the country in the past two years, following the withdrawal of most international combat troops. Attacks across the north have been increasing. The Taliban statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack was retaliation for recent airstrikes in the northern city of Kunduz, capital of the province of the same name. A U.S. airstrike early this month killed dozens of people and is under investigation. ___ Associated Press writers Lynne O’Donnell and Karim Sharifi in Kabul, and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."
38,"Afghanistan: 4 Americans dead in blast at Bagram Airfield —  Four Americans were killed in an apparent suicide bomb attack early Saturday at Bagram Airfield, the largest US base in Afghanistan, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.   Two of those killed were service members, and two were contractors, he said, adding he was ""deeply saddened"" by the news. The explosion also wounded 16 other US service members and one Polish soldier participating in the NATO mission, Carter said in a statement. The Taliban claimed responsibility in a tweet praising the ""strong attack"" on Bagram Airfield. In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said a suicide bomber had targeted ""a sports ground where more than 100 military officers, important people and soldiers were busy exercising."" The attack on the airfield had been planned for four months, he said. A NATO coalition official told CNN that the bomber, who is presumed dead, detonated the suicide bomb vest on a sidewalk near where people were preparing for a run. The base was under lockdown, and additional security measures were instituted at all other locations in Afghanistan for the United States and coalition allies, the official said. The US Embassy in Kabul will be closed Sunday, except for emergency consular services, as a precautionary measure, the State Department said. In a tweet, the department cited the ""serious threat violence, kidnapping and hostage taking."" Carter offered his condolences to the families of those killed and said the injured were getting the best possible care. ""Force protection is always a top priority for us in Afghanistan, and we will investigate this tragedy to determine any steps we can take to improve it,"" he said. ""For those who carried out this attack, my message is simple. We will not be deterred in our mission to protect our homeland and help Afghanistan secure its own future."" NATO chief: 'United against terrorism' NATO earlier said 14 people were injured in the blast, which happened shortly after 5:30 a.m. local time. Its force protection and medical teams responded. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg offered his support on Twitter to those affected by the attack. ""NATO remains committed to our mission to train and support the Afghan forces. We all stand united in the fight against terrorism,"" he said in a statement. The airfield is next to the ancient city of Bagram, southeast of Charikar in Parwan province. Bagram is more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Kabul, the Afghan capital. Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack in a statement Saturday, calling it a ""cowardly"" act by terrorists ""who have no regard for Islam, human life or the future of Afghanistan."" He reiterated his intention to ""destroy the enemies"" of his country and its allies, and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.   Urgent investigations are being carried out at the base, and security has been tightened, according to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. The military will want to ensure that anyone tied to the blast is found before people are allowed to leave the base.""The question now is, how did someone get inside?"" she said. ""There's very strict security at these bases. ... If you come in a vehicle, you are stopped well before the outside gate. Vehicles are searched, people are searched, people must have ID -- so it's very difficult to understand right now how this happened."" There are about 14,000 people on the Bagram base, with about 60% contractors, according to Starr. Locals move on and off the base in some contractor roles, she said. Security breaches at coalition bases in Afghanistan have occurred but are rare, she added. Saturday's blast follows a spate of recent attacks. A suicide car bomb targeted the German Consulate in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province on Thursday, according to local police and officials.   Monir Ahmad Farhad, a provincial spokesman, said four people were killed and more 100 people were injured in the attack in Mazar-e-Sharif, the provincial capital. No German diplomats were hurt. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Last week, a joint Afghan-US battle against the Taliban in the northern district of Kunduz killed 30 civilians as well as two US soldiers and 26 militants. Those deaths happened the same day Taliban mortars killed at least seven people at a wedding party in Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, police spokesman Kareem Youresh said. At least 13 people were wounded. An Australian woman was kidnapped November 5 by unknown gunmen in Kabul, Afghan police said."
39,"After Traveling More Than 700 Miles, A Young Wolf Was Gunned Down By A Government Sniper —  A young male wolf who was in search of a mate and had travelled more than 700 miles, has been gunned down by a government sniper.   This wolf was a member of the Huckleberry pack which is a family that lives in Washington state and had been saved from extermination by the Center for Biological Diversity as well as it’s allies when the wolf was a pup back in 2014.   The wolf was collared in February and began his journey east, surviving the wolf-killing fields in Idaho.   On Septemer 29th, he was gunned down at Judith Gap, Montana near Wildlife Services which is the deadly federal killing program that had wiped out more than 3 million wild animals just last year.   This was a special collared wolf whose journey was well documented and whose life was carelessly taken away at the hands of trigger-happy exterminators who must be held accountable for their actions.   Wolves often leave their pack in search of a mate and new territory when they come of age. Sadly, in states such as Colorado, Iowa, Wyoming and Utah these wandering wolves end up dying brutal deaths due to acts of cruelty and indifference.   For this reason, the Center for Biological Diversity has lawyers, scientists and activists who are in court, congress and on the streets every day fighting for the lives and safety of wolves."
40,"Aging Bonobos Become Farsighted, Just Like Humans —  Bonobos have a decidedly low-tech solution to farsightedness, scientists have found.   Rather than donning glasses to bring objects that are near into sharper focus, aging bonobos just adjust their position, particularly when grooming their hairy pals.     Researchers noted that when older bonobos groomed their neighbors, they sat back and extended their arms farther than younger bonobos did — and they stretched their arms even more over time. In the new study, scientists identified this shift in position as an adjustment to compensate for deteriorating eyesight. [8 Humanlike Behaviors of Primates]   Scientists had previously observed this behavior in wild bonobos, though no one had investigated it closely enough to interpret it, according to study co-author Heungjin Ryu, a researcher at the Primate Research institute of Kyoto University, in Japan.   But when Ryu and other researchers witnessed this odd technique firsthand, they questioned what they might learn about the bonobos that were doing the long-reach grooming.   Age-related farsightedness in humans — also called presbyopia — is a common vision disorder that develops when the eye's lens hardens and the muscles holding it weaken, making it harder for the eye to focus light on the retina, the National Eye Institute (NEI) explains. Not all older people are affected to the same degree, but anyone over the age of 35 is at risk for developing presbyopia, the NEI added.   Two eyes good, four eyes bad   The study authors examined photos of bonobos as they groomed each other, evaluating 14 wild bonobos that were between 11 and 45 years old; they compared grooming distances relative to the age and sex of the bonobos doing the grooming.   Female bonobo ""Fuku"" (17 years old) grooming ""Hoshi"" (female: 32 years old). Female bonobo ""Fuku"" (17 years old) grooming ""Hoshi"" (female: 32 years old). They discovered that older bonobos sat farther away from the body of the bonobo they were grooming. The bonobos began to exhibit signs of farsightedness at around the age of 40, Ryu said in a statement.     For example, to focus for grooming, the 45-year-old male bonobo they named ""Ten"" — the oldest in his group — maintained a distance of 16 to 18 inches (40 to 45 centimeters) between his fingers and his eyes. Meanwhile, a 17-year-old female bonobo they called ""Fuku"" required a distance of only 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm) between her fingers and eyes.   Being farsighted would not only inhibit a bonobo's ability to easily groom a neighbor, it could also affect the bonobo's social standing in the group by making that bonobo a less popular choice as a grooming partner, the authors suggested.   Few studies have shown how human aging compares to aging in other primates — particularly in our closest relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees. These findings could shed light on how scientists understand aging in the human body, and how much of the deterioration that accompanies aging is part of our evolutionary heritage, rather than our modern habits.   The findings were published online Nov. 7 in the journal Current Biology."
41,"Ahmad Khan Rahami Was Inspired by Bin Laden, Charges Say —  The man who the authorities say set off powerful bombs in Manhattan and on the Jersey Shore over the weekend planned the attacks for months, conducted a dry run just days before unleashing his assault and took inspiration from “Brother Osama bin Laden” and other international terrorists, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court on Tuesday.   The man, Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was charged with several crimes, including use of weapons of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, and the criminal complaint against him outlines how close the attacks came to causing death and even more destruction.   The bomb in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night was powerful enough to vault a heavy steel Dumpster more than 120 feet through the air, according to the complaint. Windows shattered 400 feet from where the explosion went off, and pieces of the bomb were recovered 650 feet away. Among the 31 victims — two more than first reported — one had to have multiple ball bearings removed from her body as well as bits of metal from an ear and wood shards from her neck, the complaint says.   The charges came on a day when it was revealed that Mr. Rahami’s father told the authorities two years ago that he feared his son was a terrorist, prompting a review by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that did not find any basis for a fuller inquiry.   Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE     Retracing a Suspect’s Journey: From a Bomb Site to a Quiet Doorway SEPT. 20, 2016   ABOUT NEW YORK In a Fictional Pub, a Tale of a Bombing. A Block Away, a Very Real Explosion. SEPT. 20, 2016   Bombing Suspect’s Hometown Is a Magnet for Immigrants SEPT. 20, 2016   Ahmad Khan Rahami Is Arrested in Manhattan and New Jersey Bombings SEPT. 19, 2016 RECENT COMMENTS   Rodrian Roadeye September 22, 2016 You would think odd purchases on E-bay for bomb making stuff would be a red flag? MyThreeCents September 22, 2016 ""C'mon FBI. First the Dad then a year in Pakistan? Even I would have been watching him.""Hard as it may be to believe, most parents do NOT... markjuliansmith September 22, 2016 Ahmad Khan Rahami Was Inspired by Bin Laden, Charges SaySuch a statement fails the 'So what test?' as it is only refers to a person not to... SEE ALL COMMENTS Advertisement   Continue reading the main story   The complaint says Mr. Rahami was motivated by an extremist Islamic ideology that he recorded in a notebook he had with him when he was shot and wounded by the police in Linden, N.J., on Monday morning before being taken into custody.   Pierced by a bullet and splattered with blood, the journal contains screeds against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In one handwritten message, Mr. Rahami pleads that he not be caught before carrying out his planned attacks.   “My heart I pray to the beautiful wise ALLAH,” he wrote. “To not take JIHAD away from. I beg.”   Elsewhere in the notebook, the complaint says, he refers to pipe bombs and pressure cookers as well as to shooting police officers.   Mr. Rahami writes of “killing the kuffar,” or unbelievers, and praises terrorist figures, including Anwar al-Awlaki, once Al Qaeda’s leading propagandist, who died in a drone strike in Yemen, as well as the soldier in the Fort Hood shooting, among the deadliest of the so-called lone wolf attacks inspired by Al Qaeda.   Mr. Rahami had been meticulously planning his attack since at least June, according to the complaint, acquiring the materials he used to construct his weapons, often via eBay, where he was registered as “ahmad rahimi.”   While items like “Ammo Slingshot Steelies” and electric igniters used for fireworks displays might seem harmless, in Mr. Rahami’s hands, they were combined to create tools of potential carnage, the complaint says.   Two days before the bombing in Chelsea, according to the complaint, Mr. Rahami recorded video of himself igniting an incendiary device in the backyard of his Elizabeth, N.J., home.   The lighting of a fuse, the complaint says, is followed by “billowing smoke and laughter,” before Mr. Rahami is seen entering the frame and picking up the device.   David Patton, the chief federal defender in Manhattan, said on Tuesday that his lawyers’ immediate goal was for Mr. Rahami, who remains in the hospital, to appear before a judge “so that he can be informed of the charges against him.” Late on Tuesday Mr. Patton wrote to the court, asking that Mr. Rahami be given a court appearance on Wednesday at the earliest possible time. If he cannot travel to Manhattan for medical reasons, Mr. Patton proposed a hearing by phone or video conference.   The complaint leaves unanswered questions about when Mr. Rahami began to harbor such apparent antipathy for the country he had lived in for years and where he had become a naturalized citizen.   As happened with those involved in terrorism-related cases in Orlando, Fla.; San Bernardino, Calif.; and Boston, federal authorities had looked into Mr. Rahami’s life well before he launched his assaults.   Federal agents first became aware of Mr. Rahami two years ago, when his father shared with them his concerns that his son might be involved in terrorism.   The F.B.I., which had been notified about Mr. Rahami by the local police after a domestic dispute involving the family, said in a statement that it conducted a review — checking its databases, contacting other agencies and conducting interviews. But the review did not turn up anything that warranted further inquiry, and the matter was closed.   Investigators have not discovered any ties between Mr. Rahami and known terrorist groups, and no one has claimed responsibility for his attacks. While the Islamic State is usually quick to claim credit for attacks around the world, organizations linked to Al Qaeda vary widely in when or if they do so.   One key area of the investigation involves whether Mr. Rahami had help building the bombs or if anyone knew what he was doing and did not report it. In all, he is linked to 10 explosive devices found in the region.   Among those Mr. Rahami praises in his notebook, according to the complaint, is Mr. Awlaki, whose lectures and jihadist declarations are widely available on the web. So, too, is Inspire magazine, which has published detailed instructions for making pipe bombs as well as more sophisticated explosive devices using pressure cookers and Christmas lights, the components used in the New York-area bombs.   Despite being killed in a drone strike ordered by President Obama, Mr. Awlaki remains a powerful influence on would-be jihadists, especially in the English-speaking West. Among his documented admirers were Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino; Omar Mateen, who fatally shot 49 people in an Orlando nightclub; and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who staged an attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon with pressure-cooker bombs in 2013.   The authorities are also scrutinizing a number of trips Mr. Rahami made overseas, particularly several to Pakistan. In May 2011, he made a three-month trip to Quetta, according to law enforcement officials, citing Customs and Border Protection records. In April 2013, he traveled to Quetta again and did not return until March 2014, according to information provided to customs authorities by the New York City police.   Mr. Rahami’s wife, Asia, who left the country days before the bombing, is now in the United Arab Emirates. She provided a statement to the F.B.I., according to officials, and the authorities are working to bring her back into the country as soon as possible.   The F.B.I. believes Mr. Rahami acted alone but is trying to speak with everyone who knew him.   It was unclear when Mr. Rahami married his wife, but after returning from a nearly yearlong visit to Pakistan in March 2014, he was increasingly desperate to get her into the country.   He was still in Pakistan when he emailed Representative Albio Sires, Democrat of New Jersey, asking for help getting her a visa, the congressman said.   Ms. Rahami’s Pakistani passport had expired, and agents at the United States Embassy in Islamabad discovered that she was 35 weeks pregnant, Mr. Sires said. Ms. Rahami was told she would need to wait until her baby was born before she could apply for United States visas for her and the child. She eventually came to the United States.   It was unclear when her visa issue was resolved. But in August 2014, Mr. Rahami got into a fight with his family, during which he stabbed his brother in the leg with a knife, court records show. When the police arrived, Mr. Rahami’s father told them of his concerns about his son’s possible involvement in terrorism. The information was passed to the Joint Terrorism Task Force led by the F.B.I. in Newark. Officers opened what is known as an assessment, the most basic of F.B.I. investigations, and interviewed the father multiple times.   They never interviewed Mr. Rahami, who was in jail at the time, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.   The father, Mohammad Rahami, said in an interview that at the time he told F.B.I. agents about his concerns his son was going through a difficult period.   “Two years ago I go to the F.B.I. because my son was doing really bad, O.K.?” he said. “But they check almost two months, they say, ‘He’s O.K., he’s clean, he’s not a terrorist.’ I say O.K.”   He added: “Now they say he is a terrorist. I say O.K.”   One official familiar with the inquiry said that the elder Mr. Rahami, after his initial comments about his son, recanted and said he had spoken out of anger.   The assessment of Mr. Rahami illustrates the challenges the F.B.I. faces as it solicits information from the public about people who might pose a threat and then must sort through what is credible, while balancing the need to protect the country without overstepping its authority.   Depending on the intensity and urgency of an inquiry, there are three types of investigations the F.B.I. can undertake with varying levels of intrusive techniques.   The first is an assessment, in which agents use basic techniques like conducting interviews, talking to confidential informers, using physical surveillance and checking databases and public records.   Next come preliminary and full investigations, which can be initiated if agents believe a federal crime has been committed or there is a threat to national security. Those investigations can involve polygraphs, undercover agents and mail searches.   Both assessments and preliminary inquiries have time limits.   A full investigation has no such time limits, but does eventually require review and employs powerful electronic surveillance tools, requiring the approval of a court warrant. Among other things, it allows for the secret interception of international communications.   Like Mr. Rahami, one of the Boston bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was the subject of an assessment in 2011.   And just as with Mr. Rahami, the F.B.I. did not generate any additional leads that would have prompted a more serious investigation.   The Tsarnaev assessment was one of approximately 1,000 the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Boston carried out that year.   In the Orlando nightclub attack this year, the circumstances were different.   Mr. Mateen, who carried out the deadly assault, had made highly inflammatory comments, which came to the attention of investigators, raising the profile of his case to a preliminary inquiry. He told colleagues he had family ties to Al Qaeda and was a member of Hezbollah. During the 10-month investigation, Mr. Mateen was interviewed twice, and the F.B.I. used confidential informers.   Still, the bureau found no evidence that his statements were credible or that he had ties to terrorism.   While the federal assessment of Mr. Rahami was closed weeks after it began, he did face criminal charges of aggravated assault and illegal weapons possession stemming from the domestic dispute, according to court records. He spent over three months in jail, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. A grand jury, however, declined to indict Mr. Rahami."
42,"Aiden Webb Vietnam death: Climber 'suddenly lost contact' —  A backpacker has described the moment she lost contact with her rock climber boyfriend - who died during an attempt to scale Vietnam's tallest mountain. The body of Aiden Webb, 22, from Norfolk, was found six days after he set off alone for the climb in June. Girlfriend Bluebell Baughan had begged him to get help via a series of text and Facebook messages after he got lost on Mount Fansipan, an inquest heard. Coroner Yvonne Blake recorded an open verdict into Mr Webb's death. A hearing in Norwich was told Ms Baughan, who was also staying in Vietnam at the time, was in contact by phone after Mr Webb slipped and became hurt. 'Can't stop shivering' She said Mr Webb got lost, slipped, then cut his bicep on a rock and hurt his knee, after being forced off the main trail due to a landslide. More updates on this story and other Norfolk news Ms Baughan said he initially refused her pleas to let her call the authorities for help. She became ""very fraught"", she said, as they realised he had missed the last cable car and had to stay the night dressed just in shorts. In a series of messages, Mr Webb told how he had ""got extremely lost"", then later told her: ""I am going to get pneumonia. I can't stop shivering."" He had also messaged to say: ""I've just had a huge rock land on my arm. I need stitches or glue."" Mr Webb later said he would set off back down the mountain, and in his last text at 06.18 asked Ms Baughan to finally raise the alarm, but her reply failed to get through. His body was eventually found in a stream down a ravine. Local police concluded he had drowned while unconscious after falling into water. A post-mortem examination was carried out in the UK after his parents asked for it not to be undertaken in Vietnam. But Ms Blake said the medical cause of Mr Webb's death was ""unascertained as he was embalmed"". Parents Simone Taylor and Trever Webb said in a written statement: ""Aiden was such a joy to be around. ""We're incredibly close as a family and feel privileged to have been his parents."""
43,"Aimee Copeland would do it all again —  Atlanta (CNN)It's been about four years since Aimee Copeland lost her hands, a leg and a foot in a fight with flesh-eating bacteria, and she is bragging about beating friends in arm wrestling. She's sitting on a mat in a small exercise room of her Atlanta house, with ankle weights slipped over her surgically shortened arms, wearing no prosthetic save for the right foot she uses to help her slide and twist off her wheelchair. She lifts her arms and lowers them, demonstrating one of the many exercises she does for near-daily 90-minute sessions. ""Arm strength is so important when you're missing one whole leg,"" she says, before musing about how strong she is. ""I've beaten pretty much everybody at this house in arm wrestling,"" she explains, without even using her hand prostheses. Her opponents grabbed the end of her arm, elbows on the table, and she took them down. Her housemate Esther hears her from another room and laughs. ""You are evil,"" Esther says. ""One was a guy,"" Copeland offers. ""I was going to say,"" Esther laughs. Copeland, 28, has long been active and outdoorsy. Before her accident, she hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail, rode her bike to class, went rock climbing in Alabama and dabbled in whitewater kayaking. Strength training and this room, for now, make up a large portion of the workout pie. They counter hours of sitting -- she relies largely on a motorized wheelchair to get around since an infection left her without much of her four limbs and thrust her into a national spotlight as she clung to life. But she also wants to be strong in case she's eventually able to have an operation on one of her thigh bones -- the one amputated nearly to the hip -- to let her walk well with prostheses for the first time since her accident. Right now, it's generally too impractical to walk, let alone hike, beyond what she does on a treadmill. ""I do want to walk -- that's my No. 1 goal,"" she says, and exercising will help make sure she's ready. It's been one hell of a journey: she's left her parents' care, finished two master's degrees, got a new boyfriend, is about to start a new job, and has ambitious plans to serve others through a nonprofit she hopes to create one day. It's a path that she found after a lot of pain, screaming and dark nights. And it's a trek that happened only because of a zip line ride that she didn't even plan on taking. The accident It's May 1, 2012, and Aimee Copeland ends her waitressing shift at a café with no particular plans for the afternoon. She'd finished classes for the semester at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, working on her first master's degree in psychology. A friend calls, and she's having a hard time, so Copeland goes to her pal's rented home in town to hang out. They and another friend go to the backyard and check out a garden and some rabbits living in a shed. It's warm, in the 80s, and a creek in the back of the property beckons, so they go put on their bathing suits. It's only as they wade into the creek that they notice a dog runner cable with handlebars, extending over the water about 6 feet across and 6 feet high on a neighbor's property. They take a few turns on the zip line. On Copeland's second run, she hears something. Snap! The line breaks and she falls into the creek, feeling a stabbing pain in her left leg. Sharp rocks have gashed her calf, and she's bleeding. She needs 22 staples at a local hospital to close the wound. Over the next two days, she twice goes to doctors complaining of severe pain, and gets painkillers, antibiotics and an MRI. On May 4 she wakes up to see her left leg rotting, purple to the hip. She can't walk, her tongue is shriveled, and it's all she can do to manage a few words to her boyfriend. ""I think I'm dying,"" she says. He picks her up and rushes her back to the hospital, where she's diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis, a bacterial infection that is destroying her tissue. A heart attack 'simply being moved from the stretcher' She'd contracted Aeromonas hydrophila, which more commonly causes diarrhea in swimmers who swallow contaminated water, but is one of several types of bacteria that can, rarely, cause necrotizing fasciitis should it enter an open wound. If treated early enough, a patient might only need skin or fat removal. Some patients need amputations. It's hard to tell how many American patients get the disease yearly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it tracks necrotizing fasciitis only from the most common bacterial cause -- strep -- and that results in about 700 to 1,100 cases of infection every year in the US. Up to 25% of patients die because of complications such as organ failure and blood poisoning, the National Institutes of Health says. Copeland, her leg too far gone, nearly fell in that last group. She was flown to a hospital in Augusta, where doctors amputated her left leg and cut skin from her abdomen to stop the bacteria's spread. ""All my vital organs were also failing,"" she recalled in her interview with CNN this year. ""I coded simply being moved from the stretcher to table and had to be resuscitated."" A respirator breathed for her, and she was on full-time dialysis. Three days after her amputation, a doctor told her parents that her chances of survival were slim to none. News outlets across the country followed the story, captivated by her youth, the zip line accident and her struggle to stay alive. 'The first thing that I remember' The short way to explain Copeland's four amputations is to say they happened because of flesh-eating bacteria. That's correct only to a point. Doctors amputated her left leg because of bacteria, but the disease didn't damage her hands and right foot. The medicine used to save her life did that, her family says. She was put on vasopressors, drugs that tighten blood vessels and raise blood pressure. For days, they ensured blood flow to her vital organs but eventually starved her extremities. By May 17, 2012, her remaining limbs had paid the price. ""The first thing that I remember coherently is my father holding up my hands for me to see,"" she recalls. ""My hands were curled up. They were dark purple in the palms, black at the fingertips. And my dad said, 'You know, these aren't healthy. We're going to have to remove your hands. They could threaten your life.' ""That was the point where I consciously chose to fight for life."" Her father, Andy, recorded his daughter's words that day in a blog: ""Let's do this,"" she said, agreeing to the amputations. He cried as he left the room, he wrote, because ""in all my 53 years of existence, I have never seen such a strong display of courage."" Recipe for recovery Four years on, long after her rehab ended and the near-daily requests for media interviews dried up, Copeland reflects in her Atlanta house in April about how she's changed. It's an appropriate time to mention Babe the pig. Copeland was a vegetarian before her accident, first shunning pork after seeing the movie ""Babe"" as a kid, then going all-veggie in college after seeing ""Food, Inc."" But that wasn't tenable as a quadruple amputee. After having skin grafts to close her hip and abdomen, hundreds of crunches and leg lifts daily helped her develop the core she needed for simple things like transferring herself from a bed to a wheelchair. For that, she needed protein. Meat seemed a crucial part of the solution. Sorry, Babe. If she has regrets, she hides it well. ""I've just gone full meat, and it's amazing,"" she says. ""I've been missing out on bacon all these years."" Fitness is like a job, in part for practicality. Sedentary in the hospital, she left in July 2012 weighing 120 pounds, almost as much as she weighed when she came in, despite losing 30 pounds in limbs. She's down to 98 pounds now, doing something in the workout room -- arms, legs, abs, treadmill -- for 90 minutes daily. Less weight means less struggle for transfers, or for friends who need to lift her and her wheelchair up steps to someone's ramp-less home. Home is the place where she really had to come to terms with a new life. By August 2012, after months of painful rehab, she was back at her parents' Snellville house, east of Atlanta. A homebuilder donated a renovation to the home, with ramps, more space and other features to meet her needs. She'd be fit with a series of progressively advanced prostheses. Fit initially with hooks for hands, she learned how to pick up a pair of shorts and put them on, her father told reporters. She hadn't lived with her parents for six years, and her college friends and boyfriend lived far away. He ultimately didn't handle the situation well, as she puts it, and they eventually broke up. ""Losing someone that I was that close to, I would say, was more difficult than the limb loss itself,"" she says. She'd scream and cry at night, full of questions. Would she walk again? Could she live independently? Would she ever date again? Anxiety gripped her for two years. Gradually she accepted the situation and developed a new life plan. Family and faith, she says, were key. ""My dad would always tell me that you can either have faith or you can have fear in those moments,"" says Copeland, who grew up in a Baptist home and says she now draws on many spiritual traditions. ""He is one of those people that really kept me going and just made me believe that everything would work out in the end."" ""I think it's my job not to judge things as good or bad or think that I'm the all-knowing of how things should be. ... If anything, I think these are the tests, poking and prodding, to determine, do you really have faith, or are you just happy with your circumstances right now? In the worst possible circumstances, can you still have faith?"" 'He told me ... my body is perfect' Years after those dark nights, she figures life is looking sweet, including on the job and romance fronts. At West Georgia, the psychology graduate student was examining eco-therapy -- how to help people using nature and the outdoors. She wasn't sure who she wanted to work with. Troubled teens? Alcoholics? Her accident gave her the answer. ""The more I laid in that hospital bed day after day, saw other people laying in their hospital beds day after day watching soap operas and daytime TV, the more I realized, 'Wow, this population is actually in most need of ecopsychology than any other population I've ever worked with,'"" she says. The plan now -- years down the line -- is to start a non-profit center where she would counsel people, especially those who've faced traumatic, life-threatening injuries. It would include a large park setting for things like camping and hiking. ""There's nowhere I could just go and ... be a therapist with that population using the modalities -- exercise, nutrition, gardening, personal training, yoga -- that I want,"" she says. She'd need to raise funds; she already has a business plan. But before that she needs experience. After finishing her West Georgia master's, she earned a master's in social work online through Valdosta State in May. She'll start working at a mental health clinic in November -- a confidentiality agreement keeps her from naming the facility -- as a licensed master social worker. After 3,000 hours of direct practice, she could pass another exam and become a licensed clinical social worker, which would allow her to practice without supervision. Copeland moved into her own house with her friend Esther in Atlanta last year, and renovated it -- what was once a bathroom uncomfortably small for her wheelchair, for example, is now a closet. She used the house as her base as she finished her second master's, typing papers on her trusty iPad with the ends of her arms. Swiping and pressing with her arms is much faster than using prostheses, she says. She sometimes slips on myoelectric prosthetic hands that respond to electric signals from her arm muscles. They're for when she needs finer movements, like for grooming and cooking. The fingers respond with various programmed grips, and she cycles through them with a gesture. They aren't on her all the time -- she likens them to footwear. ""Even the most comfortable shoes, you want to take them off at the end of the day."" As for romance: After all her doubt, a friend talked her into online dating last year. ""I had to go through, you know, quite a few people, talking (to) and getting to know different people,"" she says. ""And that's when I met my current boyfriend."" That would be Stephen, a high school English teacher who, it turned out, had attended West Georgia for his undergraduate degree. They had mutual friends. ""I immediately went to them and got the dirt, and he checked out."" He had heard her story before they met. When they did, it clicked. ""He told me that he thinks my body is perfect. So to me, that's just what I want to hear -- that somebody can accept me despite all that I've been through, and he's amazing."" They've been together for more than a year. 'I would go on that zip line again' She thinks there isn't much that can rattle her anymore. In August 2015, someone stole her adapted van, donated by a dealership, in front of her home. She reported the theft and fired up her iPad to see how she was going to get to her social work internship at an Atlanta hospital the next day at 7:30 a.m. Two buses and a train might do the trick, but what if she missed one? This was her third day on the job; no time to look unreliable. She mapped it out -- 5 miles by sidewalk. So out she rolled at dawn in the wheelchair, scooting at 5 mph alongside Atlanta's busy roadways, from her near-downtown neighborhood and over an interstate to her job. ""Several people were like, 'Why didn't you call me?'"" she recalls. She shrugs it off. That van was found, left in good shape by whoever stole it. ""At this point, I can pretty much take anything. There's no news that could match up with, 'We're taking all your limbs off.'"" Copeland looks forward to her career of service. She says she's in the best shape of her life, and the happiest she's ever been. She says she'd even go on that zip line again if she could do it over. ""Knowing the impact that I have and will continue to have, and knowing how this experience has shaped my life for the better, a million and one times, I would go on that zip line again,"" she recently told students and faculty at West Georgia. Of course she'd like her legs and hands back, she adds later. But ""my life has been (shaped) by everything that happened to me,"" she says. ""I wouldn't trade everything that I gained to get them back."" She's good with life, but not happy with her mobility. The real game-changer would be walking. Learning to walk again Only 2 inches of her left femur remain. That means her prosthetic must be fit as if she's missing three joints -- ankle, knee and hip -- and that makes standing and walking very difficult. It also leads to debilitating skin sores at her graft site. What might help, she says, is a procedure called osseointegration, in which a surgeon would attach a metal plate to what remains of her left femur, and let the bone fuse with the metal. The plate would have a port, which could be inserted into a prosthetic. That more stable attachment between body and prosthetic could help her walk better. That could take time -- the procedure is not FDA approved, though she says she hopes she could be a test subject one day. She can't wait. She misses easy access to, well, everything. ""If I want to go to my friends' house independently and not have to be lifted in, if I want to hike and backpack again, then (surgery) will be necessary."" Back in her exercise room, she demonstrates just how hard walking is. Wearing her left leg and right foot prostheses, she rises from her wheelchair with Esther's help and steps onto a treadmill. Leaning on an armrest, she swings her left leg around, followed by a step with the right, about a step per second. At one point, her right foot gets caught while going forward. She almost falls, but leans into the armrest to catch herself. ""Don't be alarmed,"" she laughs nervously. ""I have fallen many times."" And gotten back up."
44,"Airline worker gunned down at Oklahoma City airport, suspect found dead —  A gunman murdered a Southwest Airlines employee, then killed himself Tuesday at Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport in what police described as a premeditated attack.   Michael Winchester, 52, was shot while walking between a crowded terminal and the airport employee parking area. The unidentified suspect was later found dead in a pickup truck in public parking garage overlooking the scene. Police said the suspect appeared to die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Oklahoma City Police Capt. Paco Balderrama said the shooter apparently knew the victim's schedule and routine.   ""This individual went there and waited for the employee to either be coming or going to take this opportunity,"" Balderrama said. He wouldn't say conclusively that it was a ""sniper-type"" attack. A LinkedIn page with Winchester's name described him as a ramp supervisor for Southwest and said he was from Washington, Okla., about 35 miles south of the airport.   Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said in a statement that the airline would cancel all flights scheduled to depart Oklahoma City for the remainder of the day Tuesday.   The 1 p.m. shooting set off a scramble at the airport, with police immediately closing the sprawling complex and asking passengers inside to seek cover. They diverted incoming flights and refused to give already-loaded aircraft permission to leave. There were concerns the gunman might have entered the terminal and mingled among passengers or employees. ""We have a heightened level of security all the time. These people have access to aircraft so we're very concerned about that,"" airport spokeswoman Karen Carney said. Hundreds of people were stranded inside the terminal for more than three hours before officers began letting them leave slowly. Carney said about 300 people were held on aircraft away from the terminal after their planes landed ahead of a ground stop. Once police determined that a suspect found in a red pickup truck on the second floor of a public parking garage was dead, officers gave an all-clear. The airport handles between 7,000 and 8,000 passengers daily for Alaska, Delta, Southwest and United airlines and has a separate terminal that serves as a transfer center for federal inmates. A jet carrying inmates to the transfer site was allowed to land while the rest of the airport was shuttered. Video from a television station helicopter showed what appeared to be a pool of blood about 100 feet from the airport's employee parking area -- and about 100 yards from the airport's ticket counters and departure area. While airports have high security, it wasn't immediately known whether surveillance cameras might show the shooting, Balderrama said. Balderrama initially said police had received reports of a possible second victim, but no one was found. Police found the suspect's truck in the garage about three hours after the shooting and determined that someone was inside. They were not sure whether he was dead or alive. After about 75 minutes, using a robot, officers determined the suspect was dead. A number of inbound flights were diverted to other airports after Will Rogers suspended operations. Southwest redirected one flight back to Dallas while a Las Vegas to Houston flight that stops in Oklahoma City went to Amarillo, Texas, instead. Two commercial flights from Chicago's O'Hare Airport were directed to Tulsa, about 100 miles away. Michael Winchester was a punter on the University of Oklahoma's 1985 national championship team. His son, James, also played for the school and currently plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. ""Our hearts are truly heavy for the entire Winchester Family. Mike was a former Sooner student athlete as was his son James/daughter Carolyn,"" the school's athletic director, Joe Castiglione, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. He added ""daughter Becca was also a student athlete. Please keep this beautiful family in your prayers"" in a later tweet."
45,"Airstrikes kill more than 40 and wound scores in Yemeni port city —  CAIRO — Fighter jets from a U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition struck a security complex in the western Yemeni city of Hodeidah late Saturday night, killing at least 43 and injuring scores more, according to Yemeni officials and local news reports. Many of those killed were inmates being held in prisons on the site, located in the city’s al-Zaydiya enclave. Hodeidah, a port city on the Red Sea, is held by the rebel Houthis, who also control the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen. Saba, the government news agency, reported that 43 were killed and that dozens were wounded. According to other news reports, the death toll is at least 60. Images of bodies covered in blankets, purportedly from the attacks, were shown on local news channels and on social media. In a statement, the Saudi-led alliance said the Houthis were using a building at the complex “as a command and control center for their military operations” and said “targeting protocols and procedures were followed fully.” In Yemen’s civil conflict, which began in March 2015, the Houthis are aligned with loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudi-led coalition, backed by the United States and other Western powers, is trying to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to power. Hadi was driven into exile last year, and he is now based in the southern port city of Aden. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslim monarchy entered the war in large part because of concerns of Iranian influence in the region. That Shiite theocracy is widely perceived to be backing the Shiite Houthi rebels. The airstrikes in Hodeidah come on the same day Hadi rejected a new U.N. peace proposal that would have sidelined him and given the Houthis prominent roles in a new government. More than 10,000 people have died in the conflict, many of them civilians who were killed by Saudi-led coalition bombings, according to the United Nations. Millions more are suffering from hunger, illness and displacement as the nation is now in the throes of a humanitarian disaster. Earlier this month, Saudi-led coalition airstrikes killed more than 100 people, most of them civilians, when warplanes targeted a funeral hall in Sanaa. The coalition later claimed responsibility, saying that the bombings were a result of receiving faulty information. Speaking after meeting U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, Hadi said that the agreement would “reward” the Houthis and that it “only opens a door towards more suffering and war and is not a map for peace,” according to the Saba news agency."
46,"Ala. man sentenced for murdering daughter’s sexual abuser 13 years after his prison release. Thousands support him. —  “Raymond molested me for either four or five years.”   Those words came from a 24-year-old Alabama woman, reflecting on what happened to her from the ages of around 4 to 8. (The Washington Post does not name sexual assault victims.)   Raymond Earl Brooks had adopted the victim’s mother. To the young woman, for several years, Brooks was her adoptive grandfather. Then, while she was still a small child, he began molesting her.   She told AL.com, “I don’t remember when it started happening but I know it was for a very long time. It was long enough for me to think it was completely normal and made me to feel that he actually loves me in a different kind of way than my mother and father loves me.”   In 2002, Brooks pleaded guilty to sexually abusing the woman and was sentenced to five years in prison, the Associated Press reported. But, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections, he only served 27 months of the sentence before being granted an early release in February 2005.   In the eyes of the victim’s father, Brooks’s punishment was insufficient.   The crime, and the rage it induced, festered in his mind.   Though it had been 13 years, the victim, now a mother of three, was still hurt, furious and terrified.   “He took my innocence away and only served like 18 months, and now I suffer daily from what Raymond did to me,” the victim, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, said. “It’s not fair.”   So on June 8, 2014, she said something — it seemed so insignificant at the time, she can’t even recall her words — to her father.   “I [hadn’t] seen Raymond in years,” she said. “It was just something I said out of anger to my father.”   Her father, though, grew furious. He grabbed his gun and hopped on his motorcycle and drove down Highway 278, Berlin, Ala.’s main thoroughfare, dotted with churches, dollar stores and gas stations. The small buildings quickly turned to pine trees, as the father sped along the rolling hills out to the country to Brooks’s rural home.   Outside that home he found an unarmed Brooks, who was 59 years old. He raised a gun and fulfilled a dream of vengeance.   He pulled the trigger. Brooks died on the spot.   As he was pulling back onto the road from Brooks’s home, an Alabama State Trooper arrested him.   “The guy was guilty of raping his little girl, and I guess he dealt with it for 12 years and it just built up,” Cullman resident Jason Lackey, a friend of the father, told the Associated Press. “I won’t say [he] had the right to go murder him, but I understand when he did.”   Added Lackey, “I’m 100 percent behind him.”   On Monday, the father pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of Brooks and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, the Cullman Times reported.   (The Washington Post is not naming the father, as he shares the last name of the sexual abuse victim.)   The woman explained her father’s plea: “Basically he took it so that I didn’t have to relive the molestation and also be on the stand in front of a bunch of people talking about and bringing back memories of the molestation,” the daughter told AL.com. “My father was protecting me, like a father should do. He is an amazing father — actually the best. He loves us so much.”   Well before Monday’s guilty plea and 40-year prison sentence, the father’s brand of outlaw justice sparked a debate across the Internet — and even attracted some donations to the man and his family from several supporters.   A Facebook page titled “Family, Friends and Supporters of [the father]” was liked by 2,739 people and included one post that showed four young women in flip-flops and short-shorts holding handwritten signs reading “Car Wash.”   The post, liked by 112 people, stated, “We raised $172 at the carwash today!!!”   Another showed several people at another fundraiser — at which single women were auctioned to the highest bidder to participate in a motorcycle ride — wearing matching blue T-shirts reading, “A Father’s Love, Is Like No Other.”   One post invoked the Bible, particularly Hebrews 11:6, which reads in part, “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” Its caption read, “If we have faith and believe and expect to receive His favor, our Lord will show up and show out. Today, I have faith that [the father] will be home really soon!!”   A Change.org petition seeking the man’s release received 986 signatures.   In a statement to HLN, the father’s lawyer asked all to consider the “mental anguish” the man suffered.   Over time; this situation has weighed heavily on [the father]; more importantly, on his daughter. Without discussing the facts related to the instant case; one need not wonder at the mental anguish and pain this family has suffered over the last several years. His family will tell you that few days pass without them questioning why such awful things occur; and, why they could not have done something to have stopped it. All men fear a day that they are unable to protect their children. [The father] is no different in this regard.   Not everyone, of course, believed the father was in the right. While some pointed to the fact that murder remains murder, regardless of motive, others pointed to his other crime.   On Monday, the father also pleaded guilty to attempted murder of another man, for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, to be served concurrently with his other sentence.   En route to Brooks’s home that day, at about 7 p.m. he made a pit-stop on the way at the Berlin Plaza Quick Stop in the neighboring town of Cullman.   He pulled up in front of the old gas station. Under a sign for Mike’s BBQ, featuring a pink smiling pig, sat an outdoor ice box.   Standing next to that box was a man his stepdaughter had been dating — who he thought had been abusive.   The father raised a gun and fired a single shot into the building. He missed the boyfriend, though, merely chipping one of the large windows in between signs hawking watery beer and cheap smokes.   Mike Hays, owner of Mike’s BBQ inside the Quick Stop and its colorful sign, pulled out his own weapon as the father burst into the store, gun in hand, looking for the boyfriend.   “He had the gun down by his side. He was calm, as calm as you are standing there now. But he had that look in his eye,” said Hays, who faced off with the father and forced him to leave.   With more on his mind, the father peeled out of the cracked concrete parking lot and back onto the highway.   For HLN, Catherine Connors opined, “Even if he did this a week after the crime, even if he did this in the most precise and careful way, even if he did this in the overwhelming, pure spirit of revenge … it would still be wrong. We could better understand it, better forgive it, but it would still be wrong.”     Patt Morrison in the Los Angeles Times found his widespread support worrisome. She wrote, “It’s an unsettling cheering section for someone who allegedly meted out a private punishment against a sex offender who pleaded guilty and served prison time.”   Morrison continued, “And when an Alabama father or a California mother usurps that role, they are not heroes, because vengeance is not justice. And justice, not just someone’s child, becomes a victim too.”   Perhaps the loudest voice saying the father was not a hero belonged to Hays.   “People here are calling him a hero for killing a child molester,” Hays told the Associated Press. “I’m calling him a psychopathic lunatic for endangering people’s lives, including mine.”   Hayes told HLN, “There were five or six people in the store. If the gun had been six inches over, it probably would have hit a 12-year-old-boy.”   Added Hayes, “They are making it like it’s okay to go up to a public place and leave your motorcycle out and shoot into an occupied business. I was able to go home and tell my son I loved him that night, and I almost wasn’t able to do that.”   The daughter whom the father was trying to protect has not found happiness or peace in the ordeal — just the opposite.   “I’m going through hell,” she said. “Everything comes back to me as to why this has happened. I feel like it’s my fault. I’m sad but yet mad.”"
47,"Aleppo residents get warning by text message: You have 24 hours to leave —  Residents in war-ravaged eastern Aleppo received a dire warning early Sunday: Prepare for your city to be bombed and evacuate in the next 24 hours.   The warning came via text message, urging the sick and wounded to flee before a ""strategically planned assault using high precision weapons occurs within 24 hours."" Rebels were also given an ultimatum to lay down their arms and renounce their leadership, or be killed. The message was likely sent by the Syrian government as the regime is likely the only party capable of sending a mass text to the entire population. While there were no reports of a bombardment by Monday afternoon, witnesses told CNN that fighter jets had been spotted in the city, as deadly skirmishes were reported all over Aleppo. Who is left in Aleppo? Russian warplanes have since September last year backed the regime with airstrikes over rebel-held positions, pounding eastern Aleppo, where schools and hospitals have been crushed. The text message warning is seen as a response to Syrian rebels launching an offensive last month to break the regime's siege on eastern Aleppo. Assad: Go back to Turkey, or die Russia is the most powerful sponsor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and its air power has been a key factor in helping the government solidify its control over the city. What would make you care about Aleppo? Assad has insisted that he has no option but to ""to clean"" Aleppo and press on with the offensive. ""You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey ... to go back to where they come from, or to kill them,"" he said. ""It's going to be the springboard, as a big city, to move to other areas, to liberate other areas from the terrorists. This is the importance of Aleppo now."" Fresh clashes broke out Sunday, with regime shelling killing at least 11 people in the al-Salehin neighborhood, according to the Aleppo Media Center activist group. Several other neighborhoods were shelled by ground artillery and heavy machine gunfire from helicopters, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said. Rebel factions targeted army positions on the northern front line, causing casualties among Syrian troops, the SOHR said. The Syrian Army accuses rebels in eastern Aleppo -- who they call terrorists -- of using civilians as human shields. Humanitarian crisis The UN warned last week that eastern Aleppo was on the brink of starvation ahead of a ""killer"" winter. Residents there told CNN that their food stocks were running out, and that markets that once sold fruit and vegetables were now empty. A kilogram of meat, they said, costs around $40, a price that most in Aleppo simply cannot pay. The last significant aid delivery was in July, and the area is extremely low on medicine and much-needed fuel to run hospital generators and ambulances. The city has seen considerable death and destruction wrought by the civil war that has raged for more than five years. About 1.5 million people still live in the regime-held parts of Aleppo, while 250,000-275,000 residents are in the devastated rebel-held east, according to the UN. In July, about 200,000 people fled the city over a two days, according to a UN official, citing the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Turkey eyes Kurdish-held city Turkey has been carrying out airstrikes in northern Syria to back the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is currently moving in on the ISIS-held city of al-Bab. The city lies strategically between Aleppo and the ISIS heartland of Raqqa. The Turkish Army said it hit 15 targets on Sunday, including two ISIS ""headquarter"" buildings, an ammunition storage and 10 defense fronts. Ankara has said once the city is liberated, it plans to move on to Manbij, stirring sectarian tensions that complicates internationally backed operations to free Syrian cities from ISIS control. Manbij was in August freed from ISIS rule by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month said Ankara would not allow the Kurds to hold any territory west of the Iraqi city of Mosul. Manbij is just 40 kilometers south of the Turkish border. Turkey considers some of the Kurdish militia groups in the alliance as terrorists, including the YPG. But the SDF is supported and armed by the US, further complicating the conflict, which has already put Washington at loggerheads with Moscow. The former Cold War enemies, both of which are carrying out airstrikes in Syria, have long feuded over which groups should be targeted. The US supports and arms groups that it considers ""moderate rebels,"" while Russia calls any rebel group that is opposed to the regime ""terrorists."""
48,"Aleppo’s oldest residents fear they’ll die alone —  BEIRUT — Before the war convulsed his native Syria, Marea Marea relished retire­ment. He enjoyed leisurely morning walks, played with his grandchildren and took afternoon catnaps. Then the fighting began in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Airstrikes have pulverized his neighborhood, and a brutal siege has forced him to skimp on food so other members of his family have enough to eat. ADVERTISING Now the 70-year-old feels weak, frightened and helpless. “My entire life has been spent trying to build something for my family,” he said, speaking by Skype from his home in the war-divided city. “I built this home. My body aches from the decades of work that I did to make them a better life. But now this? There’s little dignity in this kind of life.” The war has taken an immense toll on the more than 200,000 people still in eastern Aleppo. Marea and other older residents face especially difficult circumstances, according to aid workers and doctors there. Some choose — or are asked — to make sacrifices for younger family members or are left to cope on their own after their children and grandchildren flee to safety in other countries. “People are being forced to make sacrifices, and this often involves the older people getting neglected,” said Bacry al-Ebeid, who distributes food to residents in rebel areas of Aleppo for Mercy-USA, a Michigan-based charity. [Darkness and fear in Aleppo as the bombs rain down] Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, has become perhaps the most important battleground in the conflict, which began in 2011 and has left more than 400,000 dead and millions displaced. Rebels seized the city’s eastern districts in 2012, and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have intensified efforts to take them back. If they do, it would mark a significant victory for the embattled leader. In recent months, warplanes operated by Assad’s government and its ally, Russia, have increasingly bombed hospitals and homes in the city’s opposition-held areas. Food and fuel shortages have worsened because of the siege imposed by pro-government forces, who control the city’s west end. As a result, residents and aid workers in eastern Aleppo say, it has become nearly impossible to find medicine to treat heart disease, diabetes, rheumatism and other conditions most commonly experienced by older people. Overstretched medical facilities must turn away people suffering from such conditions because of the overwhelming number of more-urgent cases, such as people with shrapnel wounds and other ­war-related injuries. Pablo Marco, Middle East operations manager for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, said the situation is so bad that fewer than three dozen doctors are still working in eastern Aleppo. The area has only one functioning dialysis unit left, he said. “If that unit stopped working, then that would mean more deaths,” he said. “The doctors just don’t have the time and facilities to take care of chronic diseases that, if not properly treated, will kill you in a matter of weeks and months.” As some become frail, they might see themselves as a burden on their family, which can fuel anxiety, Ebeid said. Some families have had to take ­extreme measures and have abandoned older family members, he said. In Arab societies, older people generally live with their children until death. [Syrian regime and Russia may have killed more children in latest bombing] There are no reliable age breakdowns of people living in the city’s besieged eastern areas, but before the war, Aleppo had a population approaching 3 million. Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled since the conflict erupted. “In a lot of cases, though, what we see are elderly people who refuse to leave their homes,” Ebeid said. “So that means their families, when they flee to other countries, are forced to leave them behind.” In another neighborhood of eastern Aleppo, 83-year-old Reema Salama lives alone in the home where she raised her children. Most of her family escaped to Turkey last year, but Salama chose to stay put, she said during a recent interview over Skype. Because of the siege, she cannot leave, and her family cannot visit. She receives food from Ebeid’s organization but struggles to cook it, relying on neighbors for help. “I’m all alone! I’m going to die alone here!” she said before abruptly ending the conversation. Marea said he would never leave his home. To pay for it, he worked for years as a freelance farmhand and day laborer. But even if he tried to leave, the government’s siege would prevent him. So he spends most of his time at home feeling isolated and hoping airstrikes do not obliterate him and his family. “I’m afraid our house will get bombed but that we won’t die in the attack,” he said, describing the fate of many people in his area of town. “We’ll just be stuck in the rubble for days and slowly die.” He also thinks constantly about trying to balance what he and his 70-year-old wife, Ajoun, need to survive with the demands of the 10 children and grandchildren living with them. Already, the family struggles to care for one son, 45-year-old Ahmed, whose leg was amputated last year after shrapnel struck it during an attack. “We eat twice — once in the morning and once in the evening — because we are trying to reduce the amount we eat so the kids still have enough,” he said. He fears the effect this could have on his wife, who suffers from high blood pressure and rheumatism. Marea has received unexpected help from another son, Hameed, who was visiting from Turkey and became trapped in the city when the government imposed its siege several weeks ago. Asked whether Hameed intends to return to Turkey, Marea choked up. “No, he can’t go back. The siege. He can’t leave us here,” Marea said. Then, he said, “I’m an old man. I shouldn’t have to think about these kind of things.” Heba Habib in Stockholm and Zakaria Zakaria in Istanbul contributed to this report."
49,"All polar bears across the Arctic face shorter sea ice season —  It's no secret that Arctic sea ice is melting.                                                                                                                                    Polar bears, the poster-child for climate change, are among the animals most affected by the seasonal and year-to-year changes in Arctic sea ice, because they rely on this surface for essential activities such as hunting, traveling and breeding. A new University of Washington study, with funding and satellite data from NASA and other agencies, finds a trend toward earlier sea ice melt in the spring and later ice growth in the fall across all 19 polar bear populations, which can negatively impact the feeding and breeding capabilities of the bears. The paper, to appear Sept. 14 in The Cryosphere, is the first to quantify the sea ice changes in each polar bear subpopulation across the entire Arctic region using metrics that are specifically relevant to polar bear biology. ""This study shows declining sea ice for all subpopulations of polar bears,"" said co-author Harry Stern, a researcher with the UW's Polar Science Center. ""We have used the same metric across all of the polar bear subpopulations in the Arctic so we can compare and contrast, for example, the Hudson Bay region with the Baffin Bay region using the same metric."" The analysis shows that the critical timing of the sea ice break-up and sea ice freeze-up is changing in all areas in a direction that is harmful for polar bears. Nineteen separate polar bear populations live throughout the Arctic, spending their winters and springs roaming on sea ice and hunting. The bears have evolved mainly to eat seals, which provide necessary fats and nutrients in the harsh Arctic environment. Polar bears can't outswim their prey, so instead they perch on the ice as a platform and ambush seals at breathing holes or break through the ice to access their dens. ""Sea ice really is their platform for life,"" said co-author Kristin Laidre, a researcher at the UW's Polar Science Center. ""They are capable of existing on land for part of the year, but the sea ice is where they obtain their main prey."" The new study draws upon 35 years of satellite data showing sea ice concentration each day in the Arctic. NASA scientists process the data, stored at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. The center also reports each fall the yearly minimum low for Arctic sea ice. This August saw the fourth lowest in the satellite record. Across all 19 polar bear populations, the researchers found that the total number of ice-covered days declined at the rate of seven to 19 days per decade between 1979 and 2014. Sea ice concentration during the summer months -- an important measure because summertime is when some subpopulations are forced to fast on land -- also declined in all regions, by 1 percent to 9 percent per decade. The most striking result, researchers said, is the consistent trend across all polar bear regions for an earlier spring ice melt and a later fall freeze-up. Arctic sea ice retreats in the springtime as daylight reappears and temperatures warm. In the fall months the ice sheets build again as temperatures drop. ""These spring and fall transitions bound the period when there is good ice habitat available for bears to feed,"" Laidre said. ""Those periods are also tied to the breeding season when bears find mates, and when females come out of their maternity dens with very small cubs and haven't eaten for months."" The researchers found that on average, spring melting was three to nine days earlier per decade, and fall freeze-up was three to nine days later per decade. That corresponds to a roughly 3 ½ week shift at either end -- and seven weeks of total loss of good sea ice habitat for polar bears -- over the 35 years of Arctic sea ice data. ""We expect that if the trends continue, compared with today, polar bears will experience another six to seven weeks of ice-free periods by mid-century,"" Stern said. The trend appears to be linear and isn't accelerating or leveling off, Stern added. The researchers recommend that the National Climate Assessment incorporate the timing of spring ice retreat and fall ice advance as measures of climate change in future reports. The study's results currently are used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's polar bear specialist group, which completes assessments of polar bears and issues the species' conservation status. The researchers plan to update their findings each year as new ice coverage data are available. ""It's nice to see this work being used in high-level conservation goals,"" Laidre said"
50,"America's war —  The most common adjective employed by weather reporters on Saturday 23 November 2013 was “treacherous”. But in reality there was not a hint of betrayal about it. The day was every bit as foul as one would expect the week before Thanksgiving. A Nordic outbreak of snow, rain and high winds barrelled through the desert states and northern plains towards the midwest. There was precious little in the news to distract anyone from the weather. A poll gave Barack Obama his lowest approval ratings in years. The same day, he announced a tentative deal with Iran over its nuclear programme. That night, Fox News was the most popular cable news channel; The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was the highest-grossing movie.   It was just another day in America. And as befits an unremarkable Saturday, 10 children and teens were killed by gunfire. They died in altercations at gas stations, accidents in bedrooms, standing on stairwells and walking down the street, in gangland hits and by mistaken identity. Like the weather, none of them would make the national news because, like the weather, their deaths did not disturb the accepted order of things. Every day, on average, seven children and teens are killed by guns in America. Firearms are the leading cause of death among black children under 19, and the second greatest cause of death for all children of the same age, after car accidents.   I picked this day at random, and spent two years trying to find out who these children were. I searched for their parents, pastors, baseball coaches, and scoured their Facebook and Twitter feeds. The youngest child was nine, the oldest 19. Four years ago, for a moment, there was considerable interest in the fact that large numbers of Americans were being fatally shot. On 14 December 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his mother, then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and shot 20 small children and six staff dead. Mass shootings comprise a small proportion of gun violence, but they disturb America’s self-image in a way that the daily torrent of gun deaths does not. “Seeing the massacre of so many innocent children … it’s changed America,” said the Democrat senator Joe Manchin, who championed a tepid gun-control bill. “We’ve never seen this happen.” The truth is, it’s happening every day, only most do not see it; 23 November 2013 was just one of those days. Here are two of the boys’ (they were all boys) stories. Jaiden Dixon, Grove City, Ohio School mornings in Nicole Fitzpatrick’s home followed a predictable routine. As soon as her three sons – Jarid, 17, Jordin, 16, and Jaiden, nine – heard her footsteps, they would pull the covers over their heads because they knew what was coming: the lights. The older two would take this as a cue for the inevitable and get up. But Jaiden would try to string it out. He would climb into his mother’s bed. Then came the cajoling. “I’d tickle him,” Nicole says. “I’d pull him by his ankle.” They had a deal. If he could get himself ready – “all the way ready: socks, shoes, shirt, everything” – the rest of the morning was his. “He could play Minecraft, watch Duck Dynasty.” It was Friday 22 November, the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination, and the papers were full of nostalgia for the nation’s lost innocence. They might have found it on Nicole’s street in Grove City, a dependably humdrum suburb of Columbus, crowned “best hometown” in central Ohio that year. It was its dependability that convinced people to stay. Nicole went to school with the parents of the children her kids went to school with. Jaiden was ready that morning with time to spare. When Nicole threw him his socks, he threw them back, telling her he wanted to try out as a pitcher for his baseball team. He was playing on his Xbox when, shortly after 7.30am, the doorbell rang. This was not part of the routine, but nor was it out of the ordinary. The teenage girls at the end of the road would pop around if they were short of sugar or needed a lift.   Jaiden opened the door gingerly, hiding behind it, poised to jump out and shout, “Boo!” when one of the girls showed her face. But nobody stepped forward. Time was suspended as the minor commotion of an unexpected visitor failed to materialise. Nicole craned her neck into the cleft of silence to find out who it was. She looked to Jarid; Jarid shrugged. Slowly, curiously, Jaiden walked around the door. That’s when Nicole heard the “pop”. Her first thought was, “Why are these girls popping a balloon? What are they trying to do, scare me to death?” But then she saw Jaiden’s head snap back, first once, then twice, before he hit the floor. “It was just real quiet. It was like everything stopped. And I remember staring at Jarid.” She knew what had happened. It was Danny. Danny Thornton was Jarid’s father. Nicole had met him years earlier at Sears, where he made keys. She was 19; he was 28. “We were never really together,” she says. “It was a back-and-forth kind of thing.” She hadn’t seen him since July. He’d found her over a year earlier, in January 2012, when he was in need of help. “He was getting ready to be evicted, and we decided to let him stay. He could spend time with Jarid and keep him under control, and I could help him get a job.” While he was staying, Danny got to know Jaiden. He took him bowling. He told Nicole that Jaiden made him laugh, even that he preferred him to his own son. But Nicole needed her room back. That made Danny angry, and he didn’t deal with anger well. His criminal history included charges of felonious assault, domestic violence, attempted possession of drugs and carrying a concealed weapon. He was also a semi-pro, super-middleweight boxer, 5ft 11in and around 160lb, who favoured the southpaw stance: right hand and right foot forward, leading with right jabs, and following up with a left cross, right hook. “He moved all his stuff out,” Nicole says. “I don’t know where. I didn’t care.” What she also didn’t know for some time was that, as he was packing, he told Jarid, “I have no problem making you an orphan. I’m not going to be living out of my car at 47. I have no problem shooting your mom and shooting your brothers.” He’d end his life in a shootout with the cops, he said. Danny had talked to her about shooting other people. “He had twins. He was pissed off with the mom for filing child support on him. And he talked about if he knew where she lived, he’d shoot her and shoot the babies,” Nicole’s best friend, Amy Sanders, tells me. “He had a list – an actual, physical list – of people he wanted to kill. Nicole always thought if she was nice to him, she wouldn’t be on his list. And unfortunately she was the first one.” Jarid didn’t tell his mother what Danny had said until September. “I stopped dead in my tracks,” Nicole says. “I said, ‘Jarid, he’s going to kill me.’ And Jarid said, ‘He’s just blowing off steam.’ I was petrified.” But time passed, and she began to wonder if Jarid was right.   Then Danny’s mobile phone subscription expired. Nicole had been paying it, but Christmas was approaching and she couldn’t afford it. On 20 November she wrote a text telling him his contract was up: “The phone’s yours. You can go and turn it on at any provider.” The message sat on her phone for a while, unsent. “I knew what he was capable of,” she says. “But I had to look out for my kids. I had to look out for me.” She pressed send. He replied within an hour: “What fucking took you so long?” Nicole forwarded the message to Amy. “I swear he’s gonna kill me one day,” Nicole texted. “In two years, when nobody suspects him.” Two days later, this was the man who sped away in a blue Toyota, leaving Jaiden with a bullet in his skull. “And I struggle to try and understand,” Nicole says. “Did he shoot whoever answered the door, or was Jaiden his target? Because, honestly, he could have stepped one foot in that house and shot me, shot Jarid, shot Jordin.” Jarid fled the house, asking a neighbour to call 911. Once he got hold of the emergency services, he could barely make himself understood.   “Sir, please calm down so I can understand what you’re saying,” the operator says. “We’ve got to learn what’s going on.” “My dad just shot my baby brother,” Jarid replies. “Who shot him?” “Danny Thornton. D-a-n-n-y T-h-o-r-n-t-o-n.” There is desperation and the occasional expletive interspersed with formal niceties: “Sir”, “Ma’am”, “fuck”, “please God”. “C’mon, Jaiden. C’mon, baby.” Nicole did her best to focus. She put one hand over the wound and the other on the back of Jaiden’s head, where she could feel the bullet. She scooped him up, then laid him back down. Still unconscious, Jaiden lifted his left arm three or four inches off the ground and let it fall. “I freaked out,” Nicole says. “I said, ‘He’s still alive. He’s still OK.’ I was thinking, this is what they do on TV. CPR. Mouth to mouth. And all it was, was just gurgle…” The emergency services arrived and took over. Nicole felt there was still hope. “I hugged the boys and was saying, ‘Be strong. We’ll get to the hospital and get him fixed.’ I kept thinking, ‘Just get him to surgery, get the bullet out.’” With Danny’s whereabouts still unknown, the suburb’s security apparatus curled into a tight foetal ball. Within five minutes of the first 911 call, Highland Park Elementary, just one block away, went into lockdown. School hadn’t started, so the police diverted buses and told parents arriving in cars to take their children home.   But Danny was long gone, heading eastbound on Interstate 270 to Groveport, 20 minutes away, where his ex-partner, Vicki Vertin, with whom he had an 18-year-old daughter, worked as a dental hygienist. Vicki came out to meet him in the lobby. She hadn’t seen Danny for 12 years, but still lived in fear of his temper. He was wearing a grey hoodie and had his hands in the front pocket. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” Vicki told him. Danny took out his gun and shot her in the stomach. By now, the 911 dispatch office was in overdrive. Calls were pouring in. One of Vicki’s co-workers was on the line. It took them six minutes to link the two shootings. Two of Danny’s friends also called the police. He’d told them that he’d “killed two people and that he’s not going back to jail”, and “he will not go down without a fight with police”. More schools went into lockdown. Vicki’s family were taken to a protective room. Nicole, meanwhile, had arrived at the hospital. Detectives pulled her aside to ask if she had any idea where Danny would be going. That was when she found out he’d shot somebody else. An hour and 45 minutes after he shot Vicki, Danny was traced to a Walmart parking lot. It was 9.46am. A shootout ensued in which one policeman was injured and Danny finally got his wish: suicide by cop.   Vicki’s first thought when she woke from surgery was that he could still be out there. ‘“Did they get him?” she asked her dad. “No,” he replied. She tried to get out of bed: “Oh my God, he’s coming back.” Her father clarified: Danny had been shot dead. It was the first time in years she’d felt safe. Across town, Nicole was told that Jaiden wouldn’t make it. The neurologist told her that Jaiden’s CT scan was one of the worst she’d ever seen. The bullet had taken a path straight to the back of his brain, where it had ricocheted, causing irreparable damage. They put Jaiden on a ventilator while a decision was made about organ donation. “I don’t remember feeling anything,” Nicole says. “All I remember is having this image of him in his shoes. He’d just put his shoes on, and his T-shirt was on the floor. And now he’s in a hospital gown with a thing down his throat. All in about an hour or so.” Jaiden was pronounced dead at 3.47pm the next day. Until they wheeled him away to the operating room, Nicole kept it together, but witnessing that was too much to bear. “I couldn’t see the doors close,” she says. “It was almost like they were taking him to have his tonsils out.” She had been up for 45 hours. “I just remember breaking down and crying, and then somebody put me in a wheelchair and took me out. I didn’t go back to the hospital at all.” The fog did not clear until the viewing. “It was maybe a week after he died,” she recalls. “He was lying in his casket. And because I’d been able to touch him so much at the hospital, I went right up and kissed him, and I grabbed his hand and it was cold as stone and hard. That was when the reality hit me: Oh my God. My baby’s gone.”   Nicole’s world is now divided into before and after. “It was like, before I was in a theatre watching this movie, and since then it’s been like walking into a parking lot and trying to adjust to the bright lights from being so engrossed in this movie for so long.” Advertisement It’s not as though the movie was necessarily uplifting. As a single mother of three, she remembers being exhausted, overwhelmed and, at times, very down. “There were nights when I would come home and just order pizza because I didn’t feel like cooking. And I would stare at the TV, and Jaiden would be out or upstairs or whatever. And I wish I’d gone and played with them.” The first time I met Nicole was in her office, four months after Jaiden’s death. It was her birthday, but she hadn’t let on to her co-workers and had no plans. She was wearing a hoodie bearing Jaiden’s name and face and the word legendary. Her friend had set up a website so they could sell them to raise funds. But she found it difficult to see his face. “I have school pictures in the living room over the mantel. I catch myself diverting my attention so that I don’t have to look.” She was in therapy, but struggling with the advice. “They keep saying that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. They keep saying, ‘It’ll get better.’ But I’m kind of at the point where I don’t see it.” Five months later, she still couldn’t see it. We had dinner at the Longhorn Steakhouse and went back to her house to meet friends. If anything, she was in a darker place. Most evenings she stayed up late to avoid going to sleep. Her mind kept whirring – an apparently endless loop of what-ifs and horror sequences. “I keep replaying seeing him falling to the ground. I keep replaying: ‘I should have done this, I should have done that. I should have opened the door.’” In the reception area of St Joseph’s Cemetery, where Jaiden is buried, a range of pamphlets is assembled to assist the bereaved: Losing Your Mom, Losing Your Dad, Talking With Your Kids About Funerals, Grieving The Death Of A Grown Son Or Daughter, to name but a few. There is pretty much every permutation of grief but one – a pamphlet entitled Losing Your Young Child. Because that’s not supposed to happen. Tyler Dunn, Marlette, Michigan Sanilac County has a lower population density than Finland and is slightly less racially diverse than Norway (it is over 95% white). According to Michigan’s department of agriculture, Sanilac leads the state in the acreage devoted to soy, corn, wheat, dairy farms and general cattle operations. Straight roads lead past silos, Dutch barns, grazing livestock and fallow fields, interspersed with the occasional township and homestead. Advertisement Marlette, population 1,879, is Sanilac’s third-biggest town and a 25-minute drive from the county seat of Sandusky. The shiny blue water tower bearing the town’s name announces itself from afar to the left, while McDonald’s golden arches peer over the trees to the right. Brittany Dunn, 20, wouldn’t be anywhere else. “I’d rather live here than in the city,” she says. “It’s more laid-back,” agrees her grandmother, Janet Allen. I am sitting in a pizzeria with four generations of the Dunn family: Janet, Lora Dunn Bartz (Janet’s daughter), Brittany (Lora’s daughter) and Ciannah (Brittany’s seven-month-old baby), as well as Thomas Bartz, Lora’s husband. This vast expanse of land was Tyler Dunn’s playground. To a city dweller like me, the 11-year-old sounds like a character from Mark Twain. He loved trapping animals, hunting, catching fish in the creek behind the house, four-wheeling and dirt-biking in the summer, sledding in the winter. The Dunns lived three miles down a dirt road off Highway 53. Several miles from the nearest traffic light, even streetlight, and surrounded by fields, he was safe to do his own thing. That year, deer hunting season started on 15 November, pheasant shooting on the 20th. “Tradition here is that the opening day you can just about close all the schools, because the kids are going hunting,” Sanilac County sheriff Garry Biniecki tells me. But with the exception of Tyler, hunting season didn’t particularly excite the Dunns. None of his immediate family hunted, and although Tyler enjoyed field sports, there is little evidence he was particularly good at them. One winter, Brittany’s boyfriend took Tyler trapping, but for more regular hunting trips Tyler turned to his friend Brandon. Brandon (not his real name) lived about a mile away, on a dirt road off Tyler’s. Brandon, who was 12, would sometimes pick up Tyler on his go-kart, and they would roam the neighbourhood. They had been friends since kindergarten, but weren’t inseparable. Once, Lora told Tyler he could no longer play with Brandon after Brandon abandoned him in town and went off with another friend. Advertisement Brandon was living with his father Jerry, who owned a trucking company. Jerry often took his son hunting and occasionally trucking, too. If Tyler was over, Jerry would take them both. Jerry’s truck runs, ferrying milk and topsoil around the midwest, usually took him away for 11 hours at a time. He’d give the boys some money to help him out. Sometimes Jerry would have them sit up front; at other times, they’d be in the back playing video games. Tyler loved it. On Thursday 21 November, Jerry had taken the boys hunting. Tyler had slept over on Friday night, and on Saturday afternoon the boys were scheduled to accompany Jerry in the truck down to Springfield, Ohio, 260 miles south and back. Lora dropped Tyler’s bike off at the house around 2pm, but the boys never used it because it was too cold: –8C, with winds of over 25 miles an hour. Shortly before Jerry was about to leave, the boys said they wanted to stay home. He left them to it. He made this trip as often as three times a week, and Brandon took care of himself fine. Lora didn’t know that by the time she dropped the bike off, Jerry was already gone. “Tyler knew he wasn’t allowed there unless there was supervision,” she says. But he didn’t call, and nor did Jerry. Lora went out with Thomas to celebrate a girlfriend’s birthday 90 minutes away in Union Lake. Jerry checked in with the boys a few times. The last time Brandon called Jerry was around 6.30pm, to ask if he could order pizza. Almost two hours later, Brandon walked out of the house with his hands up, wearing red shorts with no shirt or socks, the police telling him to keep his hands where they could see them. He had just called 911 and told them he had shot Tyler. “Do you have any weapons?” the policeman yelled. “No,” Brandon said. “It’s on the kitchen floor.” A policeman walked Brandon to his car as he pleaded: “It was an accident. I didn’t know the gun was loaded.” An officer went inside, where he found a lever-action rifle on the kitchen floor and Tyler on the dining-room floor, in a Mountain Dew T-shirt and sweatpants, with a large pool of blood surrounding his head. There was a huge wound on the left side of his head. The policeman found no pulse, called dispatch, and told them Tyler was dead. As he left, he saw a shotgun lying on the living room couch and four holes in the dining-room window. Nobody but Brandon will ever know for sure what happened that night, Sheriff Biniecki says. Brandon claims they were playing Xbox when he got a rifle out of Jerry’s closet to show Tyler. He asked Tyler to hold it while he went to get his milkshake from the bedroom. He came back and took the rifle from Tyler, who passed it to him butt first, the muzzle pointing in Tyler’s direction. Brandon was resting it against the wall when the gun got caught on his pocket and went off. Brandon sat in the car while police combed the house. He’d been crying and was visibly shaken. When they searched him, they found two 12-gauge Remington buckshot shells and a mobile phone. There was blood on his hands and on the phone. When asked how he’d come by the shells, Brandon said he’d found them earlier that day and stuck them in his pocket for safekeeping. Advertisement Inside the property, the police found a veritable arsenal. In Brandon’s room was a Remington 1100 shotgun, loaded and perched against the dresser with one round in the chamber and four in reserve. There were two more single-shot shotguns near the closet. In the top dresser drawer, there was some marijuana in tin foil and two rolled joints. When asked later how many guns he had in the house, Jerry couldn’t remember. First he said seven or eight, then between five and 10. Brandon didn’t know Tyler’s address, but he could describe his house. The police went there to find only his sisters at home, who told them to call their grandmother. Janet came shortly after midnight and was told the news. She called Lora. There was no reply: she’d left her phone in the car to charge. When she came out, she saw several missed calls and dialled Janet. “Are you on your way home?” her mother asked. “No – why?” Lora replied. “I think you need to come home.” She wouldn’t explain why, but that didn’t unduly concern Lora. She assumed her daughters had thrown a party and got caught. Night falls heavy in Sanilac County, cloaking the land in uncluttered darkness. On dirt roads with no street lamps for miles, the flashing lights of stationary police vehicles announce themselves with the force of a lighthouse. On the way to her mother’s house, Lora saw the lights on Brandon’s road and drove towards them. She called her mother. “Mom, do you have Tyler?” “I think you’d better just come here,” Janet said. “And then she put the police officer on the phone,” Lora recalls. “Don’t go there. Just come here,” she told her, and Lora obliged. “There’s been an accident,” the policewoman said when she got to the house. “OK,” Lora said. “Your son’s in Lapeer county hospital.” “OK,” Lora said. “Why didn’t you tell me, because I just came through Lapeer?” “No, Lora,” the policewoman said. “He’s been shot and killed.” While Lora was halfway home, Jerry was at the sheriff’s office in Sandusky. It was 2am. He had been called and asked to pick Brandon up. The police asked him whether there were any custody issues between him and Brandon’s mother, Connie, and whether he often left his son alone. Asked if any of his weapons were loaded, he said they might have been. Finally, they asked if Brandon had taken hunter safety classes. Jerry said he was doing the apprenticeship programme, in which a child aged 10 or more can hunt for two years without a safety certificate if with an adult. Beyond that, he had given basic instructions. “I told him to hold the gun with the barrel pointing in the air. Never to point the gun at anyone, and never put any shells in the gun unless you are outside.” How the gun got into Brandon’s bedroom was a mystery to Jerry. He thought it had originally been in the living room and didn’t remember moving it. All the guns were his, apart from the 20-gauge, which he’d bought Brandon. He said the .30-30 rifle that killed Tyler had been in his closet the whole time; he’d put three rounds in it a year earlier and not touched it since. It was only then that Jerry was told why Brandon was there. Had Brandon not shot Tyler, a handful of minor episodes relating to his behaviour would probably never have amounted to anything. But he did, and over the next few days police interviews provided hints that, even if this was not an expected turn of events, it was always a possibility. In her police interview, Connie said she had always been nervous about the number of guns Jerry had in the house, and assumed they were loaded. And then there were the incidents at school: the day before hunting season began, Brandon had boasted that he had pointed a 20-gauge at a boy’s stomach while it was loaded without the safety on. He also joked that the boy should put antlers on his head and run around so Brandon could shoot him. The child who overheard them thought they were “goofing around” about the antlers; he also thought “they were serious” about aiming at the boy’s stomach. Advertisement Guns were more available in Brandon and Tyler’s world than for any of the day’s other victims. In much of rural America, guns are an everyday part of life, for recreational and practical reasons. “Being a rural community, we have problems with everything from skunks to critters,” Sheriff Biniecki explains. “It’s not uncommon for a farmer to have a firearm handy.” With so many guns around, the potential for calamity is ever present. A few weeks earlier, two local men said they were shot at by a duck hunter. Five days after Tyler was shot, a 16-year-old shot himself in the foot while hunting 20 minutes away. Although Biniecki treats each gun death as its own discrete tragedy, one nonetheless detects in his voice a weary familiarity with cases such as Tyler’s. The key to preventing accidents, he says, is education and parental responsibility. “I think we need to use the opportunity to further educate parents that if you do have a gun, unload it and put it away. Teach your kids the safety rules. And then, over time, don’t get lax with it, because children are always curious. Put those two things together and bad things can happen.” In January 2013, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, Barack Obama started a second term that became increasingly strident in its advocacy for gun control. He sought to shift the climate of caution by issuing “a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence”. But the problem has been ongoing. On 14 November 2013, nine days before Tyler was shot, Obama nominated Vivek Murthy for surgeon general. Republican legislators focused on Murthy’s support for an assault-weapons ban and a tweet he’d sent in 2012, after the mass shootings at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado. “Tired of politicians playing politics w/guns, putting lives at risk b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue. #DebateHealth,” he wrote. It took more than a year for him to be confirmed by the narrowest of margins, after the National Rifle Association rallied its members. On 20 February 2014, Jerry and Brandon appeared in district court. Jerry was a three-time felon, previously convicted, among other things, of dealing drugs and operating a vehicle while impaired. In the US, felons are not allowed to have guns, so Jerry was charged with possession, a crime carrying a maximum of five years in prison. For leaving two boys alone with loaded guns that ended in the death of one of them, he was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a 90-day misdemeanour. He was released on $2,500 bail. Brandon was arraigned in juvenile court and charged with careless discharge of a firearm, causing death, which carries a maximum two-year sentence. On 10 April, Brandon pleaded guilty; on 5 May, Jerry pleaded no contest. At a hearing on 1 May, Lora told me, Connie wept as her son stood in grey sweatpants and a hoodie, and the judge placed him in “intense probation” at her home. The next day he was sentenced. There were 29 terms to his probation. He was sent to a junior detention facility for 10 days, with a further 20 days to be enforced if he failed to comply with the other 28 restrictions (including a 7pm-to-7am curfew, participation in anger-management classes, random drug and alcohol testing, paying for Tyler’s cremation, and a minimum of 10 written assignments). The probation would be reviewed every 30 days, said the prosecutor, who expected it to last until Brandon was 18 or 19. Six weeks later, the judge sentenced Jerry to a year for weapons-firearms possession and 90 days for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Tyler’s family believes they both got off too lightly – particularly Brandon, who they are convinced shot Tyler on purpose. To them, the story doesn’t hang together. Lora doesn’t buy the idea that the latch got caught on his shorts: “I believe his finger was on the trigger.” Over pizza with Brittany, her mother, stepfather and grandmother, I ask what would constitute justice. Brittany pauses. “I would want eye for eye.” “You mean you want Brandon executed?” I ask. She nods. “Brandon needs to be gone. I don’t think he should be able to live his life.” I look around the table. “Does everyone agree?” They all nod. “And Jerry?” “He should have time for what he did,” Lora says. “He should probably sit inside for the rest of his life,” Brittany adds. “He had a role in it, but he technically didn’t pull the trigger.” According to the Sanilac County News, Lora has since filed suit against both Brandon and Jerry, seeking more than $25,000. I ask her if Jerry or Connie have reached out to them. She says they have had no contact since Jerry’s girlfriend came over, a few days after, to return Tyler’s effects. Would they have liked to? “It would have been nice for them to say something. Put a card in my mailbox or something.” “Even at the court they could have turned around,” Janet said. “Yeah, when he stood up in front of the judge and said it wasn’t his fault,” Lora recalls. “Well,” Janet says, “it wasn’t his fault. Because he wasn’t home.”   *** This is not a story about gun control. It is a story made possible by the absence of gun control. Americans are no more violent than anybody else. What makes their society more deadly is the widespread availability of firearms. To defend this by way of the second amendment – the right to bear arms – has about the same relevance as seeking to understand the roots of modern terrorism through readings of the Qur’an. To base an argument on an ancient text is effectively to abdicate your responsibility to understand the present. Adopted in 1791, the second amendment states: “A well–regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” These 27 words have been elevated to the level of scripture, inscribed on a blood-soaked pedestal thwarting all debate, more than 200 years after its passing. None of the family members I spoke to raised the second amendment. Almost all believed guns were too readily available; none believed there was anything that could be done. But when I told them of other families who had lost children that day, they seemed shocked. It was as though they had lost a loved one in a war, unaware that the same war was simultaneously claiming other lives – indeed, unaware that a war was taking place. As though it were happening only to them, when in fact it was happening to America. Every day. • This is an edited extract from Another Day In The Death Of America, published next week by Guardian Faber at £16.99. Order a copy for £12.50 from the guardian Bookshop. • Another Day In The Death Of America is published by Nation Books on 4 October in north America. To pre-order a copy for $16.89, go to barnesandnoble.com"
51,"American Apparel topples into bankruptcy again —  Made-in-the-USA retailer American Apparel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Monday after its latest turnaround plan flopped.   The move comes about a year after the fashion retailer filed for bankruptcy for a first time. The company exited court protection in early 2016 but quickly encountered trouble again.   Canadian clothing manufacturer Gildan Activewear has agreed to a $66 million deal to acquire intellectual property assets and inventory from American Apparel, including the chance to maintain some or all of the company's Los Angeles production and distribution operations, according to a court filing.   Stores will remain open while the company pursues a sale of those operations. But liquidation is a serious risk for any retailer with the dubious distinction of having filed for what is colloquially known as ""Chapter 22"" — that is, Chapter 11 bankruptcy for a second time. The company has already initiated liquidation proceedings for all of its foreign operations.   ""The company faced unfavorable market conditions that were more persistent and widespread than the debtors anticipated,"" American Apparel chief restructuring officer Mark Weinsten said in a court filing. ""These market conditions were particularly detrimental to retailers.""   He said American Apparel's turnaround strategy ""completely failed"" as the company reported a 33% decline in year-over-year sales as of Sept. 30.   The chain secured bankruptcy financing to keep its doors open for now, but Weinsten said the cash would run out by the end of the year.   In the fiercely competitive teen fashion space, fast-fashion retailers H&M and Forever 21 have bulldozed their rivals in recent years. In 2016 alone, bankruptcies have included Aeropostale and Pacific Sunwear.   But American Apparel's troubles run far deeper. Famous for trumpeting its made-in-the-USA business model and sexually provocative advertisements, American Apparel has flirted with insolvency for years. In 2014, the company fired its polarizing CEO, Dov Charney, who faced allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace.   When it filed for bankruptcy the first time, its strategic missteps were exposed, such as its peculiar strategy of hawking swimsuits in September.   Charney's replacement as CEO, Paula Schneider, charted a new strategic direction for the company, including a plan to overhaul its controversial advertising and improve its products. But she left the company in September.   Since its first bankruptcy, the company failed to optimize merchandising, bolster online sales, improve quality expeditiously and form a cohesive marketing plan, Weinsten said.   With 110 stores in 28 states and the District of Columbia, American Apparel has dwindled from the time of its original bankruptcy filing, when it had about 8,500 employees at six factories and 230 stores worldwide.   The company listed about $215 million in debts. It had $497 million in net sales in 2015."
52,"Americans adopted this South Korean man when he was 3. Now 41, he’s being deported. —  Adam Crapser was born in South Korea, but, when he was 3 years old, an American couple adopted him.   Until recently, he lived in Vancouver, Wash., with his daughters and his pregnant wife. He has a son by an ex-girlfriend. He used to own a barbershop, but decided to become a stay-at-home dad, sometimes playing guitar and ukulele and watching a rescue dog.   But that will all soon change — Crapser is being deported back to South Korea, away from his family, away from the place he’s spent 37 of his 41 years of life.   He’s being held in an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Wash.   “He will be deported as soon as Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes the necessary arrangements,” Crapser’s attorney Lori Walls told the Associated Press. “Adam, his family, and advocates are heartbroken at the outcome.”   [They grew up as American citizens, then learned that they weren’t]   Crapser’s deportation is a sad denouement to a life in the United States that’s been anything but easy.   After being abandoned near Seoul, Crapser and his older sister were adopted by an unnamed couple. All he brought with him across the ocean were a pair of green rubber shoes, a Korean-language Bible and a stuffed dog.   That couple, as the New York Times magazine noted in an extensive profile of Crapser, abandoned the children to the foster system after many episodes in which they forced Crapser to sit in the dark basement as punishment.   He and his sister were split up, and after several foster homes, he found himself adopted by Thomas and Dollar Crapser, who had adopted two other children and were also caring for several other foster children.   According to Crapser, that family was more abusive than the first. They would slam children’s heads on door frames, tape their mouths shut with duct tape and hit them with 2-by-4s. Eventually, they would be convicted in 1992 of several counts of criminal mistreatment and assault.   Before that, though, they kicked Crapser out of the house after an argument. It happened so quickly, he left his Bible and rubber shoes — the last remnants of his birth country — in the house. He was caught breaking into that house, trying to retrieve the items and pleaded guilty to burglary. Twenty-five months in prison followed.   In the years following, Crapser committed a number of infractions. He was found guilty of unlawful firearm possession and, later, assault after getting into a fight with his roommate. In 2013, he called his son by an ex-girlfriend despite a protection order she had taken out against him.   “I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I’m not proud of it,” Crapser told the New York Times magazine. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way.”   In the past few years, he’d been working to put his life back on track by getting married and focusing on family.   Now, that’s over.   Difficult as his life here has been, he followed the court’s ordered punishment for his crimes. Returning to a country that the AP described as “completely alien to him” was not a punishment handed down from a judge.   But that’s what’s happening.   He ended up on the radar of federal immigration officials after he applied for a green card in 2012. They dug into his background and found a criminal record, which as the AP noted, makes him eligible for deportation.   In fact, it’s a circumstance created by the very parents who adopted, then abandoned, him in the first place. No family that adopted him, nor the adoption agency, ever registered the boy for U.S. citizenship.   Simple paperwork left undone.   Dae Joong Yoon, executive director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, told the AP this isn’t uncommon — as many as 35,000 intercountry adoptees don’t have U.S. citizenship, through no fault of their own but that of their parents and the agencies that handled their adoptions.   The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 fixed part of this problem by automatically granting citizenship to children adopted by U.S. citizens, but, as NBC noted, it only applied to those under the age of 18 at the time of its passing.   Crapser and many others, thus, were left in their strange limbo. Currently Congress is considering the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2015, which would grant citizenship to all children who have been adopted by U.S. citizens.   But it’ll be too late for Crapser, who still hopes it will pass.   “While I am disappointed in the judge’s ruling and worried about my family’s future, I hope that what has happened to me will further demonstrate the importance of passing the Adoptee Citizenship Act,” Crapser said in a statement obtained by NBC.   Emily Kessel of the Adoptee Rights Campaign finds his deportation “appalling.”   “We do not choose our families,” Kessel told NBC. “But the U.S. does choose to bring adoptees into the U.S. with a promise of placing these children in safe homes to grow up like any other American … Adoptees are not disposable. We urge the community to call members of Congress and underline the need for a legislative fix now.”"
53,"Americans feel guilty about wasting too much food, but still do it —  Americans eat a lot, also throw a lot of food. That is the main point worth underlining in the new study published at Plos One, a peer-reviewed journal. Surprisingly, it is just one of the two large-scale papers about food waste.   In 2010, the study says that about one-hundred and thirty-three billion pounds of edible food both at the retail and consumer levels went uneaten. That’s about one-thousand two-hundred and forty-nine calories per person per day. Two-thirds of which were attributed to consumers, meaning people in homes that waste the food that they purchase.   In addition to the significant waste of resources, the paper says that this behavior of consumers has a substantial negative impact to the environment as about ninety-five percent of food waste enter the United States landfills.   In a press release, Ohio State University professor Brian Roe explains that the results provide the data required to develop targeted efforts to reduce waste of food each year. “If we can increase awareness of the problem, consumers are more likely to increase purposeful action to reduce food waste,” he said. “You don’t change your behavior if you don’t realize there’s a problem in the first place.”   The team of researchers has developed a national survey to identify the awareness and attitudes of Americans regarding food waste. Last year, it was administered to five-hundred people representative of the country’s population.   The study has found that about fifty-three percent of American respondents said that they’re aware that it is a problem; that’s about ten percent higher than the related research published by Johns Hopkins last year.   Doctoral student Danyi Qi, one of the authors of the research, says that they’ve found three things that people consider regarding food waste: First, about sixty-eight percent of respondents believe that throwing away edible food after the package date has passed is reducing the chance of food-linked diseases and illnesses. Meanwhile, about fifty-nine percent believe that some food waste is ‘necessary’ for freshness and flavorful certainty.   Second, seventy-seven percent said they feel a “general sense of guilt” when throwing food away. Also, about fifty-eight percent claimed to understand that throwing away of food is bad for the environment. Meanwhile, only forty-two percent said they believe wasted food is a “major source of wasted money.”   And third, which is perhaps the most interesting, is that fifty-one percent of respondents believe it would be difficult to reduce home food waste. Plus, about forty-two percent said they don’t have enough time to worry about it. For the economic perspective, fifty-three percent admit that they waste a lot of food but still buy more in bulk or in large quantities during store sales.   For the throwing-the-blame perspective, about eighty-seven percent believed that they waste less food than other similar households.   The research in full is available at the PLOS One website, and it is titled ‘Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers.’"
54,"America’s Real Refugee Problem —  Minneapolis’ large Somali community made it through a grueling screening process in order to enter the country. Now, earning a living in the U.S. is proving difficult for younger generations.   Donald Trump’s crusade against immigrants and refugees is not only antithetical to the American ideal of inclusion, it’s also based on a false notion. This backlash against foreigners, fueled by political rhetoric in the election, suggests that the country’s safety is at risk—largely from Muslim extremists—due to the the government’s lax vetting policies. In fact, refugees face an exhaustive screening process by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that can take years. Those who are lucky enough to make it through the process must then deal with another obstacle: a system that fails to fully integrate refugees into the American economy. The federal government and its nonprofit partners provide job-search help and cash assistance for refugees during their first months in the United States. After that, they are largely on their own. This strategy has made it hard for refugee families—who often come to America with few assets or material possessions—to move up and out of poverty, and may be contribute to younger generations’ sense of isolation, the result of struggling to find their place in this country."
55,"America’s innovation crisis —  Politicians like to brag about American entrepreneurs. Hilary Clinton did it in her speech at the Democratic National Convention; Paul Ryan has called the United States the most innovative in the world. On Thursday, the White House released a fact sheet asserting that “America continues to be the world’s most innovative country.”   But what if it turns out that America isn't as entrepreneurial as our leaders like to believe? And that the smaller U.S. safety net, which reflects a national belief in self-reliance, is one reason?   By many measures of innovation, other countries come out ahead of us. South Korea has the most patent applications per million people. On the World Intellectual Property Organization's annual innovation index, Switzerland takes the top spot. Measuring innovation is inherently difficult, so different metrics produce different results. But by most measures, the U.S. comes in around fifth.   That’s no surprise to economists, who have been sounding the alarm that the U.S. is facing an “innovation crisis” that threatens America’s future economic prosperity. Fewer startups are opening their doors and older firms increasingly employ a larger percentage of Americans. Instead of a dynamic economy driven by the frequent birth and death of firms, the U.S. economy is instead filled with aging behemoths—less creative destruction and more old stagnation.   Why is business dynamism declining? Many economists point to burdensome regulations like occupational licensing laws and housing rules as the main culprits. But a rising school of thought holds that a weak job market is to blame, at least in part. Some Americans criticize “cradle-to-grave” social benefits in other countries as leading to laziness, and take pride in the U.S.’s focus on individual self-reliance. But these economists suggest that this supposed strength has actually become an albatross around the country’s neck. A weak job market, they say, together with the U.S.’s smaller social safety net may actually be discouraging Americans from taking risks.   A recent paper by the Roosevelt Institute’s Mike Konczal and Marshall Steinbaum makes the case that demand-side factors are the true cause of declining innovation. The paper, published in July, found that the metropolitan areas where business dynamism is worst have also seen the largest declines in earnings. This result doesn’t correspond to standard economic theory, which posits that if excessive regulations cause fewer workers to quit jobs or start new companies, those that do switch jobs should face less competition and be able to demand higher wages.   “If there’s a lot of demand for hairdressers and it’s very difficult to become one, people who are able to clear that hurdle can get up their wages,” said Konczal. But if there simply isn’t much demand for workers, then job-switchers won’t have that leverage and won’t receive wage increases—exactly what Steinbaum and Konczal found.   Another recent working paper, published in July in the National Bureau of Economic Research, underscored the importance of risk in the decisions of entrepreneurs. Three professors examined the entrepreneurship rate of new mothers before and after Canada increased its maternity leave policies in 2000 to a year of job-protected leave, an increase of about five months.   Using data from Canada’s 2006 Census, the authors found that the extra leave increased the mothers’ entrepreneurship—defined as earning at least 50 percent of income from self-employment—by 38 percent. For fathers, who were also eligible for the leave but rarely took it in practice, entrepreneurship did not increase.   “Our big takeaway message from that is that entrepreneurs really do care about their risk of failure,” said Joshua Gottlieb, an economist at the University of British Columbia and one of three authors of the paper. “It’s a big deal to put your whole career aside and strike out on your own.” These results weren’t temporary. Since the data came from 2006, the authors looked at the difference in entrepreneurship rates five years after the reform took effect, ensuring the results represented a long-term change. They also found that the reform led to an increase in entrepreneurs who hire workers, with no increase in entrepreneurs with no employees. The longer parental leave, they concluded, led to an increase in high quality entrepreneurship.   Together, the two studies provide a macro and micro look at how demand-side factors affect entrepreneurship and suggest that middling wage growth over the past 15 years and feelings of job insecurity are increasingly weighing on the entire U.S. economy. The financial crisis and ensuing slow recovery are unlikely to give would-be entrepreneurs confidence that they can find work if their startup fails. That effect could linger for years, even as the economy improves.   What can the government do about this? Canada’s maternity leave reform suggests that increasing job-protected leave boosts entrepreneurship. But Gottlieb was quick to say that his study shouldn’t be perceived as an argument for more generous maternity leave. Longer maternity leave, like any expansion of the safety net, comes with other costs that must be included in any policy decision.   Another country, though, offers a more concrete lesson for improving entrepreneurship through labor market policies. France recently reformed its unemployment laws so that people who start a business no longer lose jobless benefits. The goal is to encourage unemployed workers to become entrepreneurs, without fear that they will have nothing to fall back on. A similar policy in the U.S.—call it an “entrepreneurship benefit”—could allow workers to quit their job and collect unemployment benefits on the condition they start a new business. (Under the U.S. unemployment insurance system, workers who quit their jobs are ineligible for benefits.)   One concern with such a policy is that the government would subsidize bad ideas. Washington would lose money, the businesses would ultimately fail and the economy would be worse off. But France’s experience with its unemployment insurance reform have so far proven otherwise. A 2014 study found that new businesses created due to the reform had similar growth rates as other startups.   Most important are policies that promote a tight labor market. “Having a job is a form of a safety net, just as food stamps are,” Konczal said. In the U.S., the economy is approaching full employment; workers finally saw strong wage growth in 2015. Perhaps because of that, the Kaufmann index of startup activity, a widely-used metric of entrepreneurship in the U.S., surged this year to its second-highest level since 2001. (The highest was in 2009.)   That’s a good sign but Washington policymakers—including those setting fiscal policy in Congress and monetary policy at the Federal Reserve—can do more to ensure the economy reaches full employment. If Konczal and Steinbaum are right, the security of millions of workers isn’t just on the line. The future strength of the U.S. economy is as well."
56,"An American tragedy: why are millions of trees dying across the country? —  JB Friday hacked at a rain-sodden tree with a small axe, splitting open a part of the trunk. The wood was riven with dark stripes, signs of a mysterious disease that has ravaged the US’s only rainforests – and just one of the plagues that are devastating American forests across the west.   Friday, a forest ecologist at the University of Hawaii, started getting calls from concerned landowners in Puna, which is on the eastern tip of Hawaii’s big island, in 2010. Their seemingly ubiquitous ohi’a trees were dying at an astonishing rate. The leaves would turn yellow, then brown, over just a few weeks – a startling change for an evergreen tree.   “It was like popcorn – pop, pop, pop, pop, one tree after another,” Friday said. “At first people were shocked, now they are resigned.   “It’s heartbreaking. This is the biggest threat to our native forests that any of us have seen. If this spreads across the whole island, it could collapse the whole native ecosystem.”   Almost six years later and nearly 50,000 acres of native forest on the big island are infected with rapid ohi’a death disease. Rumors abound as to its origin: did it emerge from Hawaii’s steaming volcanoes? A strange new insect? Scientists still aren’t sure of where it came from or how to treat it. Lisa Keith, researcher in plant pathology at the US Department of Agriculture, said that when she analyzed the disease “right away Dutch elm disease popped into my head”. But this was unlike anything she, or anyone else, had ever dealt with.   “I’m not sure if there’s been anything else like this in the world,” she said. “The potential is there for major devastation.” Keith said the disease hadn’t yet spread to crops, like coffee, but it threatens a whole family of metrosideros trees and shrubs found mainly in the Pacific.   But the plight of the ohi’a is not unique - it’s part of a quiet crisis playing out in forests across America. Drought, disease, insects and wildfire are chewing up tens of millions of trees at an incredible pace, much of it driven by climate change.   ‘Mountainsides dying’ Forestry officials and scientists are increasingly alarmed, and say the essential role of trees – providing clean water, locking up carbon and sheltering whole ecosystems – is being undermined on a grand scale.   California and mountain states have suffered particularly big die-offs in recent years, with 66m trees killed in the Sierra Nevada alone since 2010, according to the Forestry Service.   In northern California, an invasive pathogen called Sudden Oak Death is infecting hundreds of different plants, from redwoods and ferns to backyard oaks and bay laurels. The disease is distantly related to the cause of the 19th-century Irish potato famine, and appears to have arrived with two “Typhoid Marys”, rhododendrons and bay laurels, said Dr David Rizzo, of the University of California, Davis.   “We’re talking millions of trees killed, whole mountain sides dying,” Rizzo said. Despite its name, the pathogen slowly saps the life from oaks over the course of two to five years, turning them sickly brown. The disease spreads mostly through water, like rain splashing off an infected leaf on to a healthy neighbor. Rizzo said wind-driven rain could carry it miles at a time, and that it already ranged from the Oregon border down through the forests of Big Sur.   We’re talking millions of trees killed, whole mountain sides dying Dr David Rizzo The pestilence appears to have arrived in the US through nursery plants in the 1980s, said Matteo Garbelotto, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who researches the genetics of the disease and trees that resist it. Garbelotto said researchers have found three distinct “subspecies” of the pathogen in the US – only one of which has escaped into the wild.   “There’s a bit of concern here that maybe we’re not doing enough to prevent introduction of other two lineages,” he said. Authorities have quarantined 15 counties to keep infected plants from leaving, but Garbelotto fears that authorities lack the resources to do more.   Native American tribes are helping Rizzo’s research near Oregon, and Garbelotto’s team developed a mobile app that users can direct at a given tree to determine its risk for disease, and what they can do to protect it. ‘Insect eruptions’ Five years of drought in the west have not only starved trees of water but weakened their defenses and created conditions for “insect eruptions” across the US, said Diana Six, an entomologist at the University of Montana. Bark beetles and mountain pine beetles, usually held in check by wet winters, now have more time to breed and roam. The latter have already expanded their range from British Columbia across the Rockies, to the Yukon border and eastward, into jack pine forests that have never seen the bug.   The outbreak is “something like 10 times bigger than normal, I would argue a lot more than that,” Six said. “Basically a native insect is acting outside of the norm, because of climate change, and become an exotic in forests it’s never been before. We haven’t seen very good outcomes of exotics moving into native forests.” Boosted by climate change, various beetles and the fungi they carry have already wiped out millions of acres of trees, and Six and Rizzo both warned of cascading effects. In the redwoods, Rizzo said, the loss of tanoaks and their relatives would strip away nut-producing species, leaving birds and mammals that rely on them without food. The loss of mountain pines, Six said, threatens grizzly bears and the critical snowpack that supplies water to life below.   In a few decades, Americans might not even recognize forests they see “There’s virtually nothing you can do to stop the beetles, either, unless they’ve killed everything and run out of food,” Six said. “Or unless the climate cools, and I don’t think anyones expecting that anytime soon.”   In Hawaii, warming temperatures have helped spread four types of beetles that bore into ohi’a bark to feed. The beetles carry disease spore on their wings, in their guts and in the sawdust of burrows, spreading it from tree to tree.    The beetles are part of scolylinae, a “very destructive family” that is also decimating trees in California, according to Curtis Ewing, an entomologist at the University of Hawaii.   “They are exploding around the world due to global warming,” he said. They appear unstoppable: spraying each tree with insecticide would be time-consuming and made futile by rain, and pheromone-laced traps also appear ineffective. The university’s arboretum has started collecting ohi’a seeds in the face of a doomsday scenario that was recently unimaginable for such a common tree.   ‘An ecological emergency’ Scientists in Keith’s lab have made some progress, finding that the fungal disease was part of the common ceratocystis family. It was probably imported to Hawaii by an ornamental plant, but a global DNA database drew a blank; this was an entirely new strain. “I would’ve thought that with the extensive information there, there would’ve been a match,” Keith said. “It’s a worry.”   The spores look golden under the microscope and give off a fruity smell. Once they grip a tree the fungus clogs up the vascular system that trees use to draw water upwards. Leaves die, then the tree itself.   If you slice right through an infected tree, you find a starburst of dark fungus at the core. “It’s like someone’s arteries filling up with plaque and then they keel over,” Friday said.   While research continues for a treatment, scientists’ current priority is containment. Movement of ohi’a between islands is prohibited, but with an uncertain source, there’s little else to do other than cut down infected trees and burn them.   “This is an ecological emergency,” said Hawaii senator Brian Schatz. “It requires everyone working together to save Hawaii island’s native forests.”   In western valleys of dead trees, a few still stand unharmed. Six said genetic research has begun to try to understand why some survive the swarms of millions of insects. “The only thing that’s really going to help our forests move into the future with climate change is adaptation,” she said. “Forests need to actually adapt with genetic change.”   In a few decades, Americans might not even recognize forests they see, Rizzo said. When his grandfather grew up near Philadelphia, he said, gigantic chestnut trees towered over eastern forests.   “When I show people photos they think they’re redwoods,” Rizzo said. When he hiked the Appalachian trial in the 1980s he found tiny sprouts of chestnuts, three-inches wide, stunted by an invasive blight that had wiped out the old giants.   “It changed chestnut forests to oak and hickory forests,” he said. “We know we can’t get rid of some of these blights. We may have to learn to live with them.”"
57,"Animals Rescued From the 'World’s Worst Zoo' —  An animal-welfare organization reflects on its nerve-wracking rescue—and what it might mean for troubled zoos around the world. Update: October 14—This story has been updated to include more information about the care of animals at the zoo, and to clarify the nature of the 2014 conflict between Hamas and Israel. When a rescue team arrived to evacuate a closing zoo near the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis in late August, just 15 animals were still alive—the survivors from what had once been a collection of hundreds of animals. They included Laziz, a nine-year-old Bengal tiger that is the last tiger in Gaza, according to Four Paws, the Vienna-based animal-welfare nonprofit that led the rescue. There were also five monkeys, an emu, a pelican, two buzzards, two porcupines, two tortoises, and a doe. The doe had lost her fawn to wounds shortly before the rescuers arrived. Opened in 2007 on three and a half acres next to an amusement park, the Khan Younis Zoo has long been called “the world’s worst zoo” by animal-welfare groups such as Four Paws and various international media outlets. Animals there were reported to have starved to death during military conflicts between Gaza’s Hamas-led government and neighboring Israel. And last year, the surviving animals began sharing their cramped cages with the dead: More than 50 dead animals—including Laziz’s mate—were taxidermied by the zoo staff. (See ""Tiger’s Death Raises Question: What Makes a Good Zoo?"") A seven-week conflict in 2014 hastened the decision to close the zoo. The conflict stemmed from the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers on the West Bank. Israel linked the crimes to Hamas, and began making hundreds of arrests in the case, including many of Hamas’ West Bank leaders. Hamas later began firing rockets at civilian areas in Israel, which retaliated by bombing sites in Gaza. The United Nations reported that nearly 2,200 people were killed in the conflict, more than 2,100 of them Palestinians. It’s unclear precisely what led to the animals’ deaths at the zoo. The zoo itself was not bombed during the 2014 conflict, and animal-welfare groups say it had a troubled history of caring for animals. Abu Diab Oweida, the Palestinian businessman who owned the zoo, said many animals died during that conflict, and that the mummifications were an effort by the zoo’s staff “to prove to the whole world that even animals (were) affected.” Oweida previously blamed a 2009 conflict for the death of several animals in the zoo, some of which also were mummified. How It Happened Four Paws and its director of emergency response, Amir Khalil, had sought for months to close the zoo and transfer the animals to sanctuaries. In late August of this year, the ambitious rescue plan became reality. “The idea to close (the zoo came in) April of last year,” said Khalil, an Egyptian-born veterinarian who lives in Austria. “It was a concept last September. It was a plan this April. It was a mission in August.” Khalil needed to negotiate with four people: Oweida and three of his sons. In May they agreed on the concept of evacuating the zoo. (Also see ""Animals Starving in Venezuela Zoos."") “I decided to donate the animals to save what remained of (them), to live safely inside a nature reserve and in peace and security,” Oweida said. (Read about the tunnels of Gaza in National Geographic magazine.) The rescue itself was complicated, “a complex coordination between Israeli, Palestinian, and international officials,” according to a spokesperson for the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a branch of the Ministry of Defense that works with the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and with international organizations working in both territories. Israel has not occupied Gaza since 2005, but retains various controls of its trade, border traffic, sea traffic, and air space. The rescue “was not easy,” Khalil said. “To be neutral is not easy. I think Four Paws was a form of mediator between three, four countries”—Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian governments of Hamas and Fatah Khalil and Four Paws carried out the multiday rescue in the midst of a military conflict this past August, crossing disputed borders as unseen Israel Defense Forces aircraft dropped bombs on military targets in the Gaza. Khalil has worked to save animals from crisis situations before, including the 2011 Libyan uprising that toppled Muammar Qaddafi. But the Khan Younis mission, he says, was one of the toughest. “In terms of the (mission), it went quite well,” team member Ioana Dungler says. “In terms of time, it was quite exhausting. On a (difficulty) scale of 1 to 10, it was an 8.” Animal Rescue The plans for the mission began to take shape in April 2015, when Khalil first visited Khan Younis and was horrified by the mummified animals. He soon began negotiating with Oweida and three of his sons. First, Four Paws would pay for the animals’ feeding. Next, it would cover all of the zoo’s operational costs, including staff salaries. It also removed the cadavers from public view. The final condition was that Oweida agreed not to work with animals again upon closure of the zoo. (See ""Opinion: Killing Healthy Zoo Animals Is Wrong—And the Public Agrees."") Finally, in mid-August, Khalil led a 14-person team to the zoo. The team departed from the Erez border crossing in southwest Israel. Shortly before they crossed the border, a rocket from Gaza landed in the Israeli city of Sderot. Khalil said he could see smoke from the Erez border crossing. As the rescuers headed to the zoo, the Israel Defense Forces launched 50 retaliatory airstrikes at Hamas targets in Gaza. Nevertheless, Khalil said the team felt “safe and secure.” “Four Paws was checking what was going on,” he explained. “Locally, we were informed of anything happening. ... I was not worried about security, but about the mission.” (Also see ""Jerusalem Zoo Struggles to Remain Common Ground for Israelis, Palestinians."") The team arrived at Khan Younis on August 22 to heartbreaking news: A baby deer, which had suffered during its few weeks of life, had died the day before. Four Paws prepared the surviving animals for their journey to new homes. The group spent August 23 loading the animals into crates, placed on a truck. The rescue became official when the team crossed back into Israel early on August 25. From there, team members escorted the animals to their new homes. Where Things Stand Four Paws has also transferred five Gaza lions and 15 other wild animals to sanctuaries. Now four active zoos remain in the Strip. Khalil says that Palestinian authorities are hoping to close them all. Alan Knight, chief executive of the U.K.-based International Animal Rescue, says the Khan Younis mission was a milestone in animal rights. “We are of course delighted that this terrible zoo has finally been closed and the surviving animals have been saved, thanks to Four Paws,” Knight said. “The success of the rescue operation proves that … extraordinary things can be achieved with passion and determination. Suffering animals should not be forgotten or overlooked, even in the midst of human conflicts or natural or man-made disasters. “We must all continue to strive to drive up the welfare of animals in world zoos. And if they can’t meet even the most basic standards, we must work toward getting them closed down.” Ahmad Safi, executive director of the Palestinian Animal League, also praised the rescue but tempered his words with concern about unresolved issues in Gaza. “While we are delighted that the individual animals have now been moved to safety and can begin to enjoy life in a sanctuary environment,” he says, “we are concerned that simply removing animals while failing to acknowledge and tackle the wider issues at play — such as wildlife trafficking and commercialization of wild animals in the Gaza Strip — means that these animals may be replaced and the good work done recently will simply be part of a vicious cycle which continues.” Khalil added that local authorities in Gaza have expressed interest in creating new legislation on wild animals. At the moment, “there is no legislation, no law”—a situation that results in “wild animals [being] smuggled and kept in poor cages.” “There are no current plans for assistance,” he adds, though “we asked the authorities in Gaza to … issue a regulation to keep wild animals in captivity [and] stop [animal] smuggling from Egypt.” A New Life for Rescued Animals Of the Khan Younis survivors, Laziz had the longest journey to his new home—the Lionsrock Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa, where he’ll live on a hectare with grass, trees, and a bathing area. Lionsrock, run by Four Paws, is fenced in and patrolled regularly for poachers. The buzzards may eventually be released into the wild. All of the other Khan Younis animals except the monkeys—four vervets and a macaque, which are bound for the Israeli Primate Sanctuary Foundation—went to the New Hope Centre sanctuary in Jordan. They’ll eventually move to Al Ma’wa for Nature and Wildlife, a Jordanian sanctuary run by Four Paws and the Princess Alia Foundation. But the animals’ problems may not be over. “Our experience rescuing and rehabilitating wild animals that have spent years in captivity—often in appalling and traumatic conditions—has taught us that this can lead to a wide range of physical and psychological problems,” Knight says. “Some animals have suffered lengthy periods of starvation and need treatment for malnutrition and dehydration. Others, like the tiger in Gaza, have been fed an entirely unsuitable diet”—Laziz was fed chicken, which Dungler says tigers should not eat—“that, coupled with constant confinement and an inability to exercise, leads to obesity and the many diseases associated with that. “On a positive note,” he adds, “we have also learned that with expert treatment and care, in time even the most damaged animals can be rehabilitated and given a second chance in life. Some, but not all, can even be returned to the wild.” What’s Next for Zoo Survivors The two Palestinian governments, Hamas and Fatah, have recently approached Four Paws about creating a sanctuary in Gaza. But “how far it is from reality,” says Khalil, “I don’t know.” There are currently just 12 veterinarians in the Gaza Strip, with four set to retire soon. (Five veterinarians assisted Four Paws during the rescue, with Khalil and his team providing on-hand training.) Khalil says he’s worried about the remaining Gaza zoos—and about other zoos in conflict zones that require immediate attention. Some of these, he says, can be found in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Venezuela. But that’s a very partial list. “There are,” he says, “hundreds of such zoos worldwide.” Time will tell if Four Paws’ inspiring work can be replicated at some of them."
58,"Animals Starving in Venezuela Zoos —  The country’s poor economy, triggered by a drop in the price of oil, has led people as well as zoo animals to go hungry. When a nation is plagued by hard times, people aren’t the only ones to suffer. About 50 animals at Venezuela’s Caricuao Zoo have starved in the last six months due to the rising cost of food, caused by the nation’s economic downturn. Rabbits, tapirs, porcupines, pigs, and birds are among the fallen at the country’s northern zoo. Some went without food for two weeks. The National Parks Institute (INPARQUES), which oversees the country’s zoos, blames the shortages on the nation's economic crash, caused by a plummet in the price of oil (Venezuela is a major oil producer). The country can’t afford to import food, medicine, and other necessities, and inflation has caused prices to skyrocket. “The story of the animals at Caricuao is a metaphor for Venezuelan suffering,” Marlene Sifontes, union leader for INPARQUES employees, tells Reuters. Caricuao Zoo staffers have been feeding carnivorous lions and tigers diets of mango and pumpkin. They are also giving an elephant tropical fruit instead of hay. Other big cats are reportedly being fed slaughteredThoroughbred horses from a nearby racetrack. Meanwhile, many Venezuelans go without food on a daily basis and wait in supermarket lines for hours. The nation’s starving economy has driven people to hunt dogs, cats, and pigeons for food. On Monday, visitors to a zoo in Caracas, the nation’s capital, reportedly stole a horse and butcheredit for meat. Care and Feeding “Long-term, feeding the incorrect diet for any animal can have significant long-lasting health effects,” says Meredith Whitney, a wildlife rescue program officer of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), an animal protection organization based in Washington, D.C. Short-term, Whitney adds, animals can be affected psychologically. She works on improving living standards for big cats, and once encountered a malnourished animal with neurological difficulties. Diarrhea, bone abnormalities, and organ function are also side effects of malnourishment. The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) outlines animals’ nutritional needs in its Animal Welfare Strategy. Lack of food can lead to mental decline, the group warns. Given Venezuela’s nationwide economic situation, says Gail A’Brunzo, IFAW wildlife rescue manager, “You can expect the animals to be impacted in some way.” Moving Animals Outside the capital, zoo administrators in the western state of Táchira have asked local businesses to donate fruit, vegetables, and meat to feed the animals. In May, three animals died at a zoo in the Paraguaná Peninsula, in northwestern Venezuela. Staff are now attempting to move 12 animals more than 420 miles (676 kilometers) south to a park in Mérida. “If these zoos continue to operate after these animals are transferred and get new animals, [the suffering] could arise again,” Whitney says. As of this writing, no international animal rights organizations have committed to relocating the remaining zoo animals. All animals in the country, bipedal or not, are suffering. And Venezuela isn’t the only place where animals have been hurt by a poor social climate. Global Threat In March, the World Post reported 200 animals dead at the Khan Younis Zoo in southern Gaza. Mohammad Oweida, owner of the zoo, says the Israeli-Palestinian conflict prevented staff from adequately feeding or caring for the animals. Oweida started to amateurishly mummify the animal carcasses and kept them on display, but the cadavers have since been removed. He also tried to sell an emaciated tiger, ostrich, and pelican to buy food for the zoo’s remaining animals. Four Paws, an animal protection agency based in the U.S., is raising fundsto go to Gaza to shut down the Khan Younis Zoo. Four Paws has been in direct communication with Oweida since February and is now working to finalize arrangements. ""If owners can no longer properly care for these precious lives, the animals should be handed over and/or confiscated by the proper authorities and placed with an accredited organization or sanctuary that would best care for them,"" Four Paws writes in a statement. Animals at the Taiz Zoo in southwestern Yemen are also victims of a nationwide crisis. The raging civil war there prevents tourists from visiting, which stifles the zoo’s revenue. Without funds, animals went without food or medicine while zoo workers went without pay. As of February, at least 12 lions and six leopards have died there. Four Paws doesn't currently have plans to enter Yemen due to safety concerns for its staff. “It all comes down to organizational management,” A’Brunzo says. “If the zoo is in imminent financial crisis, they need to take steps to provide for these animals. Ailing zoos should reach out to partner zoos or organizations that might be able to help, she adds. “This does not appear to be a short-term thing.”"
59,"Another Flogging for Wells Fargo —  Wells Fargo has agreed to paid more than $4 million in a settlement after federal investigators found the bank illegally repossessed 413 cars owned by American servicemembers over the last seven years. The Justice Department announced the agreement Thursday, alleging Wells Fargo violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which gives certain legal protections to members of the military. The settlement comes after a yearlong investigation. According to investigators:  Wells Fargo had repossessed Army National Guardsman Dennis Singleton’s used car in Hendersonville, North Carolina, while he was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan to fight in Operation Enduring Freedom.  After Wells Fargo repossessed the car, it sold it at a public auction and then tried to collect a deficiency balance of over $10,000 from Singleton and his family. Investigators found that Wells Fargo failed to obtain necessary court orders to repossess Singleton’s car, along with more than 400 others. A federal court must now approve the settlement, which also restores credit to the servicemembers affected. Wells Fargo was fined additionally for the scheme, CNN reports: The bank was fined $20 million more by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for breaking three provisions of the same law by denying members of the military certain banking protections, including capping their interest rates at 6%. Those violations began in 2006, the OCC said. The bank is already under heavy scrutiny for its fraudulent practice of creating fake bank and credit-card accounts to collect fees. CEO John Stumpf was lambasted by members of the House Financial Services Committee earlier Thursday in his second visit to Capitol Hill in as many weeks. Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling said: Mr. Stumpf, I have a mortgage with your bank. I wish I didn’t. I wish I was in the position to pay it off because you have broken my trust as you have broken the trust of millions. Several lawmakers demanded Stumpf step down as CEO. One Democrat even suggested the need to break up the bank, saying it is too large to control."
60,"Arctic sea ice shrinks to second lowest level ever —  Ice levels at the North Pole have shrunk to their second lowest level ever, scientists say -- and there could be worse to come.   Every year the arctic ice naturally shrinks in the spring and summer before regrowing during winter, however the drastic melt in 2016 has surprised scientists. ""It was a stormy, cloudy and fairly cool summer,"" US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) director Mark Serreze said in a statement. ""Historically such weather conditions slow down the summer ice loss, but we still got down to essentially a tie for second lowest on the satellite record."" According to a new report released by NSIDC and NASA, arctic ice levels fell to their lowest levels this year on September 10, covering about 1.6 million square miles (4.4 million square kilometers), almost the same as in September 2007. The lowest sea ice extent recorded was on September 17, 2012, when it fell to just 1.31 million square miles (3.39 million square kilometers). No sea ice in two, three generations? Arctic sea ice is important for maintaining the planet's temperature, according to NASA, as well as influencing the circulation of the atmosphere and the ocean. Dramatically reduced sea ice can also impact the Arctic ecosystem and communities. Sea ice monitoring began in 1978. Dr Jan Lieser, a marine glaciologist with Australia's Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center, told CNN it was possible there could be no more sea ice within three generations. ""Sea ice has a great ability to reflect a lot of solar radiation back into space... we still have some sea ice (but) to say that it is where it used to be is saying you can serve a cup of tea in a broken cup,"" he said. The less sea ice there is, the warmer the oceans will get, resulting in even less sea ice each subsequent winter, Lieser said. ""If the cup's broken, the shards of the cup are still there but you can't serve tea in it can you? With sea ice it's comparable, it's broken, it's thinner than it used to be and it doesn't serve the climate purpose it has for centuries."" Annual refreezing already begun Claire Parkinson, climate scientist and main author of the report, said since 1986 there had not been a single record high for Arctic sea ice in any month -- in contrast, there had been 75 record lows. ""It's just an incredible contrast. It is definitely not just September that's losing sea ice. The record makes it clear that the ice is not rebounding to where it used to be, even in the midst of winter,"" she said in a statement. Arctic sea ice melted usually quickly between March and May in 2016, according to the report, before slowing slightly in August and September as low atmospheric pressures and cloudy skies arrived. But even the lower temperatures didn't reduce the amount of ice lost. ""It really suggests that in the next few years, with more typical warmer conditions, we will see some very dramatic loses,"" NSIDC lead scientist Ted Scambos said in a statement. The sea ice refreezing process has already begun. Usually it will reach its yearly peak in March."
61,"Are bike lanes racist and classist? That’s the debate in South Africa. —  JOHANNESBURG — The road that Martin Mathe uses to bike from his home in the black township of Diepsloot — a crowded jumble of shacks and small houses north of Johannesburg — to the wealthy suburb 10 miles away where he works as a gardener is little more than a frayed rope of concrete. There is no designated bike lane, and the dirt shoulder is gnawing at the asphalt, leaving riders barely any room to avoid the hulking minibuses — South Africa’s preferred mode of public transit — that swerve in and out of traffic. Mathe, who heads the Diepsloot Cycle Group, a collection of about 300 working-class bicycle commuters, has seen five of his friends killed on the road in the past decade and a half. So when he heard that Johannesburg’s new mayor had vowed in his inaugural address last month to halt construction of new bike lanes throughout the city, he was disappointed — and puzzled. The mayor, a business tycoon named Herman Mashaba, said that the project’s cost couldn’t be justified, given the hundreds of thousands of city residents who “suffer in abject poverty and without even the most basic of services.” But Mathe says that for him, biking has always been a way to dodge one of the major financial drains faced by the poor: transportation costs. “We ride bikes because there’s no money for anything else,” he said. Practically speaking, bike lanes are far from Johannesburg’s most pressing transportation concern. Less than half of 1 percent of the population of 9 million uses a bike to go to work, and the local government spends about three times as much on council members’ travel as it had planned to spend on bulking up its bike lane infrastructure. But symbolically, they loom large. In a city deliberately sliced up by segregationist city planning, questions of where and how people are able to travel have deep, often painful resonance. For opponents of bike lanes, the ubiquitous ribbons of green paint are daily reminders of what it means to live in a city that isn’t designed for everyone. “Shame on white people for demanding bicycle lanes while blacks use bucket toilets,” said Julius Malema, leader of the populist-left opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, in the run-up to South Africa’s local government elections in August. His words conjured an image of upper-middle-class leisure cyclists who zip through suburban neighborhoods on weekend mornings in a blur of brightly colored spandex. They aren’t all white, but for Malema, in a country where fewer than 1 percent of white people live in poverty but nearly two-thirds of blacks do, the symbolism was clear. No government he was a part of, he pledged, would put bike lanes before safe housing, paved roads or other basic infrastructure the city’s poor so desperately need. The designers and promoters of the bike lanes, however, see them far differently: as an attempt to use transportation policy to right history’s wrongs and stitch together a divided city. Ironically, the primary beneficiaries they envisioned were the city’s poor — people such as Mathe, who bikes 20 miles a day, seven days a week, simply because he can’t afford anything else. “This is not a political question,” said Ismail Vadi, who runs the provincial transportation department. “It’s about how we create sustainable, livable cities before it’s too late.” But issues of livability, he says, are a relatively new conversation in South Africa, where for much of the past century the driving question in urban planning was how to keep people of different races as far apart as possible. The result, in Johannesburg, is a city reeling from sprawl, where millions of blacks still live in the distant, poorly serviced peripheries once zoned for their residences. Most must leave these neighborhoods to find work in the affluent suburbs and commercial hubs, choking the roads and often deepening economic inequality. The city’s poorest residents spend more than 20 percent of their incomes simply to get to and from work, according to a Statistics South Africa survey. That historical legacy has left planners and designers staring down a uniquely difficult question: How do you bring people together in a city whose very infrastructure is your enemy? Bike lanes were meant to be part of the solution, says Rehana Moosajee, a former Johannesburg city council member who sits on the board of the Johannesburg Urban Cyclists Association. They began appearing here about three years ago, alongside bigger transportation projects including a bus rapid-transit system, a high-speed commuter train and new sidewalks. There was just one problem with the new bike lanes: No one seemed to know what to do with them. Minibus taxis used them as turn lanes and cars parked in them, blotting the green strips from the map. “You can’t just build infrastructure and then expect people will arrive,” Moosajee said. In much of Johannesburg, people didn’t own bikes or even know how to ride them. City planners thought cycling would make the commutes of the poor easier, but it often seemed they had forgotten to tell them that, Moosajee said. Quickly, “the perception became that cycling here just didn’t and couldn’t work,” said Njogu Morgan, a PhD student at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg who studies the city’s cycling culture. That, in turn, made the lanes an easy political target. Before the recent local elections, Malema, the opposition leader, made the little-used bike lanes a regular part of his rhetoric, calling them a symbol of the decadence and out-of-touch thinking of the incumbent African National Congress government. After his party helped usher Mashaba to victory in August as part of a coalition government, the new mayor returned the favor by agreeing to one of the party’s most popular campaign pledges. “When every road in Johannesburg is tarred, maybe then we will look at bicycle lanes again,” he said. Mathe didn’t feel bitter about the mayor’s decision, despite his bafflement. He had been making do without a bike lane on his commute for nearly 20 years, he said, and he could wait a little longer. On a recent morning in the western part of the city, Dan Khumalo, 34, who is black, carefully steered a large cart into one of the green bike lanes. It was loaded with chipped Coke bottles, crushed baked-bean cans and stacks of damp paper — the spoils of a morning spent collecting recyclables from trash cans in the area. He would pull his cart about two miles to a recycling plant, where he expected to exchange the day’s haul for $10 to $15. Along about half his route were city-built bike lanes, and he had no reservations, political or otherwise, about their presence. “I like them a lot,” he said. “They’re 100 percent.”"
62,"Arnold Palmer, one of the greatest golfers of all time, dies at 87 —  Arnold Palmer, one of the greatest golfers ever to pick up a club and the object of a massive fan base that called itself “Arnie’s Army” as he recorded seven major victories, died Sunday at 87 in Pittsburgh, according to the United States Golf Association.   Alastair Johnson, CEO of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, told the Associated Press that Palmer died Sunday afternoon of complications from heart problems. Johnson said Palmer was admitted to the hospital Thursday for some cardiovascular work and weakened over the last few days.   Born in Latrobe, Pa., Palmer’s endearing personality and skill on the links earned him the nickname “The King,” during a career whose beginning coincided with the birth of television sports. Along the way, he became one of the wealthiest celebrity endorsers, a philanthropist, golf course designer and pilot.   Palmer’s long string of victories on the PGA tour began in 1955, and he became one of the sport’s most recognizable personalities, along with Jack Nicklaus. Palmer’s charismatic personality also made him a sought after pitchman, for several products, perhaps most famously Quaker State motor oil.   ""Arnold Palmer was the everyday man's hero,"" Nicklaus said. ""From the modest upbringing, Arnold embodied the hard-working strength of America."""
63,Article Title: —  Article Title:    Article URL:   Article author(s):   Article date:   News source:
64,"As The World Looks Elsewhere, Haiti’s Disaster Is Just Beginning —  I returned from my shortest trip to Haiti last week, back to DeKalb, Illinois, an agribusiness hub, hosting Nestle and Monsanto processing plants. Most cornfields have been harvested. The Cubs won the world series for the first time in 108 years. Another of Illinois’ home grown, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has an 84% likelihood of being elected the U.S. first female president in a couple of days, per the New York Times.   Meanwhile Haiti is all but forgotten.   A month ago, Hurricane Matthew ripped through Haiti. News from the assessment was slow to arrive.   In terms of loss of human life, this disaster was thankfully far less deadly than the earthquake on January 12, 2010, almost seven years ago now.   However, in terms of material damage - over 80 percent of houses destroyed, livestock, a season’s crops, not to mention trees dead - Hurricane Matthew is proving very devastating. This is to say nothing of urgent public health concerns like hunger and a spike in cholera, a disease U.N. troops brought to Haiti in 2010.   Why has this current catastrophe been buried?   Is it that broken buildings and bloody bodies make for a better story?   Is it because unlike the earthquake, the extent of the damage wasn’t fully known at the outset?   Is it that the political winds, about grabbing women by the genitals or official state emails sent over private email servers, proved even more powerful than the category 4 storm?   Is it that people andeyò - literally outside, in rural areas - and their lives don’t matter? The 2010 earthquake killed foreign troops and aid workers just as it did Haitian people, NGO and governmental professionals as well as residents of shantytowns. This time around, the deaths were Haitian, and rural at that.   Is it that “Haiti” is being blamed for the missteps, failures, disappointments, and secondary damage (“Fatal Assistance“ or “humanitarian aftershocks“) from the 2010 humanitarian response?   Or is it all of the above?   Regardless of the reason, coverage of this storm and its aftermath have been underwhelming. At $120 million, the current U.N. Flash Appeal for Haiti was a small fraction of 2010 pledges, $16 billion. Even so, 86 percent of the current appeal for food aid remained unfunded as of November 4, a month after the storm.   This lack of urgency is deadly. The real disaster — chronic hunger, food insecurity, and dependency — is yet to come.   Along with four MA students from the State University of Haiti who had conducted research in the Grand’Anse and South provinces, I visited four fieldsites in Matthew’s wake last weekend.   What struck us all was the sheer scale of the destruction. Three weeks following the hurricane and trees were still barren. Over and again people likened the damage to a forest fire. This wasn’t just one isolated area but the entire region of the country. We drove for four hours with no end in sight.   Another particularly vivid recurring image was of houses fallen to the ground, with only the ancestral tombs standing. Some families who had enough means to build concrete houses had begun rebuilding their tin roofs. On his third trip since the hurricane, student Verdy Renois pointed to this as a hopeful sign of progress.   Another common theme in our conversations with residents and local officials was the lack of capacity or interest from the central government in Port-au-Prince and international agencies. Community organizations and elected mayors alike have been working on overdrive to attempt to meet residents’ needs. But time and again they reported frustration at the lack of support.   The Ministry of Education declared that on November 7 schools must reopen. This would be a good goal, said Pestel mayor Evil Lavilette, if the Ministry had provided local governments with necessary support. Of the 50 private schools in Pestel, the Grand’Anse’s second largest town, only one was functional.   In addition, tens of thousands of people are still staying in schools as emergency shelter. Either a region’s school children will be held behind or tens of thousands will be forced to battle the elements.   Fortune Odeve, a community organizer in the south coast Port-Salut, coordinating civil society response to the hurricane, was frustrated with the central government, particularly the lack of planning. “People in greatest need are not the ones receiving aid.” Water and electricity had not yet been restored. Electricity poles had not even been pulled off the ground in many places along the road.   The lack of concern, to Odeve, was particularly conspicuous compared to the earthquake response, when 630,000 Port-au-Prince residents returned to their hometowns, where their families took them in. “It’s as if we people living outside [Port-au-Prince] aren’t people.”   And this is in Port-Salut, hometown of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, known also for its seaside resorts, frequented by U.N. troops, foreign aid workers, and Haitian professionals alike. Port-Salut was one of the first places to have journalists following the hurricane. Images we saw three weeks after were not much different. Other places fared much worse. We heard from almost everyone that people who live away from the main road are literally invisible.   One result of this incapacity, centralization, and slow response is desperation. Some individuals have taken it upon themselves to take what they can. As former Abricots mayor and founder of AMAGA, the Grand Anse Mayor’s Association, Jean-Claude Fignole noted, “While I don’t condone it, I understand why. People are frustrated with the pace and the amount of aid.”   This story, including of a boy being gunned down by police, risks being understood out of context, piled on top of already negative preconceptions about Haitian people.   This is one result of the centralization in Port-au-Prince, begun during the 1915-34 U.S. occupation and accelerated during the imposition of neoliberal policies by the U.S. government and the World Bank.   It is also a result of the relative lack of aid, itself reflecting limited funds being sent.   While this is a matter of grave concern, there was universal agreement that the biggest priority is to support farmers in the Grand’Anse and the South to get back to their fields. The “Grand South” was one of Haiti’s largest “breadbaskets,” helping Haiti feed itself. The loss to not just the region but the country is immense.   For its part, the Lambi Fund of Haiti is working with 27 partner organizations in the South province to clean the canals, clear the fields, and plant these crops.   Many people discussed three-month yielding grains and tubers. Agronomist Eliassaint Magloire, of the Organization for Rehabilitation of the Environment (ORE) outlined the urgent priority for local seeds, adapted to the climate and resistant to common diseases. ORE is launching a “seed brigade.”   Indeed, if the Cubs can win, anything seems possible. If even a fraction of people who attended Friday’s rally in Chicago knew the full extent of what happening in Haiti, or generally understood that our world agricultural system is intertwined, I truly believe that Haitian farmers can sow their seeds and be on the road to food sovereignty. Unlike baseball’s most beloved losers, I fear that Haitian people don’t have another chance at bat."
65,"As Trump Rises, So Do Some Hands Waving Confederate Battle Flags —  For a brief moment, after a white supremacist carried out a massacre of black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., it seemed as though the Confederate battle flag, that most divisive of symbols, might soon be on its way out of the American political arena.   But now that explosive and complicated vestige of the Old South is back, in a new — and, to some Americans, newly disturbing — context. During President-elect Donald J. Trump’s campaign, followers drawn to his rallies occasionally displayed the flag and other Confederate iconography. Since the election, his supporters and others have displayed the flag as a kind of rejoinder to anti-Trump protesters in places such as Durango, Colo.; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Hampton, Va.; Fort Worth; and Traverse City, Mich.   On Election Day in Silverton, Ore., the flag appeared at a high school Trump rally, where students reportedly told Hispanic classmates, “Pack your bags; you’re leaving tomorrow.” The day after, at Kenyon College in Ohio, the college’s president, Sean M. Decatur, spoke to a worried campus, describing his discomfort at seeing Confederate flags on display in the nearby city of Mount Vernon.   Dorothy Robinson, 37, said that seeing the battle flag flying at a traditional postelection unity parade in her hometown, Georgetown, Del., felt “like someone had punched me in the gut.”   Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE   video Driving the South’s Flag Divide JULY 3, 2015   At a Donald Trump Rally, a Confederate Flag Goes Up, and Quickly Comes Down AUG. 11, 2016   Momentum to Remove Confederate Symbols Slows or Stops MARCH 13, 2016   South Carolina Faces the High Cost of Curating History’s Dustbin DEC. 26, 2015   CONGRESSIONAL MEMO A Bit of Housekeeping Removes a Confederate Flag in a U.S. Capitol Building NOV. 11, 2015 Those who have publicly embraced the flag are a small minority of the more than 60 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump in the Nov. 8 election.   But these incidents, and hundreds of reports of insults and threats directed at minorities and others, are forcing Americans to confront vexing questions about the future of race relations under Mr. Trump and the extent to which his campaign has animated white resentment and even a budding white nationalism.   The emergence of the flag in a postelection context also comes as liberals and others have harshly criticized Mr. Trump for appointing as his chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, a website they accuse of trafficking in anti-Semitic, misogynist and anti-Muslim ideas.   Shortly after the June 17, 2015, Charleston massacre, an article posted on Breitbart argued that the Confederacy was “a patriotic and idealistic cause,” and that its flag “proclaims a glorious heritage.”   “Every tree, every rooftop, every picket fence, every telegraph pole in the South should be festooned with the Confederate battle flag,” the author, Gerald Warner, wrote. “Hoist it high and fly it with pride.”   How much the flag’s resurgence reflects anything more than the sentiments of those who fly it remains unclear.   Mr. Trump, a native New Yorker, declared shortly after announcing his candidacy that he supported a call by Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina to remove the flag from the grounds of the Statehouse there after the mass shooting in Charleston. The State Legislature, after passionate debate, eventually agreed to remove the flag.   “I think they should put it in the museum, let it go, respect whatever it is that you have to respect, because it was a point in time, and put it in a museum,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the time.   Historians say the battle flag has had shifting meanings over time: a symbol of white resistance to integration during the Civil Rights era, a more complicated but still racially charged symbol now.   Grace Elizabeth Hale, a professor of American studies and history at the University of Virginia who has written extensively about the South, segregation and white Americans, said the flag had long been a symbol for outsiders and a rebuke to the forces of decorum and political correctness.   She said its use now, both in the South and outside it, could be seen as an expression of concern that white culture “has been displaced as the norm.”   “Maybe for the first time ever, definitely in my lifetime, people outside the South are, in a very public way, claiming a white racial identity,” she said.   Stephen Moss, a Republican state representative from the small town of Blacksburg, S.C., was one of a number of lawmakers who voted against removing the flag from the Statehouse grounds in July 2015. To Mr. Moss, a supporter of Mr. Trump, the flag represents the heritage of those who fought for the Confederacy. But he acknowledged that the flag had also been “hijacked by hate groups.” Asked why the flag was turning up in the hands of Trump supporters, he said he thought that it might be part of a backlash of working white voters who suspect that people — in their minds, often minorities — are taking advantage of the federal welfare system.   “A lot of these people who go to work every day are in the line at the grocery store, and over half the people are bringing out these cards” to pay for the groceries, he said.   Two days after the presidential race concluded, Ms. Robinson, a writer and editor who lives in Maplewood, N.J., was back in her hometown to watch the Return Day parade, a long-running tradition in which winners and losers of local elections ride through town together in a show of unity, and party leaders come together to bury an actual hatchet. There were marching bands and smiling faces, and Ms. Robinson felt that perhaps the country was on its way to healing after a particularly ugly election.   Then a white Chevrolet pickup rolled by, flying an American flag, a Trump flag and the battle flag. Ms. Robinson, a white Hillary Clinton supporter, was standing next to a black friend at the time.   “I wasn’t shocked; I was horrified,” Ms. Robinson said. She suspects that some white Trump supporters are indulging in new freedom to be politically incorrect now that the nation’s first African-American president is on the way out.   Mr. Trump declared his candidacy on June 16, 2015, the day before the Charleston massacre. He would go on to see his political stock rise at the same time as pro-flag backlash was emerging, particularly among people who felt their heritage as white Southerners was under attack. Across the country, flag supporters staged more than 350 rallies after the Charleston shooting.   During the campaign, the activist and filmmaker Rod Webber documented the sale of Confederate flags with “Trump 2016” emblazoned on them outside a Trump rally in Pittsburgh. He said that he saw the flags for sale outside about 10 other campaign rallies.   In August, inside a rally in Kissimmee, Fla., a Trump supporter named Brandon Partin draped such a flag over a railing, although a campaign staff member and the local police eventually had it removed.   Afterward, Mr. Partin told CNN that he was not a racist or a white supremacist, and he argued that the flag was about the Civil War, which he said “wasn’t about racism at all,” because blacks fought in both Northern and Southern armies.   Mr. Partin said that he thought Mr. Trump would be fine with the display of the flag. “Because he understands the history,” he said.   Since Election Day, anecdotal accounts of discrimination targeting racial and religious minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have overrun news reports and social media. National anti-hate organizations have begun tracking the reports, seeking to verify their veracity and identify trends. The Southern Poverty Law Center has received more than 430 reports, the majority of them for anti-immigrant behavior, followed by anti-black episodes. Many of the events have occurred on elementary, middle and high school campuses.   The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that many of the episodes, which range from offensive vandalism to physical violence, have invoked Mr. Trump and his campaign slogans. The center has also collected some reports of Trump supporters being harassed by opponents.   In an interview with “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday, Mr. Trump turned directly to the camera and addressed those who would commit hateful acts.   “I will say right to the cameras: Stop it,” he said.   Though Mr. Trump called for the removal of the flag from the South Carolina Statehouse, the flag has ardent supporters among prominent members of the alt-right, the group of conservatives that the Anti-Defamation League has called “a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists.” Some extol the flag as a symbol of white resistance. Others describe something broader.   “Love the confederate flag! Has become the universal symbol of defiance,” Paul Ray Ramsey, a Trump supporter and popular alt-right internet personality who goes by Ramzpaul, wrote in January when he shared on Twitter a photograph of Hungarian nationalists with the flag.   Still, the flag’s new context can seem almost baffling to those Southerners who, for decades, have been making the case that it is strictly a symbol of Southern sacrifice from a war settled long ago.   “Well, we are naturally suspicious of all politicians and political parties because they have completely politicized our symbols and history,” Kevin Stone, the commander of the North Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, wrote in an email this week.   The group’s “constant battles,” he continued, “to keep monuments, flags and other symbols of Confederate heritage intact are usually hard fought, against long odds and without any political allies.”"
66,At least 10 hurt after massive Arizona apartment complex fire caught on video —  Ten people were hurt when a fire tore through a small apartment complex in Payson. Fire Chief David Staub says the fourplex is a total loss after an explosion ignited the blaze Saturday evening. The fire was reported after sundown and fire crews arrived to find the building completely engulfed.   Staub says eight people inside all suffered minor injuries except one person who was transported to a Maricopa County burn center. That person remains hospitalized in stable condition.   Two people who were outside the apartments also sustained minor injuries. They were treated at the scene.   It took crews about 10 minutes to get the fire under control after the gas company shut off gas in the neighborhood.   Staub says the cause remains under investigation.
67,"At least 239 migrants believed drowned in Mediterranean, U.N. says —  BRUSSELS — At least 239 migrants are believed to have drowned this week in two shipwrecks off the coast of Libya, the United Nations refugee agency said Thursday, adding to the toll in what was already the deadliest year on record in the Mediterranean Sea. Survivor accounts suggest that two crowded boats broke up just off the Libyan coast Wednesday, said Carlotta Sami, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The 31 survivors were taken Thursday to the Italian island of Lampedusa, which has become a rescue hub amid an ever-deadlier crisis as migrants depart Africa’s northern shores trying to reach Europe. The reports from the survivors could not be independently confirmed, but it is common for migrant ships to be filled far beyond capacity, and hundreds have perished in past sinkings. If true, the latest shipwrecks bring the toll of dead and missing in the Mediterranean to 4,220 this year, the highest on record, Sami said. “This is an absolutely appalling figure,” she said.  According to Sami, the 29 survivors of the first wreck said they capsized after wooden planks at the bottom of the rubber dinghy broke apart several hours after departing Libya around 3 a.m. Wednesday. Pregnant women and at least six children were on board, survivors told the UNHCR, but no children were saved in the rescue, which took place about 25 miles off Libya’s coast. One woman lost her 2-month-old baby, Sami said, and 12 bodies were recovered. The survivors said they were in the cold waters for hours before being rescued about 3 p.m. Wednesday. They said more than 140 people were aboard the boat. Two survivors of a second shipwreck were rescued in a separate operation, Sami said. They said at least 120 had been on board their boat, which had problems immediately upon setting out and broke apart off the Libyan coast around 5 a.m. Wednesday. The remaining passengers are believed to have drowned, Sami said. No further rescue operations are being performed at the location of those shipwrecks. “I am deeply saddened by another tragedy on the high seas. . . . So many lives could be saved through more resettlement and legal pathways to protection,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement Thursday. “The Mediterranean is a deadly stretch of sea for refugees and migrants, yet they still see no other option but to risk their lives to cross it.” Most of the migrants appear to have come from sub-Saharan Africa, Sami said, but she said details were still being checked. She did not immediately know which agency carried out the rescue. The European Union is conducting a search-and-rescue operation in the western Mediterranean that is temporarily being offered logistical help from the NATO military alliance. “In this, the deadliest year for boat migration to Europe, the E.U. remains focused on deterrence over protection,” Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Thursday. “The E.U. should be pressing Libyan authorities for permission to operate in Libyan waters, so they can help those in distress and bring them safely to Europe.” Rescued migrants have told the UNHCR that smugglers along the route were telling migrants that responsibility for rescues would soon shift to Libya, and that any rescued refugees would be returned to Libya rather than carried onward to Italy, the agency said. That could be a cause of the current spike. Migrant traffic across the Mediterranean has changed significantly in the past year, after more than 1 million people made the passage in 2015. Most of them came via Turkey to Greece and then pressed onward into Europe. The sea portion of that journey was shorter and safer than the perilous passage from Libya to Italy. But the Turkish government largely shut down the migrant flow in the spring, closing off the main pathway for people fleeing the conflicts in Syria and Iraq into Europe. This week, the Gambian soccer federation announced that one of its stars had died at sea while trying to reach Europe. Fatim Jawara, 19, the goalkeeper on the country’s women’s national team, drowned when her boat went down off the coast of Libya several weeks ago. Traffic from Libya and northern Africa has increased and grown deadlier, according to U.N. figures. Last year, 153,846 people arrived in Italy via the central Mediterranean route — a figure that has just been surpassed in 2016. The arrivals in Italy last month were more than triple those of a year earlier. The shifting migration patterns have been a boon to smugglers, as demand has increased across the trickier North African route. Smugglers are sending out large groups in several ships at once, complicating rescue efforts if multiple boats capsize, UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said in October. It was not immediately clear whether Wednesday’s sinkings were connected to a single smuggling operation. Kevin Sieff in Kigali, Rwanda, contributed to this report."
68,"Australian woman kidnapped by gunmen in Afghanistan —  An Australian woman has been kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, Afghan police said Sunday.   The woman was seized in Kabul's Qala e Fatullah area area on Saturday evening as she was traveling by car with her driver, said Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul's police chief. Police are investigating the abduction, said Mujahid. He said the woman, who is an Australian citizen of Pakistani origin, works for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR,) which describes itself as an Afghan independent body bringing together more than 150 national and international NGOs operating in the country. The Australian Embassy in Kabul is making urgent inquiries into the reported kidnapping, a spokeswoman for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement. ""Due to the nature of the incident we will not be commenting further,"" the statement said. ""We continue to advise Australians not to travel to Afghanistan because of the extremely dangerous security situation, including the serious threat of kidnapping.""   Both Afghans and foreigners face the risk of abduction in Afghanistan, with two previous cases this year also involving Australians. An Australian aid worker was abducted from her home in Jalalabad in Afghanistan in April, but was freed in August. Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security said Kerry Jane Wilson was released after it conducted a special operation. An American and an Australian were also kidnapped from American University in Kabul in August. A rescue attempt by US Special Operations Forces from SEAL Team 6 failed when they were not found at the location targeted. In June, nearly 200 people were kidnapped by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Kunduz, police said. The majority were released but the fighters killed several people and kept around 20 hostage."
69,"Azealia Banks Tearfully Tells Her Side of ‘Humiliating’ Russell Crowe Incident —  In her own words. Azealia Banks tearfully shared her side of the Russell Croweincident in a new interview on Thursday, October 27, calling the headline-making tussle “humiliating.” During a sit-down interview with Access Hollywood, the 25-year-old rapper looked visibly upset as she recounted the argument that led up to her getting kicked out of Crowe’s Beverly Hilton hotel room suite on Saturday, October 15. When asked by the interviewer what brought on the tears, Banks explained, “Because every time, every time something like this happens, I’m always being blamed for wanting this kind of attention. Like, who the f--k wants to tell somebody they got spat on? You know, that’s humiliating. And I’m just, like, really, really humiliated.” On Saturday, October 15, Banks attended a dinner party at the 52-year-old Gladiatorstar’s suite as a guest of rapper-actor RZA. According to the “212” rapper, the night went sour after Crowe allegedly made disparaging comments about her and her music career. “Russell Crowe’s just like, ‘Oh, you haven’t done anything with your career,’” she claimed to Access Hollywood. “And I’m just like, ‘Well, nobody’s checkin’ for you right now, so let’s just settle down.' And then when I said that, the whole table was like, ‘Oh my god, how dare you!’” Banks previously claimed Crowe then called her the N-word, choked her, picked her up and physically removed her from the hotel suite. A source close to Crowe told Us, “No one called her the N-word. She was yelling the N-word at everyone else. Russell behaved like a hero. He acted in defense of his guests and removed her from his suite by putting her in a bear hug and picking her up.” Banks told Access Hollywood that the most disappointing part of the night, however, was that RZA didn’t stand up for her. (The Wu-Tang Clan leader shared his version of events to Facebook on Thursday, October 20, claiming that Banks was “insulting half the room” by the end of the night.) “The frustrating point is that RZA, he immediately just kinda gives me the look, like, ‘Oh my god, you’re f--king up my seat at the table with the white guys. The big white Hollywood guys,’” Banks said. In his Facebook post, which contradicts Banks' narrative, RZA alleged that “Azealia threatened to cut a girl in the face with a glass."" Earlier this month, Banks told Us that despite the backlash she’s received for the incident, she’s not going to let the negativity get her down. “I’ve got youth and beauty, and he’s got beer belly and jowls!” the New York City native told Us. “I got music. I got music, and I got youth.”"
70,"BP platform leaks 95 tonnes of oil into North Sea —  About 95 tonnes of oil have been leaked into the North Sea from a BP platform, the company has said. The leak is about two and a half times smaller than the biggest North Sea spill in recent years, at Shell’s Gannet platform off Aberdeen in 2011. The spill from the Clair platform is being monitored from the air by plane which, combined with modelling, shows the oil moving away from land in a northerly direction. “The most recent surveillance flight already indicates significant dispersal of the oil at the surface,” the company said in a statement. The government estimates the leak could involve more than 1,300 barrels but claims it has been greatly reduced Read more The platform, 46 miles (75km) west of Shetland, was shut down following the spill on Sunday at about 10am. The leak was caused by a technical issue with a system designed to separate the mixed production fluids of water, oil and gas, the company said following an investigation. BP believes that allowing the oil to disperse naturally at sea is the best way to deal with the spill, although other options have not been ruled out. In a statement, it said: “The release was stopped within an hour once the issue had been identified and Clair production was taken offline.” Oil spill and environmental experts from BP, Oil Spill Response Limited and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are said to have been working to assess any potential impact of the spill on the environment. A spokesman for RSPB Scotland said: “There are currently many sensitive seabird species dispersing from their breeding colonies on Shetland and Norway out into the Atlantic, and these are potentially at risk. We need to know from BP and the maritime agencies exactly what type of oil has been spilled, if it is breaking up in the water column, and what the statutory conservation agencies are advising. “It is critical that there is a full and open report of what has happened, with assurances that the situation will be monitored, and details of seabird concentrations in the vicinity revealed as soon as possible.”"
71,"BREAKING NEWS: Angry Villagers Attack Anti-Poaching Unit Rangers In Mozambique —  Three anti-poaching rangers, two South Africans and a Mozambican, were hospitalized after being beaten by villagers after they apprehended a a poacher.   Sean van Niekerk, of Limpopo, and two colleagues were whipped, stabbed and pelted with rocks by a mob in a small Mozambican town near South Africa’s Komatipoort border.   Van Niekerk, 25, was discharged from Nelspruit Medi-Clinic on Thursday, where he was treated for a minor skull fracture, stab wounds and injuries to his face and back. He said it would not stop him returning to the field to help save wildlife. Van Niekerk said they were called last weekend to assist a ranger who had caught a poacher near Sabi river.   “My colleagues and I, with four Mozambican police officers, were transporting the poacher to the station, which was about 30km away, when he escaped from the vehicle. I chased after the poacher and caught him. I handed him back to the police officer. Suddenly, a mob from the community started moving towards us,” said Van Niekerk. The police officers who were with them ran away.   “We, the rangers, were the targets. I called for help. We were boxed in. We had no weapons so we had to fight back to stay alive until the helicopter arrived. We were hit by about 10 people, who were armed with blunt machetes. I was stabbed with a bottle, stoned and whipped,” he said.   He said it was only when the helicopter arrived that the mob backed off.   Would you please kindly share this and make it go viral, so the incompetent, corrupt police officers are exposed. Thank you."
72,"Bid for strongest protection for all African elephants defeated at wildlife summit —  A bid to give the highest level of international legal protection to all African elephants was defeated on Monday at a global wildlife summit. But the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), meeting this week in Johannesburg, passed other new measures for elephants that conservationists say will add vital protection. All 182 nations agreed for the first time that legal ivory markets within nations must be closed. Separately, a process that could allow one-off sales of ivory stockpiles was killed and tougher measures to deal with nations failing to control poached ivory were agreed. More than 140,000 of Africa’s savannah elephants were killed for their ivory between 2007 and 2014, wiping out almost a third of their population, and one elephant is still being killed by poachers every 15 minutes on average. The price of ivory has soared threefold since 2009, leading conservationists to fear the survival of the species is at risk. Ambitious Great Elephant Census finds nearly one-third of continent’s largest elephants were wiped out between 2007-14, largely due to poaching for ivory The acrimonious debate over elephant poaching has split African countries. Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, which host about a third of all remaining elephants, have stable or increasing populations. They argue passionately that elephant numbers are also suffering from loss of habitat and killings by farmers and that they can only be protected by making money from ivory sales and trophy hunting. However, a group of 29 African nations, which host about 40% of all elephants and are led by Kenya and Benin, have smaller and plummeting populations and countered that poaching and the illegal trade in ivory is the greatest threat. Most African elephants already have the highest level of international legal protection – a Cites “appendix 1” listing – which bans all trade. But the elephants in Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, are listed on “appendix 2”, a lower level of protection. On Monday a proposal to add the elephants in Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana to appendix 1 was defeated. Critics said the proposal would do little to protect elephants as all international trade is already banned, but proponents argued it was a crucial signal to poachers and criminals of a global crackdown on the illegal ivory trade. Botswana has the world’s largest elephant population, about a third of all elephants, and it is growing. But it broke ranks with Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe and argued vehemently for appendix 1 protection. Tshekedi Khama, Botswana’s minister of environment, said: “There is concerning evidence that elephant poaching is moving south. The criminal networks that facilitate much of this trade are highly organised and fluid, operating over several regions in the continent. Therefore no population should be considered secure. Put simply, a threat to elephants anywhere is a threat to elephants everywhere.” The Cote D’Ivoire delegate said it was absurd to have some elephants on appendix 1 and some on appendix 2: “An elephant that crosses a border may have protection on one side and not on the other. Elephants do not have passports.” Lee White, the British-born director of Gabon’s national parks and Cites delegate, said poachers were now shooting on sight at his rangers. The upgrading of all elephants to the highest protection would have sent “a signal that we will come down as hard on poaching as we do on the trafficking of drugs, arms and people”. However, Namibia’s delegate threatened to withdraw entirely from Cites protections for elephants if the all populations were upgraded the highest levels. “It is completely fallacious that legal ivory trade covers illegal trade,” he said, a statement flatly rejected by other nations. South Africa’s environment minister, Edna Molewa, said rural communities must benefit from elephants if they are to tolerate the damage caused to crops and the lives sometimes lost. “We dare not ignore their voices,” she said. “Trophy hunting is the best return on investment [in elephant protection] with the least impact.” The EU, which with 28 votes is a powerful force at Cites, also opposed the upgrade to appendix 1. It said that Cites rules meant the highest level protection is reserved for populations that are in steep decline, and that this did not apply to the elephants in Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Some scientific and conservation groups agreed with this, including WWF, Traffic and the Zoological Society of London, arguing the integrity of the Cites was at risk. The EU delegate to Cites said: “The proposal does not meet the biological criteria. [But] this does not mean in any way we are not concerned about the decline of elephants across the continent.” Several nations said cutting the demand for ivory, through education, and better enforcement against poachers were key. The issue was forced to a vote and was defeated, leaving the southern African elephants on appendix 2. Earlier on Monday, Namibia and Zimbabwe had attempted to legalise the trade in ivory from those countries. Namibia said its elephant population had doubled to 20,000 in the last 15 years. Charles Jonga, from the Campfire Programme, a rural development group in Zimbabwe, told the Cites summit: “The people in my community say: ‘These elephants they eat our crops, they damage our houses, what benefit do we get?’ If they get benefits, they will protect and not poach.” But Patrick Omondi, Kenya’s delegate, said: “Poaching levels and trafficking in ivory are at their highest peak. History has shown the ivory trade cannot be controlled. We are reaching a tipping point and need to give elephants time to recover.” Both Namibia’s and Zimbabwe’s proposals, supported by Japan but opposed by the EU and US, were soundly defeated. Observers believe Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa did not expect to unpick the ban on the ivory trade at this summit, but wanted to keep the debate open, in the hope of future success. Another proposal, from Swaziland, to legalise the trade in its rhino horn was heavily defeated. Advertisement Many conservation groups wanted all elephants to get the highest protection, but Tom Milliken, an elephant expert from wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic, said: “Where elephants fall on the Cites appendices is inconsequential to their survival. All the paper protection in the world is not going to compensate for poor law enforcement, rampant corruption and ineffective management.” He said the real success of the summit were measures to crack down on countries failing to halt illegal trade. But Kelvin Alie, at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the failure to put all elephants on appendix one was a disaster: “This is a tragedy for elephants. At a time when we are seeing such a dramatic increase in the slaughter of elephants for ivory, now was the time for the global community to step up and say no more.”"
73,"Billy Bob Thornton says he 'never felt good enough' for Angelina Jolie —  Billy Bob Thornton is opening up about his three-year marriage to Angelina Jolie as the 41-year-old actress is in the midst of a divorce from Brad Pitt.   The 61-year-old actor married Jolie, who is 20 years his junior, in 2000 after the two met on set of the 1999 movie, ""Pushing Tin."" They separated in June 2002 and divorced the following year.   ""I never felt good enough for her,"" Thornton tells November issue of GQ magazine. The Oscar winner says Jolie's high-profile life wasn't his speed, and that he's ""real uncomfortable around rich and important people.""   That being said, Thornton adds that he's still friends with his ex-wife and speaks to her every few months.   In 2014, the actor told The Hollywood Reporter that he was ""not fond"" of that ""crazy time"" when he was married to Jolie, which included wearing vials of each other's blood around their necks. ""Vial of blood is very simple,"" he explained. ""You know those lockets you buy that are clear and you put a picture of your grannie in and wear it around your neck? She bought two of those. We were apart a lot because she's off making Tomb Raider and I'm making Monster's Ball. She thought it would be interesting and romantic if we took a little razor blade and sliced our fingers, smeared a little blood on these lockets and you wear it around your neck just like you wear your son or daughter's baby hair in one. Same thing.""   After her split with Thornton, Jolie struck up a relationship with Pitt after meeting him on set of their 2005 film, ""Mr. & Mrs. Smith."" In September of this year, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt after two years of marriage and 11 years together. Just this week, the 52-year-old actor was cleared of child abuse allegations by Department of Child and Family Services.   In a statement to ET, Jolie's rep said the mother of six was ""relieved"" that the investigation had concluded, and that her focus has always been the health of the family."
74,Boy stuck in well for days found dead —  A 6-year-old in China was found dead days after he fell into a deserted well while helping his father harvest vegetables.
