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"The gang members have gone to the grandmother's house asking about the girl. They've also indicated [that] for the grandmother to be OK, someone is going to have to pay for her safety," Cruz says. "Even if the kids leave [El Salvador] they have survivor's guilt when other relatives are left behind and are still facing... |
The recent unraveling of a truce between El Salvador's two main gangs has led to a new spike in the country's murder rate. That's likely to send even more youth across the border seeking safety. |
This month, the country was further destablized when El Salvador's attorney general began arresting 21 individuals who helped broker the truce in 2012. The decision was "political," says Adam Blackwell, a former official with the Organization of American States who worked with the committee that tried to guarantee the ... |
"These folks working with me, most of them fairly low- to mid-level bureaucrats, I can assure you [they] didn't break any laws in front of me or with me," Blackwell says. "We were just trying, in a situation with high moral hazard, to bring peace." |
Hopes for a new gang truce are dim, and refugee advocates are bracing for continued violence. Cruz says the appeal of gangs is likely to continue, because amid chaos, they offer their members a sense of belonging and protection. Cruz should know, she was a gang member in her youth. |
"Gangs take the place of family, and gangs fill society's voids," Cruz laments. "Until [governments] provide those opportunities to those kids who need them, and they treat them like family, and they give them the hope and sense of safety and belonging those kids need, the gangs are going to continue filling those void... |
On stage at the Apple iPhone X event, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller said that the Face ID facial recognition is “the future of how we unlock our smartphones and how we protect our sensitive information.” And because your face data is protected by a secure enclave and is processed on... |
So will Apple use the Face ID facial recognition system in the 2018 iPhones as well? KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently published a research note for investors suggesting what he thinks Apple will do in the future when it comes to unlocking devices. In Kuo's report, it says that Apple will determine which rou... |
“We believe the key factors are: (1) whether or not Face ID (facial recognition) of iPhone X provide a positive user experience; and (2) the technical issues that Apple (US) will have to address with an under-display fingerprint solution. We believe Apple will replace the existing Home button-based Touch ID with the un... |
Rumor has it that Apple was originally planning to embed the fingerprint sensor in the iPhone X display, but decided against it because the technology was not commercially viable. What makes it tricky to embed a Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the display is 3D Touch. MacRumors pointed out that the 3D Touch module makes... |
What are your thoughts about Apple adding facial recognition to the iPhone X? Please leave a comment with your thoughts! |
FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2017, file photo, customers buy the iPhone X at the Apple Store on New York's Fifth Avenue. Apple is expected to unveil its biggest and most expensive iPhone on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018, as part of a lineup of three new models aimed at widening the product's appeal amid slowing sales growth. |
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is expected to unveil its biggest and most expensive iPhone on Wednesday as part of a lineup of three new models aimed at widening the product's appeal amid slowing sales growth. |
President Carter marked Memorial Day Monday with a flight to the giant warship USS Nimitz to welcome her 5,000-man crew from six months of sea duty off the Iranian coast. Mr. Carter flew by helicopter to the two-acre flight deck of the battle-grey Nimitz as the ship steamed toward Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk... |
Dr. Ronald DePinho challenged University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center scientists to develop new approaches to cancer treatment Wednesday, the day before his selection as the Houston research hospital's next president is expected to be finalized. |
In his first speech to faculty and staff, DePinho said that if M.D. Anderson wants to remain the world's leading cancer center, it must invent and put into practice new models of discovery and care. If it continues doing exactly what it's been doing, he said, the field will pass it by. |
"Humanity is counting on us," said DePinho, a Harvard geneticist. "This is our moment. The battle lines have been drawn." |
In an interview with the Houston Chronicle after the town hall meeting, DePinho said cancer science is at "a moment in history where the elements are in place to make a decisive assault on the problem." He said oncologists will be able not just to reduce deaths, but also gain control of the disease once scientists prop... |
DePinho made the remarks four weeks after UT System regents named him the sole finalist to succeed Dr. John Mendelsohn, who is stepping down Aug. 31 after 15 years as M.D. Anderson president. The regents are scheduled to vote on his hiring at a meeting in Austin today. State law requires the two-step process. |
DePinho is considered a star of cancer research, his work ranging from gastrointestinal to brain to blood to prostate cancers. He moved to research not long after getting his medical degree because he believed poorly understood biological processes governing cancer development limited its treatment. |
DePinho's town hall speech included a challenge that M.D. Anderson develop "a bold and ambitious plan for curing several cancers," much as scientists achieved success with childhood leukemia. He said no one knows how long the goal will take or how it will be accomplished, but he stressed that new strategies are needed. |
For those who consider the task impossible, DePinho quoted President John F. Kennedy's famous moon speech 50 years ago at Rice University: "We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and chall... |
DePinho said he has been on the M.D. Anderson campus no less than a dozen times in his career and several times since he was named the sole finalist in May. He said he will continue to spend time in Houston before he takes over Sept. 1. |