75,"Brisbane bus driver dies after being set on fire by passenger —  A bus driver has died in Brisbane, Australia, after a passenger covered him in flammable liquid and set him on fire in what police called a ""senseless act"" with ""no apparent motive"". Six ""deeply traumatised"" passengers escaped the smoke-filled vehicle with the help of a taxi driver who forced open the back door of the bus. Paramedics treated 11 people for smoke inhalation and minor injuries. Police have ruled out terrorism and charged a 48-year-old man. Anthony Donahue is accused of murder and arson, and 11 counts of attempted murder. The bus driver was identified as Manmeet Alisher, a 29-year-old man well known in Brisbane's Indian community. Friends described him as a talented singer and dancer who was engaged to be married. ""I've been confronted with many situations, but this is a rare one where there appears to be no apparent motive,"" Police Supt Jim Keogh told reporters. ""A bus driver, going about doing his business, supporting the community, has had his life taken from him in what is a senseless and needless act."" Taxi driver Aguek Nyok helped passengers escape. He was in the area meaning to get a haircut and kicked the bus door three times before managing to break it open. ""All the people were at the back trying to get out of the bus but they couldn't get out the front because of the flames,"" he told the Courier-Mail newspaper. ""They couldn't open the back door so I kicked it down and they all came running out. ""It was one of the two: you get the people out or they're going to die."" Mr Nyok said there were three children among the passengers. Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said it was ""a very, very sad day for the council and the wider community"". Flags will be flown at half-mast across the city on Saturday as sign of respect for Mr Alisher."
76,"British Government Supports Oil Drilling Project In Uganda, Placing Endangered Giraffe Species At Further Risk —  A new oil well project that is under way in the Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda could place a critical risk to one of the world’s most endangered species of giraffe, while the British Government supports the this environmental harmful operation. The project entails the drilling of dozens of wells into the National Park, which is home to one of the last remaining populations of the Rothschild giraffe, named after British zoologist Lord (Walter) Rothschild, with less than 1,500 of the giraffes remaining in the wild. A documentary recently released by BBC and narrated by Sir David Attenborough follows efforts from conservationists who protect these giraffes by relocated them away from the-drilling projects. According to leaked documents, the British oil company, Tullow Oil has been in talks with the government about providing UK taxpaer-backed loans and insurance to assist in these oil well operations in Uganda. A leaked Total report obtained by Energydesk has revealed that damage to the park for this project has already begun. Documents also revealed that British trade officials classify these operations as an opportunity that is worth of over £1bn to UK businesses and have been keen on offering the firm financial backing to support the project. “People will be wondering why the UK Government considered offering taxpayers’ money to a British firm drilling for oil in the heart of one of Uganda’s oldest national parks. The project will breach international guidelines on conservation and could put an endangered giraffe species at risk.” Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said. He added: “Instead of backing risky oil exploration around the world, the Government should help cut our dependence on fossil fuels and support our partners abroad to develop sustainable energy sources.” A spokesman for Tullow Oil told The Sunday Times that “We have committed to protect a number of species throughout the development including the Rothschild giraffe.”"
77,"British banker guilty of murdering Indonesians in Hong Kong —  A British banker was convicted of murder Tuesday for killing two Indonesian women in Hong Kong, torturing one of them over three days while using cocaine in a gruesome case that shocked the Chinese financial hub.   The nine-person jury returned unanimous verdicts against Rurik Jutting after a two-week trial in the High Court. The slayings in 2014 and disclosures as the case developed highlighted Hong Kong’s significant inequality as well as the decadent lifestyles of some members of the former British colony’s expatriate elite. Jutting bowed his head briefly as the verdicts were read out to a packed courtroom but otherwise showed little reaction. He was given an automatic mandatory life sentence.   While he has the right to an appeal, his defense lawyer indicated ahead of the verdict that Jutting would request a transfer to a British prison to serve out his sentence there. In a statement his lawyer asked to be read into the court record, Jutting said he was sorry and accepted the verdicts as “just and appropriate punishment.” He also said he was haunted by his actions and the pain he’d caused to the women’s loved ones.   Jutting, a Cambridge University graduate who worked for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, was convicted of killing 23-year-old Sumarti Ningsih and then killing 26-year-old Seneng Mujiasih days later. The two originally came to Hong Kong as foreign maids but ended up as sex workers.   As statements from their families were read out by the prosecutor, Jutting stared at the floor.   Jurors were shown graphic smartphone video clips taken by Jutting of his apparent torture of Sumarti, which the judge deemed too graphic for the public to view. He slit her throat and then nearly decapitated her when she didn’t die immediately, according to facts agreed upon by both the prosecution and defense. He then stuffed her body inside a suitcase that he left on the balcony of his upscale apartment near Hong Kong’s famous Wan Chai red-light district.   [British banker charged with grisly ‘American Psycho’ murders in Hong Kong]   Jutting had planned to torture Mujiasih with about $900 worth of tools and sex toys he had bought hours before. But he killed her when she spotted a gag in his apartment and wouldn’t stop screaming, according to the two sides.   After the verdict, Judge Michael Stuart-Moore called the case “one of the most horrifying murder cases to come to the courts in Hong Kong.”   “There are insufficient superlatives to describe the cruelty” that Jutting inflicted on Ningsih and planned for Mujiasih, he said, adding that the defendant had not shown “one shred of remorse” and rejected his apology. He called Jutting an “archetypal sexual predator” and cited testimony from an expert psychiatric witness who said Jutting would be prone to committing sexual violence again.   The judge said his sentencing remarks were aimed at notifying authorities in Britain, who must hold their own sentencing hearing if his transfer is granted, of the “immense danger” Jutting poses if he is allowed out of prison.   Ningsih’s brother, Suyit Khaliman, said the family welcomed the verdict and was grateful that Jutting was given the maximum penalty under Hong Kong law.   “Justice finally has been upheld after two years,” Khaliman said. “The sentence is still incomparable to the pain that is felt by us who lost Ningsih in such a terrible way.”   Khaliman said the family, from Central Java province, has suffered financially and emotionally since the death of Ningsih, who has a son, now aged 7."
78,"Brothers Behind Bars —  “The only photograph I had of her, growing up, is from a scrapbook from a social worker,” Shelton McElroy says about his mother, “from a visitation that we had at a women’s prison called Pewee Valley.” Shelton and his two brothers grew up careening between one foster home to the next. Their mother had been sentenced to prison when Shelton was just 4 and his brothers were 6 and 8 years old. Neither Shelton nor his brothers were ever adopted, and he sees his and one of his brother’s subsequent prison sentences as extensions of the same state-ward system they grew up in. “We never came out of it,” he says. “From being a ward of the state from 4 to 12, in less than six months, I was a prison ward of the state.”   At first, the brothers were sent to two different foster homes in their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. “My earliest memories are of being in this place called the Home of the Innocent,” Shelton says. “I was in a crib with other kids, because they had so many kids, each of us couldn’t have our own crib. It wasn’t with Mom. I do have vague recollections with Mom.” As the youngest of the group, Shelton was allowed to go to the same foster home as his oldest brother, William. Middle-child David went to another foster home alone. About every other week, Shelton would visit him. Later on, when Shelton was 6 years old, the three were assigned together to a foster home in Fort Knox, a military base outside the city. For a time, it seemed possible that the sergeant who’d taken them in might even adopt the three of them together. “We ended up messing that up,” Shelton says. It came down to a bike. While at a swimming pool on base, David, then 8, stole a bicycle. Shelton jumped on the back, and the two started pedaling away from the pool and toward the sergeant’s house. But the sergeant’s two biological sons jumped out from behind some bushes, catching the two boys with the contraband red-handed. According to Shelton, the sergeant was embarrassed, and he sent the brothers back to the foster-care system. “We had that happen a lot,” says Shelton. “We’d go somewhere with particular people being interested in us, maybe 10 times, and then we would get sent away.” As the boys got older, Shelton says, the possibility of being adopted began to fade: “You get to an age where three black boys are… there’s really a low probability of anybody taking us. That started to be really apparent to the social workers.” The fact that David had been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and prescribed Ritalin likely did not help his case. William, on the other hand, exhibited no behavioral issues and instead showed musical aptitude and high intelligence. So administrators nominated him for a special foster-care program for promising children. “If you were in foster care, it was the one place in the whole state of Kentucky that everybody wanted to go,” Shelton says. But he wasn’t so lucky: “I ended up going to a group home for misbehavior.”   After just a few months, he was returned to the foster-care mill. That’s when, on Halloween, Shelton pointed a BB gun at a couple of young girls and demanded they give him their candy. “I was arrested and charged with wanton endangerment,” he says. That would be his first experience in a men’s jail; at the time, there were no separate facilities for juvenile arrestees in Kentucky. Because he was underage, Shelton had to be separated from the general population in the men’s jail until his trial. When he was finally sentenced, he was sent to another group home for a couple of years. Following his release, Shelton ran away from the foster-care system. He was homeless. Desperate and hungry, Shelton broke into the house of a friend who dealt weed—and who kept his stash at home. Shelton planned to steal the drugs and sell them. But he lingered too long, eating sandwiches and drinking beer. He was caught and charged with burglary. The mandatory sentence for that crime was between one and five years. The judge gave Shelton four. From 16 to 18, Shelton lived in Georgetown, Kentucky, a dry county with a handful of bootleg businesses. He got by with petty crime—stealing things and trading them for cash. At night, he slept in a bootlegging den. “Sitting down at a dinner table with my head on my arms for rest at night,” he says. By the time he turned 18, Shelton had not seen David for four years.   By his 19th birthday, Shelton was in prison again for a minor crime—but he broke out. “I climbed this 16-foot-high razor-wire fence and escaped,” Shelton says. “I was caught less than three or four hours later.” For that, a judge added three years to his sentence, for a new total of seven years. The maximum-security prison he was then sent to had two 16-foot-high razor-wire fences back to back and gun towers around the perimeter.   Shelton reimagines the scene in disbelief: “I come in a petty criminal, but now I’m incarcerated with people with every level and degree of charges.” He served at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex, known as the “Pink Palace” because of its paint job. Inside, the building was organized into two halves, each housing about 1,000 inmates. The two sets rarely mix, but they can see one another through thick glass partitions. On occasion, some of them might run into each other in the library or medical area. One day in the cafeteria, as he was pushing his tray down the food line, someone caught his eye. “Across from me, it’s the first time in almost five years that I’ve seen my biological brother David,” he says. “You can’t really put that in words, what that’s like, to look across and see your brother through glass.” Through improvised sign language, they arranged to meet. “My brother was in there for murder at 19 years old,” Shelton says. “He had murdered a man who had tried to steal his drugs from him. It was a drug deal gone bad. He fought his case completely himself.” As Shelton tells it, the judge wouldn’t allow David to represent himself alone and assigned him an attorney, but David took the lead and eventually got his charge reduced to manslaughter and a 10-year sentence. The two brothers were able to move into a cell together. “It was awkward and strained and still is to this day,” Shelton says of the adjustment to one another after such a long absence. Shelton says it felt more like being half-brothers, and they would often even refer to one another as “brothers from different fathers.”   Being brothers also had an unexpected consequence. “It actually increased the potential for violence, because were somebody to have a beef with me, now they understand that my brother was there,” Shelton says. “You have to know that you’re going to fight my brother and me. Then you need to go get a couple of people, and then that turns into maybe a gang.” But that kind of escalation also put the differences between the two brothers into sharp relief. David may have been in for the more violent and serious crime, but it was Shelton who was into “a bunch of inappropriate activity” in prison. By contrast, David was a “model prisoner” who did not fight, who converted to Islam, and changed his name from David to Dawud. “I was playing poker and gambling and being involved,” says Shelton. “If anybody smuggled in any kind of drugs, I wanted in on it—maybe not to use it as much as to sell it. [David] wasn’t. I kind of brought more drama his way than he would have anticipated.” David also ended up leaving prison before his younger brother, because Shelton compounded his sentence by constantly getting into trouble while in custody.   At 25, Shelton was finally released from prison. He headed home to Louisville.   The three brothers had become strangers to each other. After decades of personal limbo between foster homes, juvenile institutions, and bouts of incarcerations, the three lost touch. While Shelton and David struggled to create lives they could be proud of, William, who had gone to the special foster program for gifted children, found success. Shelton says that William was “older, wiser, more settled, not having behavior issues.” He got a job and a car. He visited his younger brothers when he could. Once William surprised Shelton by bringing a young girl along with him on a prison visit; she was their youngest sibling, a child their mother had had after being released from prison herself.     William tried to be there for his brothers. He hired an attorney for Shelton and paid the legal fees. But the circumstances would prove overwhelming, even for a committed older brother. “He really became very dismayed,” Shelton says. “He gave up, because he tried so hard.” But it’s hard to help someone when they won’t help themselves. “The pressure was always on Will to be some kind of father figure,” Shelton says. “He never could do it to the level that he put on himself and maybe even the level we put on him.” Shelton recalled his brother trying to offer support to David and himself while also attempting to get close to the new sister who had appeared in their lives. “It was just too much for him,” Shelton says. “He’s this guy trying to weave all of these things together.”   William ended up leaving the United States for a while. He lived in multiple places, including the Netherlands and London. “Him traveling internationally and getting away from it all was, for him, probably the best thing he could have done, because we were real selfish,” Shelton says. Even from across an ocean, William’s brothers still demanded much from him. “My letters to him were all about ‘I need money for this, I need money for that,’ with no idea what I was asking a young man to provide. I really wanted him to be my father. I wanted him to provide just as if a father or my mother would provide to me.”   Today, William is a music producer and entrepreneur with his own business. Both David and Shelton are fathers, but David struggles with addiction. Maybe the good behavior in prison and the conversion to Islam were not enough to fill the void that a troubled life had left him with. “Now the roles have changed,” Shelton says. “He actually tells relatives of mine that he’s younger than me. The role has turned into me being this older brother to him.” He worries about David constantly. “He’s stuck. He’s stuck. My brother will reference what happened in 1983 as if that’s justification for why he’s at the hospital witnessing the birth of his baby six months early and yet he’s asking me for $5 for gas money.” David seems to be “not healing, not overcoming, not being able to rewrite the narrative of his story, and really being stuck in his resentful, bitter state,” Shelton says. That wisdom has been hard to come by for Shelton. After cycling through the foster-care system from the time he was 4, and then rotating through the correctional system from age 18 to 27, Shelton was left with a fractured existence, knowing little about the world beyond those institutions. His experiences cemented his belief in the interconnectivity of the foster system and the penal system in the United States. “A lot of my concern is about how that system perpetuates and helps to contribute to the prison-industrial complex,” Shelton says. “How the foster-care system has done that in a really insidious way.”   “I’d been running away from foster homes and trying to get to Louisville my whole life,” he says, looking for a family that didn’t exist—not the way he needed it to. Usually when Shelton ran away as a teenager, he’d be found within three days and be sent back to foster care, back to the system. But during those furtive days of freedom he’d search for his extended family. “I would get a phone book and look up ‘McElroy,’” he says. “I would say, ‘Are you a McElroy?’” Nine times out of 10, he heard a stranger on the other end of the line say, “Nope, don’t know you.” But once in a while, he’d stumble on a cousin or older relative. When the topic turned to his mother, there was little variation to the answers: “We don’t know where your mom’s at.”   His mother’s drug addition and mental-health complications contributed to an untenable situation that led to the brothers’ removal. But it didn’t have to be an irrevocable severing. Through William, Shelton saw his mother again while she was raising his half-sister. His mother was receiving appropriate help and had become functional, even successful, and was leading her life instead of falling prey to it. What if they had reconnected earlier? “We don’t have a system that’s set up that helps people that struggle with mental health. The only way our system knows how to do it is to take their children and not even to look at familial alternatives,” Shelton says. “In Europe, they never terminate the parents’ rights, never. In the U.S., they terminate the rights.” As a result, he says, there’s a lot of unnecessary hurt, and “every foster child at 18 is looking for their biological family.” In his late 20s, Shelton recognized that to become a man, he’d have to go it alone. “I started this introspection, this external experience of rebuilding who I was without foster care as the dominating factor, without being a child who had no mother or father—becoming a man who didn’t have that as the catalyst of his life,” he says. “The only way you do that and you move forward is turning it into some way to help others heal. The pain is there, but as long as you’re healing others in that nexus, you don’t suffer from it. It becomes almost like gold in your hands when you walk toward another person who suffered any atrocity—molestation, incarceration. You just go to them in this genuine way, and you say, ‘Let me tell you just a snippet about me, so that you identify, and you know that I come from a very similar, horrific background.’”   At age 39, Shelton now has a master’s degree and is a trained counselor. Today, he works at an alcohol-counseling program for recently released inmates. He also does pro bono work with families who “have lost their children to the system” to help them navigate their cases until they are reunited with their kids. He has also worked in the foster-care system itself, helping children redefine the narratives of their lives. His own experiences, of course, are central to his work. “I can connect with you from my pain and also show you my change and make it so that you realize that it’s possible,” Shelton says. “That’s what my life has been about.”"
79,"Bundy’s cattle starving on their illegal Nevada range —  Many people argue that Nevada, the driest state, is really no place for cattle, grass-loving creatures that they are. Nonetheless, herds of widely spaced cattle have pummeled the landscape there for over a hundred years.   For a generation Cliven Bundy ran his herd illegally on and around the former Bunkerville grazing allotment in the hot desert near Las Vegas (more properly next to Mesquite, Nevada). It was public land at first, but then increasing numbers of his cattle became at least semi-feral and were found over a huge area near the Nevada, Utah, Arizona border. Bundy portrayed himself as a typical rancher, opposed by the government, but the U.S. Attorney at the time of his indictment told the judge:   “Raised in the wild, Bundy’s cattle are left to fend for themselves year-round, fighting off predators and scrounging for the meager amounts of food and water available in the difficult and arid terrain that comprises the public lands in that area of the country,”. . . . “Bereft of human interaction, his cattle that manage to survive are wild, mean and ornery.   “He does not vaccinate or treat his cattle for disease; does not employ cowboys to control and herd them; does not manage or control breeding; has no knowledge of where all the cattle are located at any given time; rarely brands them before he captures them; and has to bait them into traps in order to gather them.   Now there seems to be no care for the cattle at all, and it is reported that they are slowly starving, although there is no official confirmation of this. March through May is the only time of the year when there is any semblance of what looks like grass or forbs on the big alluvial fans beneath the Virgin mountain range where the cattle roam. The Reno Gazette-Journal contacted State of Nevada officials about finally rounding up the cattle, but they were told by email from Flint Wright from the Nevada Department of Agriculture:   “We have not received any substantiated reports of Cliven Bundy’s cattle starving on the Golden Butte [sic] allotment — though this may be true to some extent, as Cliven’s management practices leave a lot to be desired.   “Yes the cattle are in trespass and some are unbranded, and therefore feral and estray. Also yes, per [Nevada Revised Statute] 569, that makes them state property. However, because they are trespassed on BLM ground with a court order in effect, it would require BLM or the court to authorize the [Nevada Department of Agriculture] to perform any sort of gather of the cattle.”   Wright said the herd’s size was unknown, but it was probably 1000 or more. A report from the BLM in 2014 said Bundy’s cattle had been found over an incredible 700 square mile area that included BLM, National Park (Lake Mead NRA), state and private lands (in addition to Bundy’s private land).   It is hard to say when they will be removed because in the past outfits contracted to round up the cattle have been threatened and run off by Bundy supporters. In addition the cattle are near feral and often mean:   Nevada Fish and Wildlife Department told E&E News that the physical effort of rounding up the cattle would be most hard.  “But removing Bundy’s ornery, battle-tested herd — estimated by one Nevada official to be worth up to $800,000 — will be expensive, logistically difficult and potentially dangerous.  ‘It’s like hunting cape buffalo,’ said Ken Mayer, the former director of Nevada’s Department of Wildlife. ‘They’re nasty, they’re smart, and they won’t hesitate to charge.’ ” Of course, the value of the herd will also decline as they stand in the waterless 100° + F. heat of the southern Nevada summer."
80,"Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi under fire as alleged military abuse follows militant attack —  SITTWE, Burma — A security crackdown following militant attacks has exacerbated the humanitarian situation in a predominantly Muslim region of Burma and focused international attention on the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Burmese troops launched a wide-ranging manhunt last month in a troubled area of northern Rakhine state populated largely by Rohingya Muslims, leaving scorched homes and displaced residents in their wake. The manhunt followed an Oct. 9 attack on police posts that left nine policemen dead. The government has accused members of the Rohingya community of being behind the attack. Another police officer was killed in what may have been a second militant attack last week, according to state media. Renata Lok-Dessallien, the United Nations resident coordinator in Burma, was among a team of United Nations officials and diplomats who visited the affected area last week. She said authorities had assured the U.N. that aid would resume after being effectively cut off for weeks. But how soon is not clear. U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel has called for a “thorough investigation” into alleged abuse and for the restoration of humanitarian access, the State Department said. An estimated 15 members of the security forces — roughly 10 police and five soldiers — have died and more than 30 Muslim residents have been reported killed in the security crackdown. Burma is also known as Myanmar. Human Rights Watch has reported that satellite data shows villages that have been burned, and the Reuters news agency and the Myanmar Times newspaper have chronicled the alleged rape of Muslim women by soldiers. The Myanmar Times reporter was fired following her report on the issue. “Any allegation of rape or sexual violence is a profound concern to us,” Lok-Dessallien said. Residents in Rakhine describe a landscape of fear in which members of the Rohingya community have allegedly been barred from going to mosques or work. “We can’t go anywhere, as we’re not allowed to,” Min Hlaing, a Muslim businessman in a restricted area near Maungdaw, said last week by telephone. He said food prices had risen as a result of roadblocks and claimed that at least one community leader was held by security forces. The crisis marks the first major test of Suu Kyi’s new democratically elected administration, which took over March 31 after decades of military rule. Analysts say she must find a way to work with Burma’s powerful military, which still controls the country’s security forces. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been accused of not doing enough to address the Rohingya crisis despite her lifelong commitment to Burmese freedom. In an interview with The Washington Post in New Delhi on Oct. 18, Suu Kyi said border security posts must be strengthened, rule of law followed and a development plan created for the area. “So many things have to be done simultaneously. It’s not an easy job,” she said. “But we are, of course, determined to contain the situation and to make sure that we restore peace and harmony as soon as possible.” Suu Kyi’s government has said the men who attacked police posts on Oct. 9 were from a little-known group with foreign backing. In YouTube videos, the group has called itself the Movement of Faith. There are about 1 million Rohingya Muslims in Burma who are essentially stateless, and many in the Buddhist-majority country consider them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. More than 120,000 Rohingya remain confined to dirty camps in the area after violent clashes with their Buddhist neighbors in 2012. Rohingyas said they do not believe that there was a militant group operating in the state. “This is a rumor. This is not true. This is the deliberate assassination from the government,” said Mohamed Amin, 21, a Rohingya who lives in the heavily guarded Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe. More than 16,000 people from both faiths have been displaced by the search, and 100,000 are without their regular food assistance, according to Pierre Peron, of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Health services have been suspended, and weeks have passed without access to mobile health clinics and emergency referrals. “You have a very vulnerable population that is even more vulnerable now,” Peron said last week. The state government spokesman, Tin Maung Shwe, said the matter was “an internal affair, not an international affair.” Residents in the crowded camps said that in the days after the attacks, doctors who normally visit a few times a week did not show, although some visits have resumed. Suu Kyi blamed the health-care deficit on the security situation. “It’s even difficult for us to provide enough security to give them the health care that they need,” she said. “It is another big problem, because doctors and nurses who go to camps [for displaced people] are not treated well by the communities when they go back.” She added, “The whole thing is a rigmarole.” At a community health clinic in the Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe one day recently, there were no doctors, just a weary-looking pharmacist and several patients waiting in a dimly lit room. “We are doing as much as we can,” said Maung Htun, 54, the pharmacist. “But now we are only capable of healing small things.” Suu Kyi said that the government must create a resettlement program. A controversial citizenship-verification process that has been criticized by rights groups has been stymied because, Suu Kyi said, many Rohingya refused to participate. “We can’t fix a time frame, because it depends on how much everybody is prepared to cooperate,” she said. “We started off this movement for citizenship verification in order that we might move forward, but then, if there is no cooperation, it has been very difficult for us.” On the ground, the latest flare-up has frayed hope and diminished an already low level of confidence in Suu Kyi’s government. Maung Aye Shwe, 18, a volunteer teacher in one of the camps, said nothing has changed since Suu Kyi’s historic election a year ago. “There is no improvement within this year. We are having just oppression — no changes or improvement,” he said. Maung Kyaw Win, 42, said that he once worked as a goldsmith in his village, and that he does not know when he and his family will be able to return home. But he does know that relations with his Muslim neighbors will not be the same. “No one will trust each other until the end of the universe,” he said. Gowen reported from New Delhi. Aung Naing Soe contributed from Sittwe."
81,"Bykofsky: Gross case of stolen and mistaken identity —  WHEN SHAWN GILL got a call at his Warminster home from a doctor at Einstein Medical Center asking how he was feeling, he was puzzled. Why do you want to know? he asked. ""Because we treated you after your accident last night,"" the doctor said. ""I wasn't in no accident last night,"" said Gill, who had been asleep in his bed. He quickly figured out that some stranger had used his name. That identity theft launched Gill into a Kafkaesque maze of mirrors, trap doors, bureaucracy and police errors. His nightmare, appropriately, began in the middle of the night - at 2:25 a.m. May 20 - with a collision at Broad and Rockland streets in Logan, 13 miles from his home. A 2004 Chevrolet Suburban had rear-ended a 2014 Buick Verano, causing damage to the Buick and injury to its driver. The Suburban took off, but was quickly stopped. Police questioned the Suburban's driver, whose speech was slurred and whose face was flushed, according to a police report. He refused to take a Breathalyzer and was hostile with officers who took him to Einstein, where he refused a blood test. When arrested on suspicion of DUI, he gave his name as Shawn Gill, along with Gill's address and date of birth. Hours later, after fingerprinting, police learned that the actual name of the driver was David Joseph Singer. He was in the system because of previous convictions for theft, burglary, aggravated assault and possession of instruments of crime. The Suburban he was driving is registered to Sarah Singer, not to Gill. Gill, 46, owns a 2014 Toyota Tacoma that he drives for Lyft and Uber. He is otherwise a stay-at-home dad who cares for his autistic son. After the call from Einstein, Gill did the right thing and filed identity-theft reports with the 35th District, where the crash happened and where the paperwork originated. He also reported the situation to PennDot. That should cover it, he thought. He thought wrong. On June 6, he got a notice from PennDot saying his license would be suspended for a year starting July 8, the result of his refusal to take a Breathalyzer test. But that was not him. Lyft and Uber dropped him as a driver, cutting off his part-time income. ""Every time I call PennDot, I get put on hold for a half-hour, and no one tells me the right thing to do. I did everything I was told to get this fixed,"" a frustrated Gill told me, laying a sheath of papers on his kitchen table. It didn't get fixed. Gill told me he contacted PennDot again, filed an appeal and had a hearing Sept. 14. He showed up without a lawyer because he didn't think he needed one. He knew the wrong police paperwork had been corrected to Singer's name. ""It's traffic court, I thought,"" said Gill, who has no criminal record. Things went sideways because the corrected police paperwork had not reached Harrisburg. Worse, two cops - one from the Accident Investigation District and the arresting officer - testified that Gill had been behind the wheel. Which is impossible. Here's the thing: On the original paperwork, the belligerent driver was described as 5-7 and 320 pounds. Not mentioned in the report was a very large tattoo covering his neck. Gill is 190 pounds and not inked. Because we know that Gill wasn't the driver, it's hard to understand the gross misidentification. First, stolen identity. Now, mistaken identity. A befuddled Gill appealed to the judge, who gave him 30 days to present new evidence before her final verdict. That's when a friend of Gill's asked me to take a look. I did - and found puzzling questions. How did the 43-year-old Singer get Gill's ID information? ""I don't know who this guy is,"" Gill told me. ""I have no idea."" Singer's attorney, Daniel Conner, declined to make him available for an interview, but court records show he has used a dozen aliases, including Shawn Gill. Why was the wrong information about the refusal to take a Breathalyzer not changed after the cops had correctly identified Singer? How could two cops be off by 130 pounds and a huge neck tattoo when identifying Gill in court as the driver? Most important, how can the basket of snakes be untangled? Gill and his lawyer - he has one now - can assemble the various documents and bring them to the judge, but there is a shortcut. PennDot community relations coordinator Alexis Campbell told me that if the officer who made the report writes a letter on police stationery saying the identification of Gill was erroneous, PennDot will wipe Gill's record clean. Police public affairs was useful in helping me unpack this mess, but will not ask the cop to write the letter unless Gill talks to the police first, which his lawyer has advised him not to do. I don't know what public affairs thinks Gill can tell them. He is the innocent victim. The cops know it and should not be attaching conditions to a letter that would quickly restore Gill's driver's license. Commissioner Richard Ross can make this happen in a second. He should, because Gill has been jerked around enough."
82,"CDC reports eye infections linked to misuse of contact lenses —  Contact lenses–or CL–are safe and effective medical device for vision correction. But if not used properly, they pose an infection risk to wearers, including keratitis, and even blindness.   Approximately forty-one million people in the United States use CL, as noted by the NPR, and a new analysis posted by the CDC–or, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–on Friday reveals some of the most common mistakes that wearers do, resulting in common and serious eye infections.   Researchers with the national health institute examined one-thousand and seventy-five reports of corneal infections related to contact lens from the FDA–or, the Food and Drug Administration–between the years 2005 and 2015, and found that nineteen point eight percent of which “had a central corneal scar, had a decrease in visual acuity, or required a corneal transplant following the event.”   Meanwhile, twenty-five point one percent of eye infection cases were linked to misuse of contact lenses.   Among the two hundred seventy reports, or the twenty-five point one of the cases, seven percent reported occasional overnight wear or napping in lenses, and seven point nine reported ‘overwear’ of lenses or wearing their contact lenses longer than the prescribed period. Other reported misuse include use of expired lenses, storing lenses in tap water, and wearing lenses while swimming.   Previous research has shown that sleeping in contact lenses may increase infections by more than six-fold. In some cases, like Chad Groeschen from Cincinnati, sleeping with contacts can cause blindness.   The CDC says occasional or habitual sleeping in contact lenses has been shown to increase risk for microbial keratitis. They also noted that wearers of daily disposable lenses have a lower risk for eye infection. In their analysis, products described as ‘daily disposable lenses’ were infrequently listed in reports for microbial keratitis."
83,"CMV Is a Greater Threat to Infants Than Zika, but Far Less Often Discussed —  Laura Sweet had no idea that she had contracted a virus that would leave her daughter, Jane, deaf by her first birthday. During her second pregnancy, doctors had warned her against alcohol and changing kitty litter. They had said to avoid sushi and cold cuts. But nobody — not her obstetrician, nor her midwife — mentioned cytomegalovirus. Only after a frustrating search lasting months did doctors discover that the girl had been infected in utero. The infection and the emotional ordeal that followed, she thinks, could have been prevented — for the Sweet family and thousands of others every year. “It’s tough to play the what-if game,” said Ms. Sweet, 37, a consultant for an education nonprofit in Cumberland, Me. “You can drive yourself crazy with that.” The world has been galvanized by the Zika epidemic spreading through the Americas, which has left more than 2,000 infants with severe brain damage. But for pregnant women and their infants in the United States, cytomegalovirus, or CMV, is the far greater viral threat. Every year, 20,000 to 40,000 infants are born with CMV. At least 20 percent — up to 8,000 — have or develop permanent disabilities, such as hearing loss, microcephaly, intellectual deficits and vision abnormalities. There is no vaccine or standard treatment. But there are now hints that some newborns may benefit from antiviral drugs, a finding that has reinvigorated the debate over whether they should be routinely screened for the infection. CMV is the most common congenital viral infection and the leading nongenetic cause of deafness in children. Roughly 400 children die from it annually. By contrast, roughly 900 pregnant women in the continental United States have contracted the Zika virus. “Everyone and their brother knows about Zika, but it’s very rare in the U.S.,” said Dr. Mark R. Schleiss, the director of pediatric infectious diseasesat the University of Minnesota Medical School. CMV should be every bit as urgent a priority as Zika, he argues. Health officials called for a vaccine decades ago, and there still isn’t one, partly because of a lack of public awareness about CMV, Dr. Schleiss said. CMV is a hardy member of the herpes family, and it is transmitted by contact with saliva and urine — often from diaper-wearing children to adults. Pregnant women often get it from toddlers, especially those in day care who share drool-drenched toys. “Toddlers are hot zones for CMV,” said Dr. Gail Demmler-Harrison, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. It is difficult for mothers to protect themselves from a virus carried by the children they care for. Nearly one in three children is infected by age 5, and more than half of adults by 40. CMV takes up permanent residence in the body and can cause illness again after being dormant. Like the Zika virus, it causes mild flulike symptoms, or none — but can be devastating to a fetus. Had she known any of that while pregnant, Ms. Sweet might have reduced her chances of contracting CMV with diligent hand-washing, especially after diaper changes, and not sharing utensils or food with her son, Henry, then 2 and in day care. “If there was awareness about CMV, at least women working in day care and women with toddlers could potentially modify some behavior,” Ms. Sweet said. But surprisingly few women are warned about this infection. Less than half of obstetrician-gynecologists tell pregnant patients how to avoid CMV, according to federal survey. By contrast, doctors and public health officials have advised American women to take every imaginable precaution against Zika. Rebekah McGill, a speech language pathologist in Greeneville, Tenn., gave birth to a stillborn daughter, Elise, at almost 39 weeks, later discovering that CMV was the likely reason. Ms. McGill was inconsolable — and angry that she had never been warned about the virus during any of her four pregnancies. “Sometimes, I wonder if our daughter would still be alive if I had only known,” she said. A Debate About Discussing The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists used to encourage counseling for pregnant women on how to avoid CMV. But last year, the college reversed course, saying, “Patient instruction remains unproven as a method to reduce the risk of congenital CMV infection.” Some experts argue that because there is no vaccine or proven treatment, there is no point in worrying expecting women about the virus. Instead, Dr. Christopher Zahn, the vice president for practice at ACOG, said doctors must focus on conditions with proven interventions and let patients dictate the discussion. “There are so many topics to cover during pregnancy that this is often driven by what patients are most worried about,” he said. But pregnant women don’t worry about CMV only because they don’t know about it, some researchers say. They argue that it is high time to carry out education campaigns and infant screening for the infection, arguing that it smacks of paternalism to do otherwise. Dr. Demmler-Harrison, the infectious disease specialist, said she was “livid” about ACOG’s decision. “I am baffled why obstetricians do not feel it is important or even worthy to educate pregnant women about CMV,” she said. “It’s a missed opportunity to save a baby from the devastating effects of CMV, including death in the womb and permanent disabilities.” A study in a French hospital found five to 10 minutes of counseling about CMV prevention resulted in fewer women contracting the virus. In another study, pregnant mothers shown a video and offered hygiene tips were much less likely to get CMV (5.9 percent) than those not given information on prevention (41.7 percent). “It’s as if doctors are saying, ‘I’m going to cherry-pick what you know and you don’t know,’” said Erica Steadman, 30, a digital marketing manager in Crete, Ill., who says her obstetricians never mentioned the virus. Her 3-year-old daughter, Evelyn, was born with microcephaly, deafness and such high levels of CMV in her urine that doctors were surprised she survived. “Withholding information is the same as putting pregnant women and their children in danger,” Mrs. Steadman said. Guidelines from ACOG suggest that pregnant women will find CMV prevention “impractical and burdensome,” especially if they are told not to kiss their toddlers on the mouth — a possible route of transmission. But Kim Hill, a mother of four in Raleigh, N.C., did not find it that hard. Her second daughter, Kaitlyn, now 7, was born with signs of CMV infection and became hearing-impaired. So when she became pregnant with twins, Ms. Hill stopped sharing food with her kids and regularly scrubbed her hands. “People canceled trips and rearranged their whole lives not to travel to Zika areas,” Mrs. Hill said. “All we are saying is, wash your hands.” A Push to Screen In most states, babies are not universally screened at birth for CMV infection, on the grounds that most won’t be injured by the virus and clinicians don’t want to worry parents unnecessarily. The consequences of infection are often not detected until months or years after delivery. “A common scenario is a child is born who looks completely normal, and who may or may not pass the newborn hearing screening, and then as they age, at 6 months or 12 months or older, hearing becomes an issue,” said Dr. Albert H. Park, the chief of pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Utah. Now some experts are pushing for routine screening of newborns for CMV. The idea is to identify those who are infected in the first 21 days so that they can be given regular hearing tests, an eye test, a magnetic resonance imaging test of the brain, and perhaps antiviral treatment. Roughly 10 to 15 percent of infected newborns hear well at birth, but start losing the ability by age 5. Until recently, even if a newborn failed a hearing test, clinicians did not always test to see if CMV was the cause. It remains unclear how and why CMV causes hearing loss. But infants who receive a timely diagnosis can be given hearing aids or access to early-intervention programs to have the best chance of learning to talk. In January, Connecticut began testing any infant who failed a hearing screening for CMV infection, and Illinois now offers parents the option. Utah was the first state, in 2013, to carry out CMV screening of newborns who did not pass hearing tests. After she learned that CMV had caused her daughter Daisy’s deafness, Sara Doutré and her mother, Ronda Menlove, then a legislator in Utah, worked to get the law in place so “no other baby fell through the cracks in the system,” Mrs. Doutré said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is funding a pilot study that aims to universally screen 30,000 newborns in Minnesota for CMV as part of an existing program in the state health department, Dr. Schleiss said. The screening question has taken on much greater importance with a recent discovery. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year found that infants with CMV symptoms at birth who took an antiviral drug for six months had moderately better hearing at 2 years, compared with newborns who took it for six weeks. The six-month group also performed better on a test intended to assess cognitive, communication and motor skills. The finding suggests that the roughly 10 percent of babies born with multiple symptoms of CMV infection, like brain abnormalities and hearing loss, could benefit from antiviral drugs. The finding does not apply to infected infants without symptoms at birth, experts noted, and it’s not yet known whether antiviral medication is safe and effective in babies whose only symptom is hearing loss. In Maine, Jane Sweet, almost 2, now wears cochlear implants. Because of early-intervention services like physical therapy, she walked at 16 months. Still, it’s not clear what the future holds. CMV infection left abnormalities in Jane’s brain, which may presage developmental troubles. “We won’t know until she’s in school if she has learning delays,” Ms. Sweet said."
84,"CO2 levels mark 'new era' in the world's changing climate —  Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have surged past an important threshold and may not dip below it for ""many generations"". The 400 parts per million benchmark was broken globally for the first time in recorded history in 2015. But according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), 2016 will likely be the first full year to exceed the mark. The high levels can be partly attributed to a strong El Niño event. Gas spike While human emissions of CO2 remained fairly static between 2014 and 2015, the onset of a strong El Niño weather phenomenon caused a spike in levels of the gas in the atmosphere. That's because the drought conditions in tropical regions produced by El Niño meant that vegetation was less able to absorb CO2. There were also extra emissions from fires, sparked by the drier conditions. In its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the World Meteorological Organisation says the conditions helped push the growth in the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere above the average for the last ten years. At the atmospheric monitoring station in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, levels of CO2 broke through 400 parts per million (ppm), meaning 400 molecules of CO2 for every one million molecules in the atmosphere. The last time CO2 was regularly above 400ppm was three to five million years ago, say experts. Prior to 1800 atmospheric levels were around 280ppm, according to the US National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). The WMO says that the rise through the 400ppm barrier has persisted and it's likely that 2016 will be the first full year when the measurements show CO2 above that benchmark, and ""hence for many generations"". While the El Niño factor has now disappeared, the human impact on climate change has not, the WMO argues. ""The year 2015 ushered in a new era of optimism and climate action with the Paris climate change agreement,"" said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. ""But it will also make history as marking a new era of climate change reality with record high greenhouse gas concentrations."" The report also details the growth in other greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide. In 2015, levels of methane were 2.5 times greater than in the pre-industrial era, while nitrous oxide was 1.2 times above the historic measure. The study also points to the impact of these increased concentrations of warming gases on the world's climate. Between 1990 and 2015 there was a 37% increase in radiative forcing or warming effect, caused by a build up of these substances, from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities. While welcoming new initiatives like the global agreement to phase out HFC gases agreed recently in Rwanda, the WMO argues that nations must retain their focus on cutting CO2. ""Without tackling CO2 emissions, we cannot tackle climate change and keep temperature increases to below 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial era,"" said Petteri Taalas. ""It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Paris Agreement does indeed enter into force well ahead of schedule on 4 November and that we fast-track its implementation."" Around 200 nations who signed the Paris climate agreement will meet in Morocco in November to decide on the next steps forward."
85,"California history teacher placed on leave after comparing Trump to Hitler —  A California history teacher was placed on leave Thursday after a complaint over a lesson where he compared President-elect Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.   The Monterrey Herald reported that Frank Navarro was asked to leave in the middle of the day after a parent sent an email to Mountain View High School expressing concerns over the comparison. The area’s Superintendent Jeff Harding confirmed the incident, but refused to detail the complaint.   Navarro has taught at Mountain View for 40 years. He’s an expert on the Holocaust. He told the paper that school officials didn’t disclose what the parent’s complaint was. They also declined to review the lesson plan.   “This feels like we’re trying to squash free speech,” he said. “Everything I talk about is factually based. They can go and check it out. It’s not propaganda or bias if it’s based on hard facts.”   The complaint comes in the midst of the uproar over Trump’s Election Day victory over Hillary Clinton. The Democratic nominee won the state’s 55 electoral votes.   Navarro had received complaints in the past about his lessons being one-sided, but insists that his plan was based on facts and not opinion.   “I said (to school officials), ‘I’m not pulling these facts out of my hat. It’s based on experience and work and if I’m wrong, show we where I’m wrong.’ And there was silence,” he said.   School officials originally told Navarro to return Wednesday, but Harding said he could return as early as Monday. A petition on Change.org to bring Navarro back garnered more than 1,000 signatures.   Navarro’s controversy came on the same day as Milpitas High School Principal Phil Morales was placed on administrative leave for using profanity about Trump during a student walkout.   Mountain View High School is about 16 miles from Milpitas High School."
86,"Calls to crisis and suicide prevention hotlines surge post-election —  In the wee hours of November 9, when the US presidential race approached its stunning end, John Draper and those he works with saw a different surprising result. The phone lines at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline lit up in a way not seen before.   Between 1 and 2 a.m. alone, Draper said, the national network fielded 660 calls. The volume was two to three times what it had been, and that was on a night when calls were already on a dramatic upswing, increasing as polls closed and returns came in, the lifeline's director said. It's a trend that's played out with other services too, and the direct link to the election was ""pretty undeniable,"" said Draper, who's spent about 25 years working in the suicide prevention and crisis intervention field. ""I can't say I've seen anything like this. ... And it's certainly not something I've ever seen in an election."" He saw a spike in calls after the September 11 terrorist attacks, when he ran a New York City hotline. But not since comedian and actor Robin Williams killed himself in 2014 has this national lifeline, established in 2005, seen such a surge. That dramatic uptick (much bigger than after the election) was tied to the media's steady and pervasive promotion of the lifeline's number. In this case, the number wasn't promoted anywhere in relation to the election, and desperate callers -- with pre-existing anxieties that were triggered by this national event, he emphasized -- sought out the lifeline. That's what made the spike in calls so unexpected, though the eventual content was less of a surprise. ""They call and say it's the election,"" Draper said. ""But by the end of the call, it's about their lives, and that's when we can help them."" Calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which includes a network of more than 160 crisis centers, have since leveled off. But that's not the case for other services. Ongoing flood of calls Like the national lifeline, the Crisis Text Line -- which connects texters with crisis counselors -- saw swelling numbers as the election results unfolded. Between midnight and 1 a.m. Wednesday, it saw eight times the normal volume of texts, spokeswoman Liz Eddy said. On an average day, this crisis line sees about 1,000 texters. From 7 a.m. Tuesday to Wednesday morning, that number jumped to 2,000. Then, from Wednesday morning to Thursday morning, it continued to climb to 4,000. The Crisis Text Line also saw a surge after Williams committed suicide. Its numbers also climbed after the 2015 Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks, when texters who identified as Muslim shared fears about how they'd be treated, Eddy said. But the US election is the first time this new service, founded in 2013, has seen reactions bubble up in response to politics. In a release Eddy sent out, she said that ""election"" and ""scared"" were the top two words mentioned by texters in the 24 hours after the election. And the phrase most commonly associated with ""scared"" was ""LGBTQ."" The Trevor Project is the national leader in providing crisis and suicide prevention support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth. Last year, the organization fielded 54,000 contacts -- made by phone, online chat or text -- according to Steve Mendelsohn, its deputy executive director. The normal call volume, Mendelsohn said, doubled as a result of the election and has stayed constant. He said more than 95% of those reaching out have talked about the election. ""It's been ongoing since Tuesday night,"" he explained. ""Young people are calling us who've never called us before. They're scared, and they don't know who to turn to. ... Given all the rhetoric that they've heard leading up to the election, it makes sense that they're frightened."" Mendelsohn wasn't able to share exact numbers, saying the organization is more concerned with fielding calls than with running statistical analysis. But he was able to provide some context. The last time the Trevor Project saw such an extreme uptick in traffic came in 2012, when an episode of the TV show ""Glee"" included an attempted suicide and featured a Trevor Project PSA. Like the media's influence on calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline after Williams' death, this barrage of contacts was expected. More recently, Mendelsohn said, there was a spike in unanticipated calls in June, after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. The post-election volume, he said, is 70% higher than it was then. Where it's 'basically apocalyptic' Lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. Among young transgender people, nearly half admit to having seriously considered ending their lives, and one-quarter report having attempted suicide. This is according to statistics outlined on the Trevor Project website. When you factor in transgender people of all ages, the attempted suicide rates are grimmer. Forty-six percent of trans men (female-to-male) and 42% of trans women (male-to-female) have attempted suicide, according to a 2014 survey (PDF) conducted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. The election results and what they may portend have crushed the transgender community, said Greta Martel, co-founder and executive director of the 2-year-old Trans Lifeline. This crisis hotline has been flooded with more calls than it can take. On a normal day, the Trans Lifeline fields 50 to 60 calls, Martel said. When North Carolina's House Bill 2, commonly referred to as the ""bathroom bill,"" was at its height in the news, the lifeline got as many as 250 calls a day. But since the election, and with no sign of abating, the service is getting more than 500 calls a day. Given its scrappy, startup size, she says, its workers are lucky if they can answer 200 a day. Callers are panicked about what lies ahead for them, she said. A repeal of the Affordable Care Act could result in a loss of insurance and the trans-affirming health care they'd finally secured, she said. What will that mean for the hormones they rely on and the surgeries they've planned? ""It's just overwhelming,"" Martel said. ""It's basically apocalyptic right now. I don't know what's going to fix this for us."" She said the staff at Trans Lifeline is doing all it can to support the community, but given what they're seeing right now, they need help to train more volunteers and beef up their efforts. How to help a person in crisis If you or someone you know is having a mental health crisis or suicidal thoughts, no matter what the trigger, these national services exist to provide people with support and the reminder that they are not alone. Beyond what a counselor can say directly, here are some ideas to help lift people up. Be there for each other. Get back to a routine. Limit exposure to conversations or media -- social or otherwise -- that aggravates feelings of hopelessness. These are just some of the ways in which people can help themselves right now, said Draper, of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. This election ignited for some pre-existing worries and feelings of loss, he said, and once people begin controlling what they can control, the darkness should lift. One of the best ways to help yourself, he suggested, is to help others through acts of kindness and compassion. Volunteer at a place that matters to you. Get involved with a cause that speaks to your core. ""Bind that anxiety through action,"" he said. ""Creating a more kind, personal atmosphere is really needed right now."""
87,"Can science stop the looming banana extinction? —  The banana is the world's most popular fruit crop, with over 100 million metric tons produced annually in over 130 tropical and subtropical countries. Edible bananas are the result of a genetic accident in nature that created the seedless fruit we enjoy today. Virtually all the bananas sold across the Western world belong to the so-called Cavendish subgroup of the species and are genetically nearly identical. These bananas are sterile and dependent on propagation via cloning, either by using suckers and cuttings taken from the underground stem or through modern tissue culture. The familiar bright yellow Cavendish banana is ubiquitous in supermarkets and fruit bowls, but it is in imminent danger. The vast worldwide monoculture of genetically identical plants leaves the Cavendish intensely vulnerable to disease outbreaks. Fungal diseases severely devastated the banana industry once in history and it could soon happen again if we do not resolve the cause of these problems. Plant scientists, including us, are working out the genetics of wild banana varieties and banana pathogens as we try to prevent a Cavendish crash. The cautionary tale of 'Big Mike' One of the most prominent examples of genetic vulnerability comes from the banana itself. Up until the 1960s, Gros Michel, or ""Big Mike,"" was the prime variety grown in commercial plantations. Big Mike was so popular with consumers in the West that the banana industry established ever larger monocultures of this variety. Thousands of hectares of tropical forests in Latin America were converted into vast Gros Michel plantations. But Big Mike's popularity led to its doom, when a pandemic whipped through these plantations during the 1950s and '60's. A fungal disease called Fusarium wilt or Panama disease nearly wiped out the Gros Michel and brought the global banana export industry to the brink of collapse. A soilborne pathogen was to blame: The fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) infected the plants' root and vascular system. Unable to transport water and nutrients, the plants wilted and died. Can we 'vaccinate' plants to boost their immunity? Fusarium wilt is very difficult to control -- it spreads easily in soil, water and infected planting material. Fungicide applications in soil or in the plant's stem are as of yet ineffective. Moreover, the fungus can persist in the soil for several decades, thus prohibiting replanting of susceptible banana plants. Is history repeating itself? Cavendish bananas are resistant to those devastating Fusarium wilt Race 1 strains, so were able to replace the Gros Michel when it fell to the disease. Despite being less rich in taste and logistical challenges involved with merchandising this fruit to international markets at an acceptable quality, Cavendish eventually replaced Gros Michel in commercial banana plantations. The entire banana industry was restructured, and to date, Cavendish accounts for 47 percent of the bananas grown worldwide and 99 percent of all bananas sold commercially for export to developed countries. But the Cavendish unfortunately has its own weaknesses -- most prominently susceptibility to a disease called Black Sigatoka. The fungus Pseudocercospora fijiensis attacks the plants' leaves, causing cell death that affects photosynthesis and leads to a reduction in fruit production and quality. If Black Sigatoka is left uncontrolled, banana yields can decline by 35 to 50 percent. Cavendish growers currently manage Black Sigatoka through a combination of pruning infected leaves and applying fungicides. Yearly, it can take 50 or more applications of chemicals to control the disease. Such heavy use of fungicides has negative impacts on the environment and the occupational health of the banana workers, and increases the costs of production. It also helps select for survival the strains of the fungus with higher levels of resistance to these chemicals: As the resistant strains become more prevalent, the disease gets harder to control over time. New genetically engineered American chestnut will help restore the decimated iconic tree To further aggravate the situation, Cavendish is also now under attack from a recently emerged strain of Fusarium oxysporum, known as Tropical Race 4 (TR4). First identified in the early 1990s in Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia, TR4 has since spread to many Southeast Asian countries and on into the Middle East and Africa. If TR4 makes it to Latin America and the Caribbean region, the export banana industry in that part of the world could be in big trouble. Cavendish varieties have shown little if any resistance against TR4. Growers are relying on temporary solutions -- trying to prevent it from entering new regions, using clean planting materials and limiting the transfer of potentially infected soil between farms. Black Sigatoka and Panama disease both cause serious production losses and are difficult to control. With the right monitoring in place to rapidly intervene and halt their spread, the risks and damage imposed by these diseases can be considerably reduced, as has been recently shown in Australia. But current practices don't provide the durable solution that's urgently needed. Getting started on banana genetic research If there's a lesson to be learned from the sad history of Gros Michel, it's that reliance on a large and genetically uniform monoculture is a risky strategy that is prone to failure. To reduce the vulnerability to diseases, we need more genetic diversity in our cultivated bananas. Over a thousand species of banana have been recorded in the wild. Although most do not have the desired agronomic characteristics -- such as high yields of seedless, nonacidic fruits with long shelf life -- that would make them a direct substitute for the Cavendish, they are an untapped genetic resource. Scientists could search within them for resistance genes and other desirable traits to use in engineering and breeding programs. To date, though, there's been little effort and insufficient funding for collecting, protecting, characterizing and utilizing wild banana genetic material. Consequently, while almost every other crop used for food production has been significantly improved through plant breeding over the last century, the banana industry has yet to benefit from genetics and plant breeding. Helping plants fight off pathogens by enhancing their immune systems But we have started taking the first steps. We now know the genome sequences of the banana and the fungi that cause Fusarium wilt and Sigatoka. These studies helped illuminate some of the molecular mechanisms by which these fungal pathogens cause disease in the banana. That knowledge provides a basis for identifying disease-resistant genes in wild and cultivated bananas. Researchers now have the tools to identify resistance genes in wild bananas or other plant species. Then they can use classical plant breeding or genetic engineering to transfer those genes into desired cultivars. Scientists can also use these tools to further study the dynamics and evolution of banana pathogens in the field, and monitor changes in their resistance to fungicides. Availability of the latest tools and detailed genome sequences, coupled with long-term visionary research in genetics, engineering and plant breeding, can help us keep abreast of the pathogens that are currently menacing the Cavendish banana. Ultimately we need to increase the pool of genetic diversity in cultivated bananas so we're not dependent on single clones such as the Cavendish or the Gros Michel before it. Otherwise we remain at risk of history repeating itself. Ioannis Stergiopoulos is an assistant professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Davis. André Drenth is a professor of agriculture and food sciences at the University of Queensland. Gert Kema is a special professor of phytopathology at Wageningen University. He receives funding for his R&D program on bananas; he also co-founded two companies dealing with bananas and owns shares in Yellow Pallet, a company that produces transport pallets from banana fiber. Copyright 2016 The Conversation. Some rights reserved."
88,"Celebgate hack: Collins sentenced over nude photos theft —  A Pennsylvania court has sentenced a man to 18 months in jail for hacking into the accounts of celebrities and stealing nude photos and videos. Ryan Collins, 36, pleaded guilty to the charges in May. He had stolen the usernames and passwords of more than 600 people. Collins tricked his victims - including actresses Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Scarlett Johansson, and Kirsten Dunst - by sending emails appearing be from Google or Apple. Collins was charged with accessing the photos between 2012 and 2014, in a case known as ""celebgate"". But was not charged with releasing them. A statement by prosecutors said: ""Investigators have not uncovered any evidence linking Collins to the actual leaks or that Collins shared or uploaded the information he obtained."" Collins accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts. Court filings said he had used fraudulent email addresses designed to look like security accounts from service providers, including email.protection318@icloud.com, noreply_helpdesk0118@outlook.com and secure.helpdesk0119@gmail.com. Collins was originally charged in Los Angeles, but sentenced in Pennsylvania, his home state."
89,"Celebrity jeweler's surrogate son, second man arrested in gruesome stabbing of Manhattan partygoer —  Bloody evidence, a burned body buried under a foot of earth and a botched coverup led authorities to charge two men with various crimes in the stabbing death of a guest after they partied at a luxury East Side apartment.   But neither is charged with killing Joseph Comunale. Investigators have no doubts Comunale was murdered, but did one of the suspects — or both — do it? That's the question they are working to answer.   James Rackover, 25, a Florida ex-con who became a surrogate son to celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover, was charged Thursday with hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence, and concealing a corpse in the slaying of Comunale, 26. Prosecutors also hit Lawrence Dilione, 28, of Jersey City, with the same charges.   Police said the victim was stabbed in the chest 15 times. His bludgeoned and partially burned body was found in a foot-deep grave along the Jersey Shore, police said.   ""One or both of these people committed a murder,"" Assistant District Attorney Antoinette Carter said during an arraignment late Thursday for Rackover Dilione. Both men were ordered held on $3 million bond.   ""We're treating this case as a homicide. Both of these defendants were seen in the basement adjusting the surveillance camera. Dilione is the last person who saw Joseph Comunale alive.” The bloodthirsty pair used a luggage rack to cart the body from the ritzy address, drove an hour south and tried to torch Comunale's bruised and broken corpse, according to sources. Cops are still looking to question at least one other person, sources said.   Friends of jeweler-to-the-stars Jeffrey Rackover — whose client list includes Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and incoming First Lady Melania Trump — said he was devastated. ""You can't talk to him — he starts to cry,"" said longtime pal Bo Dietl, an ex-NYPD detective. ""You know the old expression: No good deed goes unpunished. This is the perfect frigging example.""   James was the son Jeffrey never had, Dietl said.   The younger Rackover's blood-spattered E. 59th St. home provided damning proof, as police recovered 32 pieces of evidence from the gory crime scene, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. There were bloodstains on the wall, and cops pulled the victim's clothes, along with sheets and towels, from trash bags tossed down a garbage chute.   The killers tried unsuccessfully to bleach the blood from Comunale's outfit, Boyce said.   The motive for the gut-wrenching attack remained under investigation, although sources indicated the killing occurred after Comunale rejected the sexual advances of one of the men inside the apartment. Both men clammed up after Dilione told cops where to find the body, prosecutors said. The pair are due back in court Monday.   The gasoline used in the attempt to burn Comunale's body was found as well, and the shallow grave where the Stamford, Conn., man was dumped is 1 mile from Dilione's old residence in Oceanport, N.J.   Boyce said officers were cutting down weeds in the remote wooded area where the body was found in hopes of turning up more evidence. An autopsy was performed at the Monmouth County coroner's office.   Comunale’s father Pat told NBC News late Thursday, “It's horrific that another person can do this to an individual, and take a guy who was the most charismatic, funny guy — always the life of the party — never did steroids or anything else. And his friends can all attest to the type of individual he was.”   A solemn-faced Rackover, his head down and his pompadoured hair just perfect, was led from the 13th Precinct stationhouse in handcuffs Thursday afternoon. The suspect, who spent two days in custody before being charged, ignored questions shouted by reporters.   Rackover, dressed in a finely tailored blue suit, wearing loafers with no socks, and Dilione in a grimy designer hoodie with leather quilted sleeves both looked down throughout the arraignment.   Maurice Sercarz, Rackover's lawyer, insisted the case had “serious problems.” “I can't downplay the brutal nature of what happened to that body in New Jersey,” he said. “These charges are just a place holder. I look forward to conducting our own investigation. I intend to vigorously contest these charges.”   Sercarz said Rackover has worked at an insurance underwriting firm for the past year, and insisted he didn't flee.   James Rackover was home with friends beginning Saturday night watching the Ultimate Fighting pay-per-view event before going out to a Meatpacking District nightclub. Comunale met his killers at the lounge and arrived at the apartment with three other men and three women around 4 a.m. Sunday.   Rackover was known as James Beaudoin when he was busted for a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., burglary in January 2009. He did time from 2012 to 2013 on the burglary rap before starting his new life in Manhattan.   Dietl said the Fifth Ave. jeweler met Beaudoin three years ago in a Manhattan gym and the two became fast friends.   ""They go out and have dinner, and the kid says, 'You know what? My father left me. I never had a father,'"" said Dietl. ""And Jeffrey starts talking about he never had a son, he always wanted a son.""   Father figure Jeffrey agreed to let James legally take his last name and helped the younger man find a one-bedroom apartment in his posh East Side high rise, Dietl said.   He even subsidized the rent and found Rackover a job with global management consultants Willis Towers Watson. James celebrated Passover Seders with Jeffrey's parents in the elder man's apartment, according to Dietl."
90,"Chicago just shut down hundreds of public drinking fountains because of lead in the water —  City officials have shut down hundreds of public drinking fountains in Chicago after tests detected excessive levels of lead in the water — another example of how the potentially harmful metal remains a threat in homes, schools and other settings around the country. The ongoing crisis in Flint, Mich., in which a city of nearly 100,000 people was exposed to high levels of lead in the water, has prompted other communities to test for the toxic substance in recent months. Among those was the Chicago Park District, which said it began testing thousands of public fountains in the spring. The agency found that 445 of the city’s 1,891 outdoor fountains — or nearly a quarter — showed lead levels higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s “action level” of 15 parts per billion. In addition, 14 of 544 indoor fountains and sinks exceeded the federal standard. [Schools around the country find lead in water, with no easy answers] Some fountains displayed startling amounts of lead in the water. Two fountains in the Avalon Park area registered 1,800 parts per billion and 1,200 parts per billion, according to data released by the city. Another fountain in Grant Park also registered 1,200 parts per billion — 80 times the level considered permissible by the EPA. Officials said all fountains and sinks that tested for high lead levels have been disabled. “Ensuring the health and safety of all park patrons and staff is a top priority of the Park District,” the agency’s spokeswoman, Jessica Maxey-Faulkner, said in a statement, adding that the “fountains will undergo further testing, and will be removed, repaired or replaced, as necessary.” The Park District modeled its effort after testing undertaken by Chicago schools, which also found issues with lead in the water at some schools. Earlier this year, the head of the public school system in Chicago pledged to do “whatever it takes” to rectify lead problems after risky levels of lead were detected in dozens of buildings. [In some Zip codes, 1 in 7 children suffer from dangerously high blood lead levels] About 40,000 children attend summer day camps at the city’s parks, and thousands more attend programs at the parks throughout the school year, according to the Chicago Tribune. Public health officials agree that there is no “safe” level of lead in the body. The substance can be particularly damaging to young children, contributing to permanent learning disabilities, behavioral problems and, at higher levels, a number of diseases. Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University and a former EPA regulator, said Chicago’s findings underscore a lack of adequate testing for lead around the country. Under current rules, cities are required to test only a small number of samples from homes to check the municipal water supply for lead. But no requirements exist for routine tests in schools or other public settings, such as parks. “This is a national problem,” Goldman said. “What this highlights for me is that it really needs to be a requirement by the [EPA] that all cities and schools test these public drinking water fountains.” She applauded Chicago for proactively shutting down fountains with high lead levels, but she said there’s no guarantee the same problem won’t crop up again, because the tests offer only a snapshot of the water at any given time. In addition, she said Chicago is hardly the only city where the public water sources are potentially hazardous, as lead pipes and fixtures remain ubiquitous in communities across the country. Goldman said it’s unlikely that taking a sip from a single fountain would seriously affect a person’s health. But she noted that for some people, such as the homeless, public fountains are a primary water source. And when it comes to children, it could be yet another contributor of lead in their environment. “The risks of lead are cumulative,” she said."
91,"Child sex abuse victim recalls horror of being forced to sleep with father and mother —  A woman has recalled the horror of being forced to have sex with both of her parents and being plied with alcohol from the age of 11.   In a particularly heartbreaking episode of The Dr Phil Show, an incestuous child abuse survivor confronted her biological mother two decades on. Victim Amanda divulged her horrific experience, including her parents making her pose for explicit photographs and videotaping their sexual encounters with a view to sell them online.   Mother Justine – who appeared remorseful for her actions – claimed that she ""hates"" herself for the crimes made against her daughter. She said: ""I know I made poor choices.""   The daughter told her mother and the audience: ""My innocence was stolen from me.""   Television host Dr Phil questioned the mother: ""In what parallel universe does a mother watch her daughter performing a sex act on her husband and her father?""   Justine and Amanda's biological father Jim were charged with sexual assault and exploitation of their then 13-year-old daughter in 1996. They both pleaded guilty and received sentences of 20 years in prison.   Amanda shocked the audience when she said: ""My parents forced me to have sex with them,"" before revealing that she was given rewards for the sexual acts and that her mother showed her how to ""enjoy"" sex. ""Justine would show me how good sex would feel by having sex in front of me with my father,"" she added. The young woman also claimed she was forced to have sex with both parents. She said that mother Justine both coached her sexually and was a ""willing participant"" in the ongoing sexual abuse.   Amanda revealed that Justine photographed and videotaped much of what she refers to as ""encounters."" After her parents ""got what they wanted"", family life would resume as normal.   Following the abuse, Amanda gave an account of what would typically happen thereafter. She said: ""Afterwards, it was a normal night, dessert, brush my teeth and bedtime.""   She also claimed that her parents threatened her if she revealed their dark secret to anyone in a bid for help. ""It's been 20 years since that nightmare ended, but it's still hard to grasp the idea that they are out of prison,"" she said. According to the victim, her mother Justine had allegedly refused ""to acknowledge that she had any significant part"" in the molestation.   Jim, who has since reached out to his daughter on Facebook before becoming ""manipulative,"" has yet to apologise to Amanda. She said: ""I don't think I've ever received a real apology from Jim. Justine claims that her and her husband's behaviour was fuelled by money. She said: ""Jim found out how much money could be made from child pornography.   ""If I could take it all back I would. I hate myself for what I did,"" she added, along with claims that Amanda's father made her ""join him"" in abusing their daughter. She suggested it was all her then-husband's idea and that she had initially fought him for three months, but eventually ""gave in"". Contrarily, Jim has previously branded his ex-wife a liar, and stated that she was a willing participant in their heinous sex crimes against their own child. He is to appear on The Dr Phil Show today (17 November) and explain why he had sex with his daughter.   Since the episode aired, the official Twitter account for Dr Phil has posted a slew of tweets regarding child abuse and information on paedophiles.   Many viewers have expressed their horror on Amanda's story, with one person writing on the social media sharing site: ""This show is a hard one... don't know how I'm going to stomach tomorrow's continuation,"" as another put: ""SO Sad. Her parents are sick and should be ashamed of themselves""."
92,"China: Boy trapped in well found dead after 4 days —  A young boy stuck in a well in northern China since Sunday has been found dead, according to local media.   Rescue crews found the boy's body Thursday in a narrow, abandoned well in the province of Hebei, bringing an end to an almost five-day search involving more than 500 responders. He fell down the well -- just one foot (30 centimeters) wide -- while helping his father harvest vegetables, state news agency Xinhua reported. Too narrow for adults to climb into, rescuers began digging out the 40-meter deep well. Aerial shots of the scene showed excavators working on soft sandy soil around the dry well. Xinhua said the earth was prone to collapse and measures had been taken to support the shaft."
93,"Civilian casualties are starting to rise as Iraqi forces push into Mosul —  The vehicles screeched into the small field hospital on the outskirts of Mosul carrying desperate loads: soldiers injured in battle as well as men, women and children caught in the crossfire of Iraq’s war against the Islamic State.   Some staggered out clutching bleeding wounds; others were lifted by medics onto stretchers. They had come face-to-face with chlorine gas, mortar fire, bombs and artillery shells. For a few, it was too late, and instead of a stretcher, a body bag waited.   The medical station, manned by medics from Iraq’s special forces alongside U.S. and Slovak volunteers, provides a small window onto the inevitable human toll of the battle to oust the Islamic State from Mosul as the war pushes deeper into the city.   After more than two weeks of advances, Iraqi forces are now pressing into more densely populated areas and penetrating the epicenter of the group’s last remaining territory in the country. As they do, Iraqi commanders say Islamic State militants are putting up a tougher fight than they have ever seen, bringing furious battles to the doorsteps of more than a million people.   The civilian presence hugely complicates the fight for the advancing Iraqi forces and for airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, a fact the Islamic State is using for its gain as it desperately tries to hold on to its capital in Iraq.   For more than a year, the militants have largely prevented people from leaving the city, but in recent weeks they have rounded up villagers from the outskirts and forced them inside the city to use as human shields. “Head injury!” shouted Maj. Ahmed Hussein, the medical station’s chief medic, as a 16-year-old girl arrived in a family sedan. After laying her on a stretcher, medics bound her head, trying to stanch the flow of blood from a shrapnel wound. “May God take revenge on Daesh,” cried her mother, using a derogatory term for the Islamic State.   Before the team had finished treating her, another casualty arrived: a tank driver struggling to breathe after a suspected chlorine attack. He was drained of color, and his chest trembled as he tried to fill his lungs. The militants have regularly used chlorine on the battlefield, often dispatching it in mortar shells.   “That’s our sixth or seventh chlorine gas,” said Derek Coleman, 27, from San Diego, who came to Iraq with hopes of fighting the Islamic State but said he later realized he could be of more use as a medic. Coleman, two other Americans and two Slovaks were spending their first day with Iraqi forces after previously assisting Kurdish peshmerga soldiers.   The Iraqis do not appear to have much need for them, he said, as the Iraqi special forces have better-organized medical teams. But Hussein said he still appreciates the extra hands and supplies.   Hussein said more civilians have been injured in recent days, although he was quick to point out that the Islamic State is responsible. “They use civilians as a shield,” he said.   Over the course of the day, Hussein’s station treated 15 civilians, one of whom died from gunshot wounds. Many, though, are probably unable to reach medical assistance, and those fleeing talk of entire families killed in shelling and bombing.   But the militants do not appear ready to concede ground easily, potentially drawing out the fight and putting civilians at risk for longer.   The Iraqi military does not release overall casualty figures, but troops have faced stiff resistance as they have broken into the Islamic State’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq.   Some 11 special forces troops were treated for injuries at the medical station, while two died. Not all Iraqi casualties pass through this point, and the toll is probably much higher. News of new car bombs crackled through on the radio.   “They are fighting very, very hard for the city,” said Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, head of the special forces, also known as counterterrorism troops. “They will not give it up easily.” [In first big wave, Iraqis flee Mosul and crowd into camps]   Friday’s fight in urban areas was extremely tough, he said, adding that the taking of people to use as human shields “has complicated the battle in a way we didn’t expect.”   A black Humvee pulled up at the medical station, which is little more than a few beds and stretchers near an abandoned mosque in Gogjali district, on the eastern edge of Mosul. Men cried out for a body bag. The body of a soldier from Iraq’s special forces was lifted out of the back. The top of his head, from the jaw up, was missing. His clothes were soaked in blood.   “This is war,” Hussein said as he turned away.   The Iraqi government is trying to keep people in their homes during the fighting, but as the battle draws near, many inevitably flee.   The sound of heavy bombing and gunfire could be heard coming from the city, while Apache helicopters flew back and forth. Cars topped with white flags continued to stream out of eastern neighborhoods.   For those who stay, even after their areas are cleared of militants, food supplies are low, forcing many out. A woman from Gogjali arrived at the medical station with her young daughter, who held a white flag fashioned out of a small piece of cloth attached to the end of a kitchen whisk.   The woman, who was too scared to be named, asked the soldiers to break open a shop that she said used to belong to the Islamic State and had sold milk before it had been locked up when the militants fled.   “I’ll put money in the register. I just need milk for my baby,” she said.   Hussein said that he could not break into private property and that it might be booby-trapped, but he dispatched a soldier to find milk.   Another car pulled up at the makeshift clinic carrying two injured children. One had a bone jutting out of his mangled arm. His chest was gouged by shrapnel. He had been playing near his house when he picked up something that looked like a grenade.   “I told him to leave it,” said Ayman Ouda, the boy’s elder, 11-year-old cousin, who was lightly injured. “But he dropped it, and it exploded.”   Medics surrounded the younger boy, and Hussein called for a drip. His fracture was treated, and he was rushed into the back of a waiting ambulance. But Peter Reed, 27, from Bordentown, N.J., and another volunteer here, is not hopeful.   “He’s probably not going to make it to the next med station,” he said."
94,"Civilians shot, bodies hung from poles in Mosul, Iraqi sources say —  As fighting continued in and around Mosul on Friday, civilians caught in crossfire have a stark choice: whether to flee or stay huddled inside their homes.   Many residents tell CNN the intensity of the fighting and the airstrikes in eastern parts of the city limited their options. Still, tens of thousands have chosen the escape route. More than 47,730 people have been displaced because of the ongoing military operations to retake Mosul from ISIS, according to the International Organization for Migration. Roughly 12,800 people have fled since Tuesday, the organization said. Other residents of Mosul have simply chosen to heed the Iraqi Security Forces instructions to stay in their homes if they feel safe enough inside. Still others are too scared to leave their homes, because of ISIS' campaign of terror against the civilians. Witnesses told CNN among the dozens executed this week, more than 30 people were shot in the head for having cell phones. Their bodies were left at various intersections across Mosul as a warning. The bodies are not being removed as residents fear reprisals from ISIS militants, witnesses said. Here are some of the latest developments in the battle for Mosul: The UN human rights office released a report Friday, confirming that at least 60 civilians have been killed in Mosul this week, and reported new details of alleged atrocities by ISIS fighters. On Wednesday evening, ISIS reportedly killed 20 civilians at the Ghabat military base in northern Mosul on charges of leaking information, the UN body said. ""Their bodies were also hung at various intersections in Mosul, with notes stating: 'decision of execution' and 'used cell phones to leak information to the ISF.' "" On Tuesday, ISIS shot and killed 40 civilians in Mosul after accusing them of ""treason and collaboration"" with Iraqi security forces, according to a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. ""The victims were dressed in orange clothes marked in red with the words: 'traitors and agents of the ISF.' Their bodies were then hung on electrical poles in several areas in Mosul city,"" the report said.   Local ISIS commanders have started fleeing in some neighborhoods, residents said, leaving behind trained teenage ISIS combatants to fight Iraqi forces. Mosul residents said they fear these young fighters as much, if not more, than other ISIS militants because they have been brainwashed, have no fear and have a great amount of zealotry after being indoctrinated and trained for two years. The UNHCR report said ISIS had ""deployed what it calls the 'sons of the caliphate' in the alleys of the old town of Mosul, wearing explosive belts. We are concerned that these may be teenagers and young boys."" ISIS posted video footage Wednesday, ""showing four children, believed to be between 10 and 14 years old, shooting to death four people for spying for the ISF and the Peshmerga,"" the report said, referring to Iraqi and Kurdish forces. UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein cited ""heartbreaking images"" of ISIS forcing children to carry out executions and reports of women being ""redistributed"" among ISIS fighters, as evidence of the ""numbing and intolerable"" suffering of civilians in Mosul and other ISIS-held areas. He called on Iraqi authorities to ensure the perpetrators of such abuses are dealt with according to the rule of law so as to limit revenge attacks and help communities rebuild. Senior ISIS leader killed In another development, Mahmoud Shukri al Nuaimi, a senior ISIS commander, has been killed in the battle for Mosul, the terror group's last major stronghold in Iraq, Iraqi military intelligence sources tell CNN. Al Nuaimi, also is known as Sheikh Faris, was killed Tuesday in an Iraqi-led coalition airstrike in western Mosul, the sources said. ISIS confirmed his death in a video montage, referring to him as ""the martyr of the battle."" The Iraqi sources told CNN that Nuaimi was formerly a high-ranking intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's intelligence services. In Mosul's east, residents said ISIS militants were forcing them from their homes, either to booby trap the houses or to take them over as fighting positions. Militants have reportedly left barrels of crude oil at major intersections, ready to be set afire to hamper Iraqi advances. ISIS has also used white flags to disguise suicide car bombs in Mosul, according to Saban Al Numan, an Iraqi counterterrorism official. The battle for Mosul is difficult, slow and complicated, Numan said. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed victory last month at the start of the long-awaited offensive on Mosul, but he warned the effort could take time. ISIS, an agile enemy, has been preparing its defenses for two years. It takes advantage of the terrain, a network of tunnels and booby-trapped buildings, to great effect. US military officials estimate some 3,000 to 5,000 ISIS fighters are in Mosul. An additional 1,500 to 2,000 fighters may be waiting outside the city limits."
95,"Climate Change Has Doubled Western U.S. Forest Fires —  A new study says that human-induced climate change has doubled the area affected by forest fires in the U.S. West over the last 30 years. According to the study, since 1984 heightened temperatures and resulting aridity have caused fires to spread across an additional 16,000 square miles than they otherwise would have—an area larger than the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. The authors warn that further warming will increase fire exponentially in coming decades. The study appears today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “No matter how hard we try, the fires are going to keep getting bigger, and the reason is really clear,” said study coauthor Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Climate is really running the show in terms of what burns. We should be getting ready for bigger fire years than those familiar to previous generations.” Fires in western forests began increasing abruptly in the 1980s, as measured by area burned, the number of large fires, and length of the fire season. The increases have continued, and recently scientists and public officials have in part blamed human-influenced climate change. The new study is perhaps the first to quantify that assertion. “A lot of people are throwing around the words climate change and fire—specifically, last year fire chiefs and the governor of California started calling this the ‘new normal,’ ” said lead author John Abatzoglou, a professor of geography at the University of Idaho. “We wanted to put some numbers on it.” Warmth drives fire by drying out the land. Warmer air can hold more moisture, and the air ends up sucking it out of plants, trees, dead vegetation on the ground, and soil. Average temperatures in forested parts of the U.S. West have gone up about 2.5 degrees F since 1970, and are expected to keep rising. The resulting drying effect is evident in the rise of more fires. Williams published a study last year showing how climate-driven removal of moisture from land worsened the recent California drought, which was accompanied by widespread fires.  The overall increase in fire since the 1980s is about twice what the researchers attribute to climate change; the rest is due to other factors, they say. One has been a long-term natural climate oscillation over the Pacific Ocean that has steered storms away from the western United States. Another: firefighting itself. By constantly putting out fires, authorities have allowed areas they “saved” to build up more dry fuel, which later ignites, causing ever more catastrophic blazes, the researchers say. The costs of fire fighting have risen sharply in step; last year the federal government alone spent more than $2.1 billion. “We’re seeing the consequence of very successful fire suppression, except now it’s not that successful anymore,” said Abatzoglou."
96,"Climate Change Threatens World’s Coffee Supply, Report Says —  A report examining the many ways climate change threatens coffee and coffee farmers has alarmed people who are now imagining what it would be like getting through the day without their caffeine fix. The report, released this month by the Climate Institute, a nonprofit organization in Australia, was commissioned by Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand, the regional hub of the global Fairtrade system. Though it contains little new research, it has made waves by collating an array of available literature indicating that climate change will have a stark effect on the world’s coffee supply. The report emphasizes the threat warming temperatures pose to farmland, citing a study from the March 2015 issue of the journal Climatic Change that found climate change “will reduce the global area suitable for coffee by about 50 percent across emission scenarios.” In addition to the disappearing land on which to grow coffee, the report highlights the way warmer weather is exacerbating the threat of diseases like coffee rust and pests like the coffee berry borer, a type of beetle that a 2011 report said caused annual losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in coffee beans. “The extra warmth is enabling those sorts of lines of attack to be strengthened,” said John Connor, the chief executive of the Climate Institute. Coffee plants thrive in stable environments where a precise combination of temperature and precipitation allows beans to prosper while keeping their taste profile. The report shows that countries once offering the proper mix of climate factors in the “bean belt,” including Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Ethiopia and Vietnam, have become less hospitable because of shifts in weather patterns scientists say can be attributed to climate change. The report’s findings, though new to many people, are all too familiar to major coffee companies, which have been scrambling to battle climate change’s effect on their product for the past several years. “It’s a severe threat,” said Doug Welsh, the vice president of coffee at Peet’s Coffee and a member of the board of World Coffee Research, an international group founded by coffee companies intent on protecting their cash crop. “It’s anecdotal, but I don’t know any coffee farmers who don’t believe that their weather, and with it their disease and productivity issues, have changed dramatically over the last decade,” he said. A spokeswoman from Starbucks, Haley P. Drage, said that the company had been offering coffee growers support programs for years to help ensure the longevity of their farms. “This becomes even more important when farmers experience fluctuating weather conditions that are the result of a warmer climate,” she said. “We believe that with the proper vigilance, as well as a long-term approach, we can help farmers manage the variables that come with these new dynamics.” But Mr. Welsh, touting the benefits of the World Coffee Research group, said, “There is no coffee company on the face of the earth that’s big enough to tackle the challenge of climate change on its own.” The strategies the organization is developing acknowledge the severity of the threat from climate change, and many are adaptive rather than preventive — taking for granted that temperatures are bound to keep rising. For instance, one project aims to create a gene bank to preserve the genetic diversity in Arabica coffee. Another strategy is the creation of a variety catalog with information on various beans’ pest resistance, yield and ability to thrive at certain altitudes. A third is a “sensory lexicon” in which the organization evaluates the new coffee varieties being developed by coffee breeders to ensure their palatability. But even the organization’s website acknowledges that “there are major gaps in our knowledge of how to best help coffee producers adapt to climate change.” Mr. Welsh said, “No one, of course, would want to see any coffee species go extinct, but we have to prepare for the distinct possibility that that could happen.” Molly Harriss Olson, the chief executive of Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand, said she was particularly concerned about coffee producers and the impact warming temperatures and unpredictable weather patterns would have on them. “Coffee supports the livelihoods of 125 million people around the world, including some of the most marginalized and poor people in developing countries,” she said, citing a report from the International Coffee Organization. “If we don’t do something about it soon, the consequences for these people are going to be absolutely devastating.”"
97,"Consumer Reports says dietary supplements can make you sick, or kill you —  The multimillion dollar dietary supplement business is being ‘attacked’ by a striking report from Consumer Reports, claiming that their panel of experts have identified fifteen supplement ingredients that can make anybody sick, or even kill them.   The risks of using which include cancer, organ damage and cardiac arrest. They also underlined that the severity of such threats often depends on factors as pre-existing conditions, as well as the quantity of ingredients taken, and the length of time a consumer has been exposed to the substance.   Fifteen supplement ingredients to avoid   First in the list is aconite. Supplements with it claim to give benefits such as reducing inflammation, gout and joint pain. However, taking it could deliver weakness, paralysis, vomiting, nausea, heart problems, and possibly death.   Second, caffeine powder. This ingredient is found in supplements that promise better athletic performance, attention improvements, and weight loss. Taking it gives risks such as seizures, cardiac arrest, and again, death. It is also dangerous when combined with other stimulants, the report revealed.   Third is chaparral. It promises weight loss, inflammation improvements, and others. Risks of taking it include kidney problems, liver damage, and possibly death (again).   Fourth, the Consumer Reports warned that taking supplements with coltsfoot–which promises cough, sore throat, asthma (and others) relief–gives carcinogen, which causes cancer, and liver problems.   Fifth is comfrey, and it claims to give cough relief, help for heavy menstrual periods, among others. Taking it could give you cancer, liver damage and even death.   Listed in the sixth is germander, an ingredient in weight loss, fever, arthritis and other supplements. Apart from death, taking it gives liver damage and hepatitis.   Seventh. greater celandine. Supplements containing it promise stomachache alleviation, but the Consumer Reports warned that taking it could give you liver damage.   Eight, which is arguably one of the most common in the market, is green tea extract powder. It not only gives you ringing in the ear, dizziness and reduced absorption of iron, but could also kill you by elevating your heart rate and blood pressure. It could also damage your liver.   Ninth. The report also warns that taking supplements with Kava might give you liver damage, Parkinson’s disease and depression, and possibly death. Supplements shipped with it claim to reduce anxiety and improve insomnia.   Tenth. Supplements with lobelia–which promise respiratory improvement and smoking cessation–could give you nausea, vomiting, among others. It could also kill you, or leave you comatose.   Eleventh. Methylsynephrine. Products with it promise weight loss and increased energy, but the report suggests that taking it could give you heart rate and rhythm abnormalities, and cardiac arrest. It is also more dangerous when taken with other stimulants.   Twelfth. Pennyroyal Oil–with claims such as breathing improvements and better digestive system–could give you liver and kidney issues, convulsions, nerve damage, and again, death.   In the thirteenth place is red yeast rice. It claims to lower bad cholesterol, but Consumer Reports warns that it could give you kidney, liver and muscle issues, and hair loss. It can also magnify the effect of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, thus increasing the risk of side effects.   Fourteenth is usnic acid found in supplements for weight loss and pain relief. The report claims that it could give you liver injury.   And finally, consumers must avoid the ingredient Yohimbe, because it raises blood pressure and can give you headaches, seizures, kidney and liver problems, and even panic attacks and heart problems. Death is also listed in its risks.   For the complete details about the ‘deadly’ ingredients in supplements, you can read the Consumer Reports. The list will also appear in the September issue of the publication.   Dietary supplements in America   In 2011, the CDC–or, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–reported that the use of dietary supplements in the United States is common, with over forty percent of population said they used supplements from 1998 to 2004, and over fifty percent beginning 2003 to 2006.   In addition, products marketed as multivitamins and multiminerals are the most common, and the CDC revealed that about forty percent of men and women reported using them from 2003 to 2006."
98,"Countless Acts Of Hate Have Been Carried Out Since Trump’s Win —  Day one of Donald Trump’s America came with countless acts of hate that were carried out by his supporters against several of the country’s most marginalized groups.    Day two was no different, nor the days following.   Since Election Day, there have been more than 200 acts of election-related intimidation and harassment across the U.S., according to a survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center. People from all types of communities ― black, Latino, Muslim, Jewish, Asian, queer people, women ― have been physically harmed, slandered with hate speech or been the targets of racist graffiti.    While we shouldn’t have to live in fear for our safety, Trump supporters feel more emboldened than ever to express their disdain for those they dislike or don’t think matter. It’s highly likely these disturbing acts will continue, so instead of ignoring this new reality, it’s important, now more than ever, for America to stand unified and share a message of intolerance against these attacks. (If you’re feeling overwhelmed, here are some things you can do.)   In the meantime, take a look at some of most egregious examples of hate and racism that have unfolded across the country in the days since Trump’s win. We hope this fuels you into taking action:"
99,"DAKOTA FANNING PARENTS SPLIT ... Hot Dad Back on the Market —  Dakota Fanning's mom and dad are done after almost 27 years ... TMZ has learned.  Dakota's dad, Steven Fanning, just filed for divorce from his wife, Heather, citing irreconcilable differences. Their kids are both of age, so child support isn't an issue -- Dakota's 22, Elle is 18.  As for spousal support, it's as a bit of a mystery ... Steve didn't check any boxes asking for support from Heather.  That said, he says he still needs to figure out how he and Heather are going to split their property. But we're guessing this stud will be just fine when it's all said and done."
100,"Dahir Ahmed Adan Named by Police as St. Cloud, Minnesota, Stabbing Suspect —  The man accused of going on a stabbing spree at a Minnesota mall over the weekend was a young local named Dahir Ahmed Adan, officials said.   The 20-year-old from St. Cloud allegedly stabbed 10 people before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer, ending what authorities called a ""potential act of terrorism"" at the mall Saturday.   Adan — whose name was confirmed by the St. Cloud Police Department on Monday night — allegedly entered the city's Crossroads Mall wearing a private security uniform. According to police, he asked at least one person if they were Muslim and made references to Allah while carrying out the stabbings. None of the 10 people wounded suffered life-threatening injuries.   While an ISIS-affiliated media outlet claimed the attacker was a ""soldier"" of the terror group, no evidence has emerged to suggest ISIS had a hand in planning or executing the attack.   Related: Were New York, Minnesota Attacks Open-Source Jihad?   Adan was a Somali refugee who moved to the United States when he was 3 months old, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.   Community leaders and neighbors told the newspaper that he was a ""quiet and studious"" young man who came from a ""humble and well-known local Somali family.""   His soccer coach told the Star-Tribune that two nights before the attack, Adan had called to ask for weight-loss advice.   At the time of the incident, Adan was out of work after his job as a part-time security guard had ended, according to The Associated Press. The AP reported that Adan hadn't been enrolled in college since the spring semester and had only one traffic ticket on his record. Adan's family said they were ""devastated by the incomprehensible tragic event"" and in ""deep shock"" a spokesman for his relatives told NBC station KARE.   Rick Thornton, special agent in charge for the FBI in Minnesota, told a Monday press conference that investigators would be looking at Adan's media accounts and electronic devices — such as laptops or mobile phones — in an attempt to ""peel back the onion and figure out what motivated this individual to commit the horrific act.""   Minnesota has the largest Somali community of anywhere in the nation. Community leaders say that census figures placing the Somali population at around 33,000 underestimate the diaspora by tens of thousands, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.   Leaders of the local Somali community gave a press conference Sunday to ""strongly condemn any terrorist attack"" and give their condolences to the victims and their families.   ""We are also concerned about the potential backlash to this community,"" Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the press conference.   Authorities say Minnesota's Somalis are among the American communities most targeted by ISIS for recruitment.   In June, three men, all in their early 20s from Minneapolis' Somali community, were convicted of conspiring to commit murder in Syria on behalf of the extremist group, Reuters reported. Six others pleaded guilty to supporting ISIS and another man charged was believed to have fled to Syria."
101,"Dangerously Hot: Holding to account those harming communities in North Africa —  As the Marrakesh Climate Talks begin in earnest this week, local and regional communities are keenly aware of what is at stake after record breaking temperatures this summer. This translates into dangerously hot weather for the region of this year’s climate talks. According to Climate Signals on July 21, Mitribah, Kuwait reported a maximum temperature of 54.0°C, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere and the second hottest globally. This was followed on July 22nd, when Basrah, Iraq reached 53.4°C.   The journal Science, stated last week that even if warming is constrained to 2°C above preindustrial times—which is the central goal of the Paris Agreement—the Mediterranean region would see changes never experienced during recorded history. Morocco could see increased temperatures and drought that would drive the southern deserts further north, displacing forests. Deserts would expand in the Middle East, pushing temperate forests higher into the mountains. Average temperatures in the region have already risen by 1.3°C since the late 19th century, well above the world average of 0.85°C, according to the study.   This research follows a study earlier this year from NASA that found that the recent drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region, which comprises Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey, is likely the worst drought of the past nine centuries. Although political progress has been made, with the Paris Agreement being ratified last week, this is not enough. The fossil fuel industry’s recklessness continues to push the planet to the brink of catastrophe.   Quite simply time is not on our side. The accumulated impact of decades of carbon dioxide, released from burning of fossil fuels, is rapidly taking its toll on the planet. Temperatures have broken records in 2016 and are shocking scientists who believe that CO2 levels have now permanently passed the threshold of 400 parts per million (PPM), compared to 280 ppm in pre-industrial times, much too high to avoid dangerous impacts.   To try and stem this worrying trend towards accelerated warming is to immediately stop building new fossil fuel projects, and fully invest in 100% renewable energy for all so we can phase out those already in use. Both pre and post- 2020 ambitions must be sharply increased. Investors and governments have a responsibility to both divest from climate destruction and accelerate the just transition to a 100% renewable energy economy.   Fossil fuel subsidies   But how can we have faith in our governments to take this action when they continue to hand nearly hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies to the coal, gas, and oil industries? Ending these subsidies would be a giant step towards solving the climate crisis saving gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, and helping make clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels.   In June more than 200 civil society organizations called on the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. But despite a commitment by G7 nations in May to end government financial support for oil, gas and coal by 2025, the wider G20 group was unable to agree on a deadline. Subsidies from G20 governments to fossil fuel production alone - excluding subsidies to consumers - averaged $444 billion annually in 2013 and 2014, according to a report by Oil Change International and the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI). If the situation with on-going financial subsidies isn’t worrying enough, the UN climate talks also allows the fossil fuel industry free reign in its halls. The fossil fuel industry is doing everything it can to protect its profits, including making sure its interests are represented in the policymaking arena.   Last week, a new infographic by Corporate Accountability International revealed the true extent of the fossil fuel industry’s access to, and influence over the talks. This is unacceptable. The fossil fuel industry has to be kicked out of the climate talks so world leaders can take action for our future and do justice for the people already feeling its impacts.   The climate movement will also continue to hold the oil, gas and coal industry accountable in groundbreaking legal action. In September 2015, the Philippine Reconstruction Movement and Greenpeace Southeast Asia filed a petition with the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights on behalf of 13 organisations and 20 individuals, requesting that the Commission investigate the role of carbon majors in causing climate change and ocean acidification. The Commission agreed to take up the case and recently served a petition on 46 fossil fuel companies including BP, Exxon, Shell and Peabody.   This is not the only legal case against the dirty energy giants. In the US, state governments are investigating whether fossil fuel companies - including ExxonMobil - may have violated laws pertaining to fraud and deception, by actively undermining the science of climate change, even while they have known about the dangers since as early as 1977.   One thing is clear, over the next two weeks and beyond, we need to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the harm it continues to cause. Our demand to world leaders meeting in Marrakech is this: stop new fossil fuel projects from being built. Redirect finance for a just transition to 100% renewable energy that can empower people across the globe."
102,"Deadly disease outbreak in Wisconsin baffles public health officials —  Amysterious cluster of deadly bloodstream infections in Wisconsin has set state and federal disease detectives scrambling to understand why a common and generally harmless microbe is suddenly wreaking such havoc. The outbreak has killed 15 people and sickened 33 others in a cluster of counties surrounding Milwaukee. Public health authorities know what’s causing the illnesses: a species of bacteria named Elizabethkingia anophelis. But they don’t know how it’s infecting so many people, or why it’s proving so deadly. The microbe can resist common first-line antibiotic treatments, though it’s not a true “superbug” as it is susceptible to other medicines. While most of the patients in Wisconsin are elderly, and all have a history of serious illness, many have not had any recent contact with hospitals, suggesting they are becoming infected in the community, which is unheard of for this type of bacteria. The outbreak started last November and the case count continues to grow, with four new cases identified last week. Symptoms include fever, chills, and shortness of breath. State and federal investigators are testing tap water, skin care products, and other products patients may have ingested or come in contact with as a possible source of contamination. The vast majority of specimens share a matching genetic fingerprint, indicating a common source for the outbreak. “The fact that we don’t know what it is yet is tremendously frustrating,” said Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the division of healthcare quality promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most states see fewer than a dozen cases of Elizabethkingia infection each year, Bell said. It is highly unusual for nearly 50 cases to be identified in such a small geographic area. The outbreak poses a particular challenge to investigators because scientists know little about Elizabethkingia, which is named for the CDC scientist who discovered the species.  FILE- In this Oct. 19, 2010, file photo, cattle are kept in pens at a feedlot southwest of Omaha, Neb. As ranchers in drought-parched Texas and Oklahoma cut back their herds some ranchers in other states with healthy pastures like Illinois, Iowa and Montana are adding to their herds. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)   READ MORE Ignorance about antibiotics propelling global ‘superbug’ crisis         The organisms are known to be ubiquitous in soil and in the guts of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, and they thrive in moist biofilms — clumps of bacteria and sticky substances that adhere to environmental surfaces and medical devices. Even strong disinfectants, like hydrogen peroxide, don’t wipe them out. But Elizabethkingia species have only recently been identified as a cause of human disease, with the first published description of an outbreak reported in 2010. Since then, a handful of other clusters have been described, all in hospital intensive care units and neonatal wards. In a recent outbreak in a British hospital, for instance, the infections were traced to contaminated taps in sinks near patient beds. The cluster of cases in Wisconsin is the first reported outbreak of this particular species of Elizabethkingia bacteria. State health officials report that most victims are older than 65. Milwaukee was the site of another cluster of mysterious fatalities back in 1993, when 69 residents died and tens of thousands fell ill with gastrointestinal symptoms. The outbreak was ultimately traced to an intestinal parasite, Cryptosporidium, that contaminated the city’s water supply. Milwaukee has since made improvements to its water processing plants, including changes to filtration systems and disinfection procedures. State and federal officials say it’s unlikely that the current outbreak comes from contaminated tap or groundwater, but neither has been ruled out."
103,"Death of former Putin aide at D.C. hotel is ruled accidental —  A onetime aide of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin whose body was found last year in a D.C. hotel room died of head injuries suffered in accidental falls after days of “excessive” drinking, authorities in Washington said Friday as they closed the death investigation. Mikhail Y. Lesin, 57, a former Russian advertising executive who helped create the Kremlin’s global English-language Russia Today television network, was found dead Nov. 5 in the upscale Dupont Circle Hotel, and for much of a year, the manner of death was ruled “undetermined.” [Former Putin aide found dead in D.C. hotel] The manner has been amended to an accident with “acute ethanol intoxication” as a contributing cause, the office of U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips said Friday. Lesin was alone in his hotel room at the time of the falls, the statement said. The new ruling was made by the office of the D.C. chief medical examiner. Shortly after Lesin’s body was found, his family said he died as the result of a heart attack. More than four months later, the chief medical examiner’s office and D.C. police set off worldwide speculation when they said Lesin had suffered blunt-force injuries to his head and elsewhere on his body, although not explicitly declaring his death a criminal act. [Death investigation remains mystery] The statement Friday said that the investigation determined from video footage, interviews and other evidence that Lesin entered his room for the final time about 10:45 a.m. Nov. 4 after days of excessive alcohol consumption and was found dead the next morning. He “sustained the injuries that resulted in his death while alone in his hotel room,” the statement said. [Former aide died of blunt force trauma, medical examiner says] Lesin died of blunt-force injuries to his head, the statement said, and also suffered injuries to his neck, torso, arms and legs caused by falls. In describing the investigation, the statement referred to “new evidence” developed in the nearly year-long investigation. Asked about that reference, Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said, “We typically do not comment on specifics of our investigation and have no further comment on this particular matter.” On Friday, interim D.C. police chief Peter Newsham said, “I am comfortable with the ruling being an accidental death.” The investigation of Lesin’s death was conducted by D.C. police and the U.S. attorney’s office with assistance from the FBI, the statement said. Lesin, who made his fortune in the advertising business in the 1990s, was an architect of the Kremlin-dominated media landscape under Putin. As minister of the press during Putin’s first term as president from 2000 to 2004, Lesin orchestrated the takeover of the independent television network NTV and oversaw government propaganda and censorship laws during the war in Chechnya. In 2005, he helped launch Russia Today, now RT, a government-funded channel that broadcasts news with a pro-Moscow slant around the world. Known for his volatile temper, Lesin was reported to have antagonized powerful media interests, and an investigation by the anti-Putin whistleblower Alexei Navalny in 2014 revealed that Lesin owned real estate in the United States worth millions of dollars. He resigned later that year as head of Gazprom-Media, a holding company that owns several prominent pro-Kremlin TV networks, and kept a low profile until his death. Two days before his body was found, Lesin failed to appear as expected at a $10,000-a-table fundraiser in Washington organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, whose honorees included a philanthropist and chief executive of the largest private bank in Russia. Kremlin critics earlier this year theorized that Lesin may have been killed because officials feared that he was about to cut a deal with federal authorities investigating his land dealings in California. However, a longtime friend and business associate of Lesin’s, Sergey Vasiliev, said in March that he believed that Lesin died after a bout of heavy drinking, an account he said he formed after speaking to the Russian Foreign Ministry and others familiar with the sequence of events. Andrew Roth and Peter Hermann contributed to this report."
104,"Delhi Closes Over 1,800 Schools in Response to Dangerous Smog —  For the first time ever, more than 1,800 public primary schools in India’s capital will close on Saturday to protect children from exposure to dangerous levels of air pollution, the authorities said on Friday.   The decision affects more than a million children.   A thick, acrid smog has settled over the capital over the past week, a combination of smoke from burning crops in surrounding agricultural states, fireworks on the Hindu festival of Diwali, dust and vehicle emissions.   Levels of the most dangerous particles, called PM 2.5, reached 600 micrograms per cubic meter in different parts of the city this week, according to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee.   Sustained exposure to that concentration of PM 2.5 is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes a day, said Sarath Guttikunda, the director of Urban Emissions, an independent research group.   The particles are small enough to deeply penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream, increasing the risk of stroke and heart failure, and can cause severe respiratory problems including asthma and pneumonia. Conditions in the metropolis, home to about 20 million people, were particularly bad this week because there was little wind and the cloud of pollutants was “just going round and round,” Mr. Guttikunda said.   Teachers and parents said the effects on children were visible.   Meenakshi Sahni, the principal of the Modern School, closed her private school because of air pollution for the first time on Friday and advised parents via text message to keep their children indoors. There was “widespread coughing” among students and faculty members this week, she said.   “You could actually feel that there was something weighing down on them physically,” Ms. Sahni said. “Even at the gathering in the auditorium, you could feel as if somebody is strangling you.”   Foreigners and Indian elites have expressed growing alarm about winter air pollution in recent years, and some embassies have begun discouraging families with children from moving here. But this year is the first time Indian schools have taken such precautions. As they waited to pick up children after school on Friday, parents described an array of their children’s symptoms, including burning eyes, incessant coughing and congestion that does not clear.   Seema Sansanwal, 38, said when she takes her 3½-year-old son to the doctor, the doctor “tells us, ‘Go out for an excursion and leave the city for some days, and he will be fine,’ instead of diagnosing.” Poonam Tokas, 35, said she could not believe her eyes at the smog on Monday, the day after Diwali, and has forbidden her children from playing outside until it clears. “We are going to buy masks this evening,” she said. “But I do not think anyone can save us from the wrath of nature.”   Indu, a municipal councilor from South Delhi and a member of the municipal corporation’s education committee, said it was the first time the city had taken such measures. “We took stock of how bad the smog and pollution level had reached,” said Ms. Indu, who uses only one name. “Even doctors are advising against going for walks. Television channels are presenting reports showing that pollution is as bad as smoking two dozen cigarettes.”   She said that “we are hoping weather conditions will improve on Monday,” allowing schools to reopen. “But at least children would have stayed away from the polluted outdoors over the weekend.”   Keeping children at home reduces their level of activity and lessens their exposure to air pollution, especially in areas where vehicle emissions are at their highest, Mr. Guttikunda said.   But he added that the air quality inside a house often was not much better than outside, unless doors and windows were closed and sealed.   “If you open them for even half a minute, it’s gone,” he said."
105,"Despite Vaccination Efforts Measles Kills 350 Children a Day, Report Says —  The number of deaths from measles has fallen by 79 percent worldwide since 2000, thanks mainly to mass vaccination campaigns, but more than 350 children still die from the disease every day, global health experts said on Thursday.   In a report on global efforts to “make measles history,” the United Nations Children’s Fund, or Unicef, the World Health Organization and other health agencies said the fight against measles was being hampered not by a lack of tools or knowledge, but by a lack of political will to get every child immunized against measles.   “Without this commitment, children will continue to die from a disease that is easy and cheap to prevent,” said Robin Nandy, Unicef’s head of immunization.   The report said measles vaccination campaigns and a global increase in routine vaccine coverage had saved about 20.3 million young lives from 2000 to 2015.   But coverage is patchy, and, in some countries, a majority of children are not vaccinated. In 2015, about 20 million babies missed their shots, and about 134,000 children died from the disease.   According to the report, half of all unvaccinated babies and 75 percent of deaths from measles occur in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan .   Measles is a highly contagious virus that can spread by direct contact or through the air. It can be prevented with a widely available and inexpensive vaccine.   Published by Unicef, the W.H.O., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the report said that outbreaks of measles in various countries — caused by gaps in immunization — are still a major problem.   In 2015, outbreaks were reported in Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, the report said, with those in Germany and Mongolia mostly affecting older people. Those outbreaks, the report went on to say, highlighted the need to immunize young people who had missed out on vaccinations.   Measles, the report added, also tends to flare up during conflicts or humanitarian crises, evidenced by outbreaks last year in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan."
106,"Donald’s Trump Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame Is Smashed —  A man dressed as a construction worker took a sledgehammer and a pickax to Donald J. Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame early Wednesday morning, smashing the sidewalk symbol and attempting to remove it, according to a witness and the police.   A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, Officer Norma Eisenman, said the authorities received a phone call reporting the attempt at about 6 a.m. The defaced site was later secured, and a tent placed over the star, Officer Eisenman said.   On Thursday, a suspect was pulled over and arrested on a charge of felony vandalism while en route to the Walk of Fame, where he was planning to explain his actions, said Sgt. Barry Montgomery, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.   “He didn’t get to his speech,” Sgt. Montgomery said.   The witness, Dominic Patten, a senior editor at Deadline Hollywood, which initially reported the news, said on Wednesday that the man had told him he wanted to auction the star and raise money on behalf of the nearly dozen women who have accused Mr. Trump of sexual assault or sexual harassment.   In a phone interview, Mr. Patten, 47, said he had been walking on Hollywood Boulevard near the intersection of Highland Avenue to a meeting when he spotted the man wearing what looked like Los Angeles City construction gear, a hard hat and a reflective vest. He was holding a sledgehammer and a pickax.   The man “suddenly picked up the sledgehammer and started smashing the bejeezus out of the Trump star,” Mr. Patten said. “Then he took the pickax and was trying to pry one of the points of the star.” “Shrapnel was flying everywhere,” Mr. Patten added.   He said that there were about eight or nine people on the street at the time, and that the man’s attempt went on for approximately five minutes, after which he “made a quick retreat.” Deadline Hollywood identified the man as Jamie Otis. Other news outlet said he was an heir to the Otis Elevator fortune, and quoted him as saying that he was “proud” of his actions, which he cast as “civil disobedience.” But his identity could not be confirmed independently.   Ana Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which administers the Walk of Fame, said in an email that the star would be replaced. It would be covered for the next several days while it settled and dried, the chamber said in a statement. Leron Gubler, the chamber’s president, said the organization was working with the police and intended to “prosecute to the full extent of the law.”   An email to a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump seeking comment was not immediately returned on Wednesday.   Mr. Patten, a veteran journalist who has lived in Los Angeles for almost a decade and has worked at Deadline for just over five years, said the man may have been unable to remove the star because “these things are set very deeply in cement.” Mr. Trump’s star, in the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard, has been the target of numerous attempts at defacement in the last several months. Since Mr. Trump announced his presidential bid, it has been hit with paint and graffiti, which have been cleaned off.   In July, a tiny barbed-wire fence, complete with American flags, was erected by an artist around the star.   Earlier this month, Time magazine interviewed a photographer who has been documenting people’s reactions to the star. The photographer’s images included ones showing the symbol smeared with what appears to be ketchup and adorned with a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker.   Even when visitors do not try to deface the star, they sometimes use it to express their feelings toward the Republican nominee, like a young man who posed with both middle fingers extended above the star in this Instagram photo."
107,"Dozens of decapitated bodies found at school near Mosul —  Iraqi military and police forces said Monday that they have uncovered a mass grave near a small town south of the Islamic State-held city of Mosul. Initial reports say 100 bodies were found, many of them decapitated.   Col. Abdel Rahman Khazali, a spokesman for the Iraqi federal police, said the bodies were discovered Monday at an agricultural college outside the town of Hamam al-Alil, which was recaptured by Iraqi forces over the past three days. Khazali said medical teams were examining the bodies and trying to determine their identities. “The investigation is just beginning,” he said.   The Iraqi Joint Command issued a brief statement condemning the Islamic State. “Gangs of ISIS militants continue to commit crimes against our people,” the military said.   Fighters from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, have held the city of Mosul and surrounding towns and villages for more than two years. A massive offensive by combined Iraqi forces, aided by U.S. air support, began three weeks ago. Villagers in the surrounding area have said that Islamic State militants rounded them up at gunpoint as Iraqi forces advanced and made them walk to Hamam al-Alil. Some who later escaped said that former police and army officers were separated from them and summarily executed as the militants grew suspicious that some were collaborating with the security forces.   As the Iraqi federal police were investigating the mass grave south of Mosul, Kurdish peshmerga forces on Monday recaptured the town of Bashiqa to the northeast.   Peshmerga commanders reported heavy fighting and repeated attacks by Islamic State suicide bombers driving toward troops in vehicles loaded with explosives.   Journalists reported seeing U.S. troops in and around Bashiqa supporting the Kurdish offensive.   In Washington, U.S. officials said that 33,000 Iraqi civilians have been displaced so far by the Mosul operation and have fled to camps and communities outside the city. That number is “lower than initially expected,” a senior administration official said. “But it’s important to keep in mind that the Iraqi and Kurdish forces have not yet reached the most populous areas of Mosul city.”   [In first big wave, Iraqis flee Mosul and crowd into camps]   International aid organizations have estimated that up to 1.5 million civilians have been living in Mosul under Islamic State control. The Iraqi government has urged those who can to remain in their homes during the offensive.   The United States and aid groups estimate that at least 700,000 will be displaced, adding to the 3.2 million Iraqis who have already left their homes since the militants began taking over towns and cities in the summer of 2014. Much of that area has now been recaptured, with Mosul remaining the center of Islamic State control.   Critics, including some U.S. lawmakers, have charged that Mosul is likely to become a humanitarian disaster for which the international community is ill-prepared. But a senior official, one of three who briefed reporters Monday on the condition of anonymity insisted on by the administration, said that with “the advantage of forewarning . . . this situation may be one of the best-prepared responses to a humanitarian emergency that is expected that we have seen, certainly in a long time.”   Emergency food relief for about 1.25 million people has been brought to places where displaced people are expected to come, along with water and hygiene and medical supplies, the officials said. About half the displaced are expected to shelter with friends, relatives and other contacts outside established refu­gee camps, but “we think there will be more than enough shelter in place to meet the needs for a million people by mid-November,” an official said.   While the United States is assisting in preparations for governance in Mosul and for vetting the displaced to make sure militants have not slipped out among them, the officials said those tasks will be handled by the Iraqi and regional Kurdish governments.   Vetting has been problematic in earlier offensives to clear towns and cities farther south, with some Iraqi groups imposing sectarian restrictions.   “We are working closely with them to make sure that their screening is appropriate, that it’s done by government officials, that it’s at planned sites, that it’s standardized . . . [and] open to international monitoring,” a U.S. official said.   “We’ve also deployed mobile protection and legal aid teams and are establishing protection service centers, particularly in those areas where we know families are most likely to flee.”"
108,"Dreamworld accident: Family's despair as girls left without mom —  A grieving father on Friday made his first public statement since an accident at the Dreamworld theme park in Queensland, Australia, killed three of his family members.   Shayne Goodchild is the father of two of the victims of the accident, siblings Kate Goodchild and Luke Dorsett. Luke's partner, Roozbeh (""Roozi"") Araghi, also was killed. In an emotional statement, Shayne Goodchild confirmed that the death of his daughter Kate was witnessed by her husband, Dave, and the couple's daughter Ebony. Their 8-month-old daughter, Evie, also was present. ""Dave was standing next to the ride holding Evie when this tragic event happened, and Ebony was sitting next to her mum when they were thrown into the water,"" he said. As he read the statement his son-in-law, Dave Goodchild, stood next to him, trying to hold back tears. ""Our darling Evie is only 8 months old, and far too young to be without her mum. And (Dave) must be a rock for his oldest daughter Ebony, who saw her mum's life taken. Our darling Ebony is only 12,"" he said. A malfunction on the theme park's Thunder River Rapids Ride caused a flume carrying six people to flip over, tossing some of the passengers onto a conveyor belt, where they were caught in the machinery, according to Brian Codd of the Queensland Police. It's a day the family will never forget. ""The next few weeks and months are going to be incredibly difficult for our families,"" Goodchild said. ""We have to help two little girls start to come to the fact that their mum is never coming home."" Private funerals for the three victims will take place over the next few days, Goodchild added. He also thanked the public for their support. ""We cannot begin to express how much we appreciate the outpouring of love and support our families have received, from friends as well as from complete strangers,"" he said. The family also offered condolences to the family of the fourth victim, New Zealand citizen and resident of Australia, Cindy Low. Low's 10-year-old son also survived the accident and witnessed what happened, according to a statement from a company hired to represent the family. All the victims were in their 30s and 40s. Goodchild said many questions about the accident are still unanswered. ""Like everyone else in Australia, we want to know what went wrong. We want to know why our loved ones were taken from us in such horrific circumstances. No-one wants those answers more than we do,"" Goodchild said. He also said all communication with Dreamworld will go through their legal counsel during the investigation into what happened. Also on Friday, the theme park held an ""extremely moving"" private memorial service attended by around 400 to 500 staff, a statement by the Dreamworld CEO Craig Davidson said. The statement added that Dreamworld will not reopen until after the funerals of the four victims."
109,"Egypt Recovers Over 160 Bodies From Sunken Migrant Boat —  CAIRO — The Egyptian authorities said Friday that they had recovered 162 bodies after the sinking of a ship full of mostly Egyptian migrants in the Mediterranean this week. The death toll, which is expected to rise to nearly 300, reflects the mounting economic pressure on Egyptians as well as a possible shift away from Libya as a point of departure for migrants headed to Europe, migrant aid workers said. The boat capsized Wednesday off the coast of Rosetta, the Nile Delta port city east of Alexandria. Witnesses estimate that the boat was carrying 450 people. The police said most were young Egyptian men in their late teens and their early to mid-20s. The military said it had rescued 163 survivors. “That’s why this is a disaster,” said a police spokesman, Tarek Attiya. “They are just kids who wanted to work.” Four men have been arrested in connection with the smuggling operation, Mr. Attiya said. The number of Egyptians who are risking their lives to cross to Europe has risen sharply over the last two years, according to the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency. “There has been an uptick,” said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the agency. “Egypt is busier now than it has been in a while.” Among young people in Egypt, a third are unemployed and half live under the poverty line, according to official statistics. The country’s economy has suffered a series of disruptions since the uprising in 2011 that ended the presidency of Hosni Mubarak. Egypt’s vital tourism industry has all but disappeared. In June, residents of the coastal town of Burg Migheizil, known for smuggling migrants, said that pictures of European cities posted on social media sites by migrants who have made it to the Continent are also fueling the drive of young men in their town, and elsewhere, to cross the Mediterranean. The country’s economic woes may also be pushing African migrants already in Egypt to risk the passage to Europe. Some migrants may also be seeking transit from Egypt because smugglers using the shorter route from Libya are already transporting as many passengers as they can, clogging the route, Mr. Milliman said. “We really do believe Libya is at full capacity,” he added, noting that Libyan smugglers appear to be on track to match last year’s level of about 150,000 departures even though a shortage of boats is forcing them to rely on smaller and less seaworthy crafts. “This could just be a tipping point from Libya to Egypt,” he said. The Egyptian authorities have arrested more than 4,600 foreigners — mostly from nearby African countries — for trying to depart across the Mediterranean so far this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency. That is a 28 percent increase compared with the number of people who were arrested in 2015. More than 300,000 people have tried to cross the Mediterranean this year from various countries. About 3,500 have died or are listed as missing, the refugee agency said.     Article Title:The World Is Finally Getting Serious About Tiger Farms   Article URL: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/wildlife-watch-tiger-farms-cites-protections/ Article author(s) Rachael Bale Article date: SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 News source: nationalgeographic  Tiger farms supply the black market with skins, bones, and other parts. Now, at an international wildlife trade conference, China and other Asian countries face pressure to shut them down. JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICAChina came under pressure today for allowing the intensive breeding and sale of tiger parts, in violation of an international decision. The country has an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 tigers on “farms,” facilities that breed the animals for tourist entertainment while they’re alive, and for the luxury and medicinal markets after they’re slaughtered. The issue was raised at the most important conservation event you’ve never heard of going on this week and next in Johannesburg, South Africa: the 17th conference of parties of Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the treaty that regulates the international wildlife trade. One of the highlights of this gathering of 182 countries is how to crack down on the trade of Asian big cats, including tigers, clouded leopards, and snow leopards. Tiger farms, which also exist in Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos, have long been suspected of feeding the international black market for illegal wildlife products. Last Friday, the first day of the conference, conservationists praised Laos for its announcement that it was “looking for ways to phase out tiger farms.” The facilities breed tigers at an intensive rate, and the animals are believed to be slaughtered so their parts can sold to be made into wine, pseudo medicine, luxury home decor, and more. Tiger farms are also suspected to fuel the poaching of wild tigers, which still face serious threats of their own. “Trade in parts and derivatives of captive-bred tigers perpetuates the desirability of tiger products, in turn stimulating poaching of wild tigers,” says Debbie Banks, of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a London-based NGO. There are an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 captive tigers on farms in Asia and Southeast Asia, compared to only about 4,000 left in the wild (though this may be an overly generous estimate). The new proposal approved today requires all countries with captive Asian big cats to report to the CITES Secretariat, the treaty’s governing body, on how they are ensuring that big cats and their parts don’t enter the illegal trade. The Secretariat will use those reports to decide if certain facilities should be inspected. After that, the Secretariat will file a report, which couldlead to certain countries being required to take specific steps to bring problem facilities in line. This new requirement can only help, but: “There’s no good news for tigers,” says Kanitha Krishnasamy of TRAFFIC, the organization that monitors wildlife trade. Krishnasamy is the co-author of a new report that found that seizures of tiger products are continuing to increase, as is the percentage of seized products that come from captive-bred tigers—now about 30 percent, up from 2 percent in 2000. “That’s really a reflection of the level of threat that these facilities pose in terms of tigers leaking into the illegal trade,” she says. Furthermore, tigers in the wild are still being hunted and illegally traded. Feeding the Black Market China established its first tiger farm in 1986 with the aim of producing bones for medicinal use. During the next 30 years, tiger farms spread throughout China and to other countries in Southeast Asia. Some believe the bones, ground into a powder, can cure rheumatism and arthritis. Others prefer tiger bone wine, which they believe imparts the drinker with the animal’s strength. In 2007 countries passed a decision at a CITES meeting agreeing that tigers should not be bred for trade in their body parts and that countries with tiger farms should scale back operations to the minimum needed to support conservation. “It was about recognizing that if you want to save tigers, you can’t farm them,” Banks says. Despite the decision, numerous reports subsequently showed that both the domestic and international trade in tiger and other Asian big cat parts was intensifying, not scaling back. China was breeding hundreds of tigers a year, and the number of tigers in captivity surpassed the number of tigers in the world. The issue came to a head this June when Thai authorities raided the notorious Tiger Temple, a famous tourist spot long suspected of supplying captive-bred tiger parts to the black market. Authorities removed more than a hundred tigers and made a gruesome discovery: the bodies of more than 40 dead cubs. One monk was arrested trying to flee with tiger skins, tiger teeth, and about a thousand amulets containing pieces of tiger skin. Proponents of tiger farms often argue that they take pressure off wild tiger populations, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. “These facilities have been in existence for a very long time,” TRAFFIC’s Krishnasamy says. “If there was any indication that they led to tigers in the wild not being persecuted, we would have seen it by now. We haven’t. There’s no evidence to show that poaching of tigers in the wild has gone down.” In fact, wild tigers are now so scarce that there’s evidence that the illegal trade in lion bones and clouded leopard bones is growing as a substitute. (See: As Tiger Numbers Dwindle, Will Smugglers Target a Different Cat?) The proposal before the CITES committee today will benefit all Asian big cats. China chaired the working group that led to the recommendations (out of that also came charges China they watered down a report finding that they have failed to control domestic trade in tiger parts), yet they still made an attempt to delete the provision calling on countries to phase out tiger farms. That provision “has proved problematic to implement for nearly 10 years,” the Chinese delegate said. Every other country in the room agreed—and agreed that that merely meant more measures were needed to require countries to truly crack down on tiger farms and the tiger trade. China conceded, and the provision calling on countries to phase out tiger farms remains on the books. “The [CITES] parties have sent a clear and resounding message,” said Banks. “Tiger farms and trade in captive bred tiger parts and derivatives are a threat to wild tiger conservation and enough is enough.” This story was produced by National Geographic’s Special Investigations Unit, which focuses on wildlife crime and is made possible by grants from the BAND Foundation and the Woodtiger Fund. Read more stories from the SIU on Wildlife Watch. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas tongwildlife@ngs.org.     Article Title:The World’s Most Trafficked Mammal Just Got Desperately Needed Help   Article URL: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/wildlife-watch-most-trafficked-mammal-just-got-help/ Article author(s) Jani Actman Article date: SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 News source: nationalgeographic  Proposals to ban international trade in pangolins received support from a body charged with helping to conserve wildlife JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICAThings have suddenly looked up for pangolins, cat-size scaly creatures found across Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The body that regulates international wildlife trade voted Wednesday to shut down sales of pangolins and their parts across borders. “This decision will help give pangolins a fighting chance,” says Sue Lieberman, vice president of international policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society, a nonprofit based in New York City. Some 3,000 government representatives and conservationists are in South Africa this week to discuss how to best save the animals through theConvention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the body, composed of 183 governments, that sets wildlife trade policy. The discussion to ban trade in all eight species of Asian and African pangolins ranked high on the CITES agenda, up there with proposalsrelated to iconic animals such as elephants and rhinos. Pangolins gained some recognition a few years ago when wildlife experts pegged them as the most trafficked mammal on Earth, though they're still largely unknown outside conservation circles. (Related: “What's Next For the World's Most Trafficked Mammal”) Pangolins are shy, harmless animals that have an armor of scales and long, sticky tongues to slurp up ants and termites. Apparently they also inspiredthe creation of the popular Pokémon Sandshrew. When threatened they curl into a ball instead of attempting to escape, an unfortunate trait for a species facing dire threats from pangolin-collecting humans. The creatures are hunted for bush meat, but more often they’re poached to supply demand for their scales in Vietnam and China, where new wealth has led to demand for the parts of rare, exotic animals. Some people in these countries consider pangolin meat a delicacy and use their scales in traditional medicine. There’s even a dish called pangolin fetus soup, thought to enhance a man’s virility. All eight pangolin species are being killed at alarming rates. Many of the nations they inhabit have some laws protecting them, and CITES restricted their international trade in 1995. Yet according to wildlife experts, almost a million pangolins have been trafficked during the past decade. (Also see “Four Tons of 'Plastics' Discovered to Be Pangolin Scales”) At first poachers targeted the four species in Asia, but as numbers of those have diminished, the four species in Africa have become targets. No one knows exactly how many pangolins remain, but the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which sets the conservation status of plants and animals, lists all eight species as endangered or threatened with extinction. Pangolins also have to contend with habitat loss and a low reproductive rate: Females produce only one baby a year. “The present scale of trade could drive this species to extinction,” said the government representative from India, one of the nations that proposedincreased protections. In 2000 Asian countries decided not to allow any exports of pangolins or their parts, but it’s believed that this helped spur hunting of pangolins in Africa, where pangolins are faring slightly better. And domestic laws protecting pangolins in many countries aren’t enforced. “The criminal networks are running circles around everybody,” says Chris Shepherd of TRAFFIC, the organization that monitors the wildlife trade. “It’s a joke.” In Africa, pangolin dealers supplying the Asian market have started expanding their businesses to other forms of wildlife trade. “Dealing back to traffickers in China has exposed them to new people, allowing them to build the necessary networks to move up and start trafficking ivory,” Ofir Drori, director of the wildlife law enforcement network EAGLE, told Vice in September. The proposals to grant Asian pangolins more protection passed today with only a single “no” vote, and the African pangolin proposals passed by consensus. Indonesia, the lone dissenter, argued that banning international trade in Sunda and Chinese pangolins would only increase demand. The representative said that enforcement, not a prohibition on trade, is what’s needed to help pangolins. Scott Roberton, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, agrees that enforcement continues to remain a priority, but he says the added protections will help pangolins by allowing demand countries to enact harsher laws and simplifying efforts for law enforcement. “It’s very clear now,” he says, referring to the ban. “It’s black and white.” The ban would also tighten regulations for any pangolin breeding operations, says Roberton, which would help ensure that people don't attempt to pass off wild pangolins as farmed. Several organizations, including the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, say that pangolins can't be raised in captivity with success. Their specialized diets and low reproductive rates make it too difficult. The vote was finalized at the plenary session on Oct. 4. “The key thing now with this new listing is that countries need to implement it and enforce it,” Roberton says. Roberton says. This story was updated on October 4. This story was produced by National Geographic’s Special Investigations Unit, which focuses on wildlife crime and is made possible by grants from the BAND Foundation and the Woodtiger Fund. Read more stories from the SIU on Wildlife Watch. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas to ngwildlife@ngs.org. (Read more stories out of the CITES meeting in Johannesburg here.)     Article Title:Wildfire Chews Through California's Santa Cruz Mountains   Article URL: http://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/wildfire-chews-through-california-s-santa-cruz-mountains-n656576 Article author(s)  Article date: SEP 28 2016, 11:42 PM ET News source: nbcnews  A wildfire burned through bone-dry brush and threatened hundreds of structures in California's Santa Cruz Mountains.   Some evacuations were lifted Wednesday as firefighters, aided by cooler weather, held back the progress of the wildfire. For the last several days, temperatures have been in the high 90s and near 100 degrees, and were considered ""hazardous,"" by the National Weather Service. But Wednesday's cooler weather conditions were expected to last past the weekend. Nearly 1,100 firefighters were working furiously to protect the 300 homes and communication towers that stood in the fire's path. It was among three blazes burning in Northern California during a time of year when the drought-stricken state sees its largest and most damaging wildfires, state forestry officials said. Nearly 1,100 firefighters were working furiously to protect the 300 homes and communication towers that stood in the fire's path. For the last several days, temperatures have been in the high 90s and near 100 degrees, and were considered ""hazardous,"" by the National Weather Service. But Wednesday's cooler weather conditions were expected to last past the weekend."
110,"Egypt migrant shipwreck death toll rises to 55 —  Rescuers brought more bodies ashore Thursday after a boat crowded with migrants capsized off the Egyptian coast, leaving at least 55 people dead and dozens missing. Survivors said up to 450 migrants had been aboard the fishing vessel when it sank on Wednesday about 12 kilometres (eight miles) from Egypt's Mediterranean port city of Rosetta. A health ministry official said 55 bodies had been retrieved. According to the military, 163 survivors have been rescued. Authorities have arrested four suspected human traffickers over the tragedy, the latest in what the UN refugee agency expects to be the deadliest year on record for the Mediterranean. Military boats were seen bringing corpses to shore in body bags, one containing the body of a child whose grandfather recognised him and knelt down in shock. Rescuers said the search would focus on the boat's cold storage room where witnesses said about 100 people had been when the vessel flipped over. ""The death toll is going to rise,"" a medical source told AFP. ""On the boat there is a hold used to store fish. It hasn't been opened and there must be a lot of people inside."" The accident comes months after the EU's border agency Frontex warned that growing numbers of Europe-bound migrants were using Egypt as a departure point for the dangerous journey. Traffickers often overload the boats, some of them scarcely seaworthy, with passengers who have paid for the crossing. On a beach near Rosetta on Thursday, a small crowd gathered with some reading verses from the Koran and others desperately seeking information on relatives who may have been on board. Many survivors were in police custody. A prosecution official said they would be treated like ""victims and not perpetrators"" and would be released. Witnesses spoke of the harrowing moment their vessel keeled over due to overcrowding, as well as the agonising hours-long wait for help to arrive. - 'Like the apocalypse' - ""There were 200 of us and the boat was already full, 200 more then arrived. The boat tilted to the side then began to sink,"" said Ahmed Mohamed, a 27-year-old Egyptian. ""It was like the apocalypse. Everyone tried to get out alive. I swam for 10 kilometres."" Another survivor, 17-year-old Ahmed Gamal said: ""I just wanted to reach Europe and live a decent life"". A municipal official in Rosetta said the dead included one child, 10 women and 31 young men. The International Organization for Migration said those rescued included 111 Egyptians, 26 Sudanese, 13 Eritreans, a Syrian and an Ethiopian. Judicial and security officials said the four people detained over the tragedy were accused of involuntary manslaughter and human trafficking. More than 10,000 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe since 2014, according to the United Nations. After Balkan countries closed the popular overland route in March and the EU agreed a deal with Turkey to halt departures, asylum-seekers turned to other ways to reach Europe. Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri said in June that the dangerous crossing from Egypt to Italy, which often takes more than 10 days, was becoming increasingly popular. More than 300,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year from various points of departure, the UN said this week. The number is down from 520,000 in the first nine months of 2015. But fatality rates had risen, with 2016 on track to be ""the deadliest year on record in the Mediterranean Sea,"" said the UN's refugee agency. The European Union launched ""Operation Sophia"" last year to destroy smuggler boats that could be used to ferry migrants across the Mediterranean. An EU official told AFP this month that almost 300 smuggler boats had been put out of commission in the past year."
111,"Elementary school volunteer indicted on more child porn charges in federal court —  The former elementary school volunteer accused of producing child pornography involving students as young as 9 has been indicted on two additional sex charges by a federal grand jury.   Deonte Carraway, 23, of Glenarden, now faces a total of 15 federal counts of sexual exploitation of a minor to produce child pornography.   The additional charges that a federal grand jury handed up Monday involve an additional child and video known to county investigators and does not increase the number of known victims in the case. The federal charges are separate from local charges that Carraway faces in Prince George’s County, where a local grand jury indicted him on 270 counts of sex crimes and child pornography involving 23 children as young as 9 years old. Police and prosecutors say Carraway handed out cellphones to children and communicated with them through an anonymous social media app to solicit videos and photos of boys and girls performing sexual acts at an elementary school, children’s homes, a church and a local recreation center.   Carraway is scheduled for trial in federal court on March 14."
112,"Endangered Wildlife Are At Risk After 200,000 Liters Of Fuel Leak Into British Colombia’s Coastal Waters —  Ten days ago, diesel fuel was leaked into Heiltsuk First Nation water near Bella Bella, British Colombia. The leak was caused by a tugboat which crashed in a remote region off British Columbia’s Central Coast.   Following the oil leak, underwater dive images revealed endangered wildlife including abalone, amidst the fuel spill area. Efforts are being made by the Heiltsuk to help recover this protected species. Divers also discovered schools of juvenile herring around the sunken Nathan E. Stewart tugboat.   The outer boom which was put in place to contain the spilled oil had broke free on Friday causing the oil to spread and bad weather had prevented clean up crews from working on the spill for four consecutive days. By Saturday, salvage crews had recovered more than 40 percent of the 200,000 liters of fuel estimated to be in the vessel, but the damage had already been done.   Mike Reid, the Heiltsuk Aquatics Manager said that there is an increased concern about the marine life in the Gale Passage. This is an extremely sensitive ecological and marine rescue area and there is a crucial herring spawning area which is located at the south end of the passage.   “In the first week of the spill, we had the largest tides of the month at 17.4 feet,” he said in a release. “Even without bad weather, the speed of tides rushing through the spill site are likely to flush diesel into the area.”   The local clam fishery has been shut down and BC NDP leader John Horgan criticized the spill response.   “It was tragic to see the sheen of diesel on the water,” Horgan said, adding. “You couldn’t have picked a worse place to drop this boat into the bottom of the ocean.”   The company that owns the tugboat, Kirby Offshore Marine has made their apologies to the Heiltsuk First Nation and gave thanks to the agencies involved in the spill cleanup.   According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), diesel is one of the most toxic types of oil for marine creatures.   Depending weather conditions in the area, 1500 feet of kepner boom will be placed around the primary and secondary containment boom for additional protection."
113,"Environmental health officers call for smoking ban in playgrounds —  Zoos and anywhere children play should become no-smoking zones, says Chartered Institute of Environmental Health   Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers. Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up. Smoking has been illegal in enclosed public places such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants, as well as public transport and work vehicles, across the UK since 2007. But the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said on Monday it wants local councils to designate any place where children play or learn as a smoking exclusion zone, although adherence would be voluntary, not statutory. Banning it in those locations would also protect children from secondhand smoke, it says. A new YouGov poll commissioned by the CIEH shows that 89% of 4,300 adults surveyed back a ban on smoking in children’s play areas, while 57% want it to end in public parks. “It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of people would support restrictions on smoking in children’s play areas. We would like to see smoking being stubbed out wherever children play or learn,” said Anne Godfrey, the CIEH chief executive. “This would not only include children’s playgrounds but could see no-smoking zones extended to public parks, zoos and theme parks. Children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without seeing someone smoking and thinking this is normal behaviour,” she added. Some councils have already moved to try to stop people smoking in some outdoor places. For example, Coventry city council has asked parents not to smoke outside the gates of its 82 primary schools. The policy has gone down well with parents and headteachers, the council said. Advertisement Wrexham has also decreed that playgrounds, school gates and bus shelters should be regarded as smoke-free places, while Nottingham city council seeks to ensure that all its outdoor attractions are smoke-free for the six weeks of the school summer holidays. “Public opinion – and not just among parents – has swung heavily in favour of protecting children from exposure to tobacco smoke and from the behavioural cues children pick up from seeing adults smoking. This is a real opportunity to make it easier for children to grow up healthy,” said Jim McManus, the director of public health at Hertfordshire county council. “Parents and children, when given the choice, are overwhelmingly supportive of smoke-free playground. Local voluntary schemes have been popular. It’s time to give parents what they are asking for. You might feel like this is the nanny state – you’d be wrong,” McManus added. Forest, the smokers’ rights group, called to the plan “Orwellian”. Its director, Simon Clark, said: “Extending the smoking ban to outdoor parks and play areas would be a gross overreaction. There’s no evidence that a significant number of people smoke near children in outdoor areas, nor is there evidence that smoking outside is a threat to anyone else’s health.” Clark added: “Public parks are for the enjoyment of everyone, including smokers. Most smokers use their common sense and smoke accordingly. They don’t need government dictating how they behave. The idea that children should be protected from the sight of someone smoking is Orwellian. Adults can’t be expected to be perfect role models for other people’s children.” The owners of zoos and theme parks, because they are private businesses, should be allowed to decide whether smoking is banned, Clark said. It became illegal last October to smoke in a car in England or Wales carrying anyone under the age of 18. New figures last week showed that the proportion of adults in England who smoke had fallen to a record low of 16.9%. Deborah Arnott, the director of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “While the ban on smoking in indoor public places resulted in significant health benefits, thousands of children are still exposed to smoke in the home and elsewhere. Growing up in a smoke-free environment is one of the best ways of ensuring that they are not attracted to smoking and lured into a lifelong addiction and ill-health.”     Article Title:‘Mouse droppings were everywhere’: a day in the life of a food inspector   Article URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/day-in-life-food-safety-inspector-newham-east-london-hygiene   Article author(s) Kate Lyons   Article date: Sunday 25 September 2016 17.57 EDT Last modified on Monday 26 September 201609.26 EDT   News source: theguardian    Sharon Nkansah has worked on the food safety frontline in Newham, London, for 10 years, and seen the good, bad and the ugly   When you’ve been a food safety inspector for as long as Sharon Nkansah, you know how to smell a rat. “Last month, there was a place I inspected [where] I walked in and you could smell it,” she says. “You can smell mouse activity. They had droppings in fridges, where they have their sauces, where they have their cutlery; the droppings were everywhere. So I just said: ‘Pull the shutters down’.” You also learn tricks to catch out wily business owners. The best time to inspect a suspect business is in the morning, she says, before staff have had a chance to sweep up anything nasty deposited overnight. Nkansah has worked as a food safety inspector for Newham borough council in east London for 10 years. As we move between businesses throughout the day, she is fun and chatty, talking about her children and her recent holiday, but as soon as she’s in a kitchen, her bright patterned dress is covered with a white coat and her braids are tucked under a hairnet. She becomes brisk, businesslike, at times tough. Her repeated refrain, delivered to staff at the takeaways she inspects who ask her for food hygiene advice, is: “I am not here to train you, I am here to enforce.” A firm approach is needed in Newham. A Guardian analysis of Food Standards Agency data found that the borough has the lowest food hygiene scores in the country: 26% of its food businesses fail inspections, rising to 50.4% for takeaways. Far from being embarrassed by these numbers, Matthew Collins, a principal environmental health officer at the council, and Nkansah’s boss, sees them as a point of pride. “I think it’s an indication that we’re out doing our jobs,” he says. Nkansah began her career as a chef, but wanted a job with more child-friendly hours after having children, so did a one-year degree in food hygiene and began working as an inspector in Newham. Advertisement Cuts to local government funding have meant the number of food inspectors has declined in recent years. The ratio of food safety inspectors to businesses has dropped from 4.2 full-time inspectors per 1,000 food businesses in 2012-13, to 3.7 per 1,000 in 2014-15. This figure is dragged down considerably by England, where there are only 3.2 officers per 1,000 businesses, compared with 5.7 per 1,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The job, says Nkansah, is satisfying, but it comes at a cost: she has seen what goes on in the back rooms of takeaways, cafes and restaurants. Before going to a new restaurant, Nkansah says she always looks up its food safety rating. When asked if she would eat somewhere that scored zero, one or two, Nkansah is appalled. “Absolutely not,” she says. On a good day, Nkansah can inspect three establishments. On a bad day, if she visits businesses where standards are very poor and the management is either belligerent or impossible to track down, she can spend half a day trying to evaluate one. KFC: High Street North, East Ham Nkansah starts at KFC on the high street. She is expecting big things here: large chains often do well with food safety and at its previous inspection in March 2014, this KFC branch was given the highest possible score of five. Inside the KFC kitchen, the first thing Nkansah does is wash her hands. “It’s a way of testing if they have adequate hand-washing facilities. If they don’t, that’s not a good start,” she says. KFC’s hand-washing station passes muster and Nkansah then works her way through the kitchen, starting at the entry point for deliveries, before moving on to the tills. Nkansah is happy with everything – the general cleanliness of the kitchen, the way food is stored and the waste management system. The temperature of the freezer and fridges are good, and she is pleased to see a designated raw chicken preparation area. “They’ve got good separation,” Nkansah says approvingly of the way the fridges are organised: raw chicken is stored on the left, while other products, such as milk, salad and Pepsi, are on the right. “They will maintain their five stars as long as their paperwork is in order,” she tells me as we wind up. When we leave the kitchen, two customers sitting down to chicken wraps and a large serving of chips look up at us, with our white coats and hairnets, in a concerned manner. “Is it all right in there?” one man asks, voice lowered. “Yes,” we assure him. “Looks good.” They nod and tuck into their meal. King’s Peri Peri Chicken: High Street South, East Ham Next is a visit to King’s Peri Peri Chicken. The inspection is a follow-up after the shop was given a score of zero, the lowest possible, in March. Nkansah is back to see if it has made improvements. What were the issues at the last visit? “Oh, everything,” she says. Most significantly, there was no hand-washing station, meaning that employees were either washing their hands in the large washing-up sink or not at all. Today, Nkansah is pleased to see that a hand-washing sink has been installed. The manager is not in, so a staff member shows us around the property, starting with the food preparation area, which is in a basement below the shop. It is small and dark, and the floor is slippery with oil, but quite cool, which Nkansah says is a point in the restaurant’s favour. On the bench is a large plastic crate full of flour in which the raw chicken is tossed before being taken upstairs to be fried. There are two other containers on shelves below the work surface, each holding flour, bits of which are stuck to the sides of the container with, Nkansah assumes, chicken juice. She worries that the same flour is used to coat chicken day in and day out. The chef, who has been working at the shop for two weeks, struggles to understand Nkansah’s questions about how often they are cleaned, first saying they were cleaned every week, then every day and then every two days. It is unclear how much of this is a language barrier and how much is his uncertainty about the details of the cleaning schedule. “I’ve been in this business for a long time,” says Nkansah, gesturing to the crates. “This is not today’s flour.” Storage is also a problem: food should be kept on shelves off the ground. But a bag of rice and a sack of chicken breading mix, both open, and a bag of bread rolls, are on the floor. A large rice cooker sits in the corner of the kitchen next to cleaning chemicals. Nkansah looks into the fridge, which she says is kept at a good temperature, and pulls out large open tins of jalapeños and olives, as well as a large uncovered saucepan of sticky sauce meant to go on rice. “This is one of my pet hates,” says Nkansah. “I wouldn’t even do this at home, putting the whole pot in the fridge.” She orders the staff to throw out the contents of the saucepan and both tins. Nkansah revisits the shop a week later when the manager is in. He shows her the food safety paperwork. Because the shop had taken some measures to improve standards since the March inspection, it is rated up from a zero, meaning “urgent improvement necessary”, to a two, signifying “improvement necessary”. As we leave the shop, we pass a long queue of people waiting to buy chicken and I wonder whether they would keep standing in line if they knew the store’s food safety rating. There is evidence that forcing businesses to display their food hygiene scores improves quality. When Wales made it mandatory for businesses to publicly display their ratings in November 2013, the proportion of places with a zero rating fell from 0.6% to the current rate of 0.2%. Northern Ireland will introduce a similar mandatory display policy on 7 October, but publicly displaying ratings is not mandatory in England or Scotland. Agraba Grill: Barking Road, East Ham The final visit for the day is supposed to be to a chicken shop, Peri Peri de Griller, which Nkansah shut down in July. She is back to see if it has improved conditions and can be allowed to reopen. Instead, we find that the shop has been sold and a new store, Agraba Grill, has opened in the same location. It is in its second week of operation. The business is a Turkish takeaway, advertising kofta, kebabs and falafel wraps, but it still seems to sell a lot of fried chicken. Again, the manager is not in, so someone who says he is a friend of the manager shows Nkansah the premises. Walking through the kitchen, the problems are immediately evident. The food preparation area, covering half of the kitchen, has no lights. “Can I tell you one thing?” Nkansah says. “You cannot be running this food business in this darkness, it will not help you.” She moves on to the other problems, among them the ceiling, which has a large hole, and an open drain. “You see, all these holes is where you can get cockroaches,” she says. There are large piles of junk in the back of the kitchen – an old cooker, bags of rubbish and stacks of boxes. “If pests come in, they’re going to live in there and breed, so all the boxes and things you don’t need, they need to go,” Nkansah says. There are other problems. There is no basin in the staff toilet – “So where do you think they’re washing their hands?” Nkansah asks, with a raised eyebrow – and she is unimpressed to find an ashtray in the kitchen. “If someone is smoking back here, they need to stop, it’s illegal,” she says. Nkansah is immediately reassured that no one does. Mostly, she is frustrated that conditions have not improved since the previous business was shut down. Places that are closed down cannot be reopened without being reinspected, but they can be sold on. Owners of a new food business are required to register it with the council 28 days before they start operating, which leads to a food safety inspection, often within a month of operation. But this direction is frequently ignored and Collins says he knows of just one instance of a successful prosecution of a business for failing to register with the council. Nkansah and Collins are adamant that the way to combat this problem is to introduce licences for food businesses, which would require owners to show proof of food safety training before they start serving customers. Checking back with the council two weeks later, Collins tells me that the business has been sold again – the shop now has its fifth owner in nine months. The new proprietor is working with the council on improving standards at the premises before opening. Back in the office, inspections done for the day, the food safety team are deciding where to go for a late lunch. But with the morning’s inspections playing on their minds, they opt for a safe bet: McDonald’s on the high street, food safety rating five.   Article Title:Greeks Appeal for Aid After Fire Damages Refugee Camp   Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/europe/refugee-camp-greece-fire.html?ref=europe Article author(s) NIKI KITSANTONIS Article date: SEPT. 20, 2016 News source: nytimes ATHENS — Thousands of people were left homeless after a fire tore through a refugee camp Monday night on the Aegean island of Lesbos, and the Greek authorities appealed on Tuesday to the European Union for more support in managing the migration crisis. The fire, which started in the island’s main Moria camp, destroyed 50 prefabricated homes and dozens of tents, driving 4,400 migrants into nearby fields, according to humanitarian aid workers. Footage aired on Greek television showed the bulk of the camp in flames. About 100 unaccompanied children were the first to be resettled to a hostel Monday night, and about half the families had returned to the Moria camp by midday on Tuesday. The Shipping Ministry said it would send a vessel to anchor at the island, providing temporary accommodation for about 1,000 of the migrants. “Things are very difficult,” an Interior Ministry official, Nikos Toskas, told Greek radio. “The Europeans must send real, genuine aid,” he said. He condemned European countries that “build fences and then send blankets,” an apparent reference to Balkan states that closed their borders to migrants this year, leaving thousands trapped in Greece. The cause of the blaze remained unclear. Local news media said clashes had broken out between different ethnic groups in the camp amid rumors that large numbers of migrants would be sent back to Turkey. The police detained nine camp residents. Earlier in the day, residents protested, calling for the migrants to leave the island. In the wake of the unrest, Mr. Toskas said, two riot police units would be sent to the island. A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said frustrations had frequently bubbled over into clashes in camps, as many migrants have been living in poor conditions for months amid uncertainty about their future. “These people gave up everything to seek a better life months ago, and now they’re stuck,” said Roland Schoenbauer, the agency’s representative in Greece. He said frustrations and tension were being fueled by the slow pace at which the Greek authorities were processing the migrants’ asylum applications, and a sluggish European relocation program that has moved 3,700 people to other countries from Greece over the past year, far short of the target of 66,400. If the pace does not pick up, “it will take several years to resolve the problem,” Mr. Schoenbauer said. “This is not going to go away,” he continued, adding that economic migrants who do not merit asylum should be repatriated “in a humane and dignified way” to free up space at the camps. More than 60,000 refugees or asylum seekers are in Greece, the vast majority in camps across the country, most of them cramped and dirty. Over 5,700 are on Lesbos, which has borne the brunt of the migrant influx into Greece. Arrivals from neighboring Turkey have dropped since the peak of the crisis this time last year, when thousands made the short, perilous journey across the Aegean Sea aboard rickety boats, many drowning in the attempt. An agreement in March between the European Union and Turkey to curb human smuggling across the Aegean reduced the arrivals to virtually zero. However, there has been a significant uptick since July, after the failed coup attempt in Turkey. Now scores, sometimes hundreds, are arriving daily. The increase in arrivals and rising tensions in the camps have fueled protests in some communities close to state-run camps where many residents are fed up with the growing migrant populations. Last week, residents on another Aegean island, Chios, protested. The upheaval has been exploited by members of far-right groups who have also protested, often clashing with more moderate demonstrators. Mayor Spyros Galinos of Lesbos said the protests were being “guided by certain circles, far-right circles who are being supported by members of other parties that have found the opportunity to boost their following, and all this is a dangerous climate that can become explosive.” Addressing a United Nations summit meeting in New York on Monday, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, called on other European Union countries to take in more refugees from Greece and emphasized the risk of giving “space to nationalistic and xenophobic forces to show their faces.”"
114,"Erasing Indigenous Heritage —  For nearly a century, the Canadian government took indigenous Canadians from their families and placed them in church-run boarding schools, forcibly assimilating them to Western culture. Children as young as 2 or 3 years old were taken from their homes, their language extinguished, their culture destroyed. With support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, photographer Daniella Zalcman has been documenting the lingering effects of this trauma for her book, Signs of Your Identity, this year's winner for the FotoEvidence Book Award.   ""Students were punished for speaking their native languages or observing indigenous traditions, physically and sexually assaulted, and in extreme instances subjected to medical experimentation and sterilization,"" Zalcman said. ""At least 6,000 children died while in the system—so many that it was common for residential schools to have their own cemeteries."" Zalcman's double exposures combine portraits of the former students with places or items relating to their experience, giving the photos an ethereal look that underscores the damage the system caused. The last Indian Residential School closed in 1996. The government issued its first apology in 2008."
115,"Evan Bayh damaged, but not yet defeated by Republican hammering —  Evan Bayh is the first to acknowledge things have really changed since his last competitive election.   “I think it’s gotten a lot nastier than it used to be, that’s for sure,” the former Democratic senator said recently. “You know, back in the day, candidates at least made some effort to say what they’re for.”   Bayh, 60, is fond of saying that “politics ain’t beanbag” but what he’s endured has been more akin to getting hit by a steady stream of 50-pound sacks of corn.   Republicans have hammered Bayh for how many homes he now owns (four, two in Washington and one in Florida, with just a condominium in Indiana); how many millions he has made since leaving the Senate (more than $6 million in 2015 and 2016 alone); and how many different corporate entities have employed him (at least seven).   All that came before portions of Bayh’s schedule from his last years in the Senate were leaked, showing him spending considerable time meeting with Wall Street and corporate executives who would later employ him. Those blows make Republican candidate Todd Young’s message resonate in his bid to defeat Bayh: “He left us to work for them.” Within weeks of his January 2011 retirement Bayh became an adviser to private equity firm in Manhattan and a partner in the Washington office of a global law and lobbying firm, among other corporate ties. That resume isn’t an asset in a populist election cycle when Wall Street has been demonized by everyone from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the Democratic runner-up, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).   Republicans may have ripped the bark off Bayh — but they haven’t chopped him down entirely in a race that will help decide whether Democrats regain the Senate majority. Bayh, whose last tough race was for governor in 1988, is still standing and he heads into the homestretch at least a 50-50 bet. After a plunging from his lead of nearly 20 points in July, Bayh is statistically tied with Young, according to public and private polling.   And Republicans now confront a cash crunch.   In the Indianapolis media market, home to nearly 50 percent of all voters, Bayh reserved about $1.4 million worth of ads over the last four weeks, while the little-known Young has about $400,000 reserved in that crucial market, according to a Republican breakdown of ad reservations provided to The Washington Post. It’s a disparity similar to other media markets. Conservative groups have rushed in to help, and according to another Republican tracking media buys, statewide Republican spending on radio and TV will be about $7.4 million compared to $7 million on behalf of Bayh in the final two weeks of the campaign. But Bayh’s more than 3-to-1 edge on ad spending goes much farther, because the outside groups pay much higher rates than individual candidates.   If Bayh can win, Democrats will have stolen a seat that Republicans took for granted after Young won the primary and Democrats lacked a strong candidate. It would be a near fatal blow to GOP chances of holding their majority, as two races, Illinois and Wisconsin, have already broken against them. Republicans can only afford to lose three seats to stay in charge if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, and that Midwestern trio of Democratic pickups would force them to sweep almost every one of the remaining competitive seats.   Trump is not a big drag in a state that’s voted for all but one Republican for president in 55 years. Mitt Romney defeated President Obama by 10 points here in 2012, and this fall Hillary Clinton has not invested real resources here to try to defeat Trump.   With no other chance at victory, Bayh’s July entrance into the race and his traditional bipartisan appeal made him a recruiting coup for incoming Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), the incoming Democratic leader. The duo have been friends since they both won their first Senate races in 1998.   The family name gave him the early edge, particularly with Republicans nominating a relative newcomer, Young, 44, who has served in the House less than six years. His father, Birch, first won this Senate seat in 1962 but lost to Dan Quayle, the future vice president, in the 1980 GOP landslide.   A decade after that first difficult governor’s race, Evan Bayh coasted into his father’s old Senate seat.   His next 12 years were marked by an ambition never fulfilled. Twice on the short list for vice presidential nominee, in 2004 and 2008, he never got the nod. No major legislation from that period bears his name and in early 2010, he stunned the political world with his public proclamation that the Senate was beset by “strident partisanship [and] unyielding ideology”, leading to his retirement. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), whose retirement in 1998 opened the seat for Bayh in the first place, won that race but is now retiring again.   [Inside Democrats narrow path to a House majority]   Coats’s successor will likely be determined by whether the last few undecided voters view the race as a referendum on Bayh’s first 24 years in public service or his six years since.   Young’s pitch is that Bayh transformed from the state’s favorite son, a centrist who broke from his party on key issues, into a supporter of President Obama’s agenda on health care and banking issues, and those positions helped land post-Senate business.   “You name it, Evan Bayh was for it, and then he took the money and ran,” Young said in a recent interview after touring a medical device plant southwest of Indianapolis.   Financial disclosure forms show that Bayh’s wealth grew from a range of about $2 million to $8 million when he left office, to between $13 million and $48 million now.   Bayh’s campaign said that his 2010 meeting schedule with potential employers was “riddled with errors” but declined to specifically reject key elements of the Associated Press reports on the issue.   Young is channeling an anti-Washington fervor, and Bayh’s stump speech includes a populist pitch on issues like trade and the auto bailout meant to empathize with angst among white working-class voters.   The attacks on Bayh’s wealth are particularly acute in Indiana, which has a Midwestern culture that is so parochial that politicians insert “Hoosier” into almost every sentence possible.   Young invoked “Hoosier” 31 times in a 34-minute interview, and Bayh isn’t much different.   “This election is about the people of Indiana and the fact that I’ve always fought for the best interest of Hoosier families and the fact that Congressman Young has consistently voted to hurt Hoosier families,” Bayh said. Instead, Bayh wants the race to be about Sheila Haworth, 65, who he met for the first time at the Howard County Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in this town 60 miles north of Indianapolis. Her daughter went to college on the “Evan Bayh 21st Century Scholars Program” in which low-income students receive state funds for higher education if they stay out of trouble, a program the Democrat started as governor. “He’s a good man. If it hadn’t been for him, I’m sure my daughter would have gone to college but she would probably be $75,000 in debt,” Haworth said.   Bayh laments that voters like Haworth are seeing an average of 70 commercials a week for the Senate race, much of it from outside groups who were empowered by a six-year-old Supreme Court ruling to create a world in which Bayh has never operated.   “It's gotten so unrelentingly negative now, it makes governing hard when it’s all over,” he said."
116,"Everyone agrees we need to fight cholera. No one can agree on how —  The clinics were overwhelmed. Over just a few days in 2010, cholera had swept through the chaos of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Violently ill patients were packing wards, slumping in tents, and dying within hours of showing their first symptoms. Dr. Louise Ivers, an infectious disease specialist, needed help. She and other medical professionals were working without sleep, besieged by a stream of weak patients struggling into the clinics. There was a vaccine available. Although the cache was not nearly large enough — and still not fully approved by the World Health Organization — Ivers and others appealed to Haitian officials to allow them to distribute the drug. The government said no. “This was a missed opportunity to save lives,” Ivers, who ran a clinic in Haiti for the nonprofit Partners in Health, recalled in a recent interview. Today, the epidemic is seen as a pivotal moment in a dispute over the best way to counter cholera. On one side are public health advocates, backed by the powerful Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who have been galvanized in their enthusiasm for vaccines. Those vaccines, they believe, can be used to make major strides against a disease that is thousands of years old, easily treated, and entirely preventable. On the other are public health officials who argue that the vaccines are not effective enough and are a Band-Aid diverting attention from the water and sanitation issues that are at the root of cholera. “This is a disease of poverty,” said Shafiqul Islam, director of the Water Diplomacy Program at Tufts University. “There is a group of people who think vaccines will solve the problem. I don’t think it will.” Experts on both sides acknowledge the disagreement has undermined unity in the fight against cholera. The WHO has tried to straddle the divide by supporting both approaches, without settling how to pay for both. Caused by bacteria, cholera is spread through contaminated water, and it kills by massively dehydrating victims’ bodies through diarrhea and vomiting. The WHO says about 100,000 people die worldwide from cholera each year. It is a rough estimate: Some countries do not report cases, and victims often die in isolated rural communities, the cause of their deaths unrecorded. The disease roars seasonally into India, Bangladesh, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and made appearances last year in 32 countries. Outbreaks typically center on Africa, South Asia, and, recently, the Middle East. There are year-to-year fluctuations in the number of cholera cases, but the overall incidence does not seem to be dropping. Two oral vaccines exist, and the most useful, called Shanchol, was available in limited supplies when the epidemic began in Haiti. It had been administered widely in Vietnam since 1997, but at the time of the Haitian crisis — which came as a handmaiden of death after the country’s earthquake and ultimately killed 9,000 people — the WHO was awaiting the results of a larger study and had not signed off on international distribution. Since then, the WHO has approved the vaccine and the Gates Foundation — the source of major public health funding — has weighed in forcefully to promote its use. Among other steps, the foundation has pumped about $20 million into Shanchol and helped jumpstart manufacturing of the vaccine in India. As of mid-2013, public health officials had at their disposal a stockpile of 2 million doses that can be moved quickly to an area of need. The vaccine was used successfully in rural Guinea in 2012 and again in refugee camps in South Sudan in 2013. Some 500,000 doses have been sent to Iraq, where continuing violence has helped fuel the emergence of more than 2,000 cholera cases. Helen Matzger, senior program officer at the Gates Foundation, said the decision to promote the vaccine made sense. “When you look at the amount of money it would take to make infrastructure improvements, that’s well outside what a foundation could do,” she said. But the vaccine has drawbacks: It must be administered in two doses, two weeks apart, a daunting task in an emergency. And it is far from perfect clinically — it cuts a person’s risk of contracting the disease by an average of 50 percent to 65 percent over two years. After that, a recipient’s immunity drops even further. More to the point, critics noted, reliance on a vaccine does not address the underlying causes of cholera. “You are really only going to solve this with an investment and infrastructure and maintenance of the infrastructure,” said David Olson, deputy medical director of Doctors Without Borders. He advocates a focus on assisting the 900 million people worldwide without clean water and the 2.5 billion people without good sanitation. Ivers, now senior health and policy adviser for Partners in Health, does not dispute the importance of that goal. “Nobody is saying [a vaccine] replaces water and sanitation,” said Ivers. “But there are still those who say spending $1 million on vaccines is $1 million we don’t have to spend on water and sewer.” Cholera has likely been around as long as man. As societies became urbanized, epidemics were swift, massive, and deadly. More than 14,000 died in London in an 1849 outbreak. Thousands more died when cholera reached New York that year. President James Polk was a victim. The breakthrough against this disease is medical legend. Dr. John Snow, a London physician, rejected the belief that the disease was spread by “bad air,” and began meticulously plotting cholera deaths on a map of Soho in 1854. His plots revealed a key crossroads around a water pump on Broad Street. He got the pump handle removed, stopped the epidemic, and proved contaminated water is the source of the disease. “It has always inspired fear because it is so sudden and horrifying,” said Eric Mintz, a cholera expert at the CDC. “We really have made significant progress in understanding how cholera spreads, evolves, how it can be prevented and how it can be treated.” Though naturally present in tropical, brackish waters, cholera may surge into an epidemic when human waste from a sick person contaminates water used by others for drinking, bathing, or growing crops. Without treatment, cholera can drain victims’ bodies of so much fluid in just six hours that their bodies can no longer pump blood. Death follows immediately. Children can succumb even faster. The separation of sanitation and water systems in cities following Snow’s revelation have largely eliminated cholera in developed countries. And doctors have learned how to effectively treat it. Quick infusion of large quantities of a simple saline solution of water, salt, and sugar — either by drinking or through an IV infusion — works. Such a solution can convert a deadly bout of cholera into an illness from which patients can recover quickly. In countries where cholera is endemic, a regular occurrence, people know to act fast. “I’ve had it several times,” said Maimuna Majumder, an engineer who works regularly in Bangladesh. “Everybody gets it every year. Everybody knows what it is.” But the deadliest outbreaks occur unexpectedly. Haiti was never known to have cholera, despite its poor water and sewer infrastructure. After the earthquake, however, a United Nations peacekeeper likely brought the bacteria from Nepal, a UN investigation found. Latrine runoff from a UN camp apparently reached a major river used for drinking and washing, and the epidemic erupted within days. Ivers recalled being at a meeting and getting a message from a colleague that 100 patients had arrived overnight at a rural clinic with severe diarrhea. “We were all afraid to say the word,” she recalled. “Everybody was taking a deep breath, saying, ‘Oh, please, no.’” Because cholera was unknown in Haiti, people did not recognize it and doctors were not used to treating it. Oral saline solutions and IVs were not there in the numbers needed. The sick crowded wards or slept in tents tended by family members, with few controls to stop further infection. “It was chaotic and fearful,” said Daniele Lantagne, who was on the UN team sent to investigate the outbreak, and is now on the faculty at Tufts University. “Haiti had absolutely no idea what it was. They literally thought it was voodoo, the curse of god.” Ivers and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, urged the government to improve sanitation and to buy the 200,000 available doses of Shanchol — enough for 100,000 people — and rush it into use. But the government rejected the appeal. “There’s a lot of criticism about the decision,” said Olson, of Doctors Without Borders, who was on the ground in Haiti soon after the outbreak. “But at the time, if you had to figure out who are you going to give 100,000 doses to out of 10 million people, how do you do that?” “The vaccine would not have prevented the exponential spread of the disease,” said Lantagne. “It could have blunted the curve, yes, but it would not have prevented the epidemic.” Ivers, who finally got approval to administer the vaccine to 45,000 Haitians as the epidemic stretched into its second year, said the results of her experiment — a 65 percent reduction in cases — proved the vaccine’s worth. “Even if they only had 200,000 doses in the bank, we could’ve bought those and got started,” Ivers said. “We could’ve told the manufacturers we will buy 5 million doses, so ramp up the manufacture. We could have started. We could have done it.” Ivers envisions a strategy, mostly embraced by the WHO, in which the vaccine could be used to treat the elderly and children in areas in which the disease is endemic, such as Bangladesh, before the predictable spring and fall outbreaks, and could be rushed in to try to isolate an unexpected outbreak in places like Haiti. But mobilizing vaccinations when an outbreak emerges is tough. “Cholera makes fools of epidemiologists. It’s just so hard to predict,” Olson said. “It will almost always move faster than you can move resources. We are just trying to warn people, ‘don’t get too caught up in vaccinations because you are going to have patients at any case.’” Added the CDC’s Mintz: “Vaccines are not the hydrogen bomb in this war.” A younger generation is injecting new voices — and new ideas — into the debate. Majumder, a doctoral engineering candidate at MIT, is seeking to link texting on mobile phones, rapidly becoming ubiquitous in the world, to the fight against cholera. She believes that if communities can begin reporting evidence of the disease sooner to medical providers, public health officials would have a head start in rushing resources to address emerging epidemics. “If we can identify the hot spots, that would be great,” she said of her effort, known as the Village Zero Project. Another freshly minted researcher, Faith Wallace-Gadsden, has helped start a project in Haiti to mobilize women to sell cheap chlorine water sterilization tablets. It’s a simple idea, but one she believes could work. Wallace-Gadsden contends that the dispute over vaccinations is too narrow. “The thing that is mind-blowing is the amount of money that has been spent, and it hasn’t worked,” she said. “The idea that people are still dying in 2015 of cholera is outrageous.”"
117,"Everything You Need to Know About the Zika Virus —  A comprehensive guide to The Atlantic’s ongoing coverage of the outbreak Scientists have known about the Zika virus for seven decades, but human infection has only been a serious public-health concern in recent years—especially amid outbreaks that have taught researchers more about emerging, mutated strains of the virus. There is still much that we don’t understand about Zika, but we do know it’s a catastrophic threat to global public health—even despite the fact that the majority of those who are infected never experience telltale symptoms such as fever, rash, joint pain, red eyes, and muscle aches. This makes it particularly hard to test for—Zika only shows up in a person’s bloodstream about one week after infection, so there’s a fairly small window of time in which a Zika diagnosis can be confirmed through a blood or urine sample. Zika is of particular concern to pregnant women, whose fetuses can suffer grave outcomes when a woman contracts the virus. Yet the virus can be serious—and in rare cases, deadly—for children and adults, too. ________________   What We Know  Zika primarily spreads through infected mosquitoes. The main carrier of the virus is the Aedes aegypti mosquito. (The more geographically disperse Aedes albopictuscan also, more rarely, spread the disease.) You can also get Zika through sex, including vaginal sex, anal sex, oral sex, and the sharing of sex toys, according to the CDC: Zika can be passed through sex, even if the person does not have symptoms at the time. It can be passed from a person with Zika before their symptoms start, while they have symptoms, and after their symptoms end. It may also be passed by a person who has been infected with the virus but never develops symptoms. Studies are underway to find out how long Zika stays in the semen and vaginal fluids of people who have Zika, and how long it can be passed to sex partners. Current research shows that Zika can remain in semen longer than in other body fluids, including vaginal fluids, urine, and blood. In one rare case, the virus appears to have been transmitted via casual contact—but this is not typical. The Zika virus can be passed from a pregnant woman to her fetus, and an infection during pregnancy can cause birth defects. Microcephaly, in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head and underdeveloped brain, is one danger. Congenital Zika syndrome is the more general term for a pattern of birth defects that could result from the virus—including severe microcephaly, decreased brain tissue, damage to the eye, clubfoot, and muscle development problems that lead to restricted movement soon after a baby is born. Scientists believe that the first trimester is the most dangerous, but a Zika infection in the mother could harm the fetus at any point during pregnancy. In August 2016, the CDC issued updated recommendations on how people planning to get pregnant should protect themselves from Zika. For those who have either traveled to a Zika-infected country or had unprotected sex with someone who has, women should wait at least eight weeks since last possible exposure before trying to get pregnant and men should wait at least six months. ________________   What We Don’t Know Scientists know that Zika can be harmful to the developing brain, but it’s unknown when the threat of serious damage passes. It’s not clear, for instance, how likely it is that the virus might cause irreparable harm to a toddler’s brain. It’s also unknown exactly how the risks associated with Zika change over the course of a woman’s pregnancy, so the CDC can’t say whether there’s ever a safe time during pregnancy to travel to an area with Zika. If a woman is infected with Zika while she is pregnant, scientists don’t know how to determine whether the baby will have birth defects—or even developmental delays related to Zika that aren’t physically detectable. That’s why Zika has been described as a “delayed epidemic.” It’s likely to be several years or more before the true scope and gravity of the outbreak is understood. There is no vaccine to prevent Zika, and no medicine to treat the virus. In the past year, however, scientists have made major strides toward vaccination and prevention. Several vaccines are in the works, including two that have entered clinical trials in humans at the National Institutes of Health. Scientists are also exploring the efficacy of using genetically modified mosquitoes to stop the spread of the virus. One method involves releasing lab-sterilized mosquitoes into the wild, and the other involves using a common bacteria against wild Zika-carrying mosquitoes. In the meantime, the best defense against Zika at the government level is mosquito control efforts. Individuals should review travel advisories and use bug spray in affected areas. Contraception is also key to preventing sexually transmitted Zika. ________________   Where in the World Is Zika? As of October 2016, the CDC has issued travel warnings for Zika in most countries throughout the Americas, as well as in the Caribbean, Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. CDC The risk in countries where Zika is endemic is not zero, but it is considered much lower than the risks associated with the virus in countries where outbreaks are active. Zika is endemic in parts of Africa (Angola, Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia); Asia (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan), and the Pacific Islands (Easter Island, Vanuatu). ________________   Where Did Zika Come From? Zika was first discovered in monkeys in Uganda in 1947. The first human cases of the virus were detected in the region in 1952. Up until the 1980s, humans across Africa and Asia contracted the virus, but those who did typically only suffered mild illness. It wasn’t until 2007 that a large outbreak was recorded, this time on Yap island in Micronesia. In another massive outbreak, this one in French Polynesia in 2013, researchers found a link between Zika and the neurological disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome. Then, in mid-2015, Brazil began to see reports of locally-transmitted Zika. Some scientists believe that Zika got to Rio de Janeiro from French Polynesia during the Va’a World Sprint Championship canoe race in August 2014. Since then, a dangerous strain of the virus has continued to spread. As of November 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 4,128 cases of Zika in the United States—and 30,178 more cases in U.S. territories—including more than 3,000 cases of Zika confirmed in pregnant women in those regions. In Puerto Rico, especially, Zika is spreading rapidly. “If current trends continue, at least 1 in 4 people, including women who become pregnant, may become infected with Zika” there, according to the CDC. Meanwhile, since the new Zika strain started spreading in Southeast Asia in September 2016, the CDC has expanded its travel warning for pregnant women, cautioning them to avoid travel to 11 countries in Southeast Asia: Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, East Timor, and Vietnam."
118,"Evidence 'corroborates' Russian role in devastating Syria school massacre —  A deadly attack on a school in Syria was the result of airstrikes carried out by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes, an investigation carried out by Human Rights Watch has concluded.   On October 26, 35 people, including 22 children, were killed in attacks on a school complex in the rural town of al-Hass in a rebel-held area of Idilb province in northwestern Syria.    In the immediate aftermath Russia, citing drone footage presented by the country’s Ministry of Defence, claimed that no airstrikes had taken place in al-Hass. However, in a report released on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that satellite imagery pointed to Russian and Syrian regime culpability, while drone footage released by the Russian Ministry of Defence – intended to support its claim that no airstrikes had taken place – showed damage consistent with HRW’s compiled evidence.    “The Russian government’s latest denials fly in the face of corroborated witness statements, videos, satellite imagery, and even its own drone footage,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch in the report released on Wednesday.    “This denial is an insult to the victims and a symptom of the impunity and manipulation of information that has characterised the Syria conflict.”   In addition to analysing satellite imagery, HRW has also compiled video-evidence of the attack from at least two different sources, and the testimonies of at least seven witnesses of the attack.    Witnesses note that a total of five airstrikes took place on the school complex which consisted of an elementary school, two middle schools, and a secondary school; while video evidence appeared to show a Su-24 aircraft – only the Russian and Syrian militaries conduct airstrikes in Syria use this type of aircraft -- flying at medium altitude in the area at the time of the attack.   Additionally, noted HRW, bombs deployed appear to have been detonated before reaching the ground in order to “maximise the damage created by the blast effect of the weapon” helping to explain the lack of blast craters at the site of the attack. In a letter to Russia’s Ministry of Defence on Wednesday HRW called on Moscow to carry out a thorough and transparent investigation into the attack.    Speaking to The New Arab, Lama Fakih, HRW’s Middle East & North Africa Deputy Director, said that HRW had decided to write directly to the Russian Ministry of Defence after Moscow initially disputed the international watchdog's claims that airstrikes had taken place in al-Hass.   Russian military figures also notably denied that airstrikes were responsible for a deadly attack targeting an aid convoy in the Aleppo suburb of Orum al-Kubra on September 19, with one military spokesman at the time claiming that the destruction had been caused by a “fire”. The Syrian regime and Russia were later implicated in that attack.   “The aim of the letter was partly to respond to the Russian government’s allegations. We believe we have compelling evidence of violations of international law. Unfortunately official Russian statements on events in Syria do not reflect the severity of realities on the ground,” said Fakih.   Speaking to The New Arab earlier this month, Misty Buswell, Save The Children’s Communications Director for the Middle East and Eurasia, noted that combatant forces in Syria have acted with almost complete “impunity”in Syria. Fakih concurred. Over the course of Syria’s now nearly six year-long war, more than 4,200 schools in the country have been damaged, destroyed, militarised and used as detention centres, or been converted into shelters for internally displaced persons, according to UNICEF.   Since deadly events in al-Hass at least two further attacks – one carried out by pro-regime forces, and one by rebel groups– are reported to have taken place in Syria.   Monitoring groups hold the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad responsible for the vast majority of attacks targeting civilian infrastructures in the country. In particular, Fakih pointed to the current situation in rebel-held East Aleppo, currently facing a joint Russian-and Syria siege, as evidence of such realities.   “Attacks targeting civilian infrastructures have contributed to massive flows of displacement, and in East Aleppo (the Syrian regime) is really trying to drive out entire civilian populations,” said Fakih who noted with frustration that proposals presented in the UN Security Council to persecute those deemed responsible for such attacks in international courts of law had been repeatedly vetoed by Russia and China.   As a result, Fakih noted, some efforts are underway to establish a campaign for the establishment of culpability for war crimes committed in Syria through the UN General Assembly.   Recently a number of individual cases accusing the Syrian regime of war crimes have also been accepted by national courts in Europe, notably in France, and also in the United States.   “Evidence collection and preservation will be crucial in any future cases,” noted Fakih, “in order to hold those guilty accountable.”"
119,"Eye Injuries in Youth Sports Are Surprisingly Common —  Eye injuries in sports, especially youth sports, are worryingly common and often involve activities that most of us probably would not consider risky for eyes, according to a new, nationwide study of emergency room visits related to eye problems among athletes.   The results suggest that anyone involved with youth sports should be vigilant about protecting young people’s eyes, perhaps in part by stocking up on wraparound glasses.   Team sports and other physical activities, while providing many health benefits, also carry an inherent risk of injury. Even experienced athletes can slip, stumble, collide with balls or posts or opponents or teammates or the ground, and in multiple other ways, harm themselves.   The rise in recent years in serious sports injuries, including concussions and tears of the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee, has been well documented and unsettling to those of us who are sports parents.   But far less attention has been devoted to eye injuries, even though eyes can be especially vulnerable during sports. They tend to be facing directly into the action and have little natural protection against pokes or flying objects.   So for the new study, published recently in JAMA Ophthalmology, researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard and other institutions decided to delve into data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, which compiles information about millions of emergency room visits to more than 900 hospitals around the country. The database offers a representative sampling of visits to the approximately 5,000 emergency rooms in the United States.   Beginning in 2010, these hospitals began using a detailed set of new medical codes to describe why people had visited the emergency room. These codes specified, among other information, what sport someone had been playing when he or she was hurt, as well as what kind of injury had occurred.   The researchers gathered all of the data involving eye injuries from 2010 through 2013, and then zeroed in on injuries that, according to the coding system, had occurred during sports or physical activities like recreational cycling.   They then organized the resulting statistics according to the age of the person with the injured eye, the activity involved and the severity of injury.   The results are perhaps not suitable for the squeamish but are important for anyone who works with young athletes. About 30,000 sports-related eye injuries were treated each year at the emergency rooms participating in the database, the researchers found.   A large majority of these injuries occurred in people younger than age 18, and quite a few in children younger than 10.   The sport most likely to result in harm to the eye was basketball, the researchers found, accounting for more than a quarter of the injuries. Baseball and softball were, together, the second most common cause, followed, among boys, by air guns. Football resulted in few eye injuries, probably because players wear full-face helmets.   But to the surprise of the researchers, cycling was one of the most frequent contributors, as was soccer, especially among girls.   Eye injuries were not always the primary reason someone visited the emergency room. Sometimes the eye problem was part of a larger accident. Someone would fall from a bicycle, for instance, and scrape her face along the pavement, causing multiple lacerations, including to the eye.   Thankfully, most of the injuries were relatively minor, including cuts and bruises around the eye or on the eyelid. But some, such as fractures of the bones housing the eyeball, common during baseball and air-gun play, required surgery and potentially threatened young athletes’ vision.   “Sports-related eye injuries can be quite serious,” said Dr. R. Sterling Haring, a doctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins and the University of Lugano in Switzerland, who led the study.   The injuries also are likely to be far more numerous than in this study, he said. “We had data only from emergency rooms” and not visits to eye doctors, urgent care facilities or general practitioners, he said, which most likely would have doubled or tripled the totals.   Based on the study’s results, however, he believes that reducing eye injuries among athletes could be both relatively easy and quite daunting, depending on the sport.   “One of our most interesting findings,” he said, was that eye injuries were frequent and severe from air guns, but “relatively uncommon with paint guns,” since they are usually used at paintball facilities that require safety goggles.   “If you’re dealing with projectiles or fast-moving objects,” he said, such as a ballistic paint blob or a baseball, “protective eyewear is definitely worthwhile.”   Protecting eyes in a sport like basketball, where wayward fingers and sharp elbows are usually to blame, could be harder, he said.   But even then, convincing young basketball players to wear protective glasses with clear lenses might prevent many trips to the E.R. for eye treatment, he said.   “Wraparound glasses with shatterproof lenses can keep out a lot of undesirable objects,” he said, including fingers, debris and misdirected curveballs.   Such eyewear may not previously have been associated with elite performance or stylishness in athletics, he admitted. “But knowing what we know now about how many eye injuries occur during sports, especially youth sports,” he said, “let’s try for a cultural shift and convince the kids they look really good wearing those glasses.”"
120,"Eye for an eye? Iranian thug blinded for throwing acid in 4-year-old girl's face —  Iran has blinded a man on Tuesday after convicting him of throwing chemicals in face of a four-year-old girl, a judicial official was quoted as saying.   The little child was left completely unable to see by the brutal attack – leading the state to sentence the attacker to the literal eye-for-an-eye punishment. The head of criminal affairs at the Tehran prosecutor’s office, Mohammad Shahriari, said it was the second time this year that Iran has carried out the punishment, which can be imposed for such crimes in the Islamic republic.   “In 2009, this man threw lime into the face of a little girl of four years in the Sanandaj region, leaving her blind,” the ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.   “Today, the law of retribution was applied in my presence and that of experts,” he said, without giving details. The law of retribution is a central part of Islam’s sharia code but has been condemned by international human rights groups.   Victims also have the right under the Islamic “qisas” law to personally inflict the gruesome punishments. They can also choose to spare their attackers the punishment often in exchange for blood money.   In 2011 a young Iranian woman called off the blinding of her attacker at the last minute. Ameneh Bahrami – one of a number who have been blinded and disfigured in acid attacks in recent years – said she did not want her attacker to endure what she had.   Majid Movahedi has been sentenced to blinding by ten drops of sulfuric acid in 2008.   Human rights groups have in the past slammed the legal code, branding it “inhumane” and “brutal”."
121,"FBI REPORTS HIGHEST NUMBER OF HATE CRIMES AGAINST MUSLIMS SINCE 2001 —  Anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. have increased by 67 percent in one year, an FBI report has found.   According to the bureau's Hate Crimes Statistics report, there were 257 incidents against Muslims in 2015—the highest number since 2001 when anti-Muslim sentiment escalated after the September 11 attacks.   This year’s report, which contains data from 14,997 law enforcement agencies, reveals 5,850 criminal incidents and 6,885 related offenses that were motivated by bias against race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender and gender identity. While Islamophobic crimes grew by the highest margin, incidents of hate against Jewish, black and LGBTQ people also increased. The figures have been published among reports that the President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-minority rhetoric has seen a further spike in public anger and aggression across the U.S. After a series of attacks in the U.S. were claimed by ISIS in 2015, including the Orlando nightclub shooting, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the country.   “I think these statistics are just a fraction of what we see on the ground right now,” Ibrahim Hooper from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told Al Jazeera.   “We witnessed a spark in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in late 2015, and this number increased further during Donald Trump's election campaign.   “We expect the situation to get worse in the future, based on the fact that Donald Trump had mainstreamed Islamophobia."""
122,"FBI data showing drop in police deaths undermines 'war on cops' theory —  Preliminary data show a 20% decrease in number of officers intentionally killed in the line of duty and the second-lowest total in the past 12 years   Data released by the FBI show that 2015 was one of the safest years for law enforcement officers in more than a decade.   The preliminary numbers report that 37 US police officers (41 including those from Puerto Rico) were intentionally killed by suspects in the line of duty in 2015, a decrease of 20% from 2014 and the second-lowest total in the past 12 years. The data seem to undermine concerns that increased criticism of police, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, has fostered a “war on cops”. “For those who seem to believe that police officers are being killed at higher rates, and that it has something to do with the protests against police misconduct, this really shows you that there’s nothing to that,” said University of Pittsburgh Law professor and policing expert David Harris. Chuck Canterbury, president of the national Fraternal Order of Police, said he found the FBI data unconvincing. “I think they’re going up,” he said, citing the 17 officers killed by intentional gunfire so far in 2016. “This year’s numbers are up versus last year’s, and in 2015 there seemed to be quite a few towards the end of the year.” The FBI data include any non-accidental deaths of officers in the line of duty. All the officers killed in 2016 were killed either by gunshot, or by a suspect intentionally striking them with a vehicle. The Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), which keeps data on officer deaths going back over 100 years, has recorded 17 fatal shootings of officers on duty in 2016, and one case where an officer was intentionally struck and killed with a vehicle. If this rate of fatal incidents held steady for the rest of the year, 48 officers would be killed: an increase from 2015 and the same number as 2014. The FBI figures also show the instances of officers being killed in unprovoked or ambush attacks remain at near historical lows, basically steady for the past four years. According to the 2016 numbers, four officers have been ambushed while responding to calls and another three were killed in “unprovoked attacks”. One of those “unprovoked” incidents recorded by the FBI was likely the August 2015 death in of Harris County deputy Darren Goforth, who was shot by suspect Shannon Miles as the deputy pumped gas, in Texas.   Miles, who is black, did not make any reference to Black Lives Matter in relation to the killing. Some commentators claimed a motive anyway, like then-GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who said the shooting was part of an “assault on law enforcement across our country”. Another 2015 officer death that stirred concerns about a violent offensive against police was that of Fox Lake, Illinois, officer Joseph Gliniewicz, who was found dead of gunshot wounds after an alleged confrontation with three suspects days after the death of Goforth. It was revealed in November, however, that Gliniewicz had shot himself, elaborately staging his death to appear as a homicide. Harris said: “The truth is we really don’t know what has driven officer deaths down to this point, because there are fewer of them than there used to be. “But we can make some educated guesses, among those: better training and better policies and protocols.”"
123,"Families of missing 43 students lead march in Mexico —  MEXICO CITY –  The families of 43 missing Mexican college students are leading a march of unions, students and other supporters through Mexico City to demand the young men be found on the second anniversary of their disappearance.   On Sept. 26, 2014, the students from the Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa were in the southern city of Iguala hijacking buses. Local police intercepted them and turned them over to a local drug cartel.   The government's initial investigation decided the students were killed and incinerated in a fire. But international experts have cast doubt on this theory and the families have not accepted it.   Clemente Rodriguez's son Christian is among the missing and he believes that his son and the others are still alive and that the families will never believe the government."
124,"Family Travel in a Time of Fear —  My 7-year-old daughter scampered over the cobblestones of a narrow Paris street, proudly holding a bag of fresh cherries. She had asked for them herself: “Des cerises, s’il vous plaît!” Meanwhile, a few steps away, my 4-year-old was offering her finest “Merci” to the carousel attendant collecting tokens for the next ride. She squealed every time she caught sight of the Eiffel Tower in the distance, convinced she had stepped into the pages of a “Madeline” story. At that moment, my husband and I felt fortunate and happy to be in France as a family, to be able to share with our girls a place that has been formative to us.   Before we left for the trip this past summer, however, some friends and family were apprehensive. “Aren’t you worried about what could happen over there?” The implication was that travel, especially to France, was not a risk worth taking.   One year ago I wept in horror at the attacks in the Bataclan theater in Paris, recalling how my husband and I attended our first concert there together over a decade earlier. My cherished memories of that intimate, warm venue, our hands clasped as we listened to buoyant flamenco music, will forever be tempered by the knowledge that that same space became a tomb for so many. Woven into the fabric of daily life is now an awareness of “what if” that oscillates between the reasonable and the irrational, with the line of distinction between the two at times difficult to discern.   In the end, we had plane tickets in hand and lodgings booked. And so we went, finding a place that was at once the same – the cobblestone streets with wafting smells of patisserie, the urban nooks and crannies that make Paris feel new each day – and wholly changed. Security was visible and omnipresent, a constant reminder of what was and what could be, of worst-case scenarios all too familiar from Paris to Istanbul, from Dhaka to London and beyond. Yet the bustle of Paris continues, just as the yellow cabs of New York weave endlessly, day and night, around Ground Zero. The quotidian has a way of reclaiming itself, of imposing resilience over trepidation.   We delighted in watching our older daughter ask questions on visits to medieval castles. Her little sister giggled with joy at finding “du chocolat” nearly everywhere and at discovering Tunisian chorba soup. We watched our children chase other kids in the park, eschewing language barriers and timidity. Their ease with new places was enviable, and we marveled at how open they were to seeing the world through a different window, if only for a few days.   Truth be told, my husband and I did feel moments of vulnerability, of questioning our decision to leave the familiarity of home. We would catch each other’s glance, sharing a fleeting moment of worry as clusters of heavily armed gendarmes walked earnestly past at the airport, or as an armed officer strolled by with a muzzled dog at the outdoor shopping center. Yet every holiday season we walk for hours through the streets of Manhattan, showing our children the twinkling lights of Fifth Avenue, smelling cart-roasted chestnuts and buying pretzels with extra salt. You aim for vigilance, but also choose to experience life.   While we were safely tucked away in our room in Paris, the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando occurred, a reminder of troubles closer to home. I was suddenly glad to be so far away from the horror of another list of names to eulogize, of frozen, piercing gazes beaming back from the television screen. So many victims were Puerto Rican – just like me. It was startling to hear the familiar cadence of their names announced by French news anchors. Paris felt both so far and so near.   When our trip ended 12 days later and we landed safely at Kennedy International Airport, we were awash in glad memories, plentiful souvenirs and a bit of relief.   I felt my breath catch again in the weeks following our return, however, as our domestic news was dominated by the summer’s shootings and protests. It is violence that is at once unimaginable and familiar, normalized, perhaps more so by the rage underpinning our volatile political rhetoric. I think of how “safety” is relative and never assured.   We spend so much time concerned about what dangers may befall us “over there” – the unknowable somewhere – when in truth they can find us anywhere, even at home. Travel is, if anything, a mirror we place upon ourselves, an opportunity to experience the world, and our view of it, with both a critical and empathetic lens. Our children also must learn that no tragedy is ever truly distant or foreign and that both hope and pain are woven together.   The last city we visited on our trip was Nice, where we walked along the Promenade des Anglais and dipped our feet in the cold ocean on the city’s rock covered beaches. Two weeks later, on Bastille Day, a truck careened into a crowd watching fireworks, ultimately claiming the lives of 86 people. The images of the Promenade where the bodies were strewn share the same background as the photos of my own children counting pebbles on the beach, ponytails glimmering in the sunlight. This trip reaffirmed that we, as parents, are always confronting fear. Sometimes I wish I could close a drawbridge behind me and hide, to find some cocoon of safety to carry our little family through the madness of the world. But fear alone cannot draw the contours of how life is lived; it cannot shape the scope of the world our children inherit.   Days after the events in Nice, my youngest daughter, eating the last of her French chocolate while completing a puzzle of the Eiffel Tower on our living room floor, asked, “Mama, can we go back to France one day?” Yes, one day, I assured her. Nous reviendrons."
125,"Family loses home and two pets in D.C. fire —  A fire displaced a family of five and killed two cats inside their Northwest Washington rowhouse, D.C. fire and emergency services officials said. Firefighters were called to the two-story home in the 5000 block of Illinois Avenue NW about 1 p.m., said Vito Maggiolo, a fire department spokesman. All the residents escaped without injury, but two family pets did not. The Red Cross was notified to help two adults and three children who cannot reenter the home due to fire damage, officials said. The cause of the fire is under investigation."
126,"Famous Frog Toughie Dies, Sending Species to Extinction —  The tree frog's loss warns of other extinctions, says the photographer who featured the animal in his Photo Ark project.And then there were none. Toughie, the world's last Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog and a symbol of the extinction crisis, has died at his home in the Atlanta Botanical Garden. The famed frog's age is unknown, but he's at least 12 years old, and likely older, because he was an adult when collected in 2005. Mark Mandica, who worked with Toughie for seven years, says the frog's story isn't entirely unique. “A lot of attention had been paid to him in captivity, so he even has his own Wikipedia page,” Mandica, head of the Amphibian Foundation, notes. “But there are plenty of other species out there that are disappearing, sometimes before we even knew that they were there.” In fact, Toughie's own species (Ecnomiohyla rabborum) wasn't described until 2008, a few years after Toughie was found during a 2005 frog rescue mission by the Atlanta Botanical Garden and Zoo Atlanta. He was one of many frogs scientists raced to collect as the deadly chytrid fungus closed in on central Panama. “It was likened to just rescuing things from a burning house,” Mandica says. The species occurred in a very small range, at an elevation where the fungus proved especially deadly. Field studies suggest up to 85 percent of all the amphibians on Toughie's home turf were wiped out. It's unlikely that any of his kind survived in the wild, where they were incredible climbers and also graceful gliders—toe webbing allowed them to soar from one tree to the next. (Learn about the increasing pace of extinctions.) Naming a Survivor Mandica's son, then a two-year-old, dubbed the last survivor Toughie. Naming animals isn't the norm among scientists, but the frog's popularity as the last of his kind meant that people (and the press) kept demanding a name—and Toughie stuck. Although he gave voice to the plight of endangered species, Toughie was silent for all the years he lived at the botanical garden, until one fateful morning in 2014 when Mandica captured the only existing example of the Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog's call. “I heard this weird call coming out of the frog [area], and I knew it had to be him, because I knew what all the other species sounded like. I was able to sneak in and record him on my phone.” (Hear Toughie's call.) Photographing the Last of a Kind Photographer Joel Sartore recalls a curious, baseball-size creature with amazing eyes that actually hopped up onto his camera while being photographed for the Photo Ark project. Photo Ark aims to showcase our planet's incredible biodiversity and inspire people to help fight the extinction crisis while there is still time. So far, Sartore has photographed more than 6,000 species. Unfortunately, many others also represent the end of the line for their kind. “About once a year I photograph something that's the last of its kind or close to it,” he says. “I get sad and angry because I can't imagine that this won't wake the world up and get people to care about extinction. I keep thinking, OK, this is the one. This animal's story is going to do it and get people to care more about extinction than about what's on TV. “They can't care if they don't know these animals,” he adds. “They have to meet them and fall in love with them the way that I have and so many others have.” Toughie, indeed, had lots of admirers. Last year his image was even projected onto St. Peter's Basilica, and his call played, so that the world could see and hear him. The frog met race car drivers and movie directors, Sartore recalls. “A lot of people were moved to tears when they saw him. When you have the very last of something it's a special deal.” Now he's gone, and with him an entire species. And as large numbers of animals and plants continue to vanish, their loss increasingly compromises the healthy ecosystems necessary for everyone's survival—including our own. (Can extinct species ever be brought back?) “We're on track to lose half of all species by the end of the century,” Sartore says. “And it's folly to think that we can lose half of everything else but that people will be just fine. It's not going to work that way. As these species go, so do we.”"
127,"Fate of turtles and tortoises affected more by habitat than temperature —  Habitat degradation poses a greater risk to the survival of turtles and tortoises than rising global temperatures, according to new research. More than 60 per cent of the group are listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered, because they are being traded, collected for food and medicine and their habitats are being degraded. Understanding the additional impact of global warming and changes in rainfall patterns on their diversity and distributions is therefore paramount to their conservation. The team of researchers from the University of Bristol, London’s Natural History Museum, and the University of California, set out to test if long-term climate change poses a threat or opportunity to turtles and tortoises and how they might respond to increased global temperatures. As turtles live such long lives, it is impossible to conduct experiments to test for the impact of warming over several generations. The group used a novel combination of state of the art climate models and the deep time fossil record of turtles during warmer times. The Late Cretaceous fossil record (66-72 million years ago), dating from the time just before the demise of the dinosaurs, was investigated as a natural experiment to quantify differences between the ecology of living turtles and tortoises and those living in an earlier, warmer greenhouse world. The results of this study, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) with support from The Royal Society, show that during periods with much warmer climates, turtles and tortoises were able to stand the heat in the warmer tropics – as long as there was enough water to support those species living in rivers and lakes. Amy Waterson, PhD student and lead author from the University of Bristol, said: “Some groups of turtles have maintained similar niches over millions of years. They have withstood warmer climates in the past and their ability to adapt to the rate of environmental change happening today will be an important factor in their resilience to future climate change.” Turtles and tortoises are highly sensitive to changes in temperature and rainfall, hence concerns about the impact of climate change on their distribution. Alongside overexploitation and habitat loss, climate change is a significant threat to their conservation status with growth, abundance and geographical ranges all predicted to decline under future climate change projections. Continue reading at the University of Bristol."
128,"Female Lawyer Accuses Justice Clarence Thomas Of Groping Her In 1999 —  She was 23 at the time. He was a Supreme Court justice. Years after his Senate confirmation hearings were roiled by accusations that he sexually harassed Anita Hill, another woman has come forward to accuse Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of groping her. Moira Smith, vice president and general counsel at Enstar Natural Gas Co., told the National Law Journal that the justice grabbed her without her consent in 1999, when she met him at a Truman Foundation dinner. Veteran Supreme Court reporter Marcia Coyle writes that Smith described the encounter ― which allegedly took place when she was a 23-year-old Truman scholar ― on Facebook earlier this month. She has since deactivated her Facebook page. “He groped me while I was setting the table, suggesting I should sit ‘right next to him,’” Smith wrote, according to the NLJ. Smith told the NLJ that Thomas “cupped his hand around my butt and pulled me pretty close to him” and later “squeezed” her behind during a June 1999 dinner for Truman scholars at the home of Louis Blair, then head of the Truman Foundation. The NLJ spoke with several of Smith’s former roommates and fellow Truman scholars who said they remembered her describing the incident at the time. Through a Supreme Court spokeswoman, Thomas denied Smith’s allegations. “This claim is preposterous and it never happened,” he said in the statement. During Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991, Hill, a law professor, testified that Thomas had harassed her a decade earlier, when he was her supervisor at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  Earlier this month, Hill wrote a Boston Globe op-ed about her experience, sparked by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s recorded boasts about grabbing women “by the pussy” and kissing women without their consent. “What I learned in 1991 is no less true today and no less important for people to understand: responses to sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence must start with a belief that women matter as much as the powerful men they encounter at work or at school, whether those men are bosses or professors, colleagues or fellow students,” Hill wrote. Read more at the National Law Journal. Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website."
129,"Feminist Comic Book Author Quits Twitter Amid Storm Of Abusive Tweets —  Chelsea Cain got tired of strangers yelling at her “because I was a woman.” This comic book author isn’t laughing. Chelsea Cain, the writer of Marvel’s recently canceled feminist comic series “Mockingbird,” deactivated her Twitter account midweek, after she said she received “thousands” of mean-spirited tweets celebrating the end of the series. The tweets attacked her personally, she explained in a blog post on Thursday, and celebrated the end of “Mockingbird.” “Mockingbird is canceled,” Cain had tweeted early last week. “But we need to make sure @Marvel makes room for more titles by women about women kicking ass.” She also tweeted out the cover of the last “Mockingbird” issue and encouraged followers to buy that issue and “send a message to @marvel that there’s room in comics for super her stories about grown-up women.” The cover features the superhero main character sporting a T-shirt that reads, “Ask me about my feminist agenda.” She’s used to a certain level of online abuse and understands that those who engage in such negativity comprise only 1 percent of comics readers, Cain said in her blog post. But after the cancellation news, the rush of hatred-spewing tweets came in far greater numbers. “The tweets that bothered me were never the ones concerned with content,” she wrote, “they were the ones that questioned my right to write comics at all, and were disgusted by the idea of a female hero having her own series.” She noted there had been a surge of such tweets this week: “Strangers, yelling at me because I wrote a comic book that they didn’t like, and because I was a woman.” It kept getting worse: “I woke up to find that my Twitter feed had exploded. Comments were coming in, fast and furious, every second. I’d never seen anything like it.” Some messages were supportive, some were just “people yelling at one another,” and “a lot of them just seemed mad at women in general.” So, she wrote, “I deactivated my account. I got up. I walked my dogs.” In response, Marvel Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso spoke out against the harassment and voiced his support for Cain, as did several other Marvel employees, according to company spokesman Joseph Taraborrelli. As for why Marvel canceled “Mockingbird,” Taraborrelli told HuffPost that the decision to continue or scrap a series is less about subject matter and more about numbers.  “If a series is not making money due to low sales,” he said, “then it’s cancelled.” Taraborrelli noted that Marvel has 22 other female-led series currently in production, including “Ms. Marvel,” “Jessica Jones” and “Black Widow.” (See a slideshow of some of the covers below). In the end, Cain wrote, “know that I did not leave Twitter because of rape threats or because someone had posted my address ... I left Twitter because of the ordinary daily abuse that I decided I didn’t want to live with anymore.” “That’s the power we have, right?” she added. “If a stranger yells at you on the street? You walk away.” In other Twitter news, the social platform announced Thursday that it would be closing down its video-looping platform Vine, amid reports that potential buyers have passed on Twitter because of rampant bullying and harassment on its main service."
130,"Fetty Wap Sued by Ex Remy Boyz Member Over '679' —  Fetty Wap ruthlessly cut the lyrics written by a former Remy Boyz member for his mega hit ""679"" and cheated him out of major cash ... so claims Fetty's ex-homie. Rapper P-Dice says he helped write the multi-platinum song, and Fetty cut a deal to give him 16.9% of the profits off the track, but in a lawsuit PD says he was scrubbed from the song to avoid the payout. According to the docs, Fetty verbally agreed to give P-Dice writing credit -- but after they finished recording, Fetty deleted his entire performance and reduced his share of the profits to 5%. P-Dice -- who appears prominently in the ""679"" music video -- says the edited version ended up on Fetty's album which debuted No. 1 on Billboard. The music vid alone has topped 238 million views. P-Dice is suing for damages in excess of $7 million. A rep for Fetty had no comment."
131,"Fire at WV house kills mom, 2 children, dog —  Authorities say a mother and two children have died following an early morning fire at their West Virginia home. Wheeling Fire Chief Larry Helms confirmed three deaths to local media outlets and department spokesman Philip Stahl later confirmed their relationships. A dog also died in the blaze.   Fire crews were dispatched to the two-story home shortly after midnight when neighbors reported seeing heavy smoke. Stahl said crews arrived to find flames rising out of the house, which sustained severe damage.   Stahl said firefighters found one victim downstairs and two others in rubble after the second floor collapsed. Officials did not release the names or ages of the victims.   The state fire marshal's office was at the scene to investigate the cause of the blaze."
132,"Fireworks tossed into crowd of students protesting Trump —  Fireworks were tossed into a crowd of mostly black University of Central Missouri students protesting President-elect Donald Trump and the racial climate on the Warrensburg campus.   The Daily Journal Star reports that about 150 protesters were gathered Thursday night on the school’s commons when about a dozen white students for Trump gathered at the fringe of the crowd.   The protesters included one student who said she was spat upon and subjected to a racial slur. While protesters voiced their concerns about the election, someone threw a firecracker into the edge of the crowd. Later, another, louder explosion followed.   University police searched but were unable to find the perpetrator. The Missouri protest is one of several around the country, spanning from New York to California."
133,"Flamingo Dead After Busch Gardens Visitor Allegedly Threw Her To The Ground —  A beloved flamingo at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, had to be euthanized Tuesday after police say a park visitor attacked her. Pinky, a female Chilean flamingo known for a distinctive style of walking that became known as the “Flamingo Flamenco,” was 19 years old, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Joseph Anthony Corrao was at the park with his family around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday when he allegedly reached into Pinky’s pen, grabbed her and threw her to the ground. The zoo had to euthanize her because of her injuries, according to a Busch Gardens statement.  “Pinky was a beloved member of the Busch Gardens Tampa Bay family and made many appearances on behalf of the park’s conservation and education efforts,” the statement read. “She will be sorely missed.” Witnesses said that before picking up Pinky, Corrao picked up a different flamingo but put it down unharmed, according to local news station WFLA. Zoo personnel say they never trained Pinky to perform her circular dance, but that she just started doing it on her own. “While making an appearance with Jack Hanna, the team noticed that she was dancing on her own to get attention,” Busch Gardens spokeswoman Karen Varga-Sinka told the Orlando Sentinel. “Since then, she has danced for countless guests, school groups, media appearances and national television shows.” Corrao was charged with animal cruelty and jailed on $2,000 bond. At his first court appearance on Wednesday, Judge John Conrad said that the act “borders on depraved,” ABC Action News reports. “I don’t know if you have other issues, but I don’t know who does that,” Conrad said."
134,"Food, water fears remain year after Brazil mine dam disaster —  COLATINA, Brazil — One year after a dam ruptured and sent a giant wave of metal-laden mud gushing into one of Brazil’s most important rivers, people who live along the banks won’t drink the water and fishermen are afraid to eat their catch. Upward of 10 billion gallons of mud filled with mining waste buried towns in the Nov. 5 dam break that has been described as the worst environmental disaster in Latin America’s largest country. Nineteen people perished. Across 5,000 acres — about six times the size of New York City’s Central Park — the onslaught of mud crushed thousands of trees and wildlife. In the river, more than 14 tons of fish died, mostly after mud got stuck in their gills. An equally large amount of aquatic plants died when turbid waters blocked out the sunlight needed to survive. The environmental damage was so vast that even a year later, many people in the area won’t drink or cook with water from their faucets because, unlike the groundwater, it’s connected to a network of reservoirs the Doce River feeds into. On a recent day, construction worker Samuel Alves de Andrade was among several people lining up outside a hut for well water sourced by an aquifer in the city of Colatina, about 407 miles (655 kilometers) northeast of Rio de Janeiro. “This water is a lot better than what comes from the river. We have to do what’s best for us,” he said as he filled plastic jugs for family members. Fishermen say they’re staying away from the river because they keep finding fish with red spots and wart-like bumps, prompting environmental authorities to launch their own studies. A judge has ordered Samarco— a venture between giants Vale of Brazil and BHP Billiton of Australia— to pay for independent studies, but it’s unclear when results will be released. “I have been fishing in the Doce River waters for more than 30 years, but now I don’t have the guts to eat that fish,” said Jose de Fatima Lemes, president of the Colatina fishermen’s association. Residents and environmental experts say subsequent cleanup efforts by mega mining company Samarco have been slow and ineffective. Doubts also persist about the local government’s assurances that Doce River’s water is safe to consume. “The mud is still all over the banks,” said Andre Dos Santos, a biologist at the Federal University of Sao Carlos who has collected samples along the Doce River since the disaster. “The river will never be the same.” Rich in history and commerce, the Doce River had long been a reliable source of water and food for millions of residents and thousands of companies along its banks. Samarco’s chief officer for sustainable projects, Maury de Souza Jr., said the company is advancing in its cleanup and has not found any water quality problems. Ubaldina Isaac, of Brazil’s environmental ministry, said a key government priority now is to reforest the banks to prevent rainwater from dragging back into the river the mine waste that remains wedged in the dirt. One recent morning, Isaac gestured to some recently planted bushes that had already died or rooted out even before the rainy season had fully kicked off in November. She said the plants should have lasted through the wet season that stretches into the first months of the year. Without sufficient vegetation “we have no system to hold the waste, and so it continues flowing into the river,” she said. Rio Doce was initially feared by Portuguese gold explorers because of the difficulties they encountered navigating its zig-zagging path. But in the 19th century, communities formed along the river’s path through the thick Atlantic rainforest as mining activity and cattle ranching gradually increased. Today, many businesses operate along the Doce, including fishing, steelmaking and companies that produce paper and charcoal. Hundreds of fishermen who lost their livelihood in the disaster receive a monthly compensation of about $400 from Samarco, plus $80 more for each of their dependents. Some say they used to sell their fish for as much as $1,200 a month. On a recent afternoon, fisherman Diomar Lordes visited the river with his son and they sat on the broken wooden boat that carried him through the waters for decades. “I have no hope I will fish here again,” Lordes said. “It’s like we lost a relative. A life ended.” Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."
135,"Forest fires spread by drought strike southern Appalachians —  A prolonged drought in the southeast U.S. is sparking dozens of wildfires in the forests of the southern Appalachian Mountains, threatening homes and taxing state and federal firefighters as they evacuate people from the area.   Thirty-seven fires comprising 100 acres or more each burned in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and Alabama as of Tuesday, according to the U.S. Forest Service.   In all, 107,599 total acres—an area more than seven times the size of Manhattan—have burned, including at least 28,000 acres in a single Fannin County, Ga., fire. Officials suspect arson in some of the blazes. For days, a hazy pall has spread across much of northern Georgia, including metro Atlanta, home to 5.7 million people. State officials warned that the air is unhealthy, and cautioned people with breathing problems to stay indoors as much as possible.   With state firefighters scrambling to quench the blazes currently active, officials told people to avoid starting new fires that could quickly spread. “We’re a cigar butt away from a disaster,” said John Williams, adventure guide at Amicalola Falls, a state park near the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail in Georgia.   Workers at the 829-acre park have positioned hoses around the area and put firefighting equipment in their trucks, he said. The park’s falls, its main attraction, are normally gushing with water, but “now it’s a trickle,” he said."
136,"France Dismantles 'The Jungle' in Calais —  A small camp in Calais, France, housing nearly 8,000 migrants hoping to cross into England, is being evacuated and torn down in what French authorities are calling a “humanitarian” operation. The migrants, fleeing their homes in Africa and the Middle East, are being relocated from the camp known as “the Jungle” to centers across France. Some have decided they do not want to leave, and protests have resulted in fires burning through tents, trailers, shacks, and makeshift shops in the camp. The dismantlement operation is expected to last for a week."
137,"France Plans To Shut Down ‘The Jungle’ Migrant Camp In Calais —  President Francois Hollande called on London to help deal with the plight of thousands of people whose dream is ultimately to get to Britain. CALAIS, France, Sept 26 (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande said on Monday that France will completely shut down “the Jungle” migrant camp in Calais and called on London to help deal with the plight of thousands of people whose dream is ultimately to get to Britain. “The situation is unacceptable and everyone here knows it,” Hollande said on a visit to the northern port city where as many as 10,000 migrants from war-torn countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan live in squalor. “We must dismantle the camp completely and definitively,” he said.   France plans to relocate the migrants in small groups around the country but right-wing opponents of the Socialist leader are raising the heat ahead of the election in April, accusing him of mismanaging a problem that is ultimately a British one. The migrants want to enter Britain, but the government in London argues that migrants seeking asylum need to do so under European Union law in the country where they enter. Immigration was one of the main drivers of Britain’s vote this year to leave the EU. It is also likely to be major factor in France’s presidential election. If France stopped trying to prevent migrants from entering Britain, Britain would ultimately find Itself obliged to deal with the matter when asylum-seekers land on its shores a short distance by ferry or subsea train from France’s Calais coast.   Hollande bluntly reminded Britain of that, saying that he expected London to fully honor agreements on managing a flow of migrants. “I also want to restate my determination that the British authorities play their part in the humanitarian effort that France is undertaking and that they continue to do that in the future,” Hollande said. London and Paris have struck agreements on issues such as the recently begun construction of a giant wall on the approach road to Calais port in an attempt to try to stop migrants who attempt daily to board cargo trucks bound for Britain."
138,"French school bullying deaths stir intense debate —  Two stories about two French girls who killed themselves after being bullied at school have prompted an emotional response and intense debate about how teenagers can be better protected. Emilie, 17, took her life in January and a graphic account of the torment she suffered emerged this week when her diary appeared in a newspaper. It was immediately followed by a French TV dramatisation of the story of Marion Fraisse, who died three years ago. The France 3 film was poignantly entitled Marion, 13 ans pour toujours - Marion, Forever 13. The question for France is whether their deaths will help change the way bullying is tackled. It starts so gradually, you hardly notice it. In a classroom of rowdy students, Marion is marked out as one of the good girls. Over the course of the 90-minute drama, she loses her friends, is the victim of rumours, insults and isolation, and then is cornered by a group of boys in the corridor, who grab her, pin her down and throw her shoes away. ""She was asking for it,"" says a passing girl. Marion breaks down and cries. From there the drama follows her descent into desperation, depression, and finally suicide. The film was adapted from a book by Marion's mother, Nora, who found a letter from the teenager after her death and decided to tell her story. A poignant act, because one of the most striking elements of that story is how Marion's parents knew about what was happening to their daughter at the time. Interviewed by a French newspaper to mark the launch of the dramatisation, actress Julie Gayet, who plays Nora, said the film had two points of view: Marion's and her mother's. The script ""shows that parents never really know their child. Half a child's life escapes them"". More than four million people tuned in to watch the drama, which was followed by a one-hour debate. Many took to social media afterwards to share their stories and express their anger. ""It's not a suicide, it's murder,"" wrote one Twitter user, called Sara. Another suggested that the film be shown in schools. Others wrote of their own experiences of bullying, with some saying the experience had haunted them for years after they had left full-time education. For help and advice on bullying, visit BBC Advice BBC iWonder: How do we talk about teen suicide? Read more here: * French Periscope death stirs social media fears * Quarter of bullied children bully others How France has tried to address bullying According to official figures, 700,000 pupils are bullied each year in France, and activists say more than 90% of children have access to social networks. France has tried to improve awareness of bullying in schools, as well as support for the victims. In 2014, a new anti-bullying law was brought in, and a hotline set up for pupils to report incidents. But activists say France is still not tackling the problem effectively. ""The authorities' response is improving very slowly,"" says psychologist and campaigner Catherine Verdier. ""But France is dragging behind other countries. If you look at Finland, Sweden, where it's a national cause, there was a real impulse from the top to change things."" ""A few schools have improved, but not enough,"" says Willy Pierre who runs 'You Are Heroes', set up after Marion's death to break the taboo around bullying. ""The hotline is only open in school hours, and it can take weeks or months to find a designated adult for the child to talk to face to face."" The problem has also grown to encompass cyber-bullying and harassment outside the school gates. The solution, he says, is for parents, teachers and pupils to talk openly about the problem. Emilie's story Emilie was four years older than Marion when she died in January after jumping out of a window at her father's house. A bright pupil at a private school in the northern city of Lille, Emilie's parents say she endured years of terror up to the age of 13 because she was not considered cool and trendy and loved reading. Eventually she snapped and they pulled her out of the school. For three years she tried other schools and distance learning, but she developed a phobia of schools and her parents believe her death was linked to depression as a result of the bullying. ________________   Excerpts from Emilie's diary Dodging blows, being tripped up and spat at. Closing your ears to insults and mockery. Keeping an eye on your bag and your hair. Holding back the tears. Again and again Hey, you know what? a boy exclaimed loud enough for everyone in the class to hear but the teacher. Apparently they're going to award a prize to the ugliest clever-clogs in every country. Oh yeah? his neighbour tittered. I bet you we've got the winner in the class I don't want my parents to know how pathetic I am, and think they've given birth to a piece of crap The diary was published in La Voix du Nord (in French) ________________   A report by Unicef two years ago found that bullying was a worldwide problem that ""exists at some level and in some form in every country"". Children who are bullied, it says, are prone to a vast range of negative effects ""including depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide"". One mother told a French newspaper that her daughter's school had responded to the problem of bullying with ""a conspiracy of silence"". But after days of debate about the sad lives of two French teenagers, those taboos may finally be crumbling. Are you being bullied? Useful contacts * BullyingUK - Tel 0808 800 2222 * Childline - Tel 0800 1111 * Bullying at school - UK government website * Non au harcelement - French government website - Tel 3020"
139,"Garden ponds 'playing role' in frog disease spread —  Garden ponds are playing a role in the spread of deadly frog diseases across the UK, a study suggests. Ranaviruses can infect amphibians, reptiles and fish. In the UK, they have devastated common frog populations. This research suggests that the introduction of infected animals from aquatic retailers into ponds or moving species between different ponds may be exacerbating the problem. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Dr Trent Garner, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), told BBC News: ""The virus seems to be spreading at a rate that exceeds the ability of a frog to hop, and there seems to be human-aided dispersal of the virus."" Ranaviruses are a group of viruses found across the world and they affect different species in different ways. In the UK, one type of ranavirus was found to be present in the South East of England in the 1980s, and it has since spread. It can kill common frogs either by causing sores and blisters to form on the animal's skin or by causing their internal organs to bleed. ""In a certain proportion of populations, the disease persists. And when it persists, frogs decline by around 85%, and they don't seem to be recovering,"" said Dr Garner. To analyse the movement of the disease in the UK, scientists looked at two decades of data recorded by a citizen science scheme called the Frog Mortality Project, which is now coordinated through Garden Wildlife Health. Genetic records suggested that ranavirus was not always present in the UK, and had probably been introduced to the UK on two separate occasions. The study also found that while infection is spread by the natural movement of amphibians, garden ponds could also be playing a key role. Dr Garner said: ""Potentially garden ponds can act as stepping stones for infected animals to move around and reach new sites."" He said that taking frogspawn or frogs from one pond and placing them in another could be helping to spread ranavirus. ""There are also other species that could potentially carry ranavirus - ornamental fish for example. So I do think there is a case to be made to investigate their role in infections."" Lead author Dr Stephen Price, from University College London, ZSL and Queen Mary University of London, said: ""Ranavirus is one of the most serious health threats currently facing the UK's amphibian population. ""So our findings that humans seem to have helped move the virus around, facilitating its rapid spread, could be translated into some straightforward ways to manage the risk of disease outbreaks."" He added: ""We certainly don't want to discourage people from adding ponds to their urban gardens - this remains one of the most positive steps we can all take to support wildlife. ""But equally we would strongly urge people to try to limit how much potentially-infectious material they're moving into and out of their gardens in the process."""
140,"Gay men can't donate blood to victims of the Orlando shooting. That's absurd —  Last night at Pulse, an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, 50 of our LGBT brothers and sisters were taken from us. Today, like so many others in my community, I am overcome with a sense of helplessness. I am overcome with the urge to do something, anything, to help the victims and their families. Many in Orlando feel a similar urge. People are lining up to give blood in the wake of the massacre. But gay and bisexual men who want to give today are encountering an obstacle: the FDA requires a year of celibacy before men who have sex with men can donate blood. These new rules were put into practice in late 2015. They were presented as an end to the ban on gay men’s blood – but they still mean even gay men who have been in a completely monogamous relationship for a year are barred from donating. Regulations against gay blood arrived in 1983 in response to the panic surrounding the HIV/Aids epidemic. The American Medical Association called for an end to the ban in 2013, saying it was discriminatory and without a sound scientific basis. HIV-positive donors can be screened out and only one in 2m transfusions result in an HIV infection. In short, the ban on gay blood is unjustified. Other countries, such as Argentina, have already done away with it. Misinformation spread on social media Sunday, saying that the ban on gay blood has been temporarily lifted in Orlando because of high need. This is actually false, as local donor service OneBlood confirms. It is an outrage that our blood can be spilled but not donated. It is an outrage that, despite the facts and despite calls to lift the ban from experts across the country, homophobia and gay panic keeps it in place. Thank God for groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one Muslim group mobilizing support to keep blood supplies up. As we celebrate Pride – and yes, we will celebrate even in the wake of tragedy, as we always have – let us remember our radical roots. Above all, Pride is a celebration of resistance. It is a celebration of our audacity to exist. And so, in the spirit of Pride, in the spirit of Stonewall, in the spirit of our LGBT family members who have been stolen from us too soon, let us continue to resist. Today is a painful reminder that there are still so many battles left for us to fight. The oppressive, outdated policy on queer blood is one, and it must come to an end. I look forward to a future where we can express our solidarity with those who are harmed or in need through our needed donations. This article was amended on 13 June 2016. An earlier version stated that one in 2m HIV infections are caused by transfusions. In fact, one in 2m transfusions result in an HIV infection."
141,"Georgia teen loses leg after teacher's 'body slam,' attorney says —  A 13-year-old boy had to have his right leg amputated after a contractor at a Columbus, Georgia, school ""body slammed"" him repeatedly, an attorney for the boy's family said.   Montravious Thomas was injured in September after an employee at Edgewood Student Services Center ""body slammed"" him three times when Thomas tried to leave the classroom to call his mother, family attorney Renee Tucker told CNN on Thursday. Tucker says after the incident took place, officials at the school failed to provide Thomas with adequate medical care. At one point, school officials told the teenager an ambulance was on its way, but then told him he would have to ride the bus home and made him attempt to walk to the bus, the lawyer said. When it was clear Thomas could not walk to the bus, Tucker said, the same contractor who disciplined him ""threw him over the shoulder and carried him to the bus."" Thomas' mother took him to the emergency room that night and he was later airlifted to an Atlanta hospital, Tucker said. The Muscogee County School District says the contractor involved in the incident, Bryant Mosley, was a contract worker and is no longer providing services to the school district. Mosley holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a masters in clinical mental health counseling, the system said. ""Mr. Mosley is specifically trained in MindSet curriculum, a system of preventing and managing aggressive behavior, and Georgia restraint requirements. It is our understanding that there were issues concerning the safety of the child and others in the room, which called for the use of restraint per state guidance,"" the district said in a statement. In a Friday update to its original statement, the school system said, ""Witnesses indicate that the child was up and walking and not in distress following the administered restraint."" The school system said it made multiple attempts to contact the parent by phone on September 12, the day of the incident, but was unsuccessful. Edgewood Student Services Center is a school for students who have been temporarily removed from their current school because of behavioral problems or for breaking behavioral rules. An attorney for the company employing Mosley -- Mentoring and Behavioral Sciences -- released a statement to CNN saying, ""We are certainly very concerned for Montravious and our hearts go out to him. He and his family are in our thoughts as prayers."" The attorney, Robert Poydasheff Jr., said in the statement that he had advised the company ""not to comment or speculate on the matter until we have completed our investigation. ""There is very little information to work from,"" Poydasheff added. An attorney representing Mosley individually said he would not comment on the case. Student was face-down on floor, attorney says Tucker said at one point, Thomas was face-down on the floor, with Mosley's weight on top of him. She said if Thomas had received adequate medical care shortly after the incident, his leg could possibly could have been saved. He's expected to remain at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston for at least 30 more days and he'll need extensive occupational and physical therapy in the coming months, Tucker said. Doctors performed several surgeries to try to restore the blood flow to Thomas' right leg before having to perform the amputation, the attorney said. School district to conduct review The school district says it is conducting a ""thorough review of the incident to determine all of the facts and to make any necessary recommendations because the safety of all students and all employees is priority."" The Muscogee County School District statement says: ""Physical restraint is allowed in Georgia public schools and educational programs in those situations in which the student is an immediate danger to himself or others and the student is not responsive to less intensive behavioral interventions including verbal directives or other de-escalation techniques."" The teen's attorney claims the method Mosley used is not part of the Georgia restraint guidance. The incident happened on Thomas' first day at Edgewood, Tucker said. He'd been required to attend the alternative school for four days after having an issue with another student at his home school, she explained, adding that his family says he was not known for being violent or having outbursts at school nor had he ever been restrained by a teacher in the past. Tucker has filed a request under Georgia's open records law to obtain any video that may exist of the restraint and Thomas' attempt to walk to the school bus, as well as his school records, but has not yet received any response. The attorney said that while no charges or lawsuits have been filed yet, the family plans to move ahead with a civil suit in the near future."
142,"Global Warming Is Real—But 13 Degrees? Not So Fast —  Scientists are dismissing a new study suggesting Earth could already be doomed to warming of as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit. New research suggesting that the planet might already be committed to vastly greater warming than previously thought is being dismissed as deeply flawed by prominent climate scientists. A study published today in one of the world's top science journals, Nature, offers the most complete reconstruction to date of global sea-surface temperatures for the past two million years—a valuable addition to the climate record, scientists say. But the conclusions the study's author drew from that research—that even preventing any further increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could still leave the Earth doomed to a catastrophic temperature rise of up to 7 degrees Celsius (about 13 degrees Fahrenheit)—isn't supported by the data, several top scientists said. ""This is simply wrong,"" said Gavin Schmidt, chief of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Jeffrey Severinghaus, a paleoclimatologist at Scripps Institution for Oceanography in San Diego, was equally vehement, arguing that the study's result isn't logical: ""It's based on a fundamental mistake,"" he said. ""The problematic conclusion doesn't flow from the main meat of the paper."" Two other scientists reached by National Geographic shared that blunt assessment. The study's author, a former postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, said she wasn't attempting to offer a detailed climate forecast. But she examined the past's tight link between sea-surface temperature changes and natural releases of carbon dioxide and tried to show what that might imply for the future. Her result: an alarming 3 to 7 degree Celsius temperature rise by several thousand years from now, even if fossil fuel emissions were capped today. ""We do find this close relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases that is remarkably stable, and what the study is developing is the coupling factor between the two,"" said Carolyn Snyder, who now works on climate issues for the Environmental Protection Agency. Other scientists said, however, that Snyder has drastically overstated what that relationship tells us about today's situation because of the way she extrapolates from past ice ages to the very different climate of the modern era. ""The number she gets is huge,"" said Eric Steig, an earth sciences professor at the University of Washington. ""She's making a statement about the future, but I don't find anything in the paper that explains why she thinks she can do that."" In reality, NASA's Schmidt said, if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere stay the same as today, temperatures may rise an additional 0.5 degrees Celsius to 1 degree Celsius. Other studies suggest they could hit 2 degrees. But, Schmidt said, no credible evidence suggests they could rise 7 degrees—""and nothing in the study changes that."" Watch: Global warming 101. Bad Deduction From a Good Record For decades scientists have used ocean sediment cores to reconstruct past sea-surface temperatures at particular times and locations. Snyder cataloged and organized 20,000 such reconstructions from 59 sediment cores. Then she went through the painstaking process of weighting them to build a time line of global average surface temperatures. Previous research had only organized these temperature records into short snippets of history. Snyder’s critics applauded her for creating the first temperature time line that spans the globe and extends back two million years. ""That's great,"" said Jeremy Shakun, a geologist and climate scientist at Boston College. ""It seems like an absolute must-do kind of study. It had to be done."" During the past two million years, Earth has cycled in and out of prolonged ice ages; the most recent one ended 11,000 years ago. Snyder’s new time line reveals that temperatures gradually cooled to a nadir around 1.2 million years ago. She also found that the phenomenon known as polar amplification—the tendency of temperatures at the poles to fluctuate more strongly than the global average—has held steady for the past 800,000 years. Today the whole planet is warming, but the Arctic is warming much faster than average. Scientists have no doubt that the current warming is caused primarily by human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It has also been known for a long time, from analysis of ancient air bubbles trapped in Antarctic and Greenland ice cores, that atmospheric levels of CO2 fluctuated naturally during the ice ages—and that they were tightly correlated with local air temperature above the ice. Snyder’s time line confirms that correlation between CO2 and temperature at the global scale and over two million years. Her mistake, the critics said, was in the simplistic way she used that correlation to infer the Earth’s sensitivity to CO2—not only in the past but also in the future. Her conclusions simply didn't make sense, they said. The reason is that much of the variation in temperature during the ice ages was caused by factors other than CO2. Over the past 800,000 years, massive ice sheets have expanded across the northern continents and then retreated again every 100,00 years or so. The cycle is driven by variations in Earth’s orbit about the sun, which determine whether enough sunlight falls on the Northern Hemisphere in summer to melt ice. The presence of ice itself has a dramatic cooling effect on the planet, because it reflects sunlight back to space. Conversely, when ice melts at the end of a glacial period, the increased absorption of sunlight warms the whole planet—triggering feedback effects, including a rise in CO2, that warm it further. ""Fundamentally, the orbit of the Earth causes ice ages to end, and the ocean warms in response,"" Severinghaus said. ""This warming causes some CO2 to outgas from the ocean, raising atmospheric CO2 concentrations."" Whereas today the rise in CO2 is the prime driver of global warming, during the ice-age period it was merely an important feedback. Snyder insisted she wasn't trying to suggest that greenhouse gases caused all the temperature changes back then. But the paper's critics said her work had in effect done just that, and as a result produced what seems an exaggerated estimate of the current sensitivity to CO2. An Open Question The question of just how sensitive Earth’s climate will be over the long term to our CO2 emissions remains open. There is evidence that over millennia, once all the feedbacks have had a chance to kick in, the warming could be indeed be substantially larger than in the short term. But Snyder’s critics agree that her method is not the way to resolve the question. Over the weekend Schmidt wrote a blog post to explain why the relationship between CO2 and temperature during the ice ages isn't enough by itself to describe our potential future. ""There's a lot of good work in here,"" he said of Snyder's paper. ""But one small error has been made that has been translated into something with a huge implication for the future. And unfortunately, that's just wrong."" Or perhaps he should have said “fortunately.” If Snyder’s analysis were correct, our descendants might already be doomed to a catastrophically warmer world, with sea levels hundreds of feet higher than they are today. As it stands, that outcome appears preventable.   Article Title:National Park Service Faces Sex Harassment Scandal   Article URL: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/national-park-service-sexual-harassment-scandal/ Article author(s)  Laura Parker Article date: SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 News source: nationalgeographic  After employees allege years of offensive behavior at major parks, official calls it a ""wake-up call"" for the agency to act. Sexual harassment and bullying among National Park Service employees at some of the nation's most iconic parks—including Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon—is pervasive and has continued unabated for years, a congressional committee said this week. At Yosemite alone, at least 18 employees described working conditions as “toxic,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Two whistleblowers—Kelly Martin, chief of fire and aviation management at Yosemite National Park and Brian Healy, the fisheries program manager at the Grand Canyon National Park—detailed several alleged offenses at both parks. Martin, who began working for the Park Service 32 years ago, described three incidents that she said happened to her when she was in her twenties. One incident, she said, involved a park ranger spying on her through her bathroom window when she was working at the Grand Canyon. She reported him to her supervisor. The ranger was ordered to apologize to her, then continued to advance in his career until he retired as a deputy superintendent in 1987. Martin said she did not file an official complaint. “I felt shame on how to proceed because I felt there would be backlash for reporting, and I did not want this to become public knowledge to other coworkers of mine,” Martin said in her prepared testimony. Years later, she said, she learned that other women had been stalked by the same ranger. The second incident also occurred at the Grand Canyon. A male supervisor kept photographs of Martin above the sun visor in his government-issued vehicle. Then, one day when she was alone at her office, she said, he pushed her against a wall and tried to kiss her. She said the third incident involved another male supervisor who ran his fingers through her hair while she sat next to him on a couch at a work-sponsored meeting. When she reported the incident to a supervisor, he replied: “Well, it’s your word against his.” Martin said she was confounded by the response and concluded that to stay in her job, she would have to figure out how to “navigate ubiquitous harassing and hostile work environments as a way of self-survival and preservation.” She told the committee that even now, she had been reluctant to testify, out of fear of retaliation. “It is a deep, conflicted and risky decision for me to come forward and speak up today,” Martin said. Healy, the other whistleblower, told lawmakers that some employees implicated in harassment are still in their jobs, which has eroded morale and confidence in Park Service management. The scandal began unfolding in public last January, just as the Park Service launched a yearlong celebration of its centennial year. The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General released a report alleging sexual harassment by male boatmen at the Grand Canyon’s river district that had continued for almost 20 years. The report said that women employees were propositioned for sex and faced retaliation if they refused or reported incidents to supervisors. In June, the inspector general released a report on sexual harassment at the Canaveral National Seashore on the Florida coast, east of Orlando. The report cited four investigations of that park since 2012. Among the findings were an offensive comment made by a male manager to a female subordinate that her dress so resembled a Creamsicle that he could “lick it up.” Park Service executives vowed last spring to end harassment, declaring a “zero tolerance” position on sexual harassment. But at the September 22 hearing—in a rare show of bipartisan unity—Congressional committee members accused Park Service management of failing to take harassment seriously. “When you have a fact pattern of someone spying on another person while they are taking a shower, you don’t need a policy change and you don’t need a new memo,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina). “You need handcuffs and a trip to the sex-offenders registry, that’s what you need.” Michael Reynolds, the Park Service’s deputy director of operations, told the panel the agency is trying to change a culture. He described the allegations of abuse at the Grand Canyon and the Canaveral National Seashore as “a wake-up call” to act. The Park Service has appointed a new superintendent for the Grand Canyon, Christine Lehnertz, and replaced the chief ranger at Canaveral, he said. ""I am personally committed to bringing a culture of transparency, respect, and accountability back to the National Park Service and to making it a safe place for employees to work,"" Reynolds said in prepared remarks. ""We want it to become a model agency."""
143,"Global warming is already changing genes —  Global climate change has already impacted every aspect of life on Earth, from genes to entire ecosystems, according to a new study in Science.   “We now have evidence that, with only a ~1 degree Celsius of warming globally, major impacts are already being felt in natural systems,” says study lead author Brett Scheffers, an assistant professor in the department of wildlife, ecology and conservation at the University of Florida.   “Some people didn’t expect this level of change for decades.” “Genes are changing, species’ physiology and physical features such as body size are changing, species are shifting their ranges, and we see clear signs of entire ecosystems under stress, all in response to changes in climate on land and in the ocean.”   Scheffers and researchers from 10 countries found that more than 80 percent of ecological processes that form the foundation for healthy marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems already show signs of responses to climate change. “Some people didn’t expect this level of change for decades,” says coauthor James Watson of the University of Queensland. “The impacts of climate change are being felt with no ecosystem on Earth being spared.”   Many of the impacts on species and ecosystems affect people, according to the authors, with consequences ranging from increased pests and disease outbreaks, unpredictable changes in fisheries, and decreasing agriculture yields. “Many of the responses we are observing today in nature can help us determine how to fix the mounting issues that people face under changing climate conditions,” Scheffers says. “For example, by understanding the adaptive capacity in nature, we can apply these same principles to our crops, livestock, and aquacultural species.”   “Current global climate change agreements aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” says Wendy Foden, coauthor and chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Climate Change Specialist Group. “We’re showing that there are already broad and serious impacts from climate change right across biological systems.”"
144,"Grass food crops facing climate change challenge —  A study has highlighted the risk posed by projected climate change on the world's ability to grow enough food. A US team of researchers found that forecasted shifts in climate by 2070 would occur too quickly for species of grass to adapt to the new conditions.  The species facing an uncertain future include wheat, corn, rice and sorghum, which provide almost half of the calories consumed by humans. The findings appear in the Royal Society Biology Letter journal. Not only does the grass family (Poaceae) of more than 11,000 species form the staple of people's diets across the globe, natural grasslands cover about a quarter of the planet's land area and provide a home to a rich diversity of dependent flora and fauna. The team from the University of Arizona observed: ""Thus, if climate change has strong negative impacts on grasses, there might be significant consequences for both global biodiversity and for humans.""   In order to gain an insight into the impact of projected climate change on the world's grasses, they estimated the rates of climate change niche change in a representative sample of 236 grass species and compared these rates with rates of projected climate change by 2070. ""A climatic niche is basically the temperature and precipitation conditions where a species occurs,"" explained co-author John Wiens from the university's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. ""What is important about it is that if you are thinking about one species living in one place and it can only survive under a limited set of conditions then, as the climate changes, it either has to shift its climatic niche or it is going to go locally extinct."" He told BBC News: ""In other words, it either has to accommodate those new conditions or it will not be able to survive there any more."" The team examined how quickly the grass species' climatic niches were able to change, based on how they had changed in the past. ""What we found was that they do not change all that much - a few degrees Celsius over a million years. There are just small changes over long timescales,"" Dr Wiens observed. ""In some ways, that is the most important part of the story; these climatic niches generally seem to change relatively little and relatively slowly. ""Then we looked at future climate projections for a range of localities, and we asked how much they were going to change.""  The team found that the difference between the rates of change in the study's grass species' climate niche and projected changes in a location's climate was often ""20,000-fold"". ""The findings are similar across all the groups so they could be applied to wild species as well as to the cultivated ones. There is no way that cultivated species are somehow exempt from our findings,"" Dr Wiens added. Bleak outlook These finding present a bleak outlook; apparently squashing the hope that crop species would be able to cope with a warming world. The study does not show species going globally extinct, rather it highlights how conditions are projected to change in a way that is beyond the climate niche of species, therefore species are likely to disappear from that location.  But this does have implications for farmers growing food crops. ""For people living in parts of the world that perhaps do not have the [technology], such as in the developing world where crop production is much more dependent on climate, it doesn't matter if the species go extinct because it will grow elsewhere.  ""What does matter is that if your crops go extinct or decline."" Hungry for change While the study did not look at the issue of food security, Dr Wiens said there was a lot of promising research under way in the form of identifying opportunities to develop ""climate-proof"" food crops for future generations. ""What has been shown, though, is that people continue with business-as-usual, there will be serious problems."" ""One of the things that would help us alleviate this problem is wild relatives because we know that the species we have domesticated have a reduced genetic variation. That genetic variation, found in the wild relatives, is exactly what you want to allow them to adapt to different conditions."" But Dr Wiens warned: ""We can look to our food crops' wild relatives, but the problem is they are going to be highly endangered by climate change as well."""
145,"Half of surveyed Americans say 2016 Presidential Election is a source of stress —  If you’re sick and tired of seeing news on TV and online about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, including their allies and critics, plus the pundits and other commentaries, then you’re not alone. A new survey unsurprisingly confirms that the United States election is a significant source of stress of about 52 percent of Americans as reported in the NPR.   The data came from the American Psychological Association, and the survey was conducted online among eighteen years old and above living in the United States.   Lynn Bufka, the APA’s associate executive director for practice research and policy, explains that the stress from elections isn’t party related. “We’re seeing that it doesn’t matter whether you’re registered as a Democrat or Republican,” she explained. “They (the people) are experiencing significant stress from the current election.”   Bufka adds that stress from election becomes exacerbated by social media posts, like arguments, images, videos and stories which can intensify frustration and concern “particularly with thousands of comments that can range from factual to hostile or even inflammatory.”   Interestingly, four in ten adults or thirty-eight percent say that cultural and political discussion on social media cause them stress.   Apart from sharing the survey results, the APA has given a list of do’s and don’ts when it comes to reading and reacting to election news. You can read the full list at the APA.org.   More stress   The ‘stress trend’ could continue until mid-November as more people get their news online. According to Pew Research (a separate research from APA), fourteen percent of Americans grab their news from the web via social media which may include comments (or responses) by other people. In addition, thirteen percent of surveyed Americans say they read their presidential campaign news through news apps (mobile phone applications) which may also include comments and responses from other readers.   Cable TV news is still the top source of election news, the Pew research survey added, but more millennials (eighteen to twenty-nine year olds) confirmed that they get their election news from at least one stream of information."
146,"Hate crimes against Muslims hit highest mark since 2001 —  Hate crimes against Muslims spiked last year to their highest level in more than a decade - an increase experts and advocates say was fueled by anger over terrorist attacks and anti-Islam rhetoric on the campaign trail.   Law enforcement agencies across the country reported 257 anti-Islamic incidents in 2015, up nearly 67 percent from the year before, according to FBI data released Monday.   That is significant in its own right, but even more so in historical context. The last time the FBI saw more than 160 anti-Islamic incidents was in 2001, when it reported 481. That was the year that radical Islamist terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, killing thousands and sparking a wave of anti-Muslim incidents.   Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that he believed that the anti-Muslim rhetoric that came out of the presidential campaign was to blame and that he feared there will be more hate crimes this year. ""Whenever you have one of the nation's leading public figures in the person of Donald Trump mainstreaming and empowering Islamophobia in the nation, it's the inevitable result,"" he said.   A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not immediately return an email seeking comment.   Hate crimes overall increased about 6.7 percent from 2014 to 2015, but that increase still left such incidents below what they were a decade earlier. Anti-black incidents rose by about 7.6 percent, anti-Jewish incidents rose by about 9 percent, and incidents based on sexual orientation rose by about 3.5 percent during that time frame.   Before and after Trump's election, there were reports of hateful acts across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center, drawing on news accounts, social media postings and direct reports, said it had tallied 201 incidents of election-related harassment and intimidation as of Friday. Last week, a Muslim student at San Diego State University reported that she was robbed by two men who made comments about Trump. Police believe she was targeted because she was wearing a hijab. The week before the election, a black church in Mississippi was burned and spray-painted with the words ""Vote Trump."" During his campaign, Trump vowed to have law enforcement conduct surveillance at mosques and called for at least a temporary ban on Muslims immigrating to the United States, measures that he suggested might prevent terrorist attacks. Asked on ""60 Minutes"" about reports of supporters harassing Latinos and Muslims, he said: ""I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, 'Stop it.' ""   Notably, the data from 2015 does not show an increase in anti-Latino incidents from the year before. Still, advocates say Trump's rhetoric is at least partly to blame for the spike in other incidents.   ""I don't think there's any question at all that the Trump campaign contributed and contributed mightily to these numbers,"" said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.   The data available is somewhat limited, analysts say, because law enforcement agencies provide numbers voluntarily to the FBI, and many did not report hate crimes. Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys show a far greater number of hate crimes than what is reported - hundreds of thousands each year.   The data largely confirms the findings of Brian Levin, a professor at California State University at San Bernardino, who wrote earlier this year about a surge in crimes against Muslims. In an interview Monday, Levin said he attributed the spike to three factors - anger after terrorist attacks like those in San Bernardino, Calif., and Paris; a generally elevated level of prejudice against Muslims; and ""the coalescence of a sociopolitical movement that labels Muslims as an enemy.""   Levin said he found a spate of anti-Muslim incidents in the weeks immediately following the attacks in San Bernardino and Paris. After Paris, for example, a Florida man threatened violence at two mosques in two anti-Islamic diatribes.   But Levin said he did not expect that those would make 2015 an anomaly. Based on 2016 data in places such as Ohio, Texas, Delaware and New York, he estimated that anti-Muslim hate crimes are ""either at or above the levels of 2015."""
147,"Haze from Indonesian fires may have killed more than 100,000 people – study —  Harvard and Columbia universities estimate tens of thousands of premature deaths in areas closest to blazes clearing forest and peatland A smog outbreak in Southeast Asia last year may have caused over 100,000 premature deaths, according to a new study released Monday that triggered calls for action to tackle the “killer haze”. Researchers from Harvard and Columbia universities in the US estimated there were more than 90,000 early deaths in Indonesia in areas closest to haze-belching fires, and several thousand more in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia. The new estimate, reached using a complex analytical model, is far higher than the previous official death toll given by authorities of just 19 deaths in Indonesia. “If nothing changes, this killer haze will carry on taking a terrible toll, year after year,” said Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaign Yuyun Indradi. “Failure to act immediately to stem the loss of life would be a crime.” A spokesman for Indonesia’s environment ministry did not immediately have any comment. Indonesian authorities have previously insisted they are stepping up haze-fighting efforts, through such actions as banning the granting of new land for palm oil plantations and establishing an agency to restore devastated peatlands. The haze is an annual problem caused by fires set in forest and on carbon-rich peatland in Indonesia to quickly and cheaply clear land for palm oil and pulpwood plantations. The blazes occur mainly on Indonesia’s western Sumatra island and the Indonesian part of Borneo, with monsoon winds typically blowing the haze over Singapore and Malaysia. But last year’s fires were among the worst in memory and cloaked large parts of the region in choking smog for weeks, causing huge numbers to fall ill and sending diplomatic tensions soaring. The new study to be published in journal Environmental Research Letters, which combined satellite data with models of health impacts from smoke exposure and readings from pollution monitoring stations, estimated that 100,300 had died prematurely due to last year’s fires across the three countries. They estimated there were 91,600 deaths in Indonesia, 6,500 in Malaysia and 2,200 in Singapore. Greenpeace hailed a “groundbreaking” study they said for the first time gave a detailed breakdown of deaths from last year’s fires, but cautioned that the figure was a “conservative estimate”. It only looked at health impacts on adults and the effect of dangerous fine-particulate matter, known as PM 2.5. It did not examine the effect on youngsters or of the other toxins produced by the blazes. In reality, infants are some of the most at risk from the haze, said Nursyam Ibrahim, from the West Kalimantan province branch of the Indonesian Medical Association on Borneo. “We are the doctors who care for the vulnerable groups exposed to toxic smoke in every medical centre, and we know how awful it is to see the disease symptoms experienced by babies and children in our care,” said Ibrahim. The study found an increase in the number of fires in peatland and in timber concessions in 2015, compared to the last haze outbreak considered major, in 2006, and that the number of fires in palm oil plantations fell. Shannon Koplitz, a Harvard scientist who worked on the study, said she also hoped the model they had developed could help those involved with tackling the annual blazes make quick decisions “as extreme haze events are unfolding”. Last year’s haze outbreak was the worst since 1997 due to a strong El Nino weather system, which created tinder-dry conditions in Indonesia and made peatland and forests more vulnerable to going up in flames.       Article Title:Samoa hit by hail storm so rare residents thought it was a hoax   Article URL:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/samoa-hit-by-hail-storm-so-rare-residents-thought-it-was-a-hoax   Article author(s)Eleanor Ainge Roy   Article date:Monday 19 September 2016 00.11 EDT   News source: theguardian    Meteorologist forced to release satellite images of the storm to convince some locals that the hail wasn’t part of a practical joke Samoa has been hit by a hail storm so rare that it was believed to be a hoax by many of the island’s inhabitants. The tropical nation of Samoa lies in the Pacific Ocean, where the average temperature at this time of year is 29C. But on Friday evening an unexpected hail storm struck the eastern side of the island of Savai’i, accompanied by heavy rain and strong wind gusts. It was only the second time since records began that hail has fallen on Samoa, the first was in 2011. The storm lasted 10 to 15 minutes and produced hail stones roughly 2cm wide. “The ice was very small and there were no reports of damage,” said Luteru Tauvale, principal meteorologist for the Samoan Meteorology Service. “Because it was so unexpected a lot of people thought it had been invented. We had to release satellite images of the conditions that led to to the hail for people to believe it was real.” Samoans took to social media to share their photos of the hail, many voicing disbelief at the incident, and then saying it was the “first time” they had been convinced of the the phenomenon of climate change. “Climate change is here!” wrote one Samoan on Facebook. “More like we have just woken up to the fact it had been with us for a while but we refuse to accept/believe it.” Hailstorms form within a unusually unstable air mass in which the temperature falloff with height is much greater than normal.       Article Title:Dozens dead and missing after typhoon lashes eastern China     Article URL:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/18/dozens-dead-and-missing-after-typhoon-lashes-eastern-china   Article author(s)   Article date:Saturday 17 September 2016 22.40 EDT   News source: theguardian    Typhoon Meranti has damaged more than 18,300 houses and caused direct economic losses of more than 16.9bn yuan ($2.5bn)   The strongest typhoon to hit China this year has left 28 people dead and 15 others missing in the east of the country. Typhoon Meranti made landfall early Thursday in Fujian province after winds and rains associated with it pounded Taiwan, leaving one person dead and more than 50 injured. Authorities in Fujian said Saturday that the typhoon had left 18 people dead and 11 missing, damaged more than 18,300 houses and caused direct economic losses of more than 16.9 billion yuan ($2.5bn).   Authorities in neighboring Zhejiang province say that 10 people died and four remained unaccounted for following landslides and flash floods in rural areas. Taiwan saw wind and rain from a second typhoon, Malakas, that caused no apparent deaths."
148,"Help Demand That Nosey The Elephant Be Rescued From Decades Of Abuse —  Nosey, a 34 year old female African elephant has been held captive and forced to live in solitary, for almost 3 decades. Nosey has been bound by chains and compelled to perform for public entertainment in circuses and forced to give rides to adults and children in between performances across the United States, for most of her life. This causes major stress to her health as well as to her psychological well being. Much of Nosey’s life has been spent in confinement inside of an inappropriately sized trailer and she is crated from one location to the next, receiving little exercise and no socialization which goes against the highly social nature of her spices. She has been seen to exhibit stiffness in her joints, indicating that she has arthritis which has likely been formed due to her years of longterm confinement. Since 1993, her owner, Hugo Tommy Liebel, has been cited by the the USDA over 200 times and has made 30 direct violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Regardless of these violations, Liebel’s license is still approved for renewal each year. Despite complaints being filed by numerous citizens and organizations looking to seek freedom for Nosey, there has been little or no response from the USDA. The department refuses to order a comprehensive medical exam for nosey after evidence has shown that she is suffering from chronic, untreated health problems and lives everyday in physical and psychological pain. The USDA has the power under the AWA as well as the responsibility to the animal’s well being to respond to complaints made by citizens to stop the repeated violations made by Nosey’s owner to confiscate her and release her into a true elephant sanctuary. Action must be taken NOW to stop the daily abuse to this animal."
149,"Here’s What Charlotte Protesters Want You To Know About Racism —  “We need our 1776,” one protester said CHARLOTTE, N.C. ― Protesters have flooded the streets of North Carolina’s largest city since 43-year-old Keith Scott was shot and killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police on Tuesday. Many of those demonstrating are frustrated and tired of carrying the weight that comes with being black in America. The Huffington Post asked them to share what they want everyone to know about race in America ― unfiltered and uncensored.  Here’s what they said.   “We will not be able to fight oppression, we will not be able to live in a system that was created for white men by white men … we need to completely abolish incarceration, abolish the police department ― and that’s when we’ll be able to get a chance.” ―Catherine Farmer, 18   “It begins with us, it begins with the people. Until we begin to educate ourselves and educate our children on what racism truly is and what systemic racism is and what injustice is, nothing will ever change. Right now, we’re still caught up in a world where the old guard still runs things. And it’s very important for us as a whole ― black, white, Latino, Hispanic ― to come together to make these kind of changes. It’s destroying our country right now. It’s creating a division.” “It’s not healthy for us at all. Right now, our people is being targeted. When I say ‘our people,’ I mean minorities. We’re being targeted by blue.” ―Maurice Fair, 36   “It’s real, it’s a thing ― and just because others haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it’s not real. We live it every day, so it needs to stop. No lives will matter until black lives matter, too.” ―Cindy Robinson, 32   “[We need] more awareness in the justice system. A lot of people don’t understand the justice system or their rights.”  ―Mario The Mic Man   “This isn’t anything unique, this isn’t a new situation that we’re in ― you know what I’m saying. Ever since America was established in the 1700s, we’ve been in this place. If people really wanna get out, we’re going to have to start exercising tactics that haven’t been exercised before. A lot of the things that we’re doing right now are things that we’ve done ... in the past. Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of someone who’s insane. We can’t be insane. We’re gonna have to try to do something different. We gotta realize that this isn’t a new problem. This is not something that’s extraordinary ― this is actually very ordinary. We’re gonna have to really put our brains together and utilize all tactics to get liberation.” ―Dhoruba Shakur, 26   “The biggest problem in this nation is hypocrisy. America doesn’t seem to understand that she has become to black people what Britain was to her. When the constituents of the king were hung by [the] founding fathers, it was considered to be patriotism. But, before that, they were considered to be terrorists. When you sit here and say that we can’t burn down buildings ― that wasn’t the case when you were doing destruction of property. And those who participated in it was held as martyrs during the Boston Tea Party. It’s hypocrisy ― left and right, all across the board. We need to do what they’ve done. We need our 1776. They didn’t beg Britain to leave them alone. They didn’t beg for Britain to stop giving them taxation without representation. They did what they needed to do.” ―Malcolm Turner"
150,"Horrific crash kills Yu Xu, 1st woman to fly China's J-10 fighter —  One of China's first female fighter pilots and a member of the country's air force aerobatics team was killed in a training accident over the weekend, according to Chinese state-run media.   Capt. Yu Xu, 30, died Saturday during a routine training flight with the aerobatics team, according to the reports. The Chinese military did not provide details of the accident in Hebei province, but state-run media, citing military sources and witnesses, said Yu ejected from her aircraft after it collided with another during the training. After the ejection, the wing of another plane hit Yu, killing her, according to a report from China Daily. Yu's male co-pilot ejected safely and survived, the report said. The other jet also landed safety. The flight data recorder, or black box, from Yu's jet was recovered as authorities investigate the accident, China Daily reported. Yu: 'I have become a real fighter pilot' Yu was the first of four women who are certified to fly the J-10, a single-engine multi-role jet that entered service in 2004 and is considered the first Chinese domestic fighter to rival Western fighters in its capabilities. Yu flew a J-10 fighter with China's August 1st Aerobatics Team. Her last performance was at Airshow China in Zhuhai earlier this month. J-10 fighters from China&#39;s August 1st aerobatics team perform at Airshow China in Zhuhai on November 4, 2016. The show was Capt. Yu Xu&#39;s last public performance. J-10 fighters from China's August 1st aerobatics team perform at Airshow China in Zhuhai on November 4, 2016. The show was Capt. Yu Xu's last public performance. ""I think the acrobatics are quite difficult, with high requirements and standards made in all aspects. Our condition is quite satisfactory, but we need more trainings if we want to be better,"" Yu said of her performances in an interview with China's CCTV. Yu, 30, joined the People's Liberation Army Air Force in September 2005. She qualified as a fighter pilot in 2009 and qualified to fly the J-10 in 2012, when she soloed in the fighter. A Chinese Air Force J-10 fighter on display an Airshow China in Zhuhai November 2016. A Chinese Air Force J-10 fighter on display an Airshow China in Zhuhai November 2016. ""I'm quite happy with myself, because this solo flight means that I have become a real fighter pilot,"" she told CCTV. Wan Ying, a friend of Yu's, told CNN that Yu was ""a very positive, humble and nice person who loved taking care of friends."" She was also an avid reader, Wan said.  Wan said she and Yu had talked only two days before the deadly crash about meeting up for dinner. Capt. Yu Xu described herself as &quot;a real fighter pilot&quot; after she qualified to fly the J-10. Capt. Yu Xu described herself as ""a real fighter pilot"" after she qualified to fly the J-10. Yu saluted as a hero Yu's death Saturday saw many in China questioning in online forums whether women should be fighter pilots and if they were getting the right training. ""I only want to know the cause of the incident. What should be to blame for, problems with the plane or lack of training?"" one poster wrote on the Chinese social website Weibo. But state-run Global Times quoted a Chinese aviation expert, Wang Ya'nan, as saying Yu and other women in the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force were trail blazers. ""China is a pioneer in training female aerobatic pilots. When the program started, there was no foreign experience to borrow from or statistics to rely on from other countries. From this perspective, Yu Xu and other female aerobatic pilots have taken greater risks, which deserve more of our respect,"" Wang was quoted as saying. On Weibo, Yu was saluted as a hero. ""Yu Xu is our most proud female pilot. Her death is a great loss for our country,"" wrote one poster. ""Yu is the Hua Mulan (legendary woman warrior) of our era, a rare heroine,"" wrote another. The website for the All-China Women's Federation reported Monday that 60 million users of the Weibo site had clicked on Yu's story by Sunday night."
151,"Houston gunman who injured nine in mall attack was 'disgruntled lawyer' —  A gunman shot dead by police after he shot at people outside a shopping centre in Houston, Texas, was a ""disgruntled lawyer"", authorities said. Nine people were injured, one of them critically, in the attack. The suspect has not been identified. Police said he was wearing historic military attire with Nazi emblems. Officials said he used a semi-automatic handgun, and also had a semi-automatic rifle, a knife and 2,600 rounds of live ammunition. The guns were purchased legally and the man had a licence to carry concealed weapons, police said. There is no indication that anyone else was involved in planning or carrying out the attack. Six victims were taken to hospital, and three were treated at the scene after being shot at while inside their cars, the city's acting Police Chief Martha Montalvo said. The Associated Press reported that three of the people suffered eye injuries from flying glass. Police say they are investigating the gunman's apartment and his social media accounts to try and establish a motive. They found other historic military paraphernalia in his apartment, dating back to the US Civil War.   The city's mayor, Sylvester Turner, told reporters: ""The motivation appears to be a lawyer whose relationship with his law firm went bad."" But police said they were ""not closing the door on anything"". Suspected Washington mall gunman in court The attack comes three days after a shooting at a shopping centre in Washington state, in which five people were killed. The suspected gunman in that attack, Arcan Cetin, 20, was arrested after a large manhunt which lasted nearly 24 hours. He appeared in court on Monday, charged with five counts of murder. Court documents say he confessed to shooting all five victims with a rifle. Mr Cetin was born in Turkey and is a legal US resident, officials say. The motive for the shooting is not known but the suspect's family says he has a history of mental problems."
152,"How Air Pollution Impacts Childhood Mental Health —  Air pollution is a known risk factor for certain mental health problems in adults, but a new study also links high rates of air pollution to poorer psychiatric health in children and adolescents. To investigate this link, researchers from Umeå University in Sweden examined what is known as “register-based” data. All medications given to Swedish people are registered, and in this case, researchers zeroed in on individuals under age 18 from Stockholm, Västra Götaland, Skåne and Västerbotten. They then looked at this information in connection with the Swedish National Register, which logs air pollution. Due to the socioeconomic range in these regions, researchers first had to control for factors that might affect the outcome, including variety in wealth and ethnicity. Researchers found that air pollution levels do seem to impact adolescent and childhood psychiatric diagnoses, but they couldn’t directly measure rates of mental illness. Furthermore, the risk of having at least one psychiatric diagnosis increased with just a 10 microgram per cubic meter increase in nitrogen dioxide levels in the air. Nitrogen dioxide is one of several air pollutants that results from road traffic and other fossil fuel use. The gas is of particular interest for both health and environment agencies because it plays a part in the formation of particulate matter and acid rain. Long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide has been linked to reduced lung function and resulting breathing and respiratory problems. It has also been identified as a potential risk factor for increasing allergy rates."
153,"How Dams Risk Poisoning Indigenous Diets —  A new hydroelectric facility in Canada could push dangerous amounts of methylmercury into communities that rely on seafood. On October 13, Billy Gauthier, an Inuk sculptor in Labrador, Canada, uploaded a picture of what he called his “last meal” to Facebook.  It showed the split head and tail of a smoked salmon, dimly lit, against a white plate. “Not appetizing to some but delicious to me,” he wrote. “Hope it keeps me going for a while.”   So began Gauthier’s hunger strike. His salmon was from Lake Melville, an enormous estuary that cuts over a hundred miles from the Atlantic to inland Labrador. Since the end of September, indigenous activists in the area have been furiously opposing a new 824-megawatt hydroelectric dam under construction upstream. They fear it will poison Lake Melville’s creatures and, by extension, its people. Bolstered by a series of studies released from the lab of Elsie Sunderland, an environmental scientist at Harvard, opponents argue that the dam, which is being built at a waterfall in the Churchill River called Muskrat Falls, will send high levels of the neurotoxin methylmercury downstream and into Lake Melville’s food webs. Since the area’s Inuit and Innu populations get much of their food from Lake Melville, that toxin would then percolate into their diets, threatening traditional ways of life. Nalcor Energy, the provincial utility behind the dam, doesn’t deny that methylmercury would spike. But levels would rise only modestly before falling back down to pre-dam levels, they contend, and that the neurotoxin wouldn’t make it far into Lake Melville or people’s diets. “We’ve been studying various aspects of the river system since the 1990s, including more than 2000 samples of fish collected to date, and over 100 samples of seal tissues, to understand the current levels of methylmercury in the local species,” Karen O’Neill, a spokesperson for Nalcor, told me in an emailed statement. On Wednesday, Environmental Science & Technology published a paper by Sunderland’s lab at Harvard that argues differently. The new study predicts that flooding for the dam will expose Inuit and Innu communities along Lake Melville to double the amount of methylmercury they currently ingest, placing the average person in the area near what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggests as a safe reference dose for the substance. (The EPA says that ingesting up to one ten-millionth of a gram of methylmercury per kilogram of body weight every day may be safe; Canada’s own recommendation is twice this.) According to the study, the town likely to be the most severely affected would be Rigolet, a remote Inuit community of about 300 people. There is a grocery store there, but residents still go out on the water or the ice, depending on the season, to harvest salmon, seals, trout, char, cod, smelt, sculpin, dolphin, whale, and seabirds and their eggs. “Eating whatever you get from the water, the seal or fish, is just part of the way of life,” says Darryl Shiwak, a Rigolet native and environmental minister for the indigenous Nunatsiavut Government, which represents Labrador’s Inuit and autonomously governs five coastal communities.   In Rigolet, the study finds, the average methylmercury exposure for women of childbearing age and children younger than 12 could rise to double the EPA reference dose, pushing Canada’s limit. Residents with more traditional diets would be the worst off. “For some people who eat local seafood every day, it might push them into the zone of acute poisoning, where you start to see tremors and possible hair loss,” says Ryan Calder, a Ph.D. student in Harvard’s School of Public Health, and the new paper’s first author. Calder’s work was partly funded by the Nunatsiavut Government. Methylmercury spikes are a well-established consequence of hydroelectric-dam construction; the disruption caused by flooding converts elemental mercury in soil into the neurotoxin, which washes downstream. Unlike elemental mercury, methylmercury can waltz through living tissues, including the blood-brain barrier, and its concentration builds up in animals high on the food chain. Since the Muskrat Falls project gained momentum in the late 2000s, Nalcor Energy has conducted its own studies that have minimized the proposed dam’s methylmercury impacts on fishing communities in Lake Melville. So, in 2012, the Nunatsiavut Government reached out to Sunderland’s lab for a second opinion. When Sunderland lab members arrived, their measurements began to diverge from Nalcor’s. According to Amina Schartup, a post-doc on the team, they found less methylmercury already in the Churchill River than the energy company had reported, which meant that the relative increase expected from the dam would be more dramatic than previously thought. They also noticed that Nalcor’s studies treated traditional Inuit diets, which Canadians call “country food,” as outliers, instead of considering the region’s indigenous population as its own unit with a higher risk of methylmercury exposure. Nalcor predicted that the methylmercury-laden river water would dilute once the river emptied into Lake Melville. But as in other Artic and sub-Arctic estuaries, Lake Melville’s fresh water stays trapped in a narrow top layer where animals spend most of their time, with salt water at different buoyancy underneath. And Sunderland’s group believes the top layers actually have too much methylmercury to be explained by inputs from the rivers and deposition from the atmosphere alone. In a 2015 PNAS paper, Schartup argued that the estuary makes a surprising amount of methylmercury on its own. A floating film of bacteria lives between the estuary’s salt and fresh layers, metabolizing the scraps of organic matter and elemental mercury that fall from above and producing more of the neurotoxin. That means Lake Melville is unexpectedly good at focusing the toxin back into the animals that live in and around it—and that other estuaries throughout the Arctic should have the same problem. Calder’s paper forecasts methylmercury the rest of the way, extrapolating from measurements in the present day: from the flooded dam to the estuary, up the food chain into birds, fish and seals, and into the actual diets of the region’s indigenous people, many of whom donated hair samples and filled out a questionnaire about the local species they ate. This problem isn’t unique to Muskrat Falls. Calder’s paper tallies 22 hydroelectric facilities currently being planned across Canada, every one within 100 kilometers of indigenous lands. In 11 of the systems, water methylmercury levels may rise even more than Calder predicts for the Muskrat Falls project. “I agree with their findings and share similar concern,” says Laurie Chan, a toxicologist at the University of Ottawa. “Whenever there’s such a system of hydro development being considered, this mercury issue and the health of indigenous populations really needs to be addressed publicly.” Nalcor’s position remains unchanged. “The paper by Calder et al. does not provide evidence that would change Nalcor Energy's predictions,” O'Neill says. “Nalcor has its own independent experts who are completing a Human Health Risk Assessment and completing ongoing Aquatic sampling and modeling to further support our initial predictions.” Nalcor’s CEO has claimed that delays from protests have already cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. As Calder sees it, the “whole point in doing this research is to show that it can be a screening tool. This whole imbroglio is costing [Nalcor] so much money. If they had been able to screen health impacts ahead of time, they could have made much better decisions.” In a marathon meeting that went into the early morning of October 26, indigenous leaders and representatives of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador—including the Premier—struck a fragile compromise: In the spring, an independent committee with representatives of both sides will make measurements and recommendations to lower the project’s methylmercury impact. According to Nalcor, this may involve clearing vegetation and carbon-rich soil away from the reservoir, where methylmercury-producing bacteria would thrive, but no specific commitments have been made yet. The deal was enough for Billy Gauthier to break his fast. He shared a plate of smoked char with other hunger strikers who had travelled to Ottawa to lobby against the project. Shiwak, the Nunatsiavut environmental minister, hopes that the compromise will prevent a future where his community in Rigolet has to be especially wary of their traditional food sources and the cultural practices surrounding them. “It’s handed down from generation to generation—where are the best places to fish, at what time of year do you fish here or there, where do you hunt the seal, how you skin the seal, and what parts of the seal to eat,” he says. “If we have to tell stories about this, for the next generation, it’s not going to be as meaningful as it is now.”"
154,"How Much Longer Can Venezuela Go On Like This? —  When Nicolas Maduro won a much-contested election to become president of Venezuela in 2013, he sought to ape his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez. Perhaps by channeling Chavez’s pugnacious, anti-American spirit, and his vision of so-called Bolivarian socialism, Maduro could reassert the former president’s vision of an oil-rich Venezuela poised to lead a resurgent Latin America. “This is Chavez’s place. Chavez continues as an example for us!” Maduro bellowed in a speech in 2013. “I am ensuring the legacy of my commander, Chavez, the eternal father.”   But Maduro’s version of chavismo has brought chaos to the country and turned voters against him. In last December’s National Assembly elections, Venezuelans issued a clear rebuke to the president, handing the opposition a supermajority. The opposition bloc, led by Henry Ramos, led an attempt to organize a recall referendum—a process enshrined in the constitution—to remove Maduro. That effort suffered repeated delays courtesy of the government, but was moving forward slowly until a court abruptly suspended it altogether last week, defying the wishes of the roughly 80 percent of Venezuelans that want to see Maduro removed from power.   RELATED STORY     Venezuela Is Falling Apart   In response, Venezuelans in places like Merida and Maracaibo took the streets, much as they’ve done in the past to protest both the Maduro and Chavez governments. But security forces and people sympathetic to the government have pushed back violently. So far, a police officer has been killed, with at least 120 people reportedly injured and 147 arrested. The Vatican has gotten involved to try to mediate the dispute. Opposition leaders have pledged to march on the presidential palace next week if referendum negotiations don’t resume. A 12-hour opposition-led strike in Caracas and several other cities managed to close down some stores and discouraged students from attending classes on Friday, but it fizzled out with little other effect.   Still, the people who have had it with Maduro are willing to take great risks to resume the recall referendum. Since Chavez’s death, global oil prices have collapsed, decimating Venezuela’s export earnings—95 percent of which came from oil in December 2014. The country’s long-time comrade in the global Communist struggle, Cuba, is now in a period of full-on détente with capitalist Washington, while the leftist Worker’s Party in Brazil is in tatters. Party officials have been implicated in corruption and narcotics trafficking. The once-fractured political opposition, meanwhile, has begun to coalesce, as extreme shortages of basic foodstuffs and medicines have metastasized desperation into rage.   This week, I spoke with as Francisco Toro, a columnist for The Washington Post and executive editor of Caracas Chronicles, a Venezuela-focused news and analysis site. Toro has long predicted that, if the government failed to handle the referendum process shrewdly, the people would respond. And they have. So is the end nearing for Maduro? A condensed and edited transcript of our conversation follows.   Siddhartha Mahanta: First off, how do you situate the current turmoil in the grander sweep of things?   Francisco Toro: In some ways, it feels similar to protest movements against chavismo starting back in 2002, when the first big protest happened. But there are many more differences than similarities. The thing to understand about the chavista movement [is that] it’s moved towards authoritarianism really gradually. This kind of glacial, but steady pace of breaking down civil liberties, of taking over institutions, of undermining checks and balances. The degree of democratic drift that we’ve seen, the institutional drift, is pretty extreme.   The one aspect of the Cuban model that Chavez understood was going to be really dicey was going to be having elections. In the modern world, if you have no elections, that clearly qualifies you as a dictatorship. But [the government of] Chavez was rich enough, he had enough money, and he was popular enough, [and] charismatic enough, that he could get away with having elections and win them because there was plenty of money around and everybody liked Chavez.     In the last three years, you don’t have Chavez and you don’t have money. The math is fairly easy to do. The last survey I saw had Maduro losing on the recall question eight to one. That’s where we are now. They’ve understood that if they’re going to hang on to power—that is clearly their priority—there just can’t be any more elections. And the opposition has understood that, if you let this one go, that’s it. Game, set, match.   Mahanta: Why does the opposition want to remove Maduro from power? And who exactly is the opposition?   “Oil prices fall and suddenly the basic lunacy of trying to run the country this way comes home very clearly.” Toro: It’s really difficult to get across how badly governed the country is. If you just describe what happens, [you sound] like a shrill, far-right-wing lunatic who’s describing some kind of Fox News dystopia. But, it’s like that. [The government has] taken over virtually all of the large companies. [It has] taken over most of the mid-size manufacturing companies—everything that makes something you might want to consume. The few [it] hasn’t taken over, you’ve created this regulatory nightmare around them where you can’t do anything and nothing works. Nothing works. Businesses can’t produce. That sort of worked when oil prices were very high, because [under those conditions] who needs to make anything? You sell oil, you get money, and you buy stuff abroad. You just import your way out of the crisis. Oil prices fall and suddenly the basic lunacy of trying to run the country this way comes home very clearly.   People are hungry. The thing that’s been shocking [to] us here is the democratization of hunger and political insecurity. Even people who aren’t hungry are one mishap away from being hungry. When there is no food, people want a change.     Mahanta: This isn’t the first time Maduro’s responded to protest with violence. Back in 2014, there was the protest sparked by high inflation and shortages. It’s hard not to see demonstrations of that year on a continuum with what’s happening now. How has the opposition been building over the past couple of years since then?   Toro: Two and a half years ago, in February 2014, when that whole thing started, the opposition was not united. Half the opposition went out to protest, and the other half said, “You are making a terrible tactical blunder.” So this deep split which had always been there, between the more radical and more moderate opposition, really burst out into the open that year. That’s when Leopoldo Lopez, who was heading the radical faction, got thrown in jail, and Henrique Capriles, who was much more moderate, very visibly didn’t end up getting thrown in jail. The opposition was really, really split. And because the moderates were not protesting that year, there wasn’t really a good way to rein in the crazies.   Because the opposition has crazies of course—hotheads like anyone else, who wanted to set up barricades and thought that this was, you know, 19th-century Paris, which it wasn’t. But the moderates were not on the streets with them. There was nobody to rein them in, and so it got really violent. And when the logic of violence takes over the protests, the government is going to win because they have more guys with more guns, who are better-organized and better-trained.     What’s really different this year is that the moderates are calling on the opposition to march. When Henrique Capriles and Henry Ramos, the head of the National Assembly who is a 72-year-old legal scholar and old-style politician, calls on 100,000 opposition supporters to march to the presidential palace and kick the guy out—Venezuelans hear that and it’s like “Holy shit. This is not what we expect the opposition to be doing.”   Two and a half years ago, the opposition was pathetic. There was no clear leadership. There was no clear political line. People of different parties were doing different things. [Repelling protests] is not a hard decision for a mid-ranking military officer to make at that point, because they’re also throwing rocks at you, they’re putting metal wire across the street to literally decapitate motorcycle riders— that happened. They’re throwing molotov cocktails at you all day and all night. That’s a very easy protest to repress and to justify repressing. [Now,] when you’re faced with a wall of 200,000 people and their kids and everybody’s grandma, and they’re coming at you and nobody is throwing a molotov cocktail but they’re pissed, that’s a lot different.   Mahanta: One thing I’m curious about is, how does Maduro retain enough support going forward to hang on to power? Where is his genuine source of support at this point?   Toro: People with guns. That includes the military of course, which has been given enormous privileges during the last 18 years. [It has] been put in charge of mining businesses, been part of the oil industry, and smuggling, and cocaine, and a lot of other things.     There’s a long list of Venezuelan guys who were sanctioned and generals who have lost their visas, and the [U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration] has investigations on [them]. It’s not really in doubt. So, men with guns. The military, but not just the military.   It’s the paramilitarization of the ruling party. So [the] PSUV, or Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, has what are called colectivos. [These are] sort of grassroots supporter civilians who are armed and organized. What they are is paramilitaries. They are armed civilian groups that support the government. The degree of tactical cooperation between the armed security forces and these paramilitary groups is shocking now and really, they’re not trying to hide it. And these days there’s Twitter—you can’t hide things even if you want to.   “Chavismo is a kind of religion. But as time goes on and memories of Chavez recede, it becomes visible that this is really a cover for dictatorship.” That said, [Maduro] does retain some popular support, like 35-30 percent, because chavismo is a kind of religion. It’s an identity thing for a lot of people, which is why he’s so careful to attach himself to the image of Chavez as much as possible. But as time goes on and as memories of Chavez recede, it becomes more and more visible that this is really a cover for a dictatorship.   If you speak Spanish and you have some exposure to Venezuelan state propaganda, you see how state television speaks. You see this militaristic imagery. There’s a lot of eliminationist rhetoric, and a lot of descriptions of the opposition as vermin, as plagues that need to be eliminated. The tone of it is really, really scary. You meet real lunatics in the Venezuelan pro-government camp, who are convinced they are leading a revolution and that they have to eliminate these people who are paid agents of the CIA and it’s totally crazy. But they just never hear anything different.     Mahanta: When this round of protests actually began, what started to crank them up into the more violent phase, in terms of the reaction from the government and  the paramilitaries?   Toro: This all comes out of this movement to have a recall referendum. There are many, many references online, videos and such, of Chavez in the early days, talking about the importance of the recall in the new political system that he was proposing. It was really kind of a central idea, that this new participatory democracy was going to be more democratic because people would have a chance to review how their leaders had done. They would have these longer terms—a presidential term is six years— but part of the way you justified that longer term is [by saying] “It’s okay. Halfway through, you can have a vote.” This was Chavez’s idea. This is his legacy. The recall had been the central organizing idea of the opposition all year. [Their thinking was:] “We want to get rid of these guys legally and through the ballot box and peacefully.”   Mahanta: You’ve been keeping a very close watch through Twitter on where the worst of the crackdowns have occurred. I’m wondering if you can describe where we’ve been seeing the worst of the violence? And, conversely, where things remain calm?   Toro: Its really been Caracas against the rest of the country. There’s very clearly—and I think this is about really foreign journalists all live in Caracas, is what it is. If it doesn’t happen in Caracas, it just gets much less play abroad. The violence was mostly in state capitals and small provincial cities, 100,000 here, 500,000 there. Places where the AP doesn’t have a guy and Reuters doesn’t have a guy.     Mahanta: And yet, at least in reviewing some of the pieces that you guys have posted on Caracas Chronicles, people are finding a way to get these images and recordings. It is defying the strategy here, about where deploy the crackdowns.   Toro: I think in these situations there is this balance: Are you more scared? Are you more intimidated? Or are you more defiant? People are feeling pretty freaking defiant at the moment. I [also] think that a lot of people think that the army or significant segments of the army are going to end up flipping. Maybe not the top generals, but the mid-ranking officers or just the troops because they also don’t have food—that kind of situation where suddenly the regime crumbles because the forces, their hearts were not in it. A lot of people have that kind of model in mind. [Like in] that video that I posted from San Cristobal with a student protest coming right up in the soldier’s face, and going: “Look me in the face and shoot me, motherfucker. I’m hungry. I know you’re hungry too.”   Mahanta: I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about how strong that relationship has been over time between the military and Maduro.   Toro: In a lot of ways, it is a military regime. One of the many, many, many democratic checks in the constitution that has been completely flouted is a ban on military officers taking part in politics. They do that all the time. They don’t retire and join politics like you might in a normal country. They just keep their uniforms on. They still have their rank and they’re state governors, they’re ministers, they’re administering state enterprises, they’re doing these kinds of things. So in a lot of ways it is a military regime.     In other ways, there are clear signs of cultural difference between the regime and these guys. The regime has been around for 18 years and people who are now generals and colonels went into the military academy long before the regime took power, so these are not people who are communists. The ones who have been willing to adapt have gotten very rich. But what these guys really fear is for the chain of command to just crumble. What they really fear is being told to give an order that they don’t believe is going to be followed, because then what happens? So there’s this strange kind of game-theoretical scenario where they’re looking up to the guy who’s giving them orders and looking down at the other ones they have to give orders to, and wondering where that chain breaks down and trying to avoid that.   The military had been pushing for the recall referendum to go through because what they don’t want to be put in is this kind of situation. But does that mean that they are quasi-democrats who want to get rid of this government, and that there’s going to be a coup? No, I don’t think that. Part of what you have to keep in mind with the military in this kind of scenario is the role of Cuban intelligence. There are tens of thousands of Cuban support-trainers and military-trainers in Venezuela, and everybody knows that a very significant portion of them are spies. That was done very much on purpose by Chavez as sort of coup insurance. So I don’t think you’re looking at a kind of coup scenario. You’re looking much more at a scenario where orders are given and they’re not carried out and you have a sort of an uncontrollable chain of subordination.     Mahanta: The legal process of trying to remove Maduro by referendum is somewhat convoluted. The point now, it seems, is that Maduro has suspended these efforts; the opposition in the parliament is pushing back. I wonder: If the opposition knew that the legal effort [to put Maduro on trial after the referendum was blocked] was going to be dead on arrival [owing to Maduro’s control of the process], what was the play there? If we can sort of get inside the minds of Ramos and the other leaders?   Toro: I find this question really maddening and it gets asked a lot, not just by foreign editors, you know.   Mahanta: I just had to ask it!   Toro: Look, to get to the point where you can have an opposition movement that was united enough that it could mount a civil resistance to the government that would have a chance to succeed, you had to go the extra mile. You had to go as far as you could in the legal book, and [the government] had to be the ones to kill it. If you killed it, you squandered all of your authority to call for anything.   I was surprised that [the government] killed the recall. Why? Because it was a blunder. What I thought they would do is let the recall go through, but they would slow it down until next year [and] turn it into this technical discussion so that you drained all the energy out of the protest movement and they would muddle through. That would have been a way smarter way to play it.   “It’s very evident that calls for dialogue are tactical gambits to try to cause divisions in the opposition.” The army really didn’t want to end up in the position that the crisis is pushing them into, which is of being the political arbiter. So the army was pushing for [the government] to go ahead with the recall in some way or to have some kind of negotiations. Chavismo used to be simple. When Chavez was around, that’s where every decision went to get made. Chavez had the stature, the power, the charisma, the cult of personality, to just make those decisions. Chavismo has become a much more complicated and much more multi-faceted animal since Chavez died. Because suddenly you have real internal politics because Maduro is not Chavez. Maduro cannot just dictate to everybody else. In the fullness of time, the government is going to look back and think, “You know, we should’ve let that recall go through. It would have been better.” Mahanta: Interesting. On the theme of recognizing your mistakes, Maduro reportedly met with opposition folks [on Wednesday]. Does that show that he’s trying to pivot in some way or do I give him too much credit?   Toro: [Within the opposition] it’s very evident that these calls for dialogue and negotiations are stalling tactics, and they’re tactical gambits to try to cause divisions in the opposition—to let some of the momentum that has built up to dissipate. We’ve seen this happen before. It happened in 2014, it happened in 2004, it’s happened in different places where when the government is really up against the wall. Suddenly, they want dialogue. And then when they feel confident enough, they tell us to go fuck ourselves again. So it’s not a particularly new thing.   Dialogue has become sort of a dirty word in the Venezuelan opposition. Last week there was this episode when the papal envoy showed up in Caracas, sort of unannounced, and demanded the government and opposition sit down for a dialogue. The titular head of the opposition met him, because he’s the freaking pope’s envoy—it’s a little awkward to say no. And then he gave this declaration that said, “Maybe we’ll go to this thing. Dialogue is kind of a good thing.” And he was absolutely pilloried by opposition public opinion right away—like how could you fall for this shit again? For dialogue to happen and to be meaningful, the government is going to need to give out some extensive signals like saying, “Here, all of the political prisoners that are freed. Let’s sit down and talk.” Or, like, “This is the date for the recall. Let’s sit down and talk.”   Mahanta: Where do things go from here? Can things get worse?   Toro: That’s the thing that keeps me up at night. We are in deeply uncharted territory here, so to try to forecast it now is really, really dicey. There’s a sense in the opposition now of learned helplessness. [A sense of,] “we’ve done a lot, we’ve done a lot to try to get rid of these guys and they’ve worn us out every time, and we’ve failed every time and the country has gotten worse and worse and worse.” So in a way, that’s the hardest thing to get over. Part of the reason that people reacted to the offer of the Vatican mediation the way they did is precisely that: Not this shit again. So the opposition has a big hump to get over, which is [the question of] how is it different this time? Convince me that this is not the same.   Mahanta: I know this is obviously a moving story and you got to get back to covering it so thanks so much for taking the time.   Toro: I mean I can’t believe I haven’t looked at Twitter in an hour."
155,"Huge gang attack man in street in Edinburgh —  A huge gang of youths have attacked a man in the street after chasing him through a park in Edinburgh. The 22-year-old was walking across a playground in Pilton on Saturday at about 21:00 when between ten and 15 youths started shouting at him and threatening him with a bottle. The group of both boys and girls, aged between 13-16, then chased the man, who ran into West Pilton March. They caught him and attacked him before stealing his wallet. The man sustained minor injuries. The male teenager, who initially threatened the victim with a bottle, is white, of medium build with short blond hair. He was wearing a mainly grey t-shirt with black sleeves and Nike logo across the front. Some of the teenagers were on bikes. Det Con Ross Nicol, of Police Scotland, said: ""This group targeted a lone man and subjected him to a vicious attack. ""We are eager to trace the young people involved in this incident, particularly the male who threatened the victim with a weapon. ""I would urge anyone who was in the West Pilton area on the evening of Saturday, October 22, and saw anything suspicious, to get in touch with us immediately."""
156,"Humans have destroyed 10 percent of Earth’s wilderness in 25 years —  We have a problem, and scientists are panicking. As reported by CBS and other news outlets, a study has found that humanity has destroyed about 10 percent of the planet’s wilderness since 1992.   The study published online via the journal Current Biology revealed that in the 25-year period, a total land area about half the size of the Amazon, and twice the size of the state of Alaska, has been depleted.   In a press release, the research team said they want their study to act as a wake-up call, showing the public the truth that many of Earth’s rich habitats, like the Amazon, have been lost in a relatively short amount of time. They’re also looking for international policies that will recognize the importance of wilderness and protect them from further developments of humans.   The dwindling wilderness is due, in part to humanity’s activities such as logging, agriculture, mining, and of course, oil and gas exploration.   The research team from Australia’s University of Queensland said the Earth has lost nearly 1.3 million square miles of wilderness. They’ve defined wilderness as an area with no human development.   Dr. James Watson of the University of Queensland in Australia said globally important wilderness areas are completely ignored in environmental policy, and much has been paid to the loss of species. Without any policies to protect them, they are “falling victim to widespread development,” he added.   Dr. Watson also revealed that humanity has one to two decades to turn things around.   To date, the world has a total of 30.1 million km2, or around 20 percent of the world’s land area, that remain as wilderness, with the majority being located in countries in North America, North Asia, Australia and North Africa. The reported losses have occurred primarily in South America which has experienced a staggering 30 percent decline in wilderness. For comparison, Africa has seen a 14 percent loss.   Dr. Oscar Venter of the University of Northern British Colombia said the amount of wilderness loss in more than two decades is “staggering.” He also warned that humans cannot restore wilderness. Once it is gone, it never comes back to the state it was. The only option available now, he said, is to protect what is left.   The team’s report also criticized the United Nations and others that have ignored the problem. Dr. Watson said that if humans don’t act soon, there will only be “tiny remnants of wilderness around the planet,” and that is a disaster for conservation, and for climate change. “We have a duty to act for our children and their children,” he added.   The research is titled ‘Catastrophic Declines in Wilderness Areas Undermine Global Environment Targets,’ and it is now accessible online via the Current Biology journal website, Cell.com."
157,"Hundreds Remember The Life Of Terence Crutcher At Funeral Service —  The funeral service came one day after Betty Shelby was booked on a first degree manslaughter charge An unarmed black man shot and killed by a white police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was remembered at a funeral service on Saturday as a father of four with a good heart. The solemn, music-filled service at Antioch Baptist Church for Terence Crutcher, 40, drew hundreds of mourners, many of whom fanned themselves or stood to sing and applaud on a warm evening in north Tulsa. Crutcher’s death last week and the fatal shooting of a black man earlier this week by a police officer in North Carolina are two of the latest officer-involved shootings to stoke concerns about biased policing in the United States. “We’re not going to stop until we have full justice, say it, full justice,” Demario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the Crutcher family and his former friend, told attendees, who responded by echoing his words “full justice.”   The funeral service came one day after Betty Shelby, the 42-year-old Tulsa police officer who shot Crutcher on Sept. 16, was booked on a first degree manslaughter charge. She is free on bond and faces at least four years in prison if convicted. Tulsa police released two videos on Monday, one from a helicopter and the other from a dashboard camera in a patrol car, which show Crutcher holding his hands in the air shortly before he was shot in the chest next to his vehicle. Police said Crutcher was unarmed and there was no weapon in the vehicle. Shelby was responding to a separate call for a domestic disturbance when she saw Crutcher on the road. She told investigators that Crutcher failed to comply with her instructions and she feared for her life, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. In one video, a police officer in audio from a helicopter says “that looks like a bad dude too, could be on something.”   Solomon-Simmons, in his speech at the funeral on Saturday, made reference to those words, saying “Terence was a great dude, let’s give it up for Terence.” Other speakers remembered Crutcher as a father of four with a good heart who was going to school to improve his life. Reverend Cortes Rex sang what he described as Crutcher’s favorite song, “My Soul Has Been Anchored in the Lord.” The service came hours after dozens of people gathered at the courthouse plaza for a rally organized by Black Lives Matter Oklahoma, the ACLU of Oklahoma, the NAACP and other groups. (Writing by David Bailey and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Leslie Adler and Michael Perry)"
158,"ISIS 'executes' 232 near Mosul, takes thousands as human shields, UN says —  (CNN)ISIS has ""executed"" 232 people near the Iraqi city of Mosul and taken tens of thousands of people to use as human shields against advancing Iraqi forces, the United Nations says. The terror group carried out the mass killings Wednesday, punishing people who had defied its orders, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights arm told CNN. ""ISIS executed 42 civilians in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul. Also on Wednesday ISIS executed 190 former Iraqi security forces for refusing to join them, in the Al Ghazlani base near Mosul,"" said Ravina Shamdasani of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Another 24 former Iraqi security forces officers were reportedly killed Tuesday, the office said. Since October 17, ISIS has taken tens of thousands of men, women and children from the outskirts of Mosul into the city. Shamdasani said the United Nations feared the group intended ""to use them as human shields against the Iraqi forces advance on Mosul."" There have been other reported civilian deaths over the past week as ISIS tries to herd people into its last major stronghold in Iraq and the nation's second city against the Iraqi-led operation. Inside Mosul: Tunnels, resistance and terror Iraqi forces have now launched an operation to cut ISIS supply lines west of Mosul, according to a statement released Saturday by Hashd al Shabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs). The PMUs are fighting alongside the Iraqi military and the Kurdish Peshmerga as they attempt to re-take Mosul from ISIS. Iraqi forces advance from south Reports of the latest ISIS atrocities came as Iraqi security forces reported further progress Friday in their advance from the south of Mosul. Abdulrahman al Wagga, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told CNN the security forces had taken the town of al Shura, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Mosul, and had evacuated 5,000 to 6,000 civilians. The area is being cleared of homemade bombs and booby traps, he said. Iraqi security forces and federal police have also now ""90% surrounded Hammam al-Alil,"" the largest town south of Mosul, Wagga said. ISIS has used human shields before Wagga said the Iraqi forces might storm Hammam al-Alil soon but it would depend on the situation on the ground since civilians were still present. Reports indicate that ISIS has abducted at least 5,370 families from around al Shura and 150 more from around Hammam al-Alil, Shamdasani told a briefing in Geneva, Switzerland. Another 160 families have reportedly been seized from around Qayyara, she said, and 2,210 families from the Nimrud area of Hamdaniya district. ""Forced out by gunpoint, or killed if they resist, these people are reportedly being moved to strategic locations where ISIL fighters are located,"" Shamdasani said, using an alternative acronym for ISIS. Information received by the United Nations suggests some 60,000 people are currently living in Hammam al-Alil, an ISIS stronghold with a previous population of 23,000, she said. The use of human shields is banned under international humanitarian law, and constitutes a violation of the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of life, the UN refugee agency said. ISIS has used the same tactic in previous battles in Iraq, notably in Falluja in June. 'Depraved, cowardly' strategy The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, said the terror group's ""depraved, cowardly strategy is to attempt to use the presence of civilians to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations, effectively using tens of thousands of women, men and children as human shields."" He also warned last week that ISIS fighters appeared to be using civilians in and around Mosul as human shields. The commissioner urged those fighting ISIS not to carry out revenge attacks and called on the Iraqi government to ensure respect for the rule of law. As the fighting around Mosul intensifies, growing numbers of civilians have sought to flee despite the risks involved. The International Organization for Migration reported the Mosul operation had displaced 16,566 people as of Friday. Camps have been set up to accommodate an expected flood of desperate families. Pirate radio risks death to fight ISIS on airwaves ISIS 'killed brother for spying' Civilians continued Friday to stream out of villages to the east of Mosul that ISIS had held until recent days. Several people gave insight into life under ISIS rule, telling the Kurdish network Rudaw that militants had fired at them as they left a settlement near Darwish to the northeast of Mosul. One woman said her brother had been killed after being accused of spying for the Peshmerga, or Kurdish fighters. She said women had been forced to wear gloves and be completely covered. A young man told the network his brother had been killed because he had a cell phone and was allegedly a spy. Iraqi forces are holding positions about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from the eastern side of Mosul. Gen. Aly Al Saady told the al Iraqiya network his force would wait for troops on other fronts to close in on Mosul before launching an attack on the city. He said they had prepared safe corridors for civilians to get out of Mosul before starting the operation. CNN's Hamdi Alkshali, Milena Veselinovic and Tim Lister contributed to this report."
159,"ITT Tech's Road to Closure —  The company behind ITT Technical Institute, the chain of for-profit schools in the United States, will shut down all of its campuses following financial sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education.   ITT Educational Services said in a statement Tuesday it would shutter more than 130 locations in 39 states. The move affects hundreds of thousands of current students and more than 8,000 employees of the ITT Technical Institute, known colloquially as ITT Tech, the company said.   “It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service,” it said in a statement on its website.   ITT blamed the closure on the “actions of and sanctions from” the U.S. Department of Education. Last Thursday the government agency barred the company from enrolling new students using federal financial aid, a source of funding ITT Tech has relied on heavily. A day later, ITT announced it would not enroll any new students in the coming semester. U.S. officials say ITT Tech has been found twice this year to be out of compliance with the standards of its accreditor, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. ITT Tech and for-profit colleges have been criticized for charging tens of thousands in tuition but failing to provide a valuable education to students, instead leaving them saddled with debt. As my colleague Bourree Lam reported in June, a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research this year found “on average, students pursuing bachelor’s and associate’s degrees at for-profit colleges saw their earnings drop, compared to before they started the program.”   “We made a difficult choice to pursue additional oversight in order to protect you, other students, and taxpayers from potentially worse educational and financial damage in the future if ITT was allowed to continue operating without increased oversight and assurances to better serve students,” said John King, the U.S. Secretary of Education, in a statement Tuesday.   ITT Tech enrolls more than 40,000 students in undergraduate and graduate programs. The Department of Education said Tuesday some students may be eligible to have their federal student loans discharged and their debt erased. They may also be able to transfer their ITT credits to another institution. “Whatever you choose to do, do not give up on your education,” King said.   In April 2015, Corinthian Colleges, another for-profit chain with hundreds of campuses across the country, shut down after similar sanctions from the federal government. The Department of Education offered to forgive millions of dollars of debt of thousands of students enrolled in the schools, on the grounds that Corinthian defrauded them."
160,"In South Africa, a private army is fighting rhino poachers —  MARKEN, South Africa — There was a time when hunters paid good money to hunt animals like antelope and buffalo at Simon Rood’s wild-game reserve. But on a recent day, Rood watched as one of his staff stared into a tangle of dried-out trees and waited to load his rifle during a training exercise. The quarry was something different. “What do we eradicate?” Rood barked. “Poachers!” shouted his employee. Poaching has taken a devastating toll on iconic African wildlife, like the rhinoceros. In the early 20th century, there were about half a million rhinos in the wild internationally; today, there are less than 30,000 across Asia and Africa. The vast majority live in South Africa. Protecting those animals has become a serious business. Rood decided several years ago to get out of the hunting industry and start a security company aimed at conserving wildlife. Now he uses his land to train anti-poaching guards that his firm, Nkwe Wildlife and Security Services, sends to work at private reserves. “You can’t stop the poaching — that’s a pie in the sky. It’s about bringing the poaching to acceptable levels,” Rood said. The slaughter has become an emergency for national parks as well as for South Africa’s private game reserves, where tourists come to stay at luxurious lodges and catch a glimpse of the Big Five: lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo and rhinos. As of last year, 6,200 rhinos — roughly a third of the country’s rhino population — were living on private reserves, according to the Private Rhino Owners Association (PROA). So far, most of the slain rhinos have been killed in Kruger National Park, the largest game reserve in South Africa. But as the government has ramped up the famous park’s security, poachers have started looking elsewhere. [How the fate of an entire subspecies of rhino was left to one elderly male] South Africa’s private security industry already employs nearly 500,000 guards in homes, malls and offices to supplement a police force overwhelmed by high crime. In recent years, the anti-poaching industry has trained hundreds more guards to take on the menace in the country’s game parks. “We’re talking about a global criminal syndicate, and it’s not getting smaller, it’s getting bigger,” says Karl Miller, chairman and chief executive of the GES Group, whose subsidiary in South Africa provides anti-poaching rangers and security personnel to look after 1,600 rhinos across the country. “They’re very well funded, and they’re very heavily armed.” Between 2007 and 2014, the recorded number of rhinos poached in South Africa soared from 13 to 1,215, according to the government. The animals are killed for their horns, which can fetch thousands of dollars per pound on the black market in Asia. In recent years, there has been a spike in demand in Vietnam, where the horns are used in what some locals say are cures for maladies as diverse as cancer and hangovers, as well as in such high-end ornaments as cups and bracelets. The South African government has declared rhino poaching to be a “national priority crime,” and has rolled out a raft of initiatives to combat the problem, including boosting security in national parks and moving rhinos to safer areas. In the first eight months of 2016, more than 400 alleged poachers were arrested, according to the government, compared with 343 arrests in 2013 and 267 in 2012. Although police investigate poaching crimes that occur on public and private land, landowners largely furnish their own security. “Before, we could get away with having a couple of guys, not formally trained,” says Pelham Jones, chairman of the rhino owners’ association. “We are all now required to provide armed anti-poaching units.” Albi Modise, a spokesman for the country’s Department of Environmental Affairs, said “the security industry plays an important role when it comes to protection of rhino on private game reserves.” Since 2009, South Africa’s private rhino owners have spent $115 million on security to protect the rhinos, Jones said. He said that in the past seven years, there have been at least 20 armed attacks by poaching groups on park management or staff. One member of an anti-poaching unit was killed, he said. [One man’s idea for saving rhinos: Airlift them to Australia] On a private game reserve not far from Kruger, a wooden barricade encloses a small security officers’ camp, one corner of the fence bashed in by a curious elephant. The reserve pays Protrack Anti-Poaching Unit, another security firm, to provide guards. When the park guests settle in for “sundowners,” or cocktails, the anti-poaching units are on high alert, sunset being a popular time for poachers to shoot rhinos and flee the property under the cover of darkness. A short drive from the guards’ camp, the remains of a rhino carcass lay near a watering hole, only a few joints of bone and desiccated hide left. In September, Godfrey, a 25-year-old guard, was patrolling the area and came across the rhino after poachers had killed it and hacked off its horn. “When we found it, it was still bleeding,” says Godfrey, who uses only one name. “We could see a few footprints. They went that way,” he says, pointing into the bush and making a whoosh noise. Gone. What Godfrey would have done had he caught them presents its own complications. Armed anti-poaching units working on private land must be registered with the government, as must their guns. They can legally use weapons on duty, but if they kill a poacher in self-defense, they can be charged with murder, according to security firm owners. Miller, of GES, said rangers in the private industry sometimes won’t aim their weapons at poachers they encounter, for fear of legal repercussions, and will shoot over their heads instead. Although his staff workers are trained to respond to armed poachers, he says, some guards are less prepared, and that can embolden poachers. “If it’s an ill-equipped, small unit, the poachers are going to see the soft spots.” In Protrack’s headquarters in Hoedspruit, a tourist town in Limpopo province, dozens of blue folders are stacked in the office of Vincent Barkas, the company’s founder. Each includes images of a poaching crime scene and rhino autopsy. Barkas says he shares the files with police but that only a handful have led to arrests. Coordination with police and authorities is improving, Barkas says, but he said he thinks the overall effort to stop rhino poaching remains too disjointed and that, ultimately, it’s the global trafficking syndicates that have the upper hand. “They call it a rhino war, but we can’t fight a war,” Barkas says. “We’ve got labor laws. We’ve got to pay overtime. We’ve got all these different rules to follow, and the poacher’s got no rules.” Even though he’s making money from his firm, Barkas worries that the escalating fight is further polarizing the country. The people hired by poaching kingpins to go after the animals are often desperately poor. If an anti-poaching guard kills one of those men, that can create animosity toward security companies and the conservation effort in general. “Unfortunately, being South Africans, we are throwing more guns, more weapons at this problem, and we’re not doing anything about education and awareness,” he says. “It might be too late for the rhino now.”"
161,"In first big wave, Iraqis flee Mosul and crowd into camps —  Holding white flags and traveling in convoys of dump trucks, army buses and family sedans, thousands of residents poured out of eastern neighborhoods of Mosul on Thursday, the first significant wave of people to escape the city held by the Islamic State.   More than 1.2 million people are believed to still be trapped in the northern city, which Iraqi security forces are just beginning to penetrate after launching an offensive to retake it two weeks ago. Newly constructed camps in the area have the capacity for just 60,000 people.   The stream of humanity, which included shepherds pushing herds of sheep out of the war zone, crawled along in heavy traffic leaving Mosul and headed toward a swelling camp for displaced people erected on the banks of the Khazir River. The camp has space for 1,000 families but was rapidly filling up.   Even as they fled, some were almost giddy with relief. Drivers in the convoys blasted their horns and waved V for victory as Iraqi and Kurdish troops passed by on their way to the front lines.   Girls and young women who were forced to wear black veils over their faces in Mosul took them off and let the wind blow though their hair. For nearly 21/2 years, they have lived under Islamic State rule in the group’s de facto capital in Iraq. It was in the city’s central mosque that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared his caliphate two years ago, calling on the world’s Muslims to follow him.   Now Iraqi commanders say it’s just a matter of time before the city is recaptured, though no one is sure of the cost that civilians trapped inside may pay. As government troops closed in, Baghdadi rallied his followers on Thursday, releasing an audio recording that called on them to remain steadfast and fight and to obey their commanders.   “Oh you who seek martyrdom! Start your actions!” Baghdadi said in a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group. “Totally decimate their territories, and make their blood flow like rivers.” Analysts said it was the first time that the Islamic State leader, whose whereabouts are unknown, had personally called on his fighters to maintain discipline on the battlefield, suggesting he may be concerned about defections.   Some Iraqi commanders have said that Islamic State fighters and their families have moved from the eastern side of Mosul to the west or even to Syria, although such reports are difficult to verify.   The number of civilians fleeing increased “significantly” Thursday as fighting crossed from villages to more densely populated neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, said Alvhild Stromme of the Norwegian Refugee Council. She said that at least 1,000 families had fled, but new arrivals were still being counted. Sabah Noori, a spokesman for Iraq’s special forces, said that about 5,000 people had fled the eastern neighborhood of Gogjali, which the forces entered on Tuesday, and that a similar number had stayed behind. The Iraqi army also said it had stormed the Mosul neighborhood of Intisar on Thursday, pressing farther into the city.   “We were dead to the world, but God did not want us yet,” said Saad Fahad, 46, who fled from Gogjali.   Asked what the past few days had been like, Fahad said, “It was a horror, to be honest.”   He and relatives hid under a stairwell and in a bathroom, he said.   Fahad came out with 40 members of his extended family in four vehicles, their rooftops piled with chairs, bicycles and mattresses and their pickup truck beds loaded with children.   They were down to bread and tea before they ran. Shops in the neighborhood ran out of food two or three days ago and then shuttered during the fighting, he said.   One of his cousins was freshly shaved and said it was a relief to be free of the long beard that the Islamic State demanded of men.   But Fahad said: “It wasn’t the beards or the forbidden mobile phones or cigarettes that was the worst. It was the psychological pressure. You refuse anything? They called you an infidel and could take you away.” Ahmed Mohammad, 33, a laborer traveling with 23 family members, said that after one of the first Iraqi troops entered his neighborhood on Tuesday night, “I ran out of the house and kissed his boots.”   Ahmed, who asked that his last name not be used because he still had relatives in Mosul, said that the eastern edge of the city was first shelled by Iraqi forces and later by the Islamic State.   “Many civilians are dying,” he said.   “If you have a car, you will leave. If you don’t, you will try to walk,” Ahmed said, predicting that Mosul would empty itself out, at least in districts with heavy fighting. “Only the shepherds will stay, to protect their animals.”   Iraq’s armed forces are trying as much as possible to keep families in their homes as they advance, hoping to divert a humanitarian crisis that the country is woefully ill-equipped to deal with. Some 3.4 million people have already been displaced during Iraq’s war against the Islamic State. But as conflict nears their doors, many people inevitably choose to flee.   Iraqi forces are searching houses for Islamic State fighters trying to mingle with the civilians.   A young man named Dhiab, who declined to give his last name, rode out of Mosul in the back of a dump truck said it would be hard to persuade residents to stay, because the populace is traumatized.   Just before the fighting began, he said, Islamic State gunmen intensified their search for spies and members of a popular resistance groups. The Islamic State fighters would demand identification and then check names against lists they kept on laptops.   “A mobile phone was a death sentence,” Dhiab said. “If you were former police, army? The same.”   Mustafa Akram, a political officer in the Kurdish peshmerga forces, stood at the gates of the Zharir camp, where a long line of people from Mosul had formed.   “First they will be searched, then vetted. Then they will be given some food and blankets,” Akram said.   It was possible that active supporters of the Islamic State — and even some Islamic State fighters — could appear at the camp and slip through the fast screening process being run by peshmerga intelligence units. But eventually they would be found out, Akram said."
162,"In the Wild, Goldfish Turn From Pet to Pest —  Two decades ago, someone dropped a handful of unwanted pet goldfish into a creek in southwestern Australia. Those goldfish grew, swam downstream, mucked up waters wherever they went and spawned like mad. Before long, they took over the whole river. Researchers from Murdoch University believe this scenario, or something like it, is the cause of a feral goldfish invasion in Australia’s Vasse River. Since 2003, they have been running a goldfish tracking and control program that involves catching fish along the length of the river, freezing them to death and studying them in the lab. Despite this program, goldfish in the Vasse are thriving, with some fish growing as long as 16 inches and weighing up to four pounds — the size of a two-liter soda bottle. Goldfish are one of the world’s worst invasive aquatic species, with outbreaks also having been reported in Nevada, Colorado and Alberta, Canada, in the last several years. Goldfish in the Vasse River, though, “have the fastest known growth rate of goldfish in the world,” said Stephen Beatty, a researcher at Murdoch University who helps lead the control program. If his team gets the Vasse’s goldfish problem in order, its work could inform goldfish management efforts far beyond Australia. Goldfish invasions start with a disconnect between how people view goldfish and what goldfish are like in the wild, Dr. Beatty said. “Once you introduce something into a new environment — even if it’s a cute, cuddly aquarium fish — it can have quite unexpected, serious biological consequences.” The goldfish is a domesticated carp, first bred in ancient China for ornamental gardens. For centuries, goldfish were prized symbols of luck and fortune. Shortly after they made their way to the United States in the mid-1800s, however, they transitioned from the exotic to the mundane. The United States government played a large role in this, according to Katrina Gulliver, a historian who has chronicled the goldfish. For decades in the late 1800s, the newly established Commission on Fisheries gave goldfish to Washington, D.C., residents as a publicity stunt, handing out as many as 20,000 fish in some years. In a New York Times article from 1894, a reporter jested, “The business of distributing free goldfish to the people of the District of Columbia has become such a tax on the Fish Commission that it appears they must choose between running a goldfish bureau for Washington exclusively and conducting the legitimate work of the bureau.” This, and the later practice of giving out goldfish at carnivals, spawned the harmful notion that goldfish are disposable and inconsequential. In fact, when tossed into waterways — particularly warm, nutrient-rich and relatively stagnant ones like the Vasse — goldfish behave in unexpected ways. For one, they look different. Freed from the constraints of a tank, goldfish balloon to the size of footballs. Within a few generations, they revert to natural yellow and brown colors, in place of the bright orange that breeders try to achieve. They are also an ecological nightmare. Goldfish swim along the bottom of lakes and rivers, uprooting vegetation, disturbing sediment and releasing nutrients that trigger excess algal growth. They feed broadly, eating algae, small invertebrates and fish eggs. To add insult to injury, they transmit exotic diseases andparasites. Females produce up to 40,000 eggs each year — much more than most freshwater fish species — and are capable of interbreeding with other species of wild carp. With no natural predators, a large portion of goldfish offspring survive to reproductive age, continuing a cycle of rampant overpopulation. So how do you get rid of them in a lasting way? Once they’re established somewhere, eradicating goldfish is a notoriously difficult undertaking — which is why Murdoch scientists recently spent a year tracking the movement of the fish in the Vasse. Their study, published last month in The Ecology of Freshwater Fish, yielded some unexpected findings. For starters, goldfish are long-distance swimmers — Dr. Beatty’s team saw goldfish routinely travel the length of multiple football fields in a day, and even observed one fish that traveled more than 140 miles in a year. For another, goldfish migrate to spawn. That’s right, the same fish that are often kept in tiny bowls, swimming in circles, navigate in droves to an off-channel wetland during breeding season. It is perhaps a surprising finding for a domesticated species, but the behavior seems to be innate, Dr. Beatty said, and points to goldfish having complex cognitive abilities. “We think of goldfish as not being very intelligent — more like furniture or home accessories than sentient creatures,” said Dean Pomerleau, an engineer from Pittsburgh. But his family has trained pet goldfish to perform complicated tricks, such as nosing a tiny soccer ball into a net, and researchers have shown that goldfish can discriminate between music by Bach and Stravinsky. (Yes, goldfish can hear — they have evolved a bone structure that translates changes in pressure from sound waves from their swim bladder to their inner ear.) A better understanding of goldfish behavior can inform management strategies, Dr. Beatty said, such as trapping fish en masse after they have migrated to their breeding grounds. Meanwhile, to ensure goldfish invasions don’t get worse, it is crucial that pet owners get rid of unwanted fish responsibly, said Linda Walters, a biology professor at the University of Central Florida who has helped produce two children’s books on the dangers of emptying home aquariums into local waterways. The best strategy is to give healthy fish away, to a responsible aquarium, pet store or hobbyist, Dr. Walters said. In Florida, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission takes unwanted exotic pets off people’s hands on regularly scheduled amnesty days. If your fish is sick, the most humane way to kill it is probably to put it in an ice slurry. As for whether you should flush your fish down the toilet, experts recommend against it. Not only is there a slight chance your fish could survive a journey through the septic system and end up in the wild, but, in general, it’s just not a very pleasant way to say goodbye to Bubbles."
163,"India Kashmir: The teenager blinded by pellets —  Photographer Abid Bhat here describes the life of 14-year-old Insha Mushtaq, who lost vision in both her eyes after being hit by pellets in Indian-administered Kashmir. ""I just want to ask the security personnel who fired pellets at me what my fault was,"" Miss Mushtaq says, as she stands by the same window she was sitting at when pellets blinded her. She has been in and out of hospitals for the past three months in an attempt to regain her vision. Nothing has worked so far, but she remains hopeful. Ms Mushtaq says she wanted to become a doctor before losing her vision. She brings out her text books to show me, and flips the pages though she cannot read them anymore. ""I can only feel them now,"" she says tearfully. Concern in Kashmir over police pellet guns Photoshopped celebrities used for Kashmir pellet gun campaign She also shows me a school photo identity card. The continuing unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir has seen the deaths of 89 civilians with thousands injured. India blames Pakistan for stirring up violence in the region, a charge that it denies. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety but only control parts of it. The region has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years, sparking two wars between the countries. Within the Muslim-majority territory, some militant groups have taken up arms to fight for independence from Indian rule or a merger with Pakistan. And the widespread use of pellet guns to quell protests in recent months has led to more than a thousand people sustaining eye injuries. Pellet guns - a form of shotgun - were first used by the police as a non-lethal weapon to quell protests in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2010. They are normally used for hunting animals. The gun fires a cluster of small, round-shaped pellets, which resemble iron balls, at high velocity. A pellet gun cartridge can contain up to 500 such pellets. When the cartridge explodes, the pellets disperse in all directions. They are less lethal than bullets but can cause serious injuries, especially if they hit the eye. Doctors treating pellet gun wounds in Kashmir told the Indian Express newspaper they were seeing ""sharp and more irregular-shaped pellets"" which were causing ""more damage"" this time. Miss Mushtaq's family is struggling to come to terms with her injuries. Her mother bursts into tears as a family member helps Ms Mushtaq don a scarf and sunglasses to hide her eyes and scarred face. ""If she was killed, I would have been able to overcome the grief but the sight of her blinded eyes kills me every day,"" her father says as he shows me pictures of her daughter in the hospital ICU. As for Miss Mushtaq herself, she is trying to stay positive. She greets every guest coming to enquire about her health with a smile, drinks her tea and tries to console her family members and relatives. Later, she goes out for a walk with some of her relatives, smile still intact. But, for her and many others like her, it is going to be a long and difficult road ahead."
164,"India to ratify Paris climate deal in October —  India, one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, will ratify the Paris global climate agreement pact next month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said. CO2 emissions are believed to be the driving force behind climate change. The Paris deal is the world's first comprehensive climate agreement. It will only come into force legally after it is ratified by at least 55 countries, which between them produce 55% of global carbon emissions. ""Ratification is yet to be done and India too is yet to do it. I announce that India will ratify the decision on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,"" Mr Modi said in a speech at a national meeting of his ruling party in the southern state of Kerala. Last December, countries agreed to cut emissions in a bid to keep the global average rise in temperatures below 2C. The US and China - together responsible for 40% of the world's carbon emissions - both formally joined the Paris global climate agreement earlier this month. Paris agreement: Key points To keep global temperature increase ""well below"" 2C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C To peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century To review progress every five years $100bn a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, with a commitment to further finance in the future Once the deal comes into force, countries that have ratified it have to wait for a minimum of three years before they exit"
165,"India’s Tiger Population Is At A Rapid Decline Due To Human Interference —  Although India is home to more than half of the entire world’s tiger population, its numbers have dramatically and alarmingly decreased over the years.   According to government estimates, last years population numbers soared, standing at 2,226 tigers as of January 2015 compared to 1,411 in 2005 which proved that india’s conservation methods have been working.   This year however, 78 tigers have already died in the first 10 months of the year. This is more than the amount of deaths recorded in the same period of time over the last six years, according to Tigernet, a collaborative effort of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and TRAFFIC-India, a wildlife trade monitoring network.   While the cause of 43 of 78 tiger’s deaths are still being determined, the remaining tigers deaths were due to human interference such as poaching, poaching, poisoning, electrocution, and road accidents, among others. These direct or indirect human interferences have taken a hard hit to tiger conservation efforts.   India seized the largest number of tigers and tiger products between 2000 and 2015 with 540 seizures of products that were most likely headed for China.   “We usually witness a high incidence of poaching from August to November every year, though the reasons for this trend are unknown,” Shekhar Kumar Niraj, head of TRAFFIC India, told the Times of India newspaper. “The situation this year seems far more grim as there has been an almost 10% increase in tiger mortalities and over 150% increase in seizures since last year.”   “Poaching can only be stopped when we have coordinated, intelligence-led enforcement operations, because citizens of many countries are involved in illegal wildlife trade,” Tito Joseph, programme manager at New Delhi-based Wildlife Protection Society of India, said earlier this year. “It’s a transnational organised crime.”"
166,"Indonesia 'coffee killer' trial: Jessica Wongso found guilty of murder —  A woman accused of murdering her friend by slipping cyanide into her coffee has been found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in jail by an Indonesian court, in a case that gripped the country. Jessica Wongso, an Indonesian citizen and Australian permanent resident, said the verdict was ""not fair"". The victim, Wayan Mirna Salihin, met Wongso at a Jakarta cafe in January. She died minutes after sipping a coffee ordered by her friend. An autopsy found traces of cyanide in her body. The trial of Wongso, dubbed by some as the ""Coffee Killer"", attracted intense public interest in Indonesia as well as Australia, where Wongso and Ms Salihin had met and lived for several years. Wongso denied all the charges and her lawyers have said they will appeal against the verdict. Prosecutors argued she had decided to kill Ms Salihin after the latter had advised her to break up with her boyfriend. Defence lawyers had argued that police never found cyanide in Wongso's possession, and she had never been seen spiking the coffee. Australian police agreed to assist Indonesian police with their investigation after receiving assurances that she would not be handed the death penalty. Intense public scrutiny - Rebecca Henschke, BBC Indonesian editor People had been queuing outside the Jakarta central court from before dawn to get a seat to witness the verdict in this murder trial that gripped the nation. Some in the crowd had travelled from other islands just be here. Hundreds missed out on a seat and crowded around monitors watching events inside the court. Five hundred riot police were deployed to control the crowd. Court waiting rooms were turned into TV studios. The entire month-long trial has been broadcast live on all the major stations. The families of both the victim, Ms Salihin, and the accused have given long, passionate and tearful interviews. The broadcasting commission has criticised a number of stations, accusing them of a conducting a media trial. Across the archipelago it is hard to find someone who does not have a strong opinion on whether Jessica Kumala Wongso is guilty or not of murdering her college friend by slipping cyanide into her coffee. ________________   Wongso, 28, and Ms Salihin, 27, became friends when they were both studying at a design college in Sydney. On 6 January, the two met for coffee at an upscale cafe in a mall in Jakarta, together with another college friend. Wongso had texted earlier to say she would order drinks for all of them. CCTV footage broadcast during the trial showed Ms Salihin arriving with the other friend and sitting down with Wongso, then taking a sip of her coffee. Within minutes Ms Salihin is seen slumping in her seat. An autopsy later found cyanide in her stomach. The trial has played out in packed courtrooms for the past month. Among those present on Thursday was Erikson, who had travelled from North Sumatra to Jakarta to hear the verdict. ""We have never had such an open and public court case..."" he told the BBC. ""The court case has created so many unanswered questions in my mind. How are we going to know the truth unless we see it for ourselves?"""
167,"Infant Orangutan Confiscated From Illegal Dealer Receives Intensive Care —  After being confiscated from an illegal trader, Dina along with 3 other orangutans, were transported to the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), Conservation Centre.   Sadly, not all rescue stories end happily. Within less than 24 hours at the centre, Dina collapsed on the floor of her cage which was followed by emergency medical attention.   After CT and MRI scans were conducted, it appears that Dina suffers from meningitis which at first left her paralyzed and blind. Dina is receiving intensive 24/7 care, medical treatment, and physiotherapy/acupuncture, and is making slow but steady improvements, her future however remains unclear.   The SOCP endeavors to conserve viable wild populations of the Critically Endangered Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii). They do this through habitat protection, rehabilitation and reintroduction of ex-captive orangutans to the wild, education, survey work and scientific research. Their vision is to prevent the extinction of the Sumatran orangutan.   For orangutans like Dina, The SOCP aims to provide the highest level of care possible. With your support, they will be able can continue to provide this care for Dina and all of the other orangutans currently at SOCP."
168,"Infant dies after stroller plunges down elevator shaft —  A six-week-old girl died Thursday morning after falling with her mother down an elevator shaft in a Brooklyn, New York, apartment building, according to police.   ""I heard the lady screaming,"" Hopeton Stewart, a building tenant, told CNN affiliate WABC. ""I heard her crying and screaming."" According to NYPD detective Ahmed Nasser, 21-year-old Aber Al-Rabahi attempted to push her child's stroller into the elevator, which was out of service, on the 23rd floor. It is unknown if there was an out-of-service note on it. But the elevator wasn't there, and instead Al-Rabahi and her daughter, Areej Ali, fell onto the roof of the elevator approximately 5 feet below, with the mother landing on top of the child and causing injuries, Nasser told CNN. The elevator then dropped even further to the 17th floor, where they were taken out by an elevator mechanic. A police statement says officers at the scene found the baby girl unconscious and unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at Coney Island Hospital, where her mother was treated and released. The medical examiner has not yet determined the cause of death and the investigation is ongoing. In an interview with CNN affiliates WABC and NY1, Salah Ali, the baby's grandfather, said he is heartbroken and that his daughter is in ""bad shape."" Elevator safety violations The Brooklyn apartment complex has faced multiple complaints in the past, with more than 120 elevator violations since 2005 and hundreds of inspections, New York Department of Buildings records show. ""I'm not very surprised -- there have been a lot of problems with the elevators. People get stuck in them all the time,"" a building resident, who gave her name as Diana, told NY1. Another resident who was not identified by NY1 recalled he got stuck in an elevator during the first month of his move into the complex. ""It's heartbreaking, honestly,"" he told NY1 about the incident. ""I don't know how to react to something like that."" According to the city's buildings department, there are 10 elevators in the multi-building complex, which was built in 1974. The elevator involved in the incident was inspected in early August 2016, and one non-hazardous violation was issued regarding an inoperative phone in the elevator car. The building inspectors determined that the elevator could safely remain in operation. The service company for the building's elevators is Centennial Elevator Industries, a member of the Elevator Industries Association, according to Michael Halpin of the International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC) Local One. The IUEC is promoting the Elevator Safety Act -- state legislation that would set minimum training standards for elevator mechanics in New York -- a bill Halpin said Elevator Industries Association opposes. ""They don't want to provide the level of training and education the bill requires,"" Halpin said. While not referring specifically to Thursday's incident in Brooklyn, Halpin said mandatory training for elevator mechanics could help prevent such incidents. Centennial Elevator Industries declined to comment. The Elevator Industries Association did not respond to CNN's inquiries. Jordan Isenstadt, a consultant for Starrett Corp., which owns the property, confirmed Centennial Elevator Industries is the building's service company. Investigation opened Starrett released a statement expressing sadness over the tragic incident, which, according to the statement, ""involved an elevator under repair at the Bay Park Two Complex."" The company said the incident is ""now under active investigation and we are cooperating fully with all authorities and agencies to determine the facts surrounding the event. We extend our deepest sympathies to the families involved and management is making arrangements to offer grief counseling upon request,"" the statement said. The elevator unit involved is now under a cease-use order. ""Our inspectors will remain on scene to conduct a full investigation into this tragic accident,"" said Andrew Rudansky, a spokesperson for the buildings department. ""We will be testing all of the elevators in the complex to ensure they are operating safely."""
169,"Investigators say tragedy should serve as warning after boy falls from apartment window —  Police in Willoughby Hills are investigating the tragic death of a 2-year-old boy, who fell from the 11th floor of an apartment building early Wednesday morning. Investigators said the window of the child's bedroom was open and he was able to push open the screen. Officers and paramedics rushed to the Willoughby Hills Towers apartment complex on Chardon Road after a security guard reported a small child fell out of the window and onto the parking deck below. ""There were two residents on the back of the building. I came to the back of the building, and they said they just came outside and the child was laying right there,"" the 911 caller told dispatch. Detectives said 2-year-old Anthony Suttles Jr. was rushed to the hospital, but pronounced dead a short time later. They said the child's mother put him and a sibling to bed about an hour before he pushed the screen out and fell from the window, which had been left open. Police said the mother and father were in the living room, unaware he had fallen. ""Thus far, our investigation has shown this was a pure accident. You know we have not received any type of information that tells us otherwise,"" Det. Ron Parmertor said. Investigators said the tragedy should serve as a warning to other parents about the dangers of open and unlocked windows in high-rise apartments. ""Just know that 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, you know, they're climbers. Just think about when your kids are in their cribs,"" he said. ""How many children climb out of their cribs? You know, that's one of the first instincts that they learn how to do."""
170,"Investors shy away from Ethiopia in the wake of violent protests —  ALAGA DORE, Ethi­o­pia — The smell of rotting mango and passion fruit still hung in the air over the blackened shell of a juice factory near this village more than two weeks after the plant was looted and burned by an aggrieved mob. As employees swept out the empty rooms, Abraham Negusay, AfricaJuice’s production manager, worked on his laptop in the former lab. “We are evaluating the damage and destruction, cleaning up the factory and doing a cost analysis,” he said, noting that the Dutch company had yet to decide whether to keep its multimillion-dollar investment in Ethiopia. The assailants, estimated by ­AfricaJuice farm managers to number in the thousands, descended on the factory in the Upper Awash Valley, about 90 miles southeast of Addis Ababa, on Oct. 4. Wielding axes, spears and some firearms, they overwhelmed the armed guards while workers fled into the nearby forest. The attack was part of a week-long spasm of violence that followed a deadly stampede on Oct. 2 during Irreecha, a thanksgiving festival held annually by the ­Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. That day in the town of Bishoftu, police fired tear gas into crowds chanting anti-government slogans, and in the ensuing panic, dozens died. The opposition put the death toll in the hundreds. [Dozens killed in Ethiopia after police use tear gas on protest at festival] In response, mobs attacked industrial farms and factories across the country, focusing on those with state ties or owned by foreigners. Several tourist lodges were also targeted, and at least two were destroyed. Once held up as the hot, new investment destination in Africa because of its cheap labor, plentiful water and stability, Ethiopia’s industrialization program is at risk of faltering — along with its impressive economic trajectory — as current investors reconsider their options and new ones shy away. The unrest has shown the limits of the authoritarian nation’s ­Chinese-style development plan, which favors growth over public accountability. A largely agricultural economy, Ethiopia has been luring foreign investors for the past decade to set up light industries, such as textile companies, and agribusiness ventures, such as flower farms. Foreign investment has increased tenfold, from $265 million in 2005 to $2.16 billion in 2015, according to the World Bank, and the country has surpassed Kenya as East Africa’s largest economy. [Ethiopia confronts its worst ethnic violence in years] The unrest started last year here in Oromia, in central Ethi­o­pia, when some residents began protesting the expropriation of land for foreign industries, as well as poor local administration and their ethnic group’s historic marginalization. It quickly spread to the northern Amhara region, and there were sporadic attacks on farms and factories. After the Irreecha stampede, activists abroad called for five “days of rage” and systematic ­attacks on foreign and state enterprises. The government responded to the violence by declaring a state of emergency on Oct. 8. Thousands were arrested, and bans were imposed on protesting, inciting others to demonstrate, damaging public property and communicating with terrorist groups — including listening to anti-government media outlets based abroad. The measures have prompted concern from the United Nations, Germany and the United States . Ethiopian officials say the state of emergency was the only way to restore order in the country. “We have been able to arrest the rate at which the destruction was visited on our people, and the violence has been controlled,” then-government spokesman Getachew Reda said last week. He was replaced in a government reshuffle Tuesday. An army unit is camped out in front of AfricaJuice, and machine-gun-mounted pickup trucks circle the lush Awash Valley. President Mulatu Teshome has also toured devastated factories and promised investors that the government will help them recoup their losses. Interviews with elders and the bystanders to the attacks in the Oromo region made clear that the deaths at the Irreecha festival left people all across the country desperate to vent long-simmering ­anger over land acquisitions for foreign industry. AfricaJuice was reportedly involved in one such land dispute. In a few cases, though, investors’ ties to a particular community may have saved their farms. Marc Driessen, a Dutch flower grower, recalled watching smoke billowing into the sky as the ­AfricaJuice factory burned just six miles from his own 12-year-old farm, Maranque Plants. “It was really an end-of-the-world kind of thing,” he said. Inside the vast greenhouses, hundreds of workers — mostly from nearby Alaga Dore — tended the delicate chrysanthemums, dahlias and poinsettias that would later be packed up and shipped to 35 countries. As hundreds of angry young men and women approached the main gate on Oct. 4, Driessen and his managers feared the worst — until the village elders intervened. “We went on motorbikes,” elder Shumi Telila recalled as he sat under a tree in Alaga Dore. “We said: ‘This is our property. We are getting a lot of benefit from this company. You cannot burn this.’ ” The young villagers listened to their elders and left the farm alone. At least 800 people from Alaga Dore work at the farm, which also maintains the village’s water pump and generator and poured a concrete floor for its school. Yet just 18 miles away, the Giving Tree Nursery was attacked by another group two days later despite the Belgian company’s own efforts to support the local community. Ingrid van der Schaaf, Giving Tree’s research manager, was there when reports of the attacks began, and she fled for the capital. Workers and some locals tried in vain to protect the farm, which grows beans, peas, peppers and okra for export to Europe. When van der Schaaf returned, she found much of it gutted. “They destroyed the manager’s compound and staff quarters,” she said, speaking by phone from the Netherlands. “It was shocking to see.” The fields and some of the bigger equipment were untouched, but the farm now has no means to sow, harvest or transport a crop. “You see all the damage and think, ‘For what?’ ” van der Schaaf said. “There are 500 jobs.” The Machiels Group, which owns the farm, is still deciding its future in Ethiopia. “What the next few months will bring, you simply don’t know,” said its foreign projects manager, Hendrik Schoebrechts, speaking from Belgium. “Will there be another uprising?” According to Emma Gordon, East Africa analyst for Verisk Maplecroft, a U.K.-based risk consultancy, many investors are waiting to see whether the government has a better solution to the unrest than repression. “The protests have raised issues that will need more than a military response, and unless there is a perception that some of these underlying problems are being tackled, I think risk-sensitive sectors will be cautious to enter the country,” she said. In the wake of the state of emergency, the government has reshuffled the cabinet, adding several more Oromo ministers, and promised a more representative electoral system that will bring in opposition parties, which since 2015 have not had a single seat in Parliament. New elections, however, are four years away, and the political crisis stems in part from the lack of faith Oromos have in their pro-government politicians. Walking the perimeter of his farm, the sole untouched operation in the area, Driessen expressed doubt about the future, given the recent violence. “It will affect new investors dramatically,” he said."
171,"Iraqi Christians, scarred by Islamic State’s cruelty, doubt they will return to Mosul —  IRBIL, Iraq — At the evening service, the priest counseled forgiveness to a congregation with little reason to forgive. They were Christians from Mosul, brutalized by the Islamic State and betrayed, in some cases, by neighbors, and nothing — not the priest’s pleas, not his invocation of Cain and Abel — seemed likely to heal those scars. Khalid Ramzi, a congregant, seemed to choke on the sermon. “We can’t fall into the same hole twice. We don’t want our children to be raised in violence and fear,” he said, standing outside the church in Irbil. “Only in our dreams can we go back to Mosul.” When the militants swept into the city two years ago, Christians were ordered to convert, pay a tax or die. As the Islamic State pushed beyond the city, onto the plains of Nineveh, its advance scattered the rich patchwork of religious and ethnic minorities — Yazidis and Assyrians, Kurds and Shabaks — that made the area a microcosm of diverse Iraq and a place unlike perhaps any in the world. Churches were torched. Yazidis were massacred or enslaved. Villages emptied as hundreds of thousands of people fled. Iraqi forces advancing toward Mosul have recaptured some of the villages, raising the possibility of return for the minorities. But it is difficult to imagine the villages whole again, with their emptied streets and houses lying in ruin or despoiled by the militants. A new order in Mosul and the surrounding region already has begun to take shape, before troops even have entered the city. With competing visions, powerful players including Turkey, Iran, the Kurds and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government are jostling for influence. The battle will forge its own reality, with the violence possibly sending hundreds of thousands of people searching for shelter away from their homes. And the future of the region will be defined, in many ways, by who decides to return. [Islamic State is kidnapping thousands of people to use as human shields] In Shaqouli, an ethnically mixed village about 12 miles east of Mosul, a few villagers drove back two weeks ago, with one, Asem Hussein, making a forceful case that his neighbors will eventually follow. Some sort of munition had caved in his living room, leaving a tangle of concrete and rebar, and all he had been able to recover was a few blankets and an air conditioner that somehow had survived. “I am going to rebuild it and stay, and we will rebuild all ruined Iraqi villages,” he insisted. Shaqouli, he added, “will remain as mixed as it used to be — a mini-Iraq.” But the mayor, Mamel Qassim, who is Kurdish, had written off the place as lost. It was partly personal: During the Islamic State occupation, the militants had used his house as their headquarters. As a result, it had been crushed by an airstrike, the debris littered with copies of a weekly paper that the militants distributed. It was more than that, though. The Iraqi government — part of the sectarian political order that took hold after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — was as weak as it ever had been, Qassim reckoned, and ill-equipped to protect minorities. Sunni Arabs from the village had fled or been forced to retreat toward Mosul along with the Islamic State, and the Kurds, like the mayor, had mostly moved to Irbil, in the semiautonomous Kurdish region. Only the members of the Shabak minority, who were without any powerful patron or a region to call their own, seemed inclined to move back. “It will never be good here,” said Qassim, adding that he intended to resign as mayor. “It will only get worse.” [Concerns about ‘collective punishment’ after Sunni Arabs flee Kirkuk] Iraq’s news media has been awash with photos and videos in recent days showing soldiers recapturing churches desecrated by the militants — with the implicit message that it will soon be safe for Christians to return. In some of the Christian villages around Mosul, residents said they did intend to move back, but they portrayed the move as more a responsibility than a choice. “We want to bring back the beauty of this area,” said Benham Shamani, a writer from Bartella, a majority-Christian town east of Mosul, invoking more than a thousand years of Christian heritage in the area. “Only the original people of the area can return this beauty. Only the people of this area can rebuild it,” Shamani said. In reality, though, Christians have been leaving Iraq for years, an exodus that began in earnest after the U.S.-led invasion. At the time, the country had around 1.5 million Christians; by the time of the Islamic State’s takeover of Mosul, they were believed to be fewer than 500,000. Now community leaders say at least a third of those who remained have left. In 2014, France said it would grant asylum to Christians forced to flee Mosul. Some community leaders criticized the move, saying it would devastate what remains of Iraq’s Christians. But even the community’s leaders concede it will be difficult to go back to Mosul. To return to the city would be to “remember all the pain, all the threats, all the killing, all the letters with bullets inside. We’ll remember the looks on the street,” said another priest at the Irbil church, the Rev. Zakareya Ewas, as families milled about after the service. The problems for Christians started before the Islamic State takeover, as the group’s predecessor, al-Qaeda, extended its grip in the city. Ewas said he received threatening phone calls and attempts at extortion. He stopped wearing his black robes and collar on the street. His wife covered her hair in an effort to blend in. Priests were murdered as Christians were targeted for their religion but also their perceived wealth, with many kidnapped for ransom. Ewas, a Syriac Orthodox priest, fled Mosul as the militants took over in 2014. The cross in his old church has been pulled down, he said, and the building now is used as a shelter for the militants’ livestock. His brother moved to Jordan two weeks ago after struggling to find work in Irbil — and after hearing several months ago that his yogurt factory in the city had been wiped out in a coalition airstrike. “Now there’s nothing for him to go back to,” Ewas said, adding that there were many others like his brother. If the Christians of Mosul did return, he said, “it will be just to sell their houses and leave.” Kareem Fahim reported from Shaqouli, Iraq. Mustafa Salim in Irbil and Aaso Ameen Shwan in Shaqouli also contributed to this report."
172,"Iraqis find evidence of torture by Islamic State in mass grave near Mosul —  There are bodies here and they were dumped on piles of trash in a windswept field of dirt at the edge of a small Iraqi town that until two days ago had been occupied by Islamic State fighters.   Other things were less clear.   The latest mass grave in a series of mass graves left behind by captured, retreating or dead Islamic State militants was discovered Monday. Iraqis expect that many more clandestine burial sites will be found in the coming weeks as Iraqi forces take more territory from the Islamic State.   The identities, cause of death and even the number of bodies left behind at the outskirts of a bombed-out agricultural college on the outskirts of Hamam al-Alil were unknown.   The Iraqi federal police on Monday said 100 corpses were found. A team of investigators in an hour’s time on Tuesday uncovered 20, maybe 25.   It was hard to tell, they said.   “The dogs got at them,” said Dhargam Kamil, the director of the mass graves unit at the Al Shuhada Foundation in Baghdad.   How did the victims die?   That would have to await forensic teams, too. They were still searching for bodies but were unsure if land mines had been laid in the area.   [Dozens of decapitated bodies found at school near Mosul]   Initially the Iraqi military suggested the bodies had all been decapitated. But the evidence did not support the early claim. Two corpses had been pulled from the top of a trash pile. One had been decapitated; the other not.   “There was evidence of torture,” said Muhammad Tahir Al Tamimi, an official from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office.   The investigators from Baghdad said some of the bodies had been bound at the wrists and ankles. Some were blindfolded. They assumed most were probably shot.   “They were killed by ISIS in acts of revenge,” Kamil said. “In very brutal ways, it appears.”   “Dumping the bodies like this was also a part of the punishment,” he said. “Their message was that these men did not deserve a proper burial, that they were thrown out like trash.”   Locals told Iraqi federal police that over the past three weeks Islamic State fighters have been rounding up former members of Iraqi security forces.   The investigators said, based on the state of decomposition, the bodies were probably dumped in the last few weeks.   In the center of recaptured Hamam al-Alil, neighbors brought two Washington Post reporters into a villa they say had been used as a kind of courthouse, interrogation center and jail. In darkened rooms on the second floor, there were five numbered makeshift cells with heavy metal doors. The cells were tiny, with just enough room for a man or two to stand.   Over the last three weeks, since the Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul began, the Islamic State brought men bound and blindfolded into the building, said Hussein Ahmed Sayir, 19, who lives across the street.   “They tortured them,” he said. The teenager said the neighbors could hear screams at night.   The locals here said they think that some of these men probably ended up in the mass grave outside of town.   An Iraqi police intelligence officer stopped by the house and confirmed that it was used as a jail.   [Islamic State tunnels below Mosul are a hidden and deadly danger]   A United Nations human rights organization on Tuesday charged that Islamic State fighters recently abducted 295 former Iraqi security forces members from towns and villages to the south and west of the ISIS stronghold in Mosul.   The militants also forced 1,500 families to retreat with them from Hamam al-Alil to the Mosul airport, where U.N. officials fear they will be deployed as human shields.   “People forcibly moved or abducted, it appears, are either intended to be used as human shields or — depending on their perceived affiliations — killed,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, during testimony in Geneva, according to Reuters.   Previously, the United Nations group said it had gathered reports that 50 former police officers were executed in Hamam al-Alil last month. It is possible that some of these men are at the mass grave.   Villagers in the surrounding area have said that Islamic State militants rounded up men at gunpoint as Iraqi forces advanced and made them walk to Hamam al-Alil.   Some who later escaped said that former police and army officers were separated from them and summarily executed as the militants grew suspicious they were collaborating with the advancing Iraqi forces."
173,"Is Zika a permanent threat or a fleeting scare? —  The Zika virus has been in the headlines so often over the past few months that it’s tempting to assume this new threat is here for good: That like dengue and West Nile virus, this mosquito-spread disease is now going to be a regular fixture — and a perennial risk for pregnant women. But will it? There are more questions than answers about what the future holds for the interplay between humans and the Zika virus. Let’s take a look at some important ones:   Q: How long is Zika going to stick around? And how often will it return? Disease experts sometimes refer to a virus’s “periodicity” — how long it sticks around and the frequency with which it will return. Very little is known about Zika’s periodicity. Although it was discovered way back in 1947, before 2007 human infections were rarely seen, popping up only occasionally in parts of Africa and Asia. The huge bloom of Zika activity in the Americas right now is unprecedented. STAT asked two of the world’s leading experts on arboviruses — viruses transmitted by insects like mosquitoes and ticks — to look into their crystal balls to predict how Zika might behave in the future. Duane Gubler, who teaches at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and who is a member of the World Health Organization’s Zika emergency committee, assumes the virus will behave like dengue and other arboviruses, recurring regularly with upticks in cases during the rainy season in places that have one. Dr. Scott Halstead sees the future differently — and he makes a bold prediction. A longtime US Army scientist who is now semiretired, Halstead believes Zika will vanish in a few years, likely for decades. That’s the way another arbovirus, chikungunya works, he wrote in an article in Emerging Infectious Diseases last year. “The rate at which people are getting infected right now certainly suggests that we’re heading, within a year or two, to achieve sufficient herd immunity for this virus to die out,” Halstead told STAT. Both Halstead and Gubler agree that the outbreak currently raging in the Americas is due to the fact people of the region had no immunity to the virus; it’s a so-called virgin soil outbreak. As a result, Zika is infecting people at a brisk clip. At some point, this type of explosive outbreak tends to burn out because many people become immune. But then what? Q: Will future outbreaks be like this one? If Gubler is right, future epidemics — at least in places that have already had them — may be smaller. It’s an immunity thing: People who have been infected with the Zika virus may be safe from it for the rest of their lives. That’s still a theory that needs to be studied, but it is the prevailing one. And it would mean outbreaks like the ones plaguing the Americas are immunizing a lot of people in one big rush. If Halstead is right, huge outbreaks could happen, but at irregular and distant points in the future. Long lulls between outbreaks — decades even, as Halstead suggested — would allow for a buildup of a lot of younger people who aren’t immune. Q: If Zika is immunizing lots of people now, does that mean there might be fewer cases of microcephaly in a couple of years? That, too, is unclear. But as the virus moves through affected countries, at least some young girls who haven’t yet reached their reproductive years are getting infected. If the lifelong immunity theory is correct, these girls won’t need to worry about Zika infections when they reach the age where they start having children. In fact, some people have actually questioned whether mosquito control efforts might have an unintended consequence — preventing young girls from getting protected through infection. Norway’s former chief epidemiologist, Preben Aavitsland, has raised the idea in a blog post. (See point 6 here.) He suggested advising parents to let young girls be bitten — even to the point of putting them in a room with infected mosquitoes, the Zika equivalent of a chickenpox party. Others are dubious about that notion. Dr. Beth Kirkpatrick, director of the University of Vermont’s Vaccine Testing Center, said the natural infection approach is too sporadic and unpredictable. Some people who shouldn’t get infected — pregnant women — will. And some of the people you hope will become infected — young girls — will not. Q: Will Zika strike Africa and Asia with the ferocity with which it has battered the Americas? Cape Verde, off the coast of Senegal, has had a recent Zika outbreak. But it’s not yet known whether the outbreak was caused by the African strain of Zika that’s been around for decades, or the Asian strain that’s responsible for the epidemics in the Americas. Identifying the culprit could tell us a lot about what might happen next. If it’s the Asian strain — and if there’s evidence the African strain had already circulated in Cape Verde — it might suggest Africa, at least, is vulnerable to the outbreak strain. However, STAT spoke with a number of experts who said they expect the two strains to be cross-protective – meaning infection with one would protect against the other. “Zika is Zika is Zika,’’ said Stephen Whitehead, who is working on a Zika vaccine at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Gubler agreed. Still, he doesn’t believe there is widespread immunity to Zika in Africa and Asia. Sure, there probably have been more cases than the medical community recognized, misdiagnosing them as dengue, he said, but “they’ve not really had any major epidemics there.” Q: Does this uncertainty affect the prospects for a Zika vaccine? In the early 2000s, when West Nile virus was new to North America, there was huge interest in a vaccine. But by the time US government scientists who designed one went looking for an industry partner to produce it, the interest, like concern over the virus, had abated. There is no West Nile vaccine. And that could be a cautionary tale in the case of a Zika vaccine. If Zika activity subsides, manufacturers will have a hard time conducting the clinical trials to prove the vaccines work. If no one is getting sick, how can you show a vaccine is protective? Without that kind of data, it is hard to persuade regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration to license such products. And vaccine manufacturers may question the commercial prospects of a vaccine aimed at preventing infection with a virus that isn’t circulating. “We need the vaccine right now. And the need for the vaccine probably will be a little bit less next year than it is this year. And then two years from now, the epidemic threat will disappear. Meanwhile, how are you going to get the vaccine licensed?” Halstead asked flatly. Rajeev Venkayya sees things differently. A White House director of biodefense under President George W. Bush, Venkayya is president of the business unit for Takeda Pharmaceuticals, which is exploring possible partnerships for developing a Zika vaccine. He thinks the alarm over the damage the virus inflicts on developing fetuses will continue to drive demand for a vaccine. “It will be a long time, I think, before this fear goes away.” It might seem like the Zika virus exploded out of nowhere in Brazil a few months ago, but the virus has been all over the world since it was discovered in Uganda in 1947. Use the button to manually navigate the globe through the years, or drag your cursor to rotate it, and click on countries to discover the distribution of the Zika virus infection and associated neurological disorders across time and geographies, starting in 1947."
174,"Islamic State militants are kidnapping thousands of people to use as human shields —  TULUL AL-NASIR, Iraq — Islamic State militants have rounded up thousands of villagers at gunpoint to use as human shields as they retreat toward their stronghold of Mosul, the latest brutal war tactic inflicted on civilians in areas the group controls. Military officials and some who escaped said that the vast majority of people in more than half a dozen villages were forced to walk north toward the city as the army advanced from the south, and that those who refused were shot. Some villagers said they ran and hid in the desert to avoid being captured, sleeping out in the open for days. Others said they were taken but later managed to flee. Villagers also described mass executions of former policemen and army officers as the militants become increasingly paranoid about spies and collaborators. The kidnappings and killings compound fears about the plight of civilians as Iraqi forces advance toward the northern city of Mosul, a prize the militants don’t appear ready to give up without a hard fight. Humanitarian organizations have said they have grave concerns that civilians are at risk of being caught in crossfire, trapped between fighting or used as human shields. Holding civilian populations hostage is among the tactics the militants use to waylay advancing forces and complicate the U.S.-led airstrikes that support them. They also have set fire to oil wells and a sulfur plant south of the city, sending noxious fumes over hundreds of miles. Before launching the offensive for Mosul last week, Iraqi officials estimated that as many as 1.8 million residents were still in the city, with expectations of an exodus as forces advanced. But residents of Tulul al-Nasir, a gray, cinder-block settlement about 25 miles south of the city, said they were forced to flee the other way. [Signs of panic in the heart of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate] “They told us on the loudspeakers that whoever stays will be killed,” said Mohammed Ali, 45. They were ordered by the militants to walk about 15 miles north to Hamam al-Ali, a larger village that is still under Islamic State control. As he spoke, men crowded around him to list their family members who are missing. Some said dozens had been taken, with families divided in the confusion. More than 90 percent of the village’s 5,000 residents were kidnapped, said Iraqi army Col. Faisal Ali Abdellatif. “When they retreat from every village, they take the civilians with them to use as human shields,” he said. At her house in Tulul al-Nasir, Bushra Hussein recalled how two armed militants came by one recent day. “They said we had to gather on the road and that if they came back in 30 minutes and found us here, they’d kill us,” she said. With thousands of her neighbors, she was marched north, pushing her disabled 26-year-old son in his wheelchair, which broke after several days. Unable to move him, she was allowed to stay by the side of the road with him, where she remained until security forces advanced. Her husband, three other sons, three daughters and grandchildren were all forced to move on with the militants, she said. They called her briefly two days earlier to say they were in Mosul. “Thousands of families have been taken,” she said. “No one wanted to go.” [Sunnis fleeing Islamic State rule in Mosul brace for revenge] For those who refused to leave, the punishment was swift. On the outskirts of the village, Moyad Atallah, 40, was attending a funeral for his three brothers, who were shot after protesting. Eight Islamic State fighters in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns had arrived at their house at sundown to round them up, he said. One brother refused. “They shot him just there,” said Atallah, pointing at the dust outside his home. When his two other brothers then fought back, they were also killed, he said. The militants took their money and the family car, then kidnapped another brother and said they would return. The rest of the family fled and hid in an abandoned house nearby, including 11 now-orphaned children. The Islamic State’s utter disregard for the safety of civilians and its apparently deliberate use of human shields is putting people trapped in areas of active conflict at even greater risk as Iraqi forces advance, said Lynn Maalouf, a Beirut-based researcher for Amnesty International. Iraqi security forces have slowly won back villages and towns outside Mosul, but the militants have shown little sign that they will give up ground easily, and Iraqi and U.S. military officials say they expect the fight to get tougher as they near the city’s outskirts. As the militants are gradually squeezed, they have stepped up their savagery against local populations, residents have said. Abdulrahim al-Shammiri, the chairman of the human rights committee in the Iraqi parliament, said that 190 civilians were executed in Hamam al-Ali on Wednesday after being “kidnapped” from surrounding areas. Those who escaped said that former police or army officers were separated from their families and executed. “They killed 20 people in front of me,” said one 19-year-old from the village of Safina, who was held for three days in Hamam al-Ali before his family escaped at night, walking for days before reaching the Iraqi security forces. The family members were separated during their escape, and militants on motorbikes recaptured some of them while others watched from a ditch. Those who escaped were shot at as they fled; one woman was hit in the abdomen and is receiving treatment in Irbil. The family members declined to give their names because of concerns about the security of 30 relatives who are still missing. “All of us were against them, but they dragged us with them, all the village,” said his aunt, whose husband, four sons and three daughters are missing. Mustafa Salim contributed to this report."
175,"Islamic State sends car bombs against U.S.-backed forces advancing on Raqqa —  Islamic State fighters launched a wave of car bombs in northern Syria on Monday as U.S.-backed forces made the first moves in a long-awaited push to retake the militants’ de facto capital.   The Kurdish-led military operation, announced Sunday, seeks to isolate the city of Raqqa in preparation for an assault that could deal a devastating blow to the Islamic State — which is also fighting Iraqi-led forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.   The two cities represent critical hubs for the Islamic State, and the twin offensives could cut off routes for supplies and reinforcements. In a rare audio recording released Thursday, the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, urged militants to fight to the death in Mosul.   The rush of car bombs that met the alliance, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), offered an early taste of how ferocious the battle for Raqqa may become. The blasts occurred as the forces pushed south from the towns of Ain Issa and Suluk, about 30 miles north of Raqqa. Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the SDS, said the Islamic State had sent seven car bombs toward the approaching forces.   The Islamic State has become increasingly reliant on suicide attacks to slow the progress of the array of forces rolling back its territory. The Amaq news agency, the extremist group’s media arm, claimed that the Islamic State launched 120 such assaults across Syria, Iraq and Libya in October.     The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State said Monday that it had begun airstrikes in support of the offensive near Ain Issa, destroying six of the militants’ fighting positions and seven vehicles, two of them packed with explosives.   At the same time, the United States was seeking to calm NATO ally Turkey, which is uneasy over any increased influence by Kurdish groups in the region. Ankara has waged battles against Kurdish factions in southeastern Turkey for decades.   On a visit to Turkey’s capital, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned that retaking Raqqa would be neither swift nor simple. “We always advertised that the isolation phase is going to take months,” he told an accompanying Defense Department reporter Sunday.   The Obama administration faces a delicate balancing act between Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish forces the United States has trained and equipped. Ankara draws no distinction between these militants and the Kurdish insurgents that launch regular attacks on Turkish soil.   U.S. defense officials said that they are still hammering out details of the planned assault into Raqqa but that they do not envision a direct role for Turkey in that operation. Officials have said the NATO ally could help block militant movements out of the Raqqa area or focus on securing the Turkish border.   Talks this weekend between Dunford and Turkey’s top military officer, Gen. Hulusi Akar, were aimed at securing Turkish support for the Pentagon’s concept of the operation and at reassuring Ankara that the offensive into Raqqa, which U.S. officials say will be spearheaded by Arab forces, would not hand additional territory to Syrian Kurds."
176,"Italy quakes take out buildings standing after August jolt —  CAMERINO, Italy — The red brick Amatrice city hall resisted the devastating Aug. 24 quake that collapsed buildings all around it, only to crumble under the one-two punch of lesser jolts Wednesday night. They also brought down a centuries-old church tower in Camerino that had withstood both a quake in 1997 and the one in August. The twin aftershocks Wednesday may have exacted a lesser human toll than the August quake that preceded them, with no one killed under rubble and no reports of serious injuries. But they revealed structural weakness in the mountainous quake-prone zone straddling the Marche and Umbria regions, and added more psychological stress to already traumatized inhabitants. Premier Matteo Renzi visited the picturesque hill-top university town of Camerino on Thursday, which is pledging to rebuild under the slogan: “The future doesn’t collapse.” His government has earmarked 40 million euros ($43.6 million) to help house those displaced by the most recent quakes, and he promised to get to work on reconstruction “soon and in a serious way.” “The earthquake is putting us to the test, but Italy is here and we will not leave citizens alone. We are stronger and we will make it,” Renzi said. The first quake at 7:10 p.m., with a magnitude of 5.4, sent residents into the streets under heavy rain — which authorities said likely saved lives by getting people outside ahead of the second, much more powerful quake. That jolt, two hours later and eight times stronger, brought down weakened buildings, like the bell tower in Camerino, and rendered unsafe countless homes, on top of those damaged in August. With no time to come up with adequate emergency shelter, thousands slept in their cars. Authorities on Thursday were scrambling to find housing so that no one would have to spend a second night in their vehicles. In the town of Ussita, Mayor Marco Rinaldi said his town had been “devastated,” with up to 80 percent of the houses no longer inhabitable. In Visso, the mayor estimated that two-thirds of the town’s 1,500 houses had sustained some damage while the remaining residents preferred not to return home until checks were made to ensure safety. “Tonight, we are not leaving anyone in the streets,” Mayor Giuliano Passaglini told residents, laying out options for accommodations. Camerino Mayor Gianluca Pasqui said the town’s historic bell tower of the Santa Maria in Via church, dating from the Crusades, had collapsed, but emphasized that reconstruction work after a 6.1 -magnitude quake in 1997, including on the church and tower, appeared to have contributed to the absence of serious injury. “I can say that the city didn’t have victims. That means that even if there is a lot of damage probably the reconstruction in the historic center was done in a correct and adequate manner. Because otherwise, we would be speaking of something else,” Pasqui told Sky TG24. The town is home to 7,500 residents and 10,000 students at the Camerino University, one of Italy’s oldest founded in 1336. The president of Umbria region, Catiuscia Marini, told RAI state television that officials were mindful that with winter approaching and temperatures dropping, tents couldn’t be deployed as they were after the August quake. The concern for the predominantly elderly population of the remote mountain region was repeated by other officials. Marini said that after the quakes many people will be fearful of staying even in hotels deemed safe, and that solutions like campers were being considered. “We don’t have injured, we have people who are very afraid, who have anxiety, especially the elderly,” she said. _____ Barry reported from Milan. Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."
177,"Janet Reno, first female US attorney general, dies at 78 —  anet Reno, former US attorney general under President Bill Clinton, died Monday morning following a long battle with Parkinson's disease, her sister Maggy Hurchalla said. She was 78.   Reno, the nation's first-ever female attorney general, served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 2001. What is Parkinson's disease? In a statement, former President Bill Clinton said that he and his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, were ""deeply saddened"" by the passing of Reno, calling her ""an extraordinary public servant who dedicated her life to advancing justice, equality, and innovations in criminal justice that would save and lift lives."" ""As Attorney General for all eight years of my Presidency, Janet worked tirelessly to make our communities safer, protect the vulnerable, and to strike the right balance between seeking justice and avoiding abuse of power,"" Clinton said in the statement, listing some of her top accomplishments. ""It's fitting that she spent her last years with family and friends, living in the house her mother built with her own hands. Janet was her mother's daughter. I will always be grateful for her service, counsel, and friendship."" Convictions and controversies As part of the Clinton administration, Reno oversaw the high-profile convictions of numerous bombers including Ted Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist infamously known as the ""Unabomber;"" Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for their roles in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. ""Speak out against the hatred, the bigotry and the violence in this land. Most haters are cowards. When confronted, they back down. When we remain silent, they flourish,"" Reno said one month after the Oklahoma City bombing. Reno's time in office was also bookended with a pair of major controversies that gripped the country. In 1993, she took office as the Waco, Texas, standoff was already underway. On the 51st day of the standoff, the attorney general ordered federal agents to raid the compound -- a decision that resulted in the death of approximately 80 members of the Branch Davidian sect. ""The buck stops with me,"" Reno said after the incident. She later said on CNN's ""Larry King Live"" that her decision was ""obviously wrong."" In April 2000, Reno played a pivotal role in the saga of six-year-old Cuban immigrant Elian Gonzalez. Gonzalez, found off the coast of Fort Lauderdale in November 1999, was the only survivor among a group of 13 Cuban migrants trying to make it to the US. The incident sparked an international custody dispute between Gonzalez's relatives in the US and his father in Cuba. Reno ultimately ordered a raid that sent Gonzalez back to Cuba. When Clinton's administration was rocked by the Whitewater scandal, Reno was the person tasked with appointing special prosecutor Robert Fiske to lead the probe in 1994. The Clintons were never charged with criminal wrongdoing. In Clinton's second term -- months before his impeachment -- the Republican-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted to cite Reno for contempt of Congress for failing to hand over key memos. Reno eventually provided those documents. Congress never moved forward with a vote on the matter. From Miami to Washington D.C. Born in 1938, Reno grew up in Miami, Florida, with parents who both worked as reporters for Miami newspapers. After attending Cornell University for her undergraduate degree, Reno enrolled at Harvard University for law school in the early 1960s. During her first year, she heard one of her heroes, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, speak at the Sanders Theater. ""She was so wonderful and her voice was still so clear and so magnificent,"" Reno later recalled in a 1993 speech to the Women's Bar Association. ""And I went up to her afterwards, and I said, ""Mrs. Roosevelt, I think you are perfectly wonderful."" And I will never forget her looking at me and saying, 'Why, thank you, my dear. Those words mean so much to me.' And she seemed to mean it."" After law school, Reno worked for four years as an associate at Brigham & Brigham, before becoming partner at Lewis & Reno, where she stayed for four years. In 1971, Reno decided to work with the Florida House of Representatives as a staff director. After a brief return to the private sector, she was appointed as Florida's State Attorney in Miami, becoming the first woman to ever hold that position. Reno stayed in the job for about 15 years until Clinton tapped her to become the 78th US attorney general. After the White House At a ceremony to honor Reno in 2009, then-Attorney General Eric Holder praised his predecessor for her tenacity and tireless work ethic during her eight years in the job. ""I don't know how many times she said to me, 'What's the right thing to do?'"" Holder said. ""It was never what's the easy thing, what's the political thing, or the expedient thing to do."" In 2002, Reno ran to become Florida's governor, but narrowly lost in the Democratic primary. Reno died at her home in Miami. She had battled Parkinson's disease for 20 years."
178,"Japan etiquette video discourages applying make-up on trains —  Is it acceptable to use your commute to apply make-up? One Japanese rail company thinks not and has released a song-and-dance video discouraging women from doing it. Two female commuters are seen applying mascara and lipstick and a woman watching whispers ""Mittomonai"" or ""ugly to see"". She then angrily tells them off. It's one of several train etiquette videos Tokyu corp plans to release. But some think it's a step too far in restricting people's behaviour. The 30-second video released on 16 September starts with the phrase ""Women in the city are all beautiful. But they are ugly to see, at times"". The women applying make-up are rebuked by an actress Sawa Nimura and then the phrase: ""Please refrain from putting on make-up on the train"" is heard. ""Of course I'd understand if they'd said, if you put make up on the train the powder might scatter, the scent might be strong, things might soil the car or other people's clothing and would cause trouble for others,"" said Twitter user ryudokaoruko. ""But there's no reason I should be told by a rail company whether I look pretty or unseemly."" ""People are angry not because 'they want to put make up on in trains'. Absolutely not. They're resisting 'this society that comes up with so many different reasons to justify misogyny and to oppress women,"" said hinase6s. Others pointed out that there are much bigger nuisances on the trains such as drunkenness or groping. However, many have supported the message of the advert even comparing applying make-up in public to defecating. Others brought up a traditionally-held view that women who apply make-up in public are of questionable character. ""People are saying that in the West, applying make up in public is a sign that you're a prostitute, but Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is famous for often touching up her lipstick in front of the public (the talk is more about which brand she uses and no one criticises),"" said Papurika dreams. Tokyu corp has said that the video is one of a series aiming to educate passengers on rules and etiquette while using the trains. The other videos focus on discouraging the use of smartphones while walking or inconveniencing other passengers with large bags on crowded trains. Tokyu corp says the focus of the videos was chosen based on a survey by the Association of Japanese Private Railways on the biggest complaints by passengers using the trains. Top of the list was making loud noises."
179,"Jeweler claims Floyd Mayweather Jr. owes $1.4m for diamond necklace —  A Las Vegas-based jeweler claims in a lawsuit that champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. owes the company $1.4 million for a diamond necklace. According to the Clark County District Court complaint, filed Sept. 23, The Jewelers Inc. sold Mayweather a $3 million necklace containing 72 diamonds in September. The retired boxer paid the company $1 million up front and then made six payments of $100,000 between October and May. After the last payment, the jeweler claims, Mayweather refused to pay the remaining balance. Leonard Ellerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions, said Friday that Mayweather had no comment on the lawsuit. Last year Mayweather was ranked No. 1 on Forbes’ list of highest-paid celebrities after earning $300 million. Mayweather, who says he has retired from boxing, currently sits at No. 54 with $44 million earned over the last 12 months."
180,"Jordanian writer who shared cartoon mocking ISIS killed outside courthouse —  A prominent Jordanian writer facing charges for sharing a ""blasphemous"" anti-ISIS cartoon that outraged Muslim groups was fatally shot in Amman on Sunday, state news agency Petra reported.   Nahed Hattar, a member of the country's Christian minority, was shot three times outside a courthouse in the capital where charges against him were being heard. Public Security Department personnel, who were near the scene of the attack, rushed Hattar to a nearby hospital, but he died from his injuries, Petra reported. The security forces arrested the attacker and an investigation is underway, Petra reported. Cartoon 'abusive to the divine entity' Hattar, a political commentator and columnist, was remanded in custody last month after sharing a controversial cartoon on Facebook that sparked anger from Muslim groups. Amman Governor Khaled Abu Zeid ordered that the writer be held for the ""blasphemous"" Facebook post, Petra reported. Hattar was charged with the crimes of insulting religion, and inciting ""sectarian strife and racism,"" for having posted the image, which was deemed as ""abusive to the divine entity,"" Petra reported at the time. The cartoon, which Hattar said was intended to ridicule ISIS beliefs, depicted a bearded man in bed with two women in heaven as he instructs God to serve him wine and food. Hours after sharing the cartoon, Hattar explained on social media that it was aimed at criticizing the twisted view of paradise held by ISIS, according to Randa Habib, Amnesty International's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. ""No one listened,"" she tweeted after his killing Sunday. The slain writer, who was released on bail earlier this month, had been ""a controversial figure because of his blunt positions and passionate ideas. His killing is a low criminal act,"" Habib wrote. Hattar had also attracted controversy for writing articles in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Government condemns 'ignominious crime' A gag order issued by Jordan's attorney general in August prevented coverage of the case. The Prime Minister's office in Jordan denounced the killing on its official Twitter page Sunday. Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said he was confident the person responsible for ""this ignominious crime"" would receive ""just punishment."" Jordan is a leading Arab member of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS in neighboring Syria and Iraq, carrying out airstrikes against the terror group and hosting coalition troops on its soil."
181,"Judge declares mistrial in fatal police shooting of unarmed black motorist —  A judge declared a mistrial after a jury said it was deadlocked Saturday in the case of a white former police officer charged with murder in the fatal traffic stop shooting of an unarmed black motorist.   The Hamilton County prosecutor said jurors were leaning toward a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter and acquittal on the murder charge, but they could not reach agreement.   The jury had deliberated some 25 hours after getting the case Wednesday. University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing shot 43-year-old Sam DuBose in the head after pulling him over for a missing front license plate on July 19, 2015. Tensing was later fired.   Tensing, 26, testified he feared he was going to be killed. Prosecutors said repeatedly the evidence contradicted Tensing’s story. Judge Megan Shanahan said Saturday that the jury of 10 whites and two blacks spent more two hours deliberating Saturday morning after getting a night’s sleep and still could not reach a decision.   “It’s obvious to me you have made a sincere and conscientious effort,” the judge said before setting a new hearing date for Nov. 28 to determine whether the case will re-tried.   County prosecutor Joe Deters said he’ll decide within the next two weeks whether to try the case again.   Attorney Al Gerhardstein, who represents the DuBose family, said they want another trial and can’t understand why the jury couldn’t reach a conclusion.   “With the video evidence as clear as it is, they shouldn’t have been so stuck,” he said.   The city’s mayor and police chief said they understood why the DuBose family and others were disappointed, but both also said they believe that any protests will be peaceful.   “Downtown is safe. The city is safe. We are going to get through this,” said Mayor John Cranley. “People are going to be angry, and they have every right to express their First Amendment rights and they will do so peacefully.” The shooting is among those across the nation that have raised attention to how police deal with blacks.   To convict Tensing of murder, jurors would have had to find he purposely killed DuBose. The charge carried a possible sentence of 15 years to life in prison. The voluntary manslaughter charge means killing during sudden fit of rage and carries a possible sentence of three to 11 years.   Legal experts say juries generally tend to give police officers the benefit of the doubt because of the inherent dangers of their jobs, but that they will convict if the police actions were clearly unwarranted.   In tearful testimony Tuesday, Tensing said his arm was stuck in DuBose’s car after he tried to stop him from driving away by grabbing the car keys.   “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to run me over and he’s going to kill me,'” Tensing said.   An expert hired by prosecutors said his analysis of the former officer’s body camera video shows the officer was not being dragged by the car. A defense expert countered that the video shows Tensing was justified in fearing for his life because his body was “violently twisted” during the confrontation.   Deters suggested in questioning that Tensing had racial motives, saying a study found that eight of every 10 drivers Tensing pulled over for traffic stops were black, the highest rate of any University of Cincinnati officer. Tensing also made more traffic stops and citations than other UC officers. Deters also pointed to a T-shirt with Confederate flag on it that Tensing was wearing under his uniform the day of the shooting. Tensing said he was often unaware of a driver’s race, did not single people out unfairly and was not racist. He testified that the Confederate flag on his T-shirt had no meaning to him. The trial was conducted under beefed-up security, and city officials had met with civil rights and faith leaders in the weeks before it began in hopes of reducing unrest. The city suffered 2001 riots sparked by the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas, a black man who was wanted on misdemeanor warrants and was fleeing from police. Hundreds of people were arrested in the several days of violent protests that caused millions of dollars in damage.   The University of Cincinnati fired Tensing last year after his indictment. It has restructured its public safety department and made other policing reforms. The university reached a $5.3 million settlement with DuBose’s family, including free undergraduate tuition for DuBose’s 13 children.   DuBose had significant amounts of marijuana and cash on him, and defense attorney Stewart Mathews contended that was why he was desperate to get away. DuBose had a lengthy history of convictions, mainly marijuana or traffic-related.   Tensing had about three years of suburban police experience before joining the UC police in 2014. He had no record of using deadly force.   While the Tensing case concluded, trial continued in South Carolina for white ex-patrolman Michael Slager, charged with murder for the April 2015 death of Walter Scott, a black man shot in the back as he fled for a North Charleston traffic stop."
182,"Justice For Disturbing Case Of Kitten Strangled To Death in Spokane, Washington —  Last month, a man named Wesley O’Dell and his wife, were walking around their neighborhood in Spokane, Washington and found something that changed their lives and opened their eyes to the cruelty that humanity can possess. *The real image of the kitten they found was too graphic and disturbing to display. The couple spotted a baby kitten on the side of the road completely wrapped in phone and electrical chargers and dumped like a piece of garbage on the sidewalk. When they approached the helpless kitten, they noticed that it was methodically wrapped so tightly around the kitten’s little body, from its tiny neck, to its small tail and back legs so that so that the poor things appendages were tied up next to its face. When O’Dell began to cut the cords off the the kittens small body, he felt that rigor mortis had already set in and it was hard for him to seperate the wires from its stiff figure. He also saw that the kitten’s jaw was ripped down, with a cord running through its mouth and around its neck. O’Dell was absolutely disgusted with this sight and is now determined to take action and find the culprit accountable for the horrendous crime. This act of cruelty is inhumane, disgusting and it is truly unthinkable that someone would do such a thing to a kitten who had barely even opened its eyes. The couple is now standing up and fighting for animal rights and animal welfare until justice and equality is received by all beings living on this earth. O’Dell is making a point to voice his story so that everyone is aware of the animal abuse that happened in Spokane, Washington and the lack of empathy that his local governing body has over the gruesome death of a helpless baby kitten. “Can you imagine how that would feel? What you would think, the fear in your heart, to be completely helpless at the hands of something much bigger and more poweful than you. Try to feel the pain and sadness this infant feline would have felt. Imagine what you would be thinking as the terror welled up in your swelling throat? The darkness that you would experience as you took your last breath, while someone laughed at you. Think how it would feel to be snuffed out in a cold dark street, scared and alone.” This act happened just two blocks from the couples home while their local police and animal shelters have done nothing about it. O’Dell says that this horrific situation must be remedied and he will try his hardest to ensure justice is served. Since this occurrence, O’Dell has spoken to people throughout the nation who would like to help, including the group “Gaurdians of the Rescue”. The rescue group has sent him flyers to be posted around his neighborhood as well as in local veterinarian hospitals and emergency pet clinics. He is hopeful that by distributing these flyers around town, someone will come forward with information on this crime and possibly who is at fault. O’Dell is asking for the public to repost this tragic story on social media and to talk about the kitten with friends and neighbors, not allowing for the kitten’s death to be in vein. Raising awareness of this story is one of the most important things we as animal lovers can do at this point."
183,"KATE BECKINSALE HUSBAND LEN WISEMAN FILES FOR DIVORCE —  Kate Beckinsale and her husband, Len Wiseman, pulled the plug on their marriage ... TMZ has learned. Wiseman cited irreconcilable differences. His docs state both he and Kate have waived any right to spousal support, and that suggests there's a prenup. They were married in 2004 and have no kids together. TMZ broke the story ... the couple's marriage was on the rocks last November. Len was spotted out with model CJ Franco, and Kate we seen shortly after -- sans wedding ring -- on the red carpet."
184,"Kendall Jenner’s Sleep Paralysis Is Actually Pretty Common —  On Sunday, Kendall Jenner opened up about struggling with a sleep problem that is thought to affect nearly eight percent of the general population: sleep paralysis.   “I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t move,” Jenner said in the latest episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. “I’m freaking out.”   Indeed, sleep paralysis is a phenomenon where you are awake and conscious, but your body is paralyzed (except for your eyes) and between 80 and 90 percent of the time you experience nightmares or disturbing hallucinations.    “They [can be] scary experiences,” Brian A. Sharpless, associate professor at the American School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University and author of Sleep Paralysis, told The Huffington Post.   Episodes happen during your lightest stage of sleep ― rapid eye movement sleep (REM), during which you dream ― and can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few (terrifying!) minutes.   Experts aren’t sure what causes sleep paralysis, but they suspect stress and anything that disrupts your sleep in the first place ― including alcohol, caffeine or jet lag ― can increase your risk of experiencing the phenomenon. Sleep paralysis can also be a symptom of other, more serious sleep disorders and mental health conditions, like insomnia, narcolepsy, anxiety disorders, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).    Everyone says I’m fine, but I don’t feel fine. Kendall Jenner Sharpless is not Jenner’s doctor, but he noted that several struggles Jenner discussed in the show, such as anxiety and jet lag, can increase the risk of experiencing the scary episodes.   “Everyone says I’m fine, but I don’t feel fine,” Jenner told her mother Kris Jenner on the show.   The episodes can be terrifying, Sharpless said. But for most people, sleep paralysis episodes are a one-time or occasional experience ― and they’re not necessarily a problem or dangerous.    Here are four other important facts about sleep paralysis:   1. Sleep paralysis is more common in people with mental health problems   Research has suggested sleep paralysis is way more common in people with mental health issues and young adults, affecting more than 28 percent of students, nearly 32 percent of psychiatric patients and nearly 35 percent of people with panic disorder.   2. For most people, it’s NOT a chronic condition problem    Estimates suggest that somewhere between 15 and 45 percent of people with sleep paralysis experience such episodes repeatedly, and not as a side effect of another sleep disorder or condition ― which is known as recurrent isolated sleep paralysis. People with the recurrent condition also tend to have trouble with sleep because of the episodes, such as trouble falling asleep or avoiding sleep out of fear.   “You don’t have the disorder if it just happens once,” Sharpless said. “And it has to actually be affecting your behavior [to be recurrent isolated sleep paralysis].”    3. Good sleep behaviors help prevent sleep paralysis   Practicing good sleep behavior like skipping alcohol and caffeine before heading to bed and waking up and going to bed at the same time everyday can help anyone avoid sleep paralysis.   Another tip: sleep on your side, Sharpless said. Sleeping on your back or stomach make sleep paralysis way more likely, he explained.   4. If it is a problem, a specialist may be able to help   And for people with the recurrent condition, a sleep medicine specialist or psychologist may be able to prescribe medications that help suppress REM sleep (and therefore help people avoid sleep paralysis).    Taking the simple steps of getting on a regular sleep schedule, skipping alcohol and caffeine before bed and sleeping on her side, all might help Jenner’s episodes go away, Sharpless said.   And if those fixes don’t help, he said Jenner (or anyone experiencing similar symptoms) should consider seeing a sleep medicine specialist or psychologist who could help determine if the episodes are something more serious."
185,"Kenney aide's fight with flesh-eating bacteria —  Bob Murken's 25-minute bike ride down Kelly Drive and on to City Hall each morning is a time for contemplation. ""You are zooming down a hill, wind in your face, it's sunny. It feels good,"" Murken, the city's director of legislative affairs, said of his daily rides to work. ""That's why I've always loved it."" These days, that time is all the more precious. Just months ago, Murken was hours away from perhaps never riding a bike again, or worse. The thinly built 41-year-old father of two was attacked in March by flesh-eating bacteria, known as necrotizing fasciitis. It is a rare disease that kills about 25 percent of its victims, according to Murken's surgeon, Mark Kaplan. By the time Murken's doctors figured out what was wrong with him, his kidneys were starting to fail. Had doctors at Einstein Medical Center not taken him into surgery immediately on March 31, Murken could have died. After five surgeries and three weeks in critical care, Murken was able to return to his home in Roxborough. It wasn't until mid-August that he was riding his bike to work again. ""It was like this should be this momentous moment and like all this stuff is going through my head like, 'Oh, my God. I'm alive. This is so great.' "" he said, referring to that first time back on his bike. ""The other part of my brain is like, 'Just shut up. Just enjoy it. Whatever.' "" The disease came at a most inopportune time. Murken, who had worked for nearly six years for the Nutter administration, was three months into a new boss - Mayor Kenney. As the administration's legislative director, Murken was part of the team that crafted Kenney's groundbreaking tax on sweetened beverages. Kenney introduced the tax March 3 and from then on it was a whirlwind of preparing for the City Council hearings ahead, and then revising the legislation and making amendments. In the middle of all that, Murken started to feel ill."
186,"Kenya deports South Sudan opposition official, despite threats against him —  The Kenyan government on Friday deported a senior South Sudan opposition member as tensions rose over its peacekeeping efforts in its war-scarred neighbor.   Kenyan authorities have reacted angrily to a U.N. decision this week to dismiss the Kenyan general in charge of the peacekeeping force there, for failing to protect civilians during a recent spasm of violence. Kenya has been an important force for stability in South Sudan, contributing about 1,000 troops and absorbing refugees.   James Gatdet Dak, the official deported Friday, has served as a spokesman for the main South Sudanese rebel group led by former vice president Riek Machar. Since December 2013, that group has fought on and off against government forces led by President Salva Kiir. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more.   Some Kenyan officials suggested that Dak’s deportation was related to a Facebook post in which he expressed support for the removal earlier this week of Lt. Gen. Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki, the Kenyan top officer in the U.N. mission in South Sudan, known by the acronym UNMISS.   In the post Wednesday, Dak wrote: “We welcome the change in the UNMISS Force Command in South Sudan. The peacekeepers failed to protect civilians during the crisis right in the capital, Juba, and in other parts of the country.”   A U.N. report this week blamed Ondieki for a “lack of leadership” and a “chaotic and ineffective response” to the surge of violence in Juba in July. During that fighting, dozens of South Sudanese civilians were raped and killed, mostly by government forces. Several foreign aid workers were also brutally raped.   In a statement Friday, Machar said he told the Kenyan government that Dak “should not be deported to Juba due to profound fear for his life.” It said Dak had been “arrested from his residence” in Nairobi.   With government forces controlling Juba and bitter tensions between the two groups, human rights experts say the threat to Dak is very real.   “In colluding with South Sudan and deporting James Gatdet Dak, Kenya has exposed him to a serious risk of persecution,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch.   After Ondieki’s dismissal, Kenyan officials threatened to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from South Sudan, calling the deployment “no longer tenable.” Kenya’s contingent is important because of its size and because it has proved difficult to recruit soldiers in the rest of the world for the mission. There are 16,000 U.N. peacekeepers in South Sudan.   The Kenyan Foreign Ministry said Ondieki was fired unfairly and used as a scapegoat for the mission’s institutional failings.   “Regrettably, instead of addressing these shortcomings directly, the United Nations has instead opted to unfairly attribute them to a single individual,” the ministry said in a statement.   The row between the United Nations and the Kenyan government underscores the often tense relations between the world body and the countries that deploy troops to peacekeeping missions. While U.N. officials say they have a responsibility to dismiss poorly performing soldiers, they are often reluctant to do so, for fear of alienating the few countries willing to send forces to far-flung missions.   Kenya also hosts tens of thousands of South Sudanese refugees, mostly in its Kakuma camp. Earlier this year, Kenya threatened to shutter the camp. Though the government later withdrew that plan, its threat was enough to rattle the humanitarian community.   Since July, when battles between the forces of Kiir and Machar broke out in the capital, fighting has resumed across much of the country, even as Machar and other opposition leaders fled the country. Machar is in South Africa.   The United States and other Western intermediaries have lobbied futilely for the restoration of a peace agreement that was only tenuously enforced before the July fighting."
187,"Kesha Was Under ‘Immense Pressure To Starve’ Herself While Working With Dr. Luke —  The singer opened up about her struggles in a new interview with The New York Times magazine. In a revealing new profile with The New York Times magazine, Kesha opened upabout the pressure to maintain the party girl image she was best known for early on in her career.  The “We R Who We R” singer told the magazine that her former producer, Dr. Luke (Lukasz Gottwald), with whom she’s currently embroiled in a messy legal battle, wanted Kesha to be seen as “fun.”  “Something that was always told to me is: ‘You’re fun. We’re going to capitalize on that,’” she said. “I was like, ‘I am fun, but I’m a lot of other things.’ But Luke’s like: ‘No, you’re fun. That’s all you are for your first record.’ ” The 29-year-old also recalled Gottwald telling her to dumb down her music, the song “TiK ToK” in particular. “I remember specifically him saying: ‘Make it more dumb. Make it more stupid. Make it more simple, just dumb,’” she said. “I was like, OK, ‘Boys try to touch my junk. Going to get crunk. Everybody getting drunk,’ or whatever, and he was like, ‘Perfect.’ ” Not only did maintaining her image require Kesha to simplify her lyrics, she also said she was “under immense pressure to starve myself.”  “And I tried to and almost killed myself in the process,” she added.   Kesha checked herself into a treatment center specializing in eating disorders in 2014. She’s since been very open about her struggles with body image, even calling out trolls who try to shame her.  While she was in rehab, Kesha wrote songs to help her through the tough situation. When she left, she decided to take the dollar sign out of her name, which seemed like the first major step toward her reinvention. “I was taking back my strength, and I was taking back my voice, and taking back my power, taking back my body. I’m just taking back my [expletive] life.” To read more of her profile, head here.  UPDATE: 3:45 p.m. ― Dr. Luke’s lawyer, Christine Lepera, released the following statement in response to The New York Times’ profile of Kesha.  The New York Times Magazine profile piece that ran today unfortunately has many inaccuracies. This article is part of a continuing coordinated press campaign by Kesha to mislead the public, mischaracterize what has transpired over the last two years, and gain unwarranted sympathy. Kesha filed a shock and awe complaint of alleged abuse against Luke Gottwald in 2014 ― for contract negotiation leverage. It backfired. She never intended to prove her claims. She has voluntarily withdrawn her California complaint, after having her counterclaims in New York for alleged abuse dismissed. Nevertheless, she continues to maliciously level false accusations in the press to attack our client. The reality is that for well over two years, Kesha chose—and it was entirely her choice—not to provide her label with any music. Kesha was always free to move forward with her music, and an album could have been released long ago had she done so. She exiled herself. It was not until months after the denial of her injunction motion – for the first time in June and July 2016―that Kesha started to provide the label with music. She provided 22 recordings created without any label consultation which were not in compliance with her contract, were in various stages of development, and which Kesha’s own team acknowledged needed work. Then, and for the last several months, the label has been in discussions with Kesha and her team to choose the best music, create additional music, and work on the tracks created. A&R representatives of both Kemosabe and RCA have provided Kesha with detailed feedback in writing and in person on the tracks she provided to help her further develop the material. Kesha has also agreed with Kemosabe and RCA on a list of producers who will work with her on these tracks, a studio has been reserved for these sessions, and a budget for certain work provided. The creation of an album is a process, however what has clearly been communicated is that the aim is for a release date as early as possible. It is in the economic best interest of the label and Mr. Gottwald to put out a top selling album, and that takes time. In fact, the label suggested an early release of an advance Kesha track. It was Kesha’s team who rejected this proposal. Kesha’s claim in the article that she has no ability to earn money outside of touring is completely rebutted by well documented public court records which apparently escaped the article’s attention."
188,"Kevin Meaney, comedian and actor, dies —  Standup comedian and actor Kevin Meaney, who made numerous appearances on late-night TV and was famous for delivering the line, ""That's not right,"" has died, his agent said Friday.   Meaney was found at his home in Forestburgh, New York, agent Tom Ingegno said. His age and the cause of death weren't immediately known. Meaney was scheduled to perform Saturday night in Rhode Island, according to his website. After his first HBO special in 1986, Meaney was catapulted to the spotlight and debuted on ""The Tonight Show"" with Johnny Carson the following year, according to Meaney's website. He returned to the show a dozen times. Meaney starred in the CBS sitcom ""Uncle Buck,"" which ran for one season in 1990, and appeared on ""Saturday Night Live."" Fellow comedians were quick to offer condolences on Twitter. ""Kevin Meaney was sweet, hilarious and courageous. A silly, wonderful, man. The best. My heart goes out to his fans, friends and family,"" wrote Bobcat Goldthwait. ""Always thought Kevin Meaney was a brilliant comedian,"" actor Patton Oswalt wrote. ""Then we hung out in Ireland and I found out he was also a terrific person. RIP."""
189,"Kim Kardashian West thieves 'weren't there for jewels' —  The concierge who was held at gunpoint with Kim Kardashian West has revealed more details about the robbery.   The hotel employee who goes by Abdulrahman sat down with ""Entertainment Tonight"" to share details about the daring heist on October 3 in Paris. A group of men surprised him and the reality star, making off with millions of dollars' worth of jewelry from Kardashian West. ""They weren't there for jewels at first; they were there for money,"" Abdulrahman told the show. Kardashian West was bound on that terrifying night and has since greatly reduced her social media presence and public outings. Missing Kim Kardashian on social media There had been speculation that a 20-carat diamond ring she showed off on her social media accounts had prompted the heist. But Abdulrahman said that for the robber communicating with them it ""was just a ring I think. He didn't stop asking for money."" ""(The robber) ... doesn't understand English, and also she didn't understand French, and the guy was asking for money, money, money,"" he said. ""She believed that they were there for her ring. She showed her hand ... there is no ring, and the guy is like, 'Where is the ring?' At the moment she gave him her ring -- it was on a table close to the floor -- she gave her ring to the guy ... and he put it in his pocket."" Pocketing the massive diamond didn't stop the thief from demanding money. ""He put the jewels in his (backpack) and he left the bag open, that is why he lost some jewels and the gold in the hotel,"" Abdulrahman said. Police continue to investigate, but there have been no arrests."
190,"Kylie Jenner Warns Fans Against 'Really, Really Dangerous' Fake Lip Kits —  Real recognizes real! Kylie Jenner is aware of just how popular her Kylie Cosmetics have become. (Sold out within minutes at every launch? Yep, that sounds about right.) But as hard as it may be to get your hands on your shade of choice, the Lip Kit queen has a PSA for fans: Don't shop elsewhere.  On Wednesday, October 26, Jenner, 19, began a string of impassioned Snapchat videos, ""I want to be really, really clear and let you guys know that the only place to get my products is kyliecosmetics.com and anywhere else is fake. Make sure you guys check the URL because these other websites are making fake product. It might look exactly like mine, but it's not mine."" Of even greater concern, the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star says that the counterfeit Lip Kits and Kyshadow Palettes can cause you harm. ""The ingredients that they're using in these fake products are also really, really dangerous, which is my biggest concern,"" she said. Indeed, many shoppers have taken to Twitter and Instagram to complain that their Lip Kits were ""too sticky"" or, more problematically, made with glue — a huge concern for Jenner, who wants her customers to stay safe.  ""There are people out there who are trying to steal your money and I just want you guys to have the very best,"" Jenner said. ""So … again, only shop at kyliecosmetics.com if you want my products. Because anywhere else, they don't have them."""
191,"L'OREAL SUED NO-LYE ... YOU BURNED MY HEAD!!! —  L'Oréal's got another angry customer ... and she says SHE has PHOTOGRAPHIC evidence the company burned her bald.  L'Oréal's pushing a hair relaxer called SoftSheen-Carson Optimum Amla Legend No-Mix, No-Lye Relaxer. Delicia Taylor says in a new lawsuit she relied on the promise she'd get fuller, silkier hair. So imagine her dismay when she looked in the mirror to see bald spots, burns, blistering and scabs on her scalp ... this according to legal docs obtained by TMZ. We broke the story ... L'Oréal was sued back in September when a group of angry customers made similar allegations ... this after L'Oréal got a bunch of celebrities to tout the product.  Taylor's suing on behalf of all women allegedly burned for more than $5 million in damages. Why? Because they're worth it."
192,"LENA HEADEY GAME OF CUSTODY WAR —  Lena Headey has had it with her ex-husband's demands to move their kid from the land of fish and chips to the city of sushi ... she's now asking a judge to end the war. The ""Game of Thrones"" star is locked in a legal battle with Peter Loughran over their 6-year-old son Wylie. Lena claims she and Peter agreed they would both live in England to share joint custody, but he insists he never made such an agreement and wants his time with Wylie at his L.A. home. Lena says in legal docs she's beyond frustrated ... she's offered to fly him to England to see the child, she's suggested a FaceTime schedule and he keeps telling her to pound sand. Lena attached an email to her docs in which Peter says, ""I am confirming that I agree to Lena Headey keeping our son Wylie Loughran in the UK ... if all parts of said deal are put in place ..."" Apparently the deal has fallen apart, and now a judge must decide whether Wylie will be cosmo or just a young English bloke."
193,"Lawsuit alleges Royal Caribbean made no attempt to save man who died after falling overboard —  The husband of a man who died after falling overboard on a Royal Caribbean cruise is suing the line, claiming the company failed to make a timely attempt to save him or to recover the body after he fell.   In Nov. 2015, Bernardo Garcia Teixeira was presumed dead after he fell into the water during a Caribbean cruise. Garcia Teixeira and his husband Erik Elbaz were reportedly involved in a domestic dispute before incident. Cruise line authorities and police maintained at the time that Garcia Teixeira intentionally jumped off the stateroom balcony.    The complaint, filed Tuesday in Miami Federal Court by Elbaz, alleges that he and Teixeira were subjected to “repeated homophobic taunts and slurs” and other offensive behaviors from crewmembers even before the Nov. 6 tragedy, reports Courthouse News Service.   Nudist cruise ship worker sentenced to 30 years for violent attack on passenger   The taunting escalated, says Elbaz, and on Nov. 5, one Royal Caribbean employee reportedly called his husband a “pedophile.” According to the suit, the two men returned to their room and began talking loudly about being mistreated.    Crewmembers and security officers were called to the couple’s room and, the suit says, threatened to arrest Garcia. At the time of the incident, crewmembers reported that furnishings in the room had been damaged before authorities arrived.    The men began arguing with the officers and, the suit says, at some point Garcia Teixeira fell off the stateroom balcony, landing on a life boat below. He was able to hang on for a few minutes before falling into the ocean.    ""Several RCCL security officers and/or crewmembers grabbed Mr. Garcia by his arms and had a hold of him for several minutes, but ultimately failed to secure and rescue him from falling overboard,"" the complaint says.   Elbaz says he begged the ship’s officials to stop the ship and order a search and rescue mission immediately but claims he was dismissed and told to “calm down.”   Virgin's cruising company has a new name   The U.S. Coast Guard did perform a search-and-rescue operation after being notified by Royal Caribbean, but Garcia's body was never found. Elbaz says Royal Caribbean “failed to deploy life boats within a reasonable time.”   In 2015, the Cruise Lines International Association, told Yahoo News that about 20 people—out of 22 million passengers-- fall off cruise ships annually.   Elbaz is seeking compensatory damages on claims of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of the High Seas Act.   Royal Caribbean was not immediately available for comment."
194,"Lead contamination in LA housing project said to put 300 kids at risk —  It’s a sunny Saturday morning in South Los Angeles, but Nuvia Perez is keeping her three boys inside. “They don’t go out to play,” said Perez, 37, whose front door faces a 21-acre former industrial site in the heart of Jordan Downs, a housing project. “In the housing office, they say everything’s all right and not to worry,” said Perez in Spanish. “But they have found contamination.” More than a year ago, family nurse practitioner Amanda Markusson noticed a cluster of elevated blood lead levels in the kids she treats near Jordan Downs and started recording test results. Markusson says she has recorded blood lead levels as high as 13-15 micrograms per deciliter, well above the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) threshold of 5 micrograms per deciliter. The World Health Organization says there is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe. “Over 300 children under the age of five currently reside at Jordan Downs, and they are at an increased risk for lead poisoning,” Markusson wrote in a statement. “As a healthcare provider in Watts, it is concerning to see a community put at increased risk for lead and heavy metal poisoning simply because of where they live.” The test results recorded by Markusson are one of several indicators of elevated lead and arsenic levels surrounding a former industrial site, in a region with highest reported cases of lead poisoning in LA County. Resident fears have only been heightened by the lead contamination problems that have blighted other low-income and minority communities in the US, including those in Flint, Michigan; and East Chicago, Indiana, where more than 1,000 people are now being forced out of their homes. Exclusive: Guardian investigation reveals testing regimes similar to that of Flint were in place in major cities including Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia Read more The US housing and urban development secretary recently proposed lowering the level of lead that must be detected in children’s blood before triggering federal cleanup action. The proposal would affect an estimated 2.9m subsidized and public housing units built before the country’s 1978 ban on residential lead paint. For decades, the former industrial site in Jordan Downs hosted a steel mill and later a truck and storage repair facility, before the housing authority purchased the site in 2008 to begin a billion-dollar redevelopment project to transform the existing homes into 1,800 mixed-income units. In 2011, lead was detected there at levels as high as 22,000 parts per million (ppm). The residential soil lead threshold for cleanup in California is 80 ppm. The site has since been cleaned up, and authorities have repeatedly assured the 2,700 residents that the environmental conditions at Jordan Downs do not pose an “immediate threat” to human health, and that no testing was necessary beyond the perimeter wall of the site. But residents worry about the additional impact of planned demolition, and they see a recent spate of results as validation of their concerns. Tests conducted last month at several schools within a few blocks of Jordan Downs found lead levels as high as 252 ppm. But Robert Laughton, director of the school district’s office of environmental health and safety, said the vast majority of the most elevated lead levels were found lower than six inches below the surface, “or in [other] areas inaccessible to people”. I think that what you’re seeing is a typical case of environmental racism Thelmy Perez, Los Angeles Community Action Network After the test results, Laughton said the district covered all of the areas tested with mulch “as a temporary cover until we do the rest of the sampling”. The Los Angeles housing authority also released the results this month from soil samples around buildings slated for demolition. While some samples returned with levels of lead and arsenic above the recommended thresholds, the levels did not pose an “unacceptable human health risk to the residents”, authorities said. But possible lead contamination is only one part of a much wider pollution puzzle at Jordan Downs. Authorities have yet to map the source and full reach of a trichloroethylene (TCE) plume in the groundwater beneath the housing project. TCE, an industrial solvent, can be especially harmful to pregnant women if it seeps into homes through the floor. Cleanup of an underground Exxon Mobil oil pipeline breach at the north-east corner of Jordan Downs has been ongoing for more than eight years. David Starr high school, perched on the south-east corner of Jordan Downs, has been the scene of multiple lead and arsenic cleanups over the past 12 years. Then there’s the toxic legacy from an old lead smelter that operated on the eastern portion of the housing project in the 50s and 60s. “I think that what you’re seeing is a typical case of environmental racism,” said Thelmy Perez, housing collective coordinator at the nonprofit Los Angeles Community Action Network, who in April conducted soil tests around Jordan Downs with an XRF spectrometer. More than 50% of the samples taken screened over the 80 ppm cleanup threshold. The highest reading was 346 ppm. “It’s pretty obvious that the residents are living in a toxic environment,” she said. “The problem is, I think [the authorities] see people of color living in a community like this, and they see a lack of power.”"
195,"Leon Russell, musician known for dynamic performances, dies at 74 —  Leon Russell, who emerged in the 1970s as one of rock 'n' roll's most dynamic performers and songwriters after playing anonymously on dozens of pop hits as a much-in-demand studio pianist in the 1960s, died on Sunday at age 74.   Russell, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, died in his sleep in Nashville, Tennessee, his wife said in a statement on his website.   Russell suffered health problems in his later years, having surgery to stop leaking brain fluid in 2010 and suffering a heart attack in July 2016.   ""He was recovering from heart surgery in July and looked forward to getting back on the road in January,"" said his wife, Jan Bridges.   Russell's period of stardom as a performer was relatively brief, but Elton John, who had once been Russell's opening act, engineered a comeback for him in 2010 when they collaborated on an album titled ""The Union.""   ""He was my biggest influence as a piano player, a singer and a songwriter,"" John told ABC News.   Russell recorded more than 35 albums and also excelled as a songwriter for other performers. His ""A Song for You"" was recorded by Joe Cocker, the Carpenters, the Temptations, Neil Diamond, Lou Rawls, Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and good friend Willie Nelson. The Carpenters, Helen Reddy, Shirley Bassey, Robert Goulet and George Benson all covered Russell's ""This Masquerade,"" with Benson's version winning the 1976 Grammy as record of the year.   Russell was known as ""the master of space and time"" in his 1970s heyday. He wore a cocked top hat, and with salt-and-pepper hair past his shoulders and a beard that reached his chest, created an inscrutable image that was equal parts shaman, tent revival preacher and cosmic ringmaster.   He ruled the stage with piano-banging abandon and, backed by a multi-piece band and a backup chorus, put on a show that was a roiling stew of rock, soul, gospel and country.   Russell's last performance was July 10 in Nashville.   WRECKING CREW   He was born Claude Russell Bridges on April 2, 1942, and grew up in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area. He was playing in bars at age 14 and joined a band that included J.J. Cale, who also would go on to music stardom.   Russell moved to Los Angeles as American music was taking a new shape. He became part of a talented pool of studio musicians known informally as the Wrecking Crew who provided backup for pop and rock hits of the early and mid-1960s, including those by Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, the Monkees and the Byrds. Russell also was part of producer Phil Spector's trademark ""Wall of Sound"" recording team.   Russell also played guitar, worked as an arranger, songwriter and piano player for the house band on the popular television dance show ""Shindig.""   He eased into the spotlight in 1970 as a driving force on Joe Cocker's landmark Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. Russell assembled the 20-piece band, which came with a legion of hangers-on, and served as its leader on a riotous two-month U.S. tour that spawned a double-disc live album and a documentary film.   His work with Cocker, an appearance in the film about George Harrison's 1971 ""Concert for Bangladesh"" and his first solo album, which featured contributions from three Rolling Stones and two Beatles, made Russell a star in his own right in 1970. In 1969, Russell and Denny Cordell started Shelter Records, which put out recordings by Russell, Cale, Freddie King, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Phoebe Snow.   After his rock stardom faded, Russell adopted the alter ego of Hank Wilson for several albums of country classics that let him turn loose his Oklahoma twang.   Although he continued recording and touring, Russell was far from the spotlight in the 1990s and 2000s until he and John recorded ""The Union"" and went on a short joint tour. John said he was inspired to collaborate when he was moved to tears on rehearing Russell's song ""Back to the Island.""   Russell, who had to have surgery because of leaking brain fluid a week before going into the studio, said it was the first time he had heard from John in 35 years.   ""If Leon can get the accolades he deserves and be financially OK for the rest of his life, I will have done something decent with my music,"" John told the New York Times.   The Russell-written song ""If It Wasn't for Bad"" off ""The Union"" received a Grammy nomination."
196,"Leonard Cohen Died In His Sleep After A Fall, Manager Says —  Songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen died in his sleep after a fall in his Los Angeles home in the middle of the night, his manager has said.   “The death was sudden, unexpected, and peaceful,” his manager Robert Kory said in a statement published on the Cohencentric website.   Cohen, music’s man of letters whose songs fused religious imagery with themes of redemption and sexual desire, died on Nov. 7. He was 82. No cause was given for his death when it was announced three days later on his Facebook page.   Cohen has been buried in Montreal in an unadorned pine box next to his mother and father, his son Adam said on Facebook on Sunday.   “As I write this I’m thinking of my father’s unique blend of self-deprecation and dignity, his approachable elegance, his charisma without audacity, his old-world gentlemanliness and the hand-forged tower of his work,” Adam Cohen wrote. Born into a Jewish family in 1934 and raised in an affluent English-speaking neighborhood of Quebec, Cohen read Spanish poet Federico García Lorca as a teenager - later naming his daughter Lorca. He learned to play guitar from a flamenco musician and formed a country band called the Buckskin Boys.   Cohen moved to New York in 1966 at age 31 to break into the music business. Before long, critics were comparing him with Bob Dylan for the lyrical force of his songwriting.   Although he influenced many musicians and won many honors, including induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada, Cohen rarely made the pop music charts with his sometimes moody folk-rock.   His most ardent admirers compared his works to spiritual prophecy. He sang about religion, with references to Jesus Christ and Jewish traditions, as well as love and sex, political upheaval, regret and what he once called the search for “a kind of balance in the chaos of existence.”   Cohen’s most famous song, “Hallelujah,” in which he invoked the biblical King David and drew parallels between physical love and a desire for spiritual connection, has been covered hundreds of times since he released it in 1984.   Cohen’s other well-known songs include “Suzanne,” “So Long, Marianne,” “Famous Blue Raincoat” and “The Future,” an apocalyptic 1992 recording in which he darkly intoned: “I’ve seen the future, brother/It is murder.”"
197,"Leonard Cohen, Epic and Enigmatic Songwriter, Is Dead at 82 —  Leonard Cohen, the Canadian poet and novelist who abandoned a promising literary career to become one of the foremost songwriters of the contemporary era, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 82.   Mr. Cohen’s record label, Sony Music, confirmed the death on Thursday night but provided no details on the cause.   Adam Cohen, his son and producer, said Mr. Cohen had died “with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records.” His final studio album, “You Want It Darker,” was released in October.   “He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor,” his son said.   Over a musical career that spanned nearly five decades, Mr. Cohen wrote songs that addressed — in spare language that could be both oblique and telling — themes of love and faith, despair and exaltation, solitude and connection, war and politics. More than 2,000 recordings of his songs have been made, initially by the folk-pop singers who were his first champions, like Judy Collins and Tim Hardin, and later by performers from across the spectrum of popular music, among them U2, Aretha Franklin, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley, Trisha Yearwood and Elton John. Mr. Cohen’s best-known song may well be “Hallelujah,” a majestic, meditative ballad infused with both religiosity and earthiness. It was written for a 1984 album that his record company rejected as insufficiently commercial; it was popularized a decade later by Jeff Buckley.   Since then, some 200 artists, from Bob Dylan to Justin Timberlake, have sung or recorded it. A book has been written about it, and it has been featured on the soundtracks of movies and television shows and sung at the Olympics and other public events. At the 2016 Emmy Awards, Tori Kelly sang “Hallelujah” for the annual “In Memoriam” segment recognizing recent deaths. Mr. Cohen was an unlikely and reluctant pop star, if in fact he ever was one. He was 33 when his first record was released in 1967. He sang in an increasingly gravelly baritone. He played simple chords on acoustic guitar or a cheap keyboard. And he maintained a private, sometime ascetic image at odds with the Dionysian excesses associated with rock.   Continue reading the main story   RELATED COVERAGE     An Appraisal: Leonard Cohen, Master of Meanings and Incantatory Verse NOV. 11, 2016   How Pop Culture Wore Out Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ SEPT. 19, 2016   BOOKS OF THE TIMES ‘I’m Your Man,’ Leonard Cohen Biography by Sylvie Simmons SEPT. 13, 2012 RECENT COMMENTS   roccha November 17, 2016 The first time I heard Leonard Cohen singing his own songs was in a small working class row house in the Dutch town of Lieden in 1971. My... Dr. DoLittle November 17, 2016 Every summer, I drive 600 miles north to an island in Canada, an 11 hour trip straight through. Half of those hours are listening to Leonard... Stevenz November 17, 2016 A giant has fallen. SEE ALL COMMENTS  WRITE A COMMENT Advertisement   Continue reading the main story At some points, he was anything but prolific. He struggled for years to write some of his most celebrated songs, and he recorded just 14 studio albums. Only the first qualified as a gold record in the United States for sales of 500,000 copies.   But Mr. Cohen’s sophisticated, magnificently succinct lyrics, with their meditations on love sacred and profane, were widely admired by other artists and gave him a reputation as, to use the phrase his record company concocted for an advertising campaign in the early 1970s, “the master of erotic despair.”   Early in his career, enigmatic songs like “Suzanne” and “Bird on the Wire” — quickly covered by better-known performers — gave him visibility. “Suzanne” begins and ends as a portrait of a mysterious, fragile woman “wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters,” but pauses in the middle verse to offer a melancholy view of the spiritual:   And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water, And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower, And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him, He said “All men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them.” But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open, Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.   Mr. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.   A Poet in the Beginning   Wearing a bolo tie and his trademark fedora, Mr. Cohen, in his acceptance speech, dryly made light of the fact that none of his records had ever been honored at the Grammys. “As we make our way toward the finish line that some of us have already crossed, I never thought I’d get a Grammy Award,” he said. “In fact, I was always touched by the modesty of their interest.”   Leonard Norman Cohen was born in Montreal on Sept. 21, 1934, and grew up in the prosperous suburb of Westmount. His father, Nathan, whose family had emigrated to Canada from Poland, owned a successful clothing store; he died when Leonard was 9, but his will included a provision for a small trust fund, which later allowed his son to pursue his literary and musical ambitions. His mother, the former Masha Klonitzky, a nurse, was the daughter of a Talmudic scholar and rabbi. “I had a very messianic childhood,” Mr. Cohen would later say.   In 1951, he was admitted to McGill University, Canada’s premier institution of higher learning, where he studied English. His first book of poetry, “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” was published in May 1956, while he was still an undergraduate. It was followed by “The Spice-Box of Earth” in 1961 and “Flowers for Hitler” in 1964. Other collections would appear sporadically throughout Mr. Cohen’s life, including the omnibus “Poems and Songs” in 2011.   A period of drift followed Mr. Cohen’s graduation from college. He enrolled in law school at McGill, then dropped out and moved to New York City, where he studied literature at Columbia University for a year before returning to Montreal. Eventually, after a sojourn in London, he ended up living in a house on the Greek island of Hydra, where he wrote a pair of novels: “The Favorite Game,” published in 1963, and “Beautiful Losers,” published in 1966. “Beautiful Losers,” about a love triangle whose members are devotees of a 17th-century Mohawk Indian Roman Catholic saint, gained a cult following, which it retains, and eventually sold more than three million copies worldwide. But Mr. Cohen’s initial lack of commercial success was discouraging, and he turned to songwriting in hopes of expanding the audience for his poetry.   “I found it was very difficult to pay my grocery bill,” Mr. Cohen said in 1971, looking back at his situation just a few years earlier. “I’ve got beautiful reviews for all my books, and I’m very well thought of in the tiny circles that know me, but I’m really starving.”   Within months, Mr. Cohen had placed two songs, “Suzanne” and “Dress Rehearsal Rag,” on Ms. Collins’s album “In My Life,” which also included the Lennon-McCartney title song and compositions by Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and Donovan. But he was extremely reluctant to take the next step and sing his songs himself.   “Leonard was naturally reserved and afraid to sing in public,” Ms. Collins wrote in her autobiography, “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music” (2011). She recalled his telling her: “I can’t sing. I wouldn’t know what to do out there. I am not a performer.” He was “terrified,” she wrote, the first time she brought him onstage to sing with her, in 1967.   Mr. Cohen released his first album later that year, after being signed to Columbia Records by John Hammond, the celebrated talent scout who also signed Mr. Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. The record began with “Suzanne,” which was already being performed by folk singers everywhere thanks to the popularity of Ms. Collins’s version. It also included three other songs of great impact that would become staples of Mr. Cohen’s live shows, and that numerous other artists would record over the years: “Sisters of Mercy,” “So Long Marianne” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.”   His second album, “Songs From a Room,” released early in 1969, cemented his growing reputation as a songwriter. “The Story of Isaac,” a retelling of the biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac, became an anthem of opposition to the war in Vietnam, and “Bird on the Wire” went on to be recorded by Joe Cocker, Aaron Neville, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. In 1971, Mr. Cohen released “Songs of Love and Hate,” which contained the cryptic and frequently covered “Famous Blue Raincoat,” but after that his production began to tail off, and his live performances became less frequent. He released three more albums during the 1970s but, amid bouts of depression, only two in the 1980s and one in the 1990s.   The quality of his songs remained high, however: In addition to “Hallelujah,” future standards like “Dance Me to the End of Love,” “First We Take Manhattan,” “Everybody Knows” and “Tower of Song” date from that era.   A Buddhist Monk   Mr. Cohen, raised Jewish and observant throughout his life, became interested in Zen Buddhism in the late 1970s and often visited the Mount Baldy monastery, east of Los Angeles. Around 1994, he abandoned his music career altogether and moved to the monastery, where he was ordained a Buddhist monk and became the personal assistant of Joshu Sasaki, the Rinzai Zen master who led the center.   During the remainder of the decade, there was much speculation that Mr. Cohen, rather than merely taking a sabbatical, had stopped writing songs and would never record again. But in 2001, he released “Ten New Songs,” whose title suggests he wrote it while in the monastery. It was followed in 2004 by “Dear Heather,” an unusually upbeat album.   In 2005, Mr. Cohen sued his former manager, Kelley Lynch, accusing her of defrauding him of millions of dollars that he had set aside as a retirement fund, leaving him with only $150,000 and a huge tax bill and forcing him to take out a new mortgage on his home to cover his legal costs. The next year, after Ms. Lynch countersued, a judge awarded Mr. Cohen $9.5 million, but he was unable to collect any of the money.   The legal battles may have soured Mr. Cohen’s mood, but they did not seem to damage his creativity. In 2006, he published a new collection of poems, “Book of Longing,” which the composer Philip Glass set to music and then took on tour, with Mr. Cohen’s recorded voice reciting the words and Mr. Glass’s ensemble performing the music.   Financial Distress   In 2008, Mr. Cohen hit the road for the first time in 15 years for a grueling world tour, which would continue, with a few short breaks, through 2010. He was driven, he acknowledged, at least in part by financial necessity. “It was a long, ongoing problem of a disastrous and relentless indifference to my financial situation,” he told The New York Times in 2009. “I didn’t even know where the bank was.”   Combined with a pair of CDs and accompanying DVDs recorded in concert, “Live in London” and “Songs From the Road,” the constant touring, before audiences often larger than those he had enjoyed in the past, clearly eased Mr. Cohen’s financial problems. Billboard magazine estimated that the 2009 leg of the tour alone earned him nearly $10 million.   Over that three-year period, Mr. Cohen performed nearly 250 shows, many of them lasting more than three hours. He seemed remarkably fit and limber, skipping across the stage, doing deep-knee bends and occasionally dropping to his knees to sing.   The shows were not without incident: During a show in Valencia, Spain, in 2009, he fainted, and early in 2010 one segment of the tour had to be postponed when he suffered a lower back injury. He recovered, however, and in 2012 he released “Old Ideas,” his first CD of new songs in more than seven years, and embarked on another marathon tour.   That pattern of extensive touring and recording continued into the decade. In 2014, for instance, Mr. Cohen released a CD of mostly new material, “Popular Problems,” as well as a three-CD, one-DVD set called “Live in Dublin.”   Mr. Cohen never married, though he had numerous liaisons and several long-term relationships, some of which he wrote about. In addition to his son, Adam, his survivors include a daughter, Lorca, who like Adam is from his relationship with Suzanne Elrod, a photographer and artist who shot the cover of his 1973 album, “Live Songs,” and is pictured on the cover of his critically derided album “Death of a Ladies’ Man” (1977); and three grandchildren. Mr. Cohen was buried in Montreal on Thursday after a traditional Jewish memorial service. To the end, Mr. Cohen took a sardonic view of both his craft and the human condition. In “Tower of Song,” a staple of live shows in his later years, he brought the two together, making fun of being “born with the gift of a golden voice” and striking the same biblical tone apparent on his first album.   Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter, but of this you may be sure The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor And there’s a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong You see, you hear these funny voices in the tower of song.   “The changeless is what he’s been about since the beginning,” the writer Pico Iyer argued in the liner notes for the anthology “The Essential Leonard Cohen.” “Some of the other great pilgrims of song pass through philosophies and selves as if through the stations of the cross. With Cohen, one feels he knew who he was and where he was going from the beginning, and only digs deeper, deeper, deeper.”"
198,"Loud-music shooter's murder conviction upheld —  An appeals court in Florida on Thursday upheld the murder conviction of a white man in the fatal shooting of a black teen during an argument sparked by loud rap music.   Michael Dunn lost his legal bid to overturn his conviction for the shooting of Jordan Davis, 17, at a Jacksonville gas station in November 2012.   Dunn, of South Patrick Shores, Fla., was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in October 2014. Prosecutors said Dunn fired 10 bullets at a red Dodge Durango carrying Davis and three other black teenagers during a Black Friday parking-lot dispute over the teens' booming music.   Dunn's lawyers appealed his convictions for first-degree murder and three counts of attempted second-degree murder. They argued that prosecutors failed to present substantial evidence disproving Dunn's testimony that he had feared for his life and acted in self-defense.   Loud-music shooter gets life in prison But, in an opinion filed Thursday, a three-judge panel with the 1st District Court of Appeal denied that claim.   ""While it's hard to celebrate anything with the loss of Jordan Davis, it was closure. And it was the bittersweet last piece,"" said John Phillips, the Jacksonville lawyer who represents Davis' family.   Dunn's case attracted national media attention and debate during two 2014 murder trials. The incident shone a spotlight on Florida's ""Stand Your Ground"" firearm self-defense law, and racial controversy emerged because Dunn, 49, is white and the teenagers are black.   Phillips spoke with Lucy McBath, Davis' mother, on Thursday morning. She now is the national spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.   ""She was happy. It's always hard to talk about the happy things coming from the case, because, at the end of the day, she lost her son. Today was a good day. But the marathon that she's running to get justice in reshaping the laws and reshaping policy and reshaping lives still goes on,"" Phillips said.   ""But to know that the criminal court system has resolved this in her son's favor — even though it took two trials — was something of an emotional, but happy, conversation this morning,"" he said.   McBath tweeted this message Thursday morning: ""On the week before Jordan's death anniversary I could not be more thankful/Michael Dunn's appeal is denied. A true Thanksgiving holiday"" Davis, who was sitting in the right rear passenger seat of the Durango, was shot three times. In court, Dunn testified that Davis threatened to kill him, reached for something, displayed 4 inches of a shotgun barrel, and opened the vehicle door, so Dunn grabbed his gun and fired.   However, using bullet trajectory evidence, a Duval County Medical Examiner's Office official testified that Davis' wounds were not consistent with him leaning out of a vehicle door. Rather, they were more consistent with him crouching in his seat to avoid gunfire.   From the judges' six-page opinion affirming Dunn's convictions:   ""Here, the disputed facts created a jury question as to Dunn’s claim of self-defense. The nature of the verbal exchange between Dunn and Davis, whether Davis had a weapon, and whether Davis exited the Durango towards Dunn were all controverted,"" the judges wrote. ""A gas station patron testified that he heard Dunn say, 'You’re not going to talk to me that way,' but did not hear anyone in the Durango say anything back. The passengers of the Durango testified that Davis did not leave the Durango and testified that there were no weapons in the vehicle,"" the opinion continues.   ""Additionally, a witness testified that there was no weapon in the Durango, but that they could see Dunn’s gun.""   Phillips said the Davis murder case changed his life, and he was glad Dunn's appeal was denied.   ""The concern here, with any of the cases challenging the gun laws and self-defense laws and Stand Your Ground laws in Florida, is that a judge will try to reinterpret the law. While a remote concern, it was the only real concern related to his case,"" Phillips said."
199,"MIRANDA KERR HOME INTRUDER CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER —  The homeless man who jumped the fence at Miranda Kerr's Malibu home and allegedly stabbed her security guard was just charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and mayhem ... TMZ has learned. The L.A. County District Attorney charged the intruder, Shaun Haywood, with the 3 felonies after the brutal confrontation earlier this month ... ending with Haywood getting shot 4 times and a security guard stabbed in the face and arm. As TMZ reported ... Haywood disobeyed orders to stand down after hopping a fence ... prompting the security guard to fire multiple shots. Miranda wasn't home at the time. If convicted, Haywood faces life in prison."
200,"Man Allegedly Beats Turtle To Death With Hammer, Claims Self-Defense —  A Texas man accused of beating a turtle to death with a hammer told officers he did so in self-defense, according to a police affidavit. Terry Washington, 55, was arrested after a graphic video appeared to show himbludgeoning the wild snapping turtle by the side of Austin’s Lady Bird Lake on June 21. The passerby who shot the video, Geoffrey Frank, told news station KXAN at the time that after repeatedly whacking the turtle, the man dragged the reptile up the road and left it there. Police charged Washington Tuesday with cruelty to a non-livestock animal, a felony offense. News station WLTX reported that after the video was submitted to law enforcement, someone tipped off the Game Warden’s office and identified Washington as the man on camera.  Washington confessed to police that he killed the turtle in self-defense, according to a police affidavit that KVUE obtained. He said he was fishing at the lake when the turtle lunged at him and tried to bite him, police allege. The turtle’s head was crushed and its shell broken, police told Fox 7. Washington is in jail on a $5,000 bond."
201,"Man Is Shot in Charlotte as Unrest Stretches to Second Night —  A second night of protests set off by the police killing of a black man spiraled into chaos and violence after nightfall here Wednesday when a demonstration was interrupted by gunfire that gravely wounded a man in the crowd. Law enforcement authorities fired tear gas in a desperate bid to restore order. The city said on its Twitter account that the unidentified man was on life support after what officials said was a “civilian on civilian” confrontation. The authorities provided no further details. Charlotte officials had said earlier that the man had been killed in the unrest. The Police Department reported that four officers had injuries that were not life-threatening. Gov. Pat McCrory’s office said late Wednesday that he had declared an emergency and had “initiated efforts” to deploy the National Guard and the state Highway Patrol. The shooting heightened the tension among the demonstrators and the police alike. City officials were quick to say the police had not fired any live rounds, but riot police personnel did fire repeated rounds of tear gas. The scene of the shooting and the largest demonstration of the evening happened along a crowded street in Charlotte’s city center, where the sound of gunfire mixed with the noise of people banging objects into vehicles. The gunshot victim lay motionless on the ground, his eyes open, as people surrounded him and blood pooled among their feet. He was taken into the nearby Omni Hotel, and a series of confrontations played out afterward as the police kept people from entering. There was sporadic looting. Twitter messages showed that the team store of the Charlotte Hornets of the N.B.A. had been broken into and gutted of merchandise. “We are working very hard to bring peace and calm back to our city,” Mayor Jennifer Roberts said on CNN. A spokesman for Ms. Roberts said she had requested and planned to review on Thursday a police dashboard video of the encounter with Keith L. Scott, the black man who was shot and killed here on Tuesday. But she said she would not make the video public. Around 10 p.m., the police ordered all civilians, including members of the news media, to leave parts of the Uptown neighborhood and threatened to arrest those who did not comply. When the crowd did not respond immediately, the authorities fired more tear gas within minutes. After that, it appeared that the crowd started to disperse, although some stragglers remained in the area. The unrest in Charlotte came after two other police-involved deadly shootings in the last week. First came the shooting of a teenager in Columbus, Ohio, who had been brandishing a BB gun. Two days later, on Friday, was the shooting death in Tulsa, Okla., of a man who had his hands above his head before an officer opened fire. And then it was Charlotte, where Mr. Scott, 43, black like the other two, was shot by a police officer in a parking space marked “Visitor” outside an unremarkable apartment complex. On Wednesday that parking space was both a shooting site and a shrine, and Charlotte was a city on edge, the latest to play a role in what feels like a recurring, seemingly inescapable tape loop of American tragedy. “To see this happen multiple times — just time after time — it’s depressing, man,” said Tom Jackson, 25, who works with mentally disabled people. He didn’t know Mr. Scott but was drawn here nonetheless, one of many strangers and friends who came to pay their respects and make sense of their sorrow. In addition to the fatal attacks on police officers in Baton Rouge and Dallas, it was another grim snapshot of America’s continuing crisis in black and blue, this moment amplified by presidential politics. And as usual, there was very little consensus on what went wrong and how to fix it. At a news conference on Wednesday, Kerr Putney, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, said officers had found the gun that the police said Mr. Scott had brandished before an officer, who is also black, fatally shot him and were examining police video of the encounter that unfolded as Mr. Scott stepped out of a car. Family members of Mr. Scott have said that he was unarmed and was holding only a book. Chief Putney said Wednesday morning, “We did not find a book.” The response of B. J. Murphy, an African-American activist here, could not have been more different: “Everybody in Charlotte should be on notice that black people, today, we’re tired of this,” he said, adding an epithet. “We’re tired of being killed and nobody saying nothing. We’re tired of our political leaders going along to get along; they’re so weak, they don’t have no sympathy for our grief. And we want justice.” All three shootings are under investigation, and are rife with questions. The police in Columbus said that the BB gun wielded by 13-year-old Tyre King was built to look nearly identical to a Smith & Wesson Military & Police semiautomatic pistol. Mayor Andrew J. Ginther blamed the shooting, in part, on Americans’ “easy access to guns, whether they are firearms or replicas.” In Tulsa, the police said investigators found the drug PCP in the shooting victim’s S.U.V. The drug is known to induce erratic behavior in some users. But Mr. Crump, who is representing the family of the victim, Terence Crutcher, said the discovery of the drug, if true, would not justify the deadly shooting. In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Crutcher’s father, the Rev. Joey Crutcher, said his son had marched in protest of earlier police killings and had thought about how to protect himself during interactions with police officers. They had planned to go to a church event aimed at teaching people how behave around the police and avoid becoming another hashtag shared on social media by Black Lives Matter protesters. “I never thought this would happen to my family,” Mr. Crutcher said, adding that he had counseled his son all his life about how to behave around the police. “I said, ‘Whenever you’re stopped by a police and you’re in that situation, raise your hands up, always let them see your hands, let them see that you are not going for a gun.’ And that is what Terence was doing. I said, ‘Always put your hands on your car.’ I made that specific, ‘your car.’ And that’s what Terence was walking to do on his car so that they could see his hands.” John Barnett, a civil rights activist in Charlotte, said during a raucous news conference near the site of the shooting that Mr. Scott had been waiting for his son to arrive home from school. “The truth of the matter is, he didn’t point that gun,” Mr. Barnett said. “Did he intend to really sit in a vehicle, waiting on his son to get home from school and then plot to shoot a cop if they pulled up on him?” Adding to an atmosphere loaded with suspicion and mistrust, residents of the apartment complex gave varying accounts of Mr. Scott’s death. Some differed from the police on which officer fired the shots, and others said that no one had tried to administer CPR for Mr. Scott as officials had said. Brentley Vinson, the officer who the police say shot Mr. Scott, is black, as is the police chief. “Since black lives do not matter for this city, then our black dollars should not matter,” said Mr. Murphy, the activist. “We’re watching a modern-day lynching on social media, on television and it is affecting the psyche of black people.” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said Wednesday that the Justice Department “is aware of, and we are assessing, the incident that led to the death of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte.” Responding to another police shooting, the state’s attorney in Baltimore County, Md., Scott D. Shellenberger, announced Wednesday that no charges would be filed against any of the officers involved in the Aug. 1 shooting death of Korryn Gaines or the shooting of her 5-year-old son. In Charlotte, Rakeyia Scott, Mr. Scott’s wife, said on Wednesday the family was “devastated” by the shooting. She described her husband as “a loving husband, father, brother and friend” and called on protesters to remain peaceful. At a campaign rally in Orlando, Fla., Hillary Clinton spoke about the shootings here and in Tulsa. “There is still much we don’t know about what happened in both incidents, but we do know that we have two more names to add to a list of African-Americans killed by police officers in these encounters,’’ she said. “It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable. We also saw the targeting of police officers in Philadelphia last week. And last night in Charlotte, 12 officers were injured in demonstrations following Keith Scott’s death. Every day police officers are serving with courage, honor and skill.” Her Republican rival, Donald J. Trump, reacted on Twitter. “Hopefully the violence & unrest in Charlotte will come to an immediate end,” he wrote. “To those injured, get well soon. We need unity & leadership.” Unity, thus far, has been in short supply. On Friday, Mr. Trump earned the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police. But polls show that his support among African-Americans is negligible, even though he has singled them out in promising to solve the ills of poverty and violence that he has characterized as plaguing black neighborhoods. On Wednesday, Mr. Jackson, the man who came here to mourn, was not thinking about the current presidential candidates. The police, he said, “are out here killing people, and they don’t even know their backgrounds,” he said. “They could be killing the next president.”"
202,"Man kills two sons, himself, police say —  A man shot his two young sons and then killed himself in an apparent murder-suicide on Saturday, police said.   The father, identified as Christopher Cadenbach, said St. Louis County Police Department's Deputy Chief Kenneth Cox. He was wanted for domestic violence in Franklin County, Missouri, Cox said. As a result, the St. Louis County police had been looking for him. On Saturday afternoon, Cadenbach, 43, visited his mother and his two children. Amber Alert leads police to dad His mother became worried after hearing him say that he wasn't going to be taken alive, Cox said. She alerted police, who then issued an Amber Alert for his two abducted sons, Ethan, 5, and Owen, 4. Later that evening, a park ranger spotted a 2006 Ford Focus matching the Amber Alert description in a local park and alerted police. As soon as the officers arrived, shots rang out, Cox said. ""He was apparently shooting his children. We tried to engage him and it appears he took his own life."""
203,"Man too shy to go to doctor lodges chopstick in his penis —  A man who was too shy to approach a doctor about blood in his urine attempted to identify the cause of his illness at home by inserting a stainless-steel chopstick into his penis. The man, identified as Chen, was then forced to undergo surgery to remove the 7-inch long object after he rammed it so far into his genitals that he could not remove it, Asia Wire reported.   Chen reportedly told doctors he thought his urethra was broken, so he inserted the chopstick to investigate. Scans at the hospital showed that the chopstick had reached the man’s rectal wall, Asia Wire reported. Doctors said if it had been pushed any further upward it could have proved fatal.   Doctors successfully removed the chopstick from his penis and Chen, who resides in Hagzhou City’s Uhang District, in the capital of East China’s Zhejiang Province, is recovering in the hospital.   The report did not indicate whether he would suffer any long-term damage."
204,"Manslaughter Charge for Tulsa Officer Who Killed Black Driver —  The white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black driver here last week as he stood outside his vehicle overreacted during a confrontation captured on video and was charged on Thursday with first-degree manslaughter, the authorities said. According to court documents, the officer, Betty Jo Shelby, 42, was overcome with fear that the man, Terence Crutcher, 40, who was not responding to her commands and was walking away from her with his hands up, was going to kill her. An investigator with the Tulsa County district attorney’s office said in an affidavit that Officer Shelby became “emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted” and fired her weapon even though she “was not able to see any weapons or bulges indicating” that Mr. Crutcher had a gun. Prosecutors have charged the officer with committing manslaughter “in the heat of passion.” Oklahoma law defines such passion as a strong emotion, such as fear or anger, that exists to such a degree in a defendant that it affects “the ability to reason and render the mind incapable of cool reflection.” Those found guilty of first-degree manslaughter face a sentence of no fewer than four years in prison. Officer Shelby, a Tulsa police officer since 2011, has been on paid administrative leave. The authorities said that a warrant had been issued for her arrest and that arrangements were being made for her to surrender to sheriff’s officials. Mr. Crutcher was unarmed when he was shot, and no weapons were found in his vehicle, officials said. The Tulsa County district attorney, Stephen A. Kunzweiler, said he filed the charge against Officer Shelby after reviewing video of the shooting from both a patrol car’s dashboard camera and from a helicopter that had responded, as well as 911 calls, witness interviews and other evidence. Court documents state that based on Mr. Crutcher’s noncompliance, Officer Shelby’s fear “resulted in her unreasonable actions” that led her to fire her weapon. Mr. Crutcher died from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The shooting is one of a string of deaths of black people at the hands of the police that have stoked outrage around the country. The unrest and violence in Charlotte, N.C., that has followed a police killing of a black man in that city were part of the backdrop in Tulsa. In a statement, Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma praised city leaders, law enforcement officials “as well as the citizens of Tulsa for keeping peace and order during this difficult time.” She asked residents to keep both the Crutcher and Shelby families in their prayers. “No matter how you feel about the prosecutors’ decision in this case, I hope Oklahomans will respect the views of your friends and neighbors, because we still have to live peacefully together as we try to make sense of the circumstances that led to Mr. Crutcher’s death,” she said. Last Friday, according to court documents, Officer Shelby was responding to a domestic violence call when she passed an intersection in north Tulsa and noticed Mr. Crutcher standing in the street, and his vehicle partly blocking traffic lanes. She was alone in her patrol car, and she stopped and approached Mr. Crutcher’s vehicle. Officer Shelby asked Mr. Crutcher if the vehicle belonged to him and whether it was disabled, but he only mumbled to himself and did not answer any of her questions, the district attorney’s investigator wrote in an affidavit. According to the affidavit, Mr. Crutcher kept putting his hands in his pockets, even as the officer told him to show his hands. Mr. Crutcher walked toward his vehicle with his hands up and refused to comply with her orders to stop. She pulled her weapon as he walked to the driver’s side door, the investigator wrote, and another officer arrived and told Officer Shelby he had his Taser ready Mr. Crutcher reached into the driver’s side front window, the investigator wrote, and then the officer fired his Taser and Officer Shelby fired her gun. Lawyers for Mr. Crutcher’s family dispute some of the authorities’ account of the shooting. They said the window of Mr. Crutcher’s vehicle was up, not down, and so he could not have reached into the vehicle before he was shot. The two videos of the confrontation do not show the actual moment of the shooting. Benjamin L. Crump, one of the lawyers for Mr. Crutcher’s relatives, praised the filing of a criminal charge against the officer. “Through the vivid slow motion video witnessed around the world, America once again witnessed the tragic death of another person of color, gunned down senselessly by an officer who swore to protect and serve,” Mr. Crump said in a statement. “Make no mistake, it was clear from the beginning that charges were necessary in this case.” Federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents are conducting a separate investigation into whether Mr. Crutcher’s civil rights were violated. The Rev. Al Sharpton said the charge against Officer Shelby was “a swift step in the right direction as we pursue justice in the death of Terence Crutcher.” But Mr. Sharpton, who was asked by Mr. Crutcher’s relatives to come to Tulsa on Tuesday, said he wanted the investigation into the actions of all the officers at the scene to continue. In downtown Tulsa, outside the courthouse where the district attorney announced the filing of charges against Officer Shelby, a group of protesters gathered, waving signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “This stops now.” Three Tulsa cosmetology students who stood holding signs said they wanted the officer to be charged not with manslaughter, but with murder. “Manslaughter is when you get drunk and you hit someone with your car,” said Mia Hogsett, 27. “It’s not when you point your gun at someone and know that that trigger can kill a person. She was afraid, but she was trained. She was trained to be in that situation.”"
205,"Mariah Carey Out With THAT Backup Dancer —  Mariah Carey showed James Packer who's boss Thursday night by chowing down with the guy who made her ex-fiance crazy. Mariah sushied out at Nobu in Malibu with Bryan Tanaka, the backup dancer who got super flirty with her ... so much so Packer had it out with him in Mariah's dressing room and then got Tanaka banned from Caesar's Palace, where MC performs. As we reported ... Mariah and James had a nuclear breakup ... she claims after he did something terrible to her assistant last month on a yacht in Greece."
206,"Mark Kirk apologizes for using Tammy Duckworth's Thai heritage in debate jab —  Washington (CNN)Sen. Mark Kirk apologized Friday to his Democratic challenger Rep. Tammy Duckworth after using her Thai heritage to deride her family's military history during a debate. ""Sincere apologies to an American hero, Tammy Duckworth, and gratitude for her family's service. #ilsen,"" he tweeted. Duckworth accepted the apology, writing on Twitter, ""Thanks, Sen. Kirk. Let's honor my family's service - and your own - by sticking to the issues for the final week. See you Friday in Chicago."" The Illinois Republican questioned the military veteran's ties to the American Revolution during a Senate debate Thursday. Duckworth was speaking about how her father's family served in the military since the American Revolution. ""My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a daughter of the American Revolution. I've bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound because I want to be there to say, 'This is what it costs. This is what you're asking us to do. And if that's the case, I'll go,'"" she said at the University of Illinois Springfield. ""Families like mine are the ones that lead first. But let's make sure the American people understand what we're engaging in. And let's hold our allies accountable because we can't do it all,"" she added. Kirk responded: ""I forgot your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington."" When he said that, Duckworth was drinking a bottle of water and put it back on the table as he finished his sentence. She smiled and the moderator moved on to the next question. ""Sen. Kirk's statement speaks for itself, as does Tammy's response,"" Duckworth campaign spokesman, Matt McGrath, told CNN after the debate. Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager of Donald Trump -- whom Kirk has publicly broken with -- mocked the Illinois senator over the episode, linking to a story about the debate and tweeting, ""The same Mark Kirk that unendorsed his party's presidential nominee and called him out in paid ads? Gotcha. Good luck."" Duckworth was born in Thailand, but her father was a Marine veteran who traced his family's American roots to before the Revolutionary War. She is an Iraq War veteran who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm during a mission and was awarded a Purple Heart. In the past, Kirk has also faced criticism for misrepresenting his military career. In 2010 he accepted responsibility misstatements about his Navy Reserve career, including that he served in the Gulf War, that he once commanded the Pentagon war room and that he came under fire while flying intelligence missions over Iraq. And in 2016, Kirk falsely asserted on his campaign website that he was a veteran of the Iraq War. He actually stayed in the United States during the Iraq War when he served in the Navy Reserves. Duckworth's opponents have faced criticism over their attacks on her. In 2012 then-Rep. Joe Walsh -- who is facing criticism this week after saying he's going to pick up a musket if Donald Trump loses the 2016 election -- attacked Duckworth over her war record, saying she talks too much about her war record. CNN's David Mark contributed to this report."
207,"Mass grave of hundreds of Iraqi police murdered by Isis found near Mosul —  A mass grave discovered by Iraqi security forces as they made their assault on the Isis stronghold of Mosul is believed to hold the bodies of hundreds of local policemen who were summarily executed by Isis.   The grave, which was discovered by its stench as Iraqi troops liberated the villages and hamlets held by the Islamic State on the outskirts of Mosul, could have been dug as recently as October. Sources in Mosul told the international NGO Human Rights Watch that Isis massacred the several hundred former policemen just one month before the start of US-backed forces assault on Mosul.   They had been held as prisoners in Islamic State jails and were reportedly killed in custody.   The human rights organisation visited the site of the mass grave, some 30 km to the south east of Mosul, on the outskirts of the village of Hammam al-Alil and found four exposed corpses, as well as piles of rubbish and detritus covering other dead bodies.   In an initial report on the discovery of the mass grave by the Iraqi government, experts from Baghdad said they believed all the visible corpses – roughly 20 at that time (7 November) – had their hands and ankles bound and were wearing blindfolds.   The Iraqi group said the grave housed about 100 corpses but that number would appear to be higher based on Human Rights Watch's findings.   Witnesses from Hamman al-Alil, whose names are not being revealed to protect their identities, told Human Rights Watch that on October 19, at a time when ISIS was fully in control of the village and neighbouring towns and villages, fighters rounded up at least 2,000 people from the area and forced them to head north toward Mosul and Tel Afar.   Most did not have cars so had to walk. Isis separated the former policemen, loaded them into vehicles, and drove them away. Over a week later, on the night of October 28, at about 8pm, arond 100 -125 men, some recognised as former policemen, were seen being moved past a local agricultural collage.   Minutes later the witness heard automatic gunfire and cries of distress. The next night, he saw Isis fighters bring the same four trucks, carrying between 130 and 145 men. Minutes later he again heard automatic gunfire and screams.   Similar incidents followed with regular and prolonged regularity in which gunfire was heard along with further disappearances.   ""This is another piece of evidence of the horrific mass murder by Isis of former law enforcement officers in and around Mosul,"" Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch has said. ""Isis should be held accountable for these crimes against humanity."""
208,"Media Coverage of a Mammal Extinction Missed the Point —  While climate change didn’t help, human inaction ultimately allowed the species to die. This summer, the Bramble Cay melomys, a reddish-brown rodent that resembles a large mouse, made international news. In mid-June, The Guardian reported that the melomys, last seen in 2009, had been confirmed extinct in its only known habitat, a tiny, isolated coral outcrop in the narrow strait between Australia and New Guinea. “First mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change,” the headline read. The story, and the declaration, were picked up by publications around the world. Climate change certainly dealt a blow to the melomys, and very likely the fatal blow. In 1998, about ten acres of Bramble Cay lay above the high tide line; by 2014, only six acres remained above the tide, and rising seas had flooded the entire island several times, killing or damaging most of the succulent plants the species depended on for food. The melomys was last seen alive in 2009, and this past June, a report by three scientists to the Australia’s Department of Environment and Heritage Protection concluded that there were no more melomys on Bramble Cay. The last remaining members of the species may have been simply washed away. But did climate change kill the melomys? Yes and no. Two weeks after its initial story, The Guardian reported that Australian researchers had intended to bring a few melomys back to the mainland to start a captive breeding program. But when their surveys of Bramble Cay failed to turn up a single individual, their rescue mission ended with an obituary. “My colleagues and I were devastated,” the expedition leader told The Guardian. That missed opportunity, says biologist John Woinarski, was the last act in a tragedy that had been unfolding for years, often in plain sight. In a new paper in Conservation Biology, Woinarski and three colleagues conduct what might be called an inquest into three recent Australian extinctions: the Christmas Island pipistrelle (a small bat), the Christmas Island forest skink (a plain brown lizard), and the melomys. These three extinctions, the authors conclude, “were predictable and most likely could have been prevented.” The pipistrelle was common on Christmas Island until the mid-1980s, but in the mid-1990s its numbers began to decline, and dropped quickly and steadily until the species went extinct in 2009. The skink started to decline at around the same time, and its last representative, nicknamed Gump, died in captivity in 2014. Both species are thought to have been done in by introduced predators, probably the giant centipede and the wolf snake. Woinarski argues that the centipede and the snake, much like the rising tides on Bramble Cay, were enabled for years by human neglect and inaction. Australia’s biodiversity conservation law makes no explicit commitment to preventing human-caused extinctions, so species threatened by diffuse or complex threats are often left unprotected, and the protection measures that do exist are frequently inadequate; though researchers began to document the skink’s decline in 1999, it was not officially recognized as critically endangered until 2014, four months before its extinction. The pipistrelle, like the melomys, suffered from a delayed rescue attempt: Its plight was recognized in the late 1990s, but by the time the government approved a captive breeding program, in 2009, there was only one bat left—and that bat, understandably, refused to be caught. These three species were also particularly easy to ignore: They’re small and unremarkable, and they live in some of the most remote places on the planet. They don’t play an obviously important role in their ecosystems, or occupy a unique place in evolutionary history; they’re not beloved by any particular human community or culture. Only their extinction makes them distinctive, and even that is less and less unusual: Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinctions in the world, with 30 species, including the melomys, lost in the four centuries since European colonization. Woinarski, who lived on Christmas Island just after the extinction of the pipistrelle and during the extinction of the skink, also worked on the recovery plan for the melomys. His assessment, he says, was motivated by personal grief, and by a desire to understand what could be done differently next time. For there will be a next time: Though recent policy reforms have strengthened its national conservation law, Australia and its outlying islands have more than a thousand threatened and endangered species. Those already close to extinction include the Christmas Island shrew, the only shrew in Australia; the Western ground parrot, a shy, bright-green bird that lives on the southwestern coast; and the bridled nailtail wallaby or flashjack, a favorite prey of cats, dogs, and foxes. To say that climate change killed the Bramble Cay melomys, says Woinarski, is “accurate but shallow.” It ignores the many other environmental factors that probably led to its extinction, and it obscures the fact that humans could have saved the species—not only by slowing climate change in the first place, but also by rescuing the species from its effects. People, he emphasizes, could have prevented the extinction of the melomys. They chose not to."
209,"Meet the Native Americans on the Front Lines of a Historic Protest —  Since April, the protest against a proposed oil pipeline has grown to include thousands of members of hundreds of tribes. As currently proposed, the Dakota Access pipeline would move oil out of northwestern North Dakota, through a 30-inch pipe, and along a 1,200-mile path that cuts through both Dakotas, Iowa, and a stretch of Illinois before meeting another pipeline in the town of Patoka. It would carrynearly half a million barrels of domestic sweet crude oil every day, and the project’s builder, Energy Transfer Partners, says it will bring back money. The Texas-based company says the pipeline will create up to 12,000 jobs (the Army Corps of Engineers approved the project and agreed) and generate over $120 million in property and income taxes every year. And they say it’ll be safer than moving the oil by train, the current option. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe tells another story. The tribe, made up of Hunkpapa Lakota and Yanktonai Dakota, lives in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, which covers parts of North and South Dakota. Members have been protesting the pipeline since April. They’re worried it might leak and contaminate wells along the pipe’s path, threatening their water supply. With the environmental protection group Earthjustice, the tribe filed suit against the Corps of Engineers in July, saying the Corps violated the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Protection Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. In addition to water concerns, the suit says the “pipeline crosses areas of great historical and cultural significance.” The protests simmered for months and exploded in early September, when video surfaced of private security using dogs and pepper spray on protesters. Since then, coverage of the protests has increased, with stories appearing on national news and even the Daily Show. A federal judge has halted the pipeline’s construction. A number of museum workers, historians, and archaeologists have encouraged the White House to order a more thorough review of the potential risk to artifacts. Standing Rock Sioux representatives recently addressed the United Nations Human Rights Commission. And the tribe is one of several in the U.S. and Canada to join an alliance against future oil pipelines. And the protest has grown. There are thousands of people from all over the country taking part. I spent three days with the Red Warrior Camp—a collective that believes in nonviolent direct action—and their allies. I created a series of portraits that, as a collection, I hope will share the views and heart of what many are calling the Resistance to the Black Snake. Chase Iron Eyes of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is running for congress. He’s one of many Native Americans seeking federal office across the country this year. “We don’t have energy security unless we have water security. We don’t have food security unless we have water security. We don’t have national security unless we have water security. I say this with the truest of intentions because when you look at who we are fighting to stop this poison from coming into our homelands and this is all of our homelands. America, you are 240 years old; we have been here since time immemorial and we have been telling you that you can get by love what you have taken by force.” Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle is Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge and she lives and works at Standing Rock. ""We are here to protect our land and our water, and our thoughts for the future go seven generations,"" she says. The Dakotas have long been a site of conflict between Native Americans and the government. The history stretches from the brutal wars waged as settlers pushed west in the 19th century to the 1973 protest at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, when some 200 members of the American Indian Movement led an occupation and accused the U.S. government of not fulfilling its treaties with indigenous people. Sampson DeCrane (above, sitting) of the Mountain Crow from Pryor, Montana, wears a hat “woven from the Lummi People in Washington.” “I do this because they showed me the importance of water to them and how they were created as the People of the Sea. So I wear this hat to embody that, and that is what is happening at this camp; we are all paddling as one,” he says. “We as natives are the first environmentalists. “If you get all native people together on one issue, we will be unstoppable.” The three people above are from the Red Warrior Camp outside of Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Tara Houska is a member of the Anishinabe from Couchiching First Nation and a tribal attorney in Washington, D.C. “This past week we saw the use of excess force, the use of dogs, to attack Native American people as they were protecting a sacred site,” she says. “To see that and to know that is where we are in the narrative and to know that a company would even think that they can do that speaks volumes about where we are treating Native Americans and how [we] view them.” Native Americans from across the country have come to join the Standing Rock protest. Ella Mendoza wears a coat with Black Snake Killer written on the back, alluding to the nickname for the pipeline. “We are here to kill the black snake,” Mendoza says. “The black snake is the pipeline and it is not just this pipeline, it is all the pipelines. When we talk about the pipelines we mean all unnatural, man-made things on this land that includes borders and the idea of owning territory and land. Black Snake Killer is really saying I am not going to make friends with the black snake, I am not going to reform the black snake, we are not here to befriend politicians, we are not here to change the rules of how the water will be poisoned. We are here to literally stop the pipeline and win.” “We are making great changes for our children and their children,” saysSweetwater Nantucket (above, in hat). “This is a spiritual battle. This is a big village; here we have food and we have all our needs met just like our people did a long time ago, and it takes a village to stop a pipeline.” Cody Hall (above, in gray T-shirt) is the spokesperson for Red Warrior Camp. “I feel that my ancestors are speaking through me to take these actions and take a stand,” he says. “To be here on the front lines and to see the desecration of our sacred sites literally erased from the record books is damaging enough to one’s soul and existence. This is history in the making that is so tragic that they are trying to erase us from the books. “We say enough is enough.” For many of the protesters, the legacy of government-native relations is at the heart of their protest. “This is more than stopping the Dakota Access pipeline,” says Krystal Two Bulls (above, in pink). “People can see where this [is] going. We must put our egos to the side and false sense of pride to sacrifice for water and be this larger change that needs to happen in the world. All people are going to be impacted by this, not just indigenous people.” Winona Laduke is an activist and writer. She also ran for vice president on Ralph Nader's Green Party ticket and founded the environmental justice group Honor the Earth. “This is our time,” she says. “You got a choice between water or oil. Make the right choice.” Five months in, the protest continues. Not just in North Dakota or the other states along the pipeline, but also online, where the phrase “idle no more” has gone from a rallying cry to protect the environment to a hashtag that makes news and updates of the protest readily available and continues to draw attention, and media, to the demonstrations."
210,"Members of Eagles of Death Metal, Band That Played Bataclan, Attend Paris Attacks Memorial —  Members of Eagles of Death Metal, the band that was playing at the Bataclan concert hall when the deadly Paris Attacks occurred, attended a town hall memorial in the city Saturday to remember the 130 people killed in coordinated terrorist attacks across Paris one year ago. Dozens were killed and hundreds were injured at the Bataclan after jihadists opened fire during the band's set on Nov. 13, 2015, taking fans of the band and venue workers hostage in the hall. ""I wouldn't imagine anyone not wanting to be here. This city is a shining example of really the best possible way to react to something that's awful and evil,"" said Jesse Hughes, Eagles of Death Metal's controversial frontman. ""This is the leadership core of what to do, and I'm very proud that I get to count so many people amongst my family and friends now."" On Saturday, Sting, the British pop legend and former frontman of the Police, played the first show at the Bataclan since the tragedy. Hughes was not admitted entrance to the concert, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP).   The AFP reported that the venue's co-director would not allow Hughes to enter after he told Fox Business Channel that he thought Muslim security personnel at the venue collaborated with attackers.   Hughes later apologized and retracted his statement. The band's manager, Marc Pollack, refuted the claim that Hughes was not admitted to the concert in an interview with Billboard, describing the co-director's description of the situation as false.   Hughes, at the town hall, offered his gratitude to the people of France.   ""And from the second that the first bullets started flying, this country took care of us. And we are grateful forever, and I just hope everyone here knows how much we love this country and every person in it,"" he said.   Sting's performance at the newly restored Bataclan included a moment of silence and statement in French, saying he hoped ""to remember and honor those who lost their lives in the attacks a year ago and to celebrate the life and the music of this historic venue."""
211,"Men born by 'ICSI' fertility procedure may struggle to have babies —  Boys conceived through a common type of in vitro fertilization procedure may produce less sperm and experience more struggles with fertility than peers born the old fashioned way, a recent study suggests.   Researchers focused on 54 men conceived by what's known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a technique developed in the 1990s to treat cases when infertility is tied to problems with a man's sperm.   Compared to a control group of similar men conceived naturally, the ICSI group had much lower average sperm concentration, total sperm count and total motile or active sperm count.   ""This study indicates that ICSI done for severe male factor infertility may lead to the same condition as the one in the father,"" said study co-author Andre Van Steirteghem of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the University Hospital of Vriije University in Brussels.   ""One should inform the couples about this,"" Van Steirteghem added by email. Before ICSI became available, couples that had infertility due to male sperm issues could only conceive using IVF techniques involving a sperm donor, Van Steirteghem said.   With ICSI, clinicians harvest sperm from the father. In a lab, they inject only the healthiest sperm into an egg from the mother, and then they implant the fertilized egg in the mother's womb.   For men who have very few viable sperm, this means that the fertility experts can choose the best quality sperm and ensure it fertilizes the egg by injecting the sperm rather than leaving it to swim to the egg unaided.   The men conceived by ICSI in the study were between age 18 and 22, among the first people born using this technique.   They had almost half the sperm concentration and a two-fold lower total sperm count and total count of motile sperm that could swim well than the men their age that were conceived naturally, researchers report in the journal Human Reproduction.   In addition, compared to men born after spontaneous conception, ICSI men were nearly three times more likely to have sperm concentrations below 15 million per milliliter of semen, which is the World Health Organization's definition of ""normal,"" and four times more likely to have total sperm counts below 39 million.   The researchers adjusted their results for factors that could affect semen quality, such as age, body weight, genital malformations, time from ejaculation to analysis and abstinence period.   Although sperm concentrations and counts were lower in the ICSI men than in their spontaneously conceived peers, the researchers also found that a low sperm concentration and total motile sperm count in fathers did not necessarily match the values found in their sons.   Because male infertility issues can be inherited by male offspring, the study results aren't entirely surprising, the authors note. It's still possible, though, that some couples might want to consider alternative IVF options such as donor sperm to avoid passing on this problem, researchers note.   ""Whilst the data from the present paper shows that the sperm quality of ICSI born adult males is noticeably lower than that seen in men who were conceived naturally it also shows that there appears to be a poor relationship between the sperm quality of ICSI-born males and their fathers,"" said Allan Pacey, a researcher at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. who wasn't involved in the study.   ""This means that it doesn't automatically follow that ICSI-conceived males will always have the poor fertility seen by their fathers,"" Pacey added by email.   Rather, the results suggest that some men conceived by ICSI may still be able to father children naturally, said Richard Sharpe, a reproductive health researcher at the University of Edinburgh who wasn't involved in the study.   It does make sense for them to start trying to conceive when they - and their partners - are younger because fertility odds decline with age, Sharpe said by email.   But they need not assume a natural conception is out of the question.   ""There is no reason for them to seek infertility help or advice until they have tried to father children by intercourse for a couple of years,"" Sharpe said."
212,"Mexico Braces for the Fallout of a Trump Presidency —  For Mexico, the nightmare came true.   Perhaps no country aside from the United States itself had as much at stake in the American presidential election as Mexico did.   Then, early on Wednesday, it watched as Donald J. Trump became the next American president: a man whose central campaign promises included building a wall between the two countries, upending decades-old trade deals and deporting millions of Mexican immigrants.   The peso suffered its largest drop in nearly 20 years, and for many, the election set back years of carefully cultivated efforts to improve the cross-border relationship, one that has been historically fraught. The outcome promises a turbulent financial future for Mexico, which relies on America as an economic lifeline, both in terms of trade and remittances.   “It’s an unmitigated disaster,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico and a professor of politics and Latin American studies at New York University. “There are very few tools to fix the relationship.”   Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE     Mexican Peso Sinks as Donald Trump Secures Victory NOV. 9, 2016   Opinion Abroad in America ‘The Wall Is a Fantasy’ OCT. 14, 2016   Mexicans Accuse President of ‘Historic Error’ in Welcoming Donald Trump AUG. 31, 2016   MEXICO CITY JOURNAL And Now, What Mexico Thinks of Donald Trump JULY 2, 2015   Mexico Prepares to Counter ‘the Trump Emergency’ MAY 22, 2016 Advertisement   Continue reading the main story For months, Mexico watched the campaign with a mix of fear and bemusement, forced to stare down a raw undercurrent of American vitriol unleashed by Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Now, the election seems a harbinger of hard days to come for the country, its economy, migration and even its state of mind.   “This election reminded us of the bad image Mexico has in the U.S.,” said Jesús Silva-Herzog, a columnist and professor at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico. “It has also served as a mirror in which we have painfully seen our reflection.”   “We will not have to wait for the presidential baton to be passed to feel the devastating effects, not only in economic terms, but also the existential crisis it will cause,” he added.   Mr. Trump’s vow to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement could greatly affect Canada, too. As a result of the pact, much of Canada’s industry produces for export.   “We’re going to get sideswiped by some of this stuff,” said Mark Warner, a trade lawyer in Toronto. In particular, he said, he expects Mr. Trump to promote “Buy America” clauses in government infrastructure projects that would shut out Canadian companies — a violation of Nafta.   But for Canada and Mexico, the election was a study in contrasts. Canadians reacted to Mr. Trump’s election with concern, even anxiety, but also a whiff of pride.   Move-to-Canada memes started spreading as Mr. Trump looked increasingly likely to win Florida: “Election Night Starter Kit,” read a post on Instagram, above photos of United States passports and an Air Canada plane. Another post depicted a machine-gun-toting man riding a moose, with the words “Canadian Border Patrol Watching for Illegal Americans.”   Later on Tuesday night, the website of Canada’s immigration department crashed, fueling speculation that it had been overloaded by Americans looking for a new country to call home. Lisa Filipps, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said the site had failed “as a result of a significant increase in the volume of traffic.”   In Mexico City, the vote felt like something else entirely: a validation of Mr. Trump’s hostile remarks about Mexican immigrants, and a broad statement of disrespect. “Imagine what the U.S. will look like from now,” said Angelina González, who sells cosmetics in Mexico City. “A big wave of discrimination is coming.”   Among journalists from Horizontal, a cultural and political online magazine in Mexico City, spirits were low, and confusion reigned. Antonio Martínez Velázquez, a co-founder, reflected on the outcome with shock and a deep sense of uncertainty.   “This moment forces the world, including Mexico, to rethink its relationship with the U.S.,” he said. “This moment, which really is the end of an era, the end of the U.S. hegemony, is also the beginning of a new chapter for us in Mexico.”   Mr. Trump has been among the most powerful forces at play in Mexico this year, infuriating citizens of all stripes and even government officials with his anti-Mexican campaign. Anger surged when the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, invited Mr. Trump to visit Mexico, an offer the candidate accepted.   Weeks of vitriol and betrayal ensued, with many Mexicans denouncing Mr. Peña Nieto’s invitation as a needless capitulation from the leader of an insulted nation.   Now, it turns out Mr. Peña Nieto was right: Mr. Trump was not simply a candidate who could be ignored.   In a series of Twitter posts on Wednesday morning, Mr. Peña Nieto congratulated “the people of the United States for their electoral process” and reiterated his willingness to work with Mr. Trump “in favor of the bilateral relationship.”   “Mexico and the U.S.A. are friends, partners and allies, who must continue collaborating for the competitiveness and development of North America,” he wrote. “I trust that Mexico and the United States will continue to strengthen their bonds of cooperation and mutual respect.” Mr. Trump has promised to build a wall between the two countries and make Mexico pay for it. But Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu rejected that notion in a television interview on Wednesday morning.   “Paying for a wall is out of our vision,” she said. “The vision that we have is a vision of integration, of how Mexico and the United States working together are more competitive.”   In practical terms, most experts suspect, the election will reverberate most profoundly through the economy.   The United States and Mexico are deeply integrated in matters of economics, demographics, culture and security, stitched together by the movement of people, goods and money across a 2,000-mile border.   As one goes, so goes the other. Mexico is America’s third-largest trading partner, after Canada and China, with about $531 billion in two-way trade in 2015.   The countries are interdependent, with American goods and parts shipped to Mexican factories whose products are shipped back into the United States, and vice versa. Millions of American jobs are directly tied to trade with Mexico.   Mr. Trump argued that Mexico was the outsize beneficiary of Nafta, while American workers suffered job losses and stagnant wages, an argument that played well with segments of the American electorate.   While Mexico is the second-largest destination for American goods, giving it some leverage in responding to actions taken by Mr. Trump, the countries have “a very asymmetrical relationship,” Mr. Castañeda said, meaning that in the end, there is little Mexico can do to apply pressure.   Many Mexicans may lose their jobs. All will suffer from a rapid depreciation of the peso. But an economic crisis could also turn into a migration crisis — exactly what Mr. Trump has campaigned for months to halt.   About 35 million Mexican citizens and Mexican-Americans live in the United States, and the vast majority are either American citizens or legal residents.   Illegal immigration from Mexico has fallen, and the Pew Research Center estimates that more Mexicans are returning to Mexico than are migrating to the United States. But a sudden economic shock could send Mexicans once more to the United States to seek work.   “You generate an economic crisis in Mexico, and all of those gains we have seen in terms of zero migration go down the tubes,” said Agustín Barrios Gómez, a former congressman in Mexico.   Not everyone felt entirely dour about the election results. If there was a silver lining, some said it was that the threat from the outside would force Mexicans to come together.   “I believe having a strong, negative factor right across the border will bring the Mexicans together to work harder, which will be a positive effect,” said Arturo Delgado, the retired director of a technical school.   Some were confident that Mr. Trump’s hostile talk as a candidate would ebb when he took office.   “I don’t see a problem with trade or immigration,” said Raymundo Riva Palacio, a political analyst and columnist.   On trade, Mr. Riva Palacio argued that business groups and governors who supported Mr. Trump, including Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, would impress upon him the importance of remaining in Nafta.   As for the wall Mr. Trump has vowed to build, “it will be very difficult for Donald Trump to obtain the budget,” he said.   He argued that, ultimately, economics would temper Mr. Trump’s policies toward Mexico. But he added that with the House of Representatives and the Senate remaining under Republican control, Mr. Trump’s victory signaled an ideological realignment that had not occurred in the United States since the election of President Ronald Reagan.   “The problem isn’t for Mexico,” Mr. Riva Palacio said. “It’s for the United States.”"
213,"Miami Marlins star pitcher Jose Fernandez killed in boating accident —  Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández, who defected from Cuba at 15 and went on to become one of baseball's brightest stars, was killed early Sunday in a boating accident, Florida authorities said.   Fernández, who was 24, and two other men were found dead after their boat was discovered at the entrance of Miami Harbor, said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Lorenzo Veloz. Coast Guard personnel on patrol noticed the vessel upside down on the north end of a rocky jetty shortly after 3:15 a.m., Veloz said at a news conference. Divers recovered two bodies under the boat, and a third victim was found on the rocks. The names of the two other victims -- also in their 20s -- are being withheld until relatives are notified. The men were Fernandez's friends, Veloz said. Veloz said Fernández's death was a loss to Miami, to baseball and to anyone who ever met him. ""He was pillar to our community. He was involved in everything that he could be to give back,"" Veloz said. ""I had the experience of talking to him several times -- down-to-earth, great person ... I'm sorry I'm getting goosebumps right now. It's really hitting home and it's horrible."" Based on impact evidence and the severity of damage, officials concluded the boat -- a 32-foot SeaVee center console model -- hit the rocks at full speed, Veloz said. Top speed on the boat would be between 50 mph and 65 mph, depending on the engines with which it was equipped, according to SeeVee's website. Fernández was a passenger on the boat, and was not the owner, Veloz said. ""The boat is a total loss right now from what we can see,"" Veloz said. ""It's horrible, it's bad, it's bad."" Drugs and alcohol did not appear to be factors in the accident, he said, but he added that investigators had been been unable to get under the overturned wreckage. Autopsies have not been conducted. None of the three victims was wearing a life vest, he said. ""The magnanimity of his personality transcended culture, religion and race, I mean it just did,"" Marlins President David Samson said at a news conference where he was flanked by the team and other officials. Several people appeared visibly shaken. ""Jose is a member of this family for all time,"" Samson said. ""His story is representative of a story of hope, and of love and of faith, and no one will ever let that story die."" Sunday's game against the Atlanta Braves has been canceled. The Marlins' game against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday was canceled, Samson said. ""When you watch kids playing Little League... that's the joy that Jose played with -- and the passion he felt about playing,"" said Marlins Manager Don Mattingly, stopping midsentence to wipe away tears. He appeared too emotionally shaken to continue. People we've lost in 2016 Fernández was born in Santa Clara, Cuba, and defected to the United States in 2008. Drafted by the Marlins in 2011, he went on to become the franchise's star pitcher, named National League Rookie of the Year 2013 and a two-time All-Star. But his story is about more than baseball accolades, and Mattingly certainly isn't the only person to shed tears over Fernández's death. The oft-smiling Fernández had many friends in the game, owing to his cheerful demeanor and fierce competitiveness. He also owned what Miami Herald sportswriter Dan Le Batard once called a ""rags to pitches"" story that many, especially those in Florida's Cuban-American communities, found inspiring. In 2008, Fernández made his fourth attempt to flee Cuba, according to a 2013 Miami Herald story. He'd been jailed for a previous failed attempt and, this time, was attempting to reach America, via Mexico, with his mother and sister. Once on the open water, the newspaper reported, someone fell off of the boat, and Fernández, a good swimmer, asked no questions; he jumped in to save the person. It turned out to be his mother, Maritza. ""I dove to help a person not thinking who that person was. Imagine when I realized it was my own mother. If that does not leave a mark on you for the rest of your life, I don't know what will,"" he told the Herald. Once in the United States, Fernández had trouble adjusting. Fifteen at the time, he missed his grandmother, Olga, desperately, Le Batard wrote in a 2013 profile. Back home, he was ""really, really poor,"" Fernández told his fellow Cuban-American Le Batard, and he was happy to make $4 a day selling tomatoes and onions. In the U.S., the simplest things, such as computers and motion-activated faucets, eluded him. He wrote phone numbers down in a book because he didn't realize his phone would store them, the profile said. His grasp of English didn't extend much beyond curse words. But there was one language besides Spanish that he understood perfectly: baseball. As a high school sophomore, Fernández threw 94-mph fastballs, as fast as some pros, and he led Braulio Alonso High School to two state championships, Le Batard reported. The Marlins selected him in the first round of 2011 Major League Baseball draft, and he first took the mound for them in April 2013 en route to National League Rookie of the Year honors. It was after that season -- when Fernández told Le Batard how much he missed Olga, who had climbed to her Santa Clara roof with a radio to catch the Marlins games when Fernández pitched -- that the Marlins arranged a surprise. A heartwarming reunion While he conducted an interview in the Marlins locker room that ventured into the topics of his mother and grandmother, whose names he has tattooed inside his bicep, the interviewer asks Fernandez what Olga would tell him if she were there in Miami. ""I don't think she would be here,"" he replied, his sadness evident in his eyes. Little did he know that Olga had arrived in Miami a half hour prior. The Marlins had arranged for her visa. As Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria escorts Olga into the locker room, Fernández beams a boyish grin, clearly in disbelief. He says only, ""Oh,"" as she rushes over to him. His face is bright red as Olga embraces him for the first time in six years. ""Oh my God,"" he says, almost as if he's exhaling. ""You've got to be kidding me."" ""You look so great, papi. You look so great,"" Olga tells him in Spanish as he clutches her, kissing the top of her head. Jeffrey Loria explained the team's motivation in getting Olga to the United States. ""Having watched the dynamic unfold with him, caring about his grandmother so much, it kind of came to our attention here. We have a big family here in this organization and there was a link missing in that family so we closed the gap. We got her here,"" he said. Baseball world stunned News of his death sent shockwaves through the baseball community, with players and fans alike taking to social media to express their grief. ""We are stunned and devastated,"" Major League Baseball said in a statement. ""I've never met anyone who extracted more joy, more passion out of what he did than José Fernández,"" baseball analyst Buster Olney said on ESPN. ""When you watched him pitch, he loved it so much. He had so much emotion."" ""He's sort of the American dream for the Cuban baseball player,"" Le Batard said. ""This kid is a symbol for Cuban life and the things that can be accomplished in this country."" Former MLB pitcher Dan Haren tweeted: ""Jose Fernandez is one of the most genuine guys I've ever played with. He loved life, he loved baseball... he will be missed dearly."" Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred issued a statement saying, ""He was one of our game's great young stars who made a dramatic impact on and off the field since his debut in 2013."" Many fans spoke of their sadness that, having already achieved remarkable sporting success, Fernández's life had been cut short just as he was starting a family. Five days ago, the young star had posted a picture to Instagram of his pregnant girlfriend, with the caption: ""I'm so glad you came into my life. I'm ready for where this journey is gonna take us together."" Baseball fan Matt Birnbach wrote: ""Jose was a reason you watched baseball. He was must-see TV and his personality is what made him great. Absolutely crushed right now."""
214,"Michael Bublé Takes A Break From Singing After Son’s Cancer Diagnosis —  Just one week after Michael Bublé and wife Luisana Lopilato announced that their 3-year-old son, Noah, has cancer, Bublé’s friend and mentor David Foster gave an update on how the singer is coping.   “I think Michael, right now, is in a huge bubble, as you would expect when this happens. Everything shuts down around you,” the composer told Entertainment Tonight Canada, later adding that Bublé “will not sing again until his child is well.”   “I’m certain of it,” he said.   Many fans have reached out to the singer through social media, and Foster said that a few have contacted him wishing to extend their well-wishes and resources to Bublé. Though the diagnosis is heartbreaking, Bublé is “in good shape.”    “He’s got good doctors around him. We will hope and pray for a good outcome, which I believe that they will have,” Foster said, suggesting his fellow Canadian’s “good karma” will come into play.  Last Friday, Bublé and his wife broke the news about Noah’s illness in a Facebook post, asking fans to respect their privacy.   “We are devastated about the recent cancer diagnosis of our oldest son Noah who is currently undergoing treatment in the US,” the statement read. “We have always been very vocal about the importance of family and the love we have for our children. Luisana and I have put our careers on hold in order to devote all our time and attention to helping Noah get well.”"
215,"Michael Douglas raises concerns about Val Kilmer's health —  Actor Michael Douglas has painted a grim picture of his former co-star Val Kilmer's health, but Kilmer insists he's conducting business as usual.   At an event in London Sunday, Douglas told the crowd that Kilmer, with whom he starred in 1996's ""The Ghost and the Darkness,"" is ""dealing with exactly what I had,"" referring to oral cancer, and that ""things don't look too good for him."" Kilmer's health has been a point of concern since last year after reports he was battling cancer. ""My prayers are with him. That's why you haven't heard too much from Val lately,"" Douglas said, according to the Telegraph. Kilmer, however, continues making promotional plans for his movie ""Cinema Twain,"" a filmed version of his one-man play about Mark Twain. In a note posted to Facebook on Monday, Kilmer wrote: ""Hope I see some of you out there on the trail!"" Kilmer did not directly address Douglas' comments, but he did share a possibly telling quote from Twain. ""'The recent news of my death has been greatly exaggerated...' MARK TWAIN. And his values and spirit live on even now! And I'm sure still standing!"" he wrote. One year ago, rumors began to swell about Kilmer's health after it was reported he had been taken to the hospital. He denied them in a Facebook post saying, ""There's a rumor I'm unwell again and in hospital which is totally untrue."" A few months later, he was spotted out with a tracheostomy tube, causing concern. He has since had it removed, according to photos posted to social media. Kilmer's representative has not returned a request for comment. Douglas battled stage four oral cancer but was later declared cancer free."
216,"Michael Moore to Democrats: I told you Trump was going to win —  On Wednesday, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore penned a ""Morning After To-Do List"" for Democrats that has, as of Thursday morning, been shared more than 180,000 times, liked more than 350,000 times, and commented on more than 18,000 times.   Moore also says Democrats must fire the pundits, pollsters, and members of the media who refused to let go of a narrative about the election that proved to be incorrect, force aside any Democratic members of Congress who aren't ready to fight, and remind everyone they meet that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. His No. 4 item, however, might come as a surprise to Democrats who are posting their own status updates on social media about how ""shocked"" or ""stunned"" they are at this outcome.   ""What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren't paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair,"" Moore writes. ""YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew.""   ""Trump's victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him."" As the Independent points out, Moore predicted a Trump presidency in his surprise film, ""Michael Moore in TrumpLand,"" for those same reasons: Working-class middle Americans have lost their jobs, houses, and cars; they have terrible health care plans; they're angry.   Late night hosts offer mix of encouraging messages and punchlines after election ""On Nov. 8, the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth … and put a big f---ing X in the box next to the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the very system that ruined their lives: Donald J. Trump."""
217,"Middle school: The new high school for moms —  If you had to guess what are the most difficult years for a mother, what might you say?   Infancy? Sure, dealing with a newborn is beyond stressful, as you try to figure out how to care for an infant and adjust to a new role all on zero sleep. It would be no surprise if those years were the most taxing. But I -- and probably many of you reading this -- would guess adolescence, namely the high school years, which I might add I am already dreading. But it turns out the most stressful time for moms is middle school, at least according to a new study by Arizona State University researchers published in the January issue of Developmental Psychology. ""I was a little taken aback to see that apparently preadolescence is the new adolescence or junior high school or middle school is the new high school,"" said Suniya Luthar, one of the study's co-authors and a professor of psychology at Arizona State University. The study involved analyzing surveys from more than 2,200 well-educated moms across the country (more than 80% had a college or graduate degree), with children ranging in age from infant to adult. Researchers then compared how mothers who only have children in one age group (infant, preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school and adult) rated their feelings about their lives. Across the board, mothers of only middle-school-age children reported the highest levels of stress, loneliness and emptiness, and also the lowest levels of life satisfaction and fulfillment. Mothers of infants and adults were found to be the most satisfied, Luthar said. This probably shouldn't be a surprise. Think about what's happening to children in middle school: raging hormones, changing bodies and brains, exposure to peer pressure and risky behaviors like experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and a clash between a desire to be independent, but still feeling dependent on Mom and Dad. ""You see this person who is almost but not quite grown-up physically, saying at one moment, 'Leave me alone. I've got this figured out. Let me do it my way,' or 'Don't ask me questions,' and so on, and on the other hand, they (are) crushed in tears, and looking to you for comfort just like a child. They might cry like the children they used to be, but being able to actually comfort them is nowhere near as easy,"" said Luthar, who is also professor emerita at Columbia University's Teachers College. 'It's like I woke up with an alien' What makes this so hard for parents is that the changes often happen so quickly, said Cynthia Tobias, co-author of the book ""Middle School: The Inside Story: What Kids Tell Us, But Don't Tell You."" which involved interviews with hundreds of middle school students across the country. ""For a lot of parents, it's just almost overnight. You hear a lot of times, they'll say, 'It's like I woke up with an alien this morning. Yesterday I had a child who loved to snuggle. Today I have a kid who can't even stand to be around me,' "" said Tobias. The biggest conflicts come when parents don't realize their children are starting to see themselves as young adults and don't respond accordingly, said Sue Acuña, who co-wrote ""Middle School: The Inside Story"" with Tobias, and who has been teaching middle school for more than 20 years. ""When the parents try to treat them as if they're still 8 or 9 years old, there's pushback ... and that catches the parents off guard and then sometimes they panic, 'Oh no. This is what I've always feared in adolescence,' and they come down harder instead of softer,"" said Acuña, who also writes a blog on middle school. Michelle Icard has been working with middle school children and teachers for over 10 years and developed a special middle school curriculum targeting boys and one targeting girls that is used at schools around the country. ""I see these moms ... you can read it on their face,"" said Icard, who is also author of ""Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years."" ""They're highly stressed. They're nervous. They don't know what to do."" Icard said parents would benefit by knowing the facts about middle school, how children are going through what she calls ""the middle school construction project"" as they start to develop a new body, new brain and new identity around age 11.   ""If you know that, for example, your kid has to create an identity apart from you when they are in middle school so that they can form healthy relationships with people in the future, it makes it a little easier to bear so it's not for nothing that your kid is separating and relying on their peers. That's how they figure out their way in the world,"" said Icard, founder of the blog Michelle in the Middle. At the same time our children are going through this ""perfect storm"" of changes, said Icard, many moms are kind of going through ""a middle age construction project."" For moms who chose to stay at home during the elementary school years, this might be the time when they consider going back into the work force, which can be stressful. Mothers are also adjusting to getting older themselves and feeling a bit superfluous, no longer being the center of their child's lives. Some research also shows that marital satisfaction is lower during the teenage years versus the years after a child is born. For all these reasons, Icard suggested moms make sure they have a passion, hobby or something that they enjoy for themselves when their children are in middle school. ""You'll be modeling good self-care for your kid and when things get really tumultuous and they're illogical and they're unpredictable, you have something to dive into that makes you happy and that does a lot for stress reduction."" The 'Botox brow' What parents might not realize is that their children may act like they don't want a relationship with them during the middle school years but they really do, said Tobias and Acuña, who heard over and over again from children who wanted their parents to be involved in their lives. The quandary is that on the one hand, kids will say their mom is always asking them questions such as who are they texting, but on the other hand, they'll say their mom never wants to know what's going on in their lives and never listens, said Acuña. ""I say to them, 'Well, do you want your parents asking questions or not?' "" she said. Their reply? ""Well, they just have to know when it's a good time to ask a question."" I can hear mothers of middle school children screaming at this very moment: How are we supposed to know when it's a good time to ask a question? Acuña, who has three sons, all now in their 20s, described how she would find one of her sons during the middle school years slumped in his bedroom with the door open. She'd walk by and ask if he was OK. Then she'd say, ""Is this where I'm supposed to be concerned parent and talk to you or is there where I'm supposed to give you your space?"" Her son would usually say he was alright, but then as soon as she started to walk away, he'd say something like, ""It's just that I don't understand why people act the way they do,"" she said. That was her cue to slink back into his room, sit on the floor and be prepared to listen. Icard, who has an eighth-grader and a sophomore in high school, said mothers should learn how to listen and become more neutral in their responses by adopting what she called a ""Botox brow."" ""I say to parents. You don't actually have to get Botox. ... but you have to have that look like your brow doesn't wrinkle,"" she said. ""Studies show that kids cannot read facial expressions and their default is thinking you're angry when you're not,"" she said. ""So adopt a 'Botox brow' and have a really neutral face when you're talking to your kid. You'll be surprised how much your kid opens up to you and starts coming to talk to you more."" Middle-schoolers often feel their parents don't take them seriously and sometimes we, as parents, don't, said Tobias, who along with Acuña put together free guides for parents, including ""The No-No List"" for talking to kids in middle school.   ""We'll catch ourselves saying, 'Oh for heaven's sake, wait until you're old enough and you have to pay a mortgage and then you're going to think it's no big deal,' but to them, their whole world right now is middle school so they can't even think in terms of what we're talking to them about sometimes,"" said Tobias, who taught high school for eight years and has written 13 books about learning styles and strong-willed children. ""So I think they just want a little chance to be heard. They want to be understood and listened to and they want to make sure that we do take them seriously."" The importance of not giving up Acuña, who teaches eighth grade, said parents should also realize other communication mistakes they often make with their middle-schoolers, such as interrupting them or finishing their stories. Think how you would feel if someone did that to you as an adult, she said. That is how a child will feel. The most successful kids, she said, in her experience, are the kids who feel their parents have their back no matter what and that even if they mess up, their parents will be supportive. She described her parent-teacher conferences, which are led by the student presenting his or her work to the parent. ""The successful kids, they'll tell their parents, 'Yes, I messed up here. This is what I'm going to do to work on it' and their parents are very supportive,"" she said. ""The anxious kids are the ones who when they say to their parents, 'Well, here's a test I didn't do well on,' the parents go off on them. ... The parents are upset and critical and (say), 'Well you are going to be grounded for that.' These are the kids who are afraid to take risks because they don't feel that their parents will support them."" Figuring out how to talk to your tween or teen and how involved to be could make even the most relaxed parent a tad crazy, but the bottom line from the middle school experts I talked with is that parents should do everything in their power to resist the urge to toss up their hands and give up. ""The parents have this tendency to just (say), 'Fine. You don't want to talk. Just don't talk,' and walk away,"" said Tobias, who has twin 24-year-old sons. ""But the kids themselves, they told us over and over, 'We do want to keep a relationship with our parents. There's so much going on we just can't do it. We hope that they don't walk away.' "" Middle school is not a time to ""tread water and wait out until they go through it,"" said Acuña. ""It's not just a phase they're going through. There are some key things happening and it's a really important time to develop a relationship that will carry you through the teen years and into young adulthood."" Luthar, the researcher and psychology professor who has two kids of her own, ages 21 and 25, agreed and also urged mothers to reach out to other moms of middle-schoolers for support. ""If ever there were truth to the saying, 'It takes a village,' it's now,"" she said. ""It's not it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a preteen."""
218,"Millions exposed to dangerous lead levels in US drinking water, report finds —  More than 18 million Americans are served drinking water by providers that have violated federal laws concerning lead in water, with only a tiny proportion of offenses resulting in any penalty, a new report has found. The toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is “not anomalous”, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report states, with widespread violations of national rules designed to protect people from lead, a known neurotoxin that is harmful even in small doses. NRDC’s analysis of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data shows that 5,363 water systems, which provide water to more than 18 million people, breached the federal Lead and Copper Rule last year. These violations include the failure to properly test water for lead or inadequate treatment of water to prevent lead from leeching from old pipes into the drinking supply. Instructions provided varied greatly, ranging from those that contained protocols the EPA advised against a decade ago to those that were periodically updated Read more The violations occurred across virtually every US state last year. Most seriously, 1,110 community water utilities provided water that exceeded the EPA’s actionable limit for lead in water. This means that more than 3.9 million Americans were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead in 2015. Despite the widespread failure of water suppliers across the US, very few were punished by the EPA last year. Of more than 8,000 violations of federal laws, enforcement action was only taken against 11% of cases. Penalties were sought for just 3% of violations, meaning there is “no cop on the beat”, according to the NRDC. In a statement, the EPA said it recognized there are “ongoing challenges in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule”. “The agency has intensified work with state drinking water programs with a priority focus on implementation of the rule, including engagement with every state drinking water program across the country to ensure they are addressing any high lead levels and fully implementing the current rule,” the regulator said. The EPA said that many water systems that violated the rules in 2015 have already resolved their problems. A revised Lead and Copper rule won’t appear until 2017 at the earliest, despite the widespread problems in Flint and beyond. “Flint symbolizes how disastrous the gaps are in the system and there really is a much broader problem across America,” said Erik Olson, director of NRDC’s health program. “Americans take for granted that the water flowing from their taps is clean and safe but that assumption is often false. “Providing safe drinking water to citizens is a fundamental government service. If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing your job. Unsafe drinking water is a national problem and it needs a national solution.” Flint residents hold bottles of contaminated water after attending a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the water crisis. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images Olson said that water utilities are routinely “gaming the system” to underplay the amount of lead found in water. The Guardian has revealed that at least 33 US cities have used various methods that can mask the true level of lead when conducting tests. In the wake of the Flint water crisis several schools have shut off their drinking water due to high levels of lead, raising the question: ‘How big is this issue?’ Read more The failure of the system to pick up violations is underscored by the fact that Flint wasn’t among the places considered in violation of the Lead and Copper Rule last year. The city, which has a poverty rate of around 40%, failed to treat drinking water to prevent lead corrosion when it switched its supply from Lake Huron to the Flint river. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released this week, lead levels in the blood of Flint children aged under six were “significantly higher” once the supply change was made. The chances of a child having dangerously high lead levels increased by nearly 50% after the switch, the CDC found, risking developmental, behavioral and learning problems for thousands of children in Flint. Flint’s water is now considered by the EPA to be safe to drink if a filter is used. However, some lawmakers have voiced concerns that more needs to be done to avoid a repeat of the disaster that befell the Michigan city. “Flint wasn’t an isolated example,” said Dick Durbin, a Democrat senator. “We need a coordinated effort at all levels, we need people in communities to speak up so they don’t become the next Flint.”"
219,"Missing Australian hiker found after 2 weeks in Malaysian jungle —  Lost in the jungle, Andrew Gaskell had just a day's worth of food.   He was gone two weeks. Gaskell, an Australian hiker who went missing in Malaysia's Mulu National Park, is believed to have survived by eating berries, bananas and wild fruit, according to CNN affiliate Sky News Australia. A search and rescue team found Gaskell alive at about 1 p.m. local time Tuesday, Fire Chief Law Poh Kiong told CNN. Law called it a miracle. Gaskell was covered in leeches and disoriented, according to Sky News. He was ""quite weak,"" but was able to eat some tidbits of food, Law said. ""I don't think he had taken food for almost 10 days,"" Law said. Dr. Jack Wong, the director of Miri Hospital where Gaskell was treated, said he is ""quite stable,"" though he sustained some minor injuries. Wong expects the Australian to recover in a few days. ""He never let's anything phase him, not like the average person. He's very, very mentally strong,"" his friend Mitchell Carnes told Sky News. ""I think that's probably what's pulled him through today."" Nearly 70 people had been searching for Gaskell, 25, for about six days. ""The area where he was going hiking does not have had good mobile coverage so his family was expecting to have difficulties contacting him,"" Gaskell's family told Tasmania Police."
220,"Moldovan Presidential Candidate Criticized For Being A Single Woman —  And we thought U.S. politics was strange at the moment.    Moldovan presidential candidate Maia Sandu isn’t married. And apparently that’s a huge problem for a lot of people, including her country’s leading religious and political figures.   People running for president in Moldova should be married and campaign with their spouses, according to former President Vladimir Voronin, who is chairman of the communist party. Which is part of the reason why he said he refuses to even shake Sandu’s hand.   “She is not married, though everybody knows the rules of the presidential protocol: Appearance in public must be together with spouse,” he told a Moldovan television channel on Monday. “People who will vote for Sandu will make a great mistake. Moreover, let me say honestly – this is a betrayal of family values.”   He didn’t stop there. She is “the laughing stock, the sin and the national disgrace of Moldova,” he added.   Bishop Marchel, one of the Moldovan Orthodox Church leaders, also attacked Sandu. He reportedly issued a statement on Nov. 4 claiming that her “attitude toward Christian morality ... seems to diverge from normal principles.”   She even introduced a “noxious” encyclopedia, titled “Sex Life,” in Moldovan libraries while serving as education minister in 2013, he added.    But Sandu didn’t let these insults go unaddressed.    “I have never thought being a single woman is a shame,” she said. “Maybe it is a sin even to be a woman?” Voronin did also call out Sandu’s opponent, Igor Dodon, who is known for wanting to cozy up to Russia once again.   But he implicitly made it clear that Dodon is a preferable choice to Sandu.   “Nobody is concealing that [Dodon] is indeed a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch,” Voronin said in the same interview.   While Sandu has campaigned on a pro-European Union platform, Dodon believes his views align with those of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.   “America will wear red! Trump’s victory is the victory of American citizens on liberal riots,” he said Wednesday. “The Americans have elected a president who is a proponent of strong conservative and Christian values, who advocates for friendly relations with Russia.”   Moldova’s presidential election heads for a runoff vote on November 13."
221,"Mom Posts C-Section Scar Photo To Show It’s Not ‘The Easy Way Out’ —  A striking postpartum photo is reminding viewers that cesarean sections are not “the easy way out.” U.K. mom of two Jodie Shaw posted a photo of her C-section scar, taken two days after giving birth to her second child, on Instagram. “A new day and a what seems to be another new post from someone insinuating that giving birth by caesarian means that you didn’t give birth,” Shaw wrote in the caption. “Can we please just stop!” The mom said she decided to post the photo to “make people understand that despite what our birth plans might say, sometimes we don’t get a choice.” Shaw, who has a 6-year-old son and 5-month-old daughter explained that she had to give birth to her baby girl via C-section due to a “fibroid the size of a melon” on her cervix and her low-lying placenta. The operation left her with a particularly striking scar. “Whether you believe this or not, I gave birth to my baby,” the mom wrote. “So next time you judge someone for not doing what you consider to be ‘giving birth’ please take a minute to think about why they may have had to deliver that way.” Shaw, who lives in Northampton, concluded her caption with a dose of perspective. “This scar saved me from losing a life threatening amount of blood and meant my baby was brought into this world as she should be. Healthy and unharmed, as was I.” The mom’s Instagram post reached nearly 400 likes on her account and over 800 likes on the 4th Trimester Bodies Project account. Birth Without Fear also posted her photo on Facebook, where it reached over 6,000 likes. Shaw wrote a follow-up post about the photo on the Birth Without Fear blog. In the blog post and an interview with The Huffington Post, Shaw explained specifically why her scar is so different from most C-section scars today. “Because of the positioning of the fibroid and my placenta being low lying, I was told that they wouldn’t be able to reopen the existing scar and that I would have to have what is known as a classical cesarean section,” she said, noting that the procedure is somewhat rare today and involves a long vertical incision.  Shaw said she took the photo back in May while recovering from the operation in the hospital. “The nurses had come to change the dressing, and when they left the room I sneakily took the picture just so I could see what it looked liked,” she said. “To be honest, I was horrified.” The mom never planned to share the photo, but she was inspired to post it after noticing many references to C-sections that suggested the procedure is “not birth.” Shaw said that although she is not personally affected by this view, she knows it hurts many other women.  “I’ve met lots of mums who almost feel like they failed because they had to have a cesarean, and it’s just awful that we should feel that way,” she explained, adding that there are many misconceptions about C-sections. Namely, that it is “the easy option” or for women who think they are “too posh to push.” Shaw said she’s been overwhelmed by the positive, supportive responses from fellow C-section mamas. “People have made me feel proud, which isn’t something I’ve necessarily felt before,” she said, adding, “I love my scar.” Shaw told HuffPost she hopes her story can educate people about different types of births, particularly classical cesarean sections, which are rather “unheard of” today.  Though her specific experience isn’t the norm and her scar has faded to a pink line, she ultimately wants people who see her post to realize that a C-section is not “the easier option” and is still a method of birth.  Said Shaw, “A birth is a birth. It doesn’t matter how you delivered your baby as long as everyone is OK.” Amen."
222,"Mom ‘kicks out’ son for voting Trump in school’s mock election —  A mom tossed her son from the house because he voted for Donald Trump in an elementary school mock election.   “Get your suitcase,” the unidentified Fresno, Texas mom says during the now-viral video. “Get your suitcase and get out. Bye.”   “We don’t do Donald Trump here,” she adds.   –– ADVERTISEMENT ––       She made the child — who bawls as he is walked down the street — stand on a street corner with a sign that read: “My mom kicked me out the house because I voted for Donald Trump.”   “It’s crazy,” says one of the family’s neighbors. “People need to realize when you put certain things on social media, you never know how far it’s gonna go.”   Investigators say the case doesn’t add up to child abuse, and no charges have been filed, according to a report on Houston TV station KTRK.   “I have personally met with the family and saw the child, his well-being. He appears to be in good health,” says Detective Joe Luera of the Fort Bend County, Texas sheriff’s department.   The mother described the incident as “a joke,” Luera said."
223,"Mom, 2 girls killed on Halloween trailer in Mississippi —  U.S. 80 in Newton County is still littered with the spoils of a night meant to be fun for children and families but now holds tragic memories for the small town of Chunky.   Skid marks, accident location paint, dried blood and Skid marks, accident location paint, dried blood and vehicle fluids remain after a pickup truck slammed into a small utility trailer on Monday, Halloween night on U.S. Highway 80 in Chunky, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016. Mississippi Highway Patrol said the crash left a few people killed and several injured. (Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/AP) A pair of shoes lay separately among the candy and in the weeds on the side of the road, apparently knocked from the feet of their owner and left behind when the victims of a Halloween night vehicle accident were transported to hospitals in Jackson and Meridian. Some of them have life-threatening injuries, officials said. The shoes are not far from the scene where Kristina Shaver and her two daughters, Baylee, 8, and Brooke, 2, were fatally injured while riding in a trailer for a Halloween party Monday night.   The trailer was hit from behind by a pickup, authorities said.   The Shavers were among 10 on the trailer, but they were the only fatalities as of Tuesday. Community members said the others injured in the wreck were Shaver's middle child, McKensey, Shaver's sister, Melissa Cook, 31, and her children. Shaver's husband was killed in a car wreck earlier this summer, family friends said. Cook's husband died in 2012.   Kristina Shaver is shown in this photo of a Facebook Kristina Shaver is shown in this photo of a Facebook post. (Photo: The Clarion-Ledger) McKensey Shaver is the last living member of her immediate family. She is in critical condition at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.   UMMC confirmed they are treating five patients. Two pediatric patients are critical, and two are fair. Cook was in critical condition at UMMC as of 3 p.m. Tuesday.   Don Jones, who lives on Chunky Duffee Road, said his wife keeps count of the trick-or-treaters, and that the trailer had come by their home earlier in the evening.   ""She was hollering, 'How cute, how cute!' so I came to the door and they were all there, just precious, just small kids. I guess door steps, you'd call them. And they were just having a good time,"" he said.   The tenor of the night changed when Jones and his family could hear sirens in the distance, he said.   ""When the local fire department takes off, everyone can hear the sirens,"" he said.   Shortly after that, there were three helicopters landing on the ballfield not far from the wreck site, he said.   Mississippi Highway Patrol Spokesman Sgt. Andy West said the vehicle and trailer was turning off U.S. 80 around 7:45 p.m. when a Ford F-150 driven by Chase Cook, 20, who family friends say is not believed to be related to Melissa Cook, drove into the back of the trailer. West said that ""a full investigation will be conducted into the cause of the wreck.""   OTHER AREA ACCIDENT: Fiery fatal auto crash in Jackson   The tire marks on the road, highlighted in orange reconstruction paint, drew a fairly clear picture of where the vehicles collided and where they came to rest in a yard on the side of the highway. But it doesn't answer how or why.   ""It would be inappropriate for us to speculate why the driver drove into the rear of that trailer, and we want to refrain from making any statements until the investigation is complete,"" West said.   The trailer was being pulled by a Jeep driven by Terry Smith, 58, of Chunky.   Newton County Elementary School Principal Jason Roberson said counselors were on campus Tuesday to help students and faculty with the impact of the accident.   ""Any time you deal with loss, it's difficult, but when you're trying to explain it to children it compounds it even more,"" he said. ""What we've focused on is remembering the good times we've had here.""   Roberson said the counselors will remain on campus for the rest of the week.   ""I've never dealt with anything of this magnitude, and it's been a lot to take in,"" he said. ""Everybody's been touched by this.""   Jones said he's praying for the families of the dead and injured. He said he doesn't know Cook, but he's praying for him, too.   ""I pray for him because he's going to be scarred for life to know what happened when he hit that trailer,"" he said."
224,"More veterans today have sleep disorders, new study reveals —  Sleep is very important, and I’m quite sure you know that already. However, some aspects of life–like habits, even smartphones, and stress in work–affect our sleep cycles. A CDC-backed study published in February of this year has found that about a third of Americans aren’t getting enough sleep. Multiple factors affect the country’s snooze patterns, and one of which is routine. Many people, researchers at the CDC say, are not prioritizing sleep.   So how can you force yourself to go early in bed? Well, this new research that we’ll discuss might convince you to review your priorities and put sleep above many, because you still can.   A new study published in the journal SLEEP this month reveals that U.S. veterans are having sleep disorders. James Burch, PhD–the senior author of the research and an associate professor in University of South Carolina–has told the journal’s online publication that their team has seen a very high sleep disorder prevalence of sixteen percent among veterans with PTSD–or post traumatic stress disorder–and it is the highest that they have found among the health conditions and other population characteristics that they’ve examined.   In the sample of more than nine point seven million veterans in America, the age-adjusted prevalence of sleep disorders increased, says researchers, from less than a percent in the year 2000 to about six percent in 2010. That is to say, more of our veterans, about six folds more, aren’t getting enough sleep that they need today.   Researchers has found that among the sleep disorder diagnosis, sleep apnea was the most common with forty-seven percent, followed by insomnia with twenty-six percent. Meanwhile, veterans that have cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic diseases also experienced higher rates of sleep disorder diagnoses compared to those who didn’t have the conditions.   Dr. Burch says they didn’t establish a direct link between PTSD and sleep disorder due to the methodology of the research. However, he also revealed that they have recently completed a follow-up study that will examine such connection."
225,"Mosul Iraq battle: 'Tens of thousands of civilians' used as IS human shields —  Islamic State (IS) militants have abducted tens of thousands of civilians from around the Iraqi city of Mosul to use as human shields, the UN says. The group also killed some 190 former members of Iraq's security services and 42 civilians, apparently for refusing to obey its orders, the UN adds. Iraqi, Kurdish and allied forces have advanced on their push to retake Mosul, IS's de facto capital in Iraq. As many as 1.5 million people are believed to remain there. There are fears IS could use them to defend itself as the operation gets closer to the centre of the city. * How is IS selling the battle for Mosul? * Battle for Mosul: The story so far * Four ways IS is fighting back in Iraq ""Credible reports"" suggested that civilians in sub-districts around Mosul had been forced from their homes and relocated inside the city since the offensive began earlier this month, UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said. Men, women and children from 6,000 families were abducted in areas including Shura, she added. ""Isil's depraved cowardly strategy is to attempt to use the presence of civilian hostages to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations, effectively using tens of thousands of women, men and children as human shields,"" Ms Shamdasani added, using an acronym for IS. She said the allegations had been corroborated by the UN but added that the true number might be greater. * Mosul citizens face 'frenzy' of IS * Turkey-Iraq tensions over Mosul offensive * Dodging ghosts of IS in the desert The UN said last week so-called Islamic State was apparently not allowing families to flee for territory held by the Iraqi army outside Mosul and that civilians suspected of being disloyal to the group appeared to had been targeted. The organisation added that only ""modest"" numbers of people had so far fled Mosul."
226,"Murders up 10.8% in biggest percentage increase since 1971, FBI data shows —  Murders in the US rose 10.8% last year, the biggest single-year percentage jump since 1971, according to data released Monday by the FBI.   The rising violence was driven by an increase in the murders of black men, and by an increase in the number of gun murders. At least 900 more black men were killed in 2015 than in 2014, according to FBI data.   There were roughly 1,500 additional firearm murders in 2015. No other type of weapon saw a comparable increase. The number of knife murders dropped slightly.   The percentage of murders committed with guns increased to 71.5%. The net increase in murders, which follows a two-decade downward trend, erased the gains of the past few years, and put the number of murders back at 15,696, about the same number as in 2009. Murder and violent crime are still dramatically lower than they were at the peak of the violent crime wave of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The national murder rate last year was about half what it was in 1991.   Even as murders rose, the country’s overall crime rates did not increase as substantially. There was a 3.9% increase in the estimated number of violent crimes, but a 2.6% decrease in the estimated number of property crimes.   Speaking at a violence prevention conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, attorney general Loretta Lynch said that, despite an “overall increase” in violent crime, 2015 still represented “the third-lowest year for violent crime in the past two decades”.   Her prepared remarks did not mention the 10.8% increase in murders.   “We still have so much work to do,” Lynch said. “But the report also reminds us of the progress that we are making. It shows that in many communities, crime has remained stable or even decreased from the historic lows reported in 2014.”   A third of the murder increase was driven by upticks in just ten larger cities: Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Washington DC, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Nashville, Kansas City, Missouri, St Louis, and Oklahoma City.   Baltimore saw the greatest increase in murders, with 133 more people killed in 2015 than in 2014, pushing the city to its highest-ever murder rate. Some of America’s largest cities, including New York and Los Angeles, saw their murder numbers remain near historic lows in 2015.   Black men and women face much less violence today than they did in the early 1990s, belying Donald Trump’s claim last week that “our African American communities are in the worst shape they’ve ever been ... ever. Ever. Ever.”              Article Title:More than 40 reported hurt after 2 buses bound for NYC crash in Lincoln Tunnel   Article URL:http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/09/26/more-than-40-reported-hurt-after-2-buses-bound-for-nyc-crash-in-lincoln-tunnel.html   Article author(s)   Article date: September 26, 2016   News source: FoxNews.com    As many as 44 people were hurt after two New Jersey Transit buses headed to New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal crashed in the Lincoln Tunnel.          The crash unfolded around 8:50 a.m. in the tunnel's center tube, Port Authority Police spokesman Joe Pentangelo said. Crews had to cut open the door of one bus.          Pentangelo said most of the injuries weren't considered life-threatening and the most serious was a broken jaw.          One bus, headed from Ridgefield, rear-ended a bus out of Fairview, NJ Transit spokeswoman Lisa Torbic said.          Both buses were removed by 10:25 a.m., but drivers heading into New York City faced major delays.          The Lincoln Tunnel travels under the Hudson River and connects Weehawken, New Jersey, with midtown Manhattan. The Port Authority says 42 million vehicles use the tunnel every year.          The Associated Press contributed to this report."
227,"Muslim woman's clothes set on fire on New York's Fifth Avenue in possible hate crime, police say —  A Muslim woman wearing traditional garments had her clothes set on fire by a man with a lighter as she shopped on a crowded New York City street over the weekend, police said Monday. The 35-year-old was dressed in a hijab and standing outside a Valentino store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan Saturday night, when she felt heat on her left side, according to the New York City Police Department. The woman, who has not been identified, saw that her blouse was on fire and patted out the flames. When she looked up, she noticed a man standing with a lighter in his hand, police said. The man disappeared down a side street, leaving the startled woman with a ""quarter-sized hole"" in her blouse and no injuries, NYPD spokesman Christopher Pisano told The Washington Post. ""The male doesn't say anything and walks away,"" Pisano said. Police are investigating the alleged assault as a hate crime. No one has been arrested and no suspects have been identified. Pisano said the woman was visiting the city from another country; DNAinfo described the woman as a dentist from Glasgow, Scotland. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the incident fit an alarming pattern of attacks on Muslims and Islamic sites in recent months. ""We are clearly seeing a spike in attacks on individual Muslims and Islamic institutions in New York and around the country, which should be of concern to all Americans,"" said Afaf Nasher, director of the group's New York chapter, in a statement posted on Facebook. ""It is time for the mayor and the NYPD to put forward the necessary resources to investigate and prevent these attacks on the Muslim community."" The incident comes just days after a Brooklyn woman allegedly beat two Muslim mothers as they pushed their toddlers in strollers down a busy sidewalk in the borough's ethnically diverse Bath Beach neighborhood. The woman, Emirjeta Xhelili, punched one of the mothers in the face and tried to rip off her hijab while screaming obscenities at them, authorities told the New York Daily News. Xhelili then allegedly tried to grab the other mother's stroller, which was carrying her 15-month-old child, according to the Daily News. Xhelili, 32, was arrested and charged with hate-crime assault. Xhelili is being held on $50,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail, according to the Associated Press. Her lawyer told the Daily News she has no prior arrests. In another attack that has stoked fear in the city's Muslim community, a Queens man in August allegedly shot and killed an imam and his assistant as they left afternoon prayers in the borough's Ozone Park neighborhood. Alauddin Akonjee and Thara Miah were walking together on a weekend afternoon when Oscar Morel came up behind them and shot them execution-style in their heads, authorities said. Morel, who is charged with murder, has denied killing the men."
228,"Myanmar 'child slavery' outrage sparks investigation —  The Burmese president has ordered an investigation into the case of two girls who say they were kept prisoner and tortured for five years in a tailor shop. The teenagers were freed last week after a journalist helped them, but their families say that the police had on numerous occasions refused their pleas to get involved. This Wednesday, with the case now generating headlines, the police finally arrested the tailor and two family members. The two girls were aged just 11 and 12 when they were sent by their parents to the commercial capital Yangon. For poor Burmese families it's a painful but depressingly common decision. The United Nations estimates that at least a million Burmese children are forced to give up on education and go to work. These girls became maids in a tailor shop in the centre of Yangon. But what started as paid work allegedly turned into modern-day slavery. The girls say they were denied contact with their parents, were unable to leave and were no longer being paid. Then there was the abuse. Visited by the French news agency AFP in their village after their release, the girls had injuries and scars on their arms which they say were inflicted by their captors. ""I have a scar from where an iron was stamped on my leg and a scar on my head as well,"" one of the girls, now 16, told AFP. ""This was a wound from a knife, because my cooking was not OK,"" she said, showing a mark on her nose. The other girl, now 17, has burnt, twisted fingers - the consequence, she says, of them being broken deliberately by her captors as punishment. The allegations of mistreatment are shocking, but it's the authorities handling of the case that has really enraged the Burmese public. Many see it as further proof of a judicial system stacked against the poorest and most vulnerable. On several occasions over the last five years, the girls' families say they asked the Burmese police for help and were turned away. It was only when a journalist called Swe Win became involved that things started to move. He approached the police, who again refused to help, before taking the matter to the national human rights commission. To its credit, the commission did act, negotiating with the tailor for the girls' release and for a payment equivalent to about 4,000 dollars (£3060) to be made, effectively as back-pay. But there was public outcry when it emerged that no further measures were taken against the girls' alleged abusers. ""We figured at the time that we could solve the case satisfactorily to all parties involved with a compensation settlement,"" U Zaw Win, a member of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission told an angry news conference in Yangon. With the girls' story now front page news and reverberating around social media, the Burmese police were finally spurred into action. On Wednesday evening the tailor was arrested, along with her two adult children. They all now face charges related to human trafficking. Questions are now being asked as to why it took so long for the authorities to get involved. In a rare public intervention, President Htin Kyaw released a statement. He said he had instructed the relevant ministries to assist and protect the girls, their families and the journalist Swe Win from possible reprisals. The president has also asked for a report on how the police handled the case and said he would be taking a close look at the work of the human rights commission. Swe Win is receiving a presidential award for his work on the case."
229,"Narendra Modi Defends Currency Move as Millions in India Scramble for Cash —  Voice quivering, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dramatically countered criticism of his surprise ban on most currency in circulation in India, a bold attack on corruption that crippled business at stores and markets around the country as millions scrambled for cash to meet even basic needs.   “My fellow citizens, I left my home, my family, all that I left for my country,” Mr. Modi said, pausing to compose himself as he raised his left arm skyward and pounded his chest.   “Did you vote for me to abolish corruption?” he thundered, a rhetorical question from a man who led his party to victory two years ago with promises to fight corruption and promote economic development. “If you asked me, should I do it or not?” he bellowed.   Mr. Modi delivered the speech at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new airport in Goa. Known for its beautiful beaches, Goa is one of five Indian states with local elections in the coming months, and Mr. Modi’s speech seemed aimed in part at using his anticorruption move for political gain. But for the most part, it was a response to the biting criticism from opposition leaders who argued that poor Indians were struggling to make ends meet as a result of his ban on the existing 500-rupee and 1,000-rupee notes, worth $7.50 and $15. Mr. Modi said last week that the public could get new large currency notes at banks and smaller denominations at A.T.M.s, but people have faced waits of many hours at banks that at times have run out of cash, and many bank machines are not working or have run out of money.   Mr. Modi appealed to the public to bear the inconvenience for the promise of a nation free of “black money” — unaccounted-for cash on which taxes have not been paid.   Even as people jostled in lines that continued to be several hours long over the weekend, many interviewed seemed willing to accept monumental inconveniences if Mr. Modi’s policy would reduce their country’s endemic corruption.   Tanvir Sheikh, 38, a hairdresser to Mumbai’s elite, told of suffering personally and professionally since Mr. Modi’s ban went into effect. Mr. Sheikh had to cut short his family’s Goa vacation and return to Mumbai on Thursday because he was carrying cash that was no longer usable and his hotel did not take credit or debit cards.   He spent five hours in line at his bank branch here, only to reach a teller who had run out of the new notes. And on Sunday, when he usually has appointments all afternoon for haircuts and color treatments at Beau Monde salon in the neighborhood of Colaba, only one client showed up, the rest lacking the cash to pay.   His family was surviving on 1,500 rupees in small-denomination notes that he fished out of his daughter’s piggy bank, he said.   “I am willing to handle all of this if this will really reduce corruption,” Mr. Sheikh said as he held a blow-dryer to his sole client’s hair in the otherwise empty salon.   A Mumbai taxi driver, Girja Prasad Goswami, 48, said his daily earnings had been cut in half, to 300 rupees, since Mr. Modi’s ban went into effect. He was not sure how he would send money to his wife and three daughters in his home village in Uttar Pradesh if business did not pick up. Yet he said, “If it’s going to help the nation, I am willing to continue.”   In banning the two largest currency notes on Tuesday, Mr. Modi aimed to reduce the use of unaccounted-for cash in India, where experts have estimated that one-third of transactions are made this way. With the sudden ban, Mr. Modi rendered vast caches of unaccounted-for cash useless.   Mr. Modi, in his Sunday speech, asked the public for 50 days of forbearance for a transition to new bills of 500 and 2,000 rupees. Complicating that transition is the fact that many of the country’s approximately 200,000 A.T.M.s are not working. Those that are working are quickly running out of 100-rupee notes, and none of the machines are capable of dispensing the new 2,000-rupee notes, which are a different size from the previous notes.   The finance minister, Arun Jaitley, said recalibrating the A.T.M.s to dispense the new notes would take as long as three more weeks. The machines were not recalibrated before last week’s edict; by keeping the move a secret, officials prevented big holders of unaccounted-for money from outwitting the ban.   The Finance Ministry said on Sunday that Indians had deposited about $45 billion in banned currency notes since the policy began. Banks and A.T.M.s had given out $7.5 billion in new currency notes during that time, the ministry said.   At a State Bank of India branch in the New Ashok Nagar neighborhood in New Delhi, about 300 people had been waiting in line for two hours when the bank opened at 10 a.m. Sunday. But word immediately spread that the bank’s computer server was not working and that no business could take place until it came back online.   As Murli Manohar Mehta, the bank manager, frantically dialed his technology engineers, the crowd grew larger and angrier and began shouting slogans. The lone security guard cowered until two police officers showed up to help.   “We are trying hard to serve the people,” Mr. Mehta said in an interview. “But now I am helpless. What can I do if the server is not operating?”   A day earlier, the crowd grew so angry that it broke the steel grille on the bank door, he said. None of the several A.T.M.s within walking distance of the bank were dispensing cash Sunday morning.   Sunil Kashyap, 35, running an electrical store in East Delhi, said his sales had fallen 50 percent. The problem was that nobody had cash to pay for purchases, he said. His customers kept trying to make him accept the banned notes, but he was refusing, he said, adding, “What will I do with those notes?”   Still, Mr. Kashyap supported Mr. Modi’s ban, saying: “It is like a bitter pill. It will give relief in the long term.”   Near Delhi’s celebrated Khan Market, most of those who were angry about the ban said they were suffering for no reason.   In line at an HSBC bank machine, two students offered scathing words about the ban’s effect on poorer Indians, who were missing work because they were standing in line at A.T.M.s. “The actual black money,” said Muskan Sandhu, 21, a literature student, “is stashed away in Swiss bank accounts.”"
230,"New Global Warming study warns: desert in Southern Spain in the future —  Climate scientists from France shared a study this week about the possible grim future awaiting the country of Spain, and the Earth as a whole.   They warned that if climate change continues, deserts in the Middle East will expand to the Mediterranean and even reach Southern Spain, transforming today’s deciduous forests into barren lands hostile for plants and animals, and of course including humans.   Last year, hundreds of countries around the globe have signed a non-binding agreement. Known as the Paris Agreement, its main goal is to stop global warning by implementing and keeping long-term solutions. The target is to keep temperature rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.   If it fails, French scientists, with co-author Joel Guiot from the French National Centre of Scientific Research, warned that Southern Spain would transform from salubrious forests to a desert.   The study was published in the journal Science. Its authors say they’ve used climate models and historical data to predict the changes in the Mediterranean if the Paris Agreement fail.   Pollen Records   The team examined the changes in the Mediterranean environment during the last ten-thousand years using pollen records to gauge the effect of temperatures to plant life. They came up with four scenarios based on different concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.   Three of the four scenarios are already widely used by scientists for predicting the climate while the remaining one was designed to see what would happen if global warming remains at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius this century.   Researchers have found that when global warming hits 2 degrees, deserts would expand in Spain, Near East and North Africa. Vegetation in the said regions would undergo a significant change from the coasts to the mountains.   What’s Next?   Many leaders and strategists predict that changes in temperature affecting lands and how people live could impact global security. In one of his SOTU or State of the Union addresses, President Barack Obama said that we should start the development of clean energy resources to avoid more conflicts. In addition, he criticized those so-called non-believers.   “If anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You will be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it,” he said.   Earlier this month, several news websites reported that the President has shifted blame from Assad to climate change as the cause of the deadly Syrian Civil War.   “There’s already some really interesting work, not definitive, but powerful, showing that the droughts that happened in Syria contributed to the unrest and the Syrian civil war,” he said during the South By South Lawn event at the White House."
231,"New data shows airline discrimination complaints jumped 37 percent —  The Transportation Department is making more data available about complaints of racial, ethnic and religious discrimination filed against the airlines, the agency said Tuesday.   The department said it was releasing the data to the public in an attempt to be more transparent about such complaints and how they are handled. The move comes as groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have reported a growing number of “flying while Muslim” incidents in which Muslims were barred from boarding or were removed from their flights. CAIR lawyers have also complained that nothing happens when those passengers have filed complaints against the airlines. The Transportation Department, in releasing its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, said the agency was introducing data on discrimination complaints in response to concerns about discriminatory treatment by the airlines and a jump in such complaints this year. (These complaints — based on federally protected criteria such as race, national origin and religion — are compiled separately from complaints regarding the treatment of people with disabilities.) The agency said Tuesday that the Aviation Consumer Protection Division received 67 discrimination complaints in the first nine months of 2016, up from the 49 complaints received in the same period last year, a 37 percent increase. Fifty-two of this year’s complains involved race, eight were based on national origin, one “regarding color,” two involving religion and four involving allegations of sex discrimination, the agency said.   In September alone, the agency received six discrimination complaints, including three that alleged racial discrimination, two involving national origin and one involving religion. That number was down from the number of complaints in September 2015 and from August of this year, the agency said.   As for complaints regarding the treatment of disabled passengers, the department received a total of 61 complaints in September, down from 116 in September last year.   The monthly report — which also includes data on airlines’ on-time performance, flight delays, baggage handling, incidents involving animals and other issues — also found that carriers canceled only 0.3 percent of their scheduled domestic flights in September 2016, the lowest since January 1995. The August 2016 cancellation rate was 1.4 percent, the agency said."
232,"Next problem for flood-ravaged Louisiana: Population loss —  The next blow to hit Louisiana after the flood waters recede could be residents deciding they have no choice but to leave. Volunteers who are helping the tens of thousands of people who have lost homes to flooding say few people have said they are definitely leaving the state. But it is a topic of discussion among many people. ""I think everybody is still in shock. But they're in a holding pattern until they see what help might be available,"" said Janet Rhodus, head of a Louisiana non-profit who has been volunteering in the flood area near Baton Rouge. When a state loses population, it's a further drag on its economy, cutting into amount of money spent at its businesses or the taxes that can be collected to support needed government services. The population of Louisiana tumbled 6% in the year after hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered the area in 2005, and it took more than five years for the population to climb back to pre-storm levels. It's unlikely Louisiana will face an exodus on that scale this year. Flood victims have not been sent to out-of-shelters like they were following the 2005 catastrophes. But the economy of Louisiana was stronger going into the 2005 storms, leaving some worried that some flood victims will be forced to move elsewhere this time. Part of the problem this time that could send people out of state is a shortage of available housing. The Baton Rouge housing market was already very tight before the storm, said Ginger Maulden, president-elect of the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors. That housing crunch is going to get worse, she said. More than 60,000 homes are believed to have been damaged by flooding. ""Right now people are living with family members, trying to assess what has happened,"" she said. ""Rebuilding will be hard for a lot of people. A lot of people did not have flood insurance."" Adding to the problem, Rhodus said, is the number of small businesses which have been closed due to the flooding and may not be able to reopen. That coupled with the loss of jobs in the oil industry in Louisiana in recent years due to the declining price of oil will make it difficult for some affected by flooding to find work. ""A number of businesses are not rebuilding at all,"" she said. ""People are going to have to relocate to find work and feed their families."" Louisiana already has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the nation at 6.3%. It has lost 2,000 oil and gas drilling jobs in the last two years. ""An economy is generally left no worse off because of a natural disaster because of the aid and insurance money that comes in,"" said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Analytics. ""But for an economy on the ropes, it may send people away, and that would make a bad situation worse."""
233,"Nigeria investigates reports that officials raped displaced women —  Nigeria has launched an investigation into reports alleging that government officials raped and sexually abused women and girls who survived Boko Haram violence.   The move comes after Human Rights Watch published a report detailing accounts by dozens of women and girls who said they were sexually abused or coerced into sex. The women said they were raped or abused by camp leaders, vigilante group members, policemen and soldiers at camps in Borno State's capital, Maiduguri. The camps were set up to offer aid to people displaced by fighting in Nigeria's northeast. Nigeria's Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has set up a special team ""to immediately commence thorough Investigation into all cases of alleged sexual abuses, exploitation, harassments, gender-based violence and professional misconduct,"" a statement from the inspector general's office said Thursday. Police: Security at camps to be beefed up Some of the victims had escaped captivity by terror group Boko Haram, only to become victims at the camps where they sought refuge, the rights group said. Many of the women were impregnated by their abusers at the camps. Several victims were drugged before they were raped. The inspector general called on HRW to make available to the investigation team any additional information about the 43 cases of abuse featured in the report that could assist the police inquiry. He has taken measures to beef up security at the camps and said any acts that violate the human dignity of displaced people by individuals or groups in the camps or anywhere in the country will be handled in accordance with the law, according to the statement. Borno State governor: 'We must act now' Following the HRW report, Borno State Gov. Kashim Shettima has revealed plans to request law enforcement agencies to deploy female and male undercover detectives to all camps for internally displaced people in Borno State ""to spy on culprits and bring them to book,"" according to a statement from his office. ""Sadly and very sadly indeed, the (Internally Displaced People) camps have become avenues that horrible stories of sexual slavery, prostitution rings, drug peddling and other social vices are emanating from,"" the governor said. ""Sexual harassment of female IDPs is a desperate situation,"" he said. ""None of us would fold arms if his or her daughter is in position to be sexually harassed, so we must act now."" Displaced by fighting Dubbed the world's deadliest terror group, Boko Haram has launched attacks in northern Nigeria and surrounding areas for years. More than 20,000 people have been killed since 2009 when the conflict began. Nearly 2.5 million have been displaced. Boko Haram, which in the local Hausa language means ""western education is sin,"" wants to institute a strict form of Sharia law in Nigeria. Its mass abductions and attacks on soft targets, including schools, mosques and churches, have prompted stark international condemnation."
234,"Nigerian police investigating video of boy beaten and set ablaze for 'stealing porridge' —  The Nigerian police are investigating a video of a boy being beaten and set on fire after allegedly stealing some food. The footage emerged earlier this month with some people claiming the assault occurred in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub. The footage shows a crowd beating the boy who has been accused of stealing garri (cassava porridge). The victim is beaten with stones before being tied up and set on fire. He reportedly died of his injuries.   There seems to be confusion on both the location and the age of the victim. Some reports initially alleged the boy was seven years old and attacked by an angry mob in Lagos. However, others have claimed the victim was in his twenties and was part of an armed-robbery gang.   Police said on Thursday (17 November 2016) that nothing in the video suggested the assault took place in Lagos.   ""Preliminary investigation is ongoing, as the Command is assuring the members of the public that if it actually happened in Lagos, perpetrators of such [a] barbaric act will be arrested and prosecuted as it will not tolerate jungle justice to be meted out to anyone, regardless of any offence such person have committed,"" Dolapo Badmos, Lagos police spokesperson, was quoted by the Premium Times as saying.   The footage, largely shared on social media, sparked outrage with people calling on authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice and put an end to what they called the 'jungle justice system."
235,"Nine still missing in Kisii building tragedy —  Rescue teams have intensified efforts to save more people trapped in the rubble of the 10-storey structure that tumbled down in Kisii Town.   A hen was pulled out of the debris alive at the crack of dawn Sunday, raising hops of finding more survivors of the Thursday tragedy.   Two more bodies were pulled out on Saturday night, pushing the death toll to nine.   Disaster officials led by Pius Maasai clarified that the death toll still remains nine and not ten as reported earlier.   VICTIM SHOUTING   “We are still optimistic of getting more survivors,” Mr Maasai told Nation.co.ke team at the scene. One victim was heard shouting under the rubble for help on Saturday, making the rescue teams to accelerate rescue efforts.   The rescue efforts are jointly coordinated by Kenya Defence Forces, Kenya Red Cross and St-John Ambulance personnel.   Military officers on site say a well recently drilled underneath the building might had triggered its collapse.   “We suspect that the drilling might have destabilised the storey building, causing its fall,” said Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Maritim.   DEVELOPER HIDING   National Construction Authority Nyanza Region Lukas Aduera said the developer of the building has since gone into hiding.   “We appeal that wherever he is, he should surrender to the police to assist with the investigations,” he said.   Kisii Deputy Governor Joash Maangi urged a stop to the ongoing blame game on who was responsible and urged rescue teams to step up efforts to save more lives.   “The county and national governments should stop the blame game and focus on rescue operations. The authorities will take action once rescue operations end,” he said.   At least nine people are yet to be accounted for, according to Mr Maasai.   MORE TOOLS   He said they are midway way the task and hope to end it by Tuesday this week.   “We are hastening efforts to ensure we save those still trapped in the concrete,” he said.   The material used to make the concrete slabs and floors of the house, he said, were dense, slowing down the rescue efforts.   “We have sent for more machinery because the material used to construct this building are very strong. We are yet to determine how it came down yet the materials look strong,” he said.   He said additional cutters, compressors and drillers had been ordered to help them cut through the rubble.   WALLS CAVED   He appealed to construction companies to join in the recovery efforts.   “We will find a way to compensate anyone who will offer their machinery in this rescue operation,” said Mr Maasai.   He urged the NCA and surveyors to urgently assess two adjacent buildings that were affected to ascertain their safety.   One of the buildings, a residential flat, has since been evacuated after one of its walls caved in.   “The two structures pose a danger to our rescue operations as they are in danger of coming down on top of the fallen structure which may complicate the situation further,” said Mr Maasai.   CONTRACTORS WARNED   Meanwhile NCA Board of Director boss Steve Oundo said all buildings in Kisii Town will be assessed by the agency to ensure they were safe for occupation.   He warned contractors, developers and architects against endangering the lives of innocent Kenyans by violating construction procedures.   “Professionals and Kenyans in general in all sectors have to start following regulations on their own to prevent such tragedies,” he said.   He urged government agencies to coordinate with the authority to bring down structures that pose danger to Kenyans.   Mr Oundo said this was the second incident this year after that of Huruma in Nairobi County in which a building collapsed, killing 49.   He said the developer of the ill-fated Kisii house should be blamed because he failed to heed to NCA warning."
236,"North Carolina GOP condemns KKK parade honoring Trump —  The North Carolina Republican Party condemned the Ku Klux Klan on Friday after the racist group announced a parade in the Tar Heel State to celebrate President-elect Donald Trump's win.   ""We are disgusted and condemn this extremist ideology and associated actions in the strongest possible terms,"" NC GOP Chairman Robin Hayes said in a statement provided to CNN. ""These acts and thought processes are no reflection of the heartbeat of this great country and are counter to the efforts to make America great again. We stand with the Democratic Party in calling these out-of-state troublemakers to go home."" Trump campaign denounces KKK's official newspaper's support The Loyal White Knights of Pelham, North Carolina, announced on its website that its parade will take place on December 3. Details for the parade, including where it would take place, were not immediately available, and a message left with the group was not immediately returned Friday night. The website read, ""TRUMP = TRUMP'S RACE UNITED MY PEOPLE"" Trump's campaign quickly condemned the parade, saying, ""Mr. Trump and his team continue to disavow these groups and individuals and strongly condemn their message of hate,"" according to Trump's spokeswoman, Hope Hicks. This isn't the first show of support Trump has received from the group. Earlier this month, the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan expressed its support for Trump on the front page of its current issue, a move the Trump campaign also quickly denounced. Trump, however, often was reluctant to disavow support from white supremacists during the campaign. Most memorably, he repeatedly demurred when asked by CNN's Jake Tapper if he disavowed former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke."
237,"North Korea’s Deadly Floods —  Heavy flooding triggered by Typhoon Lionrock over the weekend prompted an unusual appeal for help by the government of North Korea, which called the deadly natural disaster the “the strongest storm and heaviest downpour” the country has experienced in decades.   North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday the governing Worker’s Party called on its members and service personnel to help respond to the flooding that has caused the destruction of tens of thousands of homes, public buildings, roadways, power systems, and other critical infrastructure located primarily in the country’s Northeastern Hamgyong province. At least 133 people have been killed, according to a report by the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and nearly 400 remain missing.   OCHA, citing North Korean government data, estimates at least 140,000 people are in need of emergency assistance, three-fourths of whom have been internally displaced.   The natural disaster prompted the government to redirect its 200-day loyalty campaign, aimed at mobilizing national support for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, to assist those affected by the floods. Such public admissions of needing help by North Korea, however, are rare. CNN explains:   ""It's not unheard of, but it's rare for the North Korean government to make an open and public call for assistance,"" Bradley Williams, a international relations professor at City University in Hong Kong, told CNN. … ""Considering North Korea made this call in English, perhaps there is a distant hope that given the scale of the disaster, maybe the international community might respond,"" said Williams. The news of the natural disaster follows North Korea’s announcement Friday that it had successfully conducted its fifth nuclear test, which drew widespread international condemnation. Though further sanctions were threatened against the country, the North Korean government called the warnings “highly laughable.”"
238,"Obama's misguided plan to connect schools to the Internet —  Even during times of political gridlock, connecting schools to the Internet has always received bipartisan support. Politicians ranging from Bill Clinton to Newt Gingrich have endorsed the concept, and the federal government has funneled billions of dollars annually to boost Internet access for students under a twenty-year-old policy called “E-Rate.”   E-Rate is almost the perfect Washington D.C. program. It hits the hot buttons of education, technology, and good jobs at good wages in one shot and spreads federal monies to vendors and consultants in every corner of the country. And no politician has ever been defeated for public office by touting improved Internet connections at local schools.   But in a large study of students in North Carolina, two colleagues and I recently found that the actual benefits for students—the kids the program is supposed to help—are about zero. In fact, our research found that the E-Rate program marginally hurt student performance rather than helped it.   In the 1990s, boosting computers in the classroom was all the rage on both sides of the aisle. Clinton and his Vice President, Al Gore, gave campaign speeches that touted E-Rate in the 1990s. Gingrich went even bolder, suggesting that the government ensure a laptop computer for each public school student, K-12. In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act by bipartisan majorities. Two years later, the funds from the E-Rate program began flowing to schools. Since then, over $40 billion has gone to wire schools and libraries to spur broadband adoption.   Under E-Rate, school districts apply to the federal government for subsidies to enhance Internet connections. The funds come in the form of discounts, from 20 percent to 90 percent, on the cost of installations or services. Schools with more students from disadvantaged households receive higher discounts.   At first glance, the program makes sense. Modern data networks can be powerful educational tools, so connecting more students to the Internet would stimulate learning. But in classrooms where students actually log on for their lessons, is there compelling evidence that additional dollars for more and faster broadband will grow youngsters’ brains?   The president believes there is. In 2013, Obama pointed to the school district in Mooresville, North Carolina as an example of how students benefit from broadband expenditures. The Mooresville school district upgraded its computer facilities and purportedly saw a surge in student achievement. The president declared the question decided, and proposed expanding the $2.25 billion E-Rate budget to $4 billion a year. The Federal Communications Commission quickly enacted the plan under authority granted to the agency in 1996.   The reality is that independent academic research has tended to find zero or negative results. Indeed, Obama’s own first-term chief economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, co-authored a study a decade ago showing that pupil achievement scores in California exhibited no gains with improved classroom computer access. A 2014 study of ninth-graders in Portugal found that those spending more time connected to the Internet had lower learning achievement scores.   To investigate the impact of E-Rate and to focus on the current example proffered by the President, my colleagues (Ben Schwall of Clemson and Scott Wallsten of the Technology Policy Institute) and I studied how broadband subsidies in North Carolina related to learning. Gathering data on all public high schools in the state from 2000-2013, including how much E-Rate funding was sent to schools, we investigated how SAT scores in math and verbal reasoning changed with increased Internet subsidies. Holding other school and socio-demographic factors constant, the changes were small but the finding was statistically significant. Except the relationship was negative. In other words, the more E-Rate funding a school received, the worse its students performed.   Whatever the impact of Internet access on test scores, the fact today is that virtually no schools are left without broadband links. In fact, by 2005, the Department of Education found that virtually every U.S. school had Internet access; by 2008, 98 percent had broadband and 94 percent of classrooms were wired for high-speed connections. That E-Rate was responsible for this increase in connectivity is dubious, but regardless, the task of bringing the Internet to schools seems to be long ago complete. Nonetheless, the funds have kept flowing, cheered on by school press releases and technology salesmen hitting their quotas. In affluent Montgomery County, Maryland, over ten million federal dollars were budgeted for “Promethean Boards” (aka “Smart Boards”) from 2013 to 2017—despite the fact that the federal rules state that E-Rate is to be used for connections and not for computers or devices.   Numerous evaluations by the Government Accountability Office have cited lax oversight and non-existent program evaluations. Amazingly, ultra-orthodox Jewish schools in New York have collected millions in E-Rate funds despite having no computer access, which would conflict with their strict policy against students’ use of digital media at home or on campus. In reporting on the FBI investigation into the matter, The Forward wrote that the “program has been plagued with fraud over its two-decade existence.”   For years, elementary schools have bragged about third graders doing assignments in Power Point, seemingly preparing 8 year-olds for the workplace of tomorrow. But such programs do not teach the truly useful skill of computer coding, and while computer literacy is probably a positive, the software of 2029 will not likely look just like the Power Point of today. On the flip side, many net resources, like the rightly acclaimed Kahn Academy, do not require ultra-high bandwidth connections, suggesting that pouring extra billions into more advanced networks is a costly diversion.   Perhaps almost as perverse as subsidies that lower student performance is the funding source. The “universal service fund” pays for E-Rate with a 17.9 percent tax on long distance telecommunications. The term may sound odd; “long distance” is an artifact of the past for most Americans. However, international calls over plain old telephone network are still made, mostly by Latin American migrants living in the U.S. The telecommunications levy hits them particularly hard. More affluent households, on the other hand, use Facetime, Skype and other apps that avoid the tax.   A recent “teachable moment” epitomizes the basic challenge in educational technology today. In 2013, the L.A. Unified School District committed $1.3 billion to give an Apple iPad to each of its 640,000 students. The program was a “debacle,” wrote Wired. Kids almost instantly hacked their way out of the firewalls that limited access to inappropriate sites, while customized software proved inoperable. When kids lost or damaged a unit, administrators fumbled for a policy to fix or replace it. Teachers were forced to shelve computer projects, returning to traditional lesson plans. But that retreat became more challenging as many kids were distracted by unlocked iPads costing $768 each.   The best part of the program was that the disaster was so astonishingly quick and thorough that it was suspended after “only” $100 million was squandered.   Here’s a new idea: Suspend the E-Rate program until the theory behind it passes an objective performance test. Using online data sources, we can see if subsidies for broadband improve student understanding. If results mirror our research, and outcomes remain negative, the program should be terminated.   If further evidence quantifies positive impacts, those gains should be compared to different ideas for using $4 billion annually, such as teacher incentives, superior principals, more vouchers, tax credits or charter schools. Only if E-Rate is the best use of money should Congress reinstate the program. If we want our children to learn something important using computers, we should start by showing them that we can, as well."
239,"Oklahoma police to release video of deadly shootout with Michael Vance —  The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is expected to release dashcam video that shows a car chase and deadly gun battle with a man suspected in a series of violent crimes across the state.   Capt. Paul Timmons says the video will be released Tuesday at a press conference at the Department of Public Safety's headquarters in Oklahoma City.     Troopers shot and killed 38-year-old Michael Vance on Sunday near Leedey, 130 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.   Vance was suspected in a string of violent crimes across the state, including the killing of two relatives and the shooting of three law enforcement officers. He was the subject of a weeklong manhunt. Authorities believe Vance had been camping in a remote area near the western Oklahoma town of Hammon."
240,"One Family’s Struggle With Microcephaly, the Birth Defect Now Linked to Zika —  The morning after Christine Grounds gave birth to her son Nicholas, she awoke to find a neurologist examining her baby. It was summer 2006, and Nicholas was her first child. There had been no indication that anything was wrong during her pregnancy, but it was soon clear that there was a problem. “Did you know he has microcephaly?” she remembered the doctor asking matter-of-factly. Confused, she replied, “What is microcephaly?” This was before the Zika virus had spread from Brazil across South and Central America and the Caribbean and reached Florida. It was before doctors had determined that the virus could cause microcephaly, a birth defect in which children have malformed heads and severely stunted brain development. And it was before people had seen the devastating pictures of scores of newborns with the condition in Brazil and elsewhere. Ms. Grounds, a 45-year-old psychotherapist, and her husband, Jon Mir, who live in Manhattan, had no idea what microcephaly would mean for them or for their child. “We had a diagnosis but no prognosis,” recalled Mr. Mir, 44, who works in finance. The doctors could offer few answers. “We don’t know if he will walk,” the couple recalled being told. “We don’t know if he will talk. He might be in a vegetative state.” But the truth was, even the doctors did not know. As mosquito season draws to a close in much of the country, taking with it the major risk of new Zika infections, there are still more than 2,600 pregnant women who have tested positive for the virus in the United States and its territories, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They, and thousands more around the world, face the prospect of giving birth to a child with microcephaly. Like other neurological disorders, microcephaly runs along a spectrum and its severity can vary widely. Zika-related microcephaly is believed to be somewhat different from microcephaly caused by genetics or other factors, but the result is largely the same: mental impairment that can run from mild to devastating. Detecting the condition before a child is born remains difficult and often impossible until very late in pregnancy — a fact that has renewed and fueled political debates about abortion and made an already difficult choice for prospective mothers even more agonizing. Watching the unfolding epidemic and concerned that many people did not grasp what it meant to raise a child with microcephaly, Ms. Grounds offered to share her family’s experience. “I was hysterically crying all the time,” she recalled of her son’s early days. By the time Nicholas was 2, his developmental problems started to become evident. He crawled awkwardly, did not start to walk on time and would not make eye contact with others. Fortunately, New York City has a robust early intervention program for toddlers with developmental problems, and Nicholas was able to get special instruction and care. Unfortunately, that care ends after three years. While the city’s special education program in the public school system gets generally high marks for helping children with conditions like autism, it is exceedingly difficult to provide the kind of care needed by children like Nicholas. “A child with microcephaly needs scaffolding around every aspect of his life,” Mr. Mir said. This summer, the C.D.C. and the American Academy of Pediatrics published interim guidelines on how to evaluate and care for infants born with Zika-related microcephaly. They include a coordinated evaluation by multiple specialists within a baby’s first month of life, and then additional assessments of vision, hearing, feeding, growth, and neurodevelopmental and endocrine function during the first year. Families and caregivers also need support. The C.D.C. put the cost of care for each child at $10 million over a lifetime. Ms. Grounds is quick to note that her family is more fortunate than many others because they can afford for Nicholas to get the best possible care and to enroll him at Manhattan Star Academy, a private school on the Upper West Side. When Nicholas, who shares his father’s surname and is often called Nick, entered school, he was 5 and could barely communicate, mostly grunting and pointing. “He couldn’t even close his mouth,” Kevin McManaway, a clinical coordinator at the school, said. A full day could be spent on reinforcement techniques to control his drool and keep his mouth closed. In year three at the school, when Nicholas was 8, he started to combine words. For instance, he could say, “boy-eat.” But he could not communicate his own desires. The breakthrough came in his fourth year. Just as he was getting started on a new communication device, “it was like a switch went off,” Mr. McManaway said. Nicholas would exclaim: “Look the blue car. Throw ball. Jump. Get a haircut.” Mr. McManaway said, “He just had this burst of language.” Now, sitting in an art class, Nicholas is quick to say hello to a visitor and attentive to his teacher. On the playground, he grabbed a basketball and shot hoops, sinking as many as he missed. He is quick to offer the ball to others and to join in games. He is nothing like the child he was six years ago, his instructors say. But all the progress came only after years of intensive and expensive intervention, and there is much work yet to be done to ensure that he has as full a life as possible. On a weekly basis, Nicholas sees roughly a dozen different specialists and teachers, all concentrating on different parts of his development. Every week at school, he has speech therapy four times, occupational therapy three times, physical therapy three times, individual counseling once, adaptive physical therapy twice, yoga once, and art class and music class twice each. At home he receives more speech therapy, as well as additional physical and occupational therapy. Recently, he has also been able to participate in a variety of recreational activities. Ms. Grounds said it was hard to imagine how parents could cope without the resources her family had. She was angry at the protracted debate in Congress over funding to combat the virus and its spread. A proposed $1.1 billion was tied up for months as Republicans and Democrats fought over issues related to abortion politics. The legislation eventually passed last month. Whatever the cost of prevention, she said, it would not compare with the cost of care. Dr. Wendy K. Chung, the director of the clinical genetics program at Columbia University Medical School, has spent years working with children with neurological development issues. She said people with microcephaly needed care beyond childhood. “They need support their entire lives,” she said. Dr. Chung met Nicholas when he was a baby and came in for testing. His parents, seeking to learn why he had been born with microcephaly, turned to Dr. Chung, hoping to find an answer in his genetic makeup. “The first tests we had were unsuccessful,” Dr. Chung said. “The science was just not that well developed.” Ms. Grounds and her husband, thinking it was highly unlikely that lightning would strike twice, had a second son, this one born without complications. About three years ago, Dr. Chung was finally able to provide an answer to the question they had long asked: Why? Nicholas was “autosomal recessive,” meaning he had inherited two mutated genes — one from each parent — that caused microcephaly. It is exceedingly rare that both parents would carry the recessive genes for microcephaly. It meant the odds their second child could have been born with the condition was not like lightning striking again. They were one in four."
241,"One GOP woman wonders why the men in her party won’t defend her —  Earlier this month, Eric Trump sent out a fundraising solicitation showing a map of his father overwhelmingly winning the election. There was only one catch. The winning map represented a pollster’s projection of what would happen if only men voted.   It was a mistake, but fitting nonetheless. The way Trump has conducted his campaign, it’s as if the Republican Party would like female voters to fall off the map completely. As a former communications aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and former senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), I can personally testify that Republican women have, for years, fended off accusations from the Democrats of the party’s allegedly anti-woman beliefs. What did we get for it? The nomination — by way of a largely older, male voting base — of a brazen and unapologetic misogynist.   I want to ask the men leading the GOP some questions. Why didn’t you defend women from this raging sexist especially after so many Republican women — for so many years — eagerly defended the party from charges of sexism? You must make us out for fools. Over the course of the GOP primary, it became clear that too many Republicans felt it was too politically risky to do anything that would offend the types of voters Trump was attracting in droves — the types who showed up at rallies wearing T-shirts that said, “Trump that b—-” and “She’s a c—, vote for Trump.”   Somehow, in some amorphous but unambiguous way, it was decided that appealing to those voters was more important than appealing to women.   Trump’s men have told women this is “locker room” talk — that we should accept this is how men speak behind closed doors, get over it, and vote Trump.   Perhaps, they should talk to some rape survivors. They need to hear what those women heard when Trump bragged about grabbing a woman’s genitals, aggressively kissing women without consent, and getting away with it because he’s rich and famous. That wasn’t boyish banter. That was a confession of assault.   [Even fictional Washington women face sexist stereotyping]   Besides, Trump was in no locker room when he talked this way. He was mic’d up, as a major media figure, speaking to another major media figure, in a professional work setting.   If the GOP has truly convinced itself that openly engaging in sexual assault fantasies is something normal that men do among one another, I have a suggestion. Relocate the Republican National Committee headquarters into a men’s-only locker room. Eliminate all pretenses of wanting to let women in.   But not all men think this way. We’ve heard over and over again how privately anguished GOP leaders were, although not anguished enough to take any concrete steps to stop it.   [How a White House women’s office strategy went viral]   I expect that Republicans will try to pretend, postelection, as if those recordings were some one-off, unpredictable revelation. They’ll say they didn’t know he was so deviant.   But I won’t accept that explanation. Trump’s chauvinism was well-documented in decades’ worth of publicly available smutty television, radio and print interviews long before he became the nominee.   Yet, the Republican Party ignored it all.   Then, as a GOP presidential candidate, Trump used his massive online platform to label Megyn Kelly a “bimbo” and question Heidi Cruz’s attractiveness. Even after Trump denigrated the party’s own female Republicans, such as Carly Fiorina, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, male GOP heavyweights used their clout to force Republicans to fall in line.   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) sneered at Republicans, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who were reluctant to lend their support. “It’s disrespectful of the Republican electorate to say, ‘I’m smarter than you are, and I’m not gonna support your choice,’ ” McConnell said in May.   Some, such as Mitt Romney, Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Jeb Bush, tried sounding alarms.   And, the world witnessed the GOP’s chaotic July convention and saw firsthand how Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus shut down delegates who wanted a roll-call vote to register their opposition against Trump. Valiant objectors who shouted at the top of their lungs on the floor of the convention — such as Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) — were silenced by the party machine. The party honchos insisted, again and again, that standing by Trump was the right thing to do.   Even as late as July, McConnell was telling his fellow members that they would not suffer any repercussions for Trump’s misdeeds. “I don’t think we’re gonna lose a single Senate seat because of Donald Trump,” he bragged to NBC News.   Yet Trump, if you are not a Pepe-the-Frog-championing poll-denier, is forecast to lose the election in a blowout. Down-ballot Republicans will most certainly become collateral damage.   Trump will probably be off on his next grand scheme by 2017, but the party will left in the rubble he created. And, if the next GOP autopsy has any credibility, it needs to contain political obituaries for Trump’s most ardent defenders.   People such as Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and the others. Those who gave Trump credibility and used their influence to rationalize his obscene words and actions need to be named and shamed for what they did.   Because the most dismaying thing about the election is not Trump himself. It’s that so many Republicans endorsed his nightmarish campaign. Ever since Trump announced his candidacy 17 months ago, it’s been like watching political body snatchers take over the party, replacing previously respectable men with dead-eyed zombies who readily salute “Mr. Trump.”   Nearly all succumbed — including, shockingly, my old boss Cruz — who courageously stood before the GOP convention and urged delegates to “vote their conscience” while he declined to support Trump. Apparently, the pressure became too much to bear. Two months later, he reversed course and was phone banking for the Trump-Pence ticket.   But, not me. Not ever.   I vividly remember the day Cruz dropped out of the presidential race, essentially handing the nomination to Trump. On the set of CNN I threw up my hands and said if this how the GOP intends to campaign for the White House, they will do it without me. I will not vote for Trump. I’ll remain a committed conservative and will vote for down-ballot Republicans, but the top of the ticket will be blank. I didn’t leave the GOP — the GOP left me for Trump. Now, I don’t purport to speak for all women, but I know I am not alone. I am one of the many women the Republican Party left behind this election. The GOP is about to learn a hard lesson when it comes to the women’s vote: defend us or lose us.   But don’t take my word for it. There’ll be a new political map, coming out Nov. 9, that will tell the GOP everything it needs to know."
242,"Operation killed Afghan civilians, US military says —  The US military acknowledged Saturday that civilians were likely killed in a joint Afghan-US operation in the northern district of Kunduz Thursday.   Besides the 30 civilians, two US service members were killed in the operation that targeted Taliban leaders planning additional attacks in Kunduz city. ""I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives, regardless of the circumstances,"" Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement Saturday. ""The loss of innocent life is a tragedy and our thoughts are with the families. We will work with our Afghan partners to investigate and determine the facts and we will work with the government of Afghanistan to provide assistance."" Afghan forces, advised by the US military, conducted the operation Thursday in the village of Boz in Kunduz district, the statement said. It targeted Taliban leaders planning attacks in the city of Kunduz. ""During the course of the operation, friendly forces encountered significant enemy fire from multiple locations and defended themselves with ground fire and US air-to-ground engagements,"" the US military statement said. ""Initial reports indicate that several Taliban leaders and Taliban members were killed in the engagement."" Civilians, troops killed At least 30 Afghan civilians were killed and 25 others injured in an air-and-ground operation launched in an area known as Bohd Qhandahari, said Sayed Mahmood Danish, a Kunduz provincial spokesman. Four members of Afghan special forces were also killed and six others injured, Danish said. Twenty-six insurgents were killed and 10 others were wounded, he added. The Pentagon identified the dead US service members as Capt. Andrew D. Byers, 30, of Rolesville, North Carolina, and Sgt. 1st Class Ryan A. Gloyer, 34, of Greenville, Pennsylvania. They were assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Carson, Colorado. The troops came under fire during what the US military said this week was a mission to train, advise and assist its Afghan partners in clearing a Taliban position and disrupting the organization's operations in Kunduz district. ""On behalf of all of US Forces-Afghanistan, today's loss is heartbreaking and we offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of our service members who lost their lives today,"" Nicholson said in a statement Thursday. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was saddened by the casualties. ""Our service members were doing their part to help the Afghans secure their own country while protecting our homeland from those who would do us harm,"" he said in a statement. ""We will honor their sacrifice by finishing our important mission in Afghanistan."" Taliban attack The deaths occurred on the same day that a Taliban mortar attack killed at least seven people attending a wedding party in Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, provincial police spokesman Kareem Youresh said. At least 13 people were wounded. In April, the Pentagon announced that 16 military personnel would be disciplined over a fatal US strike on a Kunduz hospital in October 2015. But the military maintained the strike was not a war crime because it resulted from unintentional human error and equipment failure. The Pentagon said some personnel involved in the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital ""failed to comply with the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict."""
243,"Oregon stand-off: Wildlife refuge occupiers in shock acquittal —  Seven leaders of an armed militia who led a 41-day stand-off at a US federal wildlife refuge in Oregon have been cleared of the charges against them. The surprise verdict acquitted them of conspiracy and firearms offences. A lawyer for one of the leaders, Ammon Bundy, was tackled to the ground by US marshals after shouting at the judge. The militia occupied the refuge in early January, accusing the government of unlawful interference in the affairs of ranchers. One protester was shot dead by police during a confrontation outside the refuge when some of the defendants were arrested, days before the occupation was brought to a peaceful end in February. The stand-off highlighted the simmering resentment among rural communities in the US West over federal control of land. A total of 26 people have been charged over the stand-off. Some have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy. A second group of defendants is due to stand trial in February. * Inside the Oregon refuge * The militiaman who stood apart Prosecutors argued the defendants, led by Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan, had kept federal employees from their jobs at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. But defence lawyers say the jury was unable to find beyond reasonable doubt that the occupiers had intended to prevent federal officers from going to work. Drama erupted in the courtroom after Ammon Bundy's defence lawyer Marcus Mumford shouted at the judge, demanding the immediate release of his client. As the exchange escalated, court marshals tackled him to the ground and used a stun gun on him. Judge Anna Brown said Mr Bundy could not be released because he and his brother still faced charges in a separate armed stand-off case at their father's ranch in Nevada in 2014. Lawyers for the defendants expressed their surprise at the verdict, including Robert Salisbury who described it as a ""stunning victory for the defence"". 'Extremely disappointed' Alongside the Bundy brothers, Jeff Banta, Neil Wampler, Kenneth Medenbach, David Fry and Shawna Cox were all cleared of the charges. During the occupation earlier this year, the group established armed patrols and vetted those who visited the refuge. They said the takeover was a justified act of civil disobedience against an overreaching federal government. After several weeks one of the protesters, Robert ""LaVoy"" Finicum, was shot dead during a 26 January traffic stop outside the refuge as the Bundys and several others were detained. After the acquittals, US Attorney for the District of Oregon Billy Williams said he had ""hoped for a different outcome"". But he said he strongly believed the case needed to be brought before a court and decided by a jury. The FBI also said it was ""extremely disappointed in the verdict"". ________________   'A slap in the face for the feds' - Analysis by James Cook, North America correspondent Friends of the occupiers - and there are plenty of them in the western United States - will trumpet this verdict as a victory for freedom in the face of federal oppression. The rationale behind the protest was the charge that the US government acts unconstitutionally in its treatment of ranchers. A bird sanctuary established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 might not have been the most obvious symbol of such ""oppression"", but in truth it was an easy, empty target for the heavily-armed militia. Indeed, the lack of resistance may have helped to secure their acquittal. How could the occupiers have impeded US Fish and Wildlife Service workers ""by force, intimidation, and threats,"" if they walked in to the reserve unchallenged? Whether the jury acquitted them on such technical grounds or whether it was striking a blow for states' rights is impossible to know at this stage. Still, both interpretations amount to the same thing: a slap in the face for the feds. The Oregon stand-off explained How did it begin? In October last year, a federal judge ruled that sentences on two Oregon ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond, for burning federal land were too short and jailed them for about four years each. Angered by the ruling, Nevada native Ammon Bundy began a social media campaign backing them and travelled to Burns, Oregon, organising meetings. His group attracted supporters from across a number of states and Mr Bundy called it Citizens for Constitutional Freedom. On 2 January the armed militiamen took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge - and widened their range of demands. What were the militia's aims? It was an extension of the Sagebrush Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s that demanded the transfer of federal land in many Western states to local control. Mr Bundy's own father - a Nevada rancher - had been involved in a protest over cattle-grazing rights in 2014. One policy is to try to persuade ranchers to tear up their federal grazing contracts. Although many local residents were sympathetic with the cause, many also opposed the occupation of the refuge. Even the local ranchers who are serving the longer sentences distanced themselves from the militia. Are militias legal? The term has a complex history and generally refers to those outside the official military who can be called on in times of need. The US constitution refers to the president having command of ""militia of several states"" and that Congress ""can call forth militia"" to tackle insurrection and invasion. Those who form such militias cite the constitution and various references in federal and state law as granting them legality."
244,"Orlando gunman known to FBI shows difficulty of 'lone wolf' cases —  The mass slaughter at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando was performed by a man known for years to federal law enforcement but whose connections to terrorism were found to be insubstantial, highlighting a vexing problem for counter-terrorism investigators and privacy advocates.   US officials, former FBI agents and counter-terrorism experts say the FBI retains significant data on people it interviews even after it determines they do not pose a security threat, and caution that spreading that information beyond the bureau carries with it a “profound” risk to privacy rights. US officials have for years warned that so-called “lone wolf” terrorists, unconnected to established and monitored extremist groups, are notoriously difficult to identify in advance of an attack. But in the case of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, the apparent lone wolf was a known quantity to the FBI. FBI counter-terrorism officials “pursue all possible leads and once that’s been exhausted, it’s closed”, said Erroll Southers, a former FBI counterintelligence and terrorism agent. “If there’s nowhere else to go, there’s nowhere else to go, and it appears in Mr Mateen’s case, there was nowhere else to go and they closed it. That was the appropriate action.” Acrimony over the shooting, which left 50 dead and 53 wounded, is likely to spark new debate about whether someone interviewed by the FBI but not considered a threat ought to be able to board an airplane or purchase a gun, or should fall under continued surveillance. US officials, particularly from the FBI, called the Orlando massacre an “act of terror” but emphasized that an investigation was just beginning and did not issue definitive statements about Mateen’s motive. His father told NBC News that he was incensed after seeing two men kiss and that his slaughter was not religiously motivated. But, reportedly, Mateen called 911 ahead of the attack and declared fealty to Islamic State.   Ron Hopper, the FBI special agent on scene in Orlando, told reporters on Sunday afternoon that the bureau had on three occasions in 2013 and 2014 interviewed Mateen. In 2013, Mateen was suspected of making “inflammatory comments” to co-workers at the security firm GS4 that employed him since 2007, and called in to talk with the FBI twice. For a time, he was placed under surveillance. Yet the investigation was closed after agents were unable to verify any suspicious ties. The following year, the FBI interviewed Mateen concerning a connection with a Florida man who travelled to Syria and became a suicide bomber for al-Qaida’s local affiliate. But it concluded that Mateen’s ties to Moner Abu-Salha were “minimal” and did not represent a substantive link, Hopper said.   According to FBI veterans, the bureau is permitted to keep sheafs of data on people it interviews even after it discounts them as a security or public-safety risk. Formal rules, including the federal Privacy Act, bar the bureau from widely disseminating that data to partner agencies or private firms, although experts caution that recent FBI partnerships have opaque or unclear rules about shareable information. “The implications for an individual’s privacy are profound if that type of information is shared,” said Michael German, a former FBI investigator now with New York University’s Brennan Center. “If a cloud of suspicion surrounds an individual, you can never prove you’re not a terrorist.” Civil libertarians have expressed concern that the FBI’s “assessments”, as described in a declassified 2009 bureau document, provide the bureau with extensive data on people for whom it lacks sufficient factual predication to open an investigation, let alone to seek indictment. The document permits such assessments to include employment information, phone and email accounts, passport data, social security numbers and “any other unique identifying numbers relevant to database checks, such as alien registration number, driver’s license, etc”.   The document encourages bureau field offices to “close PIs [preliminary investigations] that, based on the Baseline Collection and intelligence developed, do not warrant the commitment of further investigative resources”. But it does not mandate the purging of data from those preliminary investigations. A spokesman for the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the bureau’s watchlists, would not say if Mateen was on a bureau watchlist or had been removed from one. “The Terrorist Screening Center does not publicly confirm nor deny whether any individual may be included in the US Government’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) or a subset list,” spokesman Dave Joly said in an email. “Disclosure of an individual’s inclusion or non-inclusion in the TSDB or on the No Fly List would significantly impair the government’s ability to investigate and counteract terrorism, and protect transportation security.” Former bureau officials said that keeping even preliminary inquiries open past the point where they established substantive connections to security threats risked overtaxing law enforcement resources and missing genuine threats in the shuffle.   Experts in homegrown terrorism said that a prerequisite for finding domestic lone-wolf extremists before they commit acts of terrorism is robust trust between local communities and the government – something lacking in US Muslim communities that see themselves treated as undifferentiated threats, through FBI and police infiltration of mosques, surveillance and compelled informants. “You can’t do these programs without some level of trust beforehand,” said Seamus Hughes, who studies homegrown extremism at George Washington University. Southers, who will brief TSA and state department officials this week on homegrown extremism, said the FBI’s investigative rules provided sufficient flexibility to reopen investigations when additional evidence warranted it. He said he could only think of one prior case where the bureau came to close investigations on people who subsequently committed acts of terrorism: the Tsarnaev brothers, the architects of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. “What this illustrates is the difficulty in trying to identify people who would do things like Mr Mateen did today,” Southers said. “There is no profile.”"
245,"POLICE ASKING FOR HELP REUNITING UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN WITH FAMILY —  Police are asking for the public's help in their effort to identify a woman who was found wandering in the middle of the night without a coat in Northeast Philadelphia.   The woman was found shortly before 1 a.m. Monday on the 8700 block of Pine Road.   Responding police officers observed the woman walking towards Pennypack Park. She was not wearing a coat despite the cold temperature.   When the officers attempted to stop to speak with the woman, she was allegedly uncooperative and appeared to be confused.   She was eventually transported to the hospital for a medical evaluation.   Police are now attempting to identify the woman and reunite her with her family.   She appears to be in her late 60s or early 70s, 6'0"", 175lbs, with gray hair; she was wearing a blue sweatshirt, blue scrub pants, and white sneakers.   Anyone with information is asked to contact Northeast Detective Division at 215-686-3153 / 3154 or call 911."
246,"Pakistan is set to expel more than 100 schoolteachers at Turkey’s request —  More than 100 Turkish schoolteachers and their families have been told that they have less than three days to leave Pakistan, where many of them have lived and worked for a decade or longer. The sudden expulsion comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is visiting the country and appears to be an appeasement of his demands that schools linked to Fethullah Gulen, an exiled Turkish cleric and major political rival, be closed.   Erdogan accuses Gulen of orchestrating a coup attempt in July and refers to the cleric as a terrorist.   “We will eliminate this terrorist organization before it harms Pakistan,” he told the Pakistani Parliament on Thursday, referring to Gulen's movement.   Since the coup attempt, Turkey has arrested tens of thousands of people on suspicion of having ties to Gulen, and more than 100,000 civil servants have been removed from their posts. Erdogan has successfully pressured other nations to aid him in the crackdown, though the United States, where Gulen lives in exile, has refused repeated requests for the cleric's extradition.   Gulen-inspired organizations run schools all around the world, including in the United States. Turkey alleges that they are used to propagate an anti-Turkey mind-set. Education officials in dozens of countries have reported coming under pressure from Turkey to eliminate alleged Gulen sympathizers from the schools, though only Somalia, Azerbaijan and now Pakistan appear to have caved in. A petition by the head of the PakTurk Educational Foundation, which runs the affected schools in Pakistan, is being considered by a high court in Islamabad. The petition says that more than 11,000 students receive education in the 28 schools, which employed 130 Turkish teachers and more than 1,000 Pakistanis. It also denies that PakTurk is affiliated with any political organization. More than 100 of the schools' students in Lahore staged protests over the expulsions on Thursday, expressing solidarity with the teachers, who they said had dedicated their lives to the cause of education.   “My children have been studying here for eight years. I find it astonishing that the Turkish government is alleging that the schools are involved in supporting Fethullah Gulen’s ideology,” Hafiz Arafat, a lawyer, told the newspaper Dawn. “We have never witnessed anything irregular at these schools.” Many of the teachers have apparently been in Pakistan for well over a decade and are struggling to pack up their lives by Sunday, the deadline for them to leave the country. One teacher told Dawn that he'd been warned that he would be arrested if he didn't leave by then and that he and his colleagues were worried that they might be arrested on arrival in Turkey anyway. Another unnamed teacher told the Express Tribune that he or she had worked in Pakistan for 16 years and had four children born in the country.   In all, more than 400 Turkish citizens will have to leave Pakistan.   At a joint news conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Erdogan thanked him for the expulsions and reassured PakTurk students, saying they would not suffer."
247,"Paris attacks: A year of grief, anger and change —  Lanterns, candles and calls for peace illuminated the City of Light on Sunday as Paris mourned 130 people killed one year ago in attacks throughout the city.   November 13, 2015, was like any other day for Georges Salines: Work, a lunchtime swim with his daughter Lola, watching the news on TV, and an early night. He had no idea, until the phone rang, jolting him from his sleep, that his world was about to change forever. ""I went to bed ... without knowing what was going on in the streets of Paris,"" he recalls. ""I was woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night, from my eldest son, who knew that his sister was at the Bataclan."" Salines' 29-year-old daughter, Lola, had gone to a concert at the Bataclan by US rock band the Eagles of Death Metal. Midway through the show, ISIS-linked gunmen opened fire on the audience and detonated suicide vests; 90 people were killed in the raid, one of a series of coordinated attacks across Paris. Unable to reach her, the family spent hours trying to find out what had happened to Lola, calling emergency help lines and hospitals, even the morgue, but nobody could tell them if she was alive. Then the worst news, delivered in the worst way: They discovered via social media that she had been killed. ""I hope she didn't suffer or see her death coming,"" her father says. French President Francois Hollande unveiled plaques at attack sites in the city -- at the Stade de France, outside the Petit Cambodge restaurant, in the Boulevard Voltaire, and at the Bonne Biere and Belle Equipe cafes. At the Bataclan, the President tore down a French flag to reveal the memorial, as the names of all 90 who perished there were read aloud in solemn ceremony. It followed an emotional performance on Saturday night by musician Sting, a fundraiser for victim support charities at the newly opened Bataclan. He began with the words: ""We shall not forget them."" The much-loved venue has been renovated to remove all traces of the massacre that took place there. On Sunday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said a state of emergency, first imposed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, will likely be extended. With the country's presidential elections coming in April-May, the prime minister said the government needs to retain the extra powers delegated by emergency laws ""to protect our democracy.""   Denys Plaud was also at the Bataclan on the night of the attacks. He credits his survival to the fact that, when the attackers burst in, he was up on the balcony where there was more room to move to the music. ""I love to dance, and that saved my life,"" he told CNN days after his escape from the Bataclan. ""It meant I was not in the direct line of fire from the terrorists' machine guns."" Plaud hid in a tiny room at the venue with 15 others; they waited as the gunmen got closer and closer, even shooting at the partition that sheltered them: ""I thought, 'Oh my God, I hope that wall will stand.'"" ""For three hours, we had to listen to the shooting,"" he remembers. ""That was terrible. Every time we thought it would end, it was just time for the terrorists to get their weapons reloaded, and then they would shoot again."" Eventually, the police arrived and led them to safety across what Plaud calls ""the bloody battlefield,"" urging them not to look at the bodies of their fellow music fans. ""But ... it was not a direct path, I had to look where I was putting my feet. ... There was no way but to look at death."" A year on, he says, the memories are ""very fresh ... it's just like it was yesterday."" By late morning Sunday, the first flowers to remember victims were placed among the autumn leaves at the Place de la République, which became the center of the city's mourning and expressions of national unity after the attacks. For many Parisians, it is an opportunity to begin getting on with life. The year since the attacks has been filled with shock, grief and mourning -- for the relatives of the dead, for those who survived, and for France as a whole: The nation was left traumatized. Extra police and troops have been on the streets of France since January 2015, when terrorists attacked the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people: Armed officers now patrol outside tourist hot spots, schools, government and religious buildings. Operation Sentinel has seen the mobilization of 10,000 soldiers to monitor and protect more than 11,000 locations across the country -- 3,000 of them religious sites, the rest a mixture of key infrastructure, industrial plants and ""symbolic"" places around the country. And despite all the extra security on the streets, what happened in January and November 2015 -- and other incidents that followed in 2016, in Nice, Rouen and Magnanville -- have impacted the country's morale. Plaud says Paris itself was left ""in shock."" Anger at these events has been linked to a steep rise in xenophobia; according to the National Commission on Human Rights, or CCNDH, there were 429 reports of attacks on, and threats against, Muslims in France in 2015 -- a rise of 223% on the previous year. This ""wave of aggression against Muslims"" ranged from assaults on women wearing the hijab to graffiti on places of worship and halal butcher shops. In one incident, the door handle of a mosque was wrapped in bacon. The CCNDH says the majority happened in January and November. The attacks have also damaged France's prized tourism industry: Almost 2 million fewer visitors have come to the country over the past year -- international arrivals are down 8.1% so far in 2016. But Plaud says the country has seen troubled times before, and is sure to bounce back: ""I am confident; in Parisian history there have been a lot of events like that -- war, civil war. But Paris has always been able to recover."" #ParisResiste Balloons were released into the skies over Paris, and as darkness fell, thousands of lanterns were floated on the waters of the Canal St. Martin, close to the scene of several of the attacks. A social media campaign, #ParisResiste called on people to display lighted candles in the windows of their homes on Sunday evening, to ""light up the city"" and ""brighten the future."" Salines concedes the day will be a difficult one for many: ""Some families have chosen to take a vacation and go abroad even, because there will be a lot of media attention and there will be a lot of archive footage of last year -- I'm sure it will be painful to see these images again."" Plaud suffered flashbacks in the months after the attack that forced him to give up his job as a math and physics tutor, but says he is gradually recovering. This week he returned to the Bataclan for the first time. ""I want[ed] to come back to pay my last homage to the victims and people who died there,"" he says. ""It is important even if it is very strong, emotionally, to be here."" Both Plaud and Salines say putting pen to paper has helped them through the past 12 months. ""I wanted to write in order not to forget,"" Salines says. ""The writing helped me, because it was the only way in the first days that I could think about what had happened ... not without pain, but being able to stay calm and to keep some distance between the pain and my thinking."" The idea for his book, ""The unspeakable, from A to Z"" came, he says, from ""the messages I received from friends and family -- lots of them started with the words, 'this is unspeakable,' 'we don't know what to say,' 'there are no words.' They had no words but I had lots! I started to make a list of words and ... little by little it grew and it grew into a book."" He says the dictionary-like form his writings took helped reflect the rapidly changing emotions he experienced in the weeks and months after Lola's death. ""It was very close to what I was experiencing in terms of the shift between very different moods, even happening all at the same time, within a few minutes, from crying to laughing. When you read you go from one word to another, from emotional feelings ... to very funny."" The first entry in the book: A is for absurd. ""Because Lola, and I am sure all the other young people who lost their lives that day, were total strangers to the situation, the fight that the terrorists have and it is profoundly unjust."" For Plaud, revisiting his experiences to write about them ""was very difficult [but] it was therapeutic."" ""It was a way to exorcise the demons and all the horror I saw that night. It was dangerous because sometimes I had to go deep inside my memories of death."" 'Grieving never ends' ""The grieving never ends,"" says Salines. ""I am at a stage now where I know that things are relatively stable -- the pain will probably last for the rest of my life but I don't break down in tears three times a day as I was doing at the beginning."" Salines is sustained by his work as chairman of one of the support groups for those affected by the events of November 13, and by his memories of Lola. ""Her life was maybe short, but it was a full life, full of happiness,"" he says. A publisher of children's and young adult books, Lola loved to travel and had a passion for roller derby. ""She had incredible energy. We didn't know how she could do so many things in a day."" ""She did a lot of good things in her life, she had a great deal of pleasure, she was very enthusiastic,"" he says. ""She had a good life. Writing about it was maybe a way of convincing myself, but I feel pretty confident that my daughter's life was a good life."" Plaud says for him, the time has come to move on. ""It's been one year now and I feel like it's the end of my mourning."" ""It is a good thing that life has come back again,"" he says. ""We have to keep the memory, but you also [must] not be stuck in that horror, [you must] keep on living."""
248,"People Share Frightening Images In The Aftermath Of Trump’s Victory —  Well, America, here we are: Donald Trump is going to be our next president.   The overall reaction to the news has been polarizing. Specifically, Trump’s win has been particularly upsetting for women and people of color.   On social media, people have highlighted episodes of hate speech or hate crimes that have cropped up in the hours since the election, describing what it’s like on “Day 1 in Trump’s America.”   Here’s what’s happening:   If you’re looking to get involved, feel overwhelmed or need to talk to someone, we’ve gathered together a list of resources and organizations here.   Stay safe out there."
249,"Pete Burns, Dead or Alive singer, dies at 57 —  (CNN)Pete Burns, lead singer of the 1980s British pop band Dead or Alive, has died. He was 57. According to a statement from his management team posted on the singer's official Twitter account, Burns died Sunday of ""massive cardiac arrest."" People we've lost in 2016 ""All of his family and friends are devastated by the loss of our special star,"" the statement read. ""He was a true visionary, a beautiful talented soul, and he will be missed by all who loved and appreciated everything he was and all the wonderful memories he has left us with."" A native of England, Burns was working in a record store before he founded a musical group called the Nightmares in Wax in Liverpool in 1979. The group was renamed Dead or Alive in 1980. The band scored a hit with ""You Spin Me Round"" in 1985. The video for the song showcased Burns' androgynous look. In 2006, Burns appeared as a contestant on ""Celebrity Big Brother"" in the United Kingdom. Burns also became well known for his penchant for plastic surgery. Viewers were shocked at the singer's new look in 2016 when he appeared on the reality TV spin-off show, ""Celebrity Big Brother's Bit On The Side."" ""Twitter was inundated with remarks blasting the 58-year-old's 'surgically-enhanced' and 'caked on make-up' face,"" the Daily Mail reported. For his part, Burns said he loved plastic surgery and made music during the 1990s to fund his physical transformation. ""I can honestly say since 1976 I have lived solely off music and TV, and I've had a very nice life,"" Burns said. ""A lot nicer than some of my peers who've gone broke. I've had a very nice life. Very."""
250,"Philippines mayor, bodyguards killed in shootout —  A local Philippines official who was named by President Rodrigo Duterte as a ""narco-politician""was killed in a shootout with local authorities Friday, a police report says.   Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom of Datu Saudi-Ampatuan, a Muslim autonomous area of Mindanao, was shot along with a number of his bodyguards while allegedly transporting illegal drugs. The report states that police had set up a highway roadblock aimed at apprehending the mayor based on a tip. The mayor was on Duterte's list of local officials branded as ""narco-politicians"" who allegedly have ties to the illegal drug world, according to CNN affiliate CNN Philippines. He, along with his wife, surrendered themselves to provincial police in August to clear their names and deny involvement. At the roadblock early Friday morning, an ""armed encounter"" between Dimaukom's men and police ensued, the report says, with law enforcement officials responding to fire from the mayor's bodyguards, leaving 10 men dead. Duterte was elected to office in May on a platform of a hardline crackdown on crime, particularly illegal drugs. Since taking office in early June, his police force has waged a bloody war on drug dealers and users, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Filipino drug suspects at the hands of police. Hundreds more have been killed by vigilantes. Many thousands of others have been coerced into registering with their local authorities as drug users in so-called ""knock and plead"" operations.   Police Chief Ronald Dela Rosa told CNN that all deaths at the hands of police in the country are the result of justified shootings in self-defense. Critics say police are acting with impunity. There's been no evidence presented that Dimaukom was involved in the drug trade. A social worker gives counseling to those who have turned themselves in for drug-related crimes in the Philippines on July 18, 2016.   Dimaukom is not the first elected official implicated in the drug war. Rolando Espinosa, the mayor of Albuera, on the island province of Leyte, was arrested in August. His son, Kerwin Espinosa, 35, is accused by Duterte of being one of the biggest illegal drug operators in the Eastern Visayas region and was arrested earlier in October in Abu Dhabi. He had been on a ""shoot on sight"" list. Also earlier this month, the Philippines Senate Committee -- led by a Duterte ally -- decided to stop investigating the extrajudicial killings of drug dealers and users during the President's first few months in office. The senator heading the committee when the investigation began, a fierce critic of Duterte, was ousted by the President's allies in September."
251,"Players will struggle to sleep tonight - Broad —  England's Stuart Broad says he is ""not sure many players are going to get a lot of sleep tonight"" after a tense fourth day of the first Test after which Bangladesh need 33 runs to win with two wickets remaining."
252,"Poland exhumes former president, others killed in 2010 plane crash —  The bodies of former Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife are to be removed from their tomb in Krakow after dark on Monday, the first of exhumations planned on most of the 96 prominent Poles killed in a plane crash in Russia in 2010.   The exhumations are part of a new investigation into the crash ordered by Poland's conservative ruling party, Law and Justice, which is led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late president's twin brother.   Kaczynski has cast doubt on earlier investigations — carried out by both Poland and Russia — which concluded that the crash was an accident caused primarily by bad weather and pilot error. Kaczynski has for years encouraged a conspiracy theory suggesting Russia carried out an assassination with the support, or at least the consent, of the Polish prime minister at the time — Donald Tusk, now the president of the European Council.   Kaczynski wants to take Tusk, his nemesis, to court and is seeking evidence against him.   ""There will not be a free Poland, a truly free Poland, without the truth, without a proper honoring of those who died, without a closure of this case which has cast such a long shadow on our national and social life,"" Kaczynski said Thursday.   The bodies of Kaczynski and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, will be removed from their alabaster tomb at the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, the resting place of many of Poland's kings and writers. Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the presidential couple's daughter, Marta Kaczynska, are to attend. The remains will then be transported to a forensics laboratory at Krakow's renowned Jagiellonian University for a series of tests, including computer tomography and DNA tests.   Scientists will also look for the presence of explosives to check the belief held by many Kaczynski supporters that the plane, a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154 operated by the Polish air force, crashed as a result of an intended explosion.   Prosecutors say they plan to exhume and perform similar post-mortems on a total of 83 bodies through the end of 2017. Nine other bodies were already exhumed in 2011 and 2012 after families protested major errors in autopsy reports carried out by the Russians right after the crash. It turned out six victims had been buried in the wrong graves. Four bodies were cremated.   The Russians have said the mistakes occurred due to the fragmented state of the bodies, but to many Poles they are proof of wrongdoing by the Russians, suspicions fueled by Moscow's refusal so far to return the plane's wreckage and the flight recorders to the Poles.   Law and Justice, which assumed power a year ago, says Tusk's team neglected to have each of the bodies examined, out of disregard for the late president, a political rival, and out of concern that the findings could anger Russia's President Vladimir Putin — something Tusk and members of his Civic Platform party deny.   The exhumations are proving controversial, with most Poles dismissive of the conspiracy theories, and some relatives aghast at the thought of their loved ones being exhumed.   ""We stand alone and helpless in the face of this ruthless and cruel act,"" the relatives of 17 victims wrote in an open letter.   ""The forceful exhumations constitute a violation of a taboo existing in our culture that calls for the respect of the bodies of the dead,"" said Malgorzata Rybicka, the widow of Arkadiusz Rybicki, a lawmaker with Civic Platform, in an interview with the Tygodnik Powszechny magazine. ""It also shows the lighthearted approach to the feelings of the families.""   However, Malgorzata Wasserman, daughter of Zbigniew Wasserman, a lawmaker who perished, called the exhumations ""a procedural must"" given that Poland carried out no autopsies as the stunned nation watched the dozens of coffins, draped in white-and-red national flags, arrive from Russia in 2010. The Russian autopsy report on her father described him as having the healthy liver of a young man when in fact the 60-year-old had only part of his liver left after an operation.   The tragedy occurred April 10, 2010, when the presidential delegation was traveling to honor 22,000 Polish officers who were murdered by the Soviet secret police at the start of World War II in the Katyn forest and elsewhere. The delegation included government members, lawmakers, military commanders and the relatives of officers slain in the wartime massacre. The symbolism of the mission only added to the national grief and the suspicions."
253,"Police Share Chilling Photos of Mom Who Overdosed With Infant in the Car —  Police in Hope, Indiana, released a chilling photo of a mother passed out behind the steering wheel of her car from an apparent drug overdose with a syringe in her hand. Crying in the backseat: her 10-month-old son.  “Parents are doing this more often with children in the car because they are doing it away from someone who is going to disapprove,” marshal Matthew Tallent told IndyStar. “This is becoming a new norm for drug users.” Erika Hurt’s vehicle was parked outside a Dollar General store on Saturday, October 22, when a passerby noticed the 25-year-old was unconscious and called 911.  PHOTOS: Celebrities Who Have Been to Rehab Officers revived Hurt with two doses of Narcan, an emergency treatment used to reverse narcotic drug overdoses, CNN reported. She was later charged with child neglect and possession of drug paraphernalia. “Had this woman not passed out from this and attempted to drive right afterward, she could have driven down the road, passed out two minutes later and hit a car with a family in it, killed every one of them,” Tallent told CNN. “That’s the thing that’s so shocking to me to think about.” According to CNN, Hurt’s son lives with his maternal grandmother, Jami Smith, who was granted guardianship over him by Child Protective Services. Smith — who is angry that authorities shared the picture — told Fox59 that her daughter had been released from rehab earlier this month. “This was a mistake. I do not condone it. Trust me, there is nobody that was more angry than me,” Smith said. “Once she was back up on her feet, before she even went to the hospital, she knew how angry I was.” In September, police in East Liverpool, Ohio, released similar photos of a couple who had allegedly overdosed in their SUV while a 4-year-old boy sat alert and helpless in the backseat. PHOTOS: Stars at Court “We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug. We feel we need to be a voice for the child caught up in this horrible mess,” read an update on the City of East Liverpool, Ohio, Facebook page. “This child can’t speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince other users to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody.”  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 78 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose."
254,"Police investigate shooting near rowdy Trump protest in Portland —  PORTLAND, Ore. — As protests of President-elect Donald Trump entered another day, police in Portland, Oregon, say one person was shot by a man who had gotten into a confrontation with a protester.   Portland police said the person who was shot was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening. Police said they were looking for the shooter, who apparently fled in his vehicle after the attack early Saturday morning on a Willamette River bridge.   The shooting followed rowdy Friday night protests, when police used tear gas in response to “burning projectiles” thrown at officers, police said on Twitter. Hundreds of people marched through the city, disrupting traffic and spray-painting graffiti.   Authorities reported instances of vandalism and assault during a rally that organizers had billed as peaceful earlier in the day.   In other parts of the country, spirited demonstrations on college campuses and peaceful marches along downtown streets have taken place since Wednesday.   –– ADVERTISEMENT ––       A mainly peaceful protest by about 3,000 people ended in Los Angeles early Saturday with about 200 arrests for failure to disperse after police broke up the lingering demonstration.   Hundreds joined a Friday afternoon “love rally” in Washington Square Park in Manhattan.   Leslie Holmes, 65, a website developer from Wilton, Connecticut, took an hour-long train ride to the demonstration — her first protest since the 1970s, when she hit the streets of San Francisco to oppose the Vietnam War.   She described herself as an armchair liberal but declared, “I’m not going to be armchair anymore.”   “I don’t want to live in a country where my friends aren’t included, and my friends are fearful, and my children are going to grow up in a world that’s frightening, and my granddaughters can look forward to being excluded from jobs and politics and fulfilling their potential, so I’m here for them,” she said.   Evening marches disrupted traffic in Miami and Atlanta. Trump supporter Nicolas Quirico was traveling from South Beach to Miami. His car was among hundreds stopped when protesters blocked Interstate 395.   “Trump will be our president. There is no way around that, and the sooner people grasp that, the better off we will be,” he said. “There is a difference between a peaceful protest and standing in a major highway backing up traffic for 5 miles. This is wrong.”   More than a thousand protesters took to the streets across California after night fell including downtown Los Angeles, where over 200 were arrested a night earlier. In Bakersfield, where Trump is far more popular than in most of the state, some held signs reading “Anti-Trump, Pro-USA.”   Small protests also were held in Detroit; Minneapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Olympia, Washington and Iowa City. More than 200 people, carrying signs gathered on the steps of the Washington state Capitol. The group chanted “not my president” and “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.”   In Tennessee, Vanderbilt University students sang civil rights songs and marched through campus across a Nashville street, temporarily blocking traffic. A protest also occurred in Minneapolis.   In Chicago, multiple groups planned protests through Saturday.   Nadia Gavino, 25, learned about the rallies on Twitter and protested Thursday evening. Gavino, whose father is from Peru and whose mother is of Mexican and Lithuanian heritage, said she took Trump’s harshest statements about immigrants and Latinos personally.   “I obviously agree that he’s racist, he’s sexist, he’s phobic, he’s misogynistic. He’s all these things you don’t want in a leader,” she said.   Ashley Lynne Nagel, 27, said she joined a Thursday night demonstration in Denver. “I have a leader I fear for the first time in my life,” said Nagel, a Bernie Sanders supporter who voted for Hillary Clinton.   “It’s not that we’re sore losers,” she said. “It’s that we are genuinely upset, angry, terrified that a platform based off of racism, xenophobia and homophobia has become so powerful and now has complete control of our representation.”   Demonstrations also took place internationally. About 300 people protested Trump’s election as the next American president outside the U.S. Embassy near the landmark Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.   President Barack Obama meets in Berlin next week with Chancellor Angela Merkel and several other European leaders, and is expected to confront global concerns about Trump’s election.   Demonstrations also were planned Saturday in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other areas.   Previous demonstrations drew thousands of people in New York and other large urban centers. The largely peaceful demonstrations were overshadowed by sporadic episodes of vandalism, violence and street-blocking."
255,"Police spokesman says 1 person dead, 7 injured in clashes in Indonesian capital —  JAKARTA, Indonesia — Police spokesman says 1 person dead, 7 injured in clashes in Indonesian capital. Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."
256,"Priest abducted in Mexico Gulf region found alive, but tortured —  A priest who was abducted in Mexico has been found alive after three days, but ""with notable signs of torture,"" the Roman Catholic Church said Sunday.   The Rev. Jose Luis Sanchez Ruiz was the third priest abducted in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz since September. The other two were found shot to death a few days after they were kidnapped.   Although Sanchez Ruiz was spared that fate, his abduction brought new attention to attacks on priests in Mexico, which also saw another priest killed in the western state of Michoacan in September. Prosecutors have suggested that robbery may have been the motive in all three killings this year. But fellow priests suggested something else may have been involved in Sanchez Ruiz's kidnapping. Bishop Fidencio Lopez said Sunday that Sanchez Ruiz ""had been dumped, with notable signs of torture"" at an undisclosed location.   His disappearance sparked two days of unrest in the town of Catemaco, which is known for its faith healers and exuberant jungle. Angry residents burned part of the town hall and a police patrol truck while demanding the release of the priest.   The Rev. Aaron Reyes, spokesman for the diocese, told the Milenio television news channel that Sanchez Ruiz had been threatened in recent days because of his activism.   The priest ""had received threats in recent days because he is a defender of human rights and social causes. He has criticized the system of corruption and the crime problem in Catemaco,"" Reyes said.   Sanchez Ruiz took part in a recent protest of high electricity bills, an important issue in the town because of its extreme heat.   At least 31 priests have been killed in Mexico since 2006. Most of the attacks occurred in areas of Mexico plagued by drug cartel violence.   Mexico's Catholic Media Center says Veracruz, Guerrero and Mexico states are the most dangerous for priests. Along with Michoacan, they are among the states with the worst drug-cartel problems."
257,"Protesters take to streets as New Delhi chokes under smoke cloud —  Mask-wearing protesters took to the streets of the Indian capital Sunday as the city remained blanketed under a cloud of toxic smoke that has lingered for a week and sparked anger at the government’s slow response.   Thousands of schools have been shuttered, cricket matches canceled and residents warned to stay inside as the air pollution crisis in New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan region — deemed an “emergency situation” by the environment minister Saturday — stretched into its seventh day.   Patients with breathing problems inundated hospitals and clinics, and residents waited in line to buy pricey face masks — which often sold out.   “We have never seen something like this. This time, things are really bad,” said P.S. Walia, 44, a father of two who was at a protest Sunday. He has shuttered his house, stopped taking morning walks and kept his kids indoors this past week to protect them from the stinging air. Experts said low winds, holiday fireworks residue and crop-burning in neighboring states contributed to the haze, which reduced visibility at the airport to a 17-year low last week.   Air-quality data from the U.S. Embassy’s air monitor — which measures the particulate pollutant known as PM 2.5 — averaged 640 this week, more than six times the level deemed acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.   On Sunday, Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said the city would undertake emergency measures to address the “need of the hour,” including banning construction activity for five days, limiting diesel-generator use, water-treating dusty roads and temporarily closing a coal-fired power plant. The city’s schools will remain shut for three days, he said.   Environmental experts applauded the move but say the city — the 11th-most-polluted in the world, according to the World Health Organization — needs far more stringent long-term solutions. Last week, the country’s environmental court had chided both the central and state governments for “shifting blame” and not taking action to address the problem. “Emergency measures are an absolute necessity right now because the levels we are seeing are too horrendous,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, head of the Center for Science and Environment’s air pollution and clean transportation program. But longer-term fixes — expanding public transport, permanently closing aging coal-fired plants and controlling waste-burning — are necessary, she said.   [What Delhi’s air pollution says about India and climate change]   Kejriwal said Saturday that farmers in the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana had illegally burned 16 to 20 million tons of crop waste in the past month, turning the capital into a “gas chamber.” The states’ environment ministers are set to meet Monday to come up with a plan to address the problem.   “So much is caused by the burning of crops. The government has to do something,” Satish Mittal, a roadside tea-stall owner, said Sunday.   Kejriwal’s government has made attempts to control pollution, including two trials of a controversial plan this year to limit car use by odd- or even-number license plates, a program that reduced traffic but did not have the dramatic effect on air quality some had hoped for.   Hundreds gathered for a protest walk in the tech suburb of Gurgaon on Saturday and at a rally near Parliament in New Delhi on Sunday. There, the masked protesters were joined by schoolchildren with hand-lettered signs that said “Be the solution to the pollution” and “Help Delhi Breathe.”   One of the organizers, Shivani Gupta, 41, a jewelry designer, said her son — who has become severely asthmatic — was hospitalized three times last year because of pollution. The family has even taken to wearing protective masks inside their house.   “My husband is sick, and my child is sick,” she said. “This is not how we can live our lives.”"
258,"Protests Erupt in Charlotte After Police Kill a Black Man —  About 16 police officers in Charlotte, N.C., were injured when a standoff between law enforcement and demonstrators turned ugly overnight after an officer fatally shot a black man on Tuesday afternoon.   Protesters clashed with police officers in riot gear and blocked a stretch of Interstate 85. Video from local television early Wednesday showed some demonstrators looting trucks that had been stopped on the highway and setting fire to the cargo. Police Chief Kerr Putney said during a news conference on Wednesday morning that the officers had sustained minor injuries and that one person had been arrested during the protests, which began in the University City neighborhood in northeast Charlotte, near the campus of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.   WSOC-TV reported that looters later moved off the highway and tried to break into a Walmart before officers arrived in force to keep them out, and at least one family driving on Interstate 85 reported that their windshield had been shattered by demonstrators throwing rocks. Mayor Jennifer Roberts urged calm in a series of Twitter messages and promised a thorough investigation into the shooting death of Keith L. Scott, 43.   “The community deserves answers and full investigation will ensue,” Ms. Roberts said. “Will be reaching out to community leaders to work together.”   The shooting occurred just before 4 p.m. on Tuesday as officers were trying to serve an arrest warrant for another person in an apartment complex.   Police officials said the officer opened fire because Mr. Scott, who they said was armed with a gun, “posed an imminent deadly threat.”   Although their accounts sometimes diverged, members of Mr. Scott’s family generally told local news outlets that he had not had a weapon. Instead, they said, he had been clutching a book while waiting to pick up a child after school.   The shooting revived scrutiny of a police department that drew national attention about three years ago when a white officer was quickly charged with voluntary manslaughter after he killed Jonathan Ferrell, an unarmed black man.   The shooting in Charlotte this week was the latest in a string of deaths of black people at the hands of the police that have stoked outrage around the country. It came just a few days after a white police officer in Tulsa, Okla., fatally shot Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man, who could be seen on video raising his hands above his head. The encounters, many of them at least partly caught on video, have led to intense debate about race relations and law enforcement. In Charlotte, dozens of chanting demonstrators, some of them holding signs, began gathering near the site of the shooting on Tuesday evening. Around 10 p.m., the Police Department said on Twitter that it had sent its civil emergency unit to the scene “to safely remove our officers.”   “Demonstrators surrounded our officers who were attempting to leave scene,” the department said. It identified the officer who fired his weapon as Brentley Vinson, an employee since July 2014. Officer Vinson is black, according to local reports.   According to the department, officers saw Mr. Scott leave a vehicle with a weapon soon after they arrived at the apartment complex.   “Officers observed the subject get back into the vehicle, at which time they began to approach the subject,” the department said in its first statement about the shooting. “The subject got back out of the vehicle armed with a firearm and posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers, who subsequently fired their weapon, striking the subject.”   A police spokesman did not respond to an after-hours inquiry about whether a dashboard or body camera had recorded the shooting. Chief Putney had acknowledged that Mr. Scott had not been the subject of the outstanding warrant.   On Facebook, a woman who identified herself as Mr. Scott’s daughter said that the police had fired without provocation.   “The police just shot my daddy four times for being black,” the woman said moments into a Facebook Live broadcast that lasted about an hour. Later in the broadcast, she learned that her father had died and speculated that the police were planting evidence. (The police said that investigators had recovered a weapon.)   In September 2013, officials charged a Charlotte police officer with voluntary manslaughter after he fired a dozen rounds at an unarmed black man, killing him. The criminal case against the officer, Randall Kerrick, ended in a mistrial, and the authorities did not seek to try him again.   The department, which said on Tuesday that Officer Vinson had been placed on administrative leave, said it was conducting “an active and ongoing investigation” into the killing of Mr. Scott."
259,"Qatar loses 3 troops serving with Saudi coalition in Yemen —  The Gulf nation of Qatar says three of its soldiers have been killed while participating in Saudi-led military operations in Yemen.   It was Qatar's biggest known loss of life in the conflict since its first reported ground deployment there last September.   The Qatari military says the deaths occurred on Monday but did not provide any details. The military statement, carried by the official Qatar News Agency, identified the three killed soldiers as Mohammed Awad Salim, Mohammed Dawood Khayal and Mohammed Nasser Mohammed.   Yemen's conflict pits the internationally recognized government and the Saudi-led military coalition against Shiite Houthi rebels and forces loyal to a former president.   The Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis and their allies since March 2015."
260,"Queen Sirikit of Thailand hospitalised amid talk of severe ill health —  The Grand Palace in Bangkok has said in a statement that Queen Sirikit, the wife of the late king Bhumibol Adulyadej, has been in in hospital since 16 November as the result of a lung infection.   The palace has said the Queen Dowager has a high fever but is still able to breathe. However, observers of the kingdom have said the illness is likely being downplayed amid speculation Sirikit, who is 84 years old, is gravely unwell. The Bangkok Post reported a team of doctors was attending to the Queen at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, where an X-ray has shown lung inflammation consistent with an infection. She has been given antibiotics as treatment and has also been eating.   The late King Bhumibol Adulyadej died just over a month ago, having ruled Thailand without interruption for 70 years. He was 88. An immediate period of mourning for King Bhumibol, which lasted 30 days, has just ended in Thailand.   Following Bhumibol's death General Prem Tinsulanonda has been chosen to rule as regent in his place. Regent Prem, 96, has been at the centre of Thailand's treacherous politic scene for decades, first as a general and then as a prime minister and a staunch ally of the late king.   Thailand witnessed an outpouring of public grief following the death of King Bhumibol. The leader was generally seen as figure of national continuity over a series of turbulent coups and national crises."
261,"RHINO UPDATE – 19TH RHINO KILLED IN EASTERN CAPE —  The Eastern Cape is facing its worst year ever for rhino poaching, with the 19th animal killed on the Fish River Nature Reserve on Monday.   Experts are concerned about the increase in poaching, describing this year as the worst in the history of the province.   The carcass of an 18-year-old black rhino cow was found on the reserve near Grahamstown.   A 1½-year-old calf was found standing nearby.   Black rhinos are listed as critically endangered, with a total population of only about 5,000 remaining in the wild."
262,"RIP HOPE! An Angel Among Us! —  It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that Saving The Survivors has to share the devastating news that their beloved White rhino cow, Hope, is no longer with us.   She was found yesterday late afternoon without life in her boma where she has been cared for since March this year.   We don’t know yet what dimmed Hope’s light and we are left with a huge ‘WHY?’ today. The cause of death looks to be a bacterial infection of her small intestine, and we have requested further tests to shed light on this immense tragedy.   This courageous rhino has been the face of rhino poaching survivors since she survived a brutal attack in the Eastern Cape at the end of April last year.   Wandering alone in the bush for days, deeply hurt and with half her face hacked off, she survived against all odds. It was no wonder then, that she was christened Hope and became a worldwide ambassador for her species.   Her healing was described as miraculous and she continued to show a fighting spirit, bar none.   Thank you to all the veterinarians involved in treating Hope, her caretakers and everyone else that contributed to Hope’s well being!   There will always be Hope, for this iconic rhino will live on in everyone’s hearts and in STS’s mission of Creating Hope from Hurt.   Our deep condolences to our friend Dr. Johan Marais, who is the founder of Saving The Survivors and the one who discovered HOPE after she was left for dead and her horn and face was hacked off.   We will always remember your courage and will to live. We will not stop the fight to save your species from extinction and will unite to end poaching and the illegal Rhino Horn & Ivory Trade worldwide.   May you fly amongst the Angels in Heaven. You’re strength and determination to live will never die and will live on forever. RIP HOPE!"
263,"RIP for the dreaded colonoscopy drink? —  When it comes to undergoing a colonoscopy, a screening test for colon cancer, many patients agree that the preparation is the worst part.   To clear the colon and rectum for doctors to examine them for early signs of cancer, patients must guzzle a gargantuan amount of a salty, repulsive-tasting drink and laxative. While there are many different brands of this drink available, most of them have the same ""ick"" factor. Many patients avoid the procedure because the preparation process is so unpleasant, said Dr. Douglas Rex, a professor of medicine at Indiana University. However, 40% of all colon cancers might be prevented if people underwent regular colonoscopy screenings, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.   ""Bowel preparation is the most commonly cited reason for not undergoing colonoscopy, and this is true even for patients who have never had a colonoscopy,"" Rex said. ""This means the word is out that bowel preparation is generally unpleasant, and efforts to improve the tolerability of colonoscopy bowel preparation are an important aspect of the drive to lower colorectal cancer incidence and mortality."" Now, the Boston-based company ColonaryConcepts aims to answer many colonoscopy patients' prayers by developing bowel-clearing food bars and drinks that taste more like fruit smoothies and chocolate -- but more research is needed before these bars will be available to the public. The bars come in three flavors, lemon cooler, coconut and white chocolate. Smoothies come in two flavors, strawberry-banana and vanilla shake, and the beverages also come in two flavors, mixed berry and orange. Food bars and drinks, pictured next to their flavors, developed by the biotech firm ColonaryConcepts to be used as part of a colonoscopy preparation routine. The bars and drinks, which recently have been tested in a phase 2 trial, contain the same purgative active ingredient, called polyethylene glycol (PEG) 3350, that is often used in colonoscopy prep products. ""I'm really proud that we've invented something different that makes the experience so much easier,"" said Dr. Corey Siegel, a gastroenterologist at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, who is a co-founder of ColonaryConcepts. ""Colon cancer is very treatable when caught early, and the best way to catch it early or prevent it entirely is colonoscopy,"" he said. ""We really have a public health problem on hand with people not wanting to do it because of the preparation."" Rex will present the results from the phase 2 trial at this year's American College of Gastroenterology annual scientific meeting in Las Vegas on Monday. He was the principal investigator for the trial. Testing for market Six formulations of the new food bars and drinks were tested in the phase 2 trial among 51 patients, in preparation for their colonoscopies. Those test results were then compared with two other pre-colonoscopy drinks, called Moviprep and Nulytely, already approved by the Food and Drug Administration and given to 14 patients. For the top three most effective bars and drinks by ColonaryConcepts, the doctors conducting the colonoscopies rated the bowel cleansing of about 90% of the patients using the experimental prep as ""excellent"" or ""good"" in terms of effectiveness. For Moviprep and Nulytely, fewer patients -- about 85% -- were rated ""excellent"" or ""good"" in the cleaning achieved. The proportion of patients who reported that they were satisfied with the bars and drinks was about 64%, whereas only about 33% reported that they were satisfied with the Moviprep and Nulytely products, according to the trial results. Overall, test scores to rate ""cleansing"" for the new items were numerically better than the comparator products, Rex said, ""and resulted in improved patient satisfaction and willingness to repeat the preparation."" ""The results showed that a formulation of three food bars and two shakes containing PEG plus three glasses of electrolyte drink provided the best cleansing,"" he said. So, instead of fasting for 24 hours before a colonoscopy and having to drink a salty, distasteful liquid, patients could start their pre-colonoscopy process with eating the bars and a beverage for lunch and dinner, and then a smoothie for the morning. This new colonoscopy prep is scheduled to begin phase 3 trials early next year. If the trial results appear promising, then the product could enter the market as soon as in 2018. The bars are also being tested in a separate study to determine whether they could be used to treat constipation, Siegel said. 'It's better to not put it off' This isn't the first time that alternative options for colonoscopy preparation have been developed. A study presented at the Digestive Disease Week conference in May found that certain solid foods -- from eggs to cheese to chicken breast -- consumed before a colonoscopy resulted in patients feeling more comfortable during the 24-hour preparation process than when they were instructed to only consume liquids. Some patients opt to trade in a traditional colonoscopy for a laxative-free virtual colonoscopy, in which x-rays and a computer are used to create scanned images of a patient's colon for doctors to examine. However, with this option, doctors wouldn't be able to immediately remove a colon polyp, or small clump cells that could develop into cancer, if detected. For now, Rex recommended that patients should speak with their doctors about ways to improve the tolerability and cleansing effect of their preparation process before a colonoscopy. ""If your doctor has advised a colonoscopy, it's better to not put it off,"" he said."
264,"Record Hot Years Could Be ‘New Normal’ By 2025 —  Following in the blistering footsteps of 2014 and 2015, this year is on track to be the warmest on record.    And we probably need to get accustomed to this sweltering heat. If carbon emissions continue to rise at their current rate, these record hot years will be the “new normal” by 2025, new research shows.   Even if we take action to curb emissions, the damage has already been done, warns the study, published Friday in the Bulletin of American Meteorological Society. Human activities have already ensured that the global annual average temperature of 2015 will be the norm “no later than 2040,” the researchers said. (The “new normal” was defined as being the point when “at least half of the years following a record year were cooler and half warmer,” according to the study.)    “If we continue with business-as-usual emissions, extreme seasons will inevitably become the norm within decades,” said lead author Sophie Lewis, an Australian climatologist. “That means the record hot summer of 2013 in Australia ― when we saw temperatures approaching [122 degrees Fahrenheit] in parts of Australia, bushfires striking the Blue Mountains in October, major impacts to our health and infrastructure and a summer that was so hot it became known as the ‘angry summer’ ― could be just another average summer season by 2035.” Despite the dire outlook, researchers assure us that all hope is not lost.   A future rise in annual global average temperatures is “locked in,” but we can still prevent record-breaking heat at a seasonal and regional level, the scientists said. It will just take “immediate and strong action on carbon emissions” at a global scale.   Last week, a sobering United Nations report revealed that the proposed emissions cuts in the Paris climate agreement would not nearly be enough to stave off the worst effects of climate change.   To keep average global temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius ― the level scientists say the world must stay beneath to avoid climate change’s worst effects ― emissions need to be slashed a further 25 percent on top of existing Paris pledges by 2030, the U.N. Environmental Program said.   “It gives us hope to know that if we act quickly to reduce greenhouse gases, seasonal extremes might never enter a new normal state in the 21st century at regional levels for the Southern Hemisphere summer and Northern Hemisphere winter,”said Lewis, the Australian study’s lead author. “But if we don’t act quickly, Australia’s ‘angry summer’ of 2013 may soon be regarded as mild. Imagine for a moment, if a summer season like 2013 became average. The likely impacts of an extremely hot year in 2035 would beyond anything our society has experienced.” Many have expressed grave concerns about the planet’s future since President-elect Donald Trump emerged victorious in the U.S. election on Tuesday. He has called climate change a “hoax” and vowed to “cancel” the Paris accord.   However, world leaders and climate activists have stressed their continued commitment to battling climate change — no matter what a Trump-led America decides to do.   At the U.N. climate talks in Morocco this week, countries said they were prepared to forge ahead with the commitments in the Paris deal even without the U.S.   “It’s clear Donald Trump is about to be one of the most powerful people in the world,” Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the BBC from Morocco. “But even he does not have the power to amend and change the laws of physics, to stop the impacts of climate change, to stop the rising sea levels.”"
265,"Recycling kills maintenance worker —  Authorities say a maintenance worker has been crushed to death inside a machine that compresses and melts plastics at a recycling plant in Indianapolis.   The Marion County coroner’s office says Michael Burris died of blunt force injuries to his head, body and extremities and has ruled his death at the Plastic Recycling Inc. facility an accident.   The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says the 31-year-old Burris was inside the disabled machine, trying to unclog it early Thursday when it churned back into operation.   Authorities are investigating.   The Indianapolis Star reports that Fred Reed, the plant’s general manager, says the machine squeezes fluffy, light-weight plastic into dense pellets that are sold to factories for the manufacture of picture frames and other plastic goods."
266,"Report: Cincy Zoo's gorilla barrier wasn't in compliance but .... —  The barrier separating primates and humans inside The Cincinnati Zoo was just fine – right up until the moment a child fell into the gorilla exhibit May 28.   That's the takeaway of a new federal report that concluded the zoo's barrier was not in compliance with standards for housing primates when a 3-year-old boy made international news by scaling a fence and falling 15 feet into a moat. That fall allowed Harambe, a 17-year-old gorilla, to reach the child and drag him around, ultimately forcing zoo officials to fatally shoot the primate.   The report, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), issued a critical citation because the barrier failed and caused an animal to be harmed. Before the child fell into the exhibit, however, the zoo had not been cited for shortcomings with that exhibit's barrier during previous inspections.   In short, it's a complicated way of saying that everything would have been fine at the zoo had a child not fallen into the gorilla exhibit, but because one did, the barrier failed.   ""Up until May 28, there hadn't been any issues, so they were in compliance,"" USDA spokesperson Tanya Espinosa said. ""It's ultimately their responsibility to make sure that their barrier restricts contact between the public and non-human primates.""   The zoo so far doesn't face fines or penalties, but an investigation is still ongoing. Espinosa said zoo officials ""swiftly and comprehensively"" updated the barrier following the gorilla's death, which meant it was once again in compliance with federal standards.   The federal standards for public barriers around primate exhibits are vague; they don't specify height, materials or other physical characteristics. The only requirement is that it keeps humans and animals apart.   The report goes on to state that the zoo's dangerous-animal response team properly followed procedures after zoo visitors called 911 to report a child in the gorilla enclosure.   A team member concluded that the child was in ""life-threatening danger,"" and Harambe was killed.   Gail Myers, the spokeswomen for the family of the boy who entered the enclosure, said that the family has never wanted to pursue legal action against the zoo.   ""These findings do not change anything for us. We are thankful to the Lord that our child is safe and well,"" the family said in a statement Thursday. ""It was a tragic accident. We very much appreciate the quick actions by the Cincinnati Zoo staff, and mourn with them the loss of Harambe.""   According to Enquirer reporting in June, the USDA has issued 10 citations in the last three years during inspections at the zoo. But most were minor, and none were at Gorilla World. The USDA is tasked with enforcing the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), a portion of which governs the humane care and treatment of animals that are exhibited to the public. Facilities that exhibit regulated animals must be licensed by the USDA.   In response to the report, Cincinnati Zoo officials reiterated that about 43 million visitors in the past 40 years have gone through Gorilla World without coming into contact with gorillas.   ""The Cincinnati Zoo reaffirms its longstanding commitment to the well-being of the resident animals and the safety of those inspired to view and conserve them,"" a statement from the zoo said Thursday. ""In its 38-year history, the barrier system at Gorilla World has always been found compliant during USDA inspections, including one conducted in April of 2016. Following the incident this May, we modified the barrier to reassure the public and our visitors.""   In a letter to the Cincinnati Zoo’s board of directors, Dr. Elizabeth Goldentyer, Director, Animal Welfare Operations USDA, APHIS, Animal Care wrote, “Animal Care recognizes and appreciates the swift and comprehensive actions taken in response to this incident, both the immediate response during the incident and the overall review of barrier systems throughout the facility. We also acknowledge that the barrier system at Gorilla World was considered to be in compliance with Section 3.78(e) of the Animal Welfare Act Regulations during inspections prior to the incident in question and had been performing admirably for many years.”   Gorilla World was closed for 10 days following the incident in May. During that time, the zoo installed a new barrier railing. It is 42 inches high, with solid wood beams at the top and on the bottom, as well as knotted rope netting.   The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the agency responsible for accrediting zoos, said that despite the Thursday's report, the USDA had previously said the barrier in the gorilla exhibit was in compliance with Animal Welfare Act regulations.   ""In keeping with the accreditation standard to review any incident involving animals and the public at its member zoos and aquariums, the AZA Accreditation Commission did review the updated barrier at Cincinnati Zoo’s gorilla exhibit, along with the subsequent actions taken by the Zoo following the incident in May,"" said Kris Vehrs, AZA interim president and CEO. ""The Commission found that the Zoo meets AZA’s standard related to barriers.""   In a statement, Vehrs said that the Cincinnati Zoo has been continuously accredited for 38 years with the AZA.   “The AZA Accreditation Commission firmly believes that Cincinnati Zoo is meeting the highest standards of animal care and welfare, while also providing a safe and educational environment for their guests,” Vehrs said."
267,"Report: Ore. man who died in Yellowstone hot spring was trying to 'hot pot' —  An Oregon man who died after falling into a boiling, acidic spring in Yellowstone National Park in June, was trying to ‘hot pot,” or soak in one of the park’s thermal pools, according to a report on the accident.   The victim’s sister, Sable Scott, told park officials that she watched her brother, Colin Nathaniel Scott, 23, fall into a thermal pool while he reached down to check the water temperature, according to a report released Monday by Yellowstone officials.    “They were specifically moving in that area for a place that they could potentially get into and soak,” Deputy Chief Ranger Lorand Veress told KULR-TV. “I think they call it ‘hot potting.'""   According to the report, the brother and sister illegally ventured off the boardwalk at Norris Geyser Basin. Sable told park officials she recorded the journey on her cell phone, and captured Colin's fall on her cell phone, though the video was not released with the report.   After Colin's sister reported the call, Rangers made their way to the geyser to recover the body.   Rescuers arrived at the hot springs and determined that Colin was dead after seeing the “upper torso of a male victim floating face-up in a pool.”   According to the report, the water temperature in the ten-foot-deep pool was over 212 degrees Fahrenheit.   Officials were unable to retrieve Colin's body on June 7, so they returned the following morning, but the body was no longer visible, according to the report.   “Evidence suggests that the extreme heat and the acidity of the water quickly dissolved his body in the hot spring,” according to the report, which stated his causes of death was ‘”scalding due to submersion in thermal hot spring.”   Park officials released the report following a Freedom of Information Act request filed by KULR-TV.   The park prohibits people from walking off the boardwalks or swimming in hot springs.   The National Park Service has not issued any citations in regard to the incident."
268,"Republican women increasingly fear party is alienating female voters —  A growing number of prominent Republican women are worried that as members of their male-dominated party step up to defend Donald Trump against accusations of sexual assault, they are causing irreparable damage to the GOP’s deteriorating relationship with female voters.   Trump has faced questions throughout his campaign about his crass comments about women, but concern escalated this month following the release of a 2005 video in which Trump boasted that he had sexually assaulted women and subsequent allegations by 11 women that Trump had inappropriately touched or kissed them. A series of mostly male Republicans have come to Trump’s defense — dismissing the accusers as liars and, some worry, further alienating the female voters that the party desperately needs to survive. “For next-generation professional women, the party is going to have to do something very, very drastic to change the course of where this candidate has taken us,” said Katie Packer, a deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney in 2012. “I think the leaders in our party are going to have to aggressively reject this. Come November 9, they better be prepared to make very strong statements condemning all of Trump’s behavior.”   This division within the Republican Party comes as polls suggest the nation is on the verge of electing its first female president even as misogyny remains a part of American life and culture. Ironically, it is Trump’s candidacy rather than Hillary Clinton’s that has brought sexism to the forefront of political debate. The controversy also comes as the Republican Party continues to struggle to attract women, who make up a majority of the electorate and who have supported the Democratic presidential candidate in every election going back to 1992. President Obama won women by 11 points in 2012, and several polls show Clinton leading among women by an even bigger margin this year.   A growing number of well-known female Republican strategists and politicians have had it with Trump. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said earlier this month she “cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women.” Former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, whose looks Trump once mocked, said “Donald Trump does not represent me or my party.” And former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice wrote on Facebook earlier this month: “Enough! Donald Trump should not be President.”   The latest flare-up came Tuesday night, when former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R) exploded at Fox News’ Megyn Kelly during an interview, repeatedly shaking his finger at her and accusing her of being “fascinated with sex” because she brought up allegations of sexual assault against Trump. In a scolding tone, Gingrich tried to tell Kelly which words she could or could not use.   Gingrich once had a fascination of his own with Bill Clinton’s sex life, as he was a driving force behind the movement to impeach Clinton following a consensual sexual relationship he had with a young former intern. Clinton became the second president in American history to be impeached by the House, but he was acquitted by the Senate. Voters, meanwhile, punished the Republicans for what they saw as an overreach: The GOP lost five House seats in the 1998 midterm elections, which led to Gingrich’s resignation as speaker.   Trump and his supporters deemed Gingrich’s interview a victory, with the campaign’s director of social media tweeting that Kelly is “not very smart” and telling his followers: “Watch what happens to her after this election is over.”   “Congratulations, Newt, on last night. That was an amazing interview,” Trump said at a ribbon-cutting at his new hotel in Washington on Wednesday. “We don’t play games, Newt, right?” Two of the women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct piled on. Juanita Broaddrick tweeted: “Beauty is only skin deep. Megyn Kelly is ugly as hell on the inside.” Paula Jones wrote in a tweet that has since been deleted: “Woohoo, he slammed this nasty heifer!”   But many other Republican women have concluded in recent weeks that this is not the party they know.   “Looks like Newt Gingrich just proved my point again,” tweeted Amanda Carpenter, a conservative commentator and former communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. Carpenter wrote this week in The Washington Post about how her party has left women like her behind by ignoring Trump’s chauvinism that was “well-documented in decades’ worth of publicly available smutty television, radio and print interviews long before he became the nominee.” “If the GOP has truly convinced itself that openly engaging in sexual assault fantasies is something normal that men do among one another, I have a suggestion. Relocate the Republican National Committee headquarters into a men’s-only locker room,” Carpenter wrote. “Eliminate all pretenses of wanting to let women in.”   Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster, said in an interview that Democrats no longer have to push a “war on women” narrative because it’s playing out on its own thanks to Trump — and comments like those that Gingrich made on Tuesday.   “It’s just one more clueless middle-age-to-older white guy taking to task a woman,” Matthews said. “It’s so unhelpful on every level.”   [One GOP woman wonders why the men in her party won’t defend her]   Nicolle Wallace, former communications chief for George W. Bush who is now a political commentator, tweeted that Republicans are now “engaged in a hot war against women that will end badly” for the party.   “Men like @newtgingrich are a big reason the GOP has lost women,” Packer wrote in another tweet. “Men like him don’t make women like me want to share a ‘tent’ w/them.”   Earlier this week, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager and the first woman to lead a GOP presidential nominee’s campaign, seemed to struggle when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if she believes the women who have accused Trump of sexual assault.   “I believe — Donald Trump has told me and his family, and the rest of America now, that none of this is true,” Conway said. “These are lies and fabrications. They’re all made up. And I think that it’s not for me to judge what those women believe. I’ve not talked to them, I’ve talked to him.”   Trump has repeatedly denied allegations of abuse or sexism and has bragged about empowering female employees in his businesses.   “Nobody has more respect for women than I do,” Trump said during the last presidential debate when asked about his accusers, prompting laughter from the crowd in Las Vegas.   Carrie Almond, president of the National Federation of Republican Women, has traveled to 39 states in an RV this year, talking with thousands of women who enthusiastically support Trump and believe the party speaks for them.   CONTENT FROM JOHNNIE WALKER They'll be a third of the electorate in 2050 Here's how pioneering Hispanics are defining America’s social, political and cultural landscape. “It’s very important to not put all women into the same basket because not everyone sees everything the same way,” said Almond, who is from Missouri.   When confronted with criticism, Trump tends to go after women in much more personal and demeaning ways than men, even though he insists he is an equal-opportunity counterpuncher. Trump’s attacks on female journalists, accusers and rivals over the past year have been heavy with criticism of their looks, their intelligence and their mental health.   After the first debate during the Republican primary — which featured three moderators, two men and one woman, who all peppered him with uncomfortable questions — Trump zeroed in on the woman, Kelly, for asking him about comments he makes about women. After the debate, Trump said that Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”   [Donald Trump calls her ‘Crooked Hillary,’ but his fans just say ‘b----’]   When the Muslim American parents of a soldier killed in Iraq in 2004 appeared at the Democratic National Convention in July in opposition to Trump’s candidacy, Trump zeroed in on the mother, Ghazala Khan, saying in an ABC News interview: “She had nothing to say. She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.” Khan later said it is still too difficult for her to talk about her son’s death.   In early September, when the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” were critical of Trump, he zeroed in on the female host, Mika Brzezinski, tweeting: “Just heard that crazy and very dumb @morningmika had a mental breakdown while talking about me on the low ratings @Morning_Joe. Joe a mess!”   Trump has told NBC’s Katy Tur to “be quiet” when she pressed him during a news conference, and snapped at CNN’s Dana Bash on Wednesday that she was “rude” to ask about the propriety of holding an event boosting his new Washington hotel. He urged his millions of Twitter followers to search for a seemingly nonexistent “sex tape” of a former Miss Universe whom he had criticized as fat. And he has accused Hillary Clinton of lacking “a presidential look.” When Trump made a similar critique of Fiorina during the primaries, she responded: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.” Trump’s rallies have also been hotbeds of incendiary rhetoric around gender, including popular anti-Clinton T-shirts in many locales proclaiming, “Trump that ­b----!”   John Weaver, a GOP consultant who worked on the presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, said he is stunned by “the misogyny, the lack of understanding of where this country is now” coming from Trump’s campaign.   “If you have a gender gap the size of the Snake River Canyon, why do you trot out Newt Gingrich, and [former New York mayor] Rudy Giuliani and your nominee to talk about it and further make it worse?” said Weaver, noting that all three men have been married three times. “The only ones I can see who seem to be obsessed about sex in this campaign are those three people.”   Weaver continued: “He’s going to lose the general election, and the credit goes to the women of America who are saving us from this guy.”"
269,"Republicans in Congress Fear Losses, and Then the Hard Part —  Congressional Republicans have come to grudgingly accept an unfolding reality: Things are not looking good.   Donald J. Trump is lagging in polls and pulling down the party’s congressional candidates, analysts are already ceding the Senate to the Democrats and a conservative challenge to Speaker Paul D. Ryan is brewing in the House.   “The math kind of just works for them,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, though he was not yet willing to concede big gains by Democrats.   If the most likely scenario holds — a Hillary Clinton victory, a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate and a diminished Republican House majority — Republicans will have to make crucial and onerous decisions they are now beginning to confront.   Do they try to find a way to cooperate with Democrats and get something done after years of stasis in Washington, perhaps as a way to move beyond the Trump phenomenon? Or do they dig in against Democrats and the new president as a bet on a Republican comeback in the 2018 midterm elections, adopting a noncooperative strategy to recapture the Senate majority and pad their numbers in the House?   Can Mr. Ryan survive as speaker? Does Mr. Ryan even want to survive as speaker of a House where any negotiating room is likely to be severely constricted by pressure from his right? What about Merrick B. Garland or an alternative choice for the Supreme Court? Will Republicans finally make way for the court-shifting nominee of a Democratic president, or will Democrats resort to ending the filibuster to fill a court opening?   Even if they sustain the predicted losses, Republicans say they will retain leverage through their control of the House and the proven power of the minority in the Senate, especially under their leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. So those anticipating that the election will somehow lead to a Washington reset should brace for disappointment.   “We are likely in another period of divided government, and I don’t know that our task will be any easier now than it has been,” said Representative Charlie Dent, a pragmatic Republican from Pennsylvania. “I expect it will be more challenging.” Republicans face competing dynamics. Many of them have a desire to get Congress functioning in the more traditional manner to start addressing the pent-up demand for public works, major tax law changes, immigration policy, even improvements in the health care law and revisions to entitlement programs.   But they fear that Mrs. Clinton has been pulled left by the election and will be held there by newly empowered progressive forces such as Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, making it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve any legislative compromises acceptable to Republicans. And they note that Mrs. Clinton, should she win the White House, will start out with nothing resembling the personal popularity that President Obama had at the beginning of his first term. Republicans were willing to buck him then, so challenging Mrs. Clinton now does not seem like a stretch.   At the same time, the election has provided Republicans with a painful, up-close look at dissatisfaction among their voters, who might revolt if the party even considers giving ground to Democrats. Already, there are cries for Senate Republicans to indefinitely stonewall any Supreme Court nominee to prevent the court from becoming more liberal. With the House majority expected to shrink, perhaps considerably, and become more conservative, Republicans fear they will struggle to assemble bipartisan majorities to do the fundamental tasks of governing such as increasing the debt limit — a looming early test — and funding the government, let alone to strike big-picture policy compromises.   Any move by Mr. Ryan and his allies to rely too heavily on Democrats to pass legislation will immediately provoke a backlash from the hard-right element of his caucus and potentially put his job at risk. Those conservatives are already agitating for a delay in party leadership elections next month in an apparent effort to win time to gauge Mr. Ryan’s postelection mind-set. And many House conservatives remain more inclined to investigate Mrs. Clinton than to meet her at the negotiating table.   Top Republicans say there is a reasonable political argument to be made for digging in and awaiting 2018, when Republicans will have a distinct advantage in Senate races in a midterm environment more favorable to them.   Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader in waiting, hopes that is not the case.   “I think there is a moral imperative to get government working again,” he said in an interview. “People are angry and sour in part because the government is paralyzed. If we are gridlocked again for the next four years, the election of 2020 will make the election of 2016 look tame.”   Mr. Schumer sees himself as someone who can work with Republicans, building on existing relationships such as his rapport with Mr. Ryan.   “I think he is the kind of guy who wants to get things done,” Mr. Schumer said.   Mrs. Clinton is also viewed as someone capable of breaking the ice with congressional Republican leaders based on her tenure in the Senate, her White House experience and her time as secretary of state. Even some in the Obama White House expect that she would be more successful than Mr. Obama was at wooing Capitol Hill.   Absent an electoral landslide that hands Democrats control of the House as well, considerable wooing may well be necessary if Democrats win the White House and Senate and hope to bring a new spirit to a gridlocked Congress."
270,"Rescuers say all 33 miners trapped in China mine found dead —  BEIJING — All 33 coal miners trapped underground in a gas explosion earlier this week have been found dead, state media reported Wednesday, as work safety officials vowed to punish those responsible. Two miners survived Monday’s explosion but rescuers working around the clock found no others alive. All bodies have been recovered and rescuers were shown bowing their heads in memorial for the dead. Gas explosions inside mines are often caused when a flame or electrical spark ignites gas leaking from the coal seam. Ventilation systems are supposed to prevent gas from becoming trapped. The State Administration of Work Safety ordered an investigation into the blast, “adding that those responsible must be strictly punished.” Local officials in Chongqing also ordered smaller mines to shut down temporarily, Xinhua said. China’s mining industry has long been among the world’s deadliest. The head of the State Administration of Work Safety said earlier this year that struggling coal mines might be likely to overlook maintenance. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal but plans to shutter more than 1,000 outdated mines as part of a broader plan to reduce overproduction."
271,"Retired D.C. officer fatally shoots son during domestic dispute, police say —  A retired D.C. police officer fatally shot his son during a domestic disturbance in the family’s home Monday night in Northeast Washington, according to authorities.   Police identified the victim as Carl Holloway, 33, and said he had a weapon, but they declined to describe it.   No charges have been filed and police did not publicly identify the father, who retired from the police department in the early to mid-1990s. He had run a private security company but it was unclear whether he still worked in that field. Calls to the home were not answered.   The shooting occurred about 9:50 p.m. in the 2300 block of Woodridge Street NE, just off Rhode Island Avenue and near the Maryland border. Police did not publicly describe what led to the shooting but said that investigators were trying to determine whether it was justified. Holloway has no prior criminal record but was arrested Oct. 23 and charged with assault after police said in an affidavit that he hit his father in the shoulder during an argument inside the home.   Holloway had been scheduled to appear in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday. His attorney, Alvin H. Thomas Jr., said a plea agreement had been negotiated that would result in the charge being dropped if Holloway went to counseling.   Thomas said he did not know the nature of October’s dispute between the father and son. He described his client as having cognitive problems but nothing that he said would lead to violent tendencies. He said he spoke to his client Monday evening.   “He did not seem to be in a state of mind where attacking his father was likely,” Thomas said. “We had a very nice and pleasant conversation. We talked about life for a bit. He seemed fine.”"
272,"Reward for Finding Salt River Wild Horse Killer Soars to $25,000! —  The reward fund for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who shot and killed a baby Salt River wild horse and wounded two other young horses soared to $25,000 thanks to a matching offer from Animal Recovery Mission a non-profit organization based out of Florida.   Immediately after the shooting, the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group (SRWHMG), an Arizona non-profit organization and the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) offered a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator, and the Humane Society of the United States and Schill Law Firm quickly added to the reward. In addition the public has contributed to the reward and rescue fund as well in a Gofundme account. As of November 7th the total reward fund had added up to $12,500. Any member of the public wanting to contribute to the reward can visit this link; http://wildhor.se/2epCqhn   However to date, no tips leading to the suspect’s apprehension have been received. This week, ARM Investigations, which is closely tied to the fight to protect the Salt River Wild Horses as a coalition partner of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, decided boldly to match the existing reward fund.   ARM is in the business of fighting extreme animal cruelty and was created to investigate, expose and derail some of the most untouchable animal cruelty in America today. ARM’s investigations have brought hundreds of illegal animal slaughter operations to their knees. The organization also focuses on conservation programs, including the protection and preservation of wild horses and burros.   Richard ‘Kudo’ Couto, ARM Founder and President stated, “In our experience, in cases that have become stagnant, we found that offering an extremely large reward often succeeded in bringing a crucial tip forward. These kind of despicable acts upon animals, in this case the innocent and cherished Salt River wild horses, are unacceptable and taking a stance is a moral and societal obligation to do the right thing; in addition, we hope it will discourage and any future heinous acts against the Salt River wild horses”.   “The coward who shot these innocent and beloved wild horses needs to be brought to justice,” added Simone Netherlands, President of the SRWHMG. “We are so thankful to our coalition partners and to Sherrif Joe Arpaio and MCSO and are hopeful that this spectacular amount of reward money will bring forth and encourage the tip that leads to the shooter’s arrest and conviction. Somebody knows exactly what happened, and that person can ensure that justice is served while receiving a financial reward at the same time.”   On Friday, Oct. 21 at about 6 p.m., according to MCSO, a witness saw a man wearing black shorts and a dark green shirt shooting three Salt River wild horses. The witness saw one of the horses flailing in the river, and observed two other horses get hit with rounds from a rifle or shotgun. The suspect chased after the horses as they fled. Two other individuals are believed to have been with the person who shot the horses.   On Saturday, Oct. 22 the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group found a Salt River wild horse, – a 6-month foal named Kai – dead, with gunshot wounds to the side of his neck and head. In a bizarre and sickening twist of events, Kai was also found mutilated of his genitals. Two other horses in the same family band appeared to have possible small bullet wounds but survived and are recovering on their own.   The two horses who were also shot at, are currently being monitored closely and have been acknowledged as incurring wounds, possibly from the bullet ricochets. The SRWHMG and their volunteers are on the Salt River daily to ensure their safety and determine if they will need to be brought in to be treated.   This is not the first time that the wild horses of Salt River have been shot at and injured. In-fact, volunteers of the (SRWHMG) who are on the river daily, suspect that these majestic horses are being hunted. Ironically, almost a year ago to this shooting, a wild horse by the name of ‘Dotty’ was found dead from three shots to the head and one shot to the shoulder. Two other horses also met the same fate and a pattern appears to be emerging given the hunting season period. It is important to note that prior to the Salt River wild horses garnering media attention, 1-2 horses a year were reported shot and killed.   The SRWHMG is dedicated to protecting, monitoring and studying the Salt River wild horses. The SRWHMG has been spearheading the effort to secure lasting protections for this iconic and beloved wild horse herd in the Tonto National Forest.   The public still has a chance to add to the reward by doing to the Go Fund Me page, which ARM will then match.   Whilst the Maricopa Sheriff’s department has been working hard to find the culprit, no strong leads have surfaced to date."
273,"Riot police move in on North Dakota pipeline protesters —  Armed police in the US state of North Dakota have arrested 141 Native American protesters and environmental activists during a tense confrontation. They were among several hundred people who occupied private land in the path of a controversial new oil pipeline. Police fired non-lethal rounds and used pepper spray and sound cannon to push protesters back to their main encampment on public land. Skirmishes lasted overnight and continued until early Friday morning. By then, spent bean bag rounds and pepper spray canisters littered the ground as police towed away vehicles that the protesters had burned to create barricades in the road, including several military-grade Humvees. ""They used a sonic device and then also they used rubber bullets and we have shots of people who had rubber bullets right to the face. They maced elders right in the face. They dragged people out of sweat lodges. They shot one 15-year-old boy's horse and killed it under him,"" Jacqueline Keeler from the Sioux tribe told the BBC. She said members of the tribe were protesting because the pipeline threatened the region's water supply went across land never ceded by the tribe. Police said they had fired non-lethal bean bag rounds in response to stone throwing and one woman who fired a pistol three times at police officers without hitting any. Dozens of officers in riot gear, some armed, moved in assisted by trucks and military Humvees. Morton County Sheriff's office said the operation began at 11:15am local time (18:15 GMT) and that protesters had refused to leave voluntarily on Wednesday. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said the protesters were a ""public safety issue"" and their actions had ""forced law enforcement to respond"". ""We cannot have protesters blocking county roads, blocking state highways or trespassing on private property,"" he said in a statement. But Robert Eder, a 64-year-old Vietnam War veteran from the Standing Rock Reservation, said protesters were not scared. ""If they take everybody to jail, there will be twice as many tomorrow, and every day that passes more will come,"" he said. ""If they raze these teepees, tomorrow we will be back."" Hundreds of protesters have camped on the federally owned land for months, with more than 260 people arrested before Thursday's police operation. Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the project, has said it will boost the local economy and is safer than transporting oil by rail or road. Members of the Sioux tribe say the Dakota Access pipeline will desecrate sacred land and harm water resources. The pipeline will run almost 1,900km (1,170 miles), carrying oil to Gulf Coast refineries. Native American protesters claim the land as their own, citing a 19th Century treaty with the federal government. The protest has drawn the attention of activists and celebrities, including actress-activist Shailene Woodley and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein."
274,"Rising Toll on Civilians in Yemen Raises Alarm —  United Nations human rights officials expressed alarm on Friday at a sharp rise in civilian casualties in Yemen since peace talks collapsed last month, the great majority of them inflicted in airstrikes by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia. At least 329 civilians have been killed, and at least 426 have been injured since the beginning of August. Fighting resumed after Aug. 6, when talks collapsed between the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and forces aligned with Houthi rebels supported by Iran who control the capital and large portions of the country. The toll was reported as Saudi Arabia and Arab allies waged a diplomatic campaign at the United Nations Human Rights Council to stave off an international investigation into the conduct of hostilities and possible war crimes. Heavy Saudi pressure on Western governments and businesses succeeded in stalling a similar initiative in the Council last year; diplomats say the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, has again lobbied against an independent international inquiry. They add that growing awareness of the bloodshed has made it harder for the United States and Britain, Saudi Arabia’s major suppliers of arms and munitions, to look away. An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition on a market and residential area of the city of Hodeidah on Wednesday has been the most vivid example of the carnage. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, condemned the attack, which killed at least 26 civilians, according to human rights monitors. “The death toll could be much higher,” Cécile Pouilly, a spokeswoman for the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, told reporters in Geneva on Friday. Ten days earlier, two coalition airstrikes had reportedly killed 21 civilians, including a group of men drilling for water. The United Nations documented at least 41 attacks on civilian facilities like clinics, schools and markets by both coalition and rebel forces in August, killing at least 180 people, Ms. Pouilly said, a 40 percent increase on the casualties in July, when parties to the conflict were still in talks. The charity Doctors Without Borders announced last month that it was pulling staff members out of six hospitals in Yemen after coalition planes bombed a facility, killing 19 people and injuring 24, the fourth time that hospitals supported by the group had come under attack by the coalition since the start of the war in March 2015. By Thursday, the number of civilians killed this month had reached 149, she added, of which 126 were attributed to the coalition and nine to pro-Houthi groups, with others mostly killed by groups that were either linked to the Islamic State or had not been identified. The United Nations also voiced concern over the effects of a blockade of the city of Taiz, enforced by popular committees aligned with the Houthi rebels, leaving residents critically short of food and water, Ms. Pouilly said, and causing a near-total collapse of health services. The action added to a long list of Houthi abuses documented in a report to the Human Rights Council this month. The abuses include torture and extrajudicial killings; indiscriminate shelling and rocket attacks on residential areas; sniper attacks on civilians; the laying of land mines and arrests and intimidation of journalists. The report also found, however, that the majority of civilian casualties had been caused by the Saudi-led coalition. Saudi Arabia and President Hadi’s government condemned that report as biased and have put forward a resolution in the Human Rights Council calling on the United Nations to provide experts to work within a Yemeni commission investigating human rights violations. Rights groups are adamant that a national body lacks expertise and that its reporting falls far short of international standards. The European Union countered on Friday by drafting a competing resolution calling for a United Nations mission to Yemen, setting the scene for a week of diplomatic haggling before the Council decides how to proceed. “It’s a litmus test for the credibility of the council and its ability to engage with the needs of civilians on the ground,” said John Fisher, the Geneva director of Human Rights Watch. “We can’t leave it to a national process to deliver accountability.” Mr. Hadi vowed at the United Nations on Friday to “extract Yemen from the claws of Iran,” and he accused Iran of taking a “multitude of actions and interventions” to block the path toward peace."
275,"River ride malfunction at Australia’s Dreamworld kills four people, horrifies onlookers —  It was sunny Tuesday when two women and two men boarded a large circular raft at Dreamworld, Australia’s largest theme park, and headed for the raging waters of the Thunder River Rapids Ride. It’s one of the park’s most popular attractions, a fast moving “foamy water track” that pushes riders through turbulent, artificial rapids at up to 45 km/h — equivalent to about 30 mph, according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Still, children are allowed to climb aboard. It’s considered tame, a family ride. But Tuesday, at around 2 p.m., authorities say the ride malfunctioned during the foursome’s trip. Two people from the raft were ejected; the other two were trapped inside. Nobody survived. Dreamworld is located in Gold Coast, a 60-minute drive from Brisbane on the country’s east coast in Queensland. News of the fatal tragedy spread rapidly across the country, prompting fans of the theme park and Thunder River Rapids ride to share messages of disbelief on social media. Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said the incident marked a “very sad day for our city.” The prime minister offered prayers for family of the dead. “We are deeply shocked and saddened by this and our hearts and our thoughts go to the families involved and to their loved ones,” Dreamworld chief executive Craig Davidson said at a news conference hours after the tragedy. Authorities would not say what type of injuries the four people suffered, only that they were “incompatible with life.” Police Inspector Tod Reid said at a news conference that victims were two women, ages 42 and 32, and two men, ages 38 and 35. Their names have not been released to the public. Authorities are still working to confirm their identities and notify family members. Information from authorities did not paint a clear picture of what exactly happened in the moments leading up to the “malfunction.” They would not say during the news conference if those trapped in the ride were under water or caught up in the mechanism itself, though an initial news alert from Queensland police indicated the victims were injured by the conveyor belt. Queensland Ambulance spokesman Gavin Fuller did say that while emergency services were en route to the disturbing scene, Dreamworld staff gave the victims first aid but were unable to save their lives. “It is one of the most tame rides here and certainly one for the families,” Lisa Walker, a New Zealander visiting from New Guinea, told the Guardian. She was one of hundreds of people Tuesday who was asked to leave the amusement park over the loud speaker as word of the incident rippled throughout the crowds. One man who witnessed the incident told the Gold Coast Bulletin that he saw the ride flip at the tail end of its circuit and that just before it overturned, a girl was pulled from the ride. Other witnesses said people ran from the Rapid River ride, screaming. “There were heaps of people crying,” Leah Capes told the Bulletin. “It all happened so fast.” Water from the ride was drained amid efforts to save the victims, the Bulletin reported. As guests left the park, they were asked to report to guest services and speak with police if they witnessed the tragedy. The park closed at 3:30 p.m., according to the Bulletin. At the news conference Tuesday afternoon, Fuller told reporters the rescue efforts were traumatizing for first responders. “A number of the staff that were here today have been deeply affected by what occurred,” he said.  Multiple agencies were on the scene throughout the afternoon, including a forensic team, workplace health and safety and the coroner."
276,"Robert Vaughn dead: American actor passes away at 83 —  Robert Vaughn, who played a slick spy on TV's ""The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,"" died Friday, his manager, Matthew Sullivan, told CNN. He was 83.   Vaughn had been ill with acute leukemia and was receiving treatment in recent months. A New York native, Vaughn was born to parents who were already in show business. People we&#39;ve lost in 2016  Photos: People we've lost in 2016 His mother, Marcella Vaughn, was an actress on stage and his father, Walter Vaughn, was a radio actor. His parents divorced when he was young. As a teen Vaughn moved to Los Angeles to live with his mother and obtained a degree in theater from Los Angeles City College in 1956. He was drafted into the military and served as a drill instructor in the Army. Vaughn dived into acting after his military service ended and in 1960, his role as Chet in the film ""The Young Philadelphians"" earned him a best supporting actor Academy Award nomination. More roles followed in films like ""The Magnificent Seven"" and in TV series including ""The Dick Van Dyke Show."" But it was his performance as a suave spy in ""The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,"" which defined Vaughn as a star. ""I said 'It's James Bond on television,' and [co-creator Norman Felton] said 'That's it,'"" Vaughn recalled in an interview with the Television Academy about how he got the role. ""He said, 'But don't say that. [James Bond] creator Ian Fleming and I are friends and that might cause problems.'"" Vaughn continued working throughout his life in films like ""Superman III"" and ""The Towering Inferno"" and, more recently, in TV shows including ""Murder She Wrote"" and ""Law & Order."" He is survived by his wife, Linda, and two children, Cassidy and Caitlin Vaughn."
277,"Russia bombards Syria hours after Putin speaks with Trump —  Russia announced a major air offensive in Syria on Tuesday, ending a three-week cease-fire with a barrage of airstrikes on the besieged, rebel-held part of the northern city of Aleppo, according to U.S. officials -- all just a few hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone to President-elect Donald Trump about their goals for ending the Syria crisis.   Officials said Putin and Trump agreed on the need to combine efforts in the fight against what the Kremlin called their No. 1 enemy -- ""international terrorism and extremism."" Three cruise missiles from a Russian Navy frigate in the eastern Mediterranean Sea struck Aleppo, U.S. military officials told Fox News. One official said the strikes were ""ongoing.""   Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis called the missile launches a “show.” He said the nearly two dozen Russian strike aircraft, tanks and artillery systems already in Syria provide enough firepower to leave serious damage.    President Barack Obama's administration has been trying for months to negotiate a cease-fire in Aleppo, the epicenter of the war between President Bashar Assad and rebels fighting to topple him, some of whom receive U.S. aid. Al Qaeda's local affiliate fights alongside the rebels, but the Islamic State group has no presence in Aleppo.   Russian fighter jets launched from an airbase along Syria’s coast to participate in the new airstrikes. Six Su-33 jets from Russia’s aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, were moved to the old Bassel al-Assad airport in the coastal province of Latakia on Saturday, according to officials, to take part in the strikes. The Soviet-era aircraft carrier is not equipped to launch fully armed and fully fueled jets because the aircraft carrier does not have steam catapults like its American counterparts.Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian warplanes would target ammunition depots, training camps and armaments factories in the rebel-held province of Idlib and the central province of Homs. He did not immediately mention Aleppo.   Activists reported strikes in all three places. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said missiles fired from Russian warships in the Mediterranean have struck areas in Aleppo and Idlib provinces. The Observatory said airstrikes also struck three neighborhoods in Aleppo city, but had no immediate word on casualties.   Long range Tu-95 “Bear” and Tu-160 “Blackjack” bombers were last seen by U.S. satellites getting armed at a Russian Air Force base in Engels in southern Russia. So far, they have not participated in the new round of strikes, but that could change very soon, according to officials.   Advanced MiG-29K fighter jets from the Russian aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean have been seen launching and flying directly to the Russian airbase in Syria to arm. It was not immediately clear whether these fighter jets participated in the latest round of airstrikes.   Russian Defense Ministry Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov insisted that the Russian military did not strike any targets in the city of Aleppo, adding that Russian and Syrian warplanes have not conducted any raids on the city for four weeks. He said claims that Russian warplanes had bombed hospitals in Aleppo province were ""outright lies.""   Activist Baraa al-Halaby, who is based in eastern Aleppo, said via text messages that warplanes were firing missiles and helicopters were dropping barrel bombs on the eastern part of Syria's largest city.   ""People are scared. The bombardment is intense,"" al-Halaby wrote.   In mid-October, Russia said it would halt weeks of deadly airstrikes to allow rebels and supporters to leave eastern Aleppo. The rebels refused to take up the offer and the United Nations failed to negotiate the delivery of aid into the besieged area.   On Saturday, government troops fought off a rebel offensive on western parts of Aleppo that was designed to break the siege on the opposition-held east. Aleppo has been contested since 2012.   The government siege has left an estimated 275,000 people trapped, with no aid allowed in since July, amid a punishing bombing campaign.   In Geneva, meanwhile, two U.N. agencies said food production in Syria has shrunk to ""an all-time low,"" threatening to drive more people from their homes after 5-1/2 years of war.   The World Food Program and the Food and Agricultural Organization say factors like rising prices, poor weather, general instability and the lack of fertilizer and seeds could force some farmers to stop producing.   A joint report released Tuesday says the planting area in the 2015-2016 season was the smallest ever in zones controlled by the government, ethnic Kurds and the armed opposition. WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said information was lacking about areas controlled by ISIS.   FAO regional representative Abdessalam Ould Ahmed said 80 percent of households lack food or money to buy it."
278,"Russian fighter jet crashes into Mediterranean —  A Russian fighter jet crashed into the Mediterranean as it attempted to land on a Russian aircraft carrier, state news agency Tass reported.   Citing the Russian Defense Ministry, Tass said the pilot of the MIG 29 ejected a few kilometers from the carrier and was recovered safely. Russian state media outlet Sputnik quoted a Defense Ministry statement blaming the accident on a technical problem. It's unclear when the crash took place. A flotilla of Russian naval vessels, including the Soviet-era aircraft carrier, arrived off the Syrian coast on Saturday. Russia has been supporting Syrian government operations in the conflict in that country. The Russian flotilla began its voyage last month, departing from the North Sea and skirting the coast of the UK. NATO and UK Ministry of Defense officials closely monitored the vessels. In a statement issued at that time, the Russian navy said the voyage was ""to ensure naval presence in the important areas of the World Ocean. Special focus will be made on safeguarding security of maritime traffic and other types of Russian maritime economic activity and also responding to new kinds of modern threats such as piracy and international terrorism."" But others have taken a different view. Analysis: why Russian warships are traveling through British waters ""It's a show of force and a show of capabilities,"" Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, told CNN last month. ""In terms of strike missions, they (the Russians) could just as easily have conducted them with the land-based aircraft they already have in Syria."""
279,"SCOTTIE PIPPEN'S WIFE TO COPS 'HE SCARES ME' Broke Phone During Argument —  Larsa Pippen told police she was ""scared"" of Scottie Pippen during an Oct. 4th argument at their home -- in which the NBA star broke his own cell phone out of frustration ... TMZ Sports has learned. We broke the story ... cops responded to Pippen's Florida home twice this month -- right before Scottie filed for divorce -- and now we've obtained the police report from the second incident. Cops arrived to the home in the middle of the day and found Larsa waiting outside the home. ""She stated they were having marital problems and that he raises his voice to her, yells at her and scares her,"" the report says. Cops say they found Scottie inside the house and he acknowledged an argument -- saying, ""he was upset and did break the screen on his phone in frustration."" Scottie agreed to leave the house to let things calm down. Larsa told police she would be talking to an attorney. Neither party was arrested. Once again, there were NO allegations of domestic violence -- just another screaming match ... same kinda thing from the first incident on October 2nd. As we previously reported, Scottie had been unhappy with his wife's relationship with Future -- though our Larsa sources claim their relationship is just ""casual."""
280,"SHOOTING REPORTED AT NIGHTCLUB IN SOUTH PHILADELPHIA —  Police are investigating a shooting reported at a nightclub in South Philadelphia.   The male victim showed up at a hospital after the incident.   He told police he was shot several times at Club Onyx, located in the 2900 block of Columbus Boulevard, around 5 a.m. Monday.   The victim was said to be in stable condition.   There was no immediate word what led to the shooting.   There have been no arrests."
281,"Sally Brampton: Journalist killed herself after 'missed opportunities' —  Sally Brampton, founding editor of Elle magazine in the UK, killed herself after health professionals ""missed opportunities"" to offer her help, an inquest has heard. Ms Brampton, 60, who wrote a Daily Mail advice column, drowned after walking into the sea near her home on 10 May. Hastings Coroners' Court heard she was ""in crisis"" in March 2016 and had sought help from a psychiatrist and GP. But ""that help did not come"", assistant coroner James Healy-Pratt added. Ms Brampton, from St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, was pulled ashore at Galley Hill, Bexhill, on 10 May. The agony aunt, who had spoken out publicly about her long-running battle with depression, had been referred to local mental health services two months earlier, the inquest heard. However, she was not offered any help and she again contacted a GP in April. Psychiatrist's letter It was agreed she was ""out of crisis"" at this stage. However, the coroner heard her full clinical details - including a letter from her private psychiatrist - had not been provided to the relevant services. The letter, dated 19 March, stated Ms Brampton was ""in crisis"" and having ""strong suicidal thoughts"". It said Ms Brampton was having feelings of ""hopelessness and helplessness"", adding that she had spent most of the last week in bed and had hardly left the house. Ms Brampton had ""disengaged"" from local services and had ""painted a very jaundiced view of them"", the letter added. Mr Healy-Pratt said there was ""a missed opportunity"" to help Ms Brampton in March and more information should have been provided before the second referral. ""However, we don't know that those missed opportunities would have changed Sally's outcome and that is an important factor,"" he added. Mr Healy-Pratt said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Ms Brampton wanted to walk into the sea and he recorded a verdict of suicide. A 'bright star' Christine Henham, a general manager at Hastings and Rother mental health services, said lessons had been learned and changes have been made since Ms Brampton's death. She said the team no longer sends or receive faxes, after the GP said he had faxed the psychiatrist's letter to them. Ms Brampton had studied fashion at Central Saint Martin's College of Art & Design before starting at Vogue. She became fashion editor at The Observer and was then headhunted to launch women's lifestyle magazine Elle in the UK at the age of 30 in the 1980s. She later had a weekly agony aunt column in the Sunday Times Style magazine from 2006 until 2014. In 2008 she gave a personal account of her efforts to overcome depression in her book ""Shoot the Damn Dog"". The coroner described Ms Brampton as a ""bright star"" and began his conclusion with the writer's words: ""We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive."""
282,"Sarandon asks you to empty bank account to protest Dakota pipeline —  You've shared the protest videos and checked in at Standing Rock Indian Reservation on Facebook.   But are you willing to clear out your bank account to show your opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline? Actress Susan Sarandon hopes so. She has launched an online petition that calls on people to tell big banks to stop investing in the company behind the pipeline. Sarandon has been a vocal opponent of the $3.7 billion pipeline, which would carry 470,000 barrels of crude oil a day across four states. Supporters say it will be an economic boon that will decrease dependency on foreign oil. Opponents say it will destroy sacred Native American sites and wreak environmental havoc. Dakota Access Pipeline: What's at stake? The petition singles out Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Wells Fargo, Chase and Citibank, which are named in various SEC filings as lenders or partners in groups that support the pipeline. Wells Fargo spokesman Alan Elias says the bank respects differing opinions on the project, but does business ""only with companies that have demonstrated a strong, ongoing commitment to complying with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations."" The pipeline complies with so-called Equator Principles that determine and manage risks and the impact of a project, the bank said. ""In this particular case, the Principles provided an additional layer of due diligence for potential environment and social impacts,"" said Elias. Bank of America is not a lender in the project-level financing and has contributed to Native American communities through various initiatives, spokeswoman Kelly Sapp said. SEC records indicate the bank is in a partnership with Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access LLC. Similarly, UBS spokesman Peter Stack said the bank does not provide project funding, but SEC documents show an investment partnership with Sunoco in Bakken Holdings Company LLC, which has an interest in Dakota Access LLC and other companies contributing to pipeline construction. HSBC declined to comment, and the other banks did return requests for comment. The petition asks signatories to withdraw money from their accounts and place money into credit unions until banks agree to divest and pressure the White House for an environmental impact statement. How will we know if people make good on their pledges? The petition tells people to film themselves withdrawing money and explaining why they're doing it, and to tweet it. ""The Standing Rock Sioux's only water source will be endangered by this pipeline. They have put their bodies on the line to stop the construction and defend their water and their way of life. The police brutality in response to their peaceful demonstrations is outrageous, and must not continue."" Less than 24 hours after Sarandon launched the petition on Wednesday night, it had nearly 29,000 supporters. Will they put their money their mouth is and #BankExit? It's not clear. So far, there are no photos or videos on Twitter of people in the act."
283,"Saudi women file petition to end male guardianship system —  A petition signed by more than 14,000 Saudi women calling for an end to the country's male guardianship system is being handed to the government. Women must have the consent of a male guardian to travel abroad, and often need permission to work or study. Support for the first large-scale campaign on the issue grew online in response to a trending Twitter hashtag. Activist Aziza Al-Yousef told the BBC she felt ""very proud"" of the campaign, but now needed a response. In the deeply conservative Islamic kingdom, a woman must have permission from her father, brother or other male relative - in the case of a widow, sometimes her son - to obtain a passport, marry or leave the country. Many workplaces and universities also demand a guardian's consent for female employees and students, although it is not legally required.   Renting a flat, undergoing hospital treatment or filing a legal claim often also require a male guardian's permission, and there is very little recourse for women whose guardians abuse them or severely limit their freedom. How much do you know about life as a woman in Saudi Arabia? WATCH: Are Saudi women really that oppressed? The 'Rosa Parks' of Saudi Arabia 'Flabbergasted' In July, an Arabic Twitter hashtag which translates as ""Saudi women want to abolish the guardianship system"" went viral after a Human Rights Watch reportwas published on the issue. Saudi women tweeted comments, videos and artwork calling for change. Bracelets saying ""I Am My Own Guardian"" appeared. The women counted on the petition all gave their full names, though more signed anonymously. Hundreds of women - one estimate suggests as many as 2,500 - bombarded the Saudi King's office over the weekend with telegrams containing personal messages backing the campaign. Human Rights Watch researcher Kristine Beckerle, who worked on the report, described the response as ""incredible and unprecedented"". ""I was flabbergasted - not only by the scale, but the creativity with which they've been doing it,"" she said. ""They've made undeniably clear they won't stand to be treated as second-class citizens any longer, and it's high time their government listened.""    However, there has been opposition from some Saudi women, with an alternative Arabic hashtag, which translates as #TheGuardianshipIsForHerNotAgainstHer, gaining some traction, and opinion articles, like this one on the Gulf News website, arguing that the system should be reformed and applied better. Ms Yousef, who was stopped by police in 2013 for breaking the country's ban on women driving, said she did not expect any negative consequences from the petition: ""I'm not worried, I'm not doing anything wrong,"" she said. She and another activist took the petition to the Royal Court in person on Monday, but were advised to send it by mail. She said a key demand is that an age between 18 and 21 be designated, above which a woman be ""treated like an adult"". ""In every aspect, the important issue is to treat a woman as a full citizen,"" she said. She and other activists first raised the issue five years ago. ""We never had a problem with campaigning, but the problem is there is no answer. But we always hope - without hope, you cannot work,"" she said. There has been no official response to the petition yet."
284,"Scientists Believe The Chickens We Eat Are Being Slaughtered While Conscious —  The U.S. poultry industry has a dreadful secret. Roughly 9 billion chickens are slaughtered for food each year in the United States, and according to the poultry industry, each one of these sentient animals is mercifully stunned into unconsciousness before its neck is slit by an industrial blade. But scientists have come to a far more ghastly conclusion. Their research shows that the method favored by U.S. poultry processors to stun the birds ― moving them through a vat of electrified water ― does not consistently render birds insensible before slaughter. As a result, scientists say, an untold number of the chickens that we eat ― hundreds of millions of them and potentially many more ― likely experience intense suffering when they are slaughtered. Brain activity indicates that these animals may be capable of experiencing pain first when they receive a paralyzing electric shock that induces tonic muscle seizures, then when their throats are forced against a sharpened blade.  The extent of suffering is almost certainly vast. If just 1 percent of chickens raised each year in the U.S. are not effectively stunned, it means roughly 90 million animals are experiencing a violent and painful death. That’s more than the total number of dogs kept as pets in this country. Unlike in Europe, there are virtually no U.S. regulations governing the humane slaughter of chickens. Nevertheless, following public pressure, the first major U.S. poultry producer, Perdue, pledged this year to phase out the use of electric water-baths. Now animal protection groups are pressuring Perdue’s competitors, like Tyson Foods, and large U.S. food service companies, like Aramark, to follow suit. Immobilized chickens are shown exiting an electric water-bath stunner. (Credit: U.S. Poultry and Egg Association) Researchers say that a properly calibrated electric water-bath can reliably stun a large majority of birds that pass through it. But the devil is in the details. Each water-bath has various electricity settings (for features like current, voltage, and frequency), and changes to these settings involve major trade-offs. Using a lower-frequency charge increases the chance that a bird will be stunned, but it also raises the likelihood of damage to the bird’s carcass. Lower-frequency shocks can trigger more intense muscle seizures, sometimes causing fractured bones and ruptured blood vessels. The resulting meat can be too damaged or visually unappealing to sell. As a result, and with no animal welfare regulations to guide them, U.S. poultry companies use electric water-bath settings aimed at producing the best quality meat, not ensuring that chickens are reliably stunned. In other words, they use higher-frequency, lower-voltage shocks, which may leave birds paralyzed (so they can be easily whisked around the processing factory line) but not always unconscious, according to an extensive record of published studies that measured chickens’ brain activity after administering shocks at different settings. Immobilized chickens have their throats cut by an industrial blade. Scientists believe many of them are conscious as it happens. (Credit: U.S. Poultry and Egg Association) No one knows how many individual chickens farmed in the U.S. might be conscious while they are slaughtered. Each processing plant uses its own water-bath settings, and none makes their settings public. Federal regulators don’t record the settings, let alone check that animals are unconscious before slaughter. Independent researchers say they are virtually never allowed to set foot in commercial processing plants. But scientists say what little is known about standard U.S. industry practices is cause for alarm. A review by Dr. Mohan Raj, the most widely cited researcher on this topic and an adviser to the European Union’s food safety agency, concluded, “We are aware of no direct evidence demonstrating that the electrical settings used in the United States are adequate to meet international standards for humane stunning and slaughter of poultry.” The co-author of that review, Dr. Sara Shields, who is now a welfare specialist for Humane Society International, told The Huffington Post that the settings used by U.S. poultry companies “have not been demonstrated to actually produce an effective stun.” Steve Wotton, a researcher at the University of Bristol’s School of Veterinary Sciences, one of the world’s leading centers for animal welfare research, said much the same. “The U.S. settings that have been reported to me and that I’ve read in published papers are far too low to stun.” A spokesman for Tyson Foods, the largest U.S. poultry processor, told HuffPost that “proper animal handling is an important moral and ethical obligation and we take it very seriously.” But, he acknowledged, “like most of the industry, our plants currently use low-voltage electrical stunning.” The company maintains no standard electrical settings, he added, “due to variation from plant to plant.” Chickens experience a tonic seizure during the application of the electrical stun (in this footage, the stun is administered by an electrified head-only application rather than a water-bath). During a tonic seizure, “the body of the bird stiffens as muscles contract, the neck is arched, the legs are rigidly extended, rhythmic breathing stops, the eyes are wide open, and the blink reflex is absent.” Chickens at U.S. poultry facilities may be conscious during and following these seizures. (Credit: TopKip) Welfare researchers favor an alternative approach called “controlled atmosphere killing,” whereby birds are exposed to a steadily rising concentration of gas (typically carbon dioxide) until they irreversibly lose consciousness. More than 20 percent of chickens farmed in Europe are already stunned using controlled atmosphere killing systems, including the majority of chickens in Britain and about half in Sweden, a shift that has not led to price increases for consumers, analysts said. Even if electric stunners were perfectly effective, animal researchers say they would still be inferior because they involve several additional steps that can inflict pain on the billions of birds that are processed every year. To prepare for the water-bath, the birds must first be removed from their transport crates, an inelegant process that can result in broken bones and wings as chickens are dropped from their crates. Each bird is then turned upside-down and has its legs shackled into a metal conveyor. Nearly every aspect of this process causes the animals stress and pain, studies have found. Unlike humans, chickens do not have diaphragms, so when inverted their viscera compresses their heart and lungs. Chickens also have pain receptors in their legs, and studies show the shackling process causes bruising to thigh muscles and damage to their legs. Chickens are inverted and shackled into a conveyor. (Credit: U.S. Poultry and Egg Association) Disoriented and in pain, about 90 percent of chickens flap their wings immediately after shackling. Because the birds that we eat are very young ― just six weeks old on average ― their joints and tendons are underdeveloped, so intense wing-flapping can lead to dislocated joints, broken bones and hemorrhages of the wing tip. Flapping can also cause birds to receive painful pre-stun shocks as their wings touch the electrified water before their heads are submerged. Footage of birds entering electric water-baths is rare, but one such video, posted online by a water-bath manufacturer, appears to show one or more ducks receiving pre-stun shocks as they approach an electrified bath. Warning: The footage may be unpleasant for some viewers. Some chickens manage to avoid being killed by both the water-bath and the neck-cutting, only to suffer an arguably worse fate. The U.S. Agriculture Department estimates that hundreds of thousands of birds are unintentionally boiled alive each year because they manage to survive until they reach a scalding water tank that helps loosen feathers from carcasses. Controlled atmosphere killing avoids virtually all of these problems, since birds are exposed to gas while still inside their transport crates and all of the subsequent steps are performed after they’re dead. Gas stunning systems also produce consistently superior meat quality, analysts say, and employees enjoy better conditions. They don’t need to handle live animals, and they can work under normal lighting conditions (electric water-bath facilities are darkened to calm the birds). Chickens make up well over 90 percent of the land animals slaughtered each year in the United States. The chickens sold for meat, known as broilers, spend their brief lives ballooning to immense proportions, over six times their natural weight, a result of intense genetic selection. Their underdeveloped bones often cannot handle their body’s own mass, academic and industry studies have found, so many experience painful skeletal disorders, including deformed bones and bowed legs. Others barely walk or just sit stationary. Then, after six weeks of life, it’s off to the slaughterhouse. Hoping to build upon recent welfare advancements for egg-laying hens, prominent animal groups, including Mercy for Animals and The Humane League, this year launched the first major campaigns to improve conditions for broilers. Perdue Farms, the fourth-largest U.S. poultry company, told HuffPost it plans to have a gas stunning system installed in one of its facilities by the end of 2017, and then determine a roll-out schedule for their nine other processing plants.  Nico Pitney is a senior editor at The Huffington Post. Tips? Feedback? Email him at nico.pitney [at] huffingtonpost.com."
285,"Scientists Have Confirmed That The Great Barrier Reef Is Approaching Extinction —  The icon of the natural world, the Great Barrier Reef, has been pronounced dead after succumbing to coral beaching, however according to leading scientists, the reef has not completely perished but is basically on “life support”.   The incredible Coral Sea wilderness is bigger than the whole size of the UK and was composed of over 2,900 individual reefs as well as 900 islands. It stretches roughly 1,400 miles over an area of around 133,00sq/m. The reef lies off the coast of Queensland in Australia and can be seen from outer space.   The historic reef is 25 million years old and is home to 1,625 species of fish, 3,000 molluscs, and 30 different types of whale and dolphin. The Great Barrier Reef is made up of billions of tiny organisms and referred to as the world’s largest living thing. Leading environmentalist writer Rowan Jacobsen declared the incredible structure dead, and wrote: “The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness.”   But as a whole, it is not dead. Preliminary findings published Thursday of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority surveys show 22 percent of its coral died from the bleaching event.   Scientists investigating coral reef bleaching declare it as a cause of environmental stress impacts. Climate change causes warming of the oceans which causes corals to expel their algae and become bare and without any algae the coral is depleted of nutrients.  The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has began the second phase of its survey to assess the impact of 2016’s bleaching.   Scientists have dealt with anxiety for years about how long The Great Barrier Reef had left to live. In 2009 the chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science Charles Veron held a talk called: “Is the Great Barrier Reef on Death Row?”   Rowan Jacobsen wrote an obituary for the reef in Outside, in which he quoted Veron as saying: ”The whole northern section is trashed. It looks like a war zone. It’s heartbreaking. I used to have the best job in the world. Now it’s turned sour.”   Russell Brainard, chief of the Coral Reef Ecosystem Program at NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, said the scientific community has become increasingly concerned that overstatements about the state of our planet, like the one Jacobsen made, can cause people to lose hope. They may start to think, “If there’s nothing that can be done, let’s not do anything and move onto other issues,” he said.   Brainard told the Huffington Post that the recent bleaching event was a “severe blow” that resulted in serious mortality. Still, “we’re very far from an obituary,” he said.   “We can and must save the Great Barrier Reef ― it supports 70,000 jobs in reef tourism, Large sections of it (the southern half) escaped from the 2016 bleaching, and are in reasonable shape. The message should be that it isn’t too late for Australia to lift its game and better protect the GBR, not we should all give up because the GBR is supposedly dead.”"
286,"Scientists are bewildered by Zika’s path across Latin America —  RIO DE JANEIRO — Nearly nine months after Zika was declared a global health emergency, the virus has infected at least 650,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean, including tens of thousands of expectant mothers. But to the great bewilderment of scientists, the epidemic has not produced the wave of fetal deformities so widely feared when the images of misshapen infants first emerged from Brazil. Instead, Zika has left a puzzling and distinctly uneven pattern of damage across the Americas. According to the latest U.N. figures, of the 2,175 babies born in the past year with undersize heads or other congenital neurological damage linked to Zika, more than 75 percent have been clustered in a single region: northeastern Brazil. The pattern is so confounding that health officials and scientists have turned their attention back to northeastern ­Brazil to understand why Zika’s toll has been so much heavier there. They suspect that other, underlying causes may be to blame, such as the presence of another ­mosquito-borne virus like chikungunya or dengue. Or that environmental, genetic or immunological factors combined with Zika to put mothers in the area at greater risk. “We don’t believe that Zika is the only cause,” Fatima Marinho, director of the noncommunicable disease department at Brazil’s Ministry of Health, said in an interview. Brazilian officials were bracing for a flood of fetal deformities as Zika spread this year to other regions of the country, Marinho said. However, “we are not seeing a big increase.” Researchers and health officials remain cautious about the lower-than-expected numbers. The latest studies have found more evidence than ever that the virus can inflict severe damage on the developing infant brain, some of which may not be evident until later in childhood. But researchers so far have learned a lot more about Zika’s potential to do harm than its likelihood of doing so. Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are closely watching Puerto Rico, which has reported more than 26,800 cases of Zika. More than 7,000 pregnant women could be infected by the end of the year, according to the CDC. But although the outbreak has spread this year to more than 50 nations and territories across the Western Hemisphere, U.N. data shows just 142 cases of congenital birth defects linked to Zika so far outside Brazil. In Colombia, praised for some of the most rigorous standards for detecting and monitoring Zika, the government has tallied more than 104,000 Zika cases, including nearly 20,000 pregnant women. It has the ­second-highest number of Zika infections in the world after Brazil. But so far, Colombia has had just 46 babies born with congenital nervous system damage linked to Zika. And the number of new Zika cases in Colombia has fallen so sharply that the government in July declared the epidemic over, saying the virus will remain a threat but no longer spread rampantly. Colombia is investigating 332 more cases of birth defects for a possible Zika link, but health officials there had been prepared for many more. “Our focus on Zika has changed,” said Ernesto Marques, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh who is working on a project to develop a vaccine for the virus. Marques is from Recife, the city in northern Brazil hit hardest by the Zika outbreak, and he was part of the team that first identified the virus as a possible culprit when deformed infants began showing up “almost every day” in Recife’s maternity wards at this time last year. At the time, Marques said scientists were focused on identifying Zika as a “causal agent” for the sudden increase in birth defects, especially microcephaly, in which babies are born with undersize heads and often calcified brain tissue. “Now we’ve settled on Zika as the smoking gun, but we don’t know who pulled the trigger,” said Marques, speaking from Recife, where he is working with government researchers. One of the leading theories, said Marques, is that northeastern Brazil’s last dengue outbreak was in 2003 — relatively long ago — so perhaps mothers in the area had relatively fewer antibodies to cope with Zika, which is spread by the same mosquito. “Sexual habits and hygiene may also play a role,” he said, explaining that researchers are looking at whether sexual transmission can infect the uterus and placenta with the virus, potentially exposing the fetus to elevated risk. “We suspect the villain has an accomplice, but we don’t know who it is,” Marques said. Many question marks Researchers caution that it will take years to fully identify the dangers Zika poses to babies’ brains, and microcephaly is just one threat from the virus. A Zika infection poses the greatest danger toward the end of the mother’s first trimester of pregnancy, and its harmful effects on fetal development may not be apparent at birth or manifest themselves until later in childhood. Marcos Espinal, the director of communicable diseases and health analysis at the Pan American Health Organization, said U.N. health officials were right to put the world on high alert earlier this year because so little was known about Zika. “If you don’t know about something, you better take preventative measures to minimize the risks,” Espinal said. “So maybe the fact that we don’t have a lot of microcephaly means that we were doing our jobs” and helped women avoid infection. At the peak of Zika alarm earlier this year, several Latin American countries urged women to delay pregnancy. El Salvador’s government recommended waiting two years. The widespread anxieties produced by the outbreak may have led to an increase in abortions in Latin America, a region where the procedure is widely banned. Anecdotal evidence suggests more women have been quietly terminating pregnancies over worries that their babies might be deformed. This may also help explain the relatively low number of babies born with Zika-related birth defects outside northeast Brazil. “It is very difficult to work out truly what is going on,” said Oliver Brady, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who has been working with the Brazilian government on Zika. Until last year, Brazil reported about 150 cases annually of microcephaly, a condition that can also be caused by diseases like herpes and syphilis. Claudio Maierovitch, a former senior Brazilian health official responsible for monitoring Zika when the epidemic started, said that the figure was probably an undercount and that around 500 cases of microcephaly a year pre-Zika would be a more accurate number. When the microcephaly outbreak was first identified in Brazil, spooked health officials erred in the other direction and overdiagnosed the condition. Eventually, nearly 5,000 newborns who had been diagnosed with possible microcephaly turned out to be fine, according to Marinho, the Brazilian health official. But that still leaves at least 2,000 instances of Zika-related birth defects in the country, with an additional 3,000 cases under investigation. A big problem in determining whether Brazil has a higher rate of Zika-related birth defects is that no one is sure how many people caught the virus in 2015, when it was little known and widely confused with dengue. “The fact is we don’t have any idea how many cases there were,” said Maierovitch, meaning it’s possible Brazil’s birth-defect totals could simply be a reflection of a Zika outbreak that was far more pervasive than anywhere else. An eye on U.S. territory Puerto Rico is the next laboratory for understanding Zika. CDC researchers are watching for Zika-related birth defects on the island, but the mainland United States appears to have averted a major outbreak so far. The vast majority of cases the CDC has counted were attributed to infections acquired abroad or through sexual transmission, though mosquitoes have spread the virus in a few neighborhoods in and around Miami. Experts have warned, however, that local mosquito-driven outbreaks may be occurring in other parts of the country, particularly in states on the Gulf of Mexico. An estimated 80 percent of people infected with the virus don’t have symptoms and don’t realize they have Zika. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said Congress’s failure to approve Zika funding this year means there was no effective way to accurately count how many people were infected. “We’ll have to hold our breath to see what happens in labor and delivery suites in a few months,” he said. “That’s the only way we’ll know whether we’ve dodged a bullet.” Lena H. Sun in Washington contributed to this report."
287,"Secret filming reveals problems relinquishing timeshares —  A BBC Scotland investigation has uncovered evidence of the problems facing ageing timeshare owners who want to get out of their contracts. Timeshares are owned by about 600,000 people in the UK but some have had problems trying to relinquish them. Firms like Sellmytimeshare.tv, owned by Monster, say they can help dispose of them but an undercover investigation found it is more complex than it seems. Monster said it made customers aware of options they had to give up timeshares. Timeshares have been marketed over the last few decades as a lifetime of holidays without hassle. Retired couple Alex and Honore Byrne, from Alva in Clackmannanshire, bought theirs from a company now owned by Macdonald Resorts many years ago when their children were young. But ill health now means neither is able to find affordable travel insurance, and travelling itself is also difficult. The couple have been trying to relinquish their timeshare contracts for two years."
288,"Seychelles: US sisters died of excess fluid in lungs —  Two American sisters found unresponsive in their resort in the Seychelles died of excess fluid in their lungs, according to authorities in the island nation off Africa's east coast.  Autopsies performed Wednesday showed Robin Korkki, 42, of Chicago, and Anne Korkki, 37, of Denver, died from acute pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs, police told the Seychelles News Agency. Cerebral edema, or excess fluid in the brain, also contributed to Anne Korkki's death, the news agency reported.  No explanation was offered for the fluid buildup in the women's lungs.  Experts are conducting a toxicology analysis in a forensic laboratory in neighboring Mauritius, according to the news agency.  No visible injuries Resort management discovered the women unresponsive September 22 in their villa, Seychelles police spokesman Jean Toussaint told CNN.  No visible signs of injuries were found on the bodies, he said. The sisters were staying at the Maia resort on Seychelles' main island, Mahe. Seychelles authorities have contacted US officials, and both nations are treating the investigation as high priority, Toussaint said. He declined to provide further information, citing privacy and ongoing investigations.  Calls to the US consular agency in the Seychelles went unanswered.  'This isn't happening' Worried relatives in the sisters' native Minnesota are seeking answers.  In Minneapolis, their brother told a newspaper that the family is getting no information on the case. Some family members have traveled to the Seychelles to gather details and bring the sisters' bodies home.  ""At this point, the only details we know are the articles flying around online,"" Chris Korkki told the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune this week. ""Two things keep going through my mind: This isn't happening, and we just want answers."" He said his sisters were healthy and adventurous, and loved to ""experience life to the fullest."" They had been posting photos on social media showing them swimming and having fun while on the vacation. Anne Korkki moved to Denver last year, and worked for JP Morgan Chase, the brother told CNN affiliate KCNC. Robin Korkki worked as a commodities trader in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported. Popular destination The Seychelles is a popular tourist destination because of its pristine beaches, warm water and coral reefs.  The Korkki sisters were staying in Mahe, one of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean nation.  They arrived in the Seychelles on September 15 and were due to leave September 24, two days after they were found dead, Toussaint said."
289,"Shannen Doherty Shares Her Cancer Story With Chelsea Handler In Emotional, Tear-Filled Interview —  Shannen Doherty recalled what it’s like to be diagnosed with cancer in an emotional new interview with Chelsea Handler. During the sit-down, set to air on Handler’s Netflix show, Chelsea, the actress holds back tears while revealing what she’s learned through her health crisis. “I think what’s beautiful and hard and interesting about cancer is that it tears you down and builds you, and tears you down and builds you,” the Beverly Hills, 90210alum says in the clip. “It remakes you so many different times. The person I thought I was supposed to be or was going to be or who I thought I was six months ago is now somebody completely different. I realize, ‘Wow, I really thought that I was so brave and so gracious this entire time and really I was just hiding.’” Handler, whose mom died of breast cancer in 2006, got choked up during the emotional interview.  “Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” Doherty told the talk show host as Handler tried to hold back tears. “Well, I mean, all right — hold on a second,” Handler, 41, said, while tilting her head back to keep the tears from streaming down her face. “This was very hard and not humbling — because I’ve already been humbled by cancer,” Doherty then continues. “It was hard in the sense of rethinking sort of who you are and how you come to terms with who are now and accepting it and looking at your husband and thinking like, ‘Dude, I’m so sorry.’” The actress, 45, was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2015 and had a single mastectomy this past May. In August, she revealed that the cancer had spread and she was going to undergo chemotherapy followed by radiation. Last week, she shared an emotional flashback Friday photo from one day after undergoing chemo.  “Hope is possible. Possibility is possible. To my cancer family and everyone suffering.... stay courageous. Stay strong. Stay positive. #wegotthis,” she captioned the snap of herself curled up in a hospital bed. “#fightlikeagirl.”"
290,"Shark attacks surfer in Australia —  A man escaped with cuts to his leg Monday after a shark crashed into his board while he was surfing near popular tourist spot Byron Bay in eastern Australia.   Beaches in the area, some 800 kilometres (500 miles) north of Sydney, were closed for at least 24 hours after the early morning encounter, with the victim taken to hospital by a friend.   ""It is believed that the shark emerged from under the man while he was waiting for a wave,"" Surf Life Saving New South Wales said.   ""The man's surfboard took the brunt of the impact with the man also suffering minor lacerations to his leg during the incident.""   It was not known what type of shark was involved.   The attack came just weeks after a surfer also suffered cuts after being ""bumped"" by a shark south of Byron Bay in Ballina -- the scene of several attacks in recent years.   Of the 14 unprovoked shark attacks off the New South Wales state coast in 2015, most occurred along a 60-kilometre hotspot from Evans Head to Byron Bay which includes the town of Ballina.   Efforts to contain the marine predators have so far proven difficult, with a shark eco-barrier trial in the Ballina area recently scrapped due to rough sea conditions.   The state government has said it would instead boost the tagging and relocation of sharks using ""smart drumlines"" to catch them.   Drumlines -- which use baited hooks attached to floating buoys to snare sharks -- are meant to be more friendly to other marine life and are not designed to kill the predators.   Experts say shark attacks are increasing as water sports become more popular and bait fish move closer to shore, but fatalities remain rare."
291,"Sheriff: Police dog dies in hot car in western Arkansas —  HUNTSVILLE, Ark. –  A police dog died after she was left in a hot patrol car by her handler in western Arkansas, officials said. Madison County Sheriff Phillip Morgan said the dog, named Lina, died Friday. The sheriff said the dog's handler was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. The 5-year-old dog had been with the sheriff's office for three years, and the sheriff said the animal was used in drug investigations. Morgan described the dog's death as a ""bad accident."" He said the investigation into the dog's death is being handled by the Washington County Sheriff's Office. Last month, a police dog in Stephens County, Oklahoma, died after being left for 38 hours in a hot car and its handler was charged with animal cruelty."
292,"Shooting Occurs Near California Polling Station —  Police have rushed to the scene in Azusa on the night of the election. The person who opened fire earlier this afternoon is dead. Police identified him as a Hispanic male. Police found the suspect dead when they entered the home he had barricaded himself in. It is unclear if he killed himself or whether he died from police fire. The suspect had an assault-style rifle. Police are now searching the area to make sure there are no other suspects and there are no victims. Officials also confirmed the shooting was not related to the election. Previous reports the suspect was a woman were false, police say. Shooting Victim Identified The one fatality from the shooting Tuesday afternoon was a man in his 70s, police say. He was killed after an assailant with an assault-style weapon opened fire. The shooter is still surrounded by police, barricaded in a nearby home."
293,"Sleep disorders increase risk of stroke and affect recovery, new review suggests —  Insomnia and oversleeping are both unhealthy, and a new review of past studies suggests that sleep disorders have a link with increased stroke risk and recovery from it.   In a press release distributed through Eurekalert and other science news portals, researcher Dirk M. Hermann, MD–from the University Hospital Essen in Essen, Germany–explains that sleep disorders are common after stroke, but very few patients with stroke are tested. The results of their research, he said, may force the medicine world to change that.   According to Dr. Hermann, people with sleep disorders, like sleeping more than recommended or the opposite, may be more likely to have another stroke or other health problems than people who don’t suffer such sleep issues.   For people with sleep apnea, Dr. Hermann’s team suggests the treatment with CPAP–or, a continuous positive airway pressure machine–based on the evidence that are available.   Finding the link between sleep issues and stroke   For the study, the team examined dozens of papers about sleep apnea and stroke, and the link between them, and combined the data in a meta-analysis.   The team explains that sleep disorders generally fall into two categories. First is breathing problems. Second is sleep-wake disorders. The first category mentioned is disrupting the breathing of a person while sleeping. Meanwhile, the second category is when insomnia and restless leg syndrome affect the amount of sleep time of a person.   Their review of past studies has yielded an evidence linking sleep breathing problems with risk of stroke and recovery. However, there is less evidence for the link between sleep-wake disorders and increase stroke risk and harm recovery.   With the lack of evidence for sleep-wake disorders and stroke, researchers say they are “cautious” to recommend treatment with drugs.   Sleep disorders in America   In a CDC report published February of this year, it was revealed that a total of sixty-two point two percent of American respondents reported a “healthy sleep duration,” although the same survey has found lower numbers among non-Hispanic blacks, American Indians and Alaska natives.   More than a third of Americans also reported sleeping less than seven hours in a twenty-four-hour period. The CDC says the trend suggests an ongoing need for public awareness and education about the benefits of having a good night sleep and working fewer hours at night."
294,"South Korean protesters march against President again —  Massive protests roiled Seoul for the second consecutive weekend as hundreds of thousands of angry South Koreans took to the streets Saturday calling for President Park Geun-hye's resignation.   The march, which included families with young children, students -- some in school uniforms -- and union members, came as opposition to Park mounts following her unprecedented admission that she shared classified information with someone who lacked the necessary security clearance. It was one of the biggest anti-government protests the country has seen in decades. Four officers were injured during the demonstrations, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, which cited police. Twenty-six protesters were taken to hospital with injuries and a further 29 were treated at the scene of the protests, Yonhap quoted the Fire Department as saying. It is unclear how the police and protesters were injured. In a press briefing Sunday, Park's spokesman said the President had ""heard the voices of the people yesterday with gravity and deeply realizes the seriousness of the current situation."" ""Park is earnestly considering ways to normalize the state of affairs and fulfill her responsibility as President,"" he said. The President has already apologized twice, but that has done little to quell the rage of many South Koreans who say they feel betrayed. Indeed, some protesters are saying the marches won't stop until she resigns. Chu Mia, a protester who was wearing devil's horns and holding a Korean sign saying Park should step down, said, ""We don't want to call her ... President anymore. We want a real government."" She also said South Koreans have been stunned to find that there seems to be ""somebody behind her,"" referring to Park's confidante, Choi Soon-sil, who does not hold an official government post, but has allegedly viewed confidential documents and presidential speeches. ""We didn't give this person the power,"" she said. Media and opposition parties have accused Choi of using her relationship with Park to accumulate millions of dollars in donations to her foundations. Prosecutors arrested Choi on charges of abuse of power and attempted fraud. Two of Park's former aides have also been arrested, according to Yonhap. A former presidential secretary, An Chong-bum, 57, was arrested on suspicion of abuse of authority and attempted coercion, the outlet reported. The court issued a warrant to arrest Jeong Ho-seong, the former secretary for private presidential affairs, over allegations of handing over state documents to Choi. Last weekend, tens of thousands of protesters called for Park to step down, in the process blocking a 16-lane highway in the capital. Leaders at last weekend's protests gave speeches between musical performances. ""This sort of corruption happened during her father's time, but 40 years later, things like this are met with resistance from the public,"" one protester told CNN. Another, holding a candle and with her child beside her, said: ""I brought my child so that she could witness democracy in action and also to show her this dark time in our history."" Park is South Korea's first female president. She's also the daughter of Park Chung-hee, the country's president from 1961 to 1979, who was assassinated by his own intelligence chief. The late Park is hailed by some as the mastermind behind the country's current prosperity but criticized by others as a dictator who violated human rights and crushed dissent. The classified information scandal, while rare and shocking in South Korea, isn't the only reason many are calling for her to step down. There has been growing frustration with Park over the past few years stemming from a number of incidents, including the Sewell ferry sinking, which killed more than 300 people. Many South Koreans were outraged more people couldn't be saved when the ferry sank. Unions, in particular, have come out strongly against her. As one of the protesters, high school student Chi Hee Jung, put it, ""She says so many lies and she's a liar, but we didn't know that for a long time and now we have to speak loud."" She added, ""She doesn't feel any guilt right now. That's why she's still the leader."" When asked if Park's apologies meant anything, she said, ""It's a total lie."" Protesters Saturday attempted to march to the presidential palace, known as the Blue House. It's less than a mile from the site of the protest, but roads were blocked by police buses and riot police. Despite the serious nature of the calls for resignation, protesters seemed to be in good spirits. Many brought dogs, and there was live music, again, along with speeches. And they pledged to keep up the protests until they have answers -- and a resolution to the current political turmoil."
295,"Southerners told to wear masks outdoors as wildfires rage —  Wildfires near the Georgia-North Carolina line are spewing smoke so thick that residents are being urged to wear special masks if they must do outdoor activities.   The fires — many of them suspected arsons — have prompted evacuations in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee in recent days.   The largest of dozens of ongoing wildfires in the South has now burned 13,300 acres, more than a third of the vast Cohutta Wilderness area, in the north Georgia mountains just south of the Tennessee line.   Fire managers said Saturday that the blaze, believed to have ignited from a lightning strike in mid-October, was only 20 percent contained.   In Macon County, North Carolina, special health masks were being made available Saturday. Emergency Management Director Warren Cabe said they're distributing N95-rated masks as regular surgical masks don't provide adequate protection from smoke particles.   And yet, the drifting smoke that prompted air quality authorities to declare a Code Orange on Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina, cleared enough for Saturday's Charlotte Marathon to be run as planned under crisp blue skies.   Kristen Butterfield, who works at a local shop in Chimney Rock, North Carolina told the Asheville Citizen-Times that around noon Friday authorities began ordering people to evacuate. Then she saw a structure catch fire.   ""We had to get out,"" she said. ""They told us at noon and we were out by 2 p.m. at the latest. We took everything we could.""   Her friend Andre Whilden, who lives behind Chimney Rock village, said she and her husband hardly got any notice.   ""We got everything packed that we could,"" she said, which included seven animals.   Whilden said on Wednesday she saw one firetruck after another speed past her house and she knew the fire was getting worse.   ""I didn't expect to be evacuated,"" she said. ""I expected it to stay up on the mountain, but on Wednesday I knew something wasn't right so I went down to the visitor's center, looked to my left and the whole mountain was on fire.""   Smoke has settled over Clayton, Georgia and surrounding Rabun County, where fires including a 2,000-acre blaze has forced people from their homes. That fire is a suspected arson blaze, and the sheriff has asked residents to be on the lookout for a dark blue SUV seen in the area where the fire started on Wednesday.   In Tennessee, 42 of the 58 active wildfires in the state are suspected arsons — or about 72 percent of them — the Tennessee Department of Agriculture reported Saturday in its wildfire situation update.   In North Carolina's Nantahala National Forest, more than 20 wildfires have burned more than 17,000 acres and all of them are ""being investigated for suspected arson,"" federal forestry officials have said.   The federal government has approved a request for money to fight the blazes in western North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory said. A grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will now pay 75 percent of the emergency protective measures taken in fighting the fires, McCrory said in a news release Saturday.   In South Carolina, the Easley Fire Department is asking residents to donate water, Gatorade and other drinks to help firefighters battling a wildfire on Pinnacle Mountain."
296,"Spain Bankia fraud trial for ex-IMF boss Rodrigo Rato —  Former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato and 64 other bankers have gone on trial in Madrid over an alleged credit card racket at Spain's troubled Bankia bank. The defendants allegedly used ""unofficial"" company credit cards for luxury purchases, unconnected with their duties as board members. Prosecutors say about €12m (£10.4m; $13.5m) was spent on hotels, fine clothes, entertainment and travel. Mr Rato denies wrongdoing. Bankia was rescued in 2012 at huge public expense. The unofficial credit card purchases were not declared to the tax authorities. The system allegedly started at Caja Madrid bank and was continued by Mr Rato when Bankia was created in 2011. How Spanish activists landed ex-IMF chief in court A member of the governing centre-right Popular Party (PP), Mr Rato resigned as head of Bankia shortly before its near-collapse in 2012. The government bailout of Bankia inflicted losses on 200,000 small investors, who held preferential shares in the bank. Some of them voiced their anger outside the Madrid courthouse on Monday. ""You wretches! Stealing money from pensioners!"" they shouted at the accused as the trial got under way. Taint of corruption Prosecutors are seeking four-and-a-half years in jail for Mr Rato and six years for Miguel Blesa, the former president of Caja Madrid, a bank that was merged with six others in 2011 to create Bankia. If found guilty, Mr Rato could also face a €2.7m fine, and Mr Blesa a fine of €9.3m. Mr Rato headed the International Monetary Fund from 2004-2007. He also served as Spanish economy minister, and his fall from grace helped fuel accusations that the Popular Party was riddled with corruption. Prosecutors say the lavish credit card purchases took place from 2003-2012 - some of them during Spain's financial crisis, when millions of citizens suffered hardship and unemployment soared. Mr Rato's two successors at the top of the IMF have also been caught up in high-profile court cases. French Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn took over from Mr Rato in 2007 but resigned in May 2011 to defend himself against charges of attempted rape in New York. Prosecutors dropped the charges later that year, then Mr Strauss-Kahn reached an out-of-court settlement with the hotel maid who accused him. In a separate case last year, he was acquitted by a French court of the charge of ""aggravated pimping"" in connection with sex parties involving prostitutes. Mr Strauss-Kahn's successor at the IMF, Christine Lagarde, is to go on trial in France in December over a state award of €285m in damages to tycoon Bernard Tapie when she was finance minister. She is accused of ""negligence"", but denies any misconduct."
297,"Spain’s Deadly Train Crash —  A train crash in Spain has killed at least four people and injured nearly 50 others after it derailed in the northwest region of the country.   About 65 people rode the Portugal-bound train, including crew, when it crashed just before 9:30 a.m. local time. Photos of the wreck showed the train’s carriage flipped on its side and smashed from where it likely hit part of a bridge near the tracks. It crashed just 20 minutes after leaving the Spanish city of Vigo, in Galicia, and was headed for Porto, Portugal.   It’s not clear what caused the wreck, but passengers said the train began to rock. As the BBC reported:   A passenger in a video posted by local daily La Voz de Galicia said the train had suddenly started swaying from one side to the other.   ""It wouldn't stop,"" she said. ""I was sitting down and I fell to the ground. And then the train stopped. It was that quick.""   A witness woman told Spanish television about hearing a ""very strong bang"" before seeing billowing black smoke. Friday’s crash is near the site of a 2013 train crash, one of the country’s worst in recent decades. In that crash, a high-speed train derailed and hit a wall near Santiago de Compostela, about a 30-minute drive northeast from Friday’s wreck."
298,"Strong quake shakes Chile; no reports of damage —  SANTIAGO, Chile — A strong earthquake rattled buildings in Chile’s capital and other regions of the country on Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injury and authorities discounted the possibility of a tsunami. The U.S. Geological Survey calculated the quake’s magnitude at 6.4 and said it hit at 1:20 p.m. (1620 GMT). It was centered 119 miles (192 kilometers) south of Santiago at a depth of 54 miles (87 kilometers). Chile’s navy issued a statement saying a tsunami was unlikely to hit the country’s long coast. Officials said they had no immediate reports of damage, though the quake interrupted telephone service briefly. Chile is highly earthquake-prone. In 2010, a magnitude 8.8 quake, one of the strongest ever recorded, unleashed a devastating tsunami and killed more than 500 people while destroying more than 220,000 homes. The quake prompted the Andean nation to improve its alert systems for both quakes and tsunamis. Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."
299,"Study reveals why seabirds eat plastic in the ocean —  The human sense of smell is important. It alerts us to different dangers including spoiled food, poison, fire, and so on. But other species on this planet have no sense of smell like humans have. In fact, a new research revealed that the sense of smell of seabirds, which they use to hunt for food, have put them in danger. Not surprisingly, humans ARE to blame.   Published last week in the PNAS, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers said that ninety percent of seabirds eat plastic flowing in oceans. By 2050, the team revealed that virtually all seabirds will be eating it.   So the question now is why do seabirds eat plastic?   The paper said plastic in the ocean emit the scent of a sulfurous compound which seabirds have relied upon for thousands of years. It tells them where to hunt for food.   In other words, the compound trick them into confusing marine plastic with food.   Lead researcher Matthew Savoca said–via the UC Davis website–that in order to understand the problem, we have to think about how animals look for food.   Researchers learned what plastic in the ocean smell like by putting beads–made of the three most common types of plastic beads–into the ocean at Monterey Bay and Bodega Bay in California. They placed it in mesh bags to protect the species there, and tied them to an ocean buoy before collecting them about three weeks later.   Then, the team brought the beads to UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology where scientists are often found analyzing wine chemistry. Using the chemical analyzer provided by food-and-wine chemist Susan Ebeler, the research team confirmed that the beads emit the sulfur compound dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, a chemical cue released by algae, which coats floating plastic.   Co-author and UC Davis professor Gabrielle Nevitt had previously established that the said compound triggers seabirds to search for food. DMS is released when algae is eaten by animals (like crustaceans). So while the algae doesn’t smell like food itself, it does emit the scent of food being eaten which works like a dinner bell of the birds.   The paper also revealed that birds that track the scent of the compound to look for food are about six times more likely to consume plastic than those that don’t.   Professor Nevitt said their research gives spotlight to species that don’t receive a lot of attention, like petrels and species of shearwaters, which are impacted by plastic ingestion. These species, she added, are hard to study as they nest in underground burrows. So they’re often overlooked.   Apart from that, the study could open the door to new steps to address the growing plastic pollution in oceans which not only plague the seabirds, but also sea turtles, fish and other marine animals.   Apparently, the problem starts on land. According to NOAA, one of the biggest sources of ocean pollution is called nonpoint source pollution which occurs as a result of runoff. It includes many small sources like boats, septic tanks, cars, etc, and larger sources like farms, forest areas, etc.   A study published last year said that the top five countries that dump plastics into oceans are China, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. It projected that by 2025, plastic consumption in the region will increase by eighty percent."
300,"Study says one in ten Americans has buzzing in the ear or tinnitus —  Do you have that sometimes irritating ringing in your ears? If so, then perhaps you’re one in every ten Americans that has persistent buzzing or ringing in the ears, or sometimes in the head. It’s called tinnitus. Surprisingly, scientists have been studying it, and the goals are to find out its prevalence in the country, and how to avoid it.   As published by NPR, the research was written for the journal JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. Ear surgeon Harrison Lin of the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, and one of the three authors of the study, has spoken with the online publication, and he revealed that tinnitus is connected with hearing loss.   When someone loses the ability to hear a certain range of sound, their brain might “chime in” with its own iteration. It is similar to a soldier who can still feel pain in the limb that they’ve lost. Interestingly, the study also has found that people with tinnitus rarely talk about it with their doctors.   Buzzing in the ear of Americans   The team looked at the national survey of more than seventy-five thousand people, and they found that about twenty-seven percent confirmed experiencing its symptoms for more than fifteen years. Meanwhile, over a third–or about thirty-six percent–said they were experiencing symptoms nearly constant.   In a press release for the study, the study team revealed that higher rates of tinnitus were reported in those with consistent exposure to loud noises, either at work or during recreational time. In addition, they’ve also found a link between it and the years of exposure to deafening work.   For the subjective severity, the team has found that seven point two percent reported their tinnitus as “a big or a very big problem,” while forty-two percent said it is “a small problem.” Only forty-nine percent had discussed their tinnitus with their doctors.   For treatments, Lin said that hearing aids work, also psychotherapy. The latter is being promoted by their national professional society, he said, because it’s about changing the way affected people think about tinnitus.   The study is titled “Prevalence, Severity, Exposures, and Treatment Patterns of Tinnitus in the United States,” and it’s an online-first publication accessible via the JAMA website."
301,"Study: More toddlers and preschoolers are overdosing on opioids —  In recent years, rates of toddlers and preschoolers hospitalized for opioid overdoses more than doubled, according to a new study.   In fact, overdoses rose more than 100% over a 16-year period among all children, the study published in JAMA Pediatrics Oct. 31 showed.   Researchers from Yale School of Medicine analyzed national data from the Kids’ Inpatient Database on children admitted to U.S. hospitals for opioid poisoning. The study focused on more than 13,000 records from patients ages 1 to 19 between 1997 to 2012.   What's to blame? Possibly the increase of prescribed pain killers, including OxyContin and Vicodin. Research from 1999 to 2010 show retail sales of prescription opioids quadrupled.""Even in children younger than 6 years, opioids, followed closely by benzodiazepines, now account for most of the drug poisonings in this age group; in nearly all these poisonings, the child was exposed to a prescription intended for an adult in the household,"" the study states.   Young children found a pill on the floor, got into their mother's purse or simply figured out how to open a bottle.   While more current data isn't yet available, study author Julie Gaither said the upward trend is likely to remain a problem among young children.   “It’s a simple message for parents that we can limit so many of these exposures to keep these medications out of these little hands,"" Gaither said.   She also said companies must improve packaging because young children are finding ways to get into ""child-proof"" bottles. Lastly, she said there needs to be more conversations about young overdoses in the pediatrics community, a topic that's largely underreported.   Prescription opioids accounted for most poisonings in the Yale study, but heroin poisonings also increased 161%. In August, more than 225 heroin overdoses occured in four counties in four states within one week. The batch of heroin was most-likely supercharged with another substance, but still drew attention to the popularity of the drug."
302,"Study: lung cancer patients exposed to air pollution may have shorter survival times —  We all know that air pollution is bad, so bad that it kills thousands of people each year. In India alone according to a Washington Post article published last month, about half a million people die every year due to outdoor air pollution.   With that introductory paragraph, here’s a finding of a new study that may not surprise a lot of you readers: people with lung cancer may have shorter survival times when exposed to smog and other air pollutants.   As reported at The Guardian, researchers in the state of California have found that exposure to bad air quality after lung cancer diagnosis can negatively affect survival. The paper was published in the journal Thorax with lead author Sandrah P. Eckel, PhD of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.   The main takeaway of the research is that the length of time that people with lung cancer live after diagnosis varies depending on their exposure to air pollution. Researchers claim that the median survival for people diagnosed with early stage of lung cancers who were in areas with high levels of regional pollution was about three years shorter than people who lived in places with lower pollution levels.   In an interview with the University of Southern California website, Dr. Eckel explains that their research focused on California, and the reason is that the state has a wide range of air pollution levels. It also has one of the largest and longest running air quality monitoring networks and cancer registry system in the country.   Looking at the lung cancer data with over three-hundred and fifty thousand patients registered between the years 1988 to 2009, the team has found that patients in areas with higher levels of fine particulate matter–or, at about 2.5 micrometers in diameter–was only about two point four years, compared to five point seven years in patients in areas with lower levels of fine particulate matter.   It is also worth noting that lung cancer patients whose cancer had spread to other parts of their bodies had shorter survival times overall. They also showed little difference in survival time whether they lived in places with high or low air pollution levels.   And like other research, the team clarifies that additional research is needed to determine the link between air pollution and survival rates of lung cancer patients. However, the findings are intriguing, the team says, and they suggest that newly diagnosed lung cancer patients must consider moving out of places with high levels of air pollution.   Lung Cancer in America   A recently updated page of the CDC–or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–says that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in America, and the second most common among both women and men.   The American health institute suggests avoiding smoking and secondhand smoke, and avoid places with radon, a naturally occurring gas from rocks and dirt."
303,"Substantial damage after earthquake rattles major Oklahoma oil hub —  Dozens of buildings sustained ""substantial damage"" after a 5.0 magnitude earthquake struck an Oklahoma town that's home to one of the world's key oil hubs, but officials said Monday that no damage has been reported at the oil terminal.   Cushing City Manager Steve Spears said 40 to 50 buildings were damaged in Sunday's earthquake, which was the third in Oklahoma this year with a magnitude of 5.0 or greater. No major injuries have been reported, and Spears said the damage included cracks to buildings and fallen bricks and facades. Oklahoma has had thousands of earthquakes in recent years, with nearly all traced to the underground injection of wastewater left over from oil and gas production. Sunday's quake was centered 1 mile west of Cushing and about 25 miles south of where a magnitude 4.3 quake forced a shutdown of several wells last week.   Fearing aftershocks, police cordoned off older parts of the city about 50 miles northeast of Oklahoma City to keep gawkers away late Sunday, and geologists confirmed that several small quakes have rumbled the area. Spears said an assisted living community had been evacuated after damage was reported. The Cushing Public School District canceled Monday classes.   The Oklahoma Department of Transportation reported Sunday night that no highway or bridge damage was found within a 15-mile radius of the earthquake's epicenter.   The quake struck at 7:44 p.m. Sunday and was felt as far away as Iowa, Illinois and Texas. The U.S. Geological Survey initially said Sunday's quake was of magnitude 5.3 but later lowered the reading to 5.0. ""I thought my whole trailer was going to tip over, it was shaking it so bad,"" said Cushing resident Cindy Roe, 50. ""It was loud and all the lights went out and you could hear things falling on the ground.   ""It was awful and I don't want to have another one.""   Cushing's oil storage terminal is one of the world's largest. As of Oct. 28, tank farms in the countryside around Cushing held 58.5 million barrels of crude oil, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The community bills itself as the ""Pipeline Crossroads of the World.""   Cushing Assistant City Manager Jeremy Frazier said two pipeline companies had reported no trouble as of late Sunday but that the community hadn't heard from all companies. Gov. Mary Fallin tweeted that no damage was reported at the storage tanks at Cushing's oil storage terminal Megan Gustafson and Jonathan Gillespie were working at a Cushing McDonald's when the quake hit.   ""It felt like a train was going right through the building, actually,"" Gustafson, 17, said Sunday night as she and her co-workers stood behind a police barricade downtown, looking for damage. ""I kind of freaked out and was hyperventilating a bit.""   Gillespie said the building shook for about 10 seconds, but that he wasn't as alarmed as Gustafson because he lives in an area that has experienced multiple earthquakes, especially in recent years.   ""I didn't think it was anything new,"" he said.   According to USGS data, there have been about two dozen earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past week. When particularly strong quakes hit, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission directs well operators to cease wastewater injections or reduce volume.   A 5.8 earthquake -- a record for Oklahoma -- hit Pawnee on Sept. 3. Shortly afterward, geologists speculated on whether the temblor occurred on a previously unknown fault.   ""I was at home doing some work in my office and, basically, you could feel the whole house sway some,"" Spears, the Cushing city manager, said Sunday night. ""It's beginning to become normal."""
304,"Suicide deaths on the rise in kids —  Since 2007, the rate of suicide deaths among children between the ages of 10 and 14 has doubled, according to new government data released Thursday.   The death rate data, published in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, measured children's fatalities due to motor vehicle traffic injury, homicide and suicide between the years 1999 and 2014. On a positive note, the number of deaths due to motor vehicle traffic, or car crashes, has improved significantly through the years, the report says. In 2014, vehicle fatalities decreased by 58% from 1999, when there were 4.5 deaths per 100,000 children, to 1.2 deaths in 2014. Deaths from homicide have also declined over the same time period, though less dramatically, decreasing from 1.2 fatalities in 1999 to 0.8 in 2014. Conversely, the suicide death rates fluctuated from 1999 to 2007 but rose sharply after 2007. The lowest rate of suicide fatalities was 0.9 deaths per 100,000 kids in 2007, but that number doubled to 2.1, or 425 deaths, in 2014. Dr. Lisa Boesky, a private clinical psychologist and author who studies adolescent suicide, says younger kids will often take their own lives impulsively. Young kids may attempt to harm themselves for different reasons than teens. Most of the time, bad relationships between family and friends provoke kids to hurt themselves, Boesky says. On the other hand, a 14-year-old may kill herself because of a fight with her boyfriend. When looking for the warning signs for suicide in kids, ""many people look for signs of depression,"" Boesky explained. ""Teens (who attempt suicide) typically show mood swings and depression, but younger children are much more likely to suffer from (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). ""Many people, including medical professionals, think suicide is a teenage problem,"" Boesky said. ""But suicide can happen at very young ages, and we have to talk about this problem with all children."" Though it can be more difficult to predict suicide in children, Boesky notes several warning signs. Any increased sadness, irritability or anger should be monitored. Guardians should also pay attention to children who suddenly lose interest in their friends or activities, or begin to isolate themselves more. Finally, adults should tune in to what kids are saying. Take heed if they start saying mean or derogatory things or if they say things like, ""I wish I were dead"" or ""I wish I could go to sleep forever."" ""These sayings are not normal,"" Boesky emphasized. For parents, if children start displaying these behaviors, Boesky advises talking to the kids about their feelings and questioning why they feel that way. If the actions worsen, parents may want to contact a pediatrician or counselor. She added, ""Although it is important to talk to your children, it is even more important to listen."" There is very little research regarding suicide in children in the 10 to 14 age group and younger, according to Boesky. She hopes that the CDC's report will highlight the problem of suicide rates increasing in kids and that both medical professionals and parents will be better prepared to prevent harm before it happens. ""This is a wakeup call for more research on why young children are taking their lives and how we can intervene,"" Boesky said."
305,"Suicide: Russian girl's death prompts national debate —  It's a day like any other day in a provincial city in central Russia. A 12-year-old girl is getting ready to go to school. Suddenly her phone rings. The next minute she is out of the door, saying she's meeting a friend and they will go to school together. Later the same day, when her mother turns up at the school, there is no sign of her daughter. No-one has seen her. Then the mother's phone rings, and she can tell by the ring tone that it's her daughter's phone. ""Where are you, darling?"" she asks with relief. ""It's not your daughter,"" a strange voice replies. ""I'm a doctor from A&E. Your daughter is dead."" She had taken her own life. Social network subculture In the weeks and months that followed, the mother discovered how her daughter had been immersed in an online subculture of suicide involving images of self-harming, alternative reality games and a cult surrounding a 16-year-old girl who had killed herself in a violent fashion. This is the tragic story at the heart of a long, front-page article called Groups of Death in independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta on 16 May. Written by correspondent Galina Mursalieva, it alleges that Russia's most popular social network VKontakte (VK) has numerous groups used by Svengali-type figures to encourage vulnerable young people to kill themselves. These groups are regularly closed down, but others quickly spring up in their place. Emotional intensity The piece claims that a spate of at least 80 recent suicides can be linked to these online groups. Four of the deaths, including the one described above, occurred on the same day last December and in roughly the same manner. A note from Novaya Gazeta's editors at the top of the article urges every parent to read it to ""save their children from a fateful step"". Groups of Death has had an extraordinary impact. In little over a week, it has been viewed more than two million times and has sparked a stormy debate on social networks and beyond. One of the reasons it has gone viral is undoubtedly the emotional intensity of Galina Mursalieva's writing. But that has been singled out as one of its main shortcomings, too. Critics have accused her of treating a complex subject with tabloid sensationalism and allowing her personal involvement in the story to cloud her judgement. In particular, they question the emphasis that the writer and the bereaved parents have placed on the internet as a cause of juvenile suicide. A follow-up investigation by the Lenta.ru website presented a more nuanced, although no less disturbing, picture of internet subculture. It suggested that the people running the VK groups were not much older than their teenage members, and in many cases were exploiting suicide cults to boost their own egos or even earn money from online advertising. But Lenta.ru also admitted that at least some of the deaths mentioned by Novaya Gazeta could be linked to online grooming. ________________   Russia's high level of youth suicide Russia has world's third-highest number of suicides among adolescents Depression, anxiety and aggression are found in 20% of Russian teenagers; the Western average is no higher than 5% Suicidal thoughts come into the minds of 45% of Russian girls and 27% of young men Most suicides are linked to parents' alcoholism, family conflicts and abuse Statistics agency Rosstat says Russia's overall rate of suicide fell in 2015 to the lowest level for 50 years Source: Unicef 2011/Rosstat 2016 iWonder: How do we talk about teenage suicide? ________________   As well as appealing to parents, Novaya Gazeta also argued that it had wanted to goad the authorities into action. It said it had passed material to law enforcement agencies and informed media watchdog Roskomnadzor of its findings. Since publication, investigators in St Petersburg have launched a criminal case over groups on VK that allegedly promote suicide. But Novaya Gazeta has also been accused of colluding with the authorities, or at least giving them a useful pretext to further extend their control over the internet. It is an allegation emphatically denied by chief editor Dmitry Muratov. One of the ostensible aims of a controversial internet blacklist law that came into force in 2012 was to protect minors from material promoting suicide. Internet expert Anton Nosik believes that the Kremlin is now intent on getting to grips with online communities, having passed laws that have the potential to curb the activity of top bloggers and with key elections just around the corner. One thing that everyone appears to agree on is that adolescent suicide is a very serious problem in Russia. A 2011 Unicef report found that the country had the third-highest suicide rate in this age group in the world, more than three times the global average. As such, even some of Galina Mursalieva's critics concede that by getting people to talk about a subject that is too often ignored, she may have performed a useful public service. ________________   Are you affected by this? Samaritans The Samaritans helpline is available 24 hours a day for anyone in the UK struggling to cope. It provides a safe place to talk where calls are completely confidential. Phone for free: 116 123 Email: jo@samaritans.org Visit the Samaritans website Papyrus Papyrus offers support, practical advice and information to young people in the UK considering suicide and can also offer help and advice if you're concerned about someone you know. Phone: 0800 068 41 41 Telephone Doveriye (Telephone of Trust) In Russia, a confidential hotline for children is available on 8-800-2000-122"
306,"Summer of 2016 5th hottest on record —  If you’re looking for a new proof that our planet is warming up, then here’s one from the NOAA, or, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency reported last week that Summer 2016 in the United States was officially the 5th hottest on record tied with the year 2006.   The report from scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information revealed that the average summer 2016 temperature in the country was 73.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and that was about 2.1 degrees above the average. Every state in the continental United States, including Alaska, were warmer than average this summer, the report added.   Precipitation also broke some records, with the season total of 0.60 inch above average, making it the 24th wettest on record.   Also, the month of August in America was the 17th warmest on record with an average temperature of 73.6 degrees Fahrenheit (across the Lower 48 states), or 1.5 degrees above average. They also saw that twenty-four states were much warmer than average. The precipitation total for August was 0.85 inch above average, making it the second wettest August on record.   The year to date total (or from the month of January to August) for the contiguous United States was the 3rd warmest on record with an average temperature of 56.7 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2.8 degrees above average. All Lower 48 states, plus Alaska, have seen above average temperatures during the said period.   Here are other notable climate events in America included in the NOAA report:   Northeast/Mid-Atlantic: Eight states, including Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, had a record warm August. Connecticut and Rhode Island had their warmest summer on record.   California had its warmest summer on record, which contributed to an active wildfire season.   Alaska experienced its third warmest August, second warmest summer and was record warm for the year to date at 7.6 degrees F above average.   Louisiana: In mid-August, a storm system dropped more than 30 inches of rain on parts of the state that caused record flooding and at least 13 deaths."
307,"Supreme Court halts scheduled execution of Alabama death row inmate —  The Supreme Court stayed the execution Thursday night of an Alabama inmate who had been scheduled to die by lethal injection.   This marked the seventh time that Thomas D. Arthur — who was convicted of murder and is the second-oldest inmate on Alabama’s death row — had faced an execution date that was called off, according to the office of Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange.   Arthur’s lethal injection was scheduled for Thursday evening, but uncertainty about what would happen stretched into the night as officials in Alabama waited for the Supreme Court to consider his appeals.   Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — the justice assigned to the 11th Circuit, which includes Alabama — said in an order shortly before 10:30 p.m. that he was halting the execution until he or the other justices issued another order.   Thomas referred the case to the full court, and shortly before midnight, the justices issued an order granting Arthur’s stay request. The order included a statement from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. explaining that while he did not believe this case merited a review from the Supreme Court, he had decided to vote for a stay anyway as a courtesy to his colleagues.   Roberts wrote that four of the other justices had voted in favor of staying the execution. While it takes five justices to overturn a lower court ruling, it takes only four to accept a case.   “To afford them the opportunity to more fully consider the suitability of this case for review, including these circumstances, I vote to grant the stay as a courtesy,” he wrote.   Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito would have rejected the request, the court’s order stated. The order only mentioned how seven justices responded and did not explain the absence of an eighth justice’s stance.   [Supreme Court began its new term still short-handed]   Roberts’s decision to become the so-called “courtesy” vote came three months after Justice Stephen G. Breyer acted similarly when the court issued a stay in a case involving a transgender Virginia teen suing his school board over a bathroom policy. Breyer had said he was joining the court’s conservative justices to maintain the status quo while the justices considered whether to hear the case (which they accepted earlier this week). According to the court’s order in the death penalty case, the stay of execution in Alabama would remain in place until the justices decide whether to consider the case. If they decide against it, the stay will be terminated.   “We are greatly relieved by the Supreme Court’s decision granting a stay and now hope for the opportunity to present the merits of Mr. Arthur’s claims to the Court,” Suhana S. Han, an attorney for Arthur, said in a statement.   Arthur, 74, was sentenced to death for the 1982 killing of Troy Wicker, described in court records as the husband of a woman with whom Arthur had an affair.   According to a summary of the case from the Alabama Supreme Court, Arthur was serving a life sentence for fatally shooting a relative of his common-law wife and, while on work release, had an affair with Wicker’s wife before killing Wicker.   After three trials, Arthur was sentenced to death. One of his executions was called off after another inmate confessed to the killing, though a judge ultimately dismissed that inmate’s claim. In appeals filed Thursday, Arthur’s attorneys argued that Alabama’s “deficient lethal injection protocol” would have had “torturous effects,” pointing to the state’s planned use of the sedative midazolam, which has been used in at least three executions that went awry. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld Oklahoma’s execution protocol in a case that hinged in part on that sedative. Arthur’s court filings also argued that the state should execute him by firing squad, arguing that “execution by firing squad, if implemented properly, would result in a substantially lesser risk of harm” than the proposed lethal injection method.   Strange’s office, in its response, noted that under Alabama state law, the Department of Corrections is only allowed to carry out executions by injection and electrocution.   Strange criticized the justices for their action late Thursday. “With all due respect to the Supreme Court, tonight’s order undermines the rule of law,” Strange said in a statement. “While I agree with Chief Justice Roberts that ‘This case does not merit the Court’s review,’ in my view, there is no ‘courtesy’ in voting to deny justice to the victims of a notorious and cold-blooded killer.” On Thursday night, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections told the Associated Press that the state delayed Arthur’s scheduled execution for several hours at the request of the Supreme Court while the higher court was weighing his appeals.   [Alabama Supreme Court upholds the state’s death penalty]   There have been 17 executions in the United States so far this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and the country is on pace to have its fewest executions in a quarter-century. Arthur’s was one of four executions scheduled through the end of 2016, according to the center.   Nearly all of the executions this year have been carried out in two states, Texas and Georgia. Alabama, Florida and Missouri are the only other states to put inmates to death.   Alabama’s death-penalty protocol has received increased scrutiny in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling in January striking down Florida’s death-penalty system. The Supreme Court has sent a few Alabama death-penalty cases back to lower courts for review this year, remanding them due to the Florida case.   In September, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the state’s death penalty system was constitutional and unaffected by the Florida ruling. Meanwhile, Florida lawmakers rewrote their death penalty statute after the Supreme Court ruling, but the Florida Supreme Court struck down the new setup last month and said it is still unconstitutional, and it still remains unclear what will happen to nearly 400 death-row inmates there.   An Alabama inmate had argued in January that his state’s death penalty system was “virtually identical” to the Florida setup, which had been struck down because judges, rather than juries, could make a decision about imposing death sentences. The Supreme Court did not agree, and that inmate was executed in the first lethal injection in Alabama since 2013.   The Supreme Court in May was also asked to weigh in after a federal appeals court stayed an execution in Alabama. In that case, the evenly divided court — which is still down to eight justices — was split, which left in place the stay that prevented Alabama from executing Vernon Madison, who was sentenced to death for the 1985 killing of Julius Schulte, a police officer."
308,"Surprise! British Red Squirrels Carry Leprosy —  Some of them harbor strains that infected medieval Europeans, but that have been eradicated on the U.K. mainland for centuries. In 2006, Anna Meredith came across a dead red squirrel with a weird skin disorder. Its ears lacked the characteristic red tufts, and were instead swollen, smooth, and shiny, like the cauliflower ears of boxers and rugby players. Its nose, muzzle, and eyelids were similarly swollen and hairless. Meredith, a professor of conservation medicine at the University of Edinburgh, had never seen anything like this before. But she soon saw the same problems again—in six more squirrels over the next six years. She and her colleagues analyzed tissue samples from the dead animals. And to their surprise, they discovered that the squirrels had leprosy. That’s astonishing for two reasons. First, even though leprosy still affects at least 385,000 people around the world (including a few hundred in the U.S.), the disease was eradicated from Britain several centuries ago. Second, squirrels aren’t meant to get leprosy. The disease is mainly caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae, which attacks the skin and peripheral nerves. Chimps and some monkeys can occasionally catch it from people, but until now, scientists knew of only two species that naturally harbor the disease: humans, and nine-banded armadillos in the southern United States. The latter actually acquired the disease from the former; European settlers brought leprosy to the New World and then passed it onto armadillos several centuries ago. Meredith’s discovery generated enough publicity that members of the public started sending her pictures of squirrels from their own backyards, some of whom had the same lesions. Most of the shots came from Scotland, but one was from Brownsea Island—an island off the southern coast of England, and some 480 miles away from Edinburgh. “Someone had done a day trip there, seen a squirrel, and said: Is this leprosy?” says Meredith. “I looked at it and said: Wow, it’s identical!” Working with Stewart Cole, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Meredith analyzed the cadavers of 110 red squirrels from Great Britain and Ireland, and found that almost a third of them had leprosy, including several without any clinical signs. Those in Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Wight were infected with Mycobacterium lepromatosis—a second species of leprosy bacterium that was only identified in humans in 2008. By contrast, all the squirrels from Brownsea Island had M. leprae, the more traditional leprosy microbe. By comparing the microbes’ genomes, the team showed that the M. leprae strains currently infecting the Brownsea squirrels are almost identical to those recovered from a medieval human skeleton buried in the nearby city of Winchester some 730 years ago. So it’s possible that humans passed M. leprae to red squirrels several centuries ago, and that the Brownsea individuals have harbored the microbe long after its eradication on the mainland. Could the squirrels ever pass the disease back to us? Armadillos certainly do in the United States, but for the moment, there’s no evidence of squirrel-to-human transmission in Britain. “It’s not impossible, but there’s no evidence that we’re at risk,” says Meredith. “We’re more concerned about the squirrels.” Red squirrels are an endangered species in Britain. Once common, they’ve had to contend with the introduction of gray squirrels from the Americas, which outcompeted them and infected them with squirrelpox—an often fatal disease. As a result, the country is currently home to more than 2.5 million grays but just 140,000 reds, most of which live in Scotland. Those that get leprosy can live for many years with the condition, but Meredith wants to see if their health suffers in the long run. They might eventually die because they’re unable to feed properly, or because leprosy makes them more vulnerable to other infections. (Contrary to stigma, leprosy doesn’t make body parts fall off; instead, deadened peripheral nerves sometimes stop people from noticing injuries or infections in their extremities, leading to eventual amputations.)   Why did the squirrels become infected in the first place? They belong to a different order of mammals than either humans or nine-banded armadillos, and all three species are separated by around 100 million years of evolution. And yet the three of us, out of all the mammals in the world, are the only ones know to harbor M. leprae. And for that matter, why does the red squirrel get infected when the closely related grey squirrel doesn’t seem to? No one knows. Meredith’s team looked at an immune gene called TLR1. A few mutations in this gene have been linked to either a greater or lower risk of leprosy in humans, but none of these specific mutations are found in either armadillos or squirrels. Some squirrels did seem to have their own TLR1 mutations that reduced their risk of infection, but with such a small sample, it’s hard to say for sure. Perhaps the weird troika of host species simply reflects our ignorance about where leprosy hides. It may be lurking in more animals than we realize. “We need to look more closely at the possibility of a wildlife reservoir,” says Meredith. And “there is circumstantial evidence that M. leprae has an environmental reservoir,” says Helen Donoghue, from University College London. That is, the microbe might hide out in water, soil, vegetation, or something else. Perhaps that’s how the red squirrels originally became infected, she adds. The idea of an environmental reservoir has been long disputed, but perhaps needs to be revisited in light of the squirrel discovery. “Although leprosy has been known since biblical times, and still remains a major public health problem in many parts of the world, our understanding of how this infection transmits and causes disease is very limited,” says Anura Rambukkana from the University of Edinburgh. And since the infected squirrels develop symptoms that “somewhat resemble human leprosy”, he adds, they may help us to understand how the disease manifests in humans, and how it spreads between us."
309,"Suspect in deadly shooting at Vegas Starbucks apparently angry over declined card —  Las Vegas Metro police said a deadly shooting at a southwest area Starbucks may have stemmed from a confrontation over a declined card.    Citing the preliminary investigation, police said the suspect went through the drive-thru at the Starbucks on Sunday when his card was declined. The suspect then drove to another part of the building and entered the business agitated. The suspect fired two shots in the air and then fired at a customer inside.    The customer was struck in the chest area and witnesses administered CPR. Since officers treated the incident as a hostage situation there was a delay to get medical treatment to the victim. The victim was transported to Spring Valley Hospital where he or she died.    Police said as people were evacuating the Starbucks it was unclear if the suspect exited or remained inside. The suspect called police and described a different shooter prior to his arrest.   A suspect, described as a Hispanic man approximately 30 to 40 years-old, was later detained, police said. The suspect had a criminal history and should not have been in possession of a gun."
310,"Suspected Serial Killer Unmasked After Chance Police Encounter —  A gunfight between an Alaska police officer and a pedestrian who suddenly opened fire may have stopped a serial killer dead in his tracks.   According to Anchorage police, Officer Arn Salao was responding to a theft complaint early Saturday when he spotted 40-year-old James Dale Ritchie walking down a city street. When Salao pulled up next to Ritchie to ask if he had seen the crime, Ritchie ignored the question and continued walking, prompting the officer to ask again over the public-address loudspeaker in his patrol car. It was at that moment, police said, that Ritchie turned and opened fire on the officer, hitting him at least four times.   Salao “immediately returned gunfire and physically fought off his assailant,” Anchorage Chief Chris Tolley said at a Tuesday press conference. “At the same time, as this is occurring, a second officer who’s in the area rolled up on the incident and Sgt. Marc Patzke of our K9 Unit charged and returned fire. ... Together they were able to stop this individual.” Ritchie was killed in the hail of police bullets and was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities have not revealed how many times he was shot. Salao is recovering at an area hospital from his wounds, police said.   Police said they knew no reason why Ritchie opened fire.   “Mr. Ritchie, we just came upon by happenstance,” Anchorage Police Lt. John McKinnon told Alaska Dispatch News.   The burst of violence turned out to be just the beginning. Ballistics tests on the Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver police said Ritchie brandished unraveled a trail of death that has terrorized Alaska’s largest city.    The revolver, Tolley said, “was the same gun used in five other homicides here in Anchorage in 2016.”  The revelation followed a recent police announcement warning residents to be cautious and “travel with several friends.” That admonition, which heightened fears of Anchorage’s record pace of homicides, had the city on edge. “You put all those things together, and it becomes pretty alarming and shocking,” Teresa Arnold told Anchorage’s KTVA 11 News prior to Saturday’s shooting.  According to Alaska Dispatch News, Ritchie had two siblings and was a 1994 graduate of East Anchorage High School, where he was a standout athlete.   “He was a happy, positive person in high school. It’s shocking to me,” former classmate Mao Tosi told the newspaper.   Ritchie reportedly had prior arrests for drugs and burglary. Online records indicate he lived in West Virginia for an unknown period before returning to Alaska earlier this year.   Authorities haven’t said whether Ritchie knew any of the people killed with the gun he wielded. While a motive may have died with the suspect, police said the chance encounter on Saturday may have saved countless lives.   “This murderer, it’s the worst possible thing,” Tolley said. “Because of the heroic actions of these Anchorage police officers, they have made sure that this individual will not hurt any one of you or any one of the citizens in Anchorage.”     Police said they linked two of three recent double homicides to Ritchie’s handgun. Those victims have been identified as Jason Netter Sr., Brianna Foisy, Bryant De Husson and Kevin Schuyler Turner. The bodies of Netter, 41 and Foisy, 20, were found along Ship Creek Trail on July 3. Netter, a father of two, had an extensive criminal history that included a felony conviction for drugs, according to Alaska Dispatch News. Foisy was reportedly homeless. Friends told Anchorage’s KTUU‑TV that she battled drug addiction.   “She just wasn’t on the right path,” Dani Elle-Ponte told the news station. “Kids these days are doing things they shouldn’t be doing, and there’s a lot of problems with that out here. For a while there, I think she just felt a little hopeless but I know she was trying.” Turner, 34 and Dehusson, 25, were found dead on Aug. 28, near a bike path in the Valley of the Moon Park. DeHusson, a well-known figure in local environmental and social activism circles, reportedly identified as non-binary or “two-spirit” gender.   Turner’s brother, Billy Turner, wrote online that his brother “had a mental illness that did not hold him back from having a fun and a loving life full of friends and family.” The July 29 slaying of Treyveonkindell Thompson, which police said also was linked to Ritchie’s gun, did not share the same characteristics as the others. Thompson, 21, was shot multiple times and his body was found alone on the side of a residential street.   A lifelong resident of Anchorage, Thompson was reportedly in the process of joining the U.S. Army.   “At this point, we have a person of interest ... that was seen in the area,” Sgt. Slawomir Markiewicz told reporters at a Sept. 11 press conference. Investigators released a photograph of Thompson’s missing bicycle and a sketch of the suspect. The suspect, police said, was roughly 6 foot 3 and wore a camouflage jacket.  The FBI, which has been assisting in the homicide investigations, offered a $10,000 reward in Thompson’s killing. Investigators have not linked Ritchie to a third double-homicide that occurred in Anchorage. That case landed in the laps of detectives on Jan. 28, when a dog walker found the body of 19-year-old Selena Annette Mullenax at Point Woronzof, a scenic Anchorage overlook surrounded by a bike trail. Authorities searching the area discovered a second victim, 20-year-old Foriegnne “Onie” Aubert-Morissette, who died after transport to a hospital.   Morissette, according to his Facebook page, attended Madison West High School in Wisconsin. Mullenax reportedly has five siblings and was the mother of a 2-year-old child.   Those two homicides remain unsolved."
311,"Syria conflict: US and UK rhetoric 'unacceptable' - Russia —  Russia has criticised the US and UK for using ""unacceptable"" tone and rhetoric in speeches on Syria at the UN, after being accused of ""barbarism"". On Sunday, US permanent representative Samantha Power said Russian and Syrian forces were ""laying waste"" to besieged rebel-held areas of the city of Aleppo. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that such language might damage efforts to end the five-year civil war. Activists meanwhile reported dozens of fresh air strikes on Aleppo overnight. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said at least two civilians had been killed and many wounded. At least 162 people are believed to have died in rebel-held Aleppo since last Monday, when a truce brokered by the US and Russia collapsed. Why are so many children dying in Aleppo? Why Assad wants to take Aleppo Attacks on Syria's aid workers are 'unconscionable' The US, UK and France, which back the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, openly accused Russia of lying about its involvement in the assault on Aleppo at an emergency session of the UN Security Council. British permanent representative Matthew Rycroft said Mr Assad's forces and Moscow had ""plunged to new depths and unleashed a new hell on Aleppo"", which was once Syria's largest city and the country's industrial and commercial hub. He alleged that they were committing war crimes by using bunker-busting bombs to destroy underground shelters, dropping incendiary weapons indiscriminately on civilian areas, and targeting the city's water supplies. Ms Power told the meeting: ""Instead of pursuing peace, Russia and Assad make war. Instead of helping get life-saving aid to civilians, Russia and Assad are bombing the humanitarian convoys, hospitals, and first responders who are trying desperately to keep people alive."" ""What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism; it is barbarism,"" she added. BBC Monitoring: Russian media hail defiant diplomats Pro-Kremlin media in Russia have been gripped by the discussions on Syria at the UN Security Council, but they offered little comment on the accusations levelled against Moscow. Instead, they dismissed the charges as ""groundless"" and hailed the response of Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin. ""Both US and UK permanent representatives were lavish in criticising Moscow and Damascus, but received a firm response,"" said Gazprom-owned NTV. State-owned newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta accused the US and its allies of trying to ""exert pressure on Damascus and Moscow, while doing nothing to meet their own obligations"". Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin blamed the unravelling of the truce deal on the US, saying it had failed to convince mainstream rebels to distance themselves from ""terrorist"" groups, especially the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. Mr Peskov also rejected the Western criticism at a news conference on Monday. ""We note that the tone and rhetoric used by official representatives from the UK and US is generally unacceptable and it can seriously damage the settlement process and our bilateral relations,"" he said. Mr Peskov acknowledged that the truce deal had been ""not very effective"", but insisted that Moscow ""definitely remains hopeful"". He also warned that ""terrorists"" had used the truce to ""regroup, replenish their arsenals and obviously prepare for offensive actions"". Meanwhile, a medical source in rebel-held Aleppo told the AFP news agency that a shortage of blood meant hospitals were struggling to deal with the huge number of casualties caused by air strikes over the past four days. There was also no water supply in many areas after pumping stations were damaged at the weekend, and several charity kitchens were forced to close because of the violence."
312,"Syrian conflict: Russia claims bombed UN aid convoy was 'escorted by terrorists' —  A UN aid convoy that was bombed on Monday night was escorted by a ""terrorists"", Russia has claimed in response to accusations it was behind the deadly attacks.    Moscow has denied hitting the UN convoy, which was bombed as it delivered food aid to opposition-held parts of Aleppo on Monday night, minutes after the military declared the end of a ceasefire.  The strikes, carried out by either Syrian or allied Russian warplanes, hit Syrian Red Crescent trucks as staff members were unloading aid in Urem al-Kubra in Aleppo province. More than a dozen were killed including Omar Barakat, the organisation’s director. Pictures shared by activists showed burned bodies next to a UNHCR badge.    Russia's defence ministry released drone footage late on Tuesday that it says showed a pickup truck carrying militants and hauling a heavy mortar driving alongside the convoy before it was bombed.    In a statement posted on its Facebook page last night, the Russian defence ministry said the drone footage cast ""new details on the incident.""   ""It is clearly visible how terrorists deploy a pickup with a large calibre mortar alongside the convoy,"" the ministry said. More than a dozen were killed including Omar Barakat, the organisation’s director. Pictures shared by activists showed burned bodies next to a UNHCR badge.    Russia's defence ministry released drone footage late on Tuesday that it says showed a pickup truck carrying militants and hauling a heavy mortar driving alongside the convoy before it was bombed.    In a statement posted on its Facebook page last night, the Russian defence ministry said the drone footage cast ""new details on the incident.""   ""It is clearly visible how terrorists deploy a pickup with a large calibre mortar alongside the convoy,"" the ministry said. The convoy had been carrying much-needed flour and other emergency supplies for 78,000 people in the area, his office confirmed.    More than 35 strikes were counted in Aleppo by monitors, with residents describing the bombs as falling like rain.   The truce collapsed as leaders were gathered at the UN in New York in the hope of negotiating a longer-term peace plan. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “evidently indiscriminately bombing, including of humanitarian convoys,” John Kerry, US secretary of state, said from the sidelines. “The important thing is the Russians need to control Assad.”   The US was last night still scrambling to save the hard-fought deal, which they have described as Syria’s “last chance,” saying it was prepared to extend the ceasefire if there was good will on the Russian side. Moscow appeared to bury hopes of a lasting truce, however.   ""Considering that the conditions of the ceasefire are not being respected by the rebels, we consider it pointless for the Syrian government forces to respect it unilaterally,"" said Lt Gen Sergei Rudskoy. Under the agreed ceasefire, which came into effect last Monday, fighting was to halt across Syria and humanitarian aid would reach desperate civilians - particularly in devastated eastern Aleppo.   And if it held, the US was to have set up a an unprecedented joint military cell with Russia to target Islamic State and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham jihadists. But after four days of relative calm, violence escalated over the weekend, and the former Cold War foes traded recriminations as they accused one another of violating the ceasefire.   The US accused the Syrian government and its Russian ally of carrying out air strikes on rebel-controlled neighbourhoods and denying the entry of aid into besieged areas.  Meanwhile, the US-led international coalition, including a RAF Reaper, accidentally bombed an army position near the Islamic State-held city of Deir Ezzor in the east, killing more than 60 troops.    Moscow accused Washington and its allies of acting deliberately and said it was aiding Isil. ""The actions of the pilots - if they, as we hope, were not taken on orders from Washington - fall between criminal negligence and direct pandering to Isil terrorists,"" Moscow said in a statement.   The incident underscored the deep mistrust between the superpowers, who have so far failed to achieve any lasting agreement to end the seemingly intractable conflict.    Brita Haji Hasan, head of the opposition council in Aleppo, said the ceasefire “was born dead.”   “It was never committed to by Russian forces or Assad’s regime,” he said. “And this is not the first time a ceasefire has been attempted, only to fail.”"
313,"Syrians and Iraqis granted asylum in Germany far more often than Pakistanis, Nigerians —  BERLIN — One year after the height of Europe’s migrant crisis, Germany — a nation that took in more asylum seekers than the rest of the continent combined — is confronting the Solomonesque task of deciding who gets to stay. Yet as authorities adjudicate cases, a contentious truism is emerging: Not all nationalities are created equal. If you’re from Syria or Iraq, sanctuary is almost guaranteed. But if you’re from Nigeria or Pakistan, chances are you journeyed halfway across the world in vain. Nearly 37 percent of all claims processed by the German authorities are being rejected, including an increasing number of people from countries afflicted with violent insurgencies, such as Afghanistan. Even Syrians are increasingly falling short of winning full refugee status. Authorities say they’re simply applying national and international asylum law, weeding out those who do not qualify. But critics say that overburdened asylum officials are turning a deaf ear to at least some genuine petitions simply because they come from asylum seekers arriving from nations outside the much-publicized war zones of the Middle East. [Germany used to be the promised land for migrants. Now, it’s turning back more of them.] Pakistani Mohammad Nabeel is among the unlucky ones. This month, German migration authorities informed him that his case had been closed before he even had an official hearing. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said he had missed his appointment, although Nabeel said he was never notified. Even if he had been, experts say, his case falls into the gray area that often leads to rejection. The 23-year-old claims he was in love with a rich girl in his hometown. But her family was against the relationship with Nabeel, who was poor and didn’t have the right family name, important factors in some areas of Pakistan for arranging a marriage. The girl’s brother and father set out to kill Nabeel, he says, to protect the girl’s honor. His only proof, he says, are fading scars on his body from being severely beaten by members of her family. Nabeel arrived in Germany after traveling six months and crossing seven different countries. Now, he may be sent back. “I won’t go back; I’d rather kill myself,” Nabeel says. He plans to appeal the asylum official’s decision. There are loopholes in the German system allowing for people like Nabeel — who aren’t strictly fleeing from war or political persecution — to temporarily stay in Germany on humanitarian grounds. Some are eventually granted permanent residence. But only about 4 percent of asylum requests by Pakistanis are currently decided in their favor. And Nabeel’s rejection comes at a time when the German government is increasingly taking measures targeting those migrants it deems ineligible for protection. It is determined to enforce deportation more strictly and even hired a consulting firm to help. Negotiations for deportation deals with Afghanistan and Nigeria are underway on the national and the European level. [Europe pressing harder on countries to take back deported migrants] Politicians in favor of a more restrictive asylum policy argue that some migrants apply for refugee status based on flimsy evidence and come to Germany for purely economic reasons. Others, they say, could escape the dangers they’re facing by simply approaching the local police or by moving to a different part of their home country. Daniel Owolabi Ajibade is one of the more than 10,000 Nigerians who applied for asylum in Germany this year. The business consultant claims that members of a Nigerian cartel attempted to kill him because they feared that the high-quality marbles and tiles he wanted to bring into the country would ruin their business with cheap Chinese imports. Although the 35-year-old has a newspaper article to prove the incident, the chances are high that German migration officials won’t heed his plea. The protection rate for Nigerians is only about 9 percent and to be allowed to stay, Ajibade will have to convince authorities that he had nowhere else to go. “I’m very afraid of what the outcome will be, since going back to Nigeria would be very risky,” he says. “I understand that there’s a real war in Syria and our problems with Boko Haram are mostly in the north . . . but I wish that the German government would also accept more of us until things quiet down.” “Our system caters primarily to those who have a concrete claim for protection, as bitter as this might be for some individuals,” said Ansgar Heveling, a lawmaker with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and chairman of the German parliament’s Home Affairs Committee. Heveling thinks that the vast majority of applicants are given their due. “If in individual cases a wrong decision is made, we have courts to correct them,” he said. [Germany said it took in more than 1 million refugees last year. But it didn’t.] The nongovernmental organization Pro Asyl says that the flood of appeals against the Federal Office’s decision suggest that the system is flawed. So far, 18,666 Syrians went to court this year to fight for a better status of protection than they were granted. Many cases were dropped, but of the 1,943 verdicts, 1,547 were in favor of the plaintiffs. Stephan Dünnwald, spokesman for the Bavarian Refugee Council, said that there is a danger of the German authorities sweepingly rejecting certain groups of asylum seekers because they’re overburdened or because of political decisions made in Berlin. “The decision-making is a disaster, because there are so many new and inexperienced deciders who are under a lot of time pressure . . . In some situations, where there should be additional probing, this simply isn’t done. The quality of the interpreters has declined rapidly. There are no quality standards,” Dünnwald said. “Sometimes it almost feels as if people must be beaten to death before they are being believed.”"
314,"TRAGEDY: Tampa man lost wife, 2 children, in horrific crash that killed 5 —  TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The heartache of losing a loved one in a sudden, unexpected moment is devastating.   The shock is jarring and confusing. Families and friends are left with broken hearts and aching spirits. Losing one person is painful. But, for a Tampa husband, the grief is paralyzing and unbearable.   On Wednesday night, John Bernal lost his wife, his youngest daughter and his youngest son in a horrific car accident on MLK.   Mother Marianela Murillo and her two youngest children, John Bernal, Jr.  and Isabell Bernal, along with her teenager, Lina Bernal, were returning home from church when they were hit head-on in a fiery crash.   Their minivan burst into flames with the family trapped inside. The teenage daughter and her cousin visiting from Colombia, Luisa Louisa, were the only ones to survive in that van.   A relative began sobbing as she recalled the events while speaking to WFLA at Tampa General Hospital.   “My biggest thing is, I hope they didn’t suffer,” Gisela Martinez cried. “The car did catch on fire, and there were children in that car.”   While eyewitnesses claim it was street racing, the Florida Highway Patrol says there’s no evidence to prove it.   However, troopers say that the young man who caused the accident, 22-year-old Pablo Cortes III, was traveling at a high rate of speed when he lost control of his Volkswagen Golf. Both he and his passenger, Jolie Bartolome, were killed.   Family members are heartbroken and their hearts go out to the husband who lost his wife and two children.   “He’s suffering right now. He’s in pieces. I don’t wish this upon anybody at all. I mean, he is really in pieces,” said Mizrah Medina, a cousin."
315,"TWO DEAD AFTER SNORKELLING TRAGEDY ON GREAT BARRIER REEF —  An elderly man and woman, believed to be in their 70s, were snorkelling alongside each other while on a trip to Michaelmas Cay with the Passions of Paradise reef tour company. The popular reef site is 33km east of Cairns.   Passions of Paradise Chief Executive Officer, Scotty Garden, said in a statement the pair had pre-existing medical conditions and were accompanied by a guide before tragedy struck in the water.    A third person also suffered a medical condition, but survived the incident. They were part of a group of 21 elderly French travellers on board the catamaran, which has been operating on the reef for almost 30 years.   Gardens said the tour boat had a lookout on the beach, another on the boat and two snorkel guides in the water at the time, and that ‘all staff have current qualifications in CPR and first aid.’   “The Passions of Paradise lookout on the beach noticed a man floating in the water and pulled him to the sand cay where he performed CPR,” Garden said.   “He was then assisted by a doctor on the sand cay. The Passions of Paradise lookout on the boat saw a woman floating in the water and pulled her on to the catamaran where CPR was performed.”   It’s believed a Cairns-based rescue helicopter was not available at the time of the emergency.   A spokesperson from the Cairns Hospital said they had not received any more patients as a result of today's events and ""have no indication that we will be receiving one.”   Executive Director of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators, Col McKenzie, told Australian Associated Press the pair had declared their serious medical conditions before entering the water.   “I just don’t know what it was; however, from what I was told, it would lead you to believe that they probably had heart attacks,” he told AAP.   “I do know that the woman was on some pretty severe medications as well.”"
316,"Taliban car bomb hits German consulate in northern Afghanistan —  A suicide car bomb targeted the German consulate in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province on Thursday, according to local police and officials.   Monir Ahmad Farhad, a provincial spokesman, said Friday four people were killed and more 100 people were injured when the attack happened at 10:45 p.m. in Mazar-e-Sharif, the provincial capital. No German diplomats were hurt. Local police chief Abdul Razaq Qaderi described the explosion as ""very powerful"" and said three police officers were injured. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in an email to the media. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the target was the consulate and he referred to Germany as ""the invader."" Mazar-e-Sharif is one of the most peaceful cities in Afghanistan. It is also one of northern Afghanistan's most populated and developed cities. While the Taliban are active around Mazar-e-Sharif, the city is not a Taliban stronghold. The attack comes seven days after a a joint Afghan-US battle against the Taliban in the northern district of Kunduz that killed 30 civilians as well as two US soldiers and 26 militants. ""I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives, regardless of the circumstances,"" Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement Saturday. The troops came under fire during what the US military said was a mission to train, advise and assist its Afghan partners in clearing a Taliban position and disrupting the organization's operations in Kunduz district. Those deaths happened the same day Taliban mortars killed at least seven people at a wedding party in Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, police spokesman Kareem Youresh said. At least 13 people were wounded.   Kunduz has been the site of a number of anti-Taliban operations. In April, the Pentagon announced that 16 military personnel would be disciplined over a fatal US strike on a Kunduz hospital in October 2015. But the military said the strike was not a war crime because it resulted from unintentional human error and equipment failure."
317,"Teacher impregnated by 13-year-old takes plea deal —  A former teacher accused of having sex with a thirteen-year-old student 'daily' agreed to a plea deal Wednesday morning.   Alexandria Vera, 25, was originally charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child after her June arrest. She plead guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child.   Vera was a teacher at Stovall Middle School when she began having sex with an 8th grader. Harris County prosecutors say the sexual relationship went on for nine months.   According to court documents, Vera said she and the victim “love each other.”  She said the two met in summer school, then grew close the following school year.   During an open house in the fall, Vera claimed she was introduced to the victim’s parents as “his girlfriend.”  She also told investigators the boy’s family accepted the relationship, invited her to family gatherings and became “very supportive and excited” when told Vera was pregnant with the victim’s child in January, according to court records.   But when Child Protective Services showed up at the school to question Vera and the victim, she said she got nervous and later had an abortion.   Neighbors say they saw the boy at Vera’s house all the time and there were regular sleepovers. They say Vera, who has a 4-year-old daughter, claimed the boy was her brother.   She sometimes had as many as five teenage boys over at one time, according to neighbors.   “She was having a lot of kids in her home,” one neighbor said.  “There was drinking in the front.  We always found beer bottles and beer cans on her side of the lawn and half of the (teens) did not look older than high school, maybe.”   Vera won’t be sentenced until January. Prosecutors agreed to a maximum term of 30 years. Defense attorneys will ask for probation. Vera could have faced life in prison under the original charge.   The boy, now 14, will remain in foster care through at least August 2017. His parents, who have three other children, have been ordered to undergo therapy and attend parent classes. They were not charged in the case."
318,"Terry Jones of Monty Python Has Dementia, His Family Says —  Terry Jones, an original member of Monty Python, has a form of dementia that is affecting his ability to communicate, his family said in a statement. The statement, published on Thursday on the website of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in Wales, also known as BAFTA Cymru, said: “Terry has been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a variant of frontotemporal dementia. This illness affects his ability to communicate, and he is no longer able to give interviews.” On Friday, Ben Timlett, a producer on one of Mr. Jones’s films, said in an email that Mr. Jones’s son Bill confirmed that the statement had been released to BAFTA Cymru on behalf of the family. BAFTA Cymru chose Terry Jones — a Welsh comedian known for his Python characters like a doting mother of a coal worker son criticized for being a slacker by his playwright father and an everyday Superman who needs his bicycle repaired — to receive its award for Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television. Hannah Raybould, the director of BAFTA Cymru, said a retrospective of Mr. Jones’s work starting from 1969 would still be celebrated at an awards ceremony in Cardiff on Oct. 2. “Terry is proud and honored to be recognized in this way and is looking forward to the celebrations,” the statement said. Lydia Jones, a spokeswoman for BAFTA Cymru, said Friday that the organization had been told there would be no further details on Mr. Jones’s condition. Primary progressive aphasia is a rare nervous system syndrome that affects a person’s ability to express his or her thoughts and understanding, or to find words, according to the Mayo Clinic. Symptoms begin gradually, often before age 65, and worsen over time. The news of the diagnosis was also reported by the BBC and Britain’sNational Press Association. The announcement of Mr. Jones’s illness dominated Monty Python fan siteson Friday, where it was described as “sad” and “terrible” news. Eric Idle, a co-founder of the ribald, outrageous and internationally acclaimed British troupe, tweeted thanks to fans for their support while noting Mr. Jones’s participation in the 2014 stage reunion of the comedy gang. Mr. Jones, 74, was born in Colwyn Bay, a seaside community on the north coast of Wales. He has written and directed dramas, presented documentaries, composed operas and penned short stories, as BAFTA Cymru noted. But it is his work in the Monty Python television series, which was brought to the stage in London in 2014, that arguably contributed most to his fame. He worked on some of the troupe’s best-known films, including “Life of Brian,” 1979 (director and a writer); “The Meaning of Life,” 1983 (a writer and, with Terry Gilliam, a director); and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” 1975 (a writer and co-director). Last year, Mr. Jones released the documentary “Boom Bust Boom,” about how the economy cycles through periods of growth and collapse. “This film is about the Achilles’ heel of capitalism,” Mr. Jones says at the opening of the film. “How human nature drives the economy to crisis after crisis, time and time again.” A review in The New York Times called it ominous but enjoyable. In addition to co-writing, Mr. Jones helped to direct the project."
319,"The 7 biggest threats Trump poses to the environment —  Donald Trump has proposed radical policies on many issues, from banning Muslims from entering the country to punishing doctors who perform abortions. His environmental stances are no exception — he has suggested eliminating the EPA, pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement, and cutting all federal spending on clean energy. It’s still unknown, of course, how many of these proposals Trump will act on as president, but environmental groups are already gearing up for a fight.   “Trump must choose whether he will be a President remembered for putting America and the world BACK on a path to climate disaster, or for listening to the American public, investing in the fastest-growing sector in the US economy — clean energy — and keeping us on a path to climate progress.” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement on November 9.   If he chooses the former option — to reverse the progress President Obama has made on energy and climate policy — here are the biggest threats the Trump administration poses to the future of the planet.   1. Backing out of Paris Agreement   The historic agreement compels the 103 countries who ratified it to work together to keep the global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. The US has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Trump, however, has denounced the accord, and pledged to pull the US out of it.   Because it is already in effect, countries who wish to leave must undergo a process of three to four years to be formally removed from the agreement. But because the agreement doesn’t stipulate any mechanisms of enforcement beyond transparency and regular progress reports, Trump could easily decide not to take the necessary actions to hit the US’ goal.   Kyle Ash, a senior legislative representative at environmental organization Greenpeace, tells Business Insider that although ignoring the US’ contribution to the Paris Agreement would have a negative impact on the country’s relationships with other nations, Trump could decide to “just completely flout international law and global diplomacy.”   The hope, in that case, is that other countries don’t then decide to ignore their own commitments because the US has given up its leadership on the issue.   2. Killing the Clean Power Plan   The Clean Power Plan, Obama’s national regulation to lowering carbon pollution from power plants, is currently being challenged in court. The fate of the plan is still unknown, and it has not been fully implemented because the Supreme Court voted to delay its rollout until the appeals process had been completed.   While Trump has said he’ll kill the plan flat-out, Ken Berlin, the president and CEO of the Climate Reality Project, a climate organization founded by Al Gore, explains that it’s not so easy to withdraw a regulation.   “He's got two choices,” Berlin says. “One, he can continue to challenge it in court and switch the government's position, saying we now oppose it. If the rule goes into effect, then he's got to do either a new rule-making to change that, and that has to go through normal notice and comments and it can be challenged by the environmental community. Or he could go to Congress and try to get Congress to repeal the Clean Air Act or modify it in some way.”   3. Eliminating the EPA   Trump has suggested he might cut both the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency. This is an unlikely scenario, since the EPA is legally required to enforce existing environmental laws. Trump could theoretically change the EPA’s function to be more of an advisory body, with less efforts being devoted to actual enforcement.   “The way that Trump can stop it is either by breaking the law, or by working with Congress to change the law, or by working with Congress to reduce the EPA budget to such an extent that they can't function,” Ash explains. To do that, however, Trump would need 60 senate votes, which he likely won’t get. 4. Appointing climate change deniers to lead the EPA and Department of Energy   If Trump can’t defund or eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency as he has promised, it seems likely that he will select people with records of support for fossil fuels and denial of global warming to chair both the EPA and the Department of Energy. Already, Trump selected Myron Ebell, who is known for questioning climate change and has said that Obama’s ratification of the Paris Agreement was unconstitutional.   “If he's putting people in charge of the EPA — like Myron Ebell for instance — who basically think it's a complete waste of time and effort and resources to do anything about climate pollution, then in theory everything is under threat,” Ash says. “They can't just legally stop doing it. They could in theory just choose not to do it and then be in violation of the federal law.”   The EPA would be within its bounds, however, to make the day-to-day decisions about issuing permits, pursuing a case, and determining which violators to go after. And the leader of the agency will certainly influence that.   5. Cut all federal spending on clean energy   Trump has vowed to cut all federal government spending related to clean energy — an effort he’s suggested could save $100 billion over eight years. Media sources have been unable to determine how the cuts would add up to that total, but Ash believes a lot of the government’s investment in renewable energy comes in the form of tax incentives.   “It would be odd for them to basically require taxes to go up just because it’s renewable energy,” Ash says, since Trump campaigned on a platform of decreasing taxes for individuals and corporations.   The US has, however, pledged to contribute money to an international fund that would help poorer countries reduce their carbon pollution, which was formalized by negotiators of the Paris Agreement. Trump could renege on that part of the deal. 6. Avoid creating any regulations on methane   The EPA has thus far failed to come out with a rule to regulate methane emissions — something that now seems overdue given the known climate consequences of the gas. Though CO2 emissions are no longer increasing at the rate they once were, Ash explains that Methane emissions are rising.   “The worry is just that a Trump EPA will just further postpone that,” he says. But it's [a regulation] we need really badly because methane is so important for reducing the short term warming.”   7. Open federal lands to oil and gas drilling   Trump has proposed to open federal lands up to more oil, gas and coal production.   “I think he will clearly go ahead and do that,” Berlin says, though he says he’s unsure whether fossil fuel companies will find it worthwhile to invest in exploring those lands as the price of renewable energy continues to drop. “In my view opening these lands up will just create a bunch of stranded assets eventually that the oil companies are going to have to take off their books.”   Kyle Ash points out, however, that the Obama administration has already opened federal land up for fossil fuel extraction.   “The ‘Keep it in the ground’ movement is basically where the coalition has decided to focus,” he says. “In some degree it will be quite similar to the fight that we've engaged in for the last few years vis a vis the Obama administration.”   Although the worst case scenario for the environment is a dark one as far as climate action and environmental protection are concerned, both Ash and Berlin agree that Trump will have a much harder time actually repealing and revising the regulations than he likely understands. And clean energy initiatives and pollution regulations often win overwhelming favor among the American people, a fact that suggests there is still hope for the planet.   “I think today we should take Trump at his word that he's going to be president of the American people and try and do things that people support,” Berlin says. “If that's the case, he won't fall on these extreme ends of the spectrum.”   But organizations like Greenpeace, the Climate Reality Project and the Sierra Club have already vowed to double down on the fight — just in case."
320,"The Attack in a Minnesota Shopping Mall —  The suspect behind the mall attack in Minnesota Saturday has been identified by family members as 22-year-old Dahir Aden, according to local media.   An off-duty police officer shot and killed the man who stabbed nine people at a St. Cloud shopping mall Saturday night. The suspect’s family identified him as Aden, a Somali-American student at St. Cloud State University. The attacker was wearing a security guard’s uniform and reportedly made a reference to Allah during the attack. None of the victims sustained life-threatening injuries.   Aden’s father, Ahmed, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune the family first learned of the 22-year-old’s death Saturday night from police, though they did not suspect his involvement until the FBI executed a search warrant for the family’s apartment the following day. Authorities have not formally identified Aden as a suspect.   Aden’s father said his son was born in Kenya, but grew up in the United States. Community members described him as an honors student who worked part-time as a security officer. They said he did not have a history of violence.   “The entire community is shocked by this incident,” Abdul Kulane, a leader in St. Cloud’s Somali-American community, said in a statement Sunday. “Our sympathy goes to the families and the victims and the entire community affected by this incident.”   Members of the Somali community—said to be the largest in the diaspora—expressed fears of backlash.   “Let us not rush and jump into conclusions,” Ahmed Said, executive director of the Somali American Relations Council, said in a statement. “We strongly stress that everybody calms down and focus on what unites us than what divides us in these difficult times.”   The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through the militant group’s Amaq news agency. It identified the attacker simply as a “soldier of the Islamic State.” In a statement Sunday, Richard Thornton, the FBI’s special agent in charge, said the incident is being investigated as a “potential act of terrorism,” and said authorities do not yet know if the suspect was communicating with or was inspired by any foreign terrorist organizations.   David Kleis, the mayor of St. Cloud, praised Jason Falconer, the off-duty police officer, for his role in ending the attack. “He clearly prevented additional injuries and potentially loss of life,” Kleis said. “His heroic actions are exemplary.”"
321,"The Burning of a Muslim Woman on Fifth Avenue —  A Muslim woman’s clothing was set on fire while she walked down New York City’s Fifth Avenue, in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime.   The New York City Police Department released a video Tuesday of a man suspected of setting fire to the woman’s blouse as she was near a Valentino store Saturday night on the crowded Manhattan thoroughfare.   News reports cited unnamed police sources as saying the woman was wearing “traditional Muslim garb,” though it’s unclear if that means she wore a hijab, which covers the head, or an abaya, which covers everything but the face, or a burqa , which conceals the face, as well.   The woman, identified in news reports as a Scottish tourist and by the NYPD as 35 years old, told police she felt something warm on her left arm before she realized her blouse was on fire. After patting out the flame, she said she saw a man holding a lighter. The man then ran away without saying a word. The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a statement following the incident, calling on city officials to address attacks against Muslims across the city and nationwide.   “We are clearly seeing a spike in attacks on individual Muslims and Islamic institutions in New York and around the country, which should be of concern to all Americans,” said Afaf Nasher, CAIR-NY’s executive director. “It is time for the mayor and the NYPD to put forward the necessary resources to investigate and prevent these attacks on the Muslim community.”   Saturday night’s incident comes just days after two Muslim women were attacked while walking with their children on a Brooklyn sidewalk. The attacker, identified as Emirjeta Xhelili, reportedly punched one of the woman and attempted to remove her hijab while shouting, “get the f--k out of America” and “you don’t belong here.” Xhelili was charged with two counts of felony assault as a hate crime and two counts of acting in a manner injurious to a child.   Police are also investigating a possible hate crime in Orlando, Florida, where a mosque was set on fire. The incident at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, which was previously attended by Pulse Nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, coincided with the start of Eid al-Adha, a four-day Muslim holiday."
322,"The Democratic Party Has Exploded —  The Democratic Party exploded Tuesday night.   There will be months of finger-pointing and internal reprisals over exactly what Democrats should have done differently. But the shocking thoroughness of the defeat is plain. Donald Trump ― a man who opened his presidential campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists” ― bested Mitt Romney’s share of the Latino vote by 8 percentage points. He performed better among black voters than his 2012 predecessor, and he swept four Rust Belt states that President Barack Obama carried twice ― Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin ― under a harsher economy than we face today. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which should matter, but does not.   How did this happen, and what now?   The exit polls provide some clarity: A significant chunk of Obama voters flipped to Trump. Trump won 10 percent of voters who approve of Obama’s presidency and 23 percent of voters who think the next president should “be more liberal,” according to CNN data. Trump significantly outperformed Romney among union households. He did 14 points better than Romney among whites without a college degree, according to The New York Times, and 16 points better among households with less than $30,000 in income. The Trump Democrat turns out not to be a myth, but a meaningful constituency that just cost Clinton the presidency. Optimistic Democrats have long believed the voter coalition behind Obama ― young people, brown people, lower-income people and a sprinkling of white professionals ― was a stable and growing majority that could always put Democrats over the top. Instead, its success in 2008 and 2012 may have had more to do with a uniquely talented politician who also happened to be the first black president.   Obama also glued together two otherwise hostile ideological factions within the Democratic Party. Time magazine hailed him as the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, while he declared himself a member of the corporate-friendly, free-trading New Democrat coalition. Millions of Americans who love Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also love Obama. So do well-heeled technocrats who admire President Bill Clinton and economist Larry Summers.   This was reflected in Obama’s policy achievements. He expanded access to health insurance for millions of people and signed trade deals that undermined workers and enriched CEOs.   That same duality permeates Congress, where New Democrats have been battling New Dealers for 45 years. It is simply not clear that another politician is capable of keeping that team united.   Here’s how things were supposed to work: Clinton would call the shots, but work with Warren on cabinet appointments and key administrative posts. Things wouldn’t always go Warren’s way, but Clinton would throw enough bones to the populists to keep them engaged. Clinton could pursue a centrist agenda with a few progressive items and the party would stick together.     Instead, a dominance struggle between Sanders supporters and the Steny Hoyer wing of the party is already underway. Raul Grijalva, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is calling for a “complete restructuring” of the Democratic National Committee, and Sanders is promoting nominees.   The Clintons have been on the national stage for nearly a quarter of a century. An entire generation of Democratic operatives has grown up in a world in which it was always understood that the family would be a nexus of political power. This cohort expected to inherit the levers of government and is now without a patron. That fact, for the moment, gives progressives the upper hand in directing the party’s future. But because Democrats are certain to suffer devastating policy defeats under Trump and a GOP Congress, there will be no legislative victories that either faction can point to as proof its worldview can work. And further electoral losses are on the horizon. The 2018 map is terrible for Democrats ― five of their senators are up for re-election in Republican-dominated states, and four more in swing states. The losing side in the party leadership battle will be pissed off for a long time.   The American left, meanwhile, is a difficult beast to corral. The Sanders coalition wasn’t monolithic ― it included plenty of New Dealer populists, but it also brought in capital-S hammer-and-sickle Socialists who don’t really like the Democratic Party. Even under a progressive takeover, we can expect the bitter intellectual feuds between Bernie Bros and Hillary Bots to shift down the ideological spectrum.   Many are interpreting Trump’s election as a white supremacist backlash against the first black president and misogynist fear of a first woman president. After Trump’s vile campaign, it is impossible to conclude these were not significant factors.   But ugly attitudes don’t simply fall out of the sky, eternal and inflexible. A new paper from economists Rob Johnson and Arjun Jayadev looks at economic downturns from 1979 to 2014, and finds a tight correlation between unemployment and racism ― the higher the unemployment rate, the more ubiquitous the discrimination. A 2014 study from New York University psychologists found that racial animosity hardens under economic scarcity. Last year, three German economists found that “far-right” political parties almost always make significant gains after a financial crisis.   This doesn’t mean that economic insecurity is the sole cause of racism, but it does suggest that it can be a cause. They call it the Rust Belt for a reason. If Democrats want to stamp out the views that made President Trump possible, they will have to do a better job delivering economic gains to working people.   “We have been fighting out elections in general on a lot of noneconomic issues over the past 30 years,” Clinton recently told the New Yorker’s George Packer. “We haven’t had a coherent, compelling economic case.”   Indeed."
323,"The Different Stakes of Male and Female Birth Control —  In the past couple decades, scientists have been slowly moving toward developing birth control for men. A recent clinical trial of an injectable hormone contraceptive for men showed super promising results: It was 96 percent effective at preventing pregnancy, which it did by lowering sperm counts. Unfortunately, the trial was discontinued early by an independent committee, which determined that the side effects were such that “the risks to the study participants outweighed the potential benefits.”   The side effects in question? “Mood changes, depression, pain at the injection site, and increased libido.”   Hm. Hmmmmmmmm. Hm. Let’s review some of the possible side effects of currently available birth-control options for women, shall we? Here’s just a sampling.   Minastrin 24 FE, a low-hormone birth control pill: Headaches, nausea, menstrual cramps, yeast infections, breast tenderness, acne, mood swings, and weight gain.     NuvaRing, a hormonal vaginal ring: Vaginal-tissue irritation, headaches, mood changes, nausea and vomiting, weight gain, breast pain, painful menstruation, abdominal pain, acne, and decreased libido.   The Mirena Intrauterine Device: pelvic or abdominal pain, ovarian cysts, headaches and migraines, acne, depressed mood, “heavy or prolonged menstrual bleeding.”   IUDs can also cause sepsis or perforate the uterus. This is very rare, but still: perforate the uterus.   All of these are FDA-approved contraceptives that are currently on the market and in women’s bodies, and their side effects are just as bad as those that occurred with the injectable male birth control. Nobody halted them in their tracks, saying that perhaps the risks outweighed the benefits. (Women may well decide that for themselves, though; one study found that nearly 40 percent of women stop using the pill within a year of starting it.)   Though men have an equal responsibility to prevent unwanted pregnancies, they don’t share equally in the consequences, and never have. What’s more, we’re learning more about just how serious the side effects of hormonal birth control may be. A recent study of more than a million women published in JAMA Psychiatry found that women who used hormonal birth control were more likely to be prescribed antidepressants. The study’s design has received some criticism, but it nonetheless underscores that for some women, there are tradeoffs between their reproductive freedom and their mental and emotional health.     Not so for men. Though men have an equal responsibility to prevent unwanted pregnancies, they don’t share equally in the consequences, and never have. The burden of birth control has always fallen largely on women’s shoulders; it is their bodies that will bear the consequences if birth control fails. The only currently available birth-control method for men—short of a vasectomy—is a condom. So a man can either wrap it up, or let the lady handle it. And because condoms are significantly less effective than IUDs, implants, contraceptive pills, and rings, it stands to reason that many will choose the surer thing.     Early versions of the hormonal birth-control pill had tons of side effects, enough that, in a trial done in Puerto Rico in the 1950s, the doctor in charge of the trial recommended against its use. However, as Bethy Squires recently reported in a history of birth control side effects for Broadly, a U.S. pharmaceutical company released the same formulation anyway. (Current formulations use far less hormones, but as we’ve seen, still have side effects.) The Broadly piece also notes that the same group of doctors that studied the female pill originally considered one for men, but testicle shrinkage, among other side effects, led them to abandon it. “It was believed women would tolerate side effects better than men, who demanded a better quality of life,” Squires writes.   The side effects in this most recent study were severe in some cases: 21.6 percent of participants got mood swings or some other kind of ""emotional disorder,"" 38 percent had an increased libido, and 23 percent felt pain at the injection site. The crazy thing, though, is that most men wanted to continue using the injectable birth control—more than 80 percent of them said they would choose to use it.* So if men in the past demanded a side-effect-free life, it seems these days many are at least open to taking on the responsibility of birth control themselves. Perhaps the hurdle that remains is that male birth control is unlikely to substantially improve a man’s quality of life. He can already avoid unwanted pregnancies if his partner is on birth control; with his own he’d get the same advantages, except now he might have mood swings.  But for women, birth control has been revolutionary. One-third of women’s wage gains since the 1960s can be attributed to the availability of oral contraceptives, according to a report by Planned Parenthood. College enrollment has historically been higher among women who have access to the pill, and “birth control has been estimated to account for more than 30 percent of the increase in the proportion of women in skilled careers from 1970 to 1990,” the report reads. Not to mention that 86 percent of the declining teen-pregnancy rate in the U.S. is thanks to contraception.     So it makes perfect sense that women would be willing to endure all kinds of side effects in exchange for, essentially, freedom. Being able to control whether and when they become pregnant has opened up so many opportunities for women, opportunities that men already had greater access to by virtue of being men. Men’s careers, men’s bodies, men’s control over their own lives, have never been at stake in the same way.   A woman using Liletta has a higher chance of experiencing the same side effects than a man using the injectable birth control that was deemed too risky. I wasn’t in the room when the independent panel decided to halt the recent male birth control trial. I don’t know what their decision-making process was like. Certainly, depression and mood changes aren’t things to be taken lightly, and of course it’s in everyone’s best interest to have new drugs be as safe as possible.   However. In the male birth control trial, 4.7 percent of men experienced mood swings, and 2.8 percent experienced depression. These were two of the side effects cited as reasons for ending the trial. On the other hand, let’s take Liletta, an IUD approved by the FDA in 2015—5.2 percent of its users experienced mood swings, and 5.4 percent experienced depression. A woman using Liletta has a higher chance of experiencing the same side effects than a man using the injectable birth control that was deemed too risky. The standards are different.   In 2007, the pharmaceutical company Bayer gave up on a male contraceptive “that involved an annual implant and a quarterly injection,” as my colleague Olga Khazan reported in 2015. The company, she wrote, “concluded that men would consider the regimen—in the words of a spokesperson—‘not as convenient as a woman taking a pill once a day.’”   Well, yes. That is far more convenient—for the men. Women will put up with it, of course, as they have for years, because the stakes are that high. And as research into male birth control accelerates, we are starting to see this hypocrisy more clearly—that the burdens women bear in exchange for their reproductive freedom are considered too much to expect men to deal with."
324,"The Fate of the Undocumented Teachers for America —  The nearly 150 educators who secured legal employment through DACA wonder if Donald Trump will end their time in the classroom. Among the many people in America reeling from yesterday’s presidential election results: the 146 Teach for America teachers who work in classrooms across the country but are not documented citizens. Teach for America deliberately created this corps over the last three years—the work largely of one woman, Viridiana Carrizales, who began planning for a Donald Trump presidency over the summer. Like many Americans across the political spectrum, Carrizales did not expect Trump to become president. And like many immigrants, she hoped that he would not. But months ago, she began planning for what Teach for America—the national organization that recruits and trains teachers for schools serving poor students—could do if he did win. Her plan, which she expects to introduce to corps members this week, outlines responses to Trump’s vow to immediately end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama administration program that allows young adults who came to this country illegally as children to temporarily live and work without fear of deportation. Efforts could include helping Teach for America teachers relocate to be closer to their families and working with school districts to navigate tricky immigration waters, she said. “I was hoping never to use this plan, but I knew we had to prepare,” Carrizales said. “I’m so glad that we did. Back in the summer, I had a little bit of a clearer mind.” Teach for America first got involved in immigration policy in 2012, when the organization lobbied for the DREAM Act, which would have created a path toward citizenship for people who came to the country illegally as children. That bill failed, leaving Teach for America’s leadership and members deeply disappointed. “We knew that all children meant all children,” Carrizales said. The group could not achieve its mission of helping every student succeed if large numbers of immigrant students could never go to college, she said. So when DACA became an option in 2014, Teach for America quickly lined up resources to help aspiring teachers go through the onerous and expensive approval process. The “DACAmented” corps went from two teachers in Denver to 146 across the country today and draws from 37 different nations. Their status is weighing heavily on Teach for America’s top executive, Elisa Villanueva Beard. “When the executive order came for DACA for the first time, they walked the streets with their heads up and not hiding in the shadows,” she said. “And now, with this, it’s a question. We don’t know what’s going to happen. But they’re terrified for their lives and for their families and for their security.” Like many Teach for America teachers, DACAmented members have undocumented students in their classes. They discuss the issues that they share in a private Facebook group and once a year when they all come together in person. And this past summer, the group members taught more than 3,000 new teachers about the challenges facing undocumented students. Those are issues that Carrizales knows well—when she was 12, she came with her family illegally from Mexico. After graduating from college in 2010, she considered joining Teach for America before realizing she would not be able to work legally. Instead, she spent three years working as a babysitter and doing odd jobs before marrying a U.S. citizen. Now, she is safe from changes to immigration policy. But she has family members who remain in the country illegally, and she worries about the 146 DACAmented teachers and their families as well. “I know we will come through this stronger. We have to.” Late Tuesday, DACAmented’s Facebook group buzzed as members shared their sadness and fear. One reported crying from the floor of the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s election party in New York City. “Many of them decided not to go to school because they didn’t know what to tell their kids today,” Carrizales said. “So many of them just had no more strength.” But she said she also heard from one teacher who forced herself to go to school because she worried that her students’ fears might be stronger than her own. And on Facebook, DACAmented teachers laid bare the resilience that Teach for America famously values. “I am so hurt by this election,” one teacher wrote. “But I know we will come through this stronger. We have to, we have to.”"
325,"The Flint of California —  Once a month, the residents of Matheny Tract, one of hundreds of poor and largely Latino enclaves tucked deep in California’s Central Valley, gather in the shade of a neighbor’s carport, chihuahuas dozing at their feet. The subject of their meetings is always the same: water. As long as they’ve lived here, the water that comes out of their taps has been contaminated with arsenic and other chemicals; they refuse to drink it, and the very act of taking a shower can make them feel unclean.   “It tastes like watered-down bleach,” says Reinelda Palma, a longtime community leader whose house hosts the gatherings. “I don’t even wash plates with it. My biggest worry is that kids drink it.”   The Flint lead crisis has made us think of tainted water as an urban problem, aging pipes slowly poisoning the children of poor communities. But a huge amount of America’s substandard drinking water is actually consumed in all but invisible rural areas like Matheny Tract. Roughly a third of the 1,200 or so people here live in poverty, some in tattered doublewides on the brink of collapse. Already in precarious financial circumstances, they find themselves paying twice for water—once for the tainted well water coming out of the tap, and then again for bottled water they can actually drink.   But after decades of political neglect, Matheny Tract and similar communities are now at the forefront of legislation built on a legal idea that has gained increasing attention in the past decade in the developing world: the “human right to water.”   In 2012, California became the first state in the U.S. to legally declare that every human being has the right to “safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking and sanitary purposes.” The bill, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown and similar to one vetoed by his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was largely symbolic, intended as a moral compass for future water policy. But it contained a key provision, requiring state agencies to consider the human right to water when establishing new regulations and grant programs.   Matheny Tract, an unincorporated community outside the city of Tulare (pop.: 61,000), is not a household word in California—or even Tulare, about two miles away. Yet Matheny is about to make history of a sort: It will be the first community to receive better water under SB88, the most significant piece of legislation thus far to be framed by the Human Right to Water bill. The new law gives the state authority to order cities to consolidate their water systems with poor unincorporated neighbors stuck with tainted water—in this case, meaning their water will soon be supplied by nearby Tulare. So in the next few weeks, the beleaguered residents of Matheney are due to receive the same clean water that people a couple of miles away for the most part have never had to think twice about.   An identical law has been introduced in Michigan, where class-action attorneys have descended on Flint—part of a 15-bill package of legislation that also deals with billing, service shut-offs and other affordability issues. But those bills are still stuck in committee. So, for now, California is the lone front in America where this radical expansion of human rights is advancing, albeit slowly, and raising the question of whether “rights” might someday improve communities in a way that their governments have failed to do.    IN AN ODDLY fortuitous way, it was the state’s record-breaking drought that threw water inequality in the state’s impoverished rural communities into high relief. After three consecutive years of low rainfall, a problem made worse by excessive pumping by desperate farmers, a small town in Tulare county called East Porterville became the poster child of the drought when roughly 860 domestic wells ran dry.   But East Porterville’s travails started long before the drought. Like Matheny Tract, it hadn’t had drinkable water for years and relied on antiquated private wells. “These low-income families can’t afford $20,000 to $30,000 to drill a well,” says Fred Beltran, a volunteer with nonprofit Porterville Area Coordinating Council, a social service organization in East Porterville. “Therefore, they’re dabbling in this contaminated water—giving it to their babies, their elderlies and what not.” The two most common hazards in this part of the Central Valley are arsenic, which occurs naturally, and nitrates from fertilizers spread over vast fields and from animal wastes that leach into the groundwater. Nitrates and other contaminants are particularly dangerous for children, putting newborns at risk for deformities, serious illness and even death. Most of the nitrates lurking in drinking water wells today were applied to fields decades ago, so the contamination levels will likely get worse in coming years as the chemicals continue to filter into the groundwater, according to scientists at the University of California at Davis.   Unlike bigger, more prosperous cities, which have enough ratepayers to afford to treat piped-in surface and groundwater, small systems are at the mercy of groundwater pumped from shallow wells. Statewide, 400 small rural systems have contaminated water, with many schools among them. An estimated 160,000 Californians live in unincorporated communities with iffy drinking water, according to the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Center.   The landscape of Matheny Tract is emblematic of these passed-over places: dirt paths instead of sidewalks, mudhole streets without curbs or gutters, a handful of broken streetlights and cars speeding past nonexistent stop signs. A dusty irrigation ditch, once swimmable, cleaves the community. Land values remain depressed and there is a lack of public investment. Most households rely on aging septic tanks that are beginning to fail, creating another imminent threat to the drinking water.   “Matheny Tract is a kin of Flint,” says Michelle Wilde Anderson, a Stanford law professor who has studied both places and has written extensively on infrastructure. “Both are older communities in which we’ve failed to invest in basic needs.”   Settled by white Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl and so-called black Okies fleeing the Jim Crow South, the Tract was developed in the 1940s by Edwin Matheny, a traveling salesman with a penchant for real estate who dispensed teat balm and other sundries from a retrofitted Plymouth. While some nearby towns had race restrictions written into real estate deeds, Matheny was happy to sell to African-Americans, some of whose descendants still reside in their original family homes.   “Somewhere along the way nobody bothered with Matheny, so poverty became a self-fulfilling prophecy,” says Laurel Firestone, an attorney and co-director of The Community Water Center, a sponsor of the Human Right to Water bill. “It remains poor because there was no investment in basic services to make it a nice place to live.”   Like hundreds of unincorporated communities nationally, the Tract has been “mapped out of democracy,” in Anderson’s words. Residents under county jurisdiction don’t vote in city elections; they don’t receive municipal services, and their low property tax base contributes to their being overlooked. Many of these communities lie just beyond, and some within, the boundaries of cities that are happy to provide safe drinking water to brand new subdivisions—even ones outside their jurisdiction that they plan to annex—while ignoring impoverished areas in their midst.   “Most counties are not in the water business,” observes Bill Chiat, dean of the California State Association of Counties Institute. “So you’ve got these disadvantaged communities, and no one is required to provide them water.”   The relationship between political disenfranchisement, poverty and tainted water is not lost on Leonard Ogans, part of a committee of Matheny residents who, with help from attorneys at the nonprofit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability in Fresno, have battled for nine years for decent infrastructure. On Ogans’ front porch, a handmade protest sign hangs over a photograph of a black child. It reads: “JUST WATER BABY.”   THE RIGHT TO water concept is decades old. In South Africa and several other countries it is even enshrined in the national constitution. But it wasn’t until an international water and sanitation expert arrived in the Central Valley on a fact-finding mission that politicians in California began to take notice.   The right to water is rooted in the idea that clean water is fundamental to life and health, and foundational to human dignity. It ties into the concept of environmental justice, in which poor, politically isolated populations around the world are often most vulnerable to a lack of access to safe and affordable drinking water.   In California, the richest agricultural area of the richest country in the world, the impoverished farmworkers on whom the industry depends must also endure drinking water contaminated by agricultural chemicals. In this context, thinking about water as a right rather than as a mere utility or civic amenity makes compelling sense, says Colin Bailey, an attorney and executive director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water in Sacramento. “Democracy is about equal opportunity and equality before the law,” he says. “If people don’t have access to this basic necessity, there is no social contract.”   In 2011, Catarina de Albuquerque, from the United Nations, compared conditions in the tiny Central Valley community of Seville (about 25 miles northeast of Tulare) to the Third World. “She shamed us all,” recalls former State Assemblyman Mike Eng.   The shame continued when residents from affected communities and their supporters assembled on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento bearing plastic bottles of contaminated water—nitrates from Tooleville, arsenic from Alpaugh—which they mixed into a “Central Valley blend” as a mock gift to legislators. Eng, with backing from environmental and water justice advocates, citizen-activists and faith groups, especially the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, which has been a strong voice in water justice issues, authored the right to water law, which passed in 2012. But the bill didn’t include an enforcement mechanism. That came later with SB88, which passed last June.   That law requires municipalities to supply drinking water to disadvantaged unincorporated communities in close proximity. If a city resists, or the two parties cannot figure out a way to merge voluntarily into one water system, the State Water Resources Control Board, part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, has the power to order consolidation.   In anticipation of consolidation, the state had already laid nearly $5 million worth of water lines beneath Matheny. But when Tulare changed its mind, a ping-pong match of litigation ensued that left Matheny residents with brand new pipes—but no water running through them. In March, the state EPA broke the logjam, invoking its new power for the first time, forcing a marriage between Tulare and Matheny Tract.   Nearby Farmersville (pop.: 11, 000) where the walnut dehydrator sits across from Family Dollar, took a slightly more generous approach toward a needy nearby community. The city successfully sought state and federal funds to voluntarily merge its system with impoverished Cameron Creek Colony when its wells dried up during the drought. “Any community can do it,” says the city’s Latino mayor, Gregorio Gomez. “It’s just the willingness has to be there.”   Had Matheny Tract been developed today, it is less likely that basic human needs would have been ignored in the first place. The state’s Right to Water bill presaged water as a burgeoning national civil rights issue led by the National Coalition for Legislation on Affordable Water, a group that started after thousands of Detroit residents had their water shut off in 2014.   In California, it has shifted the narrative and set the stage for a major water bond measure and a more transparent process, including a forthcoming publicly accessible human right to water database on every water system that’s out of compliance.   Spurred by public hearings and the prospect of legal action by the state, the city of Tulare agreed earlier this month to send clean water to Matheny, which is scheduled to arrive June 1. Residents will then become official city water customers.   In anticipation, new water meters are being installed and fire hydrants swaddled in plastic bags wait for what Leonard Ogans calls “turn-on day”— the moment when fresh, clean, genuinely healthy water starts flowing through the faucets of Matheny Tract for the first time in decades.   “We’re not looking for a handout,” Ogans’ truck driver neighbor Vance McKinney explains. “Help us help ourselves. That’s all we’ve been asking.”"
326,"The Jewish Struggle to Understand Trump's Election —  Synagogues hosted prayer and healing services on Wednesday for congregants grappling with the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. PHILADELPHIA—On November 8, 1938, Nazi paramilitary soldiers and German civilians looted and vandalized thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues. Jews were murdered. Up to 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration camps. On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The next day, a man discovered that someone had painted swastikas on an abandoned storefront in South Philly, placing the symbols next to Trump’s name and the words “Sieg Heil,” a salute used by Nazis during World War II. Maybe it was an anti-Trump protester. Maybe it was an anti-Semite. Either way, it underscored the ways in which Trump’s election has evoked the persistent Jewish nightmare: That America will become like Germany in 1938. Jews, who have a keen eye for the repetition of history, might be forgiven for worrying about the fragility of American democracy. This is the scale of fear, grief, and anger about Trump in some Jewish communities across America. In Philadelphia, at least three synagogues held prayer services on Wednesday; congregations in a number of other cities, including Durham, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., held similar events. “No matter who we voted for and how we are feeling this morning, we all know that we and our country are in desperate need of healing,” read the Facebook invite for an event at the Germantown Jewish Centre in north Philly. “We will sit together, sing together, pray together, and have a chance to share what is on our hearts with the support of the community.” A woman was crying when I walked into the cavernous sanctuary of GJC on Wednesday night. Roughly 100 people were gathered in a circle of chairs toward the front of the room; the cream ceiling and warmly brown furniture gave the space a living-room feel. In the center of the gathering, a single candle sat burning on a small round table. The space was still except for the occasional baby squeal or patter of toddler feet at the side of the room; people had brought their children because, as someone on Facebook observed, they need to heal, too. Trump’s daughter Ivanka came up—whether Jews would be safe because one of the president’s children is an Orthodox convert. The congregants were concerned about the racism and sexism revealed during the campaign, and discussed the stages of grief. They talked of making aliyah, or emigrating to Israel—not as a plausible possibility, but as a back-of-mind option in case things get really bad. And yes, people brought up Nazi Germany. Unlike Muslims, Mexicans, African Americans, the disabled, and women, Jews have not been directly insulted by Donald Trump during this election. Anti-Semites have arguably been empowered by his campaign: Jewish journalists have been consistently threatened and harassed on Twitter since the election got underway, often by people who self-identify as Trump supporters. But the fear seems to be less that Trump will specifically persecute Jews than the sense that America under Trump will become an increasingly hostile space for Jews and other minority groups. Trump doesn’t have to be an anti-Semite to bear responsibility for anti-Semitism. While exit polls suggest that roughly 25 percent of American Jews voted for Trump—fewer than voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but more than voted for John McCain in 2008—the group as a whole is overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic. Adam Zeff, the rabbi at GJC, said in an interview that the synagogue’s neighborhood, Mt. Airy, is so left-wing that it’s almost “self-parody.” Most Jews live in cities or stay concentrated in “little enclaves,” as Zeff called them—he pointed out that on the map of the election results, there are tiny blue spots even deep in Trump country. “That’s where Jews live,” he said, along with other minority groups. It wasn’t Jews Trump promised to ban some 13 months ago. It was Muslims. This clustering creates a dual challenge for Jewish communities. People at GJC spoke about Trump’s election like they might about a death in the family—with a sense of real and personal loss, and a staggering alienation from their fellow Americans. “It is kind of shattering to people to feel like, wow, there’s such a difference,” said Zeff. “To think that racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and misogyny could be given a pass by so many people makes Jews feel like anti-Semitism could also be given a pass.” And yet the congregants also spoke about the need for understanding. “The people for whom this is a happy day—we have to think about them, too,” Zeff said during the prayer service. Mt. Airy is about a half hour drive from Bucks County, a swing area in Pennsylvania where nearly half of voters went for Trump this year. But even within such a short distance, it’s difficult to imagine how the liberal Jews of Philadelphia and the Trump supporters one county up would start to know one another or be in community. The other challenge for Jews who are scared is putting that fear into context. Other groups are hurting just as much as Jews are right now, and in some cases, their fears are more tangible. It wasn’t Jews Trump promised to ban from entering the country some 13 months ago—it was Muslims. It wasn’t Jewish neighborhoods Trump described in apocalyptic terms in the presidential debates—it was black neighborhoods. At times, Jews have struggled or declined to find solidarity with both of those groups, often over the issue of Israel. “When disaster strikes, the Jewish impulse is to look inward, to say, ‘What t’shuva,’” or repentance, “do I need to do?” Zeff said. If his community looked inward and asked what kind of allies they have been to African Americans, Latinos, and other groups in Philadelphia, Zeff said, “I know what [those groups’] answer is, which is: not very good ones.” For Jews, as for other groups who feel threatened by Trump, this new era has begun with a struggle of contradictions: to understand Trump supporters while maintaining their value commitments; to experience their particular and unique pain while finding solidarity with others. When Zeff sent out a note to his synagogue about the election, “I got a response back from a congregant that said, ‘This is very nice, rabbi, but you’re asking us to do two contradictory things: You’re asking us to reach out, and you’re asking us to stand up,’” Zeff told me. He wrote back, “‘Yes, and isn’t that the lot of the Jew?’”"
327,"The Knife Attack Outside Israel’s Embassy in Turkey —  A knife-wielding man who tried to stab a security guard at the Israeli Embassy in Ankara Wednesday was shot in the leg by Turkish police. There’s no evidence the man was linked to a wider plot. The man carried a foot-long knife wrapped in newspaper and shouted: “I will change the Middle East!” and “Allahu akbar” at officers in front of the embassy. He ran toward the gate and a security officer fired a warning shot, then shot the man in the leg. The attacker was later identified as a 41-year-old from Konya, a city in central Turkey. A bomb squad is examining a bag the man is suspected of leaving behind. Reuters reported the Ankara governor’s office released a statement on the man, saying: According to initial examinations ... (the man) appears mentally unstable, no criminal record or organizational links have been found. Here is a video of the scene after the man was shot, published by The Times of Israel:   Turkey is on edge because of several terrorist attacks in recent months and a failed coup against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In March, a car bomb claimed by Kurdish militants killed 35 people in Ankara, and less than a week later the Islamic State is believed to have killed four people in a suicide bomb attack in the same city. In Istanbul, in June, another car bomb linked to Kurdish militants killed seven police officers and four people. At the end of the month a bomb at the Ataturk airport killed more than 40. Relations between Turkey and Israel have been on the mend in recent monthsfollowing several years of estrangement over the Israeli raid in 2010 on a flotilla bound for Gaza. Ten Turks were killed in that raid. Turkey, which is officially secular, is one of the few predominantly Muslim countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, and prior to the flotilla raid Turkey was a popular tourist destination for Israelis."
328,"The Lasting Harm of Trump-Style Sexism —  The Republican nominee has dismissed his misogynist speech as “just words.” But multiple studies show rude rhetoric can have a major impact on thinking, stress, and self-esteem. Where were you when you heard the potential leader of the free world say he feels like he can grab women by the genitals? Or when he interrupted his female opponent during a debate to say she’s “such a nasty woman?” In this last, grim half of 2016, a trend has emerged: After every debate peppered with interstitial WRONGs and every report brimming with new groping allegations, many women have said Donald Trump’s attitude makes them feel ... well, gross. To him, it’s an offhand remark, but across the internet, there’s a collective shudder. Many of us wondered, “Do men really think like that?” or “Is the moderator going to let him get away with that?” or “Are women really so objectified that we can be described with the same verb—‘grab em!’— that one would use for a tube of Go-Gurt?” Many of Trump’s female detractors are liberal, true, but this revolted feeling spanned party lines. Victims of trauma have perhaps been most distressed by it all. After the publication of Trump’s 2005 hot-mic moment on Access Hollywood, women tweeted accounts of their molestations at a rate of 50 per minute. Parents used it to teach their kids about respect and boundaries. And after 12 women came forward to allege that Trump groped them just as he bragged, people who had buried their assaults for decades talked openly about them for the first time. One rape victim told Slate’s Michelle Goldberg that her traumatic memories, “really kicked in with this whole conversation about how rape-y he is.” Even women who aren’t sexual-trauma survivors found themselves, as Michelle Obama put it, shaken to the core. There’s a good chance Trump won’t be president, but even so, this probably won’t be the last we see of him. So what effect will his brand of sexist language, coming out of so prominent a mouth, have on womankind as a whole? And will it linger, like a retrograde fart, after Tuesday? First, it’s important to note that though it’s highly unlikely a dozen women would all invent stories about Trump groping and kissing them, he has denied the allegations that his words translated to deeds. But even Trump’s most oft-repeated defense—that these are “just words” or “just locker room talk”—doesn’t fully render them harmless. Political speech might sound like repetitive background noise, but it can have a big effect on people. Even though some women have reclaimed the “nasty”insult, social science suggests racist, sexist, and rude remarks really can hurt. Let’s start with rudeness, Trump’s linguistic calling card. Multiple studies suggest rude language can impair cognition. Students who were criticized before an experiment came up with less creative uses for a brick, for instance. The ones who were treated civilly offered inventive uses like, “hang it in a museum and call it abstract art.” But the ones treated brusquely by the experimenter said things that were logical, but not very creative, including—no joke—“build a wall.” This same pattern has been shown among doctors and other groups of people. We just don’t think as clearly when we’re insulted, and we also seem to like each other less. In another study in which experimenters were rude to participants who, perhaps unwisely, were given bricks, the participants said they’d like to “smash the experimenter’s face,” “attack someone,” or “beat someone up.” Second, there’s something about seeing this bile on TV, in a presidential debate, that makes it even worse. One study found that, though it’s not bad for voters to hear opposing views on television, uncivil political discourse undermines trust in government. It also discourages would-be female politicians from running for office, says Jennifer Lawless, a professor of government at American University. “Perceptions of sexism or discrimination lead women to doubt their qualifications to enter the political arena,” she said. “I worry that the way Donald Trump has behaved will stick around in women’s minds and further perpetuate the idea that women can’t be successful if they run for office.” Of course, the negative consequences of discriminatory speech fall disproportionately on the targets of these words—everyday women, in this case. In one study from 2001, women kept diaries of the sexist or demeaning comments they heard. And they were pretty bad: One wrote that a male friend told her, “bitch, get me some beer!’” or “You’re a woman, so fold my laundry.” The more such comments women heard in a day, the more they felt angry and depressed, and the less they thought of themselves. Another study similarly concluded that women who faced sexist discrimination, including being called things like “bitch,” were more likely to experience mental-health issues, even when accounting for the overall level of daily stress they experienced. These comments can affect even women who only observe them: One study had female students watch a video clip in which a man yells, “Hey Kelly, your boobs look great in that shirt!” at a fictitious woman. That made the women feel more anger and fear, and it made them want to distance themselves from men. What’s more, different types of discrimination can compound each other. When someone like Trump criticizes Mexicans in one breath and women in another, it’s Mexican women who might feel most insulted. Laurel Watson, a psychologist and professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, found in one study that women who reported more sexual objectification—black women, in this case—felt more afraid for their physical safety. In another study, Watson found racism, sexism, and sexual objectification were all correlated with symptoms of PTSD among women of color. “These are really harmful experiences when you look at the cumulative effect over time,” Watson said. “They’re not just experiences you can just disregard and say there’s no impact. These have a significant impact on women’s mental health.” Lawless, from American, says it’s important to distinguish between Trump’s actions before he entered the race and what he’s said on the trail. The Access Hollywoodtape, for instance, is not what Lawless would call “political rhetoric,” though, “the way he talks about it now is political rhetoric that is off-putting to female voters.” Even if Trump doesn’t win, Lawless points out, voters who have been energized by his campaign might inspire future candidates to replicate Trump-style rhetoric. Fringe candidates might think, hey, if the people want bullying and bluster, let’s give the people what they want! “That will generally bode poorly for anyone who’s interested in bringing about civility in politics,” she said. Watson, who conducted the studies on sexism and PTSD, suggested Trump’s candidacy lays bare the bleak state of gender relations in the U.S. This is, after all, one of two people voters picked to represent them: someone who has mistreated women over the course of decades in public life. Even if we already knew America has yet to reach full gender equality, this year has shown just how long a road it will be. “If he’s running for the most powerful position for our country, how is [sexism] ever going to be taken seriously?” Watson told me. “I personally felt so deflated and disgusted. Here’s rape culture laying out before us.”"
329,"The Man Who Pied the Sacramento Mayor —  The man who pied Kevin Johnson, the Sacramento mayor, this week says the former NBA star “has to do better to represent the people.” Sean Thompson, a member of the Occupy movement, is being held at the Sacramento County jail on charges of felony assault on a public official, and misdemeanor battery on school property. From behind a glass partition late Thursday, he said Johnson has spent his time in political office focusing on the Golden 1 Center, the Sacramento Kings arena that’s expected to cost more than half a billion dollars, instead of projects that can actually help the community. So, Thompson said, Johnson deserved a pie in the face. The pieing occurred Wednesday night, while Johnson spoke at a farm-to-fork fundraiser for a charter school to a crowd of about 200 people. Thompson walked near the mayor, pulled a coconut-cream pie from a bag, and smacked the pie into Johnson’s face. Accounts of Johnson’s reaction vary. The East Bay Express reported that Johnson tackled Thompson, then punched him more than half a dozen times until his face looked like a “bloody pulp.” But Johnson’s Chief of Staff, Crystal Strait, has denied that claim, saying, “He struck back in some way” but this “was not like some bloody punch-fest.” In images and video of the interview, Thompson has a swollen black eye and two sets of stitches on his face. Of his politically motivated pieing, he said: “I feel bad that I sent the message to a lot of people of violence and that I sent a message that would scare people, because that wasn’t my intention. I still stand by what I did.” Thompson said instead of spending $556.6 million on the new arena, Johnson should have collected the money for public schools, community development, or to help the city’s homeless. “If he had put the energy into those things that he put into the arena, we would have so few problems left in the city,” he said. And when asked if he’d pie the mayor again, Thompson said: “Absolutely, I’d do it twice.” As The Sacramento Bee pointed out, the Bay Area has a history of political pieing, most notably in 1998, when then-San Francisco Mayor Willie brown “was struck by cherry, pumpkin and tofu pies while giving a speech. Three pie-throwers from the Biotic Baking Brigade were arrested and later sentenced to six months in jail for committing misdemeanor battery. The protesters said they were opposed to police sweeps of the homeless in downtown San Francisco.”"
330,"The Police Killings in Des Moines, Iowa: Latest Updates —  What we know:   —Police arrested Scott Michael Greene, a 46-year-old white man, in connection with the fatal shootings on Wednesday of two Des Moines-area officers. He was detained west of Des Moines without incident and charged Thursday.   —The officers—one from Urbandale, Iowa, and the other from Des Moines—were shot 20 minutes apart early Wednesday. Both were in their patrol cars. Police said they were killed in an “ambush-style attack.” They were identified as Anthony “Tony” Beminio and Justin Martin.     —We’re live-blogging this story below."
331,"The World Economic Forum's annual gender gap report is out and it doesn't look good —  The World Economic Forum (WEF) revealed its annual global gender gap report today, and the results are depressing.   The US slipped down to 45th on their ranking of countries by gender equality, behind four African countries and all major European countries (all of which are in the top 20), and down from 28th last year.    This dramatic fall is partly because women's participation in the labor force has declined over the past year and the number of women in senior positions is shrinking.   On a more positive note, the US closed its education gender gap in 2016. This means there is a large pool of educated female talent, even though fewer women are actually working, as can be seen in the table showing the United States' scores below. The annual report looks at progress towards equality between men and women in four key areas: educational attainment, health and survival, economic opportunity, and political empowerment.   Progress towards economic equality in 2016 has slowed globally, with the economic participation and opportunity sub-index dipping to 59% — worse than any point since 2008.  According to the report, the global economic gender gap is not forecasted to close until the year 2196.    That slowdown is partly due to imbalances in salaries, with women around the world on average earning just half of what men earn despite working longer hours, as well as a drop in women's labor force participation, with the global average for women standing at 54% compared to 81% for men. This is  despite the fact that women attend university in equal or higher numbers than men in 95 countries.    The number of women in senior positions also continues to be low, with only four countries in the world having equal numbers of male and female legislators, senior officials and managers.    ""The world is facing an acute misuse of talent by not acting faster to tackle gender inequality, which could put economic growth at risk and deprive economies of the opportunity to develop,"" according to a statement issued by the WEF.   More progress has been made in the education sub-index, with the gender gap there having closed 95%. Similarly, the health and survival sub-index has also improved, with that gap having closed 96%.   The slow rate of economic progress for women poses a particular risk because many of the jobs that usually employ women are ""likely to be hit the hardest by the coming age of technological disruption"" says the report.   ""This 'hollowing out' of female livelihoods could deprive economies further of women’s talents and increases the urgency for more women to enter high-growth fields such as those demanding STEM skills."" STEM refers to a high education skill set consisting of science, technology, engineering and math.    The top four nations that lead the WEF's report are all Scandinavian countries, with Iceland taking the lead, followed by Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The next highest are Rwanda, Ireland, the Philippines, Slovenia and new Zealand. Rounding out the top 10 is Nicaragua.    The Global Gender Gap Index ranks 144 countries to understand whether countries are distributing their resources equally between women and men, irrespective of their overall income levels. The variables used to create the index come from publicly available data from international organizations like the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organization among others, and from perception surveys conducted by the WEF."
332,"The World’s Coconuts Are in Danger —  In this day and age, coconuts seem to be, somehow, everything at once. You can buy oil from coconuts—not to be confused with butter from coconuts—and flour and sugar and milk and aminos and vinegar from coconuts. The coconut market is booming.   But the long-term outlook for coconuts? Not as good. In the Caribbean, bacteria that cause lethal yellowing are wiping out coconut trees—a situation so bad that a regional coordinator told Bloomberg, “It’s fair to say that at this pace, the Caribbean is running out of coconuts.” In Cote d’Ivoire and Papua New Guinea, lethal yellowing or a similar disease is threatening plantations specifically set up to safeguard coconut varieties for future generations. These aren’t the biggest coconut producing countries—that would be Indonesia, the Philippines, and India—but they are ominous signs for the rest of the world, especially if coconut diversity is not saved.   And coconut seeds are uniquely difficult to save for posterity. For most other crops, scientists maintain gene banks, usually in seed vaults comprising hundreds of different varieties. If future crop geneticists need to breed wheat resistance to an emerging disease or lettuce optimized to grow in drought, they can draw on the genetic diversity saved in these seeds. It’s a way to combat monoculture and an insurance against a changing world. Seed vaults, though, are no use to the coconut. “It works fine for all of the temperate crops where the little seed dries down,” says Kenneth Olsen, a professor of plant biology at Washington University. “Coconut has got so much water in it.” (Coconuts seeds are literally the whole coconut.) The only way to bank coconut diversity is a living gene bank—in other worlds, a plantation where coconuts are grown continuously. There are five international coconut gene banks, in Brazil, Indonesia, India, Cote d'Ivoire, and Papua New Guinea. And the last two are threatened by lethal bacteria.   “Coconut gene banks need a lot of space,” says Roland Bourdeix, a coconut geneticist who works for CIRAD, a French agricultural research center focused in developing countries. That makes the gene banks expensive to maintain and also vulnerable to land grabs, especially as coconut gene banks are often in developing countries where the political situation might be unstable. Bourdeix recalls one gene bank recently demolished to make way for horse racing, per the wishes of local mayor, and another put under the control of the ministry of police. Saving coconut diversity is not, you know, always the most pressing concern.   Even without all these challenges, some basic facts of biology make it difficult to grow and breed coconuts. For one, coconuts take about five years to mature, which means at least five years between each generation. That just slows things down compared to a crop like corn that matures in just a few months. And second, coconut trees can grow over 25 feet tall, making hand pollination very dangerous. To keep different varieties distinct, farmers have to climb up to trim all the male flowers and then keep a bag over the female flowers (a coconut condom, if you will) until they’re ready to fertilize with pollen from the right variety. To make coconuts easier to preserve, International Coconut Genetic Resources Network or COGENT, has funded work on isolating and freezing coconut embryos. Most of a coconut’s white fleshy meat is endosperm, or food for the developing embryo. The actual embryo is at the base of the coconut, and alone, it is just bigger than a grain of rice. Scientists have figured out how to cryopreserve this embryo, thaw it at a later time, and grow it in medium until it is big enough to pot in soil. But the protocol is so far unreliable. “If you take 200 embryos, at the end you have 10 or 20 coconuts only,” says Bourdeix. “We still have work to do on this method.”   Funding is also hard to come by. Most coconut growers are small farmers, taking care of only a few hectares at a time, so they don’t have the money to invest gene banks. In other industries like oil palm, big companies usually foot the bill for this kind of research. And funding for COGENT, which is affiliated with the network of research centers through Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, has gotten tight due to some recent reorganization higher up. “It’s been going for 40 years and now COGENT is in jeopardy,” says Vincent Johnson, a science editor with CGIAR. With coconuts going mass market these days, he says, maybe one of the big companies selling coconut water—Vita Coco? Pepsi?—might want to jump in. Now would be a good time."
333,"The Year's Strongest Storm Sweeps by Taiwan —  Typhoon Meranti gathered in strength as it swept close to Taiwan on Wednesday, and with maximum winds of 230 miles per hour it has been called the strongest storm of the year.   Meranti was classified as Category 5, the highest on the scale. The storm has brought not only high winds, but also heavy rain, and many Taiwanese cities have flooded. Trains and shipping services in some southern cities had stopped, and most flights were grounded. As of Wednesday, there were only a few injuries. More than half-a-million people lost electricity.   Here's a look from a Typhoon Meranti from satellite, with Taiwan outlined in white: Meranti did not directly hit Taiwan, but it came just two months after typhoon Nepartak hit the island. The worst storm to hit Taiwan in recent times came in 2009, when Morakot killed 700 people and caused about $3 billion in damage.   Typhoon Meranti is expected to travel north toward China, near the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian. It's predicted to reach land there by Thursday. If it does, it will be the strongest typhoon to hit the areas since 1969."
334,"The broad footprint of climate change from genes to biomes to people —  Climate change impacts have now been documented across every ecosystem on Earth, despite an average warming of only ~1°C so far. Here, we describe the full range and scale of climate change effects on global biodiversity that have been observed in natural systems. To do this, we identify a set of core ecological processes (32 in terrestrial and 31 each in marine and freshwater ecosystems) that underpin ecosystem functioning and support services to people. Of the 94 processes considered, 82% show evidence of impact from climate change in the peer-reviewed literature. Examples of observed impacts from meta-analyses and case studies go beyond well-established shifts in species ranges and changes to phenology and population dynamics to include disruptions that scale from the gene to the ecosystem. ADVANCES Species are undergoing evolutionary adaptation to temperature extremes, and climate change has substantial impacts on species physiology that include changes in tolerances to high temperatures, shifts in sex ratios in species with temperature-dependent sex determination, and increased metabolic costs of living in a warmer world. These physiological adjustments have observable impacts on morphology, with many species in both aquatic and terrestrial systems shrinking in body size because large surface-to-volume ratios are generally favored under warmer conditions. Other morphological changes include reductions in melanism to improve thermoregulation, and altered wing and bill length in birds.   Broader-scale responses to climate change include changes in the phenology, abundance, and distribution of species. Temperate plants are budding and flowering earlier in spring and later in autumn. Comparable adjustments have been observed in marine and freshwater fish spawning events and in the timing of seasonal migrations of animals worldwide. Changes in the abundance and age structure of populations have also been observed, with widespread evidence of range expansion in warm-adapted species and range contraction in cold-adapted species. As a by-product of species redistributions, novel community interactions have emerged. Tropical and boreal species are increasingly incorporated into temperate and polar communities, respectively, and when possible, lowland species are increasingly assimilating into mountain communities. Multiplicative impacts from gene to community levels scale up to produce ecological regime shifts, in which one ecosystem state shifts to an alternative state. OUTLOOK The many observed impacts of climate change at different levels of biological organization point toward an increasingly unpredictable future for humans. Reduced genetic diversity in crops, inconsistent crop yields, decreased productivity in fisheries from reduced body size, and decreased fruit yields from fewer winter chill events threaten food security. Changes in the distribution of disease vectors alongside the emergence of novel pathogens and pests are a direct threat to human health as well as to crops, timber, and livestock resources. Humanity depends on intact, functioning ecosystems for a range of goods and services. Enhanced understanding of the observed impacts of climate change on core ecological processes is an essential first step to adapting to them and mitigating their influence on biodiversity and ecosystem service provision."
335,"The giant albatross endangered by monster mice —  A remote colony of seabirds is at risk from an unlikely predator - an army of tiny house mice. But one man is making it his mission to drive out the marauding rodents, says Chris Carnegy. Keith Springer doesn't really do birthdays. That's just as well, because when he turned 55 a few weeks ago he was on a forbidding lump of rock, south of the Roaring Forties. His handful of companions made him a cake, and that was that. I wonder what sort of presents he normally receives. What do you get a guy who's one of the most prolific killers on earth? Springer carries an air of steely determination. Home is near Christchurch, New Zealand, but he's done his contract killing in many places around the southern hemisphere. And now he's facing one of the biggest challenges of his life - the monster mice of Gough Island. We met on a polar research ship called the Agulhas. Six days out of Cape Town it dropped me at the remote British island of Tristan da Cunha, where I do some volunteering for the local government. I saw Keith again on the return leg, by which time he'd sailed further south, and landed on Tristan's sister island. You could fairly call Gough an outpost of an outpost. That ship carried an intoxicating mix of people. In one giant floating coincidence, I found an artist from Holland, an accountant from England, a priest from South Africa, a dentist from Scotland. On the parade went: helicopter pilot, seal-watcher, police officer, maintenance man, diplomat, ornithologist - all alongside islanders heading to or from their homes. Oh, and there was the Frenchman whose machinery sniffs the Atlantic air for traces of rogue nuclear tests. He does birthdays all right; his party on board featured a cake in the shape of two plump buttocks. And in among them all, Keith Springer - world expert in the slaughter of small furry creatures. His tally of victims - rats, rabbits, cats and mice - easily tops a million. He's on a mission to undo the havoc wrought by man on some of Earth's most precious environments. It's about to reach a climax with the mice on Gough. Islands are nature's test tubes. Self-contained, their flora and fauna adapt rapidly and with beautiful precision to their exact circumstances. But when man blunders in, bringing invasive species as his fellow travellers, carnage ensues. So it is on Gough, home to the critically endangered Tristan albatross. It's thought seal-hunting ships of the old days brought a handful of common house mice to the island. They multiplied and now run rampant, with the eggs and chicks of millions of seabirds providing their all-you-can-eat buffet.   And when they raid the nests of the albatross, they get a free pass. Neither chick nor parent has evolved to recognise the threat: they can watch uncomprehendingly as the young are eaten alive. There's a video that shows a mother albatross desperately nudging the lifeless corpse of her baby. Eventually, she turns away with a feather in her beak, like someone with a lock of human hair as their final keepsake. It's easy to feel emotional about the plight of the Gough seabirds: 600,000 are being destroyed each year, and the mouse invaders have already evolved to twice their normal size. The near-total obliteration of an entire species of albatross is a real possibility. But Keith Springer sees it all through unemotional eyes. He's got a job to do. On Gough, he sized up the accommodation blocks and the helicopter pad. He calculated locations for temporary buildings and poison-bait dumps. He worked out how much food, how much fuel, how many people and how many aircraft he'll need. Working for Britain's RSPB, he's putting the operational detail into an audacious plan to overfly the island, spraying poison pellets that are fine-tuned to kill the mice. But they must do it in harsh mid-winter conditions, while caging and protecting birds and trying to reach mice in cliff crevices. This is extreme conservation work, and it won't come cheap. A campaign is under way to raise more than £7m ($8.5m). If it hits the target, the eradication should be complete in four years' time. If it doesn't, the mouse banquet rolls on unchecked. Keith Springer has spent much of his life holed-up on remote islands, shivering in the cold and eating from ration stores. He's sacrificed normal family life to his mission, but he says he's gained something different - a life in places that he calls ""elemental"". Breathtaking places, where nature's beauty and nature's fury are laid bare. If his plan works, five years from now there'll be a whole new generation of young albatrosses soaring over the vastness of the South Atlantic. They'll have survived to reach their first birthdays, untroubled by alien attackers. Now that could be quite some party."
336,"The human and animal costs of India's unregulated coal industry —  India is one of the largest producers of coal in the world and more than half of its commercial energy needs are met by coal. But unregulated mining has caused serious health and environmental issues, and led to growing conflicts between elephants and humans. In the coal-rich central state of Chhattisgarh, for example, fly ash has caused respiratory problems and serious illnesses like tuberculosis among people, but their troubles don't end there. Forests are being cleared for coal mining and wild elephants are entering villages in search of food and attacking people. Photojournalist Subrata Biswas has documented the fallout of India's dependence on coal. ""As thousands of acres of forest land are destroyed to mining, foraging elephants attracted by the crops in the fields often enter villages, resulting in an alarmingly high number of human-elephant conflict situations,"" says Biswas. Officials estimate elephants have been responsible for 8,657 incidents of property damage and 99,152 incidents of crop damage in Chhattisgarh between 2005 and 2014. ""We were sleeping when the elephants broke into our room. Somehow we managed to escape but I fractured my left leg when a large part of the wall fell on my leg. My husband saved my life,"" says Rujri Khalkho, 70, whose home was damaged by a herd of wild elephants almost a year ago. A compensation of 10,000 rupees ($149; £114) has not been enough to repair her house or pay for her medical care. Deaths of elephants due to electrocution have become common in the state. In Dharamjaigarh, the most affected area, officials have recorded 30 elephant and 75 human deaths so far. In 2009, Kanti Bai Sau, 40, lost her home and farm to an open-cast coal mine. She was promised compensation of 200,000 rupees ($2,980; £2,290) and a job to a family member, but received neither. Her son died last year of respiratory complications. ""There is no fresh air to breath, fresh water to drink. Coal has usurped everything here."" ""We lived next to this mine for almost 10 years and watched helplessly as our wells went dry, forests disappeared and fields become unproductive,"" says Girja Bai Chauhan. ""We have lost almost eight acres of our fields to the mine and authorities haven't fulfilled a single promise they made while acquiring land. They sent us into a dark future and unhealthy environment to live and breathe in."" Pipelines carry fly ash slurry from a local thermal power power plant in Korba to a fly ash pond. Environment activists say that every year approximately 50 million tonnes of fly ash is generated by power plants in Chhattishgarh but not even the half of this amount have been reutilized to reduce the pollution from fly ash. Fly ash is known to contain trace elements such as arsenic, barium and mercury among others, and unlined ponds like this could be polluting groundwater by leaching. ""The ash is everywhere. When the wind blows, everything is coated with a layer of white grey ash. The road, ponds, our houses, sometimes even our spectacles get coated with a fine layer of the ash,"" says Biswas. Rohit Rathia, 55, suffers from tuberculosis. He lives in a village next to an open cast mine where lung diseases such as coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP), silicosis and tuberculosis have become common ailments."
337,"The kids who have to sew to survive —  The first time you see a child hunched over a sewing machine in a hot, airless factory will never leave you. The boy, no more than 11 or 12, peeked up at me with just the trace of a smile before he dipped his head again, back to work. It felt like a punch in the gut. I'd been told that child labour was endemic in Turkey. But I wasn't prepared for the reality of it. Or the scale of it. One basement workshop was almost entirely staffed with children, many of whom couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, the very picture of Dickensian misery. I was in Istanbul investigating allegations that Syrian refugees and children are being exploited by the garment industry. And specifically that many are working on clothes destined for our High Street. This undercover investigation was unusually tricky. Secret filming is illegal in Turkey and we were halfway through our investigation when a state of emergency was declared in the country. We were routinely stopped and questioned by police. Our secret filming equipment had to be kept out of sight. And yet finding Syrian refugees and children making branded clothes for the UK market was relatively straightforward. Only a tiny percentage of the estimated 3 million Syrians who have sought refuge in Turkey have the necessary work permits. To survive, they have to work illegally, without any rights, and for low wages. A made-to-measure workforce for the garment industry, and a reminder that one person's plight is often another's opportunity. I was able to see how this exploitation works for myself. It was just before 08:00. A group of people had gathered on a street corner on the outskirts of Istanbul, all desperate for a day's work. We filmed through the blacked-out windows of our van a dozen yards away as a middleman picked this day's workforce, selecting them one by one. Those who were chosen boarded a bus to take them to a factory. We know now that up to seven of the workers on board were Syrian refugees. One was just fifteen. Another, we'll call him Omar, was our source. We followed behind until the bus stopped outside a factory in an industrial zone a few miles away. This factory was known to us. We'd been told it made clothes for some of the world's leading brands. Later that evening, Omar met up with me. He showed me the labels from the clothes he'd been working on, that day. I recognised them instantly. So would you. The brand could hardly be better-known in the UK. Over the next few weeks, I got to know Omar and his friends. Like all the Syrians I spoke to, they knew they were being exploited, but they knew there was very little they could do about it. Some of them were being paid a little over £1 an hour, well below the Turkish minimum wage. The 15-year-old boy told me he wanted to be in school but he couldn't afford not to work. So he was spending more than 12 hours a day ironing clothes that are then shipped to the UK. All the brands I contacted about this programme say they regularly inspect the factories making their clothes to guarantee standards. Some of these audits are unannounced. But the Syrian boys explained how the factories got round this problem. When the auditors arrive, they are hidden out of sight. And when the auditors leave, they go back to work. As simple as that. Some of the brands acknowledge the inherent failings in the auditing process and are now trying to tie up with trade unions and NGOs to combat abuses. Other factories may never be visited by auditors because as far as the brands are concerned, they don't make their clothes. They're part of the chain of sub-contractors who make up much of the garment industry in Turkey. They take orders from so-called first-tier factories - official suppliers to the brands - but often without the knowledge of the brands themselves. This is where you'll find the worst abuses of Syrian refugees and children. We decided to follow delivery vans from one of the first-tier factories hoping they would lead us down their supply chain. Our plan was successful but also darkly disappointing. We filmed outside one of the sub-contractors as a small boy carried and dragged bags of material as big as himself to one of the vans. He couldn't have been more than 12. We go inside posing as the owners of a new fashion business. In the manager's office we immediately spot a jacket that has been made for a British clothing retailer. It's whisked away. Later, after browbeating the owners to let us see the factory floor, we get sight of the young boy again. He's carefully folding clothes at an ironing station. He looks up briefly and then looks down to his work again. And he's far from alone - there are half a dozen Syrian children of around his age in the workshop. Efforts are being made to get them into education but it's estimated that as many as 400,000 are working, many of them in the garment industry. I've spoken to some of the parents of these children. They don't want their kids working, but they say they simply don't have a choice. One boy, just 13, told me he was between jobs. He had spent the morning looking for work when we spoke. No luck. I asked him what he would do now. Tears rolled slowly down his cheek as he told me that if he didn't work, he couldn't live. Our evidence confirms that big fashion brands are profiting from refugees and their children. All the brands involved say they are completely opposed to child labour and any exploitation of Syrian refugees. But our investigation shows they sometimes don't know how or where their clothes are being made. And until the brands know exactly who is making their clothes, then this type of exploitation is almost certain to continue."
338,"The pill is linked to depression – and doctors can no longer ignore it —  A newly published study from the University of Copenhagen has confirmed a link between hormonal contraceptives and depression. The largest of its kind, with one million Danish women between the ages of 15 and 34 tracked for a total of 13 years, it’s the kind of study that women such as me, who have experienced the side-effects of birth control-induced depression first hand, have been waiting for. Researchers found that women taking the combined oral contraceptive were 23% more likely to be diagnosed with depression and those using progestin-only pills (also known as “the mini-pill”) were 34% more likely. Teens were at the greatest risk of depression, with an 80% increase when taking the combined pill, and that risk is two-fold with the progestin-only pill. In addition, other hormone-based methods commonly offered to women seeking an alternative to the pill – such as the hormonal IUS/coil, the patch and the ring – were shown to increase depression at a rate much higher than either kind of oral contraceptives. In recent years we’ve seen efforts from the NHS and family planning organisations to encourage teens to use these so-called LARCs (long-acting reversible contraceptives), primarily because they eliminate the need to remember to take a pill every day, but also due to the fact they’re commonly believed to have less severe potential side-effects than the pill. The new research suggests this practice is misguided. We already know that those with pre-existing depression may find the pill worsens their symptoms, and if teens were at greater risk of depression, then continuing this practice would be negligent. The range of mental health problems experienced around pregnancy and childbirth is vast and often isn’t spoken about. Here, we share your stories The researchers note that, because GPs are less likely to prescribe the pill to women who already have depression and because women who do experience depression on the pill are more likely to stop taking it, this study probably underestimates the potential negative affect that hormonal contraceptives can have on mental health. Having spent the past eight years researching and writing on the emotional and psychological side-effects of hormonal birth control, I initially felt elated to read this study. Not just for myself, but for the hundreds of women I’ve interviewed over the years. Mood changes are one of the top reasons many women discontinue using the pill within the first year. Finally, here was the kind of large-scale, long-term study I’d been told was necessary before we could seriously talk about this issue or make a change in how we prescribe hormonal contraceptives. However, I was naive, because it seems that no study will ever be good enough for the medical community to take women’s experiences seriously. As soon as this research dropped, the experts lined up to deliver their usual mix of gaslighting and paternalistic platitudes. We’re told not to be alarmed, concerned, or deterred from continuing to use our hormonal contraceptives, mostly by men who have never and will never take them themselves (partly because the long-term, large-scale study undertaken by WHO on the “acceptability” of the male pill revealed it would negatively impact their emotional wellbeing). This “pillsplaining” is specific to discussions of research into the side-effects of hormonal birth control. Usually, when the research is on the pill alone, we’re quickly informed there are many other hormone-based methods to choose from, but unfortunately this new study says those alternatives are even worse. One expert even tried to dismiss the link with depression in pill-taking teens as more likely the result of “teen heartbreak”. So, why is it that we’re not supposed to take this study seriously? Considering that women are fertile just six days per menstrual cycle and men are fertile every single day, that the burden of avoiding unwanted pregnancy falls to us, regardless of the burden that might have on our health and wellbeing, is nothing short of sexism. After all, there are certainly effective alternatives to hormonal contraceptives –the copper coil, diaphragm, condoms and new technology that’s making it simple for women to practice the fertility awareness method, not to mention, of course, vasectomy and the promise of Vasalgel, a contraceptive injection for men. Yet, we’re reminded with one medical professional’s response to this new research that “an unwanted pregnancy far outweighs all the other side effects that could occur from a contraceptive.” If that’s true, why bother researching the side-effects at all? It is important to remember that women are twice as likely to experience depression as men It is important to remember that women are twice as likely to experience depression as men, reportedly due to “the fluctuation of progesterone and oestrogen levels”, in other words our biological femaleness. It’s apparently acceptable to blame women’s depression on the fact that they’re women, but it’s not OK to claim a powerful medication formulated from synthetic hormones could be at fault. To me, and many other women, these Danish researchers are heroes and criticism of their methods (such as, they should have tracked those women using condoms or the copper IUD as well – even though these options were not available to them; or that women were likely depressed because of menstrual cramps – which the pill is supposed to prevent), only highlights the incredible knots the medical establishment will twist itself into in order to deny there’s a problem with the pill. Advertisement One of the study’s authors, Øjvind Lidegaard, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, also brought attention in 2011 to the increased risk of blood clots associated with newer, and supposedly “improved”, hormonal contraceptives such as the ring, the patch and drospirenone-containing pills. Lidegaard plans to focus next on researching the possible “association between taking hormonal birth control and attempting or committing suicide”. Researchers originally flagged up this potential link back in 1970 at the Nelson Pill Hearings, but the topic has not been touched since. Depression and anxiety from hormonal contraceptives may not be the experience of every woman, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the experience of your friend, your daughter or your partner, and of many women out there, who, in reading about this could have their lives changed for the better."
339,"The treatment of Calais camp children isn’t just neglectful – it’s abusive —  The Calais camp lies in limbo, with most of its inhabitants long gone. Those who remain face hardship beyond anything the camp has previously known. Before, there was shelter – now hundreds sleep on the fringes of its dirt tracks. Before, there was at least some sense of ease – now shocked and abandoned refugees live in a state of constant tension. Fire is a constant threat, and the bulldozers are coming.   Volunteers grapple not only with the urgency of the situation, but also with the knowledge that it should – and easily could – have been prevented.     When the French authorities began the registration and resettlement of refugees, those of us involved felt an initial sense of relief. But after three days of relatively smooth action the warehouse where the registration took place closed its doors. It did not open them again. This was despite previous assurances that all refugees would be accommodated. Those left behind had no chance of safely reaching asylum centres. Most minors, registered separately, were confined to a fenced-in yard and housed in shipping containers. The rest were left homeless alongside the adult population of the camp.   Despite being provided with up-to-date and detailed census information from my organisation, Help Refugees, and the local charity, l’Auberge des Migrants, the authorities chose not to take heed of these estimates. The 50-person, four-day census operation identified exact numbers of men, women, and children within the camp, and put the total population at 10,188. Though promised over 12,000 spaces in accommodation centres throughout France, almost 2,000 refugees have been abandoned once again by an uncaring government, and are left behind in the ruins of the Calais camp.   Over two weeks ago Help Refugees warned authorities at a local tribunal in Lille that housing minors in the “container camp” would be tantamount to exposing them to fire, violence, and extreme trauma. My colleague’s words went unheeded, and now seem almost prophetic. There are now approximately 1,500 children subjected to these conditions.   Children housed in the containers report choking on the smoke that blows in from their burning former homes. They say there is no drinking water, that the toilets are never cleaned and the showers are not working. Food is served only from 3pm to 5pm, and there is only one meal a day.   There is no drinking water. The toilets are never cleaned. The showers are not working. There is only one meal a day The authorities have utterly failed to safeguard these young people, and show little to no regard for their wellbeing, health, or mental states. The children in this camp are starved of care and attention, and are in constant danger. Their treatment is not just neglectful – it’s abuse.   The lack of organisation has permeated every aspect of these children’s lives. The crippling hunger pangs reported by many are alleviated only when groups of volunteers are allowed to distribute food. Without an identification wristband, children are not permitted to use the few still-working shower facilities – a fact made worse by the decision of the authorities to register some children without providing wristbands.     The stories you need to read, in one handy email  Read more Arbitrary security measures mean that services such as the Refugee Info Bus – founded by long-term volunteers to provide refugees with WiFi and legal services – are barred from approaching the container camp, cutting the children off from means of communication and legal assistance. With this, and the recent banning of human rights lawyers acting as observers from entry into the camp, it is feared that the mistreatment of the camp’s children will go unchecked.   Volunteers are banned from putting up tents to house the homeless adult and child refugees outside the container camps, in yet another example of the restrictions that serve only to further endanger refugees’ lives. With a large portion of the camp in flames, many are sleeping on the dunes surrounding the camp, exposed to the rain, the cold, and the people smugglers.   Despite desperate conditions and daily heartbreak, the volunteers of Help Refugees and other organisations continue to provide food, water, and some comfort to the refugees who are left. Many volunteers are from the UK, and express their devastation that their country is not answering France’s calls and the refugee children it is failing – at present, it seems unlikely that the UK will take in more than the 274 children it already has. Many other volunteers are French, and must bear witness, distraught, to their nation’s mistreatment of refugees already so weakened by months of subsistence in the camp.   On 1 November charities operating within the camp received notice from the French authorities promising that all children in the container camp would be transferred by bus to accommodation centres across France this week. A representative from the UK Home Office on each bus will ensure that any children legally eligible for asylum within the UK are able to apply for transfer to the UK. It is unknown how long this legal process will take.   This is a testament to the work of the volunteers and legal workers in the camp, and presents an opportunity for these children to leave behind the trauma and misery of life in a refugee camp. However, there are no guarantees, and charities must continue to work to ensure that refugees throughout France are given a far better standard of care than was provided for the children of the Calais container camp."
340,"There’s Nothing Left in the Tank in the Southeast —  DURHAM, N.C.—The ’70s are back in the Southeast.   No, it’s not a Republican candidate for president promising law and order. It’s not the latest bellbottom revival. It’s not even the North Carolina-centered movement of Grateful Dead-inspired musicians.   Instead, drivers across the region are lining up at gas stations, hoping to fill up their cars. A gas shortage began September 9, when a mining inspector noticed a gasoline odor in Shelby County, Alabama. Colonial Pipeline discovered that there was a leak in a line that runs from Houston up to New Jersey. More than 300,000 gallons leaked from the line. Somewhat miraculously, the spill seems to have avoided the worst ecological damage, because much of the gas ended up in a retaining pond.   But while the pipeline is being repaired, there are gas shortages in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. In Tennessee, Governor Bill Haslam declared a state of emergency on Friday. The governors of Georgia and North Carolina loosened rules on truckers’ hours to try to make it easier to move gasoline in. The major effect hasn’t been so much on prices, though those are up. In Tennessee, per-gallon prices were going up around 5 cents to 15 cents, though in some cases as much as 30 cents. Prices jumped 31 cents on average in Atlanta. In North Carolina, prices also surged, but the state’s anti-gouging law is holding down the increase, as it did in Georgia. What’s striking is that even with the spikes, many prices are still below $2.50—the magical, and at the time unthinkable, number below which Newt Gingrich promised to bring prices, when he was running for president in 2012. The more visible effect has been on availability: As if it were 1973, many gas stations simply don’t have gas to pump, at any price.   “People are freaking out,” a gas-station employee in Asheville, North Carolina, told the Citizen-Times.   Brett Kern, the Tennessee Titans’ punter, told an NPR reporter he nearly ran out of gas before finding a story with supply. “I was 0 for 6 on Saturday, 0 for 3 yesterday, and then I called about four stations this morning,” he said. “This was the first one that had it.”   On a drive Tuesday morning between Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, your correspondent found that most prices were still between $2.10 and $2.25 per gallon, but several stations had no gas. One BP station changed its sign to read “0.00,” not a statement of free gas but an acknowledgement that a motorist couldn’t pay for it. Several miles up the road, a small traffic jam surrounded a rare service station that offered fill-ups.   To try to address the shortage, Colonial on Monday began running gasoline through a second, parallel pipe that usually carries diesel and other products. Gasoline was also being moved on tanker ships toward New York. Colonial said Tuesday it had finished repairs and hoped to have the pipeline back on line on Wednesday thanks to a temporary bypass. After that, it will take a few days for the shortage to end, but the lines for gas should be gone again. Now, if only we could get Ted Nugent to go back to the ’70s, too."
341,"These Are the Forgotten Victims of the West's Drought —  It's not just California. Nevada is suffering, too. Lack of rain and snow leaves farm fields and ranches dry and dusty, with reservoirs at record lows. YOMBA INDIAN RESERVATION, NEVADALast summer Nevada was so dry that rancher Darryl Brady grabbed a shovel and hacked into a dusty pit, once a lush spring that gurgled onto fields thick with wild hay. The snows hadn’t come to the mountains and the river was dry, so Brady was desperately trying to tap into the earth’s watery veins to save his herd of about 85 cattle. But it was a failure; the earth had no water to give. “I remember when I was a kid it would rain and we used to have puddles out here,” Brady said wistfully. “These underground frogs would pop up.Shlurp, shlurp, shlurp, frogs everywhere. Now look at it, it’s all dead, there’s nothing here. The drought is killing everything.” Thanks to hefty snowfall last winter, the water is back this summer. Still Darryl Brady, a Native American rancher on the tiny Yomba Indian Reservation, located in a remote river valley between Reno and Las Vegas, faces tremendous challenges. Much of the world thinks that only California has been devastated by the West’s record-breaking drought. But in Nevada, the nation’s driest state, a much less publicized but equally devastating water crisis has been playing out over the last five years. Nevada rivers such as the Carson and the Humboldt have dwindled. Massive lakes, such as Walker Lake, at the edge of the Walker River Indian Reservation in western Nevada, have nearly disappeared. Levels of reservoirs such as Rye Patch in northern Nevada have plummeted. Lake Mead, the water source for Las Vegas, dropped to an elevation of 1,073 feet above sea level, the lowest level since the lake was formed by the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. This has forced the desert city’s water supplier to buy up land and groundwater rights in eastern Nevada’s fertile valleys. Meanwhile, gold mines and industrialized farming are all tapping the state’s aquifers. Not far from Yomba, energy companies have even purchased land to mine for low-quality crude oil, using, among other methods, the water-intensive technique of fracking. And if the situation doesn’t already sound apocalyptic, consider that several years ago a multinational corporation—The Carlyle Group—bought up the city of Missoula, Montana’s water supply, and there is a concern that this practice could become more prevalent. Here in the West, water is gold. Yomba in the Dust If Nevada has been mostly forgotten in the West’s drought, Brady’s tiny homeland of Yomba has been completely left in the dust. His tribe is part of the greater Western Shoshone Nation, whose ancestral homeland, Newe Sogobia, once occupied much of Nevada—and, according to some tribal advocates who cite an 1863 treaty with the United States government, it still does. The Yomba Reservation is about five times the size of New York City’s Central Park, and with a resident population of about 60, many rush-hour New York subway cars contain more people. Yomba lies within the spectacular Reese River valley, framed by wild brown mountains rising to nearly 12,000 feet. There are no hospitals, cafés, or grocery stores—no stores period. There is a single police officer who was just hired, and for a long time there was no one. A traveling judge visits once a month. The nearest town with significant services, Fallon, Nevada, is 117 miles away, much of it on dirt roads. The closest major highway is U.S. 50, whose route across Nevada has been nicknamed ""the loneliest highway in America."" On the Yomba Reservation a number of ranchers have been forced to sell off their herds and leave the business. The tribe is so small it can barely field a government, let alone a cohesive response to the drought and the even greater specter of climate change, which may indeed be amplifying the dry spell. Recent climate research suggests past droughts in Nevada and the U.S. Southwest have lasted for not just years but decades, and even well over a century. These “megadroughts,” according to a 2015 research article published in the journal Science Advances, fall “far outside the contemporary experience of natural and human systems in Western North America.” No Grass, No Water While most Americans probably couldn’t find the tiny Yomba Reservation on a map, Ohio-born ecologist Susan Jamerson fled suburbia and skyscrapers just for this sort of isolation, taking a job as the tribe’s environmental director. The position has given her a unique window into understanding what a drier Nevada might look like for remote tribes. “Here is a field that has been completely overgrazed,” said Jamerson during the height of the drought last summer, pointing at a dusty corral where several horses poked about. “Normally these horses would drink out of the river and have plenty of grass. Now there’s no grass, no water in the river, and this plot can’t even reseed itself because it has been so overgrazed.” Jamerson explained how this one problem has initiated a chain of new ones. Overgrazing leads to erosion, which puts more sediment into the Reese River, which silts up the channel and can cause water to flow underground, making it unavailable for ranchers and farmers, who rely on surface diversions and springs rather than wells. A thinner river flows slower and is warmer, which attracts algal blooms. The blooms deplete the river’s available oxygen, making it uninhabitable for creatures such as the trout Darryl Brady used to catch as a boy. And thus, a once gurgling highway that fed diverse aquatic life and farmers' fields becomes an algae-choked trickle. “Unless he goes and buys hay, this guy will have to sell his horses,” sighed Jamerson, gazing again into the dust-swirled corral. “For Shoshone to sell their horses, that’s a big deal.” For Native Americans, the effects of the drought are not just ecological and economic, but also sociological and psychological. A sense of apathy and displacement results from having to abandon one’s livelihood. “Everything has been a struggle,” Yomba social services eligibility worker Josh Lumsden told me, in his small sparse office. He listed problems the drought has exacerbated: domestic violence, substance abuse, child neglect. “As you can see out here, there’s really a whole lot of nothing,” said Lumsden. “There has been talk of the tribe getting blinked out, which is kind of scary.” For now at least, the Yomba do not seem to be in immediate jeopardy of disappearing although it is clear the culture has changed. At 86, Verna Brady, in a flannel shirt and dusty Marines cap, is one of the tribe’s oldest members. Over a lunch of meatloaf, vegetables, and canned pears in the small tribal office, which also serves as a cafeteria, she fondly recalled her childhood, riding horses through a much greener valley beneath mountains that had more snow. While many Yomba elders speak of the importance of their Shoshone culture, Brady has gone in a different direction. “I’d rather go to church than go to powwows. I’d rather go forward than go backwards, you know what I mean.” Her comments reveal a larger point. The drought is eroding an already withered native culture. Historically the Yomba were not ranchers; they were nomadic hunter-gatherers. And in times of drought their ability to move and follow the food aided in their survival. “The native tribes that lived in Nevada and the desert Southwest before Western settlement had the ability to migrate,” said Maureen McCarthy, environmental science research director at the University of Nevada in Reno and at the Desert Research Institute. “Now confined to reservations, that option is not available to them.” McCarthy directs a project called Native Waters on Arid Lands, a partnership between academic researchers, government agencies, and tribal communities funded by a $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. By facilitating an exchange of agricultural and environmental information between native tribes and academia and government, the project aims to help enable the tribe’s continued survival. “Historically, the needs of the tribal communities have been ignored,” said McCarthy. The Native Waters project aims to change that. “We are moving toward a point,” she said, “where we have a cultural and an ecological appreciation of the landscape.” But that landscape has changed dramatically. One example is an exotic plant called cheat grass, introduced to the North American continent more than a hundred years ago. This quick-growing plant is now common across Nevada, and it grows more densely than native plants. That means it contains more fuel than native vegetation, making it vulnerable to fires. One blazed just several weeks ago, not far from Yomba, and additional cheat grass-fueled fires are burning in western Nevada. Once a landscape has been torched in a hot-burning cheat grass fire, cheat grass and other nonnative species, not native sagebrush, are more likely to grow back, said Dan Mosley, an environmental consultant, and member of Nevada’s Walker River Paiute tribe. “Sagebrush is essential habitat for native animals like mule deer, sage hen, and cottontails,” said Mosley. “Without it, it is a pretty barren landscape out there.” Hoping for Rain and Snow It is 2 p.m. on a recent July afternoon back on Darryl Brady’s ranch. A hot wind rattles the wind chimes, and dust devils emerge like apparitions on the valley floor. Brady sits on his porch drinking a Sprite. He wasn’t always a rancher. For many years Brady worked construction in Southern California and across Nevada. But when his father died in 2002, he returned to the reservation to take over the family ranch. At first he regretted having to abandon what he calls “the real world.” Attending a powwow in Elko, his first, he was inspired to learn more about his Native culture. “It really hit me kind of hard,” he said, “to see what I was missing.” Earlier this year, Brady became the Yomba tribal chairman. He aims to navigate the tribe through the tough times ahead. But more than anything, he hopes for rain on the fields and snow in the mountains.     Article Title:92% of the world's population exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution   Article URL: http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/50022 Article author(s)  Article date: September 29, 2016 07:18 AM News source: ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS NETWORK/World Health Organization   A new WHO air quality model confirms that 92% of the world’s population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits*. Information is presented via interactive maps, highlighting areas within countries that exceed WHO limits. ""The new WHO model shows countries where the air pollution danger spots are, and provides a baseline for monitoring progress in combatting it,"" says Dr Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director General at WHO. It also represents the most detailed outdoor (or ambient) air pollution-related health data, by country, ever reported by WHO. The model is based on data derived from satellite measurements, air transport models and ground station monitors for more than 3000 locations, both rural and urban. It was developed by WHO in collaboration with the University of Bath, United Kingdom. Air pollution’s toll on human health Some 3 million deaths a year are linked to exposure to outdoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution can be just as deadly. In 2012, an estimated 6.5 million deaths (11.6% of all global deaths) were associated with indoor and outdoor air pollution together. Nearly 90% of air-pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, with nearly 2 out of 3 occurring in WHO’s South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions. Ninety-four per cent are due to noncommunicable diseases – notably cardiovascular diseases, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. Air pollution also increases the risks for acute respiratory infections. ""Air pollution continues take a toll on the health of the most vulnerable populations – women, children and the older adults,"" adds Dr Bustreo. ""For people to be healthy, they must breathe clean air from their first breath to their last."" Major sources of air pollution include inefficient modes of transport, household fuel and waste burning, coal-fired power plants, and industrial activities. However, not all air pollution originates from human activity. For example, air quality can also be influenced by dust storms, particularly in regions close to deserts. Article Title:Why a Giant Green Lake Turned Blood-Red   Article URL:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/why-giant-green-lake-turned-blood-red-iran-algae/   Article author(s) Elaina Zachos   Article date: AUGUST 1, 2016   News source: nationalgeographic    The salty waters of Iran’s Lake Urmia recently morphed from a deep green to a rich red, likely due to algae and bacteria blooms. Like the famous Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and theSalton Sea in California, the salty expanse of Lake Urmia in Iran has been drying up and shrinking for decades. Now the lake, once one of the largest in the Middle East, looks more like a gigantic crime scene. In late April, NASA’s Aqua satellite captured Lake Urmia with a deep green hue. But as of mid-July, the body of water was filled with algae and bacteria that turned it into a stained red pool. Drought, heat, and increased demand for irrigation water have been steadily shrinking the salty lake in northern Iran near the Turkish border. As the lake dries out, its salinity increases. The warm water’s high salt concentration makes what’s left of the lake a prime breeding ground forDunaliella algae, which can turn the water blood-red. “In the marine environment, Dunaliella salina appears green,” Mohammad Tourian, a scientist at the University of Stuttgart, tells NASA. “However, in conditions of high salinity and light intensity, the micro-algae turns red due to the production of protective carotenoids in the cells.” A family of bacteria called Halobacteriaceae may also play a role: These salt-loving organisms use a red pigment to absorb sunlight and convert it into energy, so large amounts of them in the water may be contributing to the ruddy hue. Lake Urmia’s color-changing process has happened before. Spring rains and melting snow from nearby mountains normally wash freshwater into Lake Urmia, helping to stabilize its salinity and thus its color. But as drought and agricultural use persist in the region, red waters may become a more common sight. Based on satellite observations, Lake Urmia has lost about 70 percent of its surface area in the past 14 years. Sharp, white salt crystals left behind by evaporation now surround the shrinking rust-colored pool, driving away tourists and migratory birds. The lake was once one of the world’s largest brine shrimp habitats, but water loss and higher salinity are cutting into their growth and reproduction. “If land use and water consumption remain as it is now, then the lake would disappear pretty soon,” Hossein Akhani, a biologist at the University of Tehran, tells Scientific American. “There’s no doubt about that.”"
342,"They survived WWII. Now they live on $4.50 a day. —  For Russia’s eldest generation, the “children of the war” as they are called, poverty is a matter of perspective.   When Galina Chuchukova, 81, was 10 years old, in 1944, she crawled onto a minefield searching for berries, only to be called back by an imagined voice whispering her name. “My guardian angel,” she thought then. Seven of her relatives starved to death in the siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and the rest were scattered across Siberia in the mass evacuation.   With all that behind her, she said, she can handle today’s financial hardships.   “I lived through the war, the evacuation, the hunger of 1946,” her friend, Lyubov Fabrichnaya, 84, said over a cup of tea. “So I look around myself and think, everything is normal. My pension is enough.”   These are, nevertheless, stark times for pensioners in Oryol, a city of 300,000 about 230 miles south of Moscow, and for the more than 40 million others across Russia. The ruble has fallen to less than half its value of just three years ago, driving prices up even as state pension payments have lagged behind. The average pension amounts to about $200 each month. Take off 4,000 ­rubles, or $64, for utilities such as gas and water. Divided by 30, the remainder is about $4.50 a day, enough for food and not much else. Chuchukova likes to keep active, taking spare work to get out of the house (and “there’s never such a thing as a spare kopek,” she added). On a recent Thursday morning, she and 17 other women in their 60s, 70s and 80s filed into a fourth-floor schoolroom in this regional Russian capital for a morning gymnastics routine: ­salsa, box steps and breathing exercises. It’s part of a routine of hard work that’s kept her going through decades of tumult.   Even the younger pensioners — women can retire at age 55 here — have lived through tremendous upheavals: perestroika, the fall of the Soviet Union and the 1998 devaluation of the ruble, which wiped out savings accounts overnight. Russians are no strangers to setbacks. Now they are struggling through a protracted, 23-month crisis. Inflation has hit 15 percent. Pensions were paid late in several regions this past winter, sparking concerns of currency shortages. The Russian government is offering pensioners a one-time payment of 5,000 rubles ($77), rather than indexing pensions a second time this year. And in a tremendous moment of bad judgment, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told an elderly woman in Russian-annexed Crimea this past spring that there was no money to raise pensions, but to “hang in there” and “have a nice day.”   Russian President Vladimir Putin, who owes his popularity more than anything else to prosperity in his 16 years as Russia’s leading politician, has pledged to raise pensions by the inflation rate in February. Cutting benefits could hurt him somewhat before the 2018 presidential election.   Under duress, Russia’s pensioners, characteristically unfazed, have further tightened their belts. Theirs is a story of secondhand or sometimes self-knit clothing, of shelves stocked with preserves and berries from long days working summer gardens at the dacha, of ditching coffee for tea, of sometimes putting off medical care or seeking help for operations from children and relatives.   It’s still apple season in Oryol, and the elderly are selling them by the bucketful in the city’s markets and along its roadsides, even as the first snows begin. Many come from nearby — from country dachas or village houses with fading paint and jigsaw window frames, with small gardens and a few fruit trees, humble dwellings that are an essential part of getting by. Everyone makes her sacrifices.   “Maybe I can allow myself chicken, but definitely not beef,” said Tamara Kozyreva, who at 62 hardly looks like a retiree. A native of Magadan in Russia’s Far East, she blames the bitter climate and recent bouts with depression for her poor health, and now “the diseases are piling up.” She has turned to homeopathy, because a visit to the doctor can cost $100, and she says the effects are better than antibiotics. She borrowed money from a brother for surgery.   “Don’t get sick,” she said. “If your treatment includes drugs, no pension is going to cover that.”   After a decade of rising living standards, Russians, including pensioners, have faced two years of backsliding, said Marina Krasilnikova, head researcher for incomes and consumption at the Moscow-based pollster Levada Center. Pensions are enough “not to starve,” Krasilnikova said. “As long as you just spend money on utilities and food, and forget about participating in public life or going to cafes. It’s enough to sit at home.”   That wasn’t enough for Lyudmilla Zadernyuk, 61, dressed in a zebra-stripe sweater and bright-green scarf, her hair dyed a jaunty red.   “Sure, by comparison to the war, today is heaven, but we see how pensioners are living in other countries,” said Zadernyuk, with a hint of exasperation. “Pensioners in other countries go to restaurants! I can only dream of that.”   Seeking human contact, the women came here, a DIY school for the elderly, where the students attend classes in gardening, computer literacy, chess, and physical aerobics for 80-year-olds, just to name a few. Zadernyuk teaches dance lessons.   It is the brainchild of Tatyana Kononygina, 53, who in the dawn of the 1990s teamed with a German nongovernmental organization to create a school for the elderly. They called it the “University of the Golden Age.”   “It’s not right, to my mind, when our government creates a national youth policy and no national elderly policy,” she said.   Most of her several hundred students have average or below-average pensions, she said, some living on the “minimum living standard” of just $145 a month.   “Pretty much everyone in the summer is at the dacha planting,” she said. “We’ve also trained some younger pensioners on computers — it helps them find work to supplement their income.   “But most of all, the people coming here are seeking companionship,” she said. “Old age has a woman’s face. No country has the same ratio of women to men in old age, and when the kids have moved away and their husband has passed on, they come here.”   For Kozyreva, whose husband died 25 years ago, and whose daughters have also left home, the school was a way to escape her depression.   “I ended up in a vacuum, alone,” she said. “This place was my savior.”   Her first class was “aerobics for the brain.”   “It’s for old people who are getting close to Alzheimer’s, and as not to end up further in there, we train our memories,” she said. “I find exercises. We learn poems by heart. We solve anagrams.” There is something of the old Communist ethos to the place, reflected in a “can do” attitude and the morning exercises.   Fabrichnaya, a former Communist Party functionary, recently channeled her energy into pestering political parties and Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, for funds. “No one gave anything,” she fumed, especially at the Communists. “I believed in this party. I believed I was building something in the future.”   “Putin says everything is good, and okay, I really respect our president,” she said. “But why is he the only one? Where are the people around him who should be supporting him like they should? That’s what concerns me!”"
343,"Things Are About to Get Much Worse for Poor Americans —  They didn’t vote for this. Richer Americans did. In the last eight years, President Barack Obama oversaw the largest growth in federal spending to reduce inequality since the Great Society of the 1960s. In the next four years, President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives will probably try to undo almost all of it. President Obama’s anti-inequality crusade has had three main pillars. First, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, brought the percentage of uninsured down from 16 percent in 2010 to 9 percent, the lowest in U.S. history. Second, tax benefits passed in the 2009 stimulus, and extended throughout the last seven years, raised the overall income of millions of poor Americans. Third, the administration went beyond the tax code to increase anti-poverty spending, like food stamps and long-term unemployment benefits, and to support the national movement for a higher minimum wage. Together, these measures helped to reduce after-tax inequality more than any administration on record, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. How will Republicans roll back these measures? Trump’s boldest proposals and most radical promises—to build a border wall and establish a police force to deport 10 million undocumented workers, while instigating a trade war, cutting taxes, trying to balance the budget, and hinting that the U.S. won’t pay back its debt—are together a recipe for financial panic and a possible recession. But even if the U.S. gets a more moderate version of Trump that dovetails with the wishes of his Republican Congress, there is another clear conclusion to draw. Quite simply, his administration would make it much harder to be poor in America. First, Obamacare may be toast. By rolling back the Medicaid expansion and ending private subsidies, Republicans would almost certainly send the uninsured rate back up to Bush-era levels. In the last six years, the number of uninsured families living around the poverty line fell by almost 50 percent. Those gains would be reversed, and more than 20 million people, many of them just above the poverty line, could suddenly lose access to health care. Second, Trump’s proposed tax cut will be one of the largest ever, possibly reducing federal revenues by more than $6 trillion in the next decade. His plan is in line with tax cuts envisioned by House Speaker Paul Ryan. Although taxes would be cut at every level, “the highest-income taxpayers would receive the biggest cuts, both in dollar terms and as a percentage of income,” according to the Tax Policy Center. The richest 0.1 percent of the country would save, on average, more than $1 million. What does that have to do with the poor? Well, the massive size of the proposed Trump tax is significant, because House Republicans are also calling for a balanced budget. Mathematically that means that the GOP will be on the lookout for $6 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. And Trump has essentially declared more than half the budget off-limits for cuts, since he wants to grow the military and preserve Social Security and Medicare. With protective collars around defense and spending on the elderly, the rest of government spending would have to be bulldozed. This remainder is dominated by assistance for the young and poor. Medicaid would shrink, as might the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Food stamps would be cut. Federal unemployment insurance spending would fall, as would housing and energy assistance for the poor. The Department of Education would have to be gutted, taking federal student loans with it. It’s not clear which of Obama’s economic policies would actually face elimination, because Trump has been so vague about his own plans, beyond Mexican walls and Chinese trade wars. In the absence of more details, one document that gives a sense of where things could go is Ryan’s grand plan “A Better Way.” This document is more thoughtful and potentially less draconian than Ryan’s previous budgets, which concentrated massive pain on the poor and the sick. But even this relatively kinder and gentler approach would still make it harder to be poor in America, by cutting welfare and health insurance payments to the poor in order to balance the budget while financing a historic tax cut for the wealthy. If President Obama was a throwback to the programs of the 1960s, this could be a throwback to the 1950s. I once wrote that the U.S. president’s relationship with the economy is more like the captain of a ship sailing through turbulent waters rather than the bow-to-stern engineer. Presidents cannot slide the economy to 4 percent growth, as if GDP were a thermostat bar. But the government has great control over how growth is shared. For the last eight years, the Obama doctrine has put sharing at the heart of economic policy with a progressive plan to redistribute the country’s prodigious wealth to help low-income Americans of all ethnicities stay afloat in a period of severe inequality. Tuesday’s vote represents the repudiation of that economic policy, and the inauguration of a very different strategy. America is about to find out just how much a president matters to the lives of its citizens. For the poor, the stakes could not be any higher. Trump’s victory on Tuesday night was clear-cut. But it is critical to note that an evisceration of poverty spending is not what America’s poor voted for. Hillary Clinton won by double digits among voters making less than $50,000. Trump wonamong all richer groups, and his coalition seems to be living in a world ever so slightly detached from that described by national statistics. More than half of Republicans think that unemployment has increased under Obama. It has in fact fallen from 10 percent in 2010 to below 5 percent today. The labor market is in its longest continuous expansion ever, and the last 12 months have been the best period for wage growth this century. It is an interesting time to decide that America’s economic leadership deserves a risky head transplant. But if nothing else is clear, this is: We live in interesting times."
344,"Third shipwreck in three days pushes Mediterranean death toll to over 4,600 this year —  More than 100 people are feared dead in the Mediterranean Sea in the third shipwreck to occur in those waters since Monday (14 November 2016). The number of those who have died or gone missing attempting to reach safety in Europe has reached a new record number, with figures released today (17 November) putting the death toll at 4,621.   According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), at least 4,000 deaths have occurred on what is known as the central Mediterranean route, departing mostly from Libya and occasionally Egypt, towards Italian shores. In the past three days, at least 340 people are feared to have died in the Mediterranean after three shipwrecks were recorded off the coast of Libya. The death toll is the highest on record and is set to increase still in the next six weeks until the end of the year. The figures for the first half of November registered five times as many deaths as the entire month of November last year.   Speaking to IBTimes UK, IOM spokesperson Flavio Di Giacomo said the issue is not the amount of resources employed in rescue operations.   ""The Mediterranean Sea has never been as patrolled as this year,"" he said, listing the different organisations operating in international waters, from the Italian Coast Guard and Navy, to EU-backed Operation Triton, to various non-governmental organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children.   The problem, said Di Giacomo, was the instability and violence in Libya, where human traffickers face little risk in exploiting people's hopes for a better life across the sea.   The amount of people who lost their lives making the crossing reached an initial record in 2014, with 3,279 recorded by the IOM, and again in 2015, when the number of people feared dead or missing reached 3,777. The Libyan Civil War worsened in 2014 when the government was forced to leave the capital Tripoli, leaving those who had come to Libya in previous years in search of a job or safety once again in a vulnerable position. One of the people the IOM has helped to repatriate was Cisse, a 27 year old from Mali, who arrived in Libya in 2009 and decided to return home in March 2016 after he was detained by gunmen, beaten, shot in the leg and forced to pay $450 (£361) for his release.   But other people are not in a position to return home. ""Some consider crossing the sea the safest option"" said Di Giacomo. According to reports collected by the IOM, traffickers are increasingly less concerned with people's safety, forcing them to do the journey despite very rough seas, without providing GPS or mobile devices that would allow them to signal their position to rescuers.   Di Giacomo told IBTimes UK that one boat was put in the water without an engine, and was simply dragged by a boat to which it had been attached. Some of the survivors told the IOM that traffickers are urging them to make the journey as soon as possible, since the Libyan coastguards are undergoing an EU-sponsored rescue training programme that would make it harder for migrants to reach Europe.   According to Di Giacomo, avoiding all deaths at sea through means of rescue operations is impossible. He advocated for long-term policies offering migrants information about the dangers of the journey ahead as well as the provision of safe passages for people who seek to come to Europe, as this would effectively help combat the criminal organisations responsible for smuggling and human trafficking.   The IOM is also busy trying to fight a ""toxic narrative"" on migration, which casts a negative light on a phenomenon that was otherwise ""historically overwhelmingly positive"", as the organisation's director general William Lacy Swing said in a video message published on Wednesday.   Europe's demographic gap would require the arrival of migrants, meaning that society will become more ethnically diverse. ""If we are preparing our people for that, it will go well"" Swing said."
345,"Thirteen dead and more than 200 injured in 5.7 Tanzania earthquake —  Tremors felt as far away as Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya after quake strikes near north-western town of Bukoba on Saturday At least 13 people have been killed and 203 injured in north-west Tanzania in a 5.7 magnitude earthquake, local authorities said. “The toll has climbed from 11 people dead to 13 and from 192 injured to 203,” said Deodatus Kinawilo, district commissioner for Bukoba, the town close to the epicentre of the quake that struck on Saturday. “For now, the situation is calm and under control,” said Kinawilo, who was reached by telephone. “Some people have been discharged from hospital. We don’t expect many more injuries. We’ll see tomorrow.” Residents of Bukoba had said that some houses had caved in, and Augustine Ollomi, the Kagera province police chief in charge of the Bukoba district, said rescue operations were ongoing. The epicentre of the quake was about 15 miles (25km) east of the north-western town of Nsunga on the border of Lake Victoria, according to the US Geological Survey. Earthquakes are fairly common in the Great Lakes region but are almost always of low intensity. An AFP correspondent in Dar es Salaam whose mother’s family lives in Bukoba said 10 family houses had collapsed. “My brother was driving around town, suddenly he heard the ground shaking and people starting running around and buildings were collapsing,” he said. The quake rattled the entire province of Kagera. Parts of Mwanza region further south also felt the quake but there was no impact, he said. No damage had been reported in the economic capital, Dar es Salaam, which is located about 1,400km south-east of Bukoba. “It’s safe in Dar but we are still worried about the safety of our family,” the AFP correspondent added. “The regional hospital is overwhelmed and can’t handle any more patients.Emergency operations are poor and the government isn’t saying anything,” he said. The earthquake was felt as far away as Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, the US Geological Survey said. “The walls of my home shook as well as the fridge and the cupboards,” said an AFP correspondent in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. AFP journalists in Democratic Republic of Congo said slight tremors were felt in Bukavu in the east but not in nearby Goma or Lubumbashi."
346,"This Instagram Photo Has People Worried That Khloe Kardashian Might Be Robbed Next —  To bling or not to bling? Since Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in Paris earlier this month, one of the troubling conversations we’ve heard is that she was somehow asking for it by sharing photos of expensive jewelry. Now, the internet is applying the same victim-blaming logic to an Instagram photo posted by sister Khloe Kardashian. The reality star shared an image of her hand alongside that of her rumored new beau, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Tristan Thompson, who received his new 6.5-karat NBA championship ring on Tuesday night. Captioned with a simple heart emoji, the pair unabashedly show off their respective bling in the photo, sending Kardashian’s followers into a commenting frenzy. “Who tf posts a diamond when her sister’s diamond was just robbed at gunpoint,” one follower wrote.  “Didn’t Kim get robbed the last time yall posted up bougie?” another chimed in, while others chastised Khloe for not learning her lesson.  “Girl you gonna get robbed too!” someone else warned.   Days before men disguised as police officers broke into Kim’s apartment and tied her up in a bathroom, she posted a photo of the multimillion-dollar engagement ring that her attackers would later steal along with her cell phone and other personal items. Kim is reportedly reconsidering her public displays of her family’s wealth after the incident, and she has largely stayed out of the public eye. But while her once-active social media accounts have been left to collect internet dust, her sisters continue to post away. It’s unclear how or when Kim will return ― she could be losing up to $1 million per month for her social media dormancy ― but oh, how we miss her. We’ll just sit here waiting patiently until she breaks the internet again."
347,"This Is What It’s Like on the Front Lines of Nigeria’s Unseen Hunger Crisis —  Millions of Nigerians survived Boko Haram, but now a humanitarian catastrophe is putting their lives at risk again. ABUJA, Nigeria ― After her father died two years ago during a Boko Haram raid on her village in Yobe, Nigeria, 16-year-old Zulyatu, her younger siblings and their mother fled to Biu, a town in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state. A year ago their mother left for another town to get treatment for high blood pressure from a traditional healer, leaving Zulyatu alone to care for her siblings, 12-year-old Abubakar and 8-year-old Amira. Zulyatu said hunger affects every part of their lives. They only eat once or twice a day, and they often feel dizzy from hunger. In their home village, before Boko Haram came, their father was a butcher, so the family always had enough meat to eat. The hunger makes her long for her father, and Zulyatu said that if he were still alive they wouldn’t be having this experience. The focus on their struggle for food also leaves the siblings with little time or access for education. Before they came to Biu, Zulyatu was interested in studying to become a doctor, but they have been unable to attend school since the move. Sadly, experiences of hunger and desperation, like those of Zulyatu and her siblings, are the rule rather than the exception in conflict-weary Nigeria and in the greater Lake Chad Basin area. The hunger has become so strong, that one woman recently told us that she had become so desperate to feed her children that she took to boiling grass. The militant group Boko Haram emerged in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, in 2002, but much of the world first became familiar with the terrorist group when it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in 2014. Years of violence and destruction, combined with widespread and underestimated drought conditions, have created an ongoing crisis here. But as the Nigerian army retakes territory held by Boko Haram, another problem has emerged in the country ― a horrific and massive humanitarian crisis is revealing itself. More than 4 million people are food insecure, not knowing from where their next meal will come. In August, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that in Borno state, where Zulyatu lives, nearly a quarter of a million children are severely malnourished, and one in five will die if they aren’t treated. Mercy Corps, the global organization I work for, is one of the organizations mounting a response to this urgent and largely overlooked humanitarian situation. Our team has accessed remote villages and towns in south Borno state, where regular army checkpoints serve as a reminder of the serious threat Boko Haram still poses. But despite efforts from aid organizations like ours, there are still 2.2 million people living in unreachable areas in northeast Nigeria, with no contact to the outside world ― and no guarantee of safe passage for aid workers. We don’t yet know the full extent of the crisis ― the Nigerian military and humanitarian organizations like Mercy Corps are still trying to push into these parts of the country ― but based on what we’ve seen so far, we fear the worst.  “The carnage becomes more glaring as we gain access to newer areas, and it has become a struggle for those of us in the forefront to comprehend how to help the thousands we come across who need our support,” said Michael Mu’azu, our humanitarian projects manager. “What keeps me going is the fact that I can contribute to making a difference, and because I work with an amazing team of men and women who have dedicated their lives to providing lifesaving assistance, I wake up every day and go to work knowing more people will get to smile.” For now though, many of the people we come across are not smiling. “When I see the people in these communities, I see hunger and suffering in their faces,” Umar Shuaibu, our operations officer, said. In our internal assessments this past July, we found that in the area of Damboa more than 80 percent of shelters were destroyed or partially destroyed, with no roof or doors. Of the people we interviewed, 97 percent reported that they could not afford to buy food in the previous four weeks. Because of continued insecurity, many farmers cannot reach the land where they cultivate food to eat and sell. People in these communities survive by selling foraged firewood and begging or laboring for less than the equivalent of $1 per day. Others have resorted to transactional sex.  The Nigerian military must clear and secure new areas before aid can get in, to make sure humanitarian workers have safe passage and aid does not end up in the wrong hands. And we have also not seen the amount of funding needed to mount a response of this size. Right now, less than one-third of current United Nations appeals for the crisis has been funded, a shortfall of $542 million. As a sovereign nation, Nigeria has a duty to provide for its people. It is ultimately responsible for leading the response to this emergency, establishing strong coordination and allowing for safe and organized access to deliver assistance to people in need. But it is also the humanitarian imperative of the international community to help people in crisis. At Mercy Corps, we are working quickly to meet urgent needs. In south Borno state we have been providing financial assistance, such as cash and vouchers that can be exchanged for food in local markets, as well as grants to jump-start businesses. We are repairing water points and latrines to ensure access to clean water and prevent the spread of waterborne illness. We also provide protection for vulnerable civilians, particularly women and children, and mobilize and train community members to recognize and respond to gender-based violence. We know that the needs are massive, and are going unmet, and we are working as quickly as possible to scale up our operations. Already in the past several months we have shifted to new locations and tripled our financial and staffing resources to reach upwards of 100,000 people. But it is a herculean task for any single organization to tackle on its own, and a risky one because insurgents could attack us unexpectantly. All organizations responding to this crisis in Nigeria face stretched capacity and daunting logistics. But we aren’t giving up. Already we see the benefit of one small act. With the e-voucher she received during Mercy Corps’ first distribution, Zulyatu bought a month’s worth of rice and cooking oil in the local market. When asked what she hopes for the future, Zulyatu said, “I just want to see everyone happy. Everyone would have enough to eat and abundance.” We can make that hope possible, if we act urgently."
348,"Thoughts for the Horrified —  So what do we do now? By “we” I mean all those left, center and even right who saw Donald Trump as the worst man ever to run for president and assumed that a strong majority of our fellow citizens would agree.   I’m not talking about rethinking political strategy. There will be a time for that — God knows it’s clear that almost everyone on the center-left, myself included, was clueless about what actually works in persuading voters. For now, however, I’m talking about personal attitude and behavior in the face of this terrible shock.   First of all, remember that elections determine who gets the power, not who offers the truth. The Trump campaign was unprecedented in its dishonesty; the fact that the lies didn’t exact a political price, that they even resonated with a large bloc of voters, doesn’t make them any less false. No, our inner cities aren’t war zones with record crime. No, we aren’t the highest-taxed nation in the world. No, climate change isn’t a hoax promoted by the Chinese.   So if you’re tempted to concede that the alt-right’s vision of the world might have some truth to it, don’t. Lies are lies, no matter how much power backs them up.   And once we’re talking about intellectual honesty, everyone needs to face up to the unpleasant reality that a Trump administration will do immense damage to America and the world. Of course I could be wrong; maybe the man in office will be completely different from the man we’ve seen so far. But it’s unlikely.   Unfortunately, we’re not just talking about four bad years. Tuesday’s fallout will last for decades, maybe generations.   I particularly worry about climate change. We were at a crucial point, having just reached a global agreement on emissions and having a clear policy path toward moving America to a much greater reliance on renewable energy. Now it will probably fall apart, and the damage may well be irreversible.   The political damage will extend far into the future, too. The odds are that some terrible people will become Supreme Court justices. States will feel empowered to engage in even more voter suppression than they did this year. At worst, we could see a slightly covert form of Jim Crow become the norm all across America.   And you have to wonder about civil liberties, too. The White House will soon be occupied by a man with obvious authoritarian instincts, and Congress controlled by a party that has shown no inclination to stand up against him. How bad will it get? Nobody knows.   What about the short term? My own first instinct was to say that Trumponomics would quickly provoke an immediate economic crisis, but after a few hours’ reflection I decided that this was probably wrong. I’ll write more about this in the coming weeks, but a best guess is that there will be no immediate comeuppance.   Trumpist policies won’t help the people who voted for Donald Trump — in fact, his supporters will end up much worse off. But this story will probably unfold gradually. Political opponents of the new regime certainly shouldn’t count on any near-term moment of obvious vindication.   So where does this leave us? What, as concerned and horrified citizens, should we do?   One natural response would be quietism, turning one’s back on politics. It’s definitely tempting to conclude that the world is going to hell, but that there’s nothing you can do about it, so why not just make your own garden grow? I myself spent a large part of the Day After avoiding the news, doing personal things, basically taking a vacation in my own head.   But that is, in the end, no way for citizens of a democracy — which we still are, one hopes — to live. I’m not saying that we should all volunteer to die on the barricades; I don’t think it’s going to come to that, although I wish I was sure. But I don’t see how you can hang on to your own self-respect unless you’re willing to stand up for the truth and fundamental American values.   Will that stand eventually succeed? No guarantees. Americans, no matter how secular, tend to think of themselves as citizens of a nation with a special divine providence, one that may take wrong turns but always finds its way back, one in which justice always prevails in the end.   Yet it doesn’t have to be true. Maybe the historic channels of reform — speech and writing that changes minds, political activism that eventually changes who has power — are no longer effective. Maybe America isn’t special, it’s just another republic that had its day, but is in the process of devolving into a corrupt nation ruled by strongmen.   But I’m not ready to accept that this is inevitable — because accepting it as inevitable would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The road back to what America should be is going to be longer and harder than any of us expected, and we might not make it. But we have to try."
349,"Three adults found dead in California home after child calls 911 —  First responders discover two men and a woman dead, while two children found unharmed   Three adults were found dead inside a southern California home after a child called 911 to report her parents had “died”, authorities said Saturday. The child placed the call about 8.20am and officers were dispatched to a home in Fullerton, 26 miles south-east of Los Angeles. Inside, first responders discovered two men and a woman dead. Two children were found unharmed, police said. “Anytime someone loses their life it’s a tragedy,” police Sgt Jon Radus said. “It’s even more of a tragedy when children are involved.” Radus declined to release the children’s ages or their relationship to the three adults found inside the home, citing the ongoing investigation. He said there were obvious signs of trauma to the bodies but would not release any details on how the adults might have died. Authorities were still working to determine their cause of death. Investigators were classifying the deaths as a multiple homicide. In a statement, the Fullerton Police Department said the agency has “committed all its resources to identify who is responsible for this act.” Radus said authorities were working to obtain a search warrant to continue their investigation at the home. He said investigators were still trying to determine whether an outside suspect was responsible for the deaths. “We don’t believe the community is currently in danger at this particular time,” he said. Neighbors said a couple with two children lived in the home and the parents were often seen sitting outside. The home sits on a block of single family residences in a largely middle class community."
350,"Top modelling agent says male models 'suffer big pay gap' compared to women —  Male models are being paid up to 75% less than women, according to a top modelling agent. Elizabeth Rose manages male models at Premier, which has helped build the careers of Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. ""I think it's the only industry where men get paid less than women. It's unfair for men [and] I wouldn't say it's female empowerment at all."" She says a woman could be paid up to £40,000 for walking in a top show. A male model would only get £10,000 on average. With London Fashion Week over, Elizabeth's models are getting ready for Milan and Paris. She says the situation is slowly changing because advertisers are increasingly looking for male, as well as female, models. ""[One] reason why women get paid more is that [advertisers] say women spend more money on female products, but I think it's one of those things that's changing. ""More and more, male models are being used for grooming products. ""Men are taking a lot more care of themselves generally in the 2000s. It's fine to take a long time doing your hair. It's fine to use moisturiser. It's encouraged to wear make-up."" The world's highest paid female model, Gisele Bundchen, made $44m (around £34m) last year, according to Forbes. When the company last compiled data on male models in 2013, it found the highest paid was Sean O'Pry, who made $1.5m (£1.15m). ""The top 10 female models all make millions. Only the top three male models make over a million,"" says Elizabeth. She says she'll re-negotiate a model's fee if she feels they are being discriminated against. ""The first thing is I'll go, 'Can you bring up the budget to more like the women's?' and the client will probably say, 'Yes, we can give you this much for the men,' but it'll never be quite as much. ""I had a brief today that came in and it was 'male model, [pay] £1,500', and the female model was £5,000, for the same usage."" But she acknowledges that women are discriminated against more because of their age. ""Men have a longer career path, definitely. The male models that make the most are probably in their 30s."" She says her models never complain, but she has asked clients to split the rate - taking some out of the budget for women. ""The more models are made aware of it, the more you can try and help change it, because the more agents that say, 'No, we're not accepting this,' that's the only way it'll ever change. ""And models standing up and saying, 'I'm not going to do this unless I'm paid the same as the woman.'"""
351,"Topless selfie student crashes into Texas police car —  A US college student has crashed into a police car while taking a topless selfie behind the wheel, say officials. Miranda Rader, 19, rear-ended the patrol vehicle while sending nude photos to her boyfriend through the social media app Snapchat, police say. The accident on Wednesday in Bryan, about 100 miles (160km) north of Houston, caused the airbag to deploy. The Texas A&M University student also had an open bottle of wine in a cup holder by her, according to police. No one was injured in the incident. ________________   Some other stories you may have missed: * Trapped by the Skype sex scammers * The serious boy who became a meme ________________   The officer whose car had been hit approached Ms Rader to find she had an ""unclasped brassiere"" and was trying to put on her blouse, police said. The freshman told the officer that she had been driving back to her residence on campus. The arresting officer wrote in an affidavit: ""I asked her why she was not dressed while driving and she stated she was taking a Snapchat photo to send to her boyfriend while she was at a red light."" She was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and released from jail on Thursday morning on a $2,000 (£1,600) bail bond, police said."
352,"Tourist who claimed she was raped in Dubai is charged with extramarital sex —  A British tourist allegedly raped by two men in Dubai faces jail after cops accused her of sex outside marriage. The woman, 25, claims she was attacked by two U.K. men last month. But when she reported it, she was locked up and charged with “extramarital sex”. She is on bail but is not allowed to leave and needs $30,000 for legal fees. The men are understood to have flown back to Birmingham but the woman, who cannot be identified, fears a long jail term for breaching the United Arab Emirates’ Sharia laws on sex. A family friend told The Sun: “They have taken her passport as lawyers thrash it out. She is staying with an English family but she is absolutely terrified. “She went to the police as the victim as one of the worst ordeals imaginable but she is being treated as the criminal.” She was on a five-day sunshine break with a relative and was then due to head off on a round-the-world trip, having ditched her IT consultancy career for the dream adventure. But it turned into a nightmare when two Brits she joined for a drink at the hotel they were all staying in allegedly lured her to a room. Her family claim the pair took it in turns to rape her while filming it. The men are thought to have flown home five hours later. Couples in the Emirates are banned from sex outside marriage, while a single person is forbidden from having sex with someone who is wed. The victim is thought to be married but it is unclear if she and her husband are separated."
353,"Tragedy as father and son die after falling off a cliff during hike on a California trail —  A father and son have died after falling off a cliff during a hike. The two plunged to their death while on a trail next to Shaver Lake in Fresno, California. Though deputies attempted to get to the hikers, there was a helicopter power failure during a refueling and they made an emergency landing, meaning they couldn't get to the pair, ABC 30 reported.  The report said a search-and-rescue crew is going out Sunday morning for the two victims' bodies.   The names of the father and son have not been publicly revealed."
354,"Tragedy: Man dies after hacking wife to death —  The Enugu State Police Command on Friday commenced investigations to unravel why one Francis Uzo, 41, had to kill himself after hacking his wife to death in Emene, near Enugu. The command’s spokesman, Ebere Amaraizu, said in a statement in Enugu that the investigations were being handled by the homicide section of the Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department (CIID) of the command. “The couple was reported to have been living happily until Wednesday when Francis was alleged to have murdered his 40-year-old wife, Mrs. Ozoemena Uzo. “Francis was also alleged to have killed himself after the incident,’’ Mr. Amaraizu said in the statement. “It was gathered that on that day at noon, Mr. Uzo had allegedly pounced on his wife over a yet-to-be-established issue and inflicted several degrees of injuries on her. “The injuries allegedly brought about serious bleeding all over her body. “She was later rushed to a hospital where she was confirmed dead by the doctor on duty. “However, the husband of the deceased and alleged murderer was already in coma and could not talk before the arrival of police operatives. “He was promptly rushed to Annunciation Hospital, Emene, for medical attention where he was later confirmed dead,’’ he said. Mr. Amaraizu said that the bodies of couple had been deposited at the Annunciation Hospital’s mortuary, Emene."
355,"Trick Or Treat Tragedy —  The Latest on a Halloween night crash that killed people on a Mississippi highway (all times local):   12:05 a.m.   A coroner says one adult and two children have been killed when the trailer they were riding on was struck on a highway in a small town in eastern Mississippi on Halloween night.   Newton County Coroner Danny Shoemaker says the three were all related to each other. Their names, ages and details about how they were related were not immediately being released late Monday. Shoemaker says two died at the scene of the wreck and one died while waiting for a hospital helicopter.   Mississippi Highway Patrol Capt. Johnny Poulos (POH-less) tells The Associated Press the accident happened on U.S. Highway 80 in Chunky, about 80 miles east of Jackson. He says it appears a vehicle struck a flat-bed trailer carrying people celebrating Halloween about 7:45 p.m. CDT.   Investigators were on the scene late Monday. 11:28 p.m.   A law enforcement officer says three people have been killed and several injured when a trailer pulling people for Halloween festivities was struck in eastern Mississippi.   Mississippi Highway Patrol Capt. Johnny Poulos (POH-less) tells The Associated Press the accident happened on U.S. Highway 80 in the small town of Chunky, about 80 miles east of Jackson. He says it appears a vehicle struck a flat-bed trailer carrying people about 7:45 p.m.   He says the three people killed were on the trailer. Three helicopters and several ambulances took injured people to three hospitals. Poulos says some had life-threatening injuries.   Investigators were on the scene late Monday. Names of those killed and details about the number of people injured were not immediately available."
356,"Trump protesters damage businesses in Oakland —  Police arrested at least 11 people during anti-Donald Trump protests that spilled into the streets of downtown Oakland for a third straight night.   Police say protesters lit fires on streets and in trash cans, smashed windows and sprayed graffiti on at least seven businesses Thursday night.         The San Francisco Chronicle reports that officers in riot gear stood across sections of a street, trying to limit the crowd’s access to the city’s central business district.   By 11 p.m., most protesters had returned to the plaza in front of City Hall, where they chanted against Trump’s election and police. They numbered a few hundred, down from about 1,000 who attended an initial rally earlier in the day."
357,"Trump to supporters harassing minorities: 'Stop it' —  Donald Trump on Sunday told his supporters to stop harassing minorities, in his first televised sit-down interview since becoming President-elect.   ""I am so saddened to hear that,"" Trump told CBS' Lesley Stahl on ""60 Minutes"" when she said Latinos and Muslims are facing harassment. ""And I say, 'Stop it.' If it -- if it helps, I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: 'Stop it.'"" Trump directed his comments to his own supporters whom Stahl said have written racist slogans or chanted degrading messages -- particularly in schools. It was a powerful appeal to a nation ripped apart by the divisive 2016 campaign. Trump's election has left Democrats angry and many minorities fearful about the future. Yet Trump also criticized the protests that have broken out in cities across the United States since his defeat of Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. Trump said he's seen ""a very small amount"" -- including ""one or two instances"" -- of racial slurs being directed at minorities, particularly in largely white schools, since his election. ""I would say don't do it, that's terrible, because I'm going to bring this country together,"" Trump said. Richard Cohen, President of the Southern Poverty Law Canter told CNN's ""New Day"" on Monday that there have been more that 300 incidents that their organization has recorded. ""He needs to take a little bit more responsibility for what's happening,"" Cohen said. As for anti-Trump protests, Trump said, ""I think it's horrible if that's happening. I think it's built up by the press because, frankly, they'll take every single little incident that they can find in this country, which could've been there before. If I weren't even around doing this, and they'll make into an event because that's the way the press is."" In the wide-ranging interview Trump also said he's still deciding whether to ask FBI Director James Comey for his resignation. Trump demurred when asked about his plans for Comey -- whose decision to end the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server was widely panned by Republicans.   ""I think that I would rather not comment on that yet,"" Trump said. ""I haven't made up my mind. I respect him a lot. I respect the FBI a lot. ... There's been a lot of leaking, there's no question about that. But I would certainly like to talk to him."" Clinton to donors: FBI letters were double whammy to campaign He admitted he isn't sure about Comey's future. ""I'd want to see, you know, he may have had very good reasons for doing what he did,"" Trump said. Comey has more than six years to go in his ten-year term. Trump also balked when asked whether he'd carry out his campaign pledge to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton. He said Clinton ""did some bad things"" and that he's ""going to think about it"" -- but that he is more eager to focus on health care, immigration and other policy matters.   ""I don't want to hurt them,"" Trump said of the Clintons, noting he'd spoken to both Hillary and Bill Clinton since his victory. ""They're good people. I don't want to hurt them. And I will give you a very, very good and definitive answer the next time we do '60 Minutes' together,'"" he said. Hillary Clinton has cited Comey's late-campaign season disclosures as a reason for her loss. The former secretary of state told donors in a conference call Saturday that Comey delivered a double whammy to her candidacy in the final days of the campaign by taking another look at emails related to Clinton's private server before abruptly saying he found no wrongdoing. In the interview, Trump also discussed lobbyists' role in his transition, his distaste for the Electoral College and the future of the Trump business brand. And he waded into how abortion and gun rights would be affected by his Supreme Court nominations. Same-sex marriage and abortion Trump said he's ""fine"" with same-sex marriage remaining legal across the country, and wouldn't appoint Supreme Court judges with the goal of reversing that ruling. ""It's irrelevant because it was already settled. It's law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it's done,"" Trump said. He added: ""These cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They've been settled. And I'm -- I'm fine with that."" Trump also pledged to appoint judges who oppose abortion rights and oppose restrictions on Second Amendment gun rights. If Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, were overturned, Trump said, decisions on whether to legalize or ban abortion would return to states. Women seeking abortions whose state has banned them will ""perhaps have to go -- they'll have to go to another state,"" Trump said. ""We'll see what happens. It's got a long way to go, just so you understand. That has a long, long way to go,"" he said. Deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes Trump did not repeat his campaign promise to deport all undocumented immigrants, pledging to focus first on deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States. ""What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers,"" he said. ""We have a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate."" He said he still plans to build a US-Mexico border wall. ""After the border is secured and after everything gets normalized, we're going to make a determination on the people that you're talking about who are terrific people,"" he said. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Sunday that despite Trump's campaign rhetoric, lawmakers were not about to form a deportation force to round-up and deport undocumented immigrants. The focus was on securing the border instead, he told CNN. Trump's rallying cry on the campaign trail was that he'd ""drain the swamp"" in Washington. But so far, Trump's transition team is filled with the usual suspects -- lobbyists and longtime Washington hands. Trump didn't chafe at that characterization of his transition team. ""Everybody's a lobbyist down there,"" he said, referring to Washington. ""That's the problem with the system -- the system. Right now, we're going to clean it up. We're having restrictions on foreign money coming in, we're going to put on term limits, which a lot of people aren't happy about, but we're putting on term limits. We're doing a lot of things to clean up the system. But everybody that works for government, they then leave government and they become a lobbyist, essentially. I mean, the whole place is one big lobbyist,"" Trump said. He said relying on those lobbyists now while planning to eliminate them later is no contradiction. ""I'm saying that they know the system right now, but we're going to phase that out. You have to phase it out,"" Trump said. Trump stuck by his often-mocked claim that he knows more than American generals about fighting ISIS -- despite having no experience in government, the military or elected office before winning Tuesday's presidential contest. Asked if he still feels he knows more, Trump said: ""I'll be honest with you, I probably do because look at the job they've done. OK, look at the job they've done. They haven't done the job. ""Now, maybe it's leadership, maybe it's something else. Who knows? All I can tell you is we're going to get rid of ISIS."" Trump won more electoral votes than Clinton -- but he didn't win the popular vote. Still, he says, he favors ditching the Electoral College and handing the presidency to the winner of the popular vote. ""I'm not going to change my mind just because I won. But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. you know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win. There's a reason for doing this because it brings all the states into play,"" Trump said. On the Trump brand Trump and his children both said they're not sweating any negative impact on their family's businesses resulting from a long and contentious campaign -- or from backlash to the President-elect. ""I don't think it matters. This is so much more important, and more serious,"" Ivanka Trump said. Her father added, ""I think what Ivanka's trying to say, 'Who cares? Who cares?' This is big league stuff. ... We're going to save our country. I don't care about hotel occupancy. It's peanuts compared to what we're doing."" Trump isn't putting his family's business in a blind trust -- leaving it to his children instead -- but does plan to turn down the salary typically paid to presidents. ""I've never commented on this, but the answer is no. I think I have to by law take $1, so I'll take $1 a year. But it's a -- I don't even know what it is,"" Trump said, before turning to Stahl and asking, ""Do you know what the salary is?"" When Stahl told Trump it is $400,000 per year, he said, ""No, I'm not going to take the salary. I'm not taking it."" Trump also signaled he has no real plans to change his tone -- even though it's seen by many as evidence of a man too combustible for the presidency. ""Well, sometimes you need a certain rhetoric to get people motivated,"" Trump said. ""I don't want to be just a little nice monotone character, and in many cases I will be."""
358,"Trump's 'Voter Suppression Operation' Targets Black Voters —  It would be unfair to call Donald Trump’s interaction with black voters a love-hate relationship, since there’s little evidence of African American enthusiasm for Trump. But the Republican campaign has pursued a Janus-like strategy on black voters—ostensibly courting them in public while privately seeking to depress turnout.   This tension is on display in the last 24 hours. On Wednesday, Trump delivered a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, advertised as an “urban renewal agenda for America’s inner cities.” Trump told the audience, “It is my highest and greatest hope that the Republican Party can be the home in the future and forevermore for African Americans and the African American vote because I will produce, and I will get others to produce, and we know for a fact it doesn’t work with the Democrats and it certainly doesn’t work with Hillary.”   Yet on Thursday, BusinessWeek published a big cover story, based on exclusive access to the campaign, that revealed that Trump’s team has decided that winning over black voters is a lost cause:   Instead of expanding the electorate, [campaign chairman Steve] Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. “We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans. The reporters, Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg, offer some more detail on what that looks like:   On Oct. 24, Trump’s team began placing spots on select African American radio stations. In San Antonio, a young staffer showed off a South Park-style animation he’d created of Clinton delivering the “super predator” line (using audio from her original 1996 sound bite), as cartoon text popped up around her: “Hillary Thinks African Americans are Super Predators.” The animation will be delivered to certain African American voters through Facebook “dark posts”—nonpublic posts whose viewership the campaign controls so that, as [campaign digital guru Brad] Parscale puts it, “only the people we want to see it, see it.” The aim is to depress Clinton’s vote total. “We know because we’ve modeled this,” says the official. “It will dramatically affect her ability to turn these people out.” This wasn’t entirely unknown—Monica Langley reported two weeks ago that Trump was aiming for depressed turnout. What’s incredible is that Trump’s advisers called it “voter suppression.” When you’re talking about “suppressing” black votes, it’s a good sign you’re not competing for them, and this is messaging malpractice, since it makes the work seem nefarious. That’s all the more true because Republicans around the country have spent the last decade instituting laws that make it more challenging to vote—measures that they say are necessary to prevent election fraud, but critics say actually amount to voter suppression. In fact, trying to depress turnout is not that unusual. There’s lots of evidence that negative advertising is designed to depress turnout among certain, targeted groups. Certainly, the Clinton campaign has used negative ads—they’ve fired off a broadside of spots using Trump’s own words. If these ads convince Trump supporters to vote for Clinton, that’s great for her, but if they convince voters who might otherwise vote for the Republican that he’s just too toxic or mean or extreme, that’s just fine for her, too. It’s still one less vote for Trump. Obama tried a similar tactic in assailing Mitt Romney four years ago, as Ross Douthat points out. This is, at least, the theory. Whether it works is a different question. The answer is probably no. A 2007 meta-analysis concluded that there is not “any reliable evidence that negative campaigning depresses voter turnout, though it does slightly lower feelings of political efficacy, trust in government, and possibly overall public mood.” (In a charming proof that your mother was right that you shouldn’t say anything unless you have something nice to say, another study found that while negative advertising was mostly useless, positive advertising was effective in running up margins where support was already strong.)   Even if Trump’s advisers are acting on a questionable theory, that theory does help explain some of Trump’s strange approach to African Americans. It confirms the suspicion of many observers, myself included, that Trump is more going through the motions of courting black voters more than actually trying to woo them. Many of his events aimed at African Americans have actually been in heavily white jurisdictions, in front of heavily white crowds His appearance in Charlotte Wednesday was no different. Although the city has become a symbol of racial tension since the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by police in September, the audience at Trump’s invitation-only event was mostly white, The Charlotte Observer noted. His speech was full of many of the same hamfisted overtures that have been met with everything from eyerolls to outrage by actual black Americans, from the implication that most blacks are living in squalid, violent “inner cities” to his deployment of false or misleading statistics to butress that vision of squalor. He has also used outdated and distancing language to discuss African Americans and other minorities.   The result of this halfhearted—or rather, insincere—outreach has been that Trump’s polling among African Americans is bad. He once boasted he could win 25 percent of the black vote, far outpacing the recent Republican high-water mark (Gerald Ford’s 17 percent in 1976). But with the election near, Fox News finds him trailing Clinton by 77 points. CBS found Trump at just 4 percent, with Clinton at 85 percent. That puts her a good bit behind Barack Obama’s 2012 pace of 93 percent, but Trump is also still behind Mitt Romney’s 6 percent, according to exit polls. (In one farcical turn, a major tracking poll turned out to be wildly distorted by a single 19-year-old black Trump voter, whose standing was heavily weighted.) The Trump theory, as laid out in the BusinessWeek article, holds that this doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t need black votes! (His advisors admit in the piece that their polling finds them trailing, and they say their path to victory is real but narrow.) Of course, his aides might be wrong. In addition to the political-science literature casting doubts on turnout depression, Clinton has spent months trying to mobilize African Americans, especially in places like North Carolina or Ohio, where black turnout is likely the difference between a Democratic victory or a Republican win. If black voters vote in droves in Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, it might block Trump’s path to the White House altogether, and Trump’s decision to not even contest the bloc would look like a mistake.   Meanwhile, the BusinessWeek story made Republicans who aren’t affiliated with Trump practically apoplectic. That’s because even if Trump doesn’t think he needs black voters, future Republican candidates will. Trump has made clear that he owes no particular allegiance to the Republican Party and has little interest in its fortunes without him, which allows him to be blithe about writing off the demographic. Other analysts, including Republicans, have been warning for years that the GOP cannot survive as a rump party of whites (and, increasingly, white men). But voter relationships have to be built over time; a bloc written off or alienated can take a generation or more to win back. By not just passing on the chance to reach out to African Americans but actually bragging about their efforts to keep them from the polls, the Trump campaign isn’t just wasting an opportunity for outreach to blacks, but may in fact be setting back Republican efforts for years to come."
359,"Trump’s Potential SCOTUS Pick Has Said Crazy Awful Things About Queer People —  One of President-elect Donald Trump’s possible choices to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court of the United States is a judge whose career is marked with anti-LGBT acts.    William H. Pryor, Jr., is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. His name has been mentioned as one of multiple potential nominees for the SCOTUS seat. Pryor’s anti-LGBT agenda certainly makes him stand out.    In 2003, he argued to uphold Texas’ law criminalizing consensual LGBT sex, RawStory noted. Thus, making it illegal for LGBT individuals to have sex in the privacy of their own homes.    “This Court has never recognized a fundamental right to engage in sexual activity outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage, let alone to engage in homosexual sodomy,” Pryor wrote in his brief. “Such a right would be antithetical to the ‘traditional relation of the family’ that is ‘as old and as fundamental as our entire civilization.’” He added that citizens have “no fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy just because it is done behind closed doors. ‘Plainly enough, otherwise illegal conduct is not always immunized whenever it occurs in the home’… Because homosexual sodomy has not historically been recognized in this country as a right — to the contrary, it has historically been recognized as a wrong — it is not a fundamental right.”   He contended that Texas was not the only state in the nation with these views.    Texas is hardly alone in concluding that homosexual sodomy may have severe physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual consequences, which do not necessarily attend heterosexual sodomy, and from which Texas’s citizens need to be protected. Texas’s conclusion, which is shared by other States, is certainly open to debate, but a statute does not become irrational for purposes of equal protection review just because some may hotly disagree with it. Back in 2005, LGBT civil rights group Lambda Legal called Pryor the “most demonstrably antigay judicial nominee in recent memory” and People for the American Way said he has “used the power of his office in an effort to push the law in an extreme far right direction harmful to the rights and interests of ordinary Americans.”    Pryor has also called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history,” according to The New York Times."
360,"Trump’s dark “gift” makes victims of us all —  Since last week’s election, through Facebook, op-eds, emails, and tweets, those who fear the new administration have been producing billions of words. They’ve analyzed their feelings and tried, in nuanced essays, to understand what happened and how to respond to it. They’ve sent out millions of messages of dread, depression, love and support.   But for generations, the pain and anger of millions of other Americans had no real outlet. And even if they vented in calls to C-SPAN, or listened to angry commentary on talk radio or Fox, in the main, it was easy to dismiss them. They were not stupid, but they had been poorly educated. They lacked the words to tell those of us who were more prosperous and better educated what they were feeling or what they had undergone as the tectonic shifts in the economy rocked their world.   Documentarian Michael Moore gave us glimpses into their experience, but we weren’t really paying attention. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren tried to turn the Democratic Party around, calling attention to an unjust and unforgiving economy.   Not only did Donald Trump take notice, he was able to give voice to their fears, to make the rest of America listen. And he did not try to filter or positively channel those raw emotions. He was their drinking buddy, buying round after round.   We also can’t forget that white workers at least had temporary claim on the American dream of a good job and a nice house in the suburbs. For many years, discrimination by companies, unions, and even the federal Housing Administration denied that dream to millions of black families.   And there is no doubt Trump appealed to our darker natures - racial prejudice, and misogyny - and erased the shame of giving hatred full-throated permission to thrive. Yes, some of Trump’s supporters are racists and misogynists, period. And some of them are prosperous white-collar professionals who, like Trump himself, have sacrificed nothing, and voted the untrammeled greed ticket.   But I refuse to believe that greed, racism and misogyny would have carried the day this election, were it not for our larger lack of understanding.   When Trump made preposterous claims, the media and policy elites called them out as lies. But to his blue-collar supporters those assertions were parables, images of the world they had lived through and the massive changes that had torn apart their lives. He gave them easy explanations and scapegoats. He promised to restore their world, to “make America great again.”   Trump painted vivid word pictures of “the Other” who jeopardized their precarious livelihoods - Mexican rapists, immigrant terrorists. He spoke of “law and order” as a code word for restoring all the changes they found threatening, including advances in gender and racial equality.   This anger and despair has been building for decades. We in the prosperous information economy just weren’t paying attention.   In 1986, funded by a grant from the Institute for Alternative Journalism, I wrote a special supplement for City Newspaper, the alternative weekly in Rochester, New York. I profiled eight Western New York workers who had lost their jobs. They were among the more than five million U.S. workers whose jobs disappeared between 1979 and 1983.   I began this way. “Karen MacDonald continues to grieve. Joe Manning lives with regret. Robert Horsley has his anger. Their plight isn’t obvious in the unemployment statistics or the annual reports of corporations. Richard Carges’ sense of loss and Betty Rosso’s worry do not register even as a blip on an economist’s computer screen.”   The supplement was titled, “Forgotten Americans.” Over the decades that followed, as millions more workers lost their jobs through globalization and technology advances, they remained forgotten.   I had covered the loss of these jobs when I worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express in the early 1980s, becoming, for all intents and purposes, the layoff reporter. I had seen firsthand that when someone loses a job, it roils their world. Families lose their stability. People are forced to move away from communities where they have deep ties. Parents who liked the domestic tranquility of one breadwinner a now both scramble for work.   That feeling of loss and grieving doesn’t go away, even when they find new jobs. Joe Manning, an eighteen-year veteran of Bethlehem Steel, lost his job when the corporation closed its Lackawanna plant. Manning was one of the lucky ones. After five months out of work, he was hired as a Buffalo bus driver. It paid $150 a week less than his old job, and his wife began to work full time as a first-grade teacher at a parochial school.   But the worst part was the job itself. He hated it. “You never have a good day,” he told me. “Everybody cuts in front of the bus.” He spent his days with his foot on the brake, worried about the icy roads in winter, trying to navigate a “40-foot bus with 100 people on it.”   The words the media and policymakers use to refer to what happened to these workers are clinical. We say they are displaced, the collateral damage from a disruptive economy, the people who inevitably fall through the cracks in the name of greater productivity and greater profits.   Conditions have grown far worse since the 1980s. Workers often lose a series of jobs, and sometimes drop out of the labor force altogether.Their pensions have disappeared.Their homes may have been lost to foreclosure, or are under water.   The government essentially tells them that they need to soldier on, retrain, move, do anything they can to remain productive. Not measured is the impact on generations of this massive, unending, series of changes. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs practically gloat about the trauma, talking about their desire to “disrupt” and “break things.” But we didn’t break “things,” we broke lives.   Many business reporters lionized the executives who actually did the breaking, buying into the notion that corporations are above the law or the norms of human decency, obliged only to earn higher and higher profits for their shareholders. Accustomed to that rhetoric, is it any wonder that Trump’s supporters accepted his flagrant tax avoidance, his outsourcing to foreign manufacturers, and his stiffing of contractors?   Millions of us who call ourselves progressives have been largely spared these upheavals. Even when we lose jobs, and we do, much more frequently now, our skills are fungible. We can rebound. But miners in West Virginia, factory workers in the Rust Belt, experience things far differently.   So now, some of those miners and factory workers have turned to someone who built his own empire by exploiting people like them; someone who almost certainly will make their plight worse. All because Donald Trump’s great gift was to his ability to see the world through their eyes"
361,"Trump’s window is closing —  With two weeks to go, Donald Trump’s path to an election night win is almost entirely closed.   Hillary Clinton enters the final 15 days of the race safely ahead in states worth more than 270 electoral votes. Indeed, the suspense of this final stretch is less about whether Trump can turn it around than how many down-ballot Republicans he will drag down with him.     “Trump is done,” said Republican operative Jim Dornan, who advised the New York businessman in the preparatory stages of his campaign last year. “Barring something completely out of the blue, like Hillary being involved in a murder, I don’t see how he wins.”   Short of that, or some sort of Putin ex machina, there is little Trump can do to put himself back into contention after 5 ½ months of missteps and missed opportunities.   “The race is over,” said conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace, who backed Ted Cruz in the primary. “There is nothing Trump can do. He helped the Democrats convince people he’s crazy, and they’ll always choose corrupt over crazy.”   “Trump cucked himself,” Deace added, throwing an alt-right term of derision for soft conservatives back onto the Republican who has so enthused that white nationalist crowd. No presidential candidate since the advent of modern polling has overcome the sort of deficits Trump faces nationally — where he trails Clinton by an average of 5.9 points — and in swing states with two weeks to go in an election. In Utah, among the most reliably Republican states in any other cycle, Trump is locked in a tight race with independent Evan McMullin, a conservative Mormon. With debate season over and the clock running out for significant swings in public opinion to materialize, the baton now goes to the get-out-the-vote operations, where Clinton enjoys an overwhelming advantage.   On Sunday, with early voting numbers in Arizona showing encouraging signs for Clinton, The Associated Press moved the state, which has voted for a Democrat only once since 1948, into its “toss-up” column. The AP currently counts 272 electoral votes, enough to win the presidency, as solidly in Clinton’s column or leaning that way.   In Florida, Republicans’ narrow advantage in mail-in early voting has shrunk slightly from 2012, and in North Carolina, that advantage has shrunk dramatically from 2012, according to the latest analysis from NBC News. In Ohio, Trump has been unable to win the support of popular Republican Gov. John Kasich and his campaign has feuded with state party Chairman Matt Borges, portending a weak mobilization effort. In general, Trump has failed to invest seriously in a competitive ground game and instead relied on the Republican National Committee. The biggest risk the Clinton campaign now faces is prematurely resting on its laurels. But South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison said his conversations with party leaders across the country have assured him that they are not taking the outcome for granted.   “Everybody’s busting their butts right now,” said Harrison, a leading contender to succeed Donna Brazile at the helm of the Democratic National Committee. “Nobody’s thinking, ‘Oh, we’ve got this in the bag.’”   In this regard, Trump has proven to be the gift that keeps on giving to Democrats. The New York businessman’s base has led the field in enthusiasm since he entered the race in the summer of 2015, but his refusal to pledge to accept the voting results and his remark at Wednesday night’s debate that Clinton is a “nasty woman” have delivered Clinton’s supporters a burst of enthusiasm as they enter the home stretch.   “I see a lot more people saying, ‘I was going to vote for Hillary, but now I’m upset and now I’m going to go knock doors,’ so I think it’s really served to galvanize the get-out-the-vote operation for the last few weeks,” said Tyler Olson, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Iowa, the swing state Trump is most likely to win.   On the trail, Trump appears to have largely given up on persuading voters in favor of settling scores. On Friday in North Carolina, he swiped at first lady Michelle Obama, who has criticized him in harsh terms and is roughly twice as popular as he is.   He has also begun blaming the failures of his campaign on a globalist conspiracy of bankers and journalists in cahoots with the Clintons, claiming that the presidential election is “rigged” against him. Asked by moderator Chris Wallace at Wednesday’s debate whether he would accept the results, Trump said he would keep the country “in suspense.”   Such talk has leaders of both parties worried about the long-term damage he could to the public’s faith in the integrity of the election system if he fails to graciously accept the outcome. Harrison said Trump was playing a “very dangerous game” and pointed to the statements of Republican leaders like his South Carolina counterpart Matt Moore. “The vast majority of battleground states have Republicans overseeing their election systems,” Moore told POLITICO last week. “It’s safe to assume they’re not rigging the process either against Donald Trump or for anyone else.”   Meanwhile, Trump’s downward spiral has forced House Republicans to scramble to secure their once-safe majority and the difficult balancing act between Trump’s die-hard supporters and moderate independents has begun to take its toll on vulnerable Senate candidates like New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte. She trailed by 8 points in a poll released on Thursday, after polls earlier this month showed a dead heat.   For the party that put Trump forward, the race has become less of a suspenseful thriller and more, to use a favorite Trump term, of a “horror show.”   “Republicans,” said Harrison, “are really scared.”"
362,"Turkey arrests pro-Kurdish lawmakers as crackdown widens —  ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sharply escalated his conflict with the Kurdish opposition on Friday as his government formally brought terrorism-related charges against at least eight members of parliament belonging to Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish party, including the party’s two leaders.  The arrests, after chaotic nighttime raids on the homes of some of Turkey’s most prominent elected lawmakers, were criticized by Kurdish and human rights activists as a withering assault on Turkey’s democracy. They reverberated beyond the country’s borders, drawing condemnations from European capitals and the United Nations. And they threatened Turkey with greater instability, raising fears that the repression of the political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, would empower militant Kurdish factions at war with the government.  As if to highlight the danger, a powerful car bomb exploded outside a police compound in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir hours after the arrests, killing nine people and wounding more than 100, authorities said.  Erdogan’s government has been carrying out a broad crackdown on political opponents in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in July, arresting or dismissing tens of thousands of people from their jobs.  They have included followers of Fethullah Gulen, an exiled Turkish cleric whom officials have blamed for the coup attempt. But the purge has spread well beyond his supporters and swept up thousands of others whom the government perceives as opponents, including journalists and academics. [How the Turkish government regained control after the failed coup] In Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the Obama administration is “deeply disturbed” by the arrests of opposition lawmakers and has expressed its concerns to Turkey. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union joined criticism of the detentions. Ban also condemned Friday’s car bombing. The purge has coincided with heightened government anxiety over the growing assertiveness of Kurdish militant groups in Turkey and across the border in Syria, where Kurdish factions are allied with a U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State.   Militants belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have stepped up attacks on Turkish security forces over the past year after a peace deal fell apart in 2015. That agreement had ended decades of war between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish state, which Kurds say has long persecuted their population. Ethnic Kurds make up nearly 20 percent of the country’s 75 million people. The government has increasingly sought to link mainstream Kurdish opposition politicians to the militants, arresting local Kurdish leaders and shuttering pro-Kurdish institutions and media outlets. In May, Turkey’s parliament voted to strip lawmakers of their immunity, including at least 50 HDP deputies who were facing investigation. Critics say Erdogan sought to remove opposition in parliament that would hinder his plans to establish a stronger presidency with expanded powers that would sideline the elected assembly. But the government’s decision to move forcefully against the HDP — one of Turkey’s most formidable opposition groups and an avenue for the political integration of the country’s marginalized Kurdish minority — appeared to represent a turning point in the months-long campaign of arrests, analysts said. The party, which holds more than 10 percent of the seats in parliament and is the chamber’s third-largest bloc, “represents 6 million votes,” said Cengiz Candar, a Turkish political analyst and visiting scholar at Stockholm University. Targeting the HDP, which includes the country’s most popular politicians, “was an invitation to civil strife — for partitioning the country,” he said. Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, co-leaders of the party, were ordered arrested pending trial. Six other lawmakers were also arrested on terrorism-related charges. Demirtas, a 43-year-old human rights lawyer, has a growing national and ­international profile and has emerged as a strong opponent of Erdogan. [Turkey’s response to failed coup threatens ties with Western allies] Authorities said the HDP lawmakers were detained Friday after failing to answer an official summons to testify in a counterterrorism investigation. A statement from the Turkish prime minister’s office linked the detentions to Turkey’s “effective fight against terrorism.” “There is no other country in the world which is fighting simultaneously against a minimum of 10 terrorist organizations like Turkey,” the statement said. With the arrests, the government “has gone from talking peace with the PKK leader, and PKK commanders in the field, to going after anyone who is remotely advocating greater rights for the Kurds,” said journalist Amberin Zaman, a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington. “It is the same old notion — that Kurdish national aspirations can be crushed using military force,” she said. At a news conference Friday in Istanbul, defiant HDP lawmakers accused Erdogan of attempting “to steer the country into a civil war.” “Maybe in a few hours, none of us will be left,” HDP lawmaker Mithat Sancar said in reference to the speed and scale of the arrests. But “they are mistaken if they expect us to bow down,” he said. Overnight, as security forces detained the lawmakers, authorities blocked access to several social-media sites, according to the Internet monitoring group Turkey Blocks. The shutdown included Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and the messaging service WhatsApp. Users also reported Internet outages on mobile phones. Videos of the police raids that circulated online included one showing Idris Baluken, a senior HDP leader, being led by ­uniformed officers to a waiting car. “Don’t press my head!” Baluken yelled at an officer as they approached the vehicle. “You will be held accountable for this,” he said. “I am the representative of hundreds of thousands of votes.” Fahim reported from Cairo."
363,"Typhoon Meranti kills two in China and Japan —  Storm loses strength after causing damage in Taiwan and south-eastern China   A powerful typhoon has swept into south-eastern China after hitting Taiwan, leaving a total of two dead and dozens injured.   Weather officials in both China and Taiwan said Meranti was the strongest storm of its kind this year. Chinese state media reported one death and one person missing, as high winds and rain shattered windows on tall buildings, knocked down trees and disrupted water supplies in China’s Fujian province, causing a widespread blackout in the coastal city of Xiamen. In Taiwan, the Central News Agency reported one person was killed and 44 were injured on the island by the storm. It said Meranti knocked out power in almost 1 million homes and water in more than 700,000.   More than 140 trains heading into southeastern China were canceled. An 800-year-old bridge in Fujian province was one casualty of the storm; state media released video of a rapidly flowing river pushing against the bridge until it fell in. Another video posted online shows a large, moon-shaped balloon bouncing between cars on a roadway. The balloon was an apparent decoration for Thursday’s start of the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival in both mainland China and Taiwan. Chinese meteorologists downgraded Meranti from a super typhoon to a tropical depression on Thursday afternoon and said they expect it to fade further as it moves north.     Article Title:Millions of Trees are Dying Across the US   Article URL:http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/50013   Article author(s) Julie Rodriguez   Article date:September 26, 2016 06:53 AM   News source: ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS NETWORK    Throughout the U.S., trees are dying at an astonishing rate. The reasons for the die-off vary from location to location — drought, disease, insects and wildfires – but the root cause in many of these cases is the same: climate change. The epidemic is even threatening the oldest white oak tree in America, a 600-year-old giant in New Jersey that predates Columbus’ visit to the Americas. The effect is particularly apparent in mountain states like California, where 66 million trees have simply disappeared from the Sierra Nevada range since 2010. The Forest Service blames the years-long drought in the area and the spread of pine beetles. In northern California, the ominously named “Sudden Oak Death” is infecting hundreds of different plants, from massive redwoods to backyard oaks. The disease is transmitted through water, so it can easily be spread by wind and rain over long distances. In fact, the spread already spans more than half the length of the state. The presence of so many dead trees would be a tragedy anywhere, but in the mountains of the West, it’s particularly dangerous because the trees provide fuel for forest fires. It’s impossible for forest workers to chop down and remove millions of trees, so the majority of them are still standing. In some cases, death and disease have overtaken entire mountainsides. Some researchers estimate that we could lose all needle leaf evergreens in the Southwest U.S. within the next hundred years. Continue reading at ENN.com.       Article Title:Potentially harmful chemicals widespread in household dust   Article URL: http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/50026   Article author(s)   Article date: September 30, 2016 11:02 AM   News source: ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS NETWORK   Household dust exposes people to a wide range of toxic chemicals from everyday products, according to a study led by researchers at Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University. The multi-institutional team conducted a first-of-a-kind meta-analysis, compiling data from dust samples collected throughout the United States to identify the top ten toxic chemicals commonly found in dust. They found that DEHP, a chemical belonging to a hazardous class called phthalates, was number one on that list. In addition, the researchers found that phthalates overall were found at the highest levels in dust followed by phenols and flame retardant chemicals. ""Our study is the first comprehensive analysis of consumer product chemicals found in household dust,"" says lead author Ami Zota, ScD, MS, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at Milken Institute SPH. ""The findings suggest that people, and especially children, are exposed on a daily basis to multiple chemicals in dust that are linked to serious health problems."" Continue reading at EurekAlert!"
364,"U.S. to Step Up Deportations of Haitians Amid Surge at Border —  The Obama administration, responding to an extraordinary wave of Haitian migrants seeking to enter the United States, said on Thursday that it would fully resume deportations of undocumented Haitian immigrants. After an earthquake devastated parts of Haiti in 2010, the United States suspended deportations, saying that sending Haitians back to the country at a time of great instability would put their lives at risk. About a year later, officials partly resumed deportations, focusing on people convicted of serious crimes or those considered a threat to national security. But since last spring, thousands of Haitian migrants who had moved to Brazil in search of work have been streaming north, mostly by land, winding up at American border crossings that lead to Southern California. Few have arrived with American visas, but nearly all have been allowed to enter the United States because immigration officials were prohibited, under the modified deportation policy, from using the so-called fast-track removal process often employed at the border for new, undocumented arrivals. Instead, the migrants were placed in a slower deportation process and released, with an appointment to appear in immigration court at a later date, officials said. Since early summer, most have been given permission to remain in the country for as long as three years under a humanitarian parole provision, immigrant advocates said. With the full resumption of deportations, which took effect on Thursday morning, Haitians who arrive at the border without visas will be put into expedited removal proceedings. Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, said in a statement that conditions in Haiti had “improved sufficiently to permit the U.S. government to remove Haitian nationals on a more regular basis.” While Mr. Johnson’s statement did not mention the recent influx of Haitians along the southwestern border, Homeland Security officials, during a conference call with reporters, cited the migrant wave as the other major factor in the administration’s decision. Since last October, officials said, more than 5,000 Haitians without visas have shown up at the San Ysidro crossing that links Tijuana, Mexico, with San Diego. By comparison, 339 Haitians without visas arrived at the San Ysidro crossing in the 2015 fiscal year. An additional 4,000 to 6,000 Haitians were thought to be making their way from Brazil, immigrant advocates in San Diego and Tijuana said, based on estimates from shelters along the Brazil-to-Mexico migration route. The message to those Haitians from the Obama administration, however, seems clear: Turn around or go elsewhere. An uptick in deportations might not occur immediately. Removals require the cooperation of and paperwork from the receiving country, and Homeland Security officials said they were still in talks with the Haitian government about the policy shift. In the meantime, officials said, nearly all Haitians stopped at the border and scheduled for accelerated deportations will be put into detention centers. Officials clarified, however, that asylum law would continue to apply to newly arriving Haitians. A migrant who feared returning to Haiti because of the threat of persecution or torture would be interviewed to determine whether that fear was credible. If an immigration officer determined it was, the immigrant could apply for asylum. Haitian immigrants covered by temporary protected status would be unaffected by the change in policy. Over the summer, the unusual surge in Haitian migrants was accompanied by an equally unusual surge in migrants from more than two dozen other countries, nearly all traveling along the same arduous routes from South America, across as many as 10 borders. The migratory wave has overwhelmed shelters along the way, particularly in Tijuana, where the shelters have been at or over capacity for much of the past four months, while also struggling with language and cultural barriers. Some migrants, because they were unable to find accommodations or wanted to avoid shelter living, have chosen to sleep on the streets. Haitians started migrating to Brazil in large numbers after the earthquake. Haiti was reeling, but Brazil was ascendant, and it had a need for cheap labor, especially with the World Cup and the Olympics approaching. Haitians, with few prospects at home, were happy to oblige. Thousands of them made their way to Brazil, where many were granted humanitarian visas that allowed them to work. But amid Brazil’s economic and political convulsions over the last two years, many Haitians lost their jobs or sank deeper into poverty. The migration north began in earnest during the spring, with a large influx in Tijuana in late May, and the surge has continued. The Haitian migrant population has mainly consisted of men, though many women have made the trek, too, as have children and even newborns. They have mainly taken an elaborate series of bus rides, though migrants also had to travel at times by foot, truck and boat, and have hired smugglers to help sneak them across certain borders or avoid law enforcement officials. They have told of highway robberies, frightening encounters with armed gangs and beatings. Some migrants have died during the trip, many being swept away while trying to ford swift-moving rivers. The shift in American policy caught advocates in San Diego and Tijuana by surprise. “It was a complete and utter shock,” said Ginger Jacobs, an immigration lawyer and the chairwoman of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium. “We are pretty baffled by what appears to be a complete 180 in terms of policy.” She added, “We object to a policy change that doesn’t appear to reflect any actual change in reality.” Margarita Andonaegui, the coordinator of a main migrant shelter in Tijuana, said that on Wednesday afternoon she had received what sounded like heartening news: The American authorities were going to increase their processing capacity for the Haitians, to 150 per day from 50. But in light of the new deportation policy, that piece of information took on another meaning. “They’re going to receive them to deport them,” Ms. Andonaegui said. “That’s bad news.”"
365,"UK wants to raze 783 London homes to expand Heathrow airport —  LONDON — Britain’s government gave the go-ahead Tuesday to build a new runway at London’s Heathrow airport despite concerns about air pollution, noise and the destruction of hundreds of homes in the capital’s densely populated western neighborhoods. The decision comes after years of discussion, study and outrage over the building of the first full runway in the southeast of the country since World War II. Theresa May’s government, reeling from a vote to leave the European Union, was anxious to prove the country was “open for business.” Detractors described it as “catastrophic” for the environment, local community and the owners of 783 homes that are slated to be razed. “The step that government is taking today is truly momentous,” Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said. “After years of discussion and delay this government is taking decisive action to secure the U.K.’s place in the global aviation market.” The government rejected other options to expand airport capacity, including the extension of an existing runway at Heathrow or building a second runway at Gatwick Airport, south of London. The decision is only the first step, though. The government’s recommendation will be studied further and Parliament will vote in about a year. Even if approved, it will take years before construction begins, as residents have threatened to sue to block the project. Entire communities will be leveled. Compensation and mitigation could cost 2.6 billion pounds ($3.2 billion). But the government said the wider good was at stake. “This is an important issue for the whole country,” Grayling said. “That is why the government’s preferred scheme will be subject to full and fair public consultation.” London Mayor Sadiq Khan pledged to explore involvement in “any legal process,” as he said Heathrow already exposes the city to more aircraft noise than Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Munich and Madrid combined. Air quality issues were among Greenpeace’s concerns. But it is the fury of residents that had stalled the project until now. Outraged homeowners argued they had been betrayed by politicians who pledged to block expansion before being put into office — only to change their minds later. Anti-expansion groups gathered in the village of Harmondsworth, a quintessential English village which traces its history to the 6th century. The third runway is slated to traverse the village, leveling the ivy-covered brick walls of local landmarks like Harmondsworth Hall guest house as well as two thirds of its homes. “Nowhere else in Europe do they build their runways directly in the heart of residential areas over their cities,” said Neil Keveren, who has campaigned against Heathrow expansion for years. The runway grounds would be just across the road from his home, he said. London and southeastern England need more airport capacity to meet the growing demands of business travelers and tourists, aviation officials said. Heathrow and rival Gatwick, 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of central London, had offered competing projects that will cost as much as 18.6 billion pounds ($29.1 billion). A furious public relations battle saw placards all over London extolling the virtues of one airport over another. The issue was so toxic that politicians created an independent commission to weigh the options — and it recommended expanding Heathrow. The commission had already rejected other options, such as one backed by former London Mayor Boris Johnson to build a new airport in the Thames Estuary. “A new runway at Heathrow is really fantastic news, especially as the country has waited nearly 50 years for this decision,” said Paul Drechsler, the president of the Confederation of British Industry. “It will create the air links that will do so much to drive jobs and unlock growth across the U.K., allowing even more of our innovative, ambitious and internationally focused firms, from Bristol to Belfast, to take off and break into new markets.” But in Harmondsworth, the community gathered at the local Five Bells pub to watch the news in disbelief. Some were in tears. “The fight is only just beginning,” said Robert Barnstone, a Stop Heathrow Expansion campaigner. “We will see the government in court and see off this threat — this time for good.” Shawn Pogatchnik in London and Paul Traynor in London contributed to this story. Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."
366,"US drives rainforest destruction by importing Amazon oil, study finds —  US imports of crude oil from the Amazon are driving the destruction of some of the rainforest ecosystem’s most pristine areas and releasing copious amounts of greenhouse gases, according to a new report. The study, conducted by environmental group Amazon Watch, found that American refineries processed 230,293 barrels of Amazon crude oil a day last year. And California, despite its green reputation, refines an average of 170,978 barrels, or 7.2m gallons, of Amazon crude a day, with the Chevron facility in El Segundo accounting for 24% of the US total alone. The expansion of planned oil drilling poses “one of the most serious threats” to the western region of the Amazon, with most of the oil originating from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. While green groups have enjoyed some success in fighting the Amazon ambitions of large oil firms like Chevron, other players from countries such as China have moved in, with proposed oil and gas fields now covering 283,172 sq miles of the Amazon – an area larger than Texas.    Felling the carbon-rich trees of the Amazon produces greenhouse gases even before the oil is transported and burned, while indigenous communities and the Amazon’s vast trove of biodiversity are also at risk.  Ecuador’s state oil company PetroAmazonas recently started drilling close to the Yasuni national park, which is considered to be one of the most biologically rich places on Earth. The park contains 655 endemic tree species – more than the US and Canada combined – as well as two of the last tribes in the world living in voluntary isolation.  As oil interests seek to exploit areas of the Amazon, there are fears that indigenous communities will suffer from pollution, displacement and deadly illnesses due to a lack of acquired immunity. “Our demand for Amazon crude is literally driving the expansion of the Amazon oil frontier and is putting millions of acres of indigenous territory and pristine rainforest on the chopping block, ” said Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch.  “Breaking free from oil dependence and keeping remaining fossil fuels in the ground is an urgent, collective endeavor, and the life-giving Amazon rainforestmust be one of the first places we start.” After crude is refined in California and elsewhere it is distributed as diesel to vehicle fleets across the US. Adam Zuckerman, a California-based campaigner for Amazon Watch, said “virtually every company, city and university in California and around the country contributes to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.” California has burnished its environmental reputation with lofty goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, boost energy efficiency and slash petroleum use in cars and trucks.  Despite this, the state is dependent upon oil imports from countries such as Ecuador, in part because of clean energy policies that discriminate against the heavy grade oil produced by countries such as Canada. Meanwhile, an explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, California, in February 2015 caused the state to increase its gasoline imports to more than 10 times the typical level.  Zuckerman said Amazon Watch wants California to consider human rights issues when it imports oil, as well as for “no go zones” such as the Amazon basin to be established in decision making. Around 40 US businesses that use Amazon crude oil have been contacted by the NGO over the issue. A spokesman for California governor Jerry Brown did not answer whether new laws were being considered to reduce Amazon crude imports but said the administration has taken “nation-leading action to fight climate change, decarbonize our economy and end our dangerous addiction to foreign oil”. A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents refineries in California, said the group did not wish to comment."
367,"US-Backed Air Campaign Accused Of War Crimes In Yemen —  On an August morning, a taxi driver in northwestern Yemen hugged his kids and jokingly told his family, ""Forgive me if I don't come back."" It was his way of laughing off the danger of driving in a country where airstrikes can hit any road at any time.   In the afternoon, Mohammed al-Khal happened upon just such a strike. Three missiles had hit a highway, leaving bystanders wounded. Al-Khal took one of them, an ice cream vendor, in his car and rushed him to the nearest hospital, run by the international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.   But the warplanes were still hunting.   Moments after al-Khal pulled up at the hospital in the town of Abs, a missile smashed down by his car, just outside the hospital entrance. Al-Khal, a father of eight, was incinerated. The blast ripped through patients and family waiting in an outdoor reception area. Nineteen people were killed, along with two civilians killed on the highway.   The Aug. 15 attack typified what has been a pattern in the nearly 2-year-old air campaign by Saudi Arabia and its allies against Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis. Rights groups and U.N. officials say the U.S.-backed coalition has often either deliberately or recklessly depended on faulty intelligence, failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets and disregarded the likelihood of civilian casualties.   Experts say some of the strikes amount to war crimes.   ""The Saudis have been committing war crimes in Yemen,"" said Gabor Rona, a professor teaching the laws of war at Columbia University. He warned that American personnel helping the coalition ""may also be guilty of war crimes.""   Nearly 4,000 civilians have been killed in the war, and an estimated 60 percent of them died in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, the U.N. says.   Saudi Arabia launched the coalition campaign in March 2015 in a bid to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, after the Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and the north of the country. The Iranian-backed Houthis are allied with troops loyal to Hadi's ousted predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh.   The war has devastated the country of 26 million, causing widespread hunger and driving 3 million from their homes.   Warplanes have hit medical centers, schools, factories, infrastructure and roads, markets, weddings and residential compounds.   The U.S. and its allies have sold billions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia for the campaign. The U.S. military provides it with intelligence, satellite imagery and logistical help.   Washington underlines it does not make targeting decisions and calls on the coalition to investigate reported violations. Over the summer, the U.S military reduced the number of military personnel advising the coalition from several dozen to fewer than five, an apparent move to distance itself from the campaign.   ""U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check,"" National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said.   The coalition says it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and notes rebels often operate among civilians. Rights groups and U.N. officials have reported probable war crimes by the Houthis, including shelling civilian areas and basing their fighters in schools and other civilian locations.     ""This is the fog of war,"" the coalition's spokesman, Saudi Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri, told The Associated Press when asked if there is a pattern of civilian deaths. ""In war, there are decisions that should be taken fast.""   The coalition, which says it investigates every claim of violations, has made nine investigations public. In two it acknowledged mistakes and said it would pay compensation to victims. In most of the other cases, it said the strikes were against a justified military target.   But critics say the American and international backing has given Saudi Arabia and its allies a free rein.   ""We believe that the coalition understood ... it has a green light to commit more massacres in Yemen,"" said Abdel-Rashed al-Faqeh, the head of Muwatana, one of Yemen's most prominent rights groups.   The strike in Abs underscored several of the problems experts point to in many strikes — the failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets and a lack of proportionality, the principle that use of force must be balanced to avoid civilian casualties.   In the strikes, warplanes initially fired a rocket targeting a Houthi checkpoint manned by two rebels on a highway outside Abs. The fighters escaped, but two more rockets were fired, killing two bystanders and wounding others. It appears the warplanes followed al-Khal's Camry, believing he was carrying a wounded fighter, and struck him outside the hospital.   The hospital was on a coalition list of sites not to be targeted in airstrikes, and had markings on its roof to show it was a medical facility.   The AP interviewed witnesses to the strikes on the highway and at the hospital, as well as al-Khal's two wives.   The head of Doctors Without Border's mission in Yemen, Colette Gadenne, said the coalition acknowledged to the group privately that the strike was a mistake.   The head of the coalition's investigation team, Mansour al-Mansour, said he could not discuss the investigation results in public. He said the coalition gave Doctors Without Borders all information it gathered.   The effect of the strike — the fifth on a facility run by the group in Yemen — has been wide-reaching. The organization pulled its personnel from northern Yemen, straining staff at multiple hospitals.   The Abs hospital served around 100,000 peoplpe, said its manager, Ibrahim Ali. Now it is shut down and the nearest medical facilities are two or three hours away by car. ""Patients sometimes die on the road,"" Ali said.   Rona, the legal expert, said those behind the Abs strikes ""didn't take sufficient precautions to determine that the people in the taxi are targetable."" Then, warplanes struck where ""there would be significant collateral damage to the hospital.""   ""Any way you look at it, it is a war crime."""
368,"UW-Madison student charged in alleged attacks on 5 women —  (CNN)One woman's allegations of sexual assault against a University of Wisconsin student led to multiple charges based on claims from five women. Alec Cook, 20, appeared Thursday in Dane County Circuit Court to hear the charges against him. He faces 14 felony counts, including second- and third-degree sexual assault, strangulation and false imprisonment, and one misdemeanor count of fourth-degree sexual assault. The court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to the misdemeanor charge. Under Wisconsin law he will not enter a plea to the felony counts until after his arraignment. He is being held on $200,000 bail in Dane County Jail. Cook's name and face spread through social media and local news reports after his October 17 arrest based on allegations from another UW-Madison student. She told police that Cook sexually assaulted her October 12 in a nearly three-hour ordeal, grabbing her by the hair and neck so tightly that, she told police, her ""vision started to go."" Cook was charged with four counts of sexual assault, strangulation and false imprisonment stemming from the allegations. Within a week, police said ""dozens"" more women came forward with potential information about Cook. CNN reached out to Cook's lawyers about the additional allegations but they declined to comment on the new charges. March 2015 The earliest count goes back to March 2015, when Cook allegedly invited a woman back to his apartment about two weeks after meeting her at a party. She told police that kissing turned to unwanted touching despite her attempts to push him away. When she tried to leave he grabbed her and pinned her to the futon and resumed kissing and touching her, according to a criminal complaint. She told investigators that after he assaulted her, she again tried to leave but that Cook pinned her to the futon again, wrapping his arms around her neck and torso. The detective asked what she thought would happen if she tried to leave she said she didn't know. ""That's what I was afraid of. I didn't know."" When she saw his face on the news in connection with his arrest she told police she ""knew immediately"" it was him, according to the complaint. Cook was charged with sexual assault and false imprisonment based on her allegations. January to May 2016 Two women who took ballroom dance classes with Cook reported to police being groped by him during the class. One woman told police the behavior continued even after she told him to stop. Their complaints led to the misdemeanor count of fourth-degree sexual assault. February 2016 Another woman described to police a similar scenario of a February 2016 encounter that started with consensual kissing and quickly escalated to sexual assault. She told police she repeatedly said no as forceful touching turned into forced oral sex and then vaginal rape. She had smoked marijuana earlier that night and drank a beverage she could not identify, and as the evening progressed she began feeling ""fuzzy"" and out of it, she told police, according to complaint. When she awoke the next morning he tried to have sex with her again, she told police, according to the complaint. Her allegations formed the basis of three counts of felony sexual assault. August 2016 Another woman to come forward said she took a psychology class with Cook, according to the complaint. He sent her a Facebook message and they began corresponding. She told police that she went to his apartment and they started kissing and having consensual sex. She rebuffed his efforts to choke her, though, and eventually he relented. About 45 minutes passed before he forced himself on her, hitting her backside with an open palm as he raped her. She told police she went along with it so he would not force her to have oral sex, according to the complaint. Sexual assault: Changing the conversation before college Defense lawyers: Wait for the facts When questioned by police on October 17, Cook said the encounter that triggered his arrest was consensual and that he did not recall grabbing the woman by the neck. He acknowledged pulling the woman's hair. Cook's lawyers called on the public ""to wait for the facts before condemning"" him, and railed against a ""politically correct"" culture that leads to ""blind acceptance of mere accusations."" ""Alec, a 20-year-old business major with no criminal history, has seemingly been charged, tried, and convicted,"" read the statement from attorneys Christopher T. Van Wagner and Jessa Nicholson. ""The rapid-fire news cycle, combined with the viral nature of social media, has resulted in modern-day character assassination that is very real and very wrong."" How to help survivors of sexual assault CNN's Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report."
369,"Ugandan police block gay pride parade —  Ugandan police have blocked gay pride celebrations from happening in two resorts outside the capital, Kampala. Gay rights activist Frank Mugisha said more than 100 LGBTI people tried to participate in the celebrations in Entebbe near Lake Victoria. But many were escorted by police back to Kampala in minibuses. The minister for ethics and integrity had threatened to mobilise mobs to attack participants. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. After being blocked from entering the Entebbe resort, several dozen participants moved on to another resort but were kicked out by officers. This is the second time the LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and/or intersex] community has tried to hold gay pride celebrations in Uganda this year. In August, the authorities broke up a beauty pageant and arrested activists. The BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga reports from Kampala that it is unclear why this event was targeted, as over the past four years celebrations have been held without much notice from the police. In 2014 a bill to further criminalise homosexuality was overturned in court."
370,"Venezuelan children fainting in school because they are hungry —  Klaireth Díaz is a 1st-grade teacher at Elías Toro School, one of the biggest public schools in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.   Last year, she says, attendance was painfully low. Every day, of a class of 30 children at least 10 would be absent.   “The reason was always lack of food,” she told Fox News Latino.   She said she had a student who skipped class every single Thursday and when she asked his mother about it, she explained that Thursday was the day of the week assigned to her family to buy food at government-regulated prices – which involves standing in line starting sometimes as early as 3 a.m.   “She told me she couldn’t leave the child alone at home and didn’t have anybody to bring him to school,” Díaz said.   Diaz also once saw a child faint during a cultural event. Across the country, teachers have said they have seen children faint or fall asleep because they haven't had enough to eat.   “When he came to he told me that he had only eaten an arepa (cornbread) at 10 a.m. It was 3 p.m.,” she said.   As the school year progressed last year, Diaz said, she noticed more and more kids had stopped bringing lunch.   “At the beginning of the school year every children bring their lunch. At the end they didn’t. They said their mom didn’t have money to buy food,” she said.   Elías Toro School used to provide lunch through a feeding program, but it stopped years ago.   According to Miguel Pizarro, a lawmaker from the opposition, the government spends barely 5 bolivars per meal in public schools -- 5 bolivars are $0.007 at the official rate.   “A child who does not eat well does not learn well. Some children fall asleep and when you investigate what’s going on you find out it is because they don’t eat. When we see that a child does not bring lunch we have them share; we handle the situation so that they do not feel affected,” Diaz said. “Children are supportive in that regard.”   Congressman Pizarro called out the government of Nicolas Maduro for spending millions of dollars on weapons, not food. “Instead of fighting invented wars, we must fight hunger. With less than 2 percent of the national budget we could ensure that no schoolchild goes to bed on an empty stomach,” he wrote on Twitter.   According to a poll conducted last month by More Consulting among 2,000 respondents in Caracas, in 48 percent of the times children do not attend school, the cause is related to the food. Either they are feeling too weak for lack of nutrition, or their parents rather use the transport money to buy food, or they are in the food lines with their parents.   The poll revealed that 36.5 percent of children eat only twice a day and 10.2 percent just once. For 11.9 percent of the children, which means 964,737 kids, the 5-bolivars school lunch is their only meal of the day.   While currently almost 30 percent of people surveyed said their children attended private school, 17.5 percent of them stated they were going to change them to a public school.   Five percent of the parents surveyed were considering taking their children out of school altogether.   Additionally, a vast majority of public school are facing the new academic years with infrastructure problems. Carmen Teresa Marquez, secretary of Venezuelan Federation of Teachers, said that in many schools computers and desks were stolen during the summer period.   “That adds up to the fact that school supplies are impossible to pay for. People have to decide between buying a notebook or buy food,” Márquez told Fox News Latino.   The tag price for a list of supplies for a child from elementary school comes up to 111,577.33 bolivars ($17.7, and almost five times the monthly minimum wage), according to the Center for Documentation and Analysis for Workers."
371,"Video Shows Cop Punching Woman In The Face, But She’s The One Arrested For ‘Assault’ —  A uniformed Arizona police officer who was filmed punching a woman has been placed on administrative leave while the incident is investigated.   “Our agency is very concerned by what is depicted in this video,” police in Flagstaff, Arizona, said in a Wednesday evening press release.   The footage, shot and posted to Facebook on Wednesday, shows a woman struggling with two officers who apparently believe there is an outstanding warrant for her arrest. She can be heard on video saying the issue has already been resolved.   “You cannot arrest me until I know I have a warrant,” she tells the officers as she struggles with them.   Suddenly, one of them strikes her in the face with a closed fist.   Authorities have identified that officer as Jeff Bonar. They haven’t released the name of the woman, but she identifies herself in the video as Marissa Morris. “You just fucking punched me in the face,” Morris can be heard yelling after Bonar hits her.   A number of people appear to be watching the scene from a porch. The man who filmed the confrontation — identified by The Arizona Republic as Danny Paredes — can be also heard shouting, “Hey, you can’t hit a girl like that.”   Bonar cuffs Morris and the two other officers lead her away and place her in the back of a patrol car while a man ― presumably Paredes ― can be heard saying, “I got it on video, Marissa.”   Morris’ boyfriend, Jimmy Sedillo, told The Arizona Republic he and his children, ages 3 and 9, witnessed the incident.   “She had a warrant a few weeks ago,” Sedillo said. “He still assumed she had a warrant.” Sedillo told Phoenix’s KTVK his girlfriend was ultimately charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.Morris, who reportedly remains behind bars, could not be reached for comment.   “An internal affairs investigation is being initiated,” Flagstaff police said. “Further details will be released as the investigation progresses.”"
372,"Violence Escalates Between Myanmar Forces and Rohingya —  Violence between the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim population, and Myanmar’s security forces escalated over the weekend as two soldiers were killed by crudely armed attackers, said government officials and Muslim residents. In retaliation, troops of the Buddhist-majority government used helicopters to fire at the attackers in dense forest in northwestern Myanmar, a government spokesman said.   The two soldiers were killed Saturday by attackers armed with guns, knives and spears near the village of Gwason, south of Maungdaw, the main town in northern Rakhine, said the state information officer, U San Nwe. About 500 attackers were involved in the clash, he said. The area is closed to Western journalists, making it impossible to verify the scale of the fighting.   The remote enclave of northern Rakhine State, close to the Bangladeshi border, has been under siege since the government sent security forces to hunt for what it said were armed Rohingya assailants who had killed nine police officers in early October.   Since then, human rights groups have received reports of killings of unarmed Rohingya men by Myanmar soldiers, rapes of Rohingya women by soldiers in a number of villages, and beatings of Rohingya men held in detention in the town of Maungdaw. Before the latest attack, as many as 100 Rohingya civilians may have been killed, the groups say.   Western diplomats have called on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate who leads Myanmar’s government, to conduct an independent investigation into the violence. So far, she has declined, allowing a Rakhine State committee to investigate. She has also urged that specific complaints be filed with a commission headed by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, that was formed in August.   Her spokesman, U Zaw Htay, said on Sunday that the latest attacks made it necessary for the military and police operation to continue until the culprits were arrested and the weapons they had seized were found. The troops have been instructed to respect human rights, he said. But Myanmar’s army is known to be poorly trained and has a record rife with human rights abuses, including rape, in its battles with various separatist groups over many years, Western diplomats say. Also on Saturday, a police car was hit by the blast from a roadside mine near the village of Kyikanpyin, north of Maungdaw, where five of the nine police officers were killed on Oct. 9, according to the Ministry of Information in Naypyidaw, the capital. No one was killed in the blast on Saturday.   Reached by telephone in Maungdaw on Sunday, Mohammed Sultan, a retired Rohingya teacher, said some students had told him that their villages had been set on fire. “One of my pupils said he was hiding in the rice field,” Mr. Sultan said. The connection then went dead, he said.   High-definition satellite images taken in October and this month showed widespread burning of Rohingya villages, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday.   Although relations between the Rohingya and the security forces have always been tense, the tactic of Rohingya men attacking police stations, targeting security forces and apparently planting roadside bombs is new, government officials and Rohingya activists say.   The motivation for the increase in violence by what appears to be a small group of armed Rohingya men is not clear.   The government, providing little proof, immediately blamed two little-known groups: Aqa Mul Mujahidin and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization.   The decades-long repression of the Rohingya by the Myanmar authorities made the population of about one million Rohingya fertile ground for Islamic radicalization, activists and diplomats say.   Here in Sittwe, in southern Rakhine, more than 100,000 Rohingya have been kept in what amount to internment camps for four years, prevented from traveling and forbidden to reclaim land and property destroyed during communal violence in 2012.   The new violence north of Sittwe was worse than that four years ago, said Mohamed Saed, a community leader. “Then, it was communal violence between two groups: Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists,” he said. “This is now direct government repression.”   Several Rohingya leaders said they did not believe Rohingya ties to radical jihadists were the cause of the attacks five weeks ago. New, harsh proposals by the government may have been the catalyst, they suggested.   In September, a Rakhine official, Col. Htein Lin, said the government would destroy all “illegally” built structures, including more than 2,500 houses, 600 shops, a dozen mosques and more than 30 schools.   U Kyaw Min, a Rohingya who is the chairman of the Democracy and Human Rights Party, said, “That was saying we have to reduce the population of Rohingya and push them over the border to Bangladesh.”   The attitude of officials in Rakhine State toward the Rohingya is unequivocal. They call the Rohingya “Bengalis,” implying that they belong in Bangladesh.   A leader of the Arakan National Party, U Aung Win, said it was now necessary to form a special paramilitary force.   The Rohingya make up more than 90 percent of northern Rakinine State’s population, outnumbering the Rakhine Buddhists, so more protection is needed for the Buddhist minority, Mr. Aung Win said. The two groups cannot live together, he insisted.   Mr. Aung Win is also the chairman of the Rakhine State investigation into the Oct. 9 attacks.   The Rohingya villages around Kyikanpyin have become armed camps, according to telephone conversations and text messages from villagers to friends in Sittwe. Food is scarce, and a strict dusk-to-dawn curfew is enforced, they say. In those areas, villagers say soldiers have raped women and stolen their jewelry.   Three women, ages 23, 21 and 17, were raped Wednesday by soldiers living in the local school, said Mohamed Rahim, a village leader in Pyoung Pai, not far from Kyikanpyin.   “The villagers were told to gather in the rice fields, but the three girls were told to stay in the house with their mother,” he said in a telephone interview. “Before the rape, they told the mother to get out. I then saw the military enter the house.”   Myanmar officials deny that rapes have occurred. “It’s not so easy to rape a Bengali woman,” Mr. Aung Win said. “All the Bengali villages are covered by bamboo netting and plastic.”   In a recent interview with the BBC, Mr. Aung Win said it was impossible that soldiers had raped the women because Rohingya “are very dirty.”   The question of the rapes is particularly sensitive. The Myanmar Times newspaper fired a journalist, Fiona MacGregor, for writing an article about alleged rapes of Rohingya women on Oct. 19."
373,"Viral video shows man attacked by python while taking a selfie —  When anyone's performing a death-defying stunt, it's only natural to want to memorialize it in pictures. Or selfies, as it turns out.   Even when you think you're being safe, something can go wrong. You turn away for a second to snap a pic, lose your footing and take a fatal fall. Or, like this story, look away while a giant snake takes a chunk out of you.   This was the case for a man in northwestern India, who had rescued the reptile from a local hotel."
374,"Virginia police apprehend stray emu —  Police in Virginia say they have apprehended an emu on the lam.   At around 9 a.m., Prince William County police received calls about an emu that escaped from a farm in Haymarket, Va., a spokesman for the department said. The jailbird was apprehended without incident, authorities said, and was not a danger to the arresting officers. Though these birds can be aggressive, police said, this one was on its best behavior. “It was pretty docile,” said Jonathan Perok, spokesman for Prince William County police."
375,Visitors bring trouble to Norway's polar bears —  Officials in Norway say an increasing number of visitors to their Arctic region have triggered an increase in the number of endangered polar bears killed. Diane Hodges reports on efforts to protect the bears. Video provided by Reuters
376,"WHO warns: deadly junk food ads online target children —  We’re living in the age of Information powered by the world-wide-web or the Internet. Estimates say that this year, about three-point-five billion people around the globe use the Internet, way higher than last year’s two-point-twenty-one billion people.   Apparently, it will continue to grow as governments of many nations, and private sectors including internet giants Google and Facebook, bring new tools to connect more people with the internet.   But as we progress towards the deeper part of the Information Age, new types of problems pop up and are left unnoticed. One of which according to the WHO, or the World Health Organization, is the growing air time of junk food ads on the internet which covers mobile applications and social media as well.   The Europe side of the WHO published a TLDR on its site, deeply discussing the marketing food in the digital world and how children’s rights are violated.   In a nutshell, the WHO criticized the government for failing to grow teeth alongside the rising popularity of smartphones and tablets with the internet. They’re also giving information to parents about such ads which target the unsuspecting kids.   On its summary, the WHO underlines several studies linking childhood obesity with marketing of junk food and beverages which are high in saturated fat, sugars and salt. As part of its fight against childhood obesity, the organization of nations has called on Member States to introduce restrictions on advertising of aforementioned products on all platforms including the internet.   In 2012 in Europe, said the WHO, children use ‘digital media’ for nearly two hours daily on weekdays. And on weekends, they’re online an extra half an hour longer. Internet use is increasing sharply, the organization added, and the trend covers all age groups.   Hidden junk food ads online   For starters, Google, Facebook and YouTube are the sites with most daily visits online. Meanwhile, Android and iPhone (iOS) are the top platforms on hand-held communication devices, and they also have advertisements via applications.   Facebook is running its own advertising network, allowing advertisers to launch adverts that target specific age groups. Meanwhile, YouTube and Google have the same advertising network, under the Alphabet Inc, and have features similar to Facebook’s.   But Facebook and Google are just platforms.   As reported by the BBC, the WHO report criticized video bloggers, or Vloggers, who  are getting paychecks from junk foods. These people are more influential than an ad running on Facebook’s ‘newsfeed’ or a skippable five-second advertisement on YouTube.   Quoting a study, the WHO report says video bloggers are more influential than celebrities seen on television and other media “as children view them as authentic.” Children tend to trust video bloggers more and follow their recommendations.   Marketing agencies partner with Vloggers who often show online how they eat or when they buy it.   The report said the WHO is currently reviewing foods and drinks that can run ads that target children."
377,"Washington mall shooting suspect to be arraigned Monday —  The lone suspect held in the killing of five people at a Washington state mall will be arraigned Monday and authorities are working steadily to nail down a motive, a state patrol spokesman said Sunday.   Arcan Cetin, 20, is facing five counts of first-degree murder, according to Skagit County jail records. He will appear Monday in the county's district court. Cetin, held in Skagit County jail on Sunday, has not been formally charged, according to Sgt. Mark Francis, a state patrol spokesman. Four women and one man died in the shooting Friday night at a Macy's store at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, north of Seattle. The victims' identities have not been released. Cetin was taken into custody Saturday night after a nearly 24-hour manhunt, authorities said. ""We feel confident we have the shooter,"" Francis told reporters. ""Whether or not anyone else was involved, that will be determined."" Authorities arrested Cetin as he walked down the street near his home in Oak Harbor, Washington. When officers confronted Cetin, he did not run, said Lt. Mike Hawley of the Island County Sheriff's Office. Instead, Cetin froze and complied, Hawley said. ""He said nothing,"" Hawley said. Francis said the suspect was ""calm and collected last night when he was arrested"" and that he has been interviewed. Cetin emigrated from Turkey and is a legal permanent resident of the United States, authorities said. It's unclear when he moved to the United States. In its initial alert about the suspect Friday night, the state patrol described him as ""Hispanic."" Asked whether that detail delayed the investigation, Francis said it was possible. State authorities said it's too early to rule out terrorism or any other motive because their investigation is in its preliminary stages. Before the suspect's arrest, an official with the FBI had told reporters there was ""no evidence at this time"" of a link to terrorism. Francis said Cetin has an ex-girlfriend who worked at a Macy's but it is not known if it was the Macy's at Cascade Mall. So far, authorities haven't been able to find any link between the suspect and the victims. Authorities say Cetin walked into the mall, about 65 miles north of Seattle, and opened fire with a rifle Friday night. They say he walked in without the firearm and left the weapon at the scene before he fled, sending more than 24 law enforcement agencies on a manhunt across the state. Authorities say they are trying to figure out where he got the weapon. Authorities collected evidence from the mall overnight Friday and all day Saturday as the bodies were removed. Eventually, they identified his vehicle by matching information received from a tip with surveillance footage obtained from local business."
378,"Washington state mall shooting suspect was under 'no firearm' order —  * 20-year-old suspect Arcan Cetin charged 3 times with domestic assault * Ex-girlfriend had previously worked at targeted store A 20-year-old suspect was in custody on Sunday for the killing of five people during a deadly shooting at a mall in Burlington, Washington, two days before. Arcan Cetin of Oak Harbor, Washington, a legal permanent resident who had immigrated to the US from Turkey, was discovered “zombie-like”, police said, on Saturday evening after police responded to a tip-off following an intensive 24-hour manhunt. Cetin was unarmed at the time of his arrest, authorities said. Although a motive for the shooting remains unclear, authorities told local media that Cetin’s ex-girlfriend had previously worked at the targeted department store but left her job months ago. The suspect had been charged three times with domestic assault against his stepfather and had been ordered by a judge not to possess a firearm, according to the Seattle Times. At a Saturday press conference, the FBI said terrorism was not a suspected motive. The 20-year-old, who was initially described by authorities as Hispanic, was discovered by police in the city of Oak Harbor, about 30 miles from the site of the shooting. Mike Hawley, an Island County sheriff’s lieutenant, said he spotted Cetin from a patrol car Saturday and immediately recognized him. “I literally hit my brakes, did a quick turn, I jumped out,” Hawley said. “We both jumped out with our guns, and he just froze.” Cetin was carrying a satchel with a computer in it. “He was kind of zombie-like,” Hawley said. Jail records indicate Cetin faces five counts of first degree murder and is being held without bail but has yet to be formally charged. Authorities said Cetin was expected to appear in court on Monday. Burlington mayor Steve Sexton said the shooting had “probably changed forever” the small city of 8,600 people which lies about 60 miles north of Seattle. “This was a senseless act. It was the world knocking on our doorstep, and it came into our little community,” Sexton said at a press conference on Saturday.   The Seattle Times reported that one of the victims was a 16-year-old girl, Sarai Lara. Advertisement Her mother said she had survived cancer as a young girl and was a happy student. Evangelina Lara told the newspaper she was shopping on Friday night at the mall in Burlington with Sarai and her younger sister, but they split up. She said Sarai went to Macy’s looking for pants. The Everett Daily Herald named Shayla Martin, a 52-year-old make-up artist who worked at the department store, as another victim. Authorities have not named any of the victims in public but are expected to make further comments on Monday. On Friday, the first 911 call came in from the mall just before 7pm, police said: a man with a “hunting style rifle” was shooting at people at the makeup counter in Macy’s. When police arrived moments later, the carnage was complete. Four people were dead and the shooter was gone, last seen walking toward Interstate 5. A fifth victim, a man, died early on Saturday as police finished sweeping the building, which measures 434,000 square feet. Police recovered the weapon at the scene. Those who survived were still trying to process what happened as their community became the latest entry on a list of places known by the rest of world for mass shootings. Joanne Burkholder, 19, of nearby Mount Vernon, was watching the movie The Magnificent Seven in the mall’s theater when security guards came in and told them to evacuate immediately. Dozens of panicked moviegoers gathered in the hallway, and Burkholder heard screaming as the officers escorted them to safety in a parking lot. As she drove home later, she had to pull over because she was shaking so hard, she told the Associated Press. “I’m just very thankful for my life this morning. I’ve never been so terrified in my life,” she said on Saturday, trying to hold back tears as she attended a community vigil. “You’d think it would happen in Everett or Seattle, but a small town of Burlington, I’d never dream something like this would happen.” “It’s too scary. It’s too close to home,” said Maria Elena Vasquez, who attended the gathering with her husband and two young children."
379,"Water crisis in Bangladesh —  A new paper by the University of Delaware's Holly Michael and Mahfuzur Khan and colleagues, out this week in Nature Communications, reveals that overpumping of groundwater in Dhaka, Bangladesh, may have unforeseen consequences for citizens living in communities outside the city center. With a population of over 15 million people, Dhaka -- the capital of Bangladesh -- is considered a mega-city and shares many of the water management problems common to other major cities. While efforts are made to sustain water quantity and quality in city water supplies, Dhaka pumping has caused groundwater levels to drop more than 200 feet over the last 50 years and these levels continue to decline at a rate of up to 9 feet per year. An often-overlooked consequence of these actions in mega-cities is the associated effect on the water quality and supply to surrounding peri-urban or rural communities, where water resources are stressed and surface pollution from toxic metals, organic materials and other pollutants, is widespread. This is particularly problematic in Bangladesh, where naturally occurring arsenic in shallow (less than 200 feet) groundwater threatens the health of tens of millions of people. High levels of arsenic exist in areas surrounding Dhaka, and there people use deep (greater than 500 feet) groundwater, which is low in arsenic. Khan and Michael's work shows that even in water-rich systems like those in the Bengal Basin, pumping to supply water to mega-cities can threaten regional groundwater resources by inducing fast transport of the contaminants, specifically arsenic, a known carcinogen, to deeper areas of the aquifer, even outside the city limits where it can contaminate deep wells used for arsenic mitigation. ""It is an environmental justice problem because the people who benefit from the city water supply are not the people whose wells are at-risk of contamination -- arsenic contamination only exists outside of the city. There, if a community's well becomes contaminated because of what's happening in Dhaka, they may not have another source of safe water,"" said Michael, Unidel Fraser Russell Chair for the Environment and associate professor of geology, which is housed in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. Understanding how groundwater moves Regional groundwater models tend to use parameters that generalize how water moves through the subsurface, incorporating only larger-scale geologic structure, rather than the small-scale details of the geology of a city or region they are studying. In their study, Michael and her colleagues modeled the geology of Dhaka using detailed subsurface measurements, and then applied strong pumping mechanism to the model to mimic the current Dhaka pumping. The researchers found that when there is strong pumping and heterogeneity in the underground sediments like those found in a Delta -- it affects the overall hydrology of the area. ""Essentially, the pumping causes faster groundwater flow than normal because it quickly draws the water into massive city pumps deep in the aquifer. This hydrologic change can force shallow groundwater, where arsenic is found, to migrate downward at a much faster rate, even outside of the city where the pumps are located,"" said Michael, who has studied groundwater issues in Bangladesh since 2004. But what is heterogeneity? Aquifers, Michael explained, are created when geological sediments like sands and clays are naturally deposited over time. Heterogeneity refers to the way sand and clay is oriented underground, in the aquifer's subsurface, and is critical to how contaminants move in groundwater. In Delaware, the geological sediment layers tend to be much longer and thicker, sloping toward the sea. They are fairly consistent, meaning that water from multiple aquifers is generally separated and it is less likely that contamination will spread from one to another. In a delta system like Bangladesh, however, the clay layers are chopped up, allowing water to move in unpredictable ways and creating uncertainty about whether placing a well underneath a clay layer will protect it from contamination. While Dhaka city is known to be free from arsenic contamination because of its unique geology, outside of Dhaka the known-carcinogen is everywhere. If pumping in Dhaka's altered groundwater system continues at current levels, the researchers theorize that some wells outside the city center could become contaminated sooner than previously thought; within decades to centuries depending on the geochemical effects on arsenic transport through aquifer sediments. Another problem is that Dhaka pumping creates low water levels, which could compromise operation of handpumps well beyond the city center. Complicating matters, arsenic is tasteless, odorless and colorless, and can be detected in water only through testing. Communities outside the city center with deep wells, which are typically thought of as low in arsenic, may not realize their water is unsafe. Broader implications of the work Additionally, on analysis, the researchers' models showed that none of the typical hydrogeological data that scientists collect locally to assess whether or not a well is safe actually is predictive of whether or not the well is safe in this type of heterogeneous system. This finding is in sharp contrast to what's been assumed in the past and shows that the movement of arsenic and other contaminants through the aquifer and contamination of deep wells is not easily predicted. ""Our study shows that even the best calibrated models can miss important information if the models don't take into account the uneven and often rapid movement of water,"" Michael said. Scientists have noted this unpredictability in Dhaka before, but few have considered the larger scale implications, according to Michael. ""Thinking broadly about which wells are vulnerable hasn't been done before. Based on our modeling, if there is any contamination, it is likely very localized, but over the next few decades it could become more widespread and certainly in the next few hundred years,"" she said. Water quality monitoring will be key to identifying vulnerable areas, particularly outside of city management districts. And while contamination is a pressing issue, there are also huge water supply problems to consider in the next decade. Since the region is monsoonal and can receive up to three feet of rain each summer, and sometimes much more, artificial groundwater recharge through injection wells may provide a solution, Michael said. ________________"
380,"Wells Fargo workers describe mental health nightmares —  For Janis Barinsky, a former Wells Fargo banker, it started with stress-induced migraines and severe anxiety. She says trying to balance the bank's aggressive sales goals without doing something illegal and sacrificing her morals pushed her into deep depression. Barinsky worked for Wells Fargo (WFC) from 2002 to 2013 as a personal banker and a business specialist at several locations in Northern California and Idaho. She told CNNMoney she ""internalized this constant pressure -- and it manifested itself in physical, emotional and psychological problems in my life."" The bank last month admitted to creating as many as 2 million unauthorized bank and credit card accounts. Almost immediately after the revelations, CNNMoney was inundated with dozens of emails from Wells Fargo workers, both current and former, who described the high-pressure work environment. Many of these workers said they suffered mental health issues as a result. It was an environment where unethical behavior was rewarded, many former employees say. Barinsky says she watched colleagues get lucrative bonuses and even promotions after hitting unrealistic goals by using unethical practices. The mental health issues forced Barinsky to go on medical leave and she sought treatment from psychologists. Eventually, she was forced to retire. Barinsky, who today is 63 years old, said efforts to speak up by calling the Wells Fargo ethics line, an internal hotline for confidentially flagging bad behavior, repeatedly didn't work. That echoes claims made by other former employees. ""I am not alone,"" said Barinsky. ""I am positive many former employees have experienced and are experiencing these lasting and devastating effects of the abuse we suffered as Wells Fargo employees."" Related: Letter warned Wells Fargo of 'widespread' fraud in 2007 Jeremy Mohr of Pennsylvania said he too felt ""ridiculous"" pressure to hit ""unreasonable"" sales goals after Wells Fargo took over his Wachovia branch in 2009. He described getting ""hounded"" about his performance by ""obsessive compulsive, controlling management.""   Mohr recalled being constantly observed by managers, who would critique his interactions with customers. The observations were recorded and Mohr had to sign off on the documents. One time, Mohr was told to sign a document indicating he had just been observed on a customer interaction, even though that hadn't happened. He signed the form, and three months later, Mohr was fired in early 2011 for ""willful misconduct"" tied to this incident. Mohr found it extremely difficult to find another job and it ultimately led to a personal bankruptcy. The experience left him humiliated. ""I went into depression, I contemplated suicide...from losing my job,"" said Mohr. In June 2011, he used exhaust fumes from his father's car to attempt suicide. Mohr said he was hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning after his ex-wife discovered him. ""The catalyst was the s--- that Wells Fargo did to me,"" Mohr said. Today, Mohr, 40, is happily employed, working as a bartender at Houlihan's in Hershey, and has plans to buy a home. ""I have fun at work. It's a great environment,"" he said. Related: I called the Wells Fargo ethics line and was fired The experiences recounted by these employees underscore the human toll inflicted by a work culture that many former Wells Fargo employees said forced them to cheat and even break the law. Some described migraines and severe anxiety. Several complained of stomach ailments because they were denied bathroom breaks, a problem one banker described recently to a Wells Fargo executive at a California State Assembly hearing. In a statement to CNNMoney, Wells Fargo acknowledged that ""we have let down our customers and our team members."" The bank said it is ""making fundamental changes to help ensure our team members are supported in upholding our customer-focused culture."" That includes the recent decision to scrap the controversial sales goals. Tim Sloan, who was hastily elevated to CEO earlier this month after John Stumpf suddenly resigned, admitted that Wells Fargo ""had serious problems"" at its retail bank. Sloan recently told analysts it would be an ""understatement"" to say Wells Fargo employees have been ""put through the wringer"" as a result of the scandal. Extreme stress at work can lead to severe mental health problems, like depression and psychosis, which can be worsened when there is a component of illegal activity, according to Paul Gionfriddo, CEO of Mental Health America, a nonprofit focused on advocacy and support. Related: Wells Fargo CEO walks with $130 million The culture was not easy on even the managers. Susan Fischer, a former Wells Fargo branch manager in Arizona, said she suffered ""severe depression and anxiety"" after being pushed to instruct employees to open unauthorized accounts in 2007. Fischer had to take medical leave and ultimately resigned in 2008 due to the stress. ""It was an extremely dark period for me,"" she said.   The nightmares extended to the bankers who handled home mortgages too. Lisa Skipton said her managers inside Wells Fargo's mortgage division made her feel like a ""worthless human being"" while she worked as a loan document specialist in 2012 and 2013. She recalled experiencing ""bullying, punishment and intimidation"" at Wells Fargo and said this impacted her self-esteem and mental health. Skipton said that ""several times a day,"" managers at her Iowa branch would pull up statistics to measure her against other employees. For instance, they would email out tables every few hours showing how many mortgage files each employee touched, how many were sent to closing, how many calls they made an hour and their customer loyalty survey results. ""Depending on when they pulled the numbers, you could be a hero in one hour, and a worthless employee in the next hour,"" she recalled. She said managers would even block bonuses that were already earned by putting employees on performance improvement plans. ""Every day you went to work you wondered...am I a good employee today or a worthless one?"" Skipton said the final straw came when her managers showed no compassion after her 25-year-old daughter was hospitalized and nearly died. Instead of support, she said her supervisors criticized her performance. That's when she quit. ""Although I have been away from Wells Fargo for years, I still feel sick to my stomach every time I drive by a Wells Fargo branch,"" Skipton said."
381,"Wells Fargo workers: Fake accounts began years ago —  Wells Fargo's fake accounts have been around a long time. Almost a dozen Wells Fargo (WFC) workers told CNNMoney that the shocking tactic -- where employees opened unauthorized accounts to meet unrealistic sales goals -- has been around much longer than the bank has acknowledged. ""These practices were going on way before 2011,"" said Susan Fischer, a former Wells Fargo branch manager, who worked at the bank for five years, starting in 2004. Americans were stunned to learn earlier this month that Wells Fargo employees had opened as many as two million fake accounts since 2011, and that 5,300 people had been fired as part of the scam since then. The Justice Department launched an investigation two weeks ago. Two Congressional hearings have been called. CEO John Stumpf was skewered in the Senate last week and the House hearing is scheduled for this Thursday. Related: Fired Wells Fargo workers fight back with lawsuit Fischer said she remembers her district manager instructing her in 2007 to make the employees reporting to her open unauthorized accounts. It was about a year after she moved from Wisconsin to Arizona to manage a Wells Fargo branch. ""My district manager told me, 'Do whatever you need to do,'"" Fischer said. But Fischer ran into trouble when she refused take part in fraudulent activity. Superiors said she wasn't hitting her goals. Soon, Fischer got so stressed from her work environment that she had to take a medical leave of absence and wasn't allowed to return. ""It took a huge chunk of my life and my income,"" said Fischer. Why is the former Wells Fargo branch boss speaking up now? ""If someone doesn't stand up, this is going to continue,"" she said."
382,"Western Watersheds lawsuit to curb abusive grazing in White Clouds Wilderness and East Fork Salmon River —  More than a decade after a federal court ordered the Sawtooth National Forest to create a plan to improve grazing management on the Upper and Lower East Fork public grazing allotments in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Advocates for the West has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Western Watersheds Project to challenge the agency’s status quo grazing decisions. These have continued to allow heavy grazing and repeated violations on these public lands.   “The White Clouds are so spectacular that Congress recently protected them as Wilderness,” said Kristin Ruether, senior attorney for Western Watersheds Project. “These high elevation public lands are the last place that heavy cattle grazing belongs. We’re asking the Forest Service to manage them the way they deserve—for wildlife.”   The East Fork of the Salmon River and tributary creeks on these grazing allotments are important but sensitive habitat for spring and summer Chinook, Snake River steelhead, Columbia River bull trout, and westslope cutthroat trout. After being sued previously, the Forest Service acknowledged in 2003 that grazing was causing significant harm to resources on these allotments. The Service promised that careful monitoring would in the future adequately protect habitat from grazing impacts. Management adjustments were supposed to be made to stop impairment of the watershed. However, even after additional repeated grazing violations, the agency refused to reduce grazing use or impose any penalties for non-compliance. In 2012 and 2013 the agency issued new ten-year permits, but their annual cattle grazing authorizations issued every year since have failed to meaningfully correct the problems.   The Forest Service itself has documented repeated overgrazing and cattle trespass into unauthorized areas that degrades the streams on these allotments. “Violations have escalated in recent years” said Laurie Rule, Senior Attorney with Advocates for the West.  “The agency’s perpetual authorization of grazing in the face of such widespread problems violates the law and pushes these imperiled fish closer to extinction.”   In addition to providing important habitat for fish species protected under the Endangered Species Act, the two allotments are within the acclaimed Sawtooth National Recreation Area and overlap into  the White Clouds Wilderness. This area should provide outstanding recreational opportunities and access to unique alpine environments. The grazing challenged here has impaired these opportunities, particularly around popular lakes such as Frog Lake and Little Redfish Lake.   “Many Americans care deeply about the special lands of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area,” said Ruether. “It’s time for the Forest Service to start showing that it cares too,” said the groups."
383,"What Happens to Smuggled Animals After They’re Seized? —  The world’s wildlife trade policy body wants better treatment and tracking of illegally traded animals confiscated by authorities. Johannesburg, South AfricaWe’ve heard a lot recently about illegal trading of elephant ivory and rhino horn, but it’s not only animal parts that smugglers attempt to slip across borders for the commercial trade. They also move live wild animals—reptiles, birds, monkeys—to other nations, where they’re sold as exotic pets or as props in tourist attractions. Some are killed to supply demand for their body parts. Officials seized more than 60,000 wild creatures between 2010 and 2014, according to a recent study by World Animal Protection and WildCRU, Oxford University’s wildlife conservation research team. About a fifth of those were threatened species. And this statistic represents the “tip of a far greater iceberg,” said lead author Neil D’Cruze, because most countries don’t report information about live wildlife confiscations. So with grim futures awaiting so many trafficked animals, it’s a good thing when authorities seize illegally traded wildlife—you’d think. Instead, wildlife advocates say that animals often fare terribly after they’re confiscated. “In some places, if the animals could speak up, maybe they’d choose to be with the traffickers,” said Elsayed Ahmed Mohamed of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. Mohamed’s and D’Cruze’s comments came on Tuesday at the conference, in Johannesburg, South Africa, of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), the body that sets global wildlife trade policy. Made up of 182 nations and the European Union, CITES is tasked primarily with conservation and trade issues, so consideration of animal welfare matters rarely takes the spotlight. But on the conference agenda was a proposal and a panel discussion on the question of how nations can do a better job of tracking and protecting seized live animals, as well as ensuring that they don’t harm humans and other wildlife. Under CITES guidelines, nations must send confiscated animals back to the exporting country, or to a “government-designated rescue center,” or other places deemed “appropriate.” CITES also directs countries to ensure humane treatment of the animals. But that doesn’t always happen, according to advocates, who say it can be expensive or impractical to transport some wild animals back home and that some member nations don’t have designated rescue centers. In some cases authorities simply decide not to confiscate the animals because they don’t know what to do with them, D’Cruze says. Instead, they might be sent to shoddy facilities, end up back in the hands of traffickers, or be returned to the wild where some could spread diseases. Animals might even be euthanized for no good reason. “Officials involved in seizures sometimes have no expertise on handling that type of animal that may be dangerous or may carry diseases or be seriously injured,” says Masha Kalinina, a global trade policy specialist at Humane Society International. ""They don’t know what to do with these animals—whether they should put them back in the forest outside their door, whether they should keep them at the customs facility or give them to a zoo."" One eyebrow-raising case surfaced last year when police in Vietnam seized 42 pangolins and handed them over to forest rangers for safekeeping. The rangers sold the critically endangered creatures to local restaurants for $11,000. (Related: “The World's Most Trafficked Mammal Just Got Desperately Needed Help”) And before Spain designated a rescue center, some of its seized animals went to a zoo now under investigation for ties to the illegal wildlife trade, according to Raquel Garcia, head of public policy at Animal Advocacy and Protection, a nonprofit that runs rescue centers and advocates for wild animals. Garcia says things improved once her organization set up shop in Spain. “We’re the designated rescue center, so we answer the call when the authorities have a confiscation,” she said. “We bring them in, rehabilitate them if they’re social animals, and make sure they’re placed in a legitimate location.” Further complicating matters is that CITES doesn’t require nations to track the animals after they’re seized, so it’s hard to know what outcomes are most common. That makes it tough to figure out where to direct resources or hold countries accountable if things go wrong. But there’s now a glimmer of hope: The convention’s member countries agreed to direct the Secretariat, the governing body of CITES, to distribute a questionnaire and provide analysis about how nations deal with confiscated animals. And Humane Society International has offered recommendations to the countries on how to set up a rescue center, which it hopes CITES will incorporate into its guidelines. “We’re going to see more live animals in trade detected and confiscated,” said CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon during the panel discussion, adding that “we really need to assist countries” that may have other more pressing priorities to deal with."
384,"What Is Polluting Our Planet More: Methane Gas From Cows Or Carbon From Cars? —  On Average, a cow releases between 70 and 120 kilograms of Methane, a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide, per year.   The major difference between the two gasses is that the negative effect that Methane has on the climate is about 23 times higher than the effect of CO2. For example, the release of about 100 kilograms of Methane per year for each cow is equivalent to about 2,300 kilograms of CO2 per year.   There are about 1.5 billion cows and bulls world-wide. All of the ruminant animals in the world emit about two billion metric tons of CO2-equivalents per year. Additionally, tropical forests and rainforests that are cleared for the use of farm land is responsible for another 2.8 billion metric tons of CO2 emission per year.   According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), agricultural farming and cattle breeding is responsible for 18% of the total release of greenhouse gases world-wide which is more than the entire transportation sector.   “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation,” says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report:   About 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface is now being used by prominent livestock pastures as well as the 33 percent of global land that is being used to produce feed for livestock. Forests are also rapidly being cleared to create land for new pastures which is a major cause for deforestation and habitat loss. In Latin America, about 70 percent of former Amazon forests have turned into land used for cattle grazing.   img_0367   There is no doubt that the overgrowing farming industry made a large impact on the state of global warming. People are now consuming more meat and dairy products than ever before and each year the numbers continue to grow. In 2050, global meat production is projected to be 465 million tonnes which is more than double of the production of meat collected in 1999/2001 which was 229 million tonnes.   A Japanese study showed that the emission of greenhouse gasses released by producing a kilogram of beef effects global warming with a potential equivalent to 36.4 kilograms of CO2. It also releases fertilizing compounds equivalent to 340 grams of sulphur dioxide and 59 grams of phosphate, and consumes 169 megajoules of energy.   The amount of CO2 emitted by this one kilogram of beef is disturbingly equivalent to the amount of CO2 emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometers and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for about 20 days.   The planet is calling on us to conserve it and make a change! One of the most effective ways to protect the environment, the planet, and to reduce your overall carbon footprint is to consume less meat and dairy products."
385,"What President Trump Will Mean for Earth’s Climate —  He could prove cataclysmic. If he fulfills his campaign promises, President-Elect Donald J. Trump and his future administration could prove cataclysmic for the planet’s climate. Trump’s policies will likely ensure that the global mean temperature rises higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius. While that may seem like a small amount of warming, it would have devastating effects on a planetary scale, pushing weather patterns far outside what human civilization has previously experienced and ensuring mass extinctions. How could one president have so massive an effect? First, because Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the first international treaty to mitigate global warming. This could shatter the international consensus on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, similar to how the second Bush administration’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol effectively ended that treaty’s functional life within the United States. It could enable other countries to abandon their commitments and emit greenhouse gases at much higher rates. “China, Europe, Brazil, India and other countries will continue to move ahead with the climate commitments they made under Paris no matter what the next president does, because these commitments are in their own national interest,” said Alden Meyer, the director of policy and strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in an email. While the Paris Agreement became international law this week—making it technically impossible for a president to withdraw before 2019 or 2020—Trump could simply refuse to recognize the agreement’s obligations, the vast majority of which are non-binding. Trump also said, late in the campaign, that he would cut off American support for UN climate science. Second, Trump will almost certainly terminate President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a set of EPA regulations meant to reduce emissions from the power sector. Lux Research, a global energy consulting group, estimated before the election that Trump’s policies would lead to the emission of an additional 3.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as compared to Clinton’s. These two factors alone could push the world over the edge. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the planet could only stand another five years of emissions at current rates before it would become impossible to keep the global mean temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius. If emissions increased under a Trump administration, as Lux projects, then the world could overshoot that carbon budget well before 2021. Trump appears to doubt the existence of climate change itself. Though he later denied saying it, Trump tweeted before the campaign began that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese government to depress American industry. “The Paris Agreement was signed and ratified not by a President, but by the United States itself. As a matter of international law, and as a matter of human survival, the nations of the world can, must, and will hold the United States to its climate commitments,” said Carroll Muffett, the president and CEO of the Center for International Climate Law. “Donald Trump now has the unflattering distinction of being the only head of state in the entire world to reject the scientific consensus that mankind is driving climate change,” said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, in a statement. “No matter what happens, Donald Trump can’t change the fact that wind and solar energy are rapidly becoming more affordable and accessible than dirty fossil fuels. With both the market and grassroots environmental advocacy moving us toward clean energy, there is still a strong path forward for reducing climate pollution even under a Trump presidency.” Indeed, Brune’s statement hints at the next steps for climate activists. The Sierra Club has successfully retired more than 190 coal plants since 2003, leading a campaign that has relied more on local activism than federal support. Even if Trump seeks to expand the construction of coal-burning plants, those campaigns will likely continue. Activists are also likely to seek the creation of emissions-restriction plans in individual states. While Washington defeated a carbon-tax referendum last night, that measure was opposed by the state’s left. Other state efforts at mitigating climate change have found more success. Earlier this year, California passed a series of state laws that will dramatically alter that state’s energy profile, granting its state agency the freedom to cut emissions by 40 percent by 2030. It seems likely that environmental leaders will seek similar measures in other states. As Brune mentioned, wind energy and solar energy are also increasingly price-competitive with fossil fuels, especially in the sunny southwest and on the coast. If the United States embarks on the major round of new infrastructure construction that Trump has promised, then it would make economic sense for the country to build huge new wind and solar power plants. “While there are divisions between the Democrats and Republicans on climate policy, there is bipartisan support for investments in clean energy and climate resilience.  The infrastructure initiatives that both Trump and Clinton put forward during the campaign present the opportunity to address both of these needs,” said Meyer. Indeed, a recent Pew poll found that 89 percent of Americans approve of expanding solar power. Eighty-three percent want to expand wind farms. Constructing renewable-energy infrastructure across the country would increase U.S. manufacturing’s skill at building new solar and wind technologies, help reduce the cost of electricity for ratepayers, and entrench support for clean power among both parties. Whether Trump, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell sign on to such a plan, though, may be another story."
386,"What Veterans Want You To Know About PTSD —  For many, this Veterans Day comes with a little extra heaviness. Just days ago, our country elected a new president who has insulted decorated war veterans and suggested that post-traumatic stress disorder is a sign of weakness.    Unfortunately, PTSD myths and stereotypes like this are all too common. An estimated 8 million Americans ― and up to 31 percent of Vietnam War veterans and 20 percent of Iraq veterans ― suffer from PTSD, and rates of the disorder in the U.S. are now higher than ever.    But still, the disorder is poorly understood, stigmatized and often misrepresented, and the negative connotations surrounding PTSD are a major part of what keeps many veterans from seeking help. Increasing understanding around the disorder can only help more veterans to seek help and get better treatment.   In honor of Veterans Day, here are five things vets wish others knew about PTSD. Anyone who refers to veterans with PTSD as “weak” has no idea what those people have seen and experienced in a war zone, or the toll that these experiences can take on an individual ― no matter how “strong” they are.    “War, I believe, dare not be commented on by those who has yet to experience it,” one military veteran told Gawker. “Until you kill other human beings for survival, what could you possibly say about it? It assaults all your scenes, the smell of death and the machines that cause it. Noises so loud you feel like an ant under a lawnmower. It is incomprehensible.”   “On my best days I tell myself I killed to survive,” he added. “On my worst my mind tells me I committed acts of madness so that I didn’t go mad.”   The blog PTSD: A Soldier’s Perspective aims to share stories from and inspiration for veterans struggling with after-effects of their service.   “There is disconnection between everything human and what has to be done in combat,” a vet named Scott Lee wrote on the platform in 2008. “Imagine being in an unimaginable situation and having to do the unthinkable.”   That being said, some veterans say there’s a common misperception that counselors or therapists can’t do anything because they can’t possibly understand. Psychologists can help even if they don’t understand everything about war, according to Jeffrey Denning, the author of Warrior SOS: Military Veterans’ Stories of Faith, Emotional Survival and Living with PTSD.   PTSD isn’t always easy to recognize.   Symptoms of the disorder often go masked and unnoticed. War journalist Sebastian Junger, who spent months embedded with American troops in Afghanistan, wrote a Vanity Fair essay about the experience last June. In it, he highlighted his own struggle to recognize PTSD.    “I had no idea that what I’d just experienced had anything to do with combat; I just thought I was going crazy,” he wrote. “For the next several months I kept having panic attacks whenever I was in a small place with too many people — airplanes, ski gondolas, crowded bars. Gradually the incidents stopped, and I didn’t think about them again until I found myself talking to a woman at a picnic who worked as a psychotherapist. She asked whether I’d been affected by my war experiences, and I said no, I didn’t think so. But for some reason I described my puzzling panic attack in the subway. ‘That’s called post-traumatic stress disorder,’ she said.”   Much of the suffering of PTSD is silent.    PTSD survivors often suffer in silence, trying to present a strong face to the world and not seeking help for fear of being seen as week. A veteran who served in Baghdad in 2007 and 2008 opened up about the struggle to admit to himself that he needed care.    “The few nights a week I’d get drunk and start crying inconsolably, although often silently, I tried to shake off as simple moments of weakness,” he wrote, according to Gawker. “I should be tough, like my grandfather returning from WW2, or all the others who seemed to get on day after day without noticeable problems.”    “Some of the toughest guys I had ended up the worst off” he added. “I simply hope that everyone, at some point, can get the help they need and I hope the VA can get its act together to assist those who so desperately need it.”   PTSD doesn’t make you violent.    A harmful stereotype about PTSD is that it leads to aggressive behavior. But research indicates that the prevalence of violence among individuals with PTSD is only slightly higher than the general population, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.   In a viral blog post published on the website RhinoDen, a veteran named Rob fights back against the dangerous stereotype that veterans with PTSD have violent tendencies.    “I have never committed violence in the workplace, just like the vast majority of those who suffer with me,” he writes. “I have never physically assaulted anyone out of anger or rage. It pains me when I listen to the news and every time a veteran commits a crime (or commits suicide); it is automatically linked to and blamed on PTSD. Yes, there are some who cannot control their actions due to this imbalance in our heads, but don’t put a label on us that we are all incorrigible. Very few of us are bad.”    Recovery is possible.   One of the most damaging stereotypes about PTSD is the idea that people with the disorder are somehow broken or can’t heal.    Roy Webb, a Marine who served in Vietnam and suffered from PTSD and insomnia for four decades, told CBS News about his recovery through yoga and meditation.    “I did feel at total peace, like I hadn’t known in years. You don’t have all those thoughts flying through your mind at night,” he said.   Iraq veteran Gordon Ewell, who has overcome PTSD, sent a message of hope to his fellow veterans: Recovery is always possible, and you’re never alone.    “You may not be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I promise it is there,” he said in an interview published in Denning’s book. “I promise you can get through anything. I also promise that there are people willing to walk with you every step of the way.”"
387,"What We Know: The Explosions in New York and New Jersey —  What we know on Tuesday, September 20: —The suspect: The New York Police Department identified the suspect in Saturday’s bombing as Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, a New Jersey resident. New Jersey State Police say he is also wanted for the explosion Saturday in Seaside Park. Rahami is reportedly in custody. —The bombs in New York City: The blast occurred at around 8:30 p.m. Saturday at West 23rd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 29 people. Several hours later, NYPD found what appeared to be a pressure-cooker bomb four blocks away on West 27th Street. —The bombs in New Jersey: There was an explosion Saturday near the starting point of a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park. Then late Sunday, authorities said several bombs, including pipe bombs, were found inside a backpack near the train station in Elizabeth. ________________   7:21 p.m. Tuesday Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Rahami with planting several bombs in New York and New Jersey. One of those bombs, which exploded in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, injured 31 people. The charges include the use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction of property, bombing, and the use of a destructive device. More from the Associated Press: The [federal] complaint includes excerpts from a handwritten journal authorities say they he wrote. It says the writer lauded Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric killed in a 2011 drone strike, and Nidal Hasan, the former U.S. Army major who went on a 2009 rampage at the Fort Hood military installation. Prosecutors say the document ends: “The sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets. Gun shots to your police. Death To Your OPPRESSION.” Rahami remains hospitalized after sustaining several gunshot wounds in a shoutout with police. He faces additional state charges in New Jersey for his role in the shootout. ________________   6:50 p.m. Monday Prosecutors have charged Rahami with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, NBC News reports. The charges are related to the gun battle he had with police, where two officers were injured. Both officers are expected to make full recoveries. Rahami was also shot several times, including in the leg and arm. He, too, is expected to recover. Rahami was also charged with second-degree unlawful possession of a gun and second-degree possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose. His bail was set for $5.2 million. He has yet to be charged for the bombings in New York and New Jersey. ________________   6:15 p.m. President Obama spoke with the two New Jersey law enforcement officers who were injured while apprehending Rahami, the White House said Monday. The president also praised the “extraordinary work and coordination that is taking place between the FBI and law enforcement,” while speaking at a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in New York. ________________   1:35 p.m. At a news conference Monday afternoon, Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor, said: “We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror.” He added “there is no [other] individual we’re looking for at this point in time.” De Blasio also defended the first-time use of the emergency-alert message delivered to New Yorkers’ cell phones, saying the alert helped in the suspect’s capture.   De Blasio and law-enforcement officials thanked police in Linden, New Jersey, who shot and wounded the suspect, who is now in custody. Two officers were injured while capturing him, James O’Neill, the New York police commissioner, said. He said there was no motive yet for Ahmad Khan Rahami’s actions. Speaking at the news conference, the FBI Assistant Director Willian Sweeney said there is “no indication” a terrorist cell is operating in the New York-New Jersey area. Sweeney also said the five people detained on the Verrazano-Narrows bridge Saturday night were no longer in custody. ________________   11:44 a.m. Images are emerging on social media of Ahmad Khan Rahami’s capture. Authorities have not independently confirmed these images. President Obama said: “We are extremely grateful that nobody was killed.” He said “at this point” there was no connection to the stabbings over the weekend in Minnesota. “Our counterterrorism professionals ... are working together to prevent attacks and keep us safe,” he said. “They are the best of the best.” ________________   11:21 a.m. Ahmad Khan Rahami is reportedly in custody, according to NBC News and a coalition of reporters in New York City: City leaders and law-enforcement officials are expected to hold a news conference in which they’ll provide more details. ________________   10:23 a.m. We’re learning more about Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in the New York and New Jersey blasts. The New York Times reports he and his family lived above the fast-food restaurant, First American Fried Chicken, they operated in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And, the newspaper says, Rahami had a penchant for fast cars. Police and FBI agents searched multiple homes and businesses in the southern part of Elizabeth for Rahami, and authorities released new images of the suspect. Authorities in New Jersey say Ahmad Khan Rahami is also wanted for the explosion Saturday in Seaside Park. This marks the first time authorities are publicly connecting the weekend’s blasts in New York City and New Jersey. ________________   8:28 a.m. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Ahmad Khan Rahami “could be armed and dangerous.” “Anyone seeing him should call 911 immediately,” he said. Speaking on ABC’s Good Morning America, de Blasio said there would be increased police presence in the city. When asked if the blast was an act of terrorism, he replied: “It's definitely leaning in that direction.” De Blasio also said the five people detained late Sunday after their car was pulled over on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, headed to Brooklyn, were being questioned.   On CNN, Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor, said he “would not be surprised if we did have a foreign connection to the act.” On Sunday, he’d said the blast didn’t appear to be linked to international terrorism. ABC News, meanwhile, reported that it appears likely the blast in New York and the incidents in New Jersey are connected, though law-enforcement officials have not publicly linked the incidents. ________________   7:58 a.m. New York City Police have identified the bombing suspect as Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Afghan descent. Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor, said Rahami was a New Jersey resident. Earlier Monday, Chris Bollwage, the mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey, said two men who had came out of a restaurant near the city’s train station late Sunday found a backpack on a municipal garbage can that they opened and found “wires and a pipe.” They alerted the police, who, in turn, contacted the bomb squad in Union County, he said. Federal and state authorities eventually found five explosive devices, including pipe bombs, inside the backpack. A robot sent by the FBI accidentally detonated a device, Bollwage said. #BREAKING video shows moment bomb robot accidentally detonated device found @ Elizabeth NJ train station. @PIX11Newspic.twitter.com/xfO97F2ebm — Anthony DiLorenzo (@ADiLorenzoTV) September 19, 2016 It’s unclear if the incident is in any way connected to the blast late Saturday in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood that injured 29 people or the pressure-cooker bomb that was found—and defused—just blocks away a few hours later. Nor is it known if the bombs found in Elizabeth are connected to the explosion Saturday near the starting point of a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey. No one was injured, and the motive behind the bomb is not yet known. The FBI Bomb Squad was continuing its investigation at the scene where the backpack was found, Bollwage said. ________________   Updated at 5:49 p.m. EST A powerful explosion in Manhattan injured 29 people, sent shrapnel flying, shattered windows, and prompted widespread street closures Saturday night. Police later found a second device, which did not go off, a few blocks away. The blast occurred at around 8:30 p.m. at West 23rd Street and 6th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Twenty-nine people suffered non-life-threatening injuries. All the victims were treated and released from the hospital by Sunday morning. New York police said Sunday the device had “some components indicative of an IED,” an improvised explosive device. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters Sunday the explosion was “an act of terrorism.” But at another press conference Sunday, New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill did not back up Cuomo’s characterization. “If it is an act of terrorism, we’re going to come out and say it,” said O’Neill, who is in his second day on the job as commissioner. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also stopped short of describing the explosion as an act of terrorism. “We’re going to be very careful and patient to get to the full truth here,” he said Sunday afternoon, after Cuomo’s remarks. “We are not going to jump to conclusions.” Officials say preliminary evidence does not show any connection to foreign terrorist organizations. Cuomo said 1,000 state and National Guard officers have been dispatched to major commuter hubs in the city. De Blasio described the police presence as “bigger than ever.” Several hours after the explosion, the NYPD found a second device four blocks away on West 27th Street. That device appeared to be a pressure-cooker bomb, of the kind used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Here’s a photo: The NYPD’s bomb squad removed the device from the site and is still examining it. Cuomo said Sunday this device was similar to the one that detonated. City officials said Saturday night’s incident was not connected to a pipe-bomb explosion in New Jersey near the starting point of a Marine Corps charity race on Saturday morning. No one was injured, and the motive behind the bomb is not yet known. New York police is reviewing video footage from both crime scenes on 6th Avenue and have asked the public to call in with tips. The department is investigating the explosion with the help of state police, FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The explosion comes one week before the United Nations brings dozens of world leaders and diplomats to New York City for its annual General Assembly gathering."
388,"Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo —  Every day when Lt. Cmdr. Shay Rosecrans crossed into the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, she tucked her medical school class ring into her bra, covered the name on her uniform with tape and hid her necklace under her T-shirt, especially if she was wearing a cross.   She tried to block out thoughts of her 4-year-old daughter. Dr. Rosecrans, a Navy psychiatrist, had been warned not to speak about her family or display anything personal, clues that might allow a terrorism suspect to identify her.   Patients called her “torture bitch,” spat at her co-workers and shouted death threats, she said. One hurled a cup of urine, feces and other fluids at a psychologist working with her. Even interviewing prisoners to assess their mental health set off recriminations and claims that she was torturing them. “What would your Jesus think?” they demanded.   Dr. Rosecrans, now retired from the Navy, led one of the mental health teams assigned to care for detainees at the island prison over the past 15 years. Some prisoners had arrived disturbed — traumatized adolescents hauled in from the battlefield, unstable adults who disrupted the cellblocks. Others, facing indefinite confinement, struggled with despair.   Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE     How U.S. Torture Left a Legacy of Damaged Minds OCT. 8, 2016   After Torture, Ex-Detainee Is Still Captive of ‘The Darkness’ OCT. 12, 2016 video Memories of a Secret C.I.A. Prison OCT. 8, 2016 ADVERTISEMENT   Continue reading the main story   Then there were prisoners who had developed symptoms including hallucinations, nightmares, anxiety or depression after undergoing brutal interrogations at the hands of Americans who were advised by other health personnel.   At Guantánamo, a willful blindness to the consequences emerged. Those equipped to diagnose, document and treat the effects — psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health teams — were often unaware of what had happened.   Sometimes by instruction and sometimes by choice, they typically did not ask what the prisoners had experienced in interrogations, current and former military doctors said. That compromised care, according to outside physicians working with legal defense teams, previously undisclosed medical records and court filings.   Dozens of men who underwent agonizing treatment in secret C.I.A. prisons or at Guantánamo were left with psychological problems that persisted for years, despite government lawyers’ assurances that the practices did not constitute torture and would cause no lasting harm, The New York Times has reported. Some men should never have been held, government investigators concluded. President-elect Donald J. Trump declared during his campaign that he would bring back banned interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, and authorize others that were “much worse.”   In recent interviews, more than two dozen military medical personnel who served or consulted at Guantánamo provided the most detailed account to date of mental health care there. Almost from the start, the shadow of interrogation and mutual suspicion tainted the mission of those treating prisoners. That limited their effectiveness for years to come.   Psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and technicians received little training for the assignment and, they said, felt unprepared to tend to men they were told were “the worst of the worst.” Doctors felt pushed to cross ethical boundaries, and were warned that their actions, at an institution roiled by detainees’ organized resistance, could have political and national security implications.   Rotations lasted only three to nine months, making it difficult to establish rapport. In a field that requires intimacy, the psychiatrists and their teams long used pseudonyms like Major Psych, Dr. Crocodile, Superman and Big Momma, and referred to patients by serial numbers, not names. They frequently had to speak through fences or slits in cell doors, using interpreters who also worked with interrogators. Wary patients often declined to talk to the mental health teams. (“Detainee refused to interact,” medical records note repeatedly.) At a place so shrouded in secrecy that for years any information learned from a detainee was to be treated as classified, what went on in interrogations “was completely restricted territory,” said Karen Thurman, a Navy commander, now retired, who served as a psychiatric nurse practitioner at Guantánamo. “‘How did it go?’” Or “‘Did they hit you?’ We were not allowed to ask that,” she said.   Dr. Rosecrans said she held back on such questions when she was there in 2004, not suspecting abuse and feeling constrained by the prison environment. “From a surgical perspective, you never open up a wound you cannot close,” she said. “Unless you have months, years, to help this person and help them get out of this hole, why would you ever do this?”   The United States military defends the quality of mental health care at Guantánamo as humane and appropriate. Detainees, human rights groups and doctors consulting for defense teams offer more critical assessments, describing it as negligent or ineffective in many cases.   Those who served at the prison, most of whom had never spoken publicly before, said they had helped their patients and had done the best they could. Given the circumstances, many focused on the most basic of duties.   “My goal was to keep everyone alive,” Dr. Rosecrans said.   “We tried to keep the water as smooth as possible,” Ms. Thurman said.   “My job was to keep them going,” said Andy Davidson, a Navy captain, now retired, and psychologist. When Dr. Rosecrans worked briefly at the Navy’s hospital at Guantánamo as a young psychiatrist in 1999, it was a sleepy assignment. She saw only a few outpatients each week, and there was no psychiatric ward on the base, which was being downsized.   But after Al Qaeda’s 2001 terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and the subsequent American-led invasion of Afghanistan, detainees began pouring into the island in early 2002 — airplane loads of 20 to 30 men in shackles and blacked-out goggles. “We were seeing prisoners arriving with mental problems,” said Capt. Albert Shimkus, then the hospital’s commanding officer.   There were no clear protocols for treating patients considered to be “enemy combatants,” rather than prisoners of war, said Captain Shimkus, who is now retired. But he set out, with the tacit support of his commanders, to provide a level of care equivalent to that for American service members. He transformed a cellblock into a spartan inpatient unit for up to 20 patients and brought in Navy psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and technicians to be available around the clock.   Many of them had little or no predeployment training, experience working in a detention facility or familiarity with the captives’ languages, cultures or religious beliefs. They soon heard talk of the threat the prisoners posed.   “The crew that was there before us scared the heck out of us,” said Dr. Christopher Kowalsky, who as a Navy captain led the mental health unit in 2004. He and Dr. Rosecrans said colleagues had admonished them for getting too close to patients. “‘Don’t forget they’re criminals,’” she was told.   Those arriving in later years attended a training program at a military base in Washington State. “You heard all these things about how terrible they are: Not only will they gouge your eyes out, but they’ll somehow tell their cohorts to go after your family,” said Daniel Lakemacher, who served as a Navy psychiatric technician. “I became extremely hateful and spiteful.”   Peering through small openings in cell doors, he and other technicians handed out medications, watched prisoners swallow them and ran through a checklist of safety questions — “Are you having thoughts of hurting yourself?” “Are you seeing things that aren’t there?” — through interpreters or English-speaking detainees in nearby cells. (“Talk about confidentiality!” Dr. Davidson said. “It’s just a whole other set of rules.”)   Conflicts arose between health professionals aiding interrogators and those trying to provide care. Army psychologists working with military intelligence teams showed up in 2002 and asked to be credentialed to treat detainees. “I said no, because they were there for interrogations,” Captain Shimkus said.   In June of that year, Maj. Paul Burney, an Army psychiatrist, and Maj. John Leso, an Army psychologist, both of whom had deployed to Guantánamo to tend to the troops, instead were assigned to devise interrogation techniques. In a memo, they listed escalating pressure tactics, including extended isolation, 20-hour interrogations, painful stress positions, yelling, hooding, and manipulation of diet, environment and sleep.   But they also expressed caution. “Physical and/or emotional harm from the above techniques may emerge months or even years after their use,” the two men warned in their memo, later excerpted in a Senate Armed Services Committee report. They added that the most effective interrogation strategy was developing a bond. A version of the memo, stripped of its warnings, reached Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In December 2002, he approved many of the methods for Guantánamo, some of them similar to the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the C.I.A. at secret prisons overseas. After objections from military lawyers, he made some modifications but gave commanders license to use 24 techniques. Some of them later migrated to military prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, including Abu Ghraib, where they morphed into horrific abuses.   “I think it was the absolute wrong way to proceed,” Dr. Burney, who has not previously commented publicly, said of the approved techniques. “I so wish I could go back and do things differently.”   He and Dr. Leso created the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or BSCT (pronounced “biscuit”), to advise and sometimes rein in military interrogators, many of them young enlisted soldiers with little experience even interviewing people. The interrogators subjected some detainees at Guantánamo to loud music, strobe lights, cold temperatures, isolation, painful shackling, threats against family members and prolonged sleep deprivation, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general.   The government has never quantified how many prisoners underwent that treatment. In four cases, military leaders approved even harsher interrogation plans. At least two were carried out.   Dr. Burney said he and Dr. Leso took turns observing the questioning in 2002 of Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was accused of being an intended hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks and, it later emerged, had a history of psychosis. Among other things, he was menaced with military dogs, draped in women’s underwear, injected with intravenous fluids to make him urinate on himself, put on a leash and forced to bark like a dog, and interrogated for 18 to 20 hours at least 48 times, government investigators found.   Mr. Qahtani was led to believe that he might die if he did not cooperate, Dr. Burney said in a statement provided to the Senate committee. When Mr. Qahtani asked for a doctor to relieve psychological symptoms, the interrogators instead performed an exorcism for “jinns” — supernatural creatures that he believed caused his problems.   In 2009, a Department of Defense official overseeing military commissions refused to prosecute Mr. Qahtani, telling The Washington Post that his mistreatment had amounted to torture. In 2012, a federal judge found Mr. Qahtani incompetent to help challenge his detention.   Those providing mental health care at Guantánamo quickly aroused the suspicions of some prisoners, who called them devils, criminals and dogs.   “Nobody trusted them,” said Lutfi bin Ali, a Tunisian who was sent to Guantánamo after being subjected to harsh conditions at what he described as an American jail overseas. “There was skepticism that they were psychiatrists and that they were trying to help us,” he said by phone from Kazakhstan, where he was transferred to in 2014. He still suffers intermittently from depression.   Dr. Davidson, who treated prisoners at Guantánamo during part of 2003, recalled the hostility. “I can tell the guy until the cows come home, ‘Hey, I’m just here for mental health,’” he said. “‘No, you’re not,’” he imagined the patient thinking, “‘you’re the enemy.’” One day on the cellblocks, Dr. Rosecrans heard detainees warn others that she could not be trusted. “Some of my patients hated me,” she said. “They saw me as a representative of the government.”   She and other clinicians who felt uncomfortable walking around the prison grounds relied mostly on guards to identify detainees who needed help and to take them to an examination room, where they would be chained to the floor.   Interpreters were in such short supply at times that they worked with both the mental health teams and the interrogators. “See where that could be a problem?” Dr. Rosecrans asked.   All of that fed the conviction among detainees that information about their mental health was being exploited by interrogators. “If you complain about your weak point to a doctor, they told that to the interrogators,” said Younous Chekkouri, a Moroccan, now released.   He recalled seeing one psychologist working alongside interrogators and then treating detainees at the prison. Only years later, he said, did he feel he could trust certain psychiatrists there. He said he still suffered from flashbacks and anxiety after being beaten at a military prison in Afghanistan, and kept in isolation and shown execution photos at Guantánamo.   Captain Shimkus, who oversaw patient care, said some clinicians had expressed concerns about the blurred lines between medical care and interrogation. He said he had allowed one psychiatrist, who was disturbed by the lack of confidentiality, to temporarily recuse himself from caring for patients because the doctor believed “the patient-physician relationship was compromised.”   The United States Southern Command told health care providers at Guantánamo in 2002 that their communications with patients were “not confidential.” At first, interrogators had direct access to medical information. Then, the BSCT psychologists acted as liaisons.   They regularly read patient records in the psychiatry ward, said Dr. Frances Stewart, a retired Navy captain and psychiatrist who treated detainees in 2003 and 2004. As a consequence, she said, “I tried to document just the things that really needed to be documented — things like ‘the patient has a headache; we treated it with Tylenol’ — not anything terribly sensitive. It was not a perfect solution, but it was probably the best solution I could come up with at the time.”   Dr. Kowalsky, a psychiatrist, said patients had begged him not to record their diagnoses. “They’re going to use that,” some detainees told him.   The International Committee of the Red Cross, during a June 2004 visit, documented the same complaint. Medical files, the group said in confidential remarks revealed in The Times, were regularly used to devise strategies for interrogations that it called “tantamount to torture.” Interrogators’ access to medical records was a “flagrant violation of medical ethics.” The Pentagon disputed that the records were used to harm detainees.   Dr. Kowalsky said he clashed with a BSCT psychologist, Diane Zierhoffer, who showed up in the psychiatric unit to look at patient records in 2004. (Dr. Zierhoffer, in an email, said her intent in accessing records had been to “ensure health care was not interfered with.”)   “We’re here to help people,” Dr. Kowalsky recalled once telling her.   “We’re here to protect our country,” he said she had responded, later asking: “Whose side are you on?” Sometimes it wasn’t clear what was forbidden or what had just become practice, but it had the same effect: Psychiatrists and psychologists said they had almost never asked a detainee about his treatment by interrogators, either at Guantánamo or at the C.I.A. prisons.   Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was released to his native Mauritania in October after 14 years at Guantánamo, told a doctor on his legal team that military mental health providers did not ask him about possible mistreatment, according to a sealed court report obtained by The Times. Mr. Slahi did not volunteer the information because he was afraid of retaliation, he wrote in his prison memoir, “Guantánamo Diary.”   Mr. Slahi endured some of the most brutal treatment there. Investigations by the Army, the Justice Department and the Senate largely corroborated his account of being deprived of sleep; beaten; shackled in painful positions; forced to drink large amounts of water; isolated in darkness and exposed to extreme temperatures; stripped and soaked in cold water; told that his mother might be sent to Guantánamo; and sexually assaulted by female interrogators.   Decades earlier, he had joined the insurgency against the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan, a cause supported by the United States. In 1991, he attended a Qaeda training camp, and was later suspected of recruiting for the terrorist group. A federal judge ordered him freed in 2010 for lack of evidence, but an appeals court overturned the decision. In July, a military review board recommended his transfer.   Prison medical records show that Mr. Slahi, a computer specialist with no history of mental illness, received anti-anxiety medicine, antidepressants, sleeping pills and psychotherapy, and that he had recurring nightmares of being tortured in the years after his ordeal.   Dr. Vincent Iacopino, a civilian physician who evaluated Mr. Slahi in 2007 for his defense team, criticized psychologists and psychiatrists at Guantánamo for failing “to adequately pursue the obvious possibility of PTSD,” or post-traumatic stress disorder, linked to severe physical and mental harm, the records show. Dr. Iacopino said military doctors had medicated Mr. Slahi for his symptoms instead of trying to treat his underlying disorder, which had “profound long-term and debilitating psychological effects.” Last year, one of Mr. Slahi’s lawyers described him as “damaged.”   He was one of nearly 800 men incarcerated at Guantánamo over the years and one of several whose confessions were tainted by mistreatment and disallowed as evidence by the United States. Many prisoners were Qaeda and Taliban foot soldiers later deemed to pose little threat. Some were victims of mistaken identity or held on flimsy evidence.   Dr. Burney, who assisted the interrogators, said he had seen many detainees’ files. “It seemed like there wasn’t a whole lot of evidence about anything for a whole lot of those folks,” he said. After the C.I.A.’s secret prisons were shut in 2006, Guantánamo took in more than a dozen so-called high-value detainees, including those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. Some doctors at Guantánamo said they had been instructed, in briefings or by colleagues, not to ask these former “black site” prisoners about what had happened there. Virtually everything about these captives was classified until a Senate Intelligence Committee report in 2014 disclosed grisly details about torture.   “You just weren’t allowed to talk about those things, even with them,” said Dr. Michael Fahey Traver, an Army psychiatrist at Guantánamo in 2013 and 2014. He was assigned to treat only high-value detainees kept in Camp 7, Guantánamo’s most restricted area, so that he did not inadvertently pass sensitive information to other prisoners.   If a detainee raised the subject of his prior treatment, Dr. Traver was to redirect the conversation, he said his predecessor had told him. Among his patients were Ramzi bin al-Shibh, accused of helping plot the Sept. 11 attacks, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was charged in the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole and endured some of the C.I.A.’s most extreme interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.   At the request of prosecutors, a military psychiatrist and two military psychologists went to Guantánamo in 2013 to assess Mr. Nashiri’s competency to assist in his defense. The panel concluded that, while competent, he suffered from PTSD and major depression.   The military commission trying Mr. Nashiri held a hearing in 2014 on the adequacy of his mental health care. Shortly before the hearing, Dr. Traver removed a previous diagnosis by another Guantánamo psychiatrist that Mr. Nashiri had PTSD. “I didn’t think he met that diagnosis,” Dr. Traver said in an interview.   Dr. Sondra Crosby, an expert on torture who consulted for Mr. Nashiri’s defense, disagreed. Dr. Crosby, an internist, said his treatment was inadequate. “He suffers chronic nightmares,” she testified in an affidavit, which “directly relate to the specific physical, emotional and sexual torture inflicted upon Mr. al-Nashiri while in U.S. custody.” The content of his nightmares, she wrote, was classified.   The commission judge, citing a Supreme Court ruling that prisons must provide health care, found insufficient evidence of “deliberate indifference” to his medical needs.   What went on after prisoners were summoned for interrogations at Guantánamo was mostly a mystery to the mental health personnel, some of them said. Even when patients returned from sessions “looking terrible,” said Mr. Lakemacher, the former psychiatric technician, “that was not to be addressed.” (After his deployment, Mr. Lakemacher said, he regretted taking part in what he came to consider the unjust, indefinite detention of prisoners. He later was discharged from the Navy as a conscientious objector.) Some doctors, on their own, shied away from the subject of interrogation tactics. “I didn’t want to get near that stuff,” Dr. Rosecrans said. “Men would say, ‘When I got here, they treated me like a dog,’” or that they were humiliated, she said, but she refrained from inquiring, in part, “to preserve their dignity.”   When detainees claimed to have been tortured or maltreated, “you didn’t know if it was true or not,” she said.   “Is it PTSD, or is it delusional disorder?” she said, adding, “I was in such a vacuum.”   But Dr. Rosecrans had little reason to suspect abusive treatment, she said, because some prisoners seemed eager to go to interrogation sessions, which they called “reservations.” Interrogators, working in trailers separate from the structures where detainees were housed, doled out rewards like snack food or magazines; speaking with them broke the boredom for detainees.   “It was a way to get out of their cell,” said Ms. Thurman, the nurse practitioner. “They’d do anything, I think, to do something different for the day.”   Dr. Stewart, the Navy captain who treated detainees in 2003 and 2004, said she had never noticed any men in distress after returning from interrogations. But she typically did not ask what had happened there or try to focus on trauma in therapy, she said. “I didn’t want to stir up anything that might make things worse,” she said.   PTSD, generally thought to be the most common psychiatric illness resulting from torture, was rarely diagnosed at Guantánamo. Dr. Rosecrans and other doctors who served there said the diagnosis did not matter because they could still treat the symptoms, like depression, anxiety or insomnia.   Standard treatment for the disorder involves building trust and revisiting traumatic experiences, which can temporarily exacerbate symptoms. That was impractical at Guantánamo, Dr. Rosecrans and others contended, where detainees were under stress and often unwilling to talk about what had happened to them.   “These folks were in acute survival mode,” Dr. Rosecrans said. Most of their concerns were “here-and-now or future-oriented, not backward-looking.”   Dr. Davidson said he had not considered doing full histories to diagnose PTSD. But later, he said, after he mulled over the experiences of American soldiers, “the thought was occurring to me: How come our guys get PTSD and they don’t? Well, probably because I’m not asking the right questions.”   Dr. Jonathan Woodson, a former assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, who was the Pentagon’s top health official from 2010 until this spring, said he was unaware that mental health providers at Guantánamo had avoided asking detainees about coercive interrogations. He said his policy was that physicians should not be constrained in what they could ask patients.   “You would take the history of someone who is exhibiting symptoms,” he said. “In PTSD, it’s almost automatic.”   Brig. Gen. Stephen N. Xenakis, a retired Army psychiatrist who consulted for the legal defense teams of many detainees, said, “You cannot provide psychological treatment if you never look into what happened to them when they are tortured.” He added: “The psychologists and psychiatrists at Guantánamo are not meeting the standards of care of the military or the profession.”   Military officials disagree. Capt. John Filostrat, a spokesman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said, “We are doing a tough job, and we are doing it well.” Mental health providers recall troubled men they helped — an Afghan farmer who attempted suicide, a psychotic Yemeni man stabilized and removed from isolation, a traumatized Saudi patient who began opening up. Some doctors describe Guantánamo as their most difficult deployment. They were cast in unfamiliar roles: recipients of pleas for privileges, inadvertent disciplinarians ordering “self-harm” restrictions like the removal of prayer beads or sheets, enablers of policies that made them deeply uncomfortable.   “Every day was an ethical challenge, quite frankly,” Dr. Davidson said.   Procedures at Guantánamo changed over time. Limits on abusive tactics were tightened by Congress in 2005, then banned by President Obama in 2009.   But even after interrogation conditions eased, and after BSCT personnel were denied access to medical records in 2005, many detainees remained distrustful. That made it “a real challenge for the physicians treating them to even determine what was a real problem and what wasn’t,” said Dr. Bruce Meneley, a Navy captain, now retired, who commanded the medical group at Guantánamo from 2007 to 2009.   Some men, worried about being seen as weak or crazy, would disclose only physical complaints like stomach aches, headaches and insomnia. Dr. Traver said sleeping pills had been the sole medication that the high-value detainees he treated would agree to take.   The doctors were unfamiliar with the ways psychiatric illness could be expressed in some cultures. A number of prisoners, Dr. Rosecrans recalled, described being plagued by jinns. She and others prescribed powerful anti-psychotics, but she remembers wondering, “Are we doing the right thing?”   After years of incarceration at a place that became a symbol of American injustice — a legal black hole where men often did not know what they were accused of and had few avenues of legal recourse — many detainees, seeing themselves as political prisoners, seethed with resentment or were overcome by depression.   Over and over, the psychiatrists recalled, men would ask, “Why am I here?” or “What’s my future?” — questions the doctors could not answer. Sometimes, they said, their work felt futile.   “The environmental factors outweighed so much of what we did,” Dr. Davidson said. “We had so many people who were depressed. Well, I would be really depressed, too, if they stuck me in a place, I had no idea where I was, and I had no idea if or when I was going to leave. That is the definition of depression, I think — not having any control over my situation.”   It was often difficult to discern, doctors said, who was genuinely troubled, who was seeking attention and, most worrisome, who was in danger. “All of the leaders that I met were like, ‘No one is dying on my watch,’” Dr. Rosecrans said.   In 2004, after men began refusing food to protest their detention, she was asked to devise a protocol for evaluating the mental health of those on prolonged hunger strikes. Dr. Rosecrans believed that mentally competent people had the right to choose not to eat — even if that meant they would die. The American Medical Association and international medical organizations endorse that position. But the government has insisted on forced feedings, which are permissible in federal prisons. Detainees have described the procedures used at Guantánamo as particularly painful, with some likening them to torture.   Musa’ab al-Madhwani, a Yemeni captured in Pakistan and suspected in a terrorism plot, the evidence for which the United States eventually largely disavowed, joined a large group of hunger strikers in 2013 protesting conditions at the prison. He had arrived at Guantánamo in 2002, barely out of his teens, after being held at a C.I.A. prison. He had violent nightmares and other psychiatric problems after harsh treatment there, his medical records show.   Over the years, judges threw out his admissions during interrogations, finding they were tainted by mistreatment at the C.I.A. prison and coercive questioning at Guantánamo. But his detention stretched on, and after both of his parents died, Mr. Madhwani said in a letter to a federal judge that he was “utterly hopeless.” He added: “I have no reason to believe that I will ever leave this prison alive. It feels like death would be a better fate than living in these conditions.”   It was up to the psychiatrists and psychologists to decide how seriously to take such statements, and how to respond to them. “What do you do if they say they’re suicidal?” said Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, an Army colonel, now retired, and psychiatrist who was dispatched to Guantánamo in late 2002 after a spate of attempts. “Are they really suicidal, or are they manipulating the system?”   More than 600 “suicide gestures” had been recorded at Guantánamo by 2009, with more than 40 categorized as suicide attempts, according to a medical article. The doctors had to distinguish genuine attempts — reflecting desperation or, as American officials contended, a desire for martyrdom — from acts aimed at improving their conditions of confinement.   To date, at least six deaths have been have classified as suicides, though critics have raised questions about foul play in some cases. One Guantánamo commander referred to three of them, which were simultaneous, as acts of warfare against America. Several of the dead had been treated by mental health providers for serious disorders.   Only 60 prisoners remain at Guantánamo, and about a third of them have been approved for transfer. Ten have been charged with or convicted of crimes by the military commissions system.   Capt. Richard Quattrone of the Navy, who served until September as the prison’s chief medical officer, said just a small number of detainees had chronic mental health issues. “The things we see are about day-to-day issues, anxiety over their release, and when it will happen, or if it will happen,” he said.   “Whatever happened in the past,” he added, “I think we’ve now built trust with the medical personnel.”   Looking back, Dr. Rosecrans said she and her colleagues had faced many obstacles. For certain prisoners, the very tool that psychiatrists and psychologists most rely on — asking questions — would forever evoke interrogations. And the secrecy complicated everything.   “Did we know what was going on? Or what might have been going on?” Dr. Rosecrans asked. “I didn’t know any of that intel stuff.”   But, she added, “we did the job of treating patients.”   Guantánamo stayed with her in unexpected ways. Relaxing on a cruise soon after leaving the prison assignment, she tried to pose her daughter for a photo. When the child refused to put down a stuffed animal, Dr. Rosecrans threatened to throw it overboard.   “You’re a little terrorist!” she erupted."
389,"Who is Mallika Sherawat, the Bollywood actress 'punched and tear-gassed' by masked men in Paris? —  Weeks after Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in Paris another global superstar has fall victim to the dark side of the French capital. Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat was tear-gassed and beaten during an attempted robbery, police revealed on Thursday.   According to French newspaper Le Parisien, the international model and a male companion were set upon by three masked men as they arrived back at their apartment complex on Rue de La Faisanderie in Paris on Friday (11 November). The outspoken feminist, whose real name is Reema Lamba, previously described India as ""regressive"", while speaking out against attacks – gang rapes and honour killings – on women in her home country.   Sherawat is a prominent actress in India having starred in a number of high-profile Bollywood films including Khwahish and Murder.   She made the crossover to Hollywood, with appearances in 2010's adventure-horror Hisss and 2011's Politics of Love alongside Brian J White.   The 40-year-old adopted the screen name of Mallika to avoid confusion with other actresses named Reema.   In the run up to the US elections she endorsed Hillary Clinton by sharing a snap of herself and Barack Obama with the caption: ""Dear President Obama I have always supported the Democratic Party, praying for #hillaryclinton victory#presidentobama#uspresidentialelection #womenpower#hillaryforpresident""   Her online fan base includes almost two million followers on Twitter and 200K followers on Instragram. Unlike Karadashian, Sherawat has remained active on her social media accounts despite her ordeal. In recent days she has shared a handful of selfies and also throwback images from her various film projects.   Sherawat was previously married to and has no children. She now divides her time between Los Angeles, US and India."
390,"Why Did No One Tell Drivers with No Tickets in 3 Years About This? —  Are you aware that you could receive a large discount just for not having a ticket or accident in the past 3 years? In addition, if you are currently insured and live in a qualified ZIP code you may get an extremely high discount.   For a long time, there was no easy way to compare quotes from all of these huge car insurance companies. You had to check one site, then jump to another and enter all of your information all over again. Drivers were stuck doing all the work to save money. Now, all that has changed. Thanks to Provide Savings™, the information you need to help you save can be found in one place. Just like Expedia or Orbitz saves you money on travel and flights, Provide Savings™ saves you money on car insurance.   What exactly do you need to do? Here is one easy rule to follow.   You have to compare quotes. Don’t even consider buying car insurance without doing this first. After all the results we came across, we just couldn’t believe how many drivers have been overpaying. And with free services like Provide Savings™, comparing quotes today so that you aren’t accidentally costing yourself money is a breeze.   Faces Drivers don’t always realize that car insurance agents make money from your premiums. So, the higher your rate, the more money the agent receives. This system may make it difficult to determine if you are getting a fair price. Fortunately, a lot of smart drivers out there figured out just how to cut down their insurance bill by using free internet tools to get honest and fair quotes.   It’s really no wonder that with so many drivers saving money, services like these are gaining momentum. Provide Savings™ is an efficient source that tries to give consumers the lowest rates with tools you can trust. Just imagine what you could do with the money you save!"
391,"Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don’t See Past the Fat —  You must lose weight, a doctor told Sarah Bramblette, advising a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet. But Ms. Bramblette had a basic question: How much do I weigh? The doctor’s scale went up to 350 pounds, and she was heavier than that. If she did not know the number, how would she know if the diet was working? The doctor had no answer. So Ms. Bramblette, 39, who lived in Ohio at the time, resorted to a solution that made her burn with shame. She drove to a nearby junkyard that had a scale that could weigh her. She was 502 pounds. One in three Americans is obese, a rate that has been steadily growing for more than two decades, but the health care system — in its attitudes, equipment and common practices — is ill prepared, and its practitioners are often unwilling, to treat the rising population of fat patients. The difficulties range from scales and scanners, like M.R.I. machines that are not built big enough for very heavy people, to surgeons who categorically refuse to give knee or hip replacements to the obese, to drug doses that have not been calibrated for obese patients. The situation is particularly thorny for the more than 15 million Americanswho have extreme obesity — a body mass index of 40 or higher — and face a wide range of health concerns. Part of the problem, both patients and doctors say, is a reluctance to look beyond a fat person’s weight. Patty Nece, 58, of Alexandria, Va., went to an orthopedist because her hip was aching. She had lost nearly 70 pounds and, although she still had a way to go, was feeling good about herself. Until she saw the doctor. “He came to the door of the exam room, and I started to tell him my symptoms,” Ms. Nece said. “He said: ‘Let me cut to the chase. You need to lose weight.’” The doctor, she said, never examined her. But he made a diagnosis, “obesity pain,” and relayed it to her internist. In fact, she later learned, she had progressive scoliosis, a condition not caused by obesity. Dr. Louis J. Aronne, an obesity specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine, helped found the American Board of Obesity Medicine to address this sort of issue. The goal is to help doctors learn how to treat obesity and serve as a resource for patients seeking doctors who can look past their weight when they have a medical problem. Dr. Aronne says patients recount stories like Ms. Nece’s to him all the time. “Our patients say: ‘Nobody has ever treated me like I have a serious problem. They blow it off and tell me to go to Weight Watchers,’” Dr. Aronne said. “Physicians need better education, and they need a different attitude toward people who have obesity,” he said. “They need to recognize that this is a disease like diabetes or any other disease they are treating people for.” The issues facing obese people follow them through the medical system, starting with the physical exam. Research has shown that doctors may spend less time with obese patients and fail to refer them for diagnostic tests. One study asked 122 primary care doctors affiliated with one of three hospitals within the Texas Medical Center in Houston about their attitudes toward obese patients. The doctors “reported that seeing patients was a greater waste of their time the heavier that they were, that physicians would like their jobs less as their patients increased in size, that heavier patients were viewed to be more annoying, and that physicians felt less patience the heavier the patient was,” the researchers wrote. Lapses in Treatment Other times, doctors may be unwittingly influenced by unfounded assumptions, attributing symptoms like shortness of breath to the person’s weight without investigating other likely causes. That happened to a patient who eventually went to see Dr. Scott Kahan, an obesity specialist at Georgetown University. The patient, a 46-year-old woman, suddenly found it almost impossible to walk from her bedroom to her kitchen. Those few steps left her gasping for breath. Frightened, she went to a local urgent care center, where the doctor said she had a lot of weight pressing on her lungs. The only thing wrong with her, the doctor said, was that she was fat. “I started to cry,” said the woman, who asked not to be named to protect her privacy. “I said: ‘I don’t have a sudden weight pressing on my lungs. I’m really scared. I’m not able to breathe.’” “That’s the problem with obesity,” she said the doctor told her. “Have you ever considered going on a diet?” It turned out that the woman had several small blood clots in her lungs, a life-threatening condition, Dr. Kahan said. For many, the next step in a diagnosis involves a scan, like a CT or M.R.I. But many extremely heavy people cannot fit in the scanners, which, depending on the model, typically have weight limits of 350 to 450 pounds. Scanners that can handle very heavy people are manufactured, but onenational survey found that at least 90 percent of emergency rooms did not have them. Even four in five community hospitals that were deemed bariatric surgery centers of excellence lacked scanners that could handle very heavy people. Yet CT or M.R.I. imaging is needed to evaluate patients with a variety of ailments, including trauma, acuteabdominal pain, lung blood clots and strokes. When an obese patient cannot fit in a scanner, doctors may just give up. Some use X-rays to scan, hoping for the best. Others resort to more extreme measures. Dr. Kahan said another doctor had sent one of his patients to a zoo for a scan. She was so humiliated that she declined requests for an interview. Problems do not end with a diagnosis. With treatments, uncertainties continue to abound. In cancer, for example, obese patients tend to have worse outcomes and a higher risk of death — a difference that holds for every type of cancer. The disease of obesity might exacerbate cancer, said Dr. Clifford Hudis, the chief executive officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. But, he added, another reason for poor outcomes in obese cancer patients is almost certainly that medical care is compromised. Drug doses are usually based on standard body sizes or surface areas. The definition of a standard size, Dr. Hudis said, is often based on data involving people from decades ago, when the average person was thinner. For fat people, that might lead to underdosing for some drugs, but it is hard to know without studying specific drug effects in heavier people, and such studies are generally not done. Without that data, if someone does not respond to a cancer drug, it is impossible to know whether the dose was wrong or the patient’s tumor was just resisting the drug. One of the most frequent medical problems in obese patients is arthritisof the hip or knee. It is so common, in fact, that most patients arriving at orthopedists’ offices in agonizing pain from hip or knee arthritis are obese. But many orthopedists will not offer surgery unless the patients first lose weight, said Dr. Adolph J. Yates Jr., an orthopedics professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “There are offices that will screen by phone,” Dr. Yates said. “They will ask for weight and height and tell patients before they see them that they can’t help them.” But how well grounded are those weight limits? “There is a perception among some surgeons that it is more difficult, and certainly some felt it was an added risk,” to operate on very obese people, Dr. Yates said. He was a member of a committee that reviewedthe risks and benefits of joint replacement in obese patients for the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. The group concluded that heavy patients should first be counseled to lose weight because a lower weight reduces stress on the joints and can alleviate pain without surgery. But there should not be blanket refusals to operate on fat people, the committee wrote. Those with a body mass index over 40 — like a 5-foot-5-inch woman weighing 250 pounds or a 6-foot man weighing 300 — and who cannot lose weight should be informed that their risks are greater, but they should not be categorically dismissed, the group concluded. Hospitals Wary of Penalties Dr. Yates said he had successfully operated on people with body mass indexes as high as 45. What is behind the refusals to operate, he said, is that doctors and hospitals have become risk-averse because they fear their ratings will fall if too many patients have complications. A lower score can mean reductions in reimbursements by Medicare. Poor results can also lead to penalties for hospitals and, eventually, doctors. A recent survey of more than 700 hip and knee surgeons confirmed Dr. Yates’s impressions. Sixty-two percent said they used body mass index scores as cutoffs for requiring weight loss before offering surgery. But there was no consistency in the figures they picked. “The numbers were all over the map,” Dr. Yates said. And 42 percent who picked a body mass index cutoff said they had done so because they were worried about their performance score or that of their hospital. “It’s very common to pick an arbitrary B.M.I. number and say, ‘That is the number we won’t go above,’” Dr. Yates said. Yet a person with an index of, say, 41 might be healthy and active, he said, but in terrible pain from arthritis. A knee replacement could be life transforming. “It’s a zero-sum game, with everyone trying to have the lowest-risk patient,” Dr. Yates said. “Patients who may be at a marginally higher risk may be treated as a class instead of individuals. That is the definition of discrimination.” Surgery involves anesthesia, of course, giving rise to another issue. There are no requirements for drug makers to figure out appropriate doses for obese patients. Only a few medical experts, like Dr. Hendrikus Lemmens, a professor of anesthesiology at Stanford University, have tried to provide answers. His group looked at several drugs: propofol, which puts people to sleep before they get general anesthesia; succinylcholine, used to relax muscles in the windpipe when a breathing tube must be inserted; and anesthetic gases. Propofol doses, Dr. Lemmens found, should be based on lean body weight — the weight of the body minus its fat. Using total body weight, as is routine for normal-weight people, would result in an overdose for obese patients, he said. But succinylcholine doses should be based on total body weight, he determined, and the dosing of anesthetic gases is not significantly affected by obesity. As for regional anesthetics, he said, “There are very few data, but they probably should be dosed according to lean body weight.” “Bad outcomes because of inappropriate dosing do occur,” said Dr. Lemmens, who added that 20 to 30 percent of all obese patients in intensive care after surgery were there because of anesthetic complications. Given the uncertainties about anesthetic doses for the obese, Dr. Lemmens said, he suspects that a significant number of them had inappropriate dosing. Yet for many fat people, the questions about appropriate medical care are beside the point because they stay away from doctors. “I have avoided going to a doctor at all,” said Sarai Walker, the author of “Dietland,” a novel. “That is very common with fat people. No matter what the problem is, the doctor will blame it on fat and will tell you to lose weight.” “Do you think I don’t know I am fat?” she added.   Article Title:Doctors lack experience and expertise in treating transgender patients, study says   Article URL:http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/07/transgender-patients-face-doctors-limited-experience-bias-treatment-study   Article author(s) Alison Moodie   Article date:Wednesday 7 September 2016 11.35 EDT   News source: theguardian    A paper out this month has found that doctors and therapists in the US often face limited knowledge and bias when dealing with transgender people Doctors and therapists are struggling to give transgender patients the best medical care because of a lack of expertise and experience, according to a new study from Appalachian State University in North Carolina.  The study, published this month in Sage, examined interviews with healthcare workers around the country, finding that medical providers are facing “vast amounts” of uncertainty when treating trans patients. Current guidelines carry little scientific evidence to show they work, writes the author, and the medical community’s narrow definition of what it means to be trans only exacerbates the issue. “My research begins by asking what happens when there is no scientific evidence and little clinical experience to base medical decisions,” said the report’s author stef shuster (whose legal name is written in lowercase letters), an assistant professor of sociology at Appalachian State University. “This particular feature of trans medicine introduces the potential for providers to bring bias or limited knowledge into their work with trans people.” Transgender is the umbrella term used to describe people who don’t identify with their biological, or so-called “assigned” sex. According to the American Psychological Association, a person who is trans has an “internal sense” of being a man or a woman, or something outside of these categories. Often, trans people will seek to change their physical appearance and biology to resemble the identified gender, known as sex or gender reassignment surgery. It’s not a straightforward process, and generally requires multiple meetings with both doctors and therapists. Transgendermedicine covers both physical care, such as estrogen or testosterone hormone therapy, as well as mental healthcare, to help a trans person transition both physically and socially. Advertisement When determining whether a person is a candidate for medical treatment, doctors, therapists and other health professionals typically use a set of clinical guidelines created by the World Professional Association for TransgenderHealth (WPATH), a nonprofit that promotes transgender healthcare. The guidelines lay out a series of steps, starting with one or more visits with a therapist, who decides whether sex reassignment surgery is the correct course of treatment. If the therapist concludes that the person is indeed transgender, the trans person is sent to a doctor to receive treatment such as hormone therapy or surgery, including reshaping the breasts or the genitals to resemble the identified gender. The process has many challenges, according to the study. The fact that a trans person’s fate is placed entirely in a therapist’s hands is morally questionable and controversial, writes shuster. Transgender medicine has also been built around the idea that to transition means to switch from male to female or vice versa. But that’s changing, shuster says. “More recently, trans people’s understandings of their selves and bodies have become more fluid, and ‘cross’-gender transitioning is not always the ultimate goal,” writes shuster, who asked to be identified with the pronoun “they” rather than “he” or “she”. “The nuance in gender identification that trans people bring to the clinic exacerbates providers’ uncertainty.” The study interviewed 23 doctors and psychologists who have chosen to work in transgender medicine. Many had entered the field because they personally knew someone who had trouble finding a provider to treat them. Only two of the participants worked exclusively with trans people, while just one identified as transgender. According to the study, uncertainty about how best to treat a trans patient was something that was regularly experienced by all of the respondents. To cope with this uncertainty, providers used current guidelines to help inform their decisions. The study found that some providers closely followed guidelines, while others were more flexible and interpreted them on a case-by-case basis. Those new to the profession and those with a decade or more experience tended to be more rigid, expecting trans people to be “100% certain” about their desire to undergo sex reassignment surgery. One reason for this, writes shuster, is that more experienced providers may be slower to accept changing notions of what it means to be trans, while those new to their profession lacked the experience to confidently chart their own course. One respondent named Sarah, a therapist in private practice, said she closely followed guidelines to ensure a patient didn’t come to regret their decision to transition later on. “I can’t have you wake up on a surgeon’s table and say, ‘Who are you and what are you doing to my body?’ That has happened,” she said. “So I am really good about wanting to be holistic with people, and saying, please just let me be your therapist.” This absolute power to decide the course of another person’s future made some of the participants uncomfortable. Alexis, a social worker, said although she has refused to okay some people for sex reassignment surgery, the double standards in transgender medicine versus other areas of medicine doesn’t always sit right with her. “It is a tough function to fulfill,” Alexis said. “In all other areas of mental health practice, I don’t really have to give permission to people to do things.” The idea that a trans person has to be absolutely certain about their desire to transition doesn’t take into account the complicated and oftentimes changing nature of gender identity, writes shuster. For instance, some people might start hormone therapy but decide months later that the treatment isn’t right for them. “Trans people are allowed little room to explore their identities on their own terms,” writes shuster. It also gets more complicated when people identify as “gender fluid” rather than explicitly male or female. One participant, Brandon, a psychologist at a university clinic, said it’s much easier for a therapist to make a decision when the boundaries are clear and a person wants to transition from male to female or vice versa. “In the land of non-binary gender folks, you have to wade through waves and waves of ambiguity,” he said. “You have to build way more of a relationship with the person and establish a whole lot more trust.” Respondents that took a more flexible approach to the guidelines said they weighed up what was more harmful: to treat someone even when it isn’t clear they are ready for medical treatment, or to not treat someone at all. “It seems far less harmful to give someone hormones long term and take some risk that it might kill them, where maybe before they were suicidal,” said Anna, a family practitioner at a community clinic. “It is not for me to say to any given person, ‘Well you are not quite suicidal so I don’t think it is worth the risk.’” Shuster describes gender as a “socially-ascribed category” that cannot be simplified or standardized. More research is needed in the area of transgender medicine, shuster says, especially from the perspective of the medical community. Shuster also urges doctors and therapists to be less dogmatic and allow trans patients to have more ownership in the process. “From a trans patient perspective, healthcare encounters might feel easier to negotiate if providers stopped emphasizing this narrow definition of ‘transgender’,” shuster says. “And opened up more dialogue for their trans patients to describe how they understand their own identities and bodies.”   Article Title:Two Years After a Night of Horror, Mexican Students Seek Answers       Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/world/americas/mexico-missing-students-second-anniversary.html?ref=world   Article author(s)  KIRK SEMPLE, PAULINA VILLEGAS    Article date: SEPT. 26, 2016   News source: nytimes    MEXICO CITY — Two years after 43 Mexican college students disappeared during a night of violence committed, in part, by security forces, the mystery of their fate remains unsolved. An international panel of legal and human rights experts who spent a year studying the case questioned the Mexican government’s ability and willingness to get to the bottom of it. Since the experts’ departure in April, the government has broadened its investigation to include a wider range of possible suspects. In addition, the attorney general’s top investigator resignedamid an internal affairs inquiry into his handling of the case. Still, there is a prevailing feeling here and abroad that the Mexican government alone cannot be left to figure out who was behind the violence in Iguala in Guerrero State on the night of Sept. 26, 2014, and what happened to the students, most of them freshmen. Many observers are now pinning their hopes for justice on the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which will deploy a team to shadow the investigation. The parents of the disappeared and the dead, most of them working class, have maintained their relentless lobby for answers. Accompanying them throughout have been the dozens of students who lived through the night but will forever reckon with its scars. Here are three of them. Edgar Andrés Vargas Last Thursday, Mr. Andrés underwent a sixth surgery to repair his face. During the attacks in Iguala, he was struck by a bullet that pulverized his upper teeth and shattered his upper jaw. He does not know how many more operations he will have to endure. At the time of the attacks, Mr. Andrés was a third-year student at the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos, a teachers college in Ayotzinapa. He was among a group of students who responded to distress calls from freshmen who had come under fire by the municipal police in Iguala, a nearby city. The younger students had gone to Iguala to commandeer buses to go to a demonstration in Mexico City, a longstanding practice at the college. Mr. Andrés and his peers arrived after the 43 students had disappeared. While they examined the scene, gunmen fired, hitting Mr. Andrés. Despite his wounds, he was ignored by military personnel and even by the medical staff at a local clinic. When he finally got a ride to a municipal hospital, two hours after he was shot, doctors there told him that had he been delayed five minutes, he would have died. Mr. Andrés, 21, has been receiving medical care in Mexico City, which has been disruptive for his entire family. His mother gave up her job running a convenience store to move to the capital to care for him, and his younger siblings relocated, too. His father stayed behind in their hometown, San Francisco del Mar, in the state of Oaxaca, to continue working as the director of a primary school and, on weekends, as a farmer. The government has covered the cost of medical care and lent the family an apartment. Still, the family has run through its savings to cover the higher cost of living in the capital and to supplement the loss of Mr. Andres’s mother’s income. Mr. Andrés spends much of his time in the apartment. When he goes out to see a movie or take a walk, he wears a surgical mask — partly because he is embarrassed by his disfiguration. “I fear that people are going to discriminate against me for this,” he said. The college allowed Mr. Andrés to finish his studies this year by working remotely, and he graduated with his class. He still hopes to work as a primary school teacher, but he has added another professional goal: to become a lawyer. “After everything that happened, I think the legal system is messed up,” he said. “Who’s going to protect the people?” Manuel Vázquez Arellano Mr. Vázquez knew loss from an early age. He grew up in Tlacotepec, a small mountain village in Guerrero State known for opium poppy harvests and violence. He had 12 siblings, five of whom died in childhood from curable diseases. As a child, Mr. Vázquez worked in the fields, harvesting the poppies and bleeding them of their sap, the key raw material for heroin. When he was 7, he saw assassins fire on a party, killing one person and wounding several others. Years later, one of his brothers was killed in a dispute that, he suspects, had to do with a gang rivalry. His escape from that life, he thought, was through the teachers college. He became a member of the student committee and immersed himself in the college’s culture of political activism. On the night of the attacks in Iguala, Mr. Vázquez was among the upperclassmen who rushed to the aid of the younger students and came under fire by unidentified attackers. Mr. Vázquez, now 28, managed to escape unharmed. In the ensuing weeks and months, as the missing 43 came to symbolize the depth of government corruption and incompetence, Mr. Vázquez emerged as a leading spokesman in the campaign for justice. He toured Mexico, exhorting people to take to the streets in protest and criticizing the government’s handling of the investigation. He eventually took his campaign abroad, to the United States and Europe, raising awareness of the case and lobbying politicians and activists to pressure the Mexican government. The work gave him a sense of purpose and helped to ward off survivor’s guilt. Mr. Vázquez enrolled this year in law school in Mexico City and aspires to become a judge to fight Mexico’s relentless corruption. When he was younger, Mr. Vázquez frequently had nightmares in which he watched himself being killed — such was the climate of violence in which he was raised. Dreams of his own death still color his sleep, but now, he says, he sees himself dying for a cause — “with a purpose and a reason.” Aldo Gutiérrez Solano Mr. Gutiérrez has been in a coma since a bullet pierced his brain during the night of violence. He had been riding in one of the stolen buses when it came under fire by the police. His doctors and family measure his progress, such as it is, in involuntary sounds and micromovements. His eyelids open occasionally. He yawns. His muscles spasm. The doctors say his survival this long is stunning, yet they believe his chances of recovery from the coma are very slim. His parents and 13 siblings, all of whom live in Guerrero, have organized a rotation to ensure that at least one of them is at his hospital bedside at all times. They have rented a small room nearby, where they rest and bathe between shifts. The commitment has put a tremendous strain on the family. One of his brothers said that he has spent so much time away from home that his own family is suffering. “I haven’t been able to take my kids to the park on a Saturday for two years,” said the brother, Leonel, 37, who works as a taxi driver in Tutepec, a small town in Guerrero. The trip by bus from his home to the hospital takes six hours. But the family has made a pact to provide Aldo Gutiérrez with the best care possible. Mr. Gutiérrez, 21, never really wanted to become a teacher, his brother said. The school, where he was a first-year student, was simply a way out of poverty. His real dream was to become an officer in the Mexican marines. “The suffering is too big,” Leonel said. “We still don’t understand: Why did this happen to us? How is our government capable of shooting its own citizens?"
392,"Why It’s So Hard To Save An Endangered Species —  Green groups hailed it as “big news for a little porpoise.” With just 60 animals left in the wild and the threat of extinction looming, governments had finally banded together in an effort to save the vaquita, the most endangered marine mammal on Earth.   Urgent conservation measures to protect the creature were approved at the International Whaling Commission in Slovenia late last month. The emergency resolution that the U.S. tabled included measures to permanently ban gill net fishing from the vaquita’s range, remove existing gill nets and clamp down on the illegal trade of totoaba. The critically endangered fish can become captured by the nets that snare and strangle vaquita.   “The IWC’s approval of this range of measures to increase protection for the vaquita is a positive and vital step if we are to stand a chance of preventing the extinction of this species,” said Matt Collins of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, praising the resolution.   But the struggle to save the vaquita has revealed something sobering about endangered species conservation at large: even when bold steps are undertaken to save a threatened animal, it can be dreadfully difficult to do.   Take the vaquita. Despite recent efforts to conserve the porpoise, many experts have continued to express concern at its plight.   The so-called “panda of the sea” is still doomed, they say. The current plan to save the vaquita just “won’t work.” Vaquitas live exclusively in the northern end of Mexico’s Gulf of California and have been under serious threat since the 1990s. Gill nets, used to catch shrimp and fish, have been their primary downfall; the porpoise gets ensnared in these nets and drowns.   In recent years, demand for the totoaba, also endemic to the Gulf of California and typically caught with gill nets, has intensified the decline of the vaquita. The fish’s swim bladder, also known as maw, is considered a delicacy in parts of Asia. It can sell for as much as $10,000 a kilogram, or almost $5,000 a pound.   In May, the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita announced that due to the totoaba trade and unsustainable fishing techniques, only 60 vaquitas remain in the wild — a decline of more than 92 percent since 1997.   Without a dramatic ramping up of conservation efforts, the porpoise will be extinct by 2022, the group said.   “We are watching this precious native species disappear before our eyes,” said committee chairman Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho at the time. Both Mexico and the United States have in recent years expressed a joint commitment to protect the creature in an attempt to stave off this dire prediction. In 2015, Mexico imposed an emergency two-year ban on gill nets, both illegal and legal, across the vaquitas’ range. This July, U.S. President Barack Obama  and Mexican President Peña Nieto discussed a tentative proposal to permanently extend this ban — a dialogue that continued at the recent IWC meeting.   At the event, IWC members, including Mexico, agreed by consensus to a resolution that would permanently ban gill nets across the vaquita’s habitat, improve policing of the restriction and introduce new trawl gear to replace the nets. The IWC, of which China is also a member, additionally agreed to provide funding and technical expertise to Mexico to enforce the ban, as well as to take steps to crack down on the totoaba trade and to compensate local fishermen affected by these measures.    The “imminent extinction [of the vaquita] is preventable,” Justin Cooke of the International Union for Conservation of Nature told IWC delegates at the meeting. “If we don’t prevent it, it will be our collective failure.” Some conservationists say the gill net ban will indeed be helpful in immediately reducing the by-catch risk posed to the porpoise, but these efforts won’t nearly be enough to save the species.    In an Oct. 31 policy perspective letter in the journal Conservation Letters, a group of scientists said the current plan to save the porpoise is a merely “another ‘quick-fix’ intervention.” Those who signed the letter included Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers Andrew Frederick Johnson and Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, the Gulf of California Marine Program’s Marcia Moreno-Báez, and Catalina López-Sagástegui, a researcher at the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States.    The gill net ban and related measures “neglects local livelihoods, the traditions and heritage of the community, the ecological integrity of the area and increases dependence on fishing subsidies,” the researchers said.    Trawl gear, for one, is significantly more expensive than gill nets and will cost an additional subsidy of $8.5 million per year to maintain local revenues, the scientists estimated. The new equipment will also pose significant ecological risks as trawl gear drags along the sea floor, thus potentially threatening sea floor species and ecosystems.    The researchers also said the current plan excludes local fishermen from the process of designing a sustainable management plan, and fails to adequately address the rampant, and very lucrative, totoaba trade.   “Although a gill net ban will surely slow the rate of by-catch vaquita in the commercial gill net fishery, it does not address illegal fishing of totoaba, nor the human dimensions that are being driven to fish illegally,” Johnson told The Huffington Post in an email Friday. “Why is illegal fishing happening? The human aspects need to be addressed for a long term solution. It is not as simple as stopping the fisheries from catching vaquita as by-catch.”    Fishing is currently the primary means to make a living in the Upper Gulf of California, said Johnson. Investment will be needed to improve infrastructure in the region, thereby giving locals access to a wider variety of work opportunities. Education will also be required to empower local fishermen, teaching them about the consequences of unsustainable fishing practices, techniques to help add value to their catches, and alternative livelihoods such as tourism or the service industry.  Taking immediate steps to save the vaquita is extremely “urgent,” Johnson said. But celebrating the gill net ban as a long-term, sustainable solution is both “dangerous” and misguided, he warned.   “It is a step forward, but really celebration is dangerous as it implies solutions are coming. The ban will only curb current trends,”Johnson said. “The vaquita population is so low now that it is important not to assume that these measures are the end of the story, we still need more interventions to help the vaquita recover.”   As Johnson and his colleagues note, the issues surrounding vaquita conservation perfectly illustrate the “complicated landscape” of endangered species preservation. The scramble to save threatened creatures often only begins when they are on the brink of extinction, like in the case of the endangered pangolin or the Sumatran rhino. Sometimes these efforts are “too little, too late.” In other cases, the measures put in place to preserve these species are mere stop-gap efforts that lack the nuance and thoroughness that is needed to make a lasting impact.   In September, for example, over 100 countries agreed to ban the trade of pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammal. Despite the win, however, conservationists warned that the restriction may not be enough to save the species. High demand for pangolin parts in Asia, where they are used in traditional medicine, will likely continue to fuel a booming illegal trade of the animal, they said.    Ultimately, when it comes to conserving species and natural resources, “we need a long-term vision,” said Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, one of the scientists behind the recent vaquita report. And we need to act well before the chime of the eleventh hour.    “Making a change now is urgent,” said Aburto-Oropeza, referring to the vaquita. “But 20 years ago, it was also urgent.”"
393,"Why Sally Jessy Raphael Says She Was ‘Betrayed’ By Talk Show Producers —  The former daytime host reflects on two big changes she wishes she’d made back then. When Sally Jessy Raphael’s self-titled talk show aired in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it found success as a topic-driven program with relatively relatable stories. But by its end, Raphael tells “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” that her series had devolved into a show of salacious content and tabloid fodder like some of her talk-show peers, and she was not happy about it.  “The last years of doing those Maury Povich/Jerry Springer shows, I hated,” Raphael says firmly. “I was betrayed by some of the producers into doing that.” Reflecting on the shift, Raphael wishes she had put more effort into staying true to the type of show she could be proud of. “I should have fought harder for what I knew was right, what I knew that I didn’t want to do,” she says.  The show’s different direction wasn’t enough to save it from low ratings, however, and “Sally Jessy Raphael” was canceled in 2002, after nearly two decades on the air. The end seemed to feel like another betrayal, not just to Raphael, but to the staff.  “They told us that the show was going to go on,” Raphael says of the network executives. “We had 250 employees. Some of them said, ‘Sally, now, we need to know if we’re going to be renewed. I want to buy a house. My wife and I want to be pregnant.’ Within two months ― after they bought their house or got pregnant or whatever ― I had to go in front of the entire crew and staff.” Facing those employees after reassuring them of the show’s impending renewal was difficult, and Raphael adds that she would have made different decisions in this regard as well.  “I’m sure there are some [employees] who think that I knew all along. I did not,” she states. “Had I to do it over, I would have said to them, ‘I don’t know,’ instead of, ‘Yes, it’s a go.’” “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. ET on OWN."
394,"Why Thousands of Women in Iceland Left Work Two Hours Early This Week —  On Monday, around 2:38 PM, thousands of women left work early and headed to Austurvollur square in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik. Punctuality mattered: They were trimming a typical 9-to-5 workday by precisely two hours and 22 minutes, or around 30 percent. Thirty percent also happens to be the gap in average annual income for men and women in Iceland; for every dollar a man makes, a woman makes 72 cents (other ways of measuring the gender wage gap in Iceland yield smaller percentages, and the gap narrows when considering men and women who do the same sort of work). Those assembled at Austurvollur shouted Ut, or “Out,” to discrimination against women. They were essentially saying: If I were a man, I might have earned my paycheck by now, so I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off and demanding change. The protest put a complex issue into the simple terms of hours and minutes. We’re all intimately familiar with the workday; it’s how many of us mark time. And we can all appreciate how early in the day 2:38 PM is—especially if you’re living in Iceland and women suddenly leave offices and stores and schools en masse. One father who had to pick up his daughter from preschool before 2:38 told the public broadcaster RUV that he supported the demonstration despite the inconvenience. “She should get a better salary in the future like the men,” he explained, as he held his daughter in his arms.   We can also easily translate the lesson across cultures. If women in the United States had staged the same protest, for example, they would have left work at 2:12 PM. In South Korea, it would have been 12:36 PM. In Pakistan, 10:50 AM.   Plus, since women’s-rights organizations and labor unions in Iceland have organized the demonstration in the past, we can actually measure, in minutes, the country’s advances on pay equity. On October 24, 2005, women in Iceland left work at 2:08 PM. On October 24, 2010, they departed at 2:25.   It’s encouraging that progress has been made. But the pace of that progress is dispiriting nonetheless. On Monday, women in Iceland left work only half an hour later than they did 11 years ago. If “the same trend continues,” Vala Hafstad writes in Iceland Review, “not until 2068 will women and men enjoy equal pay.” The struggle, moreover, began well before 2005. On October 24, 1975, 90 percent of women in Iceland—that’s nine with a zero after it—went on strike to campaign for equal rights. Yet here Iceland’s women were, in Austurvollur square exactly 41 years later, yelling Ut. What’s most sobering about Monday’s rally is that it occurred in what is arguably the most gender-equal nation on earth. Iceland has had either a female president or a female prime minister for 20 of the last 36 years. Every year for the last eight years, Iceland has finished first among 100-plus countries in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap ranking, which quantifies disparities between men and women in health, politics, education, and employment (the higher a country’s ranking, the smaller its gender disparities). In its latest report, released on Wednesday, the World Economic Forum noted that while Iceland has become the world leader on measures of political empowerment and educational attainment, it has yet to close gaps in earned income and wages for similar work. (Both of these metrics are important because the gender pay gap is frequently less the result of unequal pay for equal work than of women entering different professions from men and occupying fewer high-level positions.) Iceland is still way ahead of most countries on pay equity, but it hasn’t solved the riddle of how to make the workplace more just.   More broadly, the report found that global progress toward economic parity between men and men has suffered setbacks in the past few years—and that the gap might not close for another 170 years!—largely because of chronic gender imbalances in salaries, labor-force participation, and representation in senior positions. “We’re now hitting a bit of a wall” in terms of policy reforms to address these imbalances around the world, Saadia Zahidi, one of the report’s co-authors, told The Guardian, and sluggish economic growth in many countries isn’t helping. In The Guardian this week, Noreena Hertz puzzled over why the gender pay gap has persisted in Iceland despite the government’s many policies to eliminate it, including generous paid leave for new mothers and fathers, state-subsidized childcare, and gender quotas for corporate boards. “Explanations vary,” she wrote, “from women going into less well-paid professions, to the penalty paid for working part-time that we’ve found in the UK as well, to the time it takes for employers’ implicit gender biases to shift.”   That time, however, can seem excruciatingly long. As Gylfi Arnbjornsson, the president of the Icelandic Confederation of Labor, told RUV, “No one puts up with waiting 50 years to reach a goal. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a gender pay gap or any other pay gap. It’s just unacceptable to say we’ll correct this in 50 years. That’s a lifetime.”"
395,"Wife Who Died Alongside Husband, Children in Murder-Suicide Alleged Abuse, Had Plans to Leave —  Megan Short, who died alongside her husband, Mark, and the couple's three children in an apparent murder-suicide over the weekend, had been planning to leave her husband, according to Mark Short's relatives. Mark Short's cousin and aunt told NBC10/Telemundo62 reporter Andrea Cruz that Megan and Mark Short had been going through a tough separation recently, and that Mark had been trying to keep the family together. ""He was a family, family guy. He was all family. He worked himself to death to try and keep his family together,"" James Short, Mark Short's cousin, said. ""It was just work, work, work and family. That was it."" Megan Short, though, alleged on Facebook that her husband was abusive, a friend told the Reading Eagle. She posted about her desire to leave the marriage on her Facebook profile, the friend said. Mark Short's relatives, who live in Folcroft, Delaware County, where he grew up, said that he took his wife and their children, 2-year-old Willow, 5-year-old Mark Jr. and 8-year-old Liana, to Disney World in February in hopes of improving his relationship with his wife and convincing her to stay together. That didn't help, though, the relatives said, and Megan Short still planned to leave. Police have said their investigation revealed the couple had ""domestic issues,"" but they have not provided additional details. On Saturday, police found 40-year-old Mark and Megan Short, 33, along with their three children and the family's dog, all dead of gunshot wounds in the living room of their home in the Berks County Borough of Sinking Spring. Officers paid a visit to the stately single home where the family lived on Winding Brook Drive when one of Megan Short's relatives called them, concerned after she failed to show up for a planned lunch, authorities said. Police have not yet said who they believe did the shooting, but said investigators did find a ""murder-suicide note"" in the home, along with a handgun near one of the adults' bodies. Authorities called the family's deaths ""an apparent tragic domestic incident."" Mark Short's relatives described him as a laid-back man who worked in the real-estate industry and would do anything for anyone, particularly his family. ""He was just a really good guy. You wouldn't think he would do this kind of thing, but in the situation he's in right now, you never can tell with people,"" James Short said of his cousin. ""Don't think any less of him, because he's a really, really good guy. He would do anything for anybody,"" James Short continued. ""You don't know the situation, so don't try to judge."" James Short and other relatives said that Megan Short began dating Mark, who was seven years her senior, when she was just 17 years old, and that the couple had a child and married not long after that.  The family struggled with serious health issues in their youngest child, Willow, who was born with a congenital heart defect that required her to have a heart transplant when she was just days old. Articles in both the New York Times and the Reading Eagle chronicled the Shorts' struggles with Willow's health problems. Megan Short also recently wrote about the post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety she suffers due to dealing with her young daughter's illness in a blog post on the Philly at Heart blog. ""There are very few moments when you can clearly see your life as separated into the before and after,"" Megan Short wrote. ""Having a child born with a severe congenital heart defect has been the most significant shift of my life."" She wrote that she began taking medication and going to therapy for her PTSD in the blog post, which was published in April. Despite the family's struggles, their Facebook pages seem to tell a different part of the story. Mark and Megan Short's profiles both show dozens of photos of them together and with their blond-haired children, smiling. On a photo of Mark Short and Megan posted on his page in December, he wrote, ""She's still the most beautiful girl I've ever met ... I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have her as my wife and the mother of my three amazing children."" Mark Short's relatives said they expected his body to be released Monday afternoon following an autopsy, and that they plan to have his funeral in Delaware County. They said Megan Short's family is handling arrangements for her and the children."
396,"Wildfires spread smoke across southeastern Appalachia —  Wildfires from three Southern states are shrouding neighboring South Carolina with smoke.   Several dozen fires from Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina are sending a smoky haze into the Palmetto State, according to the South Carolina Forestry Commission. A cold front passing through the southern Appalachians on Monday night be partially to blame for pushing in a ""blanket of smoke,"" the commission said. South Carolina has no active fires of its own, the commission said. Forestry Commission Fire Chief Darryl Jones said the smoke would not likely dissipate until the state received a rain shower or the adjoining states would have to get their fires under control. Georgia and other states are currently in a drought and burn bans are in place throughout the region. One eight-acre fire even closed a section of the Chickamauga battlefield last weekend and park authorities warned visitors about heavy smoke. Wildfires in the mountains of western North Carolina are so large they can be seen from outer space, TWC News reported. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that January through October 2016 was the second warmest such period for the country in the 122-year reporting period and the third warmest October since 1963. The 10-month period was 3.6 degees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, NOAA reported."
397,"Wildlife Dying En Masse as South American River Runs Dry —  The Pilcomayo River in Paraguay is littered with dead caiman and fish carcasses as the government scrambles to find a solution. Vultures rest in the tree’s upper branches, their black bodies in stark contrast to the blanched wood beneath their feet. Below them, caimans and capybaras crawl in sucking mud through the Agropil lagoon, seeking water that is unlikely to arrive for many months. The river has dried up, and there is nowhere for them to go. The lagoon, located in the western Paraguayan province of Boquerón, is just one of many stretches of the Pilcomayo River suffering an extensive die-off of caiman, fish, and other river creatures. There have not been any official estimates from the Ministry of the Environment, but Roque González Vera, a journalist for ABC Color in Paraguay, reports utter devastation in some places: Up to 98 percent of caimans (Caiman yacare) are suspected dead, and 80 percent of the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) population has died. Paraguay is in the midst of an ecological crisis. The crisis stems from a combination of drought and mismanagement that has left the Pilcomayo River dry for nearly 435 miles (700 kilometers), according to Vera. On June 24, Paraguay declared an environmental emergency, but little has been done, or can be done, to provide relief for the imperiled animals until the wet season returns. The dry season typically lasts through October, and the annual recharge does not generally occur until January. So, what went wrong? A Perfect Storm of Drought and Mismanagement The Pilcomayo River originates in the Bolivian Highlands, which form the upper basin of the river. The lower reaches run through the Gran Chaco—a hot, semiarid lowland also known as the Chaco Plain—and form a 518-mile (834-kilometer) international border between Argentina and Paraguay. This stretch of the river relies on an annual, three-month pulse of water from the upper basin during its rainy season (roughly January to March). Quite simply, this past year did not deliver. View Images  According to the Ministry of Public Works and Communication (MOPC), the drought is the second worst in the past 30 years, and the paucity of rain has not been seen since 1996-97. Alone, the drought posed a threat to wildlife and agriculture, but the crisis has been exacerbated by the mismanagement of water resources and infrastructure by the Paraguayan government, according to Vera. In a recent article, the reporter argues that the government is complicit in the wildlife die-off, alleging laziness, inefficiency, and irresponsibility in the rehabilitation of the Paraguayan channel. To some extent, the government agrees. The MOPC concluded that the National Commission of the Pilcomayo did an insufficient job of maintaining the river’s channels and canals and recently fired the head of the commission, Daniel Garay. Garay was also charged for the alleged irregularities. However, the mismanagement also extends across the border to Paraguay’s neighbor, Argentina. In 1991, the two countries signed a water distribution agreement for the Pilcomayo, but they have struggled to maintain a fair distribution of water. In any given year, the river largely flows in one country and not the other. A recent review of the river proposed that the country that gets the water is either lucky the river shifted to them, and/or they were more diligent in canal work. Both countries have built up artificial canals outside the agreement—ample mistrust between the nations fuels the construction—but Argentina appears to have done a better job managing theirs, while also adding some reservoirs to hold water surpluses. In recent years, they were luckier and more diligent: Argentina has the water now. How long Argentina keeps the water is largely dependent on a third factor: the natural characteristics of the Pilcomayo River. Natural Phenomenon? Oscar Orfeo, an Argentinean geologist at the Center for Applied Coastal Ecology, believes the lack of water is simply a natural result of the river’s morphology; the river simply does what it wants. The artificial canals cannot control the slope of the plain or the river’s shaping capacity, he says. Orfeo also believes that the current environmental emergency cannot be attributed to a period of extreme drought but is really due to the “wandering” behavior of the river. This wandering is largely related to the significant amounts of sediment the Pilcomayo transports downstream—some 140 million tons of sediment every year, one of the highest amounts in the world. The sediment, in combination with wood debris carried downstream, has created a blockage that disperses the river outside the channel into the surrounding land. As the blockage moves farther upstream every year, the dry river channel grows. It has now been nearly a hundred years since the Pilcomayo’s main channel connected with the Paraguay River in Asunción. With both human and natural forces at play, scientists in Paraguay worry the current crisis could easily become an annual occurrence. Seeking a Solution In the face of public pressure, the Minister of Public Works and Communication, Ramón Jiménez Gaona, announced that the government is working with local authorities, indigenous groups, and residents to remedy the situation. Yet, despite the claims of the government, so far there has been little action to address the situation, says Vera. At the time of this publishing, National Geographic had not received a response from the Ministry of the Environment or the National Commission of the Pilcomayo, which is housed in the MOPC. In reality, it is hard to see a clear solution right now; there is no water to release or divert. Existing options to rehabilitate the Pilcomayo mostly center on cleaning and updating the canals that are filled with sediment, but it is neither quick nor easy to do so. To restore a consistent flow on both sides of the border, Paraguay and Argentina must commit to sharing water, but cooperation has been hard to come by. Until the infrastructure is developed and maintained, observers can only watch and wait, hoping that it rains enough next year to save the animals, or that the river shifts back into its Paraguayan channel. Politics, water, and wildlife: Welcome to 21st-century river management. Rachel Brown contributed reporting for this story.       Article Title:Will Zimbabwe Sell Off Its Rare ‘Painted Dogs’?   Article URL:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160512-zimbabwe-selling-wildlife-wild-dogs-conservation-elephants-lions/   Article author(s)Carly Nairn   Article date: MAY 12, 2016   News source: nationalgeographic    Zimbabwe’s plan to sell its wildlife could hasten the decline of Africa’s endangered wild dogs. Last week Zimbabwe announced that because of the drought that’s ravaging the country—and leaving four million Zimbabweans in need of food aid—it will “destock” its national parks and reserves by selling off wildlife. The announcement by the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (also known as Zimparks) doesn’t say when the sales would begin, nor does it specify which species would be offered and at what prices. Some of the country’s animals can’t be sold off—those already protected against sale or hunting under the Parks and Wildlife Act, dating back to 1975. These include pangolins, pythons, and rhinos. Elephants and lions aren’t protected under the act, and elephants in particular, given their high value, would likely be priorities for sale. Surprisingly, African wild dogs, which are endangered continent-wide, aren’t on Zimbabwe’s no-sale list. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which sets the conservation status of species, these elusive canids are critically endangered and number only 3,000 to 5,500 continent-wide. Zimbabwe claims it must sell wildlife to replenish its coffers in the face of cash shortages so extreme that ATMs can’t be refilled, a scorching drought that’s causing the country’s exports of tobacco and maize to plummet, and a recent bid by the European Union to ban trophy hunting imports, which the government says would deprive the country of additional crucial revenue. (The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service banned the import of elephant hunting trophies from Zimbabwe in 2014, on grounds that killing elephants for trophies there would not enhance the population’s survival, a requirement under the Endangered Species Act.) But Ross Harvey, a senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, says that if Zimbabwe had been governed responsibly, there would be no need reason for it to put its wild animals up for sale. “Zimbabwe's economy has been intensively mismanaged since the late 1990s, and the recent drought has had a more devastating effect than it otherwise would have if the economy was in fact being run properly.” According to Harvey, “the idea that the sale of elephants would help to assuage the country's economic woes is unworkable.” He notes that there’s no assurance that any money the government acquires from wildlife sales would be earmarked for conservation or drought relief. “In a system where lack of accountability has been baked in over a long time,” Harvey says, “there’s no guarantee that the money would be directed towards those who need it most.” Zimbabwe has been criticized by wildlife and animal rights advocates for its previous arrangements to use animals as financial leverage. In July 2015 the country exported 24 wild elephants to China. How the money from the sale has been allocated remains an open question. And the killing last year of Cecil the lion by Walter Palmer, an American dentist and trophy hunter, in a private reserve bordering Hwange National Park caused a furor that primed animal advocates to keep a critical eye on Zimbabwe. But so far Zimparks has escaped widespread criticism for its new wildlife sale plan. Will Wild Dogs Take a Hit? One of the continent’s largest populations of wild dogs—also called painted dogs for the splotches of black, tan, and gold on their coats—is in Hwange National Park. Although their exact numbers are unknown, experts believe that the park holds about 150. Zimbabwe as a whole may have around 700. Even without a crippling drought, survival is hard for wild dogs—they get caught in snares set by poachers seeking other animals, and many have been roadkill victims. At the news of the Zimparks proposal to sell wildlife, Peter Blinston, the managing director of the Painted Dog Conservation, a nonprofit based in Hwange, said he didn’t believe that wild dogs would be put up for sale. “Painted Dog Conservation has very good relations with Zimparks,"" he said. “Thus our standing carries some weight, and if there was talk of dogs being on the for sale list, we would fight hard, and I suspect we would win.” Speculating on what animals Zimparks would find attractive to sell, Blinston said there was a “perceived abundance” of elephants, yet their exact numbers, like those of wild dogs, are unknown. Estimates vary from a low of 60,000 to a high of 100,000. He also pointed out that “in some areas impala are over-represented. I don’t think anything else is.” If numbers play into the decision about which animals to sell, elephants and impalas would be high on the list. If impalas, an important food source for wild dogs, are sold and suffer drought losses as well, that would be a double whammy of deprivation for Zimbabwe’s already troubled painted dogs. Zimparks and Zimbabwe's Ministry of Environment, Water, and Climate did not respond to requests for comment.   Article Title:South Australia belted by second storm in 24 hours with winds of up to 140km/h   Article URL:https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/29/south-australia-on-alert-again-as-adelaide-braces-for-strongest-storm-on-record   Article author(s)   Article date:Thursday 29 September 2016 05.51 EDTLast modified on Thursday 29 September 2016 14.11 EDT   News source: theguardian    Intense low-pressure system sweeps across state, causing heavy rain, flooding and major damage after emergency services tell Adelaide workers to go home   South Australia has copped another belting with a destructive storm lashing the state just 24 hours after super cell thunderstorms knocked out the state’s entire power network. The intense low pressure system raged across Adelaide and parts of SouthAustralia late on Thursday. The storm packed winds of up to 140km/h, among the strongest the city has experienced, prompting an unprecedented warning from police for workers to head home early and stay home amid concerns emergency services might not be able to cope. The winds brought down trees across a wide area, causing major damage, and ripped some mid-north buildings apart. Heavy rain caused widespread flooding, from the Patawalonga River in Adelaide, through to the Barossa and Clare valleys, which copped 54mm of rain.   In Clare, a caravan park was under threat and in the Barossa, a dam burst, prompting an emergency flood warning for the town of Greenock. Storm surges and huge waves also inundated some communities along the Spencer and St Vincent gulf coasts with the worst centres affected including Port Pirie, Port Broughton and Moonta. The State Emergency Service responded to more than 660 calls for help, taking the tally to well over 1,000 in the past 36 hours. The police commissioner, Grant Stevens, said extra police could be brought in from interstate to help cope with the crisis. The SES chief officer, Chris Beattie, warned the service was at risk of being stretched beyond capacity. The latest emergency came after Wednesday’s blackout when ferocious winds ripped up more than 20 transmission towers in the mid-north, taking out three of the state’s four major transmission lines. The premier, Jay Weatherill, described the storm as “catastrophic” and said it had involved weather events not seen before in South Australia, “such as twin tornadoes, which ripped through the northern parts of our state”. By late on Thursday, 30,000 properties remained without power, some because of Wednesday’s statewide blackout and others as a result of new damage caused by the continued wild weather. Weatherill warned some households, particularly in northern areas, could remain without power for at least a couple of days. At the height of the drama on Wednesday, super cell storms with destructive winds and tornadoes ripped more than 20 transmission towers in South Australia’s north out of the ground, bringing down three major transmission lines. Lightning also damaged energy infrastructure, with 80,000 strikes hitting the state over a short period. It caused a state-wide blackout that plunged South Australia into darkness. South Australian power transmission company ElectraNet will bring in temporary towers from interstate to repair the transmission lines. ElectraNet executive manager of network service, Simon Emms, said the company hoped to have one of the three backbone circuits restored by Sunday and would build on that as fast as possible. Emms said the company continued to work on restoring power to those areas of the state still without electricity but establishing a timeline was difficult. “That’s a very fair question but very hard to answer at the moment,” he said. “Obviously, the current wind conditions are hampering restoration efforts. Access to the sites is very difficult and we haven’t finished fully patrolling all the lines yet to ensure we can safely energise them. “When we’ve finished the patrols, then we’ll safely energise. We’ll then restore the assets with emergency towers.” Emms said he was not aware of any power system in the world that could handle losing as much energy so quickly without going into blackout. He said such events were not common but were not unheard of.   Meanwhile, parts of New South Wales were being hit by the tail of the storm cell as it moved on from South Australia. The weather bureau had warnings in place for damaging winds and potential flash flooding for much of the state, but had revised down warnings for heavy rains. Broken Hill has borne the brunt of the destructive winds, with gusts reaching up to 90km/h. Thunderstorms were hitting towns in the north of the state along the Queensland border. The Riverina, central and south tablelands and parts of the Hunter, Snowy Mountains and mid-north coastal regions were all on alert. Towns in flood-ravaged central NSW were also being told to prepare for potential flash flooding and further flooding in the next few days. The central west community of Forbes could be inundated by a second peak of the Lachlan River at the same time the town’s weekend floodwaters reach downstream Condobolin. The SES predicts the high water marks would occur sometime next week, with 30mm of rain expected on Thursday and up to 20mm on Friday. At least 50,000 sandbags had been transported into the towns from Maitland in the Hunter Valley and extra crews brought in from around the state. About 100 properties remained subject to an evacuation order while sittings at courthouses in Forbes, Condobolin and Lake Cargelligo had been cancelled for next week. The SES was calling on those going to the Deni Ute Muster or travelling inland to check for potential road closures."
398,"Wind turbines killing more than just local birds —  Wind turbines are known to kill large birds, such as golden eagles, that live nearby. Now there is evidence that birds from up to hundreds of miles away make up a significant portion of the raptors that are killed at these wind energy fields. Using DNA from tissue and stable isotopes from the feathers of golden eagle carcasses, researchers from Purdue University and the U.S. Geological Survey found that golden eagles killed at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in northern California can come from hundreds of miles away. Golden eagles are a species of conservation concern, so understanding population-level differences and how individuals interact with turbines is key to meeting a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service target of no net loss to their populations. The APWRA is one of the oldest wind farms in the country and one of the largest in the world originally with around 5,000 turbines. Worldwide, such facilities have been responsible for the deaths of 140,000 to 328,000 birds and 500,000 to 1.6 million bats, raising questions about their effects on population sustainability. ""Eagles tend to use that habitat around the turbines. It's windy there, so they can save energy and soar, and their preferred prey, California ground squirrels, is abundant there,"" said J. Andrew DeWoody, a Purdue professor of genetics in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. ""As they soar, these eagles are often looking straight down, and they fail to see the rapidly moving turbine blades. They get hit by the blades, and carcasses are found on the ground under the turbines."" Collaborator David Nelson, a stable isotope ecologist with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, tested the birds' feathers for stable hydrogen isotopes, which can be used to determine where the birds likely grew their feathers. The research team determined that about 75 percent of the 62 birds were from the local population. The remaining 25 percent likely migrated into the area before they were killed. Isotopes are atoms of an element that have different molecular weights. As precipitation moves inland, water with the heavier form of hydrogen falls out first, which creates predictable patterns of the stable isotopes ratios of precipitation across continents. ""When a bird drinks water or eats animals in a particular place, the hydrogen isotope ratios of precipitation in that area get recorded in its tissues,"" Nelson said. ""You can use these hydrogen ratios in the feathers to determine the approximate place that the bird grew its feathers."" A genetic analysis revealed that golden eagles from the western U.S. have gene pools similar to those killed at the APWRA, which reflects the capacity of these birds to disperse widely. ""The population models we built confirm that the age structure of the eagles killed at Altamont is difficult to replicate without substantial immigration,"" said co-author Todd Katzner, a wildlife biologist with the USGS. Katzner said these findings suggest that environmental assessments of alternative energy facilities like Altamont Pass should take into consideration that animal populations affected by wind turbines might not be just local. ""If you only consider local birds in an environmental assessment, you're not really evaluating the effect that facility may have on the entire population,"" Katzner said. DeWoody said that wind energy generators can receive permits that allow a certain number of unintended bird deaths. But if that number is too large, the companies could be fined. And knowing that a large percentage of the birds killed are from neighboring states could muddy the management waters. ""The golden eagle fatalities at this one site have demonstrated consequences that extend across much of the range of the species across North America,"" DeWoody said. The golden eagle population is a concern for several state and federal agencies, DeWoody added. He said future research could include looking at more bird species affected by turbines."
399,"Wisconsin college town reels after the mysterious killing of a Saudi student —  It happened late at night in front of a busy pizza parlor and bars, when students were out in costumes, drinking and partying in celebration of Halloween. When the police arrived shortly after 2 a.m. on Sunday, Hussain Saeed Alnahdi was already unconscious. He was bleeding from the nose and mouth, and his alleged attacker had fled the scene on foot.   Alnahdi, a gregarious 24-year-old junior at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, wasn’t alone when it happened. Less than an hour before, he had been hanging out with friends at a bar across the street, one friend said. The assault occurred on a crowded sidewalk. There were witnesses, police said. And there were nearby properties with security cameras.   But three days after Alnahdi died of his injuries, and the police force launched a homicide investigation, authorities have yet to identify a suspect or provide any further details about what transpired that night.   “We’re still in the course of the investigation,” said Todd Swartz, the local police department’s commander of operations in Menomonie, Wis.   The fatal encounter in Menomonie — population 16,200 — comes in the final days of a volatile and racially charged presidential race — in which Republican candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned Muslims — and amid an ongoing spike in threats, attacks and harassment targeting Muslims and Arabs across the nation.   Alnahdi, a Saudi national who arrived in Menomonie to study at the university last year, is both Muslim and Arab. And in the aftermath of his death, allegations of a hate crime surged on social media, with some outside commentators referring to the young man’s anonymous attacker as an “American terrorist” born of Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, while others declared Alnahdi had been brutally “beaten.”   “Don’t tell me Trump’s hateful rhetoric are ‘just words,’” tweeted Khaled Beydoun, a professor at Detroit Mercy Law School.   Swartz said Thursday that Menomonie police had not yet determined the motive in Alnahdi’s killing, and were not yet able to say whether it was a hate crime. Police were also unwilling to say whether the assault was preceded by a fight; whether Alnahdi had experienced previous altercations; or even how he died. “I can’t comment on that,” Swartz said, when asked if Alnahdi was struck with an object.   “I don’t want to comment on that,” he said, when asked what the 6-foot-tall white male suspect police had initially described was wearing at the time.   Swartz said police were still interviewing witnesses and reviewing videos; still trying to confirm accounts. “We have to be cautious,” he said. Some witnesses might have been drunk. Others might not have had a clear view of the crime, he said. “We don’t want to put something out there that we haven’t confirmed yet.”   ‘He immediately became like family’   Hussain Alnahdi was outgoing, and well-liked, even though he had been at the university for less than a year and a half.   “I never met a single person who didn’t like Hussain or didn’t instantly fall in love with his character,” said Zion Guzman, one of Alnahdi’s roommates.   Alnahdi had landed in a house with Guzman and a few of his friends the year before, largely by chance — “We had an open room in our house that our landlord filled, and it turned out to be a Saudi Arabian foreign exchange student,” he said.   Alnahdi knew little English when he arrived, but he quickly immersed himself in American culture. He asked questions and learned his roommates’ English slang. He visited their Wisconsin home towns, got to know their families, and wondered about the widespread popularity of cheese. In Menomonie, he was always giving out hugs, giggling and preparing huge Saudi meals for everyone, his friends said.   “He immediately became like family,” Guzman said.   But Guzman and other friends said they also didn’t want to talk about what happened on the night that Alnahdi was fatally wounded. One privately said they didn’t want to interfere in the investigation.   “At this time, we’re not going to talk about the incident or what happened at the hospital after,” Guzman said.   At 142 students in an overall student body of 9,616, Saudis make up the largest proportion of UW-Stout’s international students.   Many come to study engineering, technology or business administration through a partnership program, launched in 2012, between the university and a Saudi community college. But some also come on word of mouth, said Michael Lee, of the university’s Office of International Education. “The students really had great experiences and invited many of their friends and family to transfer from Saudi Arabia,” he said. “Hussain reported to his family that he felt very safe here. That’s why he was self-supported,” Lee said.   Episodes of anti-Muslim harassment have flared nearby. Seventy miles away at the University of Minnesota on Thursday, vandals scrawled the word “ISIS” on the Muslim Student Association’s sign. And last month, in Lonsdale, Minn., a store owner put up a sign outside that read “Muslims get out” — under the store’s advertisement for ice cream; In Iowa, someone spray-painted Trump’s name in red letters on the side of a mosque.   Jaylani Hussein, the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Minnesota office, said he met with a number of Muslim students in Menomonie after Alnahdi’s death, and some of them reported being taunted in recent months.   “There has been a rise in tension, and some name-calling and harassment has been happening in the community,” he said.   Latinos had also experienced harassment, Hussein said, and some students wondered if Alnahdi—who with his dark hair, and light brown skin — “may have potentially been targeted for that.”   But if Menomonie has succumbed to the racial tensions and anti-Muslim prejudice that has appeared in other towns across the country, UW’s administrators, the town’s police force and many students said they were unaware of it.   “That’s what was really shocking about this. We wouldn’t see the influx of Saudi students that we’ve had if there had been any history of that,” Lee said Thursday, a few hours before students and faculty gathered on campus to pay an emotional tribute to Alnahdi.   “Menomonie community was safe,” said Abdirahman Kadi, another Saudi and the president of the school’s Muslim Students Association. “We have a lot of friends.”"
400,"With Much Sadness We Report Baby Isibindi Has Passed —  Rhino Update From Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage: It is with many tears, a heavy heart and very mixed emotions that I write that little Isibindi passed away shortly before midnight after a very, very rough 56 hours. She went through such deep sadness in her short life. I was so hoping and fighting to give her a second chance at life. A part of me feels a deep relief – the last two days were very difficult and she had so much to cope with. Little Bindi left this earth lying in my arms (the orphanage had no power so I wrapped us both in a duvet to keep her warm) It never gets easier. RIP little Bindi – may your spirit fly free! To the team on the ground here – humbled and proud. I have been with Isibindi constantly since she arrived a few days ago with no water, no power, wet cold conditions and security issues, this young and amazing group have made sure that the other rhinos have been cared for. Thank you to: Axel Tarifa, Shannon Westphal- very special people and Steven and Nicole. May God Bless all of the orphaned babies who are fighting for their life! -WAN"
401,"With Trump victory, Mexico’s worst fears are realized —  MEXICO CITY — In America’s modern history, few U.S. presidents have come to power as openly hostile to their southern neighbor as Donald Trump. His opening campaign salvos — describing Mexican immigrants as criminals or rapists — seemed almost tame by the time he clinched victory, after so many threats to cut off jobs going to Mexico, deport millions of unauthorized immigrants and build a wall on the border. His victory stunned, saddened and worried Mexicans, forcing the country’s highest government officials Wednesday morning to call for calm and pledge to work with the United States. The wave of national anxiety sent financial markets here into turmoil as a new, uncertain era in relations with the United States began. “We will have for the next four years, at least, a president of the United States who actively campaigned and centrally campaigned against Mexico’s interests. Full stop. Period,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister. “It’s an unmitigated disaster for Mexico.” Mexicans are unnerved about the lasting economic damage that a Trump presidency might bring. Those concerns are focused most on his promises to rewrite the trade deal that has undergirded Mexico’s economic progress over the past two decades. Mexico’s top economic officials, Finance Minister José Antonio Meade and Central Bank governor Agustín Carstens, tried to calm fears here. In a morning news conference, Meade said the U.S. election increased uncertainty in world financial markets and heightened the volatility of Mexico’s currency. But he added that Mexico was in a strong economic position. “It’s important to remember that the functioning of markets has remained orderly,” Meade said. “The result of the election doesn’t imply an immediate impact in the norms that regulate the commerce of goods and services, financial flows or the capacity of people to travel between both countries.” [Markets staggered by Trump’s shock victory but stage partial recovery] Mexico’s Central Bank has regularly raised interest rates over the past year in an attempt to contain the peso’s losses and tamp down inflation. The peso, which was trading around 18 to the dollar on Tuesday, dropped to more than 20 to the dollar after Trump’s win appeared imminent. President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted his congratulations to the United States on its electoral process Wednesday and expressed to Trump “the will to work together in favor of bilateral relations.” For many Mexicans, Trump was something of a joke when he became a presidential candidate last year. They built piñatas out of his image and fashioned his face into Halloween masks. Only after he won the Republican nomination did a sense of urgency set in among the business and political elite. Fears of a Trump victory and possible damage to the Mexican economy prompted Peña Nieto to invite the candidate to Mexico City in September to improve ties. That meeting caused a huge backlash as Mexicans protested their leader’s welcoming treatment of the Republican candidate. As the results of the presidential election came in Tuesday night, Mexicans watched with growing horror as Trump captured state after state. Mexico’s foreign minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, rushed to the presidential palace, Los Pinos, to discuss the results with Peña Nieto. The headline of an editorial Wednesday in one of Mexico’s leading newspapers, El Universal, simply read: “A dark future.” “The American people chose yesterday the path of racism, hate and intolerance,” it began. The most urgent questions here centered on the potential gap between Trump’s words and his actions as president. Andrés Rozental, a former Mexican ambassador to Britain, said that promises Trump made to energize working-class and rural white voters who feel they have suffered from international trade might soften once he takes office. “It’s clear that much of what happened yesterday, and much of what brought Mr. Trump to the White House, relates to deep- seated anger and deep-seated fear of the outside — the outside includes, very immediately, Mexico,” Rozental said. “I think the most important thing right now in Mexico, for the government and all of us, is to find the ways we can deal with this reality.” “We are neighbors; we need to have a relationship; we need to make it as constructive as we can,” he added. Others found no reason to be optimistic. “The new mistake that people here are going to be making, along with many of their American friends in Washington, is a not-to-worry attitude,” said Castañeda, the former foreign minister. He added that Trump “will deliver on some of his promises some of the time, like all politicians.” [After Trump’s victory, the world is left to wonder: What happened to America?] Beyond the short-term market volatility, some Mexican economists predict a recession if Trump pursues the plans he has outlined. Trump has regularly disparaged the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994 and has helped Mexican exports grow while attracting far more foreign investment into the country. More than $1 billion worth of exports and imports cross the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border every day. “I think there will be some tinkering with the U.S. approach to international trade, but I don’t see wholesale reversal of U.S. trade policies. There’s too much at stake here, and any change on that scale would take years and years,” said Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. “I think we’re looking at the beginnings of a conversation about where we want to be as a country in our international trade relationships. So we’re moving away from a model of free trade and back to a paradigm of managed trade.” Mexicans are also worried about Trump’s threats to deport millions of illegal immigrants from the United States. “This is a very difficult situation; we have to prepare ourselves,” said Jeffrey Weldon, a political scientist at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. Raúl Benítez Manaut, a professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, noted that the Trump victory followed the British vote to leave the European Union and the Colombian vote to scrap a peace plan with left-wing guerrillas. “The traditional parties don’t respond to the needs of the people,” he said. The election also reshuffled the deck on Mexico’s domestic politics. The country’s parties are just getting into campaign mode with a presidential election two years out. Many observers speculated that a nationalist backlash could be expressed in that vote. “Politically, this will energize politicians tapping into a traditional strain of anti-Washington feelings in Mexico, as leaders are compelled to stand for the dignity of Mexicans in both countries,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society, who was an adviser to the Clinton administration in the late 1990s. Gabriela Martinez in Mexico City contributed to this report."
402,"Without proper support repatriation effort of Somali refugees from Dadaab 'is likely to fail' —  Humanitarian organisation the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has urged for large-scale, long-term investment in Somalia to ensure that the repatriation of Somali refugees living in Kenya's Dadaab camp is successful.   For more than 20 years, Kenya has been home to generations of Somalis who have fled their war-torn country. Kenya's government announced on 6 May its plans to speed up the repatriation of Somali refugees and close the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp in north-east Kenya by 30 November. The government of Kenya this week revealed that it has accepted the request of the office of the UNHCR Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, to extend the deadline for the completion of repatriation of Somali refugees and eventual closure of the world's largest refugee complex, by six months.   Deferring the closure of Dadaab will do little to allay refugees' fears of conflict-related violence, widespread sexual and gender-based violence against women and children, forced recruitment of children, and large-scale displacement in Somalia, IRC said. But local and international actors should harness the deadline extension opportunity to help prepare for refugees' returns. IRC's demand comes a day after Kenyan officials conducting the repatriation programme were accused of deliberately coercing refugees to return to Somalia.   ""While we agree that long-term camp settings are not the best solution for refugees, it is essential that residents of Dadaab do not feel pressured to leave,"" Conor Philips, IRC's Kenya country director, said. ""I believe we have an opportunity to move beyond the current camp-based status-quo by presenting new opportunities for refugees. Doing so will take a well-coordinated effort, donor commitment and flexibility from the governments of Kenya and Somalia.""   According to Philips, it is crucial that refugees are supported to expand their skills while still in Kenya ""which will provide them with more earning opportunities in Somalia"", and that their integration into their new communities is assisted once they have left Dadaab. ""This will take large-scale, long-term investment in Somalia, including the host communities who will receive them. Without that the repatriation effort is likely to fail,"" the IRC said in a statement.   Since Kenya announced its efforts to close the world's largest camp began six months ago, the rate of refugee movement from Kenya to Somalia has increased four-fold, the organisation said.   Health delivery agency IRC provided assistance to 40% of Dadaab – around 130,000 people – when the government announced its plans earlier this year."
403,"Woman allegedly locked 11-year-old son in closets for three years before he died —  The last time anyone saw Yonatan Daniel Aguilar in public was in the spring of 2012.   Teachers at his elementary school in Los Angeles were worried about him. One said Yonatan appeared to be hoarding food. Another said he came to school with a black eye. They filed their concerns with county social workers, who in turn alerted police, according to the Los Angeles Times. After interviewing people close to him, authorities found no cause for alarm — school officials told social workers he lived in a safe household. Not long after, Yonatan vanished.   He did not return to class, nor to his after school program. Although his family had been the subject of a half-dozen reports by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, social workers had no legal ability to inquire about him, the Times reported.   Yonatan’s stepfather, Jose Pinzon, believed the boy was living in Mexico. The boy’s mother, Veronica Aguilar, allegedly told him so, and said the same to other people who wanted to know his whereabouts.   That was the story until August 2016, when Aguilar came to Pinzon with tragic news: Yonatan had died. Pinzon, who said he had not seen the boy in several years, figured she would be going to Mexico for the funeral.   Instead, she opened the closet door.   Inside was the 11-year-old’s body, wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by medicinal cups. His hair was falling out, his nose was plugged with foam, and pressure sores covered his tiny frame. He weighed just 34 pounds.   “I took care of the problem by ruining my life,” Aguilar allegedly told Pinzon.   Details of the harrowing saga were culled from Los Angeles County Juvenile Court records and published Thursday by the Times.   Aguilar, 39, has been charged with murder and child abuse and is being held on $2 million bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. She has pleaded not guilty and faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted, according to KTLA.   Aguilar’s defense attorney told the Times: “My client is innocent until proven guilty.” Why Aguilar allegedly kept Yonatan hidden for so long remains a mystery — perhaps one that will be explored in her criminal case — but police said she was so crafty that for three years Pinzon may not have realized that he and his stepson were under the same roof, according to the Times.   Sometime in 2012, Aguilar pulled Yonatan out of school, apparently because she was offended by questions from social workers, the Times reported.   As the couple and their four children moved from house to house, the Times reported, Aguilar kept the boy locked in closets, sedating him with liquid sleep medications. When Pinzon would go out for groceries, Aguilar would always ask him to pick up purple-colored “syrup,” records show — something Pinzon reportedly found confusing because they were tight on money.   At the time of Yonatan’s death, the family was living in a one-bedroom house in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park, according to the Times. Two children shared a bedroom and a third child slept in a shed outside, while the couple slept in the living room. Her children appear to have known what she was doing, but concealed it from their stepfather, the Times reported.   It was Aug. 22 when Aguilar allegedly told Pinzon the truth about Yonatan. After seeing the boy’s body, Pinzon ran out of the house and called police from a 7-11, according to the Times.   When detectives arrived, they interviewed Pinzon and the children in the same room. Pinzon exploded when he realized the children knew, reported the Times, which described the exchange from records:   “How can you do this to me?” he asked.   One of the children replied: “You were always at work, so you didn’t know.”   Pinzon then started crying.   “I carry a photo of him in my wallet,” he said, according to the records. “I’m the only one that cared for him.”   A public memorial was held for the boy at an Echo Park church last month, according to KTLA. Among the speakers was Moses Castillo, the lead detective in the case.   “Yonatan, I pledge to you that we will continue to tell your story in hopes that similar cases do not repeat again,” he told people who had gathered to remember the boy.   Pinzon also recalled his relationship with the boy.   “He’s still alive for me,” Pinzon said, “because I carry him in my heart.”"
404,"Woman critically injured in crash in Clinton area of Prince George’s —  A woman was critically injured Sunday night in a traffic collision in Prince George’s County, the police said.   The crash occurred about 6:30 p.m. at Piscataway and Tippett Roads in the Clinton area, the police said.   Three cars were involved."
405,"Woman pushed to her death in front of New York subway train —  A woman shoved an unsuspecting traveler off a New York City subway platform into the path of an approaching train on Monday afternoon, killing the victim instantly as bystanders watched in horror, police said.   The victim, also a woman, was pushed onto the tracks as a southbound No. 1 train pulled into the Times Square station around 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT), and she was pronounced dead on the scene shortly afterward. Witnesses immediately alerted police officers, who apprehended the suspect in the station.   Neither the victim nor the suspect was immediately identified by authorities.   ""What happened here today is tragic,"" Joseph Fox, chief of transit for the New York City Police Department, told reporters at the midtown Manhattan subway station, one of city's largest and busiest. The victim was standing on the platform when the suspect, wearing a pink shirt and scarf, lunged at her, police said.   Two hours after the incident, emergency responders were working to remove the woman's body from the tracks and resume subway service at the station before peak evening commuting hours.   Investigators were reviewing surveillance video and interviewing witnesses to determine a motive, said William Aubry, the police department's chief of Manhattan detectives.   Many of those who saw the attack were visibly shaken. Some witnesses said the victim and the suspect were involved in a dispute before the fatal shove, Aubry said, but it was not immediately clear whether the women knew each other. Dozens of people are hit by New York City subway trains each year, although most of the incidents are accidental, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the system.   Last year, a woman was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison for fatally pushing a man into the path of an oncoming New York subway train in 2012."
406,"Women are encouraging each other to get IUDs before Trump becomes president —  There's no way to sugarcoat this: Trump and Pence's election is likely terrifying news for women's health.   One major reason women are worried is that Trump and Pence (not to mention a Republican-controlled congress) could threaten access to affordable birth control.    Both men have said that they will work to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which requires that insurers cover birth control as a form of preventative care. As governor of Indiana, Pence slashed women’s health funding through Planned Parenthood and signed a bill that would have held some doctors who performed abortions liable for wrongful death. Trump has also called for punishments for doctors who perform abortions, and falsely suggested that women get abortions just days before birth.   The good news is that there may be an opportunity for some women to protect themselves against that threat.   As Gabriella Paiella argues in New York Magazine, and Erin Gloria Ryan does in The Daily Beast, an intrauterine device (IUD) offers some women the option to take care of their birth control needs in a way that could outlast any changes made by the Trump-Pence administration.   An IUD is a small device that sits inside a woman's uterus and prevents pregnancy by keeping sperm from reaching an egg. Some are copper, which has a strong sperm-blocking effect. Others release hormones that induce the body to block sperm on its own. Once they're in, IUDs generally remain effective for longer than a presidential administration lasts. Here are the basic IUD facts:   IUDs are remarkably effective, preventing more than 99% of pregnancies. That makes them vastly more effective than the pill. They are also safe for the vast majority of women, including teenagers. Some versions can remain in place for up to 12 years. Women looking to get an IUD that's covered by insurance should consider taking the initial steps as soon as possible. Though it's unclear how fast Trump and Pence would work to roll back the ACA and it's birth control provisions, an IUD can cost up to $1,000 without coverage.    Some women are already taking steps to get themselves protected. Planned Parenthood offers a very helpful guide for people interested in learning more about IUDs.   President Barack Obama will remain in office until Friday, January 20, 2017. It is almost certain the ACA will remain in place through that date. Afterward, Obamacare's fate becomes far more uncertain."
407,"Yaffa Eliach, Holocaust survivor who revived a lost town in photographs, dies —  Yaffa Eliach, a survivor and historian of the Holocaust who memorialized its victims not by recording their deaths but by remembering their lives in a massive photography collection that became a centerpiece of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, died Nov. 8 at her home in New York City. She was 81 and had dementia, said her husband, David Eliach. Among the 1,500 images displayed in the Holocaust Museum’s three-story “Tower of Faces” is one that depicts a bright-eyed girl in a gingham dress and surrounded by chickens, her face locked in a permanent expression of curious delight. The girl was Dr. Eliach. The photo was taken on the day in June 1941 when Germans occupied her home town, the Lithuanian shtetl of Eishyshok, southwest of Vilna. Three months later, Nazi mobile killing units, called Einsatzgruppen, would descend upon the town and execute nearly its entire Jewish population of 3,500 in two days. Dr. Eliach, who was hiding with a Polish housekeeper, was one of 29 to survive. Along with her parents, who also had evaded capture, she would later hide for a period in the attic of a carriage house. There, her infant brother was suffocated in an effort to muffle his cries when Germans entered the building. The family found refuge in a pit beneath a pigsty, where Dr. Eliach used the earthen wall as a chalkboard, learning the Hebrew alphabet. Her father passed the time by telling her stories about the holidays, weddings and other happenings in the place that had been Eishyshok. Those stories were the ones she would seek to preserve after her liberation in 1944, and after her immigration to Israel and ultimate settlement in the United States. As a professor at Brooklyn College, Dr. Eliach helped build the field of Holocaust studies in U.S. universities. But she forged perhaps her most lasting legacy through a 17-year odyssey that took her across the diaspora to collect photographs and other documentation of every Jew who lived in Eishyshok in the 20th century. She considered Eishyshok — now Eisiskes — the “paradigm of Eastern European shtetl life” that was extinguished by the Nazis. “We have traditional symbols of the Holocaust — striped uniforms and cattle cars,” Dr. Eliach once told The Washington Post. But she did not see the victims “as bones and skulls, dehumanized prisoners without a name, hair or clothes. I wanted to show them going to school, skating, skiing, picking flowers.” Because so few residents of Eishyshok survived, the search for their traces was an arduous undertaking. Dr. Eliach helped one man exhume photographs that he had buried in a tin in Israel. She located other photos in a former synagogue in Detroit. Some photographs belonged to families so needy that they lent her their relics in exchange for medication or Reebok shoes. Dr. Eliach reportedly took out a loan on her life-insurance policy and spent $600,000 of her own money on the project. “My family was very well to do in Eishyshok and the next day we had nothing,” she told the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail. “One day I was well dressed and the next I was drinking water from the lake and looking for something to eat. Money lost its importance in my life.” Dr. Eliach reported that she found photographs of 98 percent of the Jews of Eishyshok. The collection became a principal exhibition at the Holocaust Museum in Washington after it opened in 1994. Printed on enamel tiles, the images were installed in a tower that reaches from far below a footbridge up to a skylight from which sunlight pours down. Dr. Eliach insisted that no photo be cropped. The images capture people enjoying life — playing the accordion, smoking a cigarette, swinging in a hammock. One photograph shows a woman and her sister-in-law, both named Shoshana. During the massacre, the first woman’s husband was permitted to choose one person, his wife or his sister, to be spared. He selected his wife. His sister died then; later, the couple died as well. Dr. Eliach collected the images in “There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok” (1998), which became a finalist for the National Book Award. The title came from her father’s reaction to her ­project. “At least the people, and perhaps even God, will remember,” he said, “that there once was a world filled with faith, Judaism and humanity.” Yaffa Sonenson was born in Eishyshok — located in what was then Poland — on May 31, 1935, her husband said. Other sources reported the year of her birth as 1936 or 1937. Her maternal grandparents were professional ­photographers. After the liberation of Eishyshok, according to Dr. Eliach, Polish partisans shot her mother and baby brother, an account that was challenged by some Polish American groups. She settled in the United States and studied history, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1967 and a master’s degree in 1969, both from Brooklyn College, and a PhD in 1973 from the City University of New York. Her 1982 book, “Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust,” contained 89 stories of Holocaust victims finding what she described as “a glimmer of hope, a hint of laughter” amid their suffering. Survivors include her husband of 63 years, David Eliach of New York City; a son, Rabbi Yotav Eliach of Woodmere, N.Y.; a daughter, Smadar Rosensweig of Queens, N.Y.; 14 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. In 1987, for the first time since World War II, Dr. Eliach returned to Eishyshok and visited the town’s mass grave. “All the Jews in the town were buried there, but I didn’t feel like I was standing on a grave,” she told the Forward in 2003. “They were talking to me. They were saying, show the world that we are normal people!”"
408,"Yahoo’s Half-Billion Hack —  A “state-sponsored actor” stole personal data from at least 500 million Yahoo user accounts, the troubled tech company said Thursday. The pilfered data contains a wealth of personal information, including “names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords […] and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers,” Bob Lord, Yahoo’s chief information security officer, said in a statement. The hacker (or hackers) do not appear to have obtained data about users’ credit cards or bank accounts, Lord noted, which he said are stored on a separate system. Yahoo believes the data was stolen in “late 2014.” It’s unclear when the company first became aware of the breach; a pseudonymous hacker first publicly offered to sell Yahoo data last month. The Wall Street Journal has more: No evidence has been found to suggest the state-sponsored actor is currently in Yahoo’s network, and Yahoo didn’t name the country it suspected was involved. In August, a hacker called “Peace” appeared in online forums, offering to sell 200 million of the company’s usernames and passwords for about $1,900 in total. Peace had previously sold data taken from breaches at Myspace and LinkedIn Corp. A Yahoo spokesman said at the time that the company was aware of the claim and was “working to determine the facts.” In 2012, Yahoo had more than 1 billion user accounts in its databases. User passwords were protected via a cryptographic algorithm called MD5, which can be cracked using the latest password-breaking techniques, said a source familiar with the situation. Disclosure of the breach comes two months after Yahoo, once among the most powerful tech companies in Silicon Valley, said it would sell its core internet business to telecom giant Verizon for $4.8 billion. It’s unclear how the hack could affect the yet-to-be-finalized sale. Verizon said Thursday it learned of the breach “within the last two days” but that it had few details. “We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders, and related communities,” the company said in a statement. “Until then, we are not in position to further comment.”"
409,"Yemen’s Suspected Cholera Cases Soar To 1,410 Within Weeks, WHO Says —  An absence of medical infrastructure has made it difficult to control the disease outbreak. GENEVA ― The number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has ballooned to 1,410 within three weeks of the outbreak being declared, the World Health Organization said on Friday, as 18 months of war has destroyed most health facilities and clean water supplies. Yemen’s Health Ministry announced the outbreak on Oct. 6 in Sanaa city, and by Oct. 10 the WHO said there were 24 suspected cases. The following day, a WHO official in Yemen said there was “no spread of the disease”. But on Friday, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a Geneva news briefing that as of Thursday there were 1,410 suspected cholera cases in 10 out of Yemen’s 23 governorates - mostly in Taiz, Aden, Lahj, Hodeida and Sanaa. The conflict between a Saudi Arabia-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthi group which controls much of northern Yemen, including Sanaa, has destroyed much of Yemen’s infrastructure, killed more than 10,000 people and displaced millions. Cholera is only one risk in Yemen’s war but a rapid advance of the disease would add a new dimension to the humanitarian disaster which UNICEF says has left 7.4 million children in need of medical help and 370,000 at risk of severe acute malnutrition. WHO said on Wednesday that only 47 of the suspected cases had tested positive for cholera and the outbreak had spread beyond the capital to nine other governorates. Children under 10 accounted for half of the cases with six deaths from cholera and 36 associated deaths from acute watery diarrhoea, the WHO said in the Oct. 26 report. Although most suffers have no symptoms or mild symptoms that can be treated with oral rehydration solution, in more severe cases the disease can kill within hours if not treated with intravenous fluids and antibiotics."
410,"Yorkshire Wildlife Park Has Offered To Rescue The “World’s Saddest Polar Bear” From Guangzhou’s Grandview Aquarium —  United Kingdom’s Yorkshire Wildlife Park has asked the Guangzhou’s Grandview Aquarium in China to allow them to move “Pizza” who is knows as the world’s saddest polar bear from his deplorable state to their specially designed polar bear habitat. The wildlife park offers their help after over half a million supporters signed a petition made by the non-profit organization Animals Asia to demand the closure of the aquarium. If the current owners of the polar bear agree to this offer, Pizza could be moved to a proper sanctuary and his life of misery would end. “The good news now for Grandview is that they now have the chance to put their mistake right,” Dave Neale, Animal Welfare Director for Animals Asia, said in a statement. “Thanks to this incredible offer from Yorkshire Wildlife Park there can be a happy ending and the negative publicity they have suffered can yet be turned into a positive news story. From talking to them I know they know that mistakes have been made in terms of their animal facilities and on-going care.” China’s Grandview Aquarium has been hit with numerous critical stories by Chinese and International press and is currently under investigation by the  Guangzhou Ocean and Fishery Bureau after the deaths of many animals on site. The executive secretary of the Beijing-based Ta Foundation, Zhang Xiaohai, spoke to the official People’s Daily and condemned the conditions of both Pizza and his enclosure. Xiaohai voiced that Pizza lives in an aquarium of less than 40 square meters. He has only a shallow pool of water and is bombarded by the swarms of constant visitors who take pictures and tap on the glass. Xiaohai describes Pizza’s conditions as “inhumane.” The deputy manager at Grandview, Li Chengtang tells state media that it was  “hard to judge the appropriateness of the living space since China doesn’t have regulations about such things.” Peta has also been campaigning for the release of Pizza. The vice president for PETA Asia, Jason Baker told CNN that “the lack of animal protection laws in China has allowed some of the most deplorable, backwards and decrepit facilities to continue operating.” “Animals are separated from their homes and families and confined to tiny cages and enclosures. Captivity drives many animals insane, causing them to bar bite, self-mutilate and spend hours a day pacing.” A spokesman for Grandview told CNN that they have conducted scientific research and preparation to ensure that all of their animals are comfortable in the aquarium and had accused international organizations for “hyping up” the situation that Pizza is in. He also says that Grandview had not received the offer from Yorkshire Wildlife Park. No payment is being offered by Yorkshire Wildlife Park for Pizza’s release due to fears that “any funds could be used to buy new animals.” The costs of removing and transporting Pizza from the aquarium to the new park will be raised once the offer has been accepted. Animals Asia says that the park is highly experienced in moving animals across country boarders."
411,"Zambia's front line between elephants and humans —  Humphrey Mubita farms near the Kafue National Park. Kafue is often said to be the green jewel of Zambia, being its oldest and biggest protected area covering over 22,000 sq km. When the national park system in Zambia was set up, the authorities decided to designate buffer zones around them, areas in which people live and farm, but also areas in which the animals from the park move freely. This has had tragic consequences for Humphrey. ""My daughter was going to the clinic in Chunga, on the way she met this elephant. There were five people, but the other four knew where to hide. My daughter was a visitor to the area so she didn't know how to divert…"" Humphrey's daughter was 29 years old and left three children behind. Her case is not an isolated one. Humphrey knows of two other people who have been killed by elephants in the past three years. The main complaint that Humphrey and others in his area have about the elephants is the lack of compensation from the government - The destruction of crops or people is just a ""loss to be borne"", as another villager said. ""If an animal kills a person, then that family is not compensated,"" said Humphrey. ""They are protecting the animals over people. It is not fair."" Kelvin Kapesa is a hardworking farmer with a smallholding that runs up to the edge of the Zambezi river, near the village of Mugarameno. This area is in the buffer zone of the Lower Zambezi National Park. Okra is Kelvin's main crop, and he lives and works with one eye on the horizon. Elephants are very active at this time of the year because they have stripped all the foliage from the trees deep in the national park. ""Sometimes in a week they come three times. If they don't have enough food in the bush they come anytime. I have no break!"" he complains. To cope with the problem, Kelvin now sleeps on a wooden platform about five metres high, with a range of instruments to scare them away. ""At night, people used to beat drums and use flashlights. I used to whistle but now I have a vuvuzela to scare them away,"" However the impact can be limited. ""New elephants run away but the old one, he doesn't run."" Kelvin says that he has a simple message for the people meeting at Cites in Johannesburg. Money for fencing! ""If they can come up with electric fences around our fields that would be good, that plan is good,"" he says. ""If we can fence the fields, and can protect our homes from the elephants - we can be friends."" A tarmac road is all that separates Namukulo Munalula Hayumbu from the Kafue National Park. Her 50-hectare farm is located in the buffer zone or Game Management Area (GMA) just across from the park. She is one of the 33,000 people who now live in the GMA. Conflicts with endangered species such as elephants and lions are part of the way of life. People are angry about the constant feeling that animals matter more to the government than the people who are impacted by them. She understands why the ""courageous ones go across the road at night to hammer one or two for the pot,"" but poaching is not the solution she says. Mrs Hayumbu has a detailed plan. ""The government is not doing much, we need fencing of the park and also to allow farmers to fence their fields,"" she says. ""We need an insurance scheme and we in the GMA should contribute to this so in case of loss of life or loss of crop we should be compensated."" But with a rapidly growing population and a government with many other priorities, ending the human-wildlife conflicts in Kafue may take a while. ""We should co-exist, we appeal to the government to come up with policies which would allow us to co-exist,"" Mrs Hayumbu adds. Ian Stevenson rushes off to a small airstrip near the Zambezi river, eager to take to the air. The plane is just one part of the logistical support role that his organisation, Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ), provides to the government-run park rangers. As well as the plane, CLZ helps with communications with rangers in the field, provides equipment and is training a dog team to intercept shipments of ivory. But despite these significant efforts to aid the park ranger in the fight against poaching, Ian and his colleagues don't always feel the love of the local population. ""You can go into the community and see someone who's had his crops wiped out last night and they will say they see no benefits, and they have no interest in having elephants here,"" he says. ""It's very mixed. I do think people understand that without this wildlife they would not have the same opportunities as they do with it, that's very hard to tell someone who lost their crops last night. But there's no magic fix."" The CLZ efforts are focused on short-term fixes such as supporting the rangers, but the longer term is also key, and that's about education and ensuring that communities see and feel the benefits of conservation. But the pressures of poaching mean that there may not be a long term. Right now support organisations like CLZ are having to spend millions of dollars in a race with organised criminal gangs intent on hunting down the elephants. Ian says that curbing demand for ivory on a global scale needs to happen. And fast. ""I hope we can keep it up, if the resources can be sustained, you may get donor fatigue,"" he admits. ""The only thing that will really work in the end is changing the whole mentality of a culture around the world."""
412,"http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/07/us/hot-car-death-trial-closing-arguments/index.html —  Attorneys Monday painted two portraits of Justin Ross Harris, the Georgia man who's accused of deliberately leaving his infant son to die in a hot car in a suburban Atlanta parking lot.   The portraits were not completely dissimilar. In closing arguments, prosecutors argued that Harris left his son, 22-month-old Cooper, inside his SUV for seven hours in June 2014 because he was driven by his selfish need to pursue ""escapes,"" which included extramarital affairs and sending texts to as many as six women that very day, including one underage girl. But defense attorneys didn't dispute Harris's philandering, even admitting that the suburban Atlanta father was ""hooking up when he wanted."" They countered that Harris, 35, didn't need to abandon his life as a father because he was already pursuing relationships outside of his marriage, and they argued Cooper's death was a ""tragic accident brought about by a lapse in memory."" Harris' fate is now in the hands of jurors, who will begin deliberations Tuesday morning after hearing five weeks of testimony. Although the boy's death occurred in Cobb County, publicity around the case captivated the Atlanta area and led Judge Mary Staley to move the proceedings 300 miles away to Brunswick, on the Georgia coast. Charges against Harris, a web developer for The Home Depot who lived in Marietta, include malice murder, two counts of felony murder and cruelty to children in the first degree. He faces up to life in prison if convicted. Some of the charges in Harris' indictment stemmed not from his son's death, but from Harris' alleged habit of sending sexual text messages to underage girls. Prosecutors made prominent mention throughout the trial that Harris was having illicit chats with several women on the day Cooper died. His wife Leanna, who testified at the trial, has since filed for divorce. 'Death and deception' On Monday, Cobb County prosecutor Chuck Boring put Harris' liaisons front and center in his closing argument, using the defendant's own words. ""'I love my son and all, but we both need escapes.' Those words were uttered 10 minutes before this defendant, with a selfish abandon and malignant heart, did exactly that,"" Boring told jurors. On June 18, 2014, the sweltering day of his son's death, Harris had arrived at his job in suburban Atlanta at around 9:30 in the morning, and left Cooper strapped into his car seat while he went inside to his office for work. Later that morning, Harris and some co-workers left the office for lunch. Upon returning at about 12:45 that afternoon, Harris went to his car and opened the door to put away some light bulbs he had bought during the lunch break. The defense says Harris did not notice his son, still in the backseat. According to medical examiners, Cooper was likely already dead. ""This is a case about death, deception and a double life,"" Boring, the prosecutor, said to the jury. ""The torturous murder of Cooper Harris, the deception all over his life and in this case with the police, his wife and everyone involved, and the double life that reveals his motive and the malice in this case."" Of key interest to the prosecution was the position of Cooper's car seat in Harris's SUV. Boring argued that Harris could see his son sitting in his car seat when he stowed the light bulbs. ""If this child was visible in that car, that is not a failure in memory systems,"" Boring argued. ""Cooper would have been visible to anyone inside that car. Flat out."" He added, ""If Cooper was visible, the defendant is guilty of all counts."" 'He enjoyed being a dad' But defense attorney Maddox Kilgore argued that Harris' sexual behavior had nothing to do with Cooper's death. Kilgore maintained that Cobb County Police investigators only focused on details that fit the state's theory of the case. ""The state wants to bury him in this filth and dirt of his own making so that you will believe he is so immoral, he is so reprehensible that he can do exactly this,"" Kilgore said. But he argued, ""Ross was already doing what he wanted to do."" He added, ""As far as Ross was concerned, he had a good thing going. He complained about sex in his marriage a lot, but he enjoyed the family aspect of it. He enjoyed being a dad."" Instead, Kilgore asked jurors if the law enforcement investigation was really a search for the truth. ""You have been misled from start to finish with the entirety of this testimony,"" he argued."
413,"http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/13/europe/paris-attacks-one-year-on/index.html —  Lanterns, candles and calls for peace illuminated the City of Light on Sunday as Paris mourned 130 people killed one year ago in attacks throughout the city.   November 13, 2015, was like any other day for Georges Salines: Work, a lunchtime swim with his daughter Lola, watching the news on TV, and an early night. He had no idea, until the phone rang, jolting him from his sleep, that his world was about to change forever. ""I went to bed ... without knowing what was going on in the streets of Paris,"" he recalls. ""I was woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night, from my eldest son, who knew that his sister was at the Bataclan."" Salines' 29-year-old daughter, Lola, had gone to a concert at the Bataclan by US rock band the Eagles of Death Metal. Midway through the show, ISIS-linked gunmen opened fire on the audience and detonated suicide vests; 90 people were killed in the raid, one of a series of coordinated attacks across Paris. Unable to reach her, the family spent hours trying to find out what had happened to Lola, calling emergency help lines and hospitals, even the morgue, but nobody could tell them if she was alive. Then the worst news, delivered in the worst way: They discovered via social media that she had been killed. ""I hope she didn't suffer or see her death coming,"" her father says. French President Francois Hollande unveiled plaques at attack sites in the city -- at the Stade de France, outside the Petit Cambodge restaurant, in the Boulevard Voltaire, and at the Bonne Biere and Belle Equipe cafes. At the Bataclan, the President tore down a French flag to reveal the memorial, as the names of all 90 who perished there were read aloud in solemn ceremony. It followed an emotional performance on Saturday night by musician Sting, a fundraiser for victim support charities at the newly opened Bataclan. He began with the words: ""We shall not forget them."" The much-loved venue has been renovated to remove all traces of the massacre that took place there. On Sunday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said a state of emergency, first imposed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, will likely be extended. With the country's presidential elections coming in April-May, the prime minister said the government needs to retain the extra powers delegated by emergency laws ""to protect our democracy."" 'Bloody battlefield' Denys Plaud was also at the Bataclan on the night of the attacks. He credits his survival to the fact that, when the attackers burst in, he was up on the balcony where there was more room to move to the music. ""I love to dance, and that saved my life,"" he told CNN days after his escape from the Bataclan. ""It meant I was not in the direct line of fire from the terrorists' machine guns."" Plaud hid in a tiny room at the venue with 15 others; they waited as the gunmen got closer and closer, even shooting at the partition that sheltered them: ""I thought, 'Oh my God, I hope that wall will stand.'"" ""For three hours, we had to listen to the shooting,"" he remembers. ""That was terrible. Every time we thought it would end, it was just time for the terrorists to get their weapons reloaded, and then they would shoot again."" Eventually, the police arrived and led them to safety across what Plaud calls ""the bloody battlefield,"" urging them not to look at the bodies of their fellow music fans. ""But ... it was not a direct path, I had to look where I was putting my feet. ... There was no way but to look at death."" A year on, he says, the memories are ""very fresh ... it's just like it was yesterday."" Artist turns Paris attacks ordeal into graphic novel A nation traumatized By late morning Sunday, the first flowers to remember victims were placed among the autumn leaves at the Place de la République, which became the center of the city's mourning and expressions of national unity after the attacks. For many Parisians, it is an opportunity to begin getting on with life. The year since the attacks has been filled with shock, grief and mourning -- for the relatives of the dead, for those who survived, and for France as a whole: The nation was left traumatized. Extra police and troops have been on the streets of France since January 2015, when terrorists attacked the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people: Armed officers now patrol outside tourist hot spots, schools, government and religious buildings. Operation Sentinel has seen the mobilization of 10,000 soldiers to monitor and protect more than 11,000 locations across the country -- 3,000 of them religious sites, the rest a mixture of key infrastructure, industrial plants and ""symbolic"" places around the country. And despite all the extra security on the streets, what happened in January and November 2015 -- and other incidents that followed in 2016, in Nice, Rouen and Magnanville -- have impacted the country's morale. Plaud says Paris itself was left ""in shock."" Anger at these events has been linked to a steep rise in xenophobia; according to the National Commission on Human Rights, or CCNDH, there were 429 reports of attacks on, and threats against, Muslims in France in 2015 -- a rise of 223% on the previous year. This ""wave of aggression against Muslims"" ranged from assaults on women wearing the hijab to graffiti on places of worship and halal butcher shops. In one incident, the door handle of a mosque was wrapped in bacon. The CCNDH says the majority happened in January and November. The attacks have also damaged France's prized tourism industry: Almost 2 million fewer visitors have come to the country over the past year -- international arrivals are down 8.1% so far in 2016. But Plaud says the country has seen troubled times before, and is sure to bounce back: ""I am confident; in Parisian history there have been a lot of events like that -- war, civil war. But Paris has always been able to recover."" #ParisResiste Balloons were released into the skies over Paris, and as darkness fell, thousands of lanterns were floated on the waters of the Canal St. Martin, close to the scene of several of the attacks. A social media campaign, #ParisResiste called on people to display lighted candles in the windows of their homes on Sunday evening, to ""light up the city"" and ""brighten the future."" Salines concedes the day will be a difficult one for many: ""Some families have chosen to take a vacation and go abroad even, because there will be a lot of media attention and there will be a lot of archive footage of last year -- I'm sure it will be painful to see these images again."" Plaud suffered flashbacks in the months after the attack that forced him to give up his job as a math and physics tutor, but says he is gradually recovering. This week he returned to the Bataclan for the first time. ""I want[ed] to come back to pay my last homage to the victims and people who died there,"" he says. ""It is important even if it is very strong, emotionally, to be here."" Both Plaud and Salines say putting pen to paper has helped them through the past 12 months. ""I wanted to write in order not to forget,"" Salines says. ""The writing helped me, because it was the only way in the first days that I could think about what had happened ... not without pain, but being able to stay calm and to keep some distance between the pain and my thinking."" The idea for his book, ""The unspeakable, from A to Z"" came, he says, from ""the messages I received from friends and family -- lots of them started with the words, 'this is unspeakable,' 'we don't know what to say,' 'there are no words.' They had no words but I had lots! I started to make a list of words and ... little by little it grew and it grew into a book."" He says the dictionary-like form his writings took helped reflect the rapidly changing emotions he experienced in the weeks and months after Lola's death. ""It was very close to what I was experiencing in terms of the shift between very different moods, even happening all at the same time, within a few minutes, from crying to laughing. When you read you go from one word to another, from emotional feelings ... to very funny."" The first entry in the book: A is for absurd. ""Because Lola, and I am sure all the other young people who lost their lives that day, were total strangers to the situation, the fight that the terrorists have and it is profoundly unjust."" For Plaud, revisiting his experiences to write about them ""was very difficult [but] it was therapeutic."" ""It was a way to exorcise the demons and all the horror I saw that night. It was dangerous because sometimes I had to go deep inside my memories of death."" 'Grieving never ends' ""The grieving never ends,"" says Salines. ""I am at a stage now where I know that things are relatively stable -- the pain will probably last for the rest of my life but I don't break down in tears three times a day as I was doing at the beginning."" Salines is sustained by his work as chairman of one of the support groups for those affected by the events of November 13, and by his memories of Lola. ""Her life was maybe short, but it was a full life, full of happiness,"" he says. A publisher of children's and young adult books, Lola loved to travel and had a passion for roller derby. ""She had incredible energy. We didn't know how she could do so many things in a day."" ""She did a lot of good things in her life, she had a great deal of pleasure, she was very enthusiastic,"" he says. ""She had a good life. Writing about it was maybe a way of convincing myself, but I feel pretty confident that my daughter's life was a good life."" Plaud says for him, the time has come to move on. ""It's been one year now and I feel like it's the end of my mourning."" ""It is a good thing that life has come back again,"" he says. ""We have to keep the memory, but you also [must] not be stuck in that horror, [you must] keep on living."""
414,"‘Doomsday Today in Aleppo’: Assad and Russian Forces Bombard City —  RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Syria’s war escalated abruptly on Friday as government forces and their Russian allies launched ferocious aerial assaults on opposition-held areas of Aleppo amid threats of a big ground offensive, while efforts at the United Nations to revive a cease-fire appeared to collapse. Repeated airstrikes that obliterated buildings and engulfed neighborhoods in flames killed about 100 people in Aleppo, the divided northern Syrian city that has epitomized the horrors of the war, turning the brief cease-fire of last week and hopes for humanitarian relief into faint memories. The bombings knocked out running water to an estimated two million people, the United Nations said. “It is the worst day that we’ve had for a very long time,” said James Le Mesurier, the head of Mayday Rescue, which trains Syrian rescue workers. “They are calling it Dresden-esque.” A video shot by a witness showed buildings burning after an airstrike on the Mwasalat neighborhood in the eastern part of the city. The bombings shook the ground, left residents cowering in their homes and made streets impassable, according to anti-government activists in Aleppo. “You don’t know if you might stay alive or not,” said Modar Shekho, a nurse at al-Dakkak hospital in an opposition-held part of the city. “There are no more roads to walk on,” said Zaher Azzaher, an Aleppo activist reached through WhatsApp. “Even between our neighborhoods, the roads are full of rubble and destruction.” The assault left residents buried in debris, including a child in the al-Marja neighborhood of the city. The bombardment targeted rebel-held districts in eastern Aleppo and opposition communities in the surrounding countryside. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which opposes the government and tracks the conflict from Britain, said 72 people had been killed in all of Aleppo Province, including 24 women and children. But most of the dead were in the city itself. Mr. Le Mesurier reported 95 dead and 147 people hospitalized in Aleppo city alone. Rescue workers shared numerous videos of men digging children out of piles of debris and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Hanaa Singer, the representative for Unicef in Syria, said in a statementthat attacks had damaged the pumping station that provides water to eastern Aleppo, where 250,000 residents are surrounded by government troops. In retaliation, she said, a pumping station in the city’s eastern side was shut off, stopping water from flowing to 1.5 million residents in the city’s western side. The population would have to rely on well water, which is often contaminated and would raise the risk of outbreaks of disease, she sad. Ammar al-Salmo, head of the Aleppo branch of Syria Civil Defense, a volunteer rescue organization, said that three of his group’s centers had been bombed and that some of their rescue vehicles had been knocked out. “It is as if Russia and the regime used the truce only to maintain their weapons and plan on next targets,” Mr. Salmo said from Aleppo. “It is likedoomsday today in Aleppo.” The Syrian government announced the new offensive in its state-controlled news media, quoting an unidentified Syrian military official who described the Aleppo operation as “comprehensive” and said it could continue for some time. The official said the operation would “include a ground offensive.” That appeared unlikely, as many analysts have said that the Syrian military does not have the manpower to seize and hold significant territory. Its air force, however, has been able to pummel rebel-held areas with relative impunity. As airstrikes intensified, any hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough between Russia and the United States, which support opposite sides in the conflict, disintegrated in New York, on the sidelines of the annual conclave of the United Nations General Assembly. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, met briefly but there was no indication that a short-lived cessation of hostilities that ended early this week could be revived anytime soon. Speaking at his own news conference, Mr. Lavrov said the United States had failed to ensure that moderate Syrian rebels separated themselves from extremist militants of the Qaeda-allied Nusra Front. That separation is one of the conditions in the cessation-of-hostilities agreement Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov announced on Sept. 9. Until that happens, Mr. Lavrov said, any other measures would be “senseless.” Jean-Marc Ayrault, the foreign minister of France and a member of the International Syria Support Group, the 17-nation effort led by Russia and the United States, said earlier on Friday that he feared that the diplomatic paralysis reflected a growing weariness with the daily brutalities in Syria. “Will we be inured to this?” he asked. “Let’s not let Aleppo become the 21st-century Guernica.” Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and industrial center before the civil war began in 2011, has been divided for years between government and rebel forces. Before the partial cease-fire declared last week, rebels often shelled civilian neighborhoods in western Aleppo, and the government of Bashar al-Assad regularly bombed rebel-held eastern Aleppo, cutting civilians off from much-needed aid. The map below, based on data from a United Nations report issued in February, shows the location of damaged buildings in Aleppo. A preliminary analysis of new satellite imagery from as recently as this month shows more damage, said Lars Bromley, a research adviser at Unosat, a branch of the United Nations that has analyzed satellite data since the conflict began. The more recent destruction has occurred on the northwest outskirts of the city and in industrial areas in the northeast. Despite the violence, most of the city’s front lines have remained stable, with both sides lacking the manpower necessary to seize and hold significant new territory."
415,"‘I don’t want them to die’: She was pregnant with twins. Then a gunman opened fire. —  The twins were okay.   LaKira Johnson could hear a doctor confirm that as she slid a wand over LaKira’s bulging belly during an ultrasound. They were kicking. Their heartbeats were strong. LaKira imagined them in there playing, oblivious to the senseless shooting that had left her bleeding that night on the dirty tile floor of a carryout place. She’d just wanted a sandwich. Five months pregnant and craving a cheesesteak, LaKira had walked from her home in Northeast Washington to Jerry Chan’s restaurant on an August night. Then she heard gunfire, felt her body jerk and knew a bullet had pierced her back and burrowed through her stomach. She doesn’t remember feeling pain, only fear.   “I don’t want to die,” the 21-year-old Walmart cashier thought again and again. And then, worrying about the two girls she was carrying, “I don’t want them to die.”   Now she lay in the hospital feeling relieved as doctors assured her that the bullet missed her uterus. She would lose her kidney and part of her intestines, but the twins would be okay.   Then three days into her hospital stay, LaKira went to the bathroom, saw blood and knew that was no longer true.   Gun violence is such a constant in the District that it is not measured in bullets fired but in lives claimed. Normally that is a clear-cut number.   [In D.C., another measure of gun violence: Men in wheelchairs]   But what happened to LaKira’s pregnancy raises a complicated set of legal and moral questions about what constitutes a life when taken by a stranger. Does it begin when a newborn can survive on its own? Does it start with a first breath? Does it matter that the twins were already loved?   LaKira knew it was too early for her daughters to be born, but there was no stopping what had already started. With her boyfriend and mother by her side, and a medical staff instructing her, she pushed once, and the girls came out together, wiggling in the amniotic sac they had shared their entire existence.   She had already decided to name them Heaven and Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backward), even before she had to trust that’s where they were going.   LaKira is not sure how long they survived, but she held them for hours. She held them as they breathed and after they stopped breathing. She held them naked and dressed in little white gowns and matching hats that the hospital provided. She held them as her mother took pictures of them with her cellphone, capturing images LaKira would later scroll through many nights, sobbing. “I love you, and I will miss you,” she told them both.   Finally, after about 12 hours, she was told it was time to let them go. Detectives had arrived to take their tiny bodies to the medical examiner’s office, which would have to address a crucial question: Were their deaths the result of homicide?   ‘I’ve been shot!’ LaKira had almost asked her 7-year-old daughter, Raniyah, to walk with her to the carryout place Aug. 30. It was only a few blocks away, nestled between a Papa John’s and a lot with a barbed-wire fence. Then she looked at the time and realized it was after 9:30 p.m.   She told Raniyah to get ready for bed since she had school in the morning.   LaKira was never an eager student, dropping out in 11th grade. But she is proud that the second-grader loves school. She is so eager to practice writing that she will pen a poem for a stranger.   LaKira was 13 when she learned she was pregnant with Raniyah and 18 when she gave birth to her second daughter, Kali. When she found out she was having twins, she was scared — and then excited. So were her daughters. Already, Kali had started putting aside toys and declaring them “for my baby sisters.”   LaKira said she knew what the autopsy would find: There was nothing wrong with the twins. She had seen them. Each fit in her hand, and neither weighed more than a pound, but, otherwise, they were perfect.   “It wasn’t the babies’ fault,” LaKira said. “It was me and my body. It was going through so much trauma.”   Because the bullet never touched the twins and because they were too young to survive outside her womb, LaKira knew her case presented a unique legal question. Not only would the medical examiner’s office have to make a determination, so, too, would police and prosecutors if someone were arrested. The District does not have a fetal homicide law, and the twins, at 22 weeks gestational age, were not at a stage normally considered viable. A majority of states set limits on abortion at 24 weeks and later, generally considered the beginning of viability for newborns to survive outside the womb. The District, along with seven states, does not have a law prohibiting abortion after a specific point in pregnancy.   But this loss was not her choice, LaKira said, making it different from an abortion. “My babies were murdered,” she said.   Police describe her as an innocent bystander caught in a series of retaliatory shootings. A day before she was shot, a 24-year-old man from Southeast was killed just before midnight a few blocks from the carryout place. And four days after that, a 28-year-old man was found shot to death between two vehicles in the area.   Surveillance video from the night of Johnson’s shooting shows a man opening fire indiscriminately into a crowd. People can be seen scattering. Two figures tumble to the ground. One was a man police have not identified but who was taken to the hospital in critical condition.   The other was LaKira, who ran back into the restaurant she had just left and called her sister.   “I’ve been shot!” she shouted into the phone.   Her sister Ebony Johnson and their mother, Cassandra Johnson, rushed to their car. When a light on the corner turned red, Cassandra, a 42-year-old school bus attendant for children with special needs, jumped out and started running. She later recalled passing the other victim. He lay on the ground as a woman stood over him screaming, “No! No! No!”   When they reached LaKira, there was so much blood that her sister couldn’t believe she had been shot only once.   They waited together for the ambulance, and when it finally swept LaKira away, her mother went with her. She remained by her side almost every day for the three weeks she was in the hospital. She was there, almost brought to her knees, when doctors told her that her daughter now had one kidney. She was there Sept. 3 when her grandchildren came into the world and left it on the same day. And she was there when her daughter, on the afternoon she was discharged, decided she couldn’t tell Raniyah and Kali they weren’t going to be big sisters. Cassandra had been her daughter’s voice for weeks, speaking for her to doctors, detectives and the media. And so she agreed to be it once more.   “When I said ‘Your sisters are up in heaven; they died,’ [Kali’s] little heart was really broken,” she said. “They were both so heartbroken.”   The tiniest victims It was 4 a.m., and Cassandra couldn’t find her daughter anywhere downstairs. She wasn’t on the air mattress that had turned the living room into a makeshift bedroom. She wasn’t in the kitchen. Then she looked in the darkened front room. There, she found LaKira sleeping on a teal-colored couch, with two tiny white gowns draped over her shoulder.   Cassandra had watched her daughter grow physically stronger daily. The hospital sent her home with a walker, and within weeks, with the help of a physical therapist, she was slowly making her way unaided up and down the block.   But emotionally, her healing had been harder to gauge.   After the shooting, her family noticed her reading the Bible more and distancing herself from her living daughters as she mourned her lost ones. Some nights, she stayed up late crying and then napped when Raniyah and Kali came home from school.   The white gowns were normally in a mint green box with the few other mementos she had of the twins: two hats, two birth certificates and two white knit blankets, one distinguishable from the other by a small stain Heaven left when she defecated. On difficult days, LaKira held that smudge up to her face and found comfort in breathing in that remaining biological piece of her babies — proof that they had lived.   “I don’t think it ever will get easier,” she said.   LaKira had decided she didn’t want to bury them. She wanted something — even if it was only their ashes — to hold.   Some days, Cassandra felt she’d lost three family members to the shooting. But maybe once the twins were cremated, her daughter could start to heal, she said. Maybe then, she could look at a newborn without breaking down.   Already, more than a month and a half had passed since their deaths, and the family, to their frustration, was no closer to retrieving their bodies.   They couldn’t afford to cremate them on their own, and the financial help they were entitled to as crime victims had not come through. The D.C. Crime Victims Compensation Program, run by the Superior Court, provides up to $6,000 for funeral and burial costs for homicide victims — but for the family to qualify, the twins’ deaths had to be declared homicides. Cassandra added that concern to the list of questions she planned to ask interim D.C. police chief Peter Newsham when he visited. He had gone to the hospital to check on her daughter and had promised to come by the house.   On the day he was expected, she decided to make a lasagna dinner in his honor. For hours, she stood in the kitchen cooking as her daughter lay down in the next room, sinking slightly into the air mattress she had patched the day before with a piece of bubble gum. She remained there, curled on her side, for much of the afternoon. She lay there when the girls came home from school and when two detectives showed up at the house.   She lay there still when Newsham arrived.   She had been swiping through the twins’ photos and crying quietly when he walked in and sat beside her. He placed a hand on her knee and then her shoulder.   “You okay?” he asked.   “We’re doing okay,” she said.   Newsham stayed for about 10 minutes. He didn’t have time for the lasagna. He was on a panel with other city officials that night to discuss violent crime in the District. But before he left, he assured LaKira he would do what he could to help move along the money for the cremation. He also expressed outrage at what had happened to her.   “The fact that she lost two of her babies is obviously tragic, and it shouldn’t have happened,” he said, “not in this city, not in the District of Columbia.”   What he didn’t tell her was that the city had recorded 121 homicides this year and that the police department would be adding two more to that number. Heaven and Nevaeh’s deaths would be counted as homicides, making them the youngest victims of gun violence in the city this year and possibly ever.   If the police make an arrest in the shooting, Newsham said, the person will be charged with the twins’ deaths. But prosecutors would decide whether to pursue those charges.   Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said his office does not comment on pending investigations or charging decisions.   So far, no one has been arrested."
416,"‘It’s jumping on people and biting them’: Squirrel attack leaves 3 injured at retirement home —  A rogue squirrel ran wild through a senior living community in Florida on Thursday, biting and scratching residents and leaving three people injured.   A staff member at the Sterling Court retirement home in Deltona, Fla., called 911 on Thursday afternoon to report that several people had been attacked by a squirrel and needed immediate medical assistance. Once inside, the animal went on a rampage, according to the Orlando Sentinel.   “We had a squirrel that entered our building and it’s in our activity room and it’s jumping on people and biting them and scratching them,” a woman told the dispatcher, according to audio from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. “So we need help.”   During the call, people in the background cried for help.   “I feel lightheaded,” one person said. “I don’t feel good.”   “Okay, does anybody there need an ambulance to take them to the hospital?” the 911 dispatcher said.   “I don’t know if we need to go in an ambulance but we need some care for people here,” the staff member told him. “It’s still in there and the people are bleeding.”   “Is everybody out of the room?” the dispatcher said.   The caller asked others: “Is anyone left in the activity room? Is the activity room empty?”   “There is another person in there,” she then told the dispatcher. “The squirrel has been tossed outside. But we need help for the people, not about the squirrel.”   “Yes ma’am, do you need an ambulance to take them to the hospital?” the dispatcher replied.   “Yes, yes.”   “How many people were bitten?” the dispatcher said.   “At least three or four, possibly more,” she told him.   [A terrifying and hilarious map of squirrel attacks on the U.S. power grid]   A Sterling Court representative declined to comment.   Brian Fawkes, a spokesman for Holiday Retirement, the company that manages Sterling Court, told The Washington Post that a resident captured the squirrel and threw it out the door.   Three people — two Sterling Court residents and a staff member — were injured in the attack, he said.   Fawkes initially said all three were taken to a hospital and given rabies shots; he later clarified to say the three were just treated for bites. He said they were “pretty shaken up” but were “fine.”   Signs alerting residents to beware of squirrels in the area have been posted on the property, he said.   Wendi Jackson, a spokeswoman for the city of Deltona’s animal control division, said an animal control officer responded as a courtesy but that the city does not typically handle wildlife.   Neither Fawkes nor Jackson knew the fate of the animal.   The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that bites from wild animals that cannot be tested should be treated as exposure to rabies. However, the CDC says, squirrels are generally believed to pose little risk.   “Small mammals such as squirrels, rats, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rabbits, and hares are almost never found to be infected with rabies and have not been known to cause rabies among humans in the United States,” according to the CDC. “Bites by these animals are usually not considered a risk of rabies unless the animal was sick or behaving in any unusual manner and rabies is widespread in your area.”   Sterling Court “offers the best of the Sunshine State, with a heated pool and wonderful amenities to make your retirement experience rich,” according to its website. The senior living community is about 30 minutes from Orlando and Daytona Beach.   “Our community is family focused,” the website states. “You’ll feel instantly at ease exploring hobbies in the game room, study and lounge. The social calendar features bocce ball, ballroom dancing, bridge and more. Dine on chef-prepared meals or plan a picnic in the gazebo. The pool and walking paths offer space to soak up the sun. Discover our little slice of paradise during a visit today.”"
417,"‘She was my constant companion’: No charges in fatal dog shooting on Virginia park trail —  Susan R. Smith lost her best companion this week — a black Labrador mix — after a man shot and killed her in a park. Smith said she was walking her 10-month-old dog, Macie, on Tuesday afternoon along with a friend and the friend’s dog at Algonkian Regional Park, near her home in Loudoun County. Smith, of Sterling, said she had Macie off her leash, which she acknowledges is in violation of county rules. They came upon a couple walking toward them on a path, and when her dog began to jump behind the man, he shot and killed it, Smith said. The man was not charged and Loudoun County Animal Services officials said their investigation found that the man acted in self-defense after the two dogs were “behaving aggressively.” The man had a license to carry a concealed weapon in Virginia, authorities said. He could not be reached to comment. Smith recalled the events that left her holding Macie as she died in her arms. Smith said her dog approached the couple and jumped in the air. She said the dog was leaping behind the man but was not barking at the time. At that point, the man yelled out, “Call your dog,” Smith said. “He said it once, maybe twice.” Smith said she and her friend then started running toward the dogs, who were about 20 yards away. “We called for our dogs,” Smith said. Then she said she saw the man’s arm “go to his side” and across his body. “He sees us coming,” she said. The man pulled out a gun and fired it at the dog. When the gun went off, Smith said she asked the man if it was a cap gun. “He said, ‘No it is a real gun.’ ” Hysterical, she said, she called 911. A wounded Macie slowly came to Smith, then lay on the path, taking her last breaths in Smith’s arms. Smith said the couple waited in their car for police and animal control authorities to arrive. [Arlington National Cemetery bans pets on grounds] As the couple walked past her, she said, one of them apologized for her loss. Smith said she wishes the man would have used other methods to scare her dog away, such as firing a warning shot, kicking her or swinging a stick. She said she misses Macie jumping on her bed each morning to wake her. “She was my constant companion,” she said. “She doesn’t even bark at a doorbell,” Smith said. “It was unnecessary to shoot her. It was poor judgment.” Animal services officials said in a statement that “two large-breed dogs” had been walking off their leashes and were “behaving aggressively towards a man who was walking in the park.” Animal services investigators found that Macie “circled and jumped up on the walker and that the dogs’ owner failed to secure them despite the walker’s repeated requests.” Officials said the man was “legally carrying a firearm when he discharged it in an act of self-defense, fatally shooting the dog.” Authorities said no charges would be filed in the case. “I could be ugly and call him up,” Smith said of the man who fired the shot. “But he was within his rights. It is not going to bring my dog back.”"
418,"‘Silicon Valley’ stars recount being harassed by Donald Trump supporters —  “Silicon Valley” stars Kumail Nanjiani and Thomas Middleditch both took to Twitter Saturday morning to recount their experience being harassed by two Donald Trump supporters in a Los Angeles bar.   “Was at a bar last night with @Middleditch. At the end of the night, 2 white dudes, 20’s, who’d been there for hours came up to us,” Nanjiani began, adding that they said they were fans, but thought they were “wrong about Trump.”   “I go ‘Hey we don’t wanna discuss politics right now.’ His friends goes ‘oh they’re cucks.’ Then starts yelling at us. ‘CUCKS CUCKS CUCKS!,'” Nanjiani continued. “He starts getting in my face. Thomas puts his hand on the dude’s chest to stop him. ‘Don’t touch me you cuck. Wanna go outside?’ At this point, the bouncer runs over, grabs them, kicks them out. The bartender is awesome & apologetic. Thomas & I are stunned.”   The actor went on to write that he “can’t imagine” what it must be like for people who look like him considering the incident happened in a crowded bar in gentrified Los Angeles. “We can’t let hate/racism/bigotry/sexism be normalized. If something happens, be safe, but let it be known we won’t stand for this,” he wrote. “Many ppl are like ‘just cuz I voted for Trump doesn’t mean I’m racist/sexist.’ Ok, but at best, you ignored it, you overlooked it. We thought Internet would give us access to ppl w different points of view. Instead it gives us access to many ppl w the same point of view.”   Middleditch also tweeted about the incident, writing “Btw, “cuck” is an Alt Right term. Look it up, it’s not positive,” and later tweeted “‘Cuck’. It’s the new term Trump bigots use.” with a wikipedia link to the word “Cuckservative.”"