The speech ended with 12 points of priority for a DePinho administration, including maintaining a strong commitment to underserved cancer patients, fostering productive multi-institutional collaborations, keeping M.D. Anderson a great place to work and leading the world in genetically informed clinical trials. |
Among the speech's greatest emphases was the need to provide a supportive environment for trainees and junior faculty, which DePinho said was pivotal to his own growth as a young scientist. |
He said those researchers' roles at M.D. Anderson "will be vital in bridging bench and bedside" in the decades ahead. |
"To all of our trainees, our junior faculty, I am with you," said DePinho. "I will meet with you, give you some of my insights on what it takes to be successful, listen carefully to your needs and develop a strategic plan to make you great. M.D. Anderson will become the place to be if you want to learn cancer science a... |
From a 2-acre plot on Merritt Island, Steve Crisafulli looks at rows of orange trees, searching for a glimmer of hope for Brevard's citrus industry. |
From a 2-acre plot on north Merritt Island, Steve Crisafulli looks at rows of orange trees, searching for a glimmer of hope for Brevard's dying citrus industry. |
Crisafulli — a Merritt Island resident whose last name has been synonymous with the citrus business for five generations — has given over this small grove on his family's land for a U.S. Department of Agriculture experiment that he prays will unlock the secret of a more disease-resistant orange tree. |
The test grove contains about five different varieties of citrus trees planted in combination with about 10 different root stocks. The goal is to determine which combinations work best. |
The Crisafullis view the USDA project as perhaps the last-ditch effort to stem the painful, long-term downturn of the citrus industry. Citrus production in Florida has dropped 59 percent since the 2008-09 season. |
Production plunged even more in Brevard County, by 87 percent. And, recently, two of the area's last traditional citrus retailers — Harvey's Groves stores in Rockledge and West Melbourne and the Policicchio Groves retail store on north Merritt Island — announced they not open their stands for the 2017-18 season. The co... |
For some, the closing of these iconic roadside attractions is a bittersweet reminder of an older Brevard, a sleepier community before the rumble of rockets, when citrus was king and a muck-free, crystal-clear Indian River teemed with sea trout and manatees. Sorting warehouses dominated the landscape on U.S. 1, and truc... |
Now, some of those warehouses are crumbling derelicts, as diseases like canker and citrus greening — and hurricanes — have hit the industry hard. Many growers decided it was more lucrative to sell their groves to developers to transform them into residential subdivisions, rather than continue growing oranges or grapefr... |
And a looming question is where to buy the renowned orange and grapefruit juice that only comes from Indian River-grown fruit? |
Indian River citrus has always been world-renowned for its quality and still is, albeit with a deeply declining production — if you can find it. |
Even longtime local citrus growers like Crisafulli and Frank Sullivan of Cocoa say their families now buy their orange juice at the grocery store. But it's not nearly the same as the fresh-squeezed juice. |
"None of it really measures up," Sullivan said. |
"Nothing is as good as the real thing," he said with a grin. |
Thinking about the citrus industry's downturn, Crisafulli says: "I think it's sad, because it's an identity not just for Brevard, but the entire state." |
"Along the river, on both sides of the river, and certainly all of Merritt Island, was nothing but citrus groves," Sullivan said. "There were 9,000 acres of citrus inside NASA," referring to the sprawling federal reserve that is home to the Kennedy Space Center. |
That land was "some of the best growing land in the state" for citrus, Sullivan said. |
The downturn didn't happen suddenly. Florida citrus production peaked in 1997-98, when 304.45 million boxes of oranges, grapefruits and other citrus were produced. By 2016-17, that figure dropped 74 percent to 78.13 million boxes. The latest projection for the current 2017-18 season puts expected production at 54.65 mi... |
Sullivan, who is in the third-generation of his family in the citrus business, traces the local industry's problems back even further — to the devastating freezes of the 1980s. |
"That took a lot of citrus out. Then, there was the disease," said Sullivan, who no longer grows citrus, but continues to operate the Sullivan Victory Groves citrus mail order business on U.S. 1 in Cocoa. |
Sullivan and other citrus mail order businesses in the region coordinate their purchase of citrus for resale from a handful of remaining local growers, including one in Scottsmoor. |
"It facilitates buying the best fruit" that's available at any particular time, said Sullivan, who also is a former Canaveral Port Authority commissioner. "We go wherever we can get it." |
This is a peak season for the mail order business, as many people want fresh fruit ahead of the holidays. |
Even with the thinning of the citrus industry in Florida, Doug Bournique, executive vice president of the Fort Pierce-based Indian River Citrus League, said he is hopeful growers in Brevard will make a resurgence in producing oranges and grapefruit on the Space Coast. |
Calling the Crisafullis, Harveys and Sullivans “rock star” growers of Indian River fruit, Bournique believes researchers are very close — maybe within two years — of “cracking the code” when it comes to ending citrus greening — a disease, also known as "yellow dragon disease" — that severely damages and discolors the f... |
Once the code is cracked, Bournique believes citrus will stage a big comeback in Brevard and elsewhere in Florida. |
It’s not just the fruit and juice that’s enticing growers, but the Indian River citrus byproducts that are finding their ways into soaps, shampoos, beer, spirits and many other areas. The products often carry on “Indian River” citrus on the label, and it’s an entirely new market to exploit that wasn’t available 20 year... |
Sullivan thinks back to the time when Brevard County's population was relatively small, but there were a dozen or more citrus packinghouses in the area. |
"And it seemed like everybody who had 20 acres has a little fruit stand," Sullivan said. "When U.S. 1 was the only route going from the north to Miami, everybody had a fruit stand." |
Sullivan said much of his family's citrus acreage was on land that now is part of Kennedy Space Center. |
Historically, Sullivan said, most of this region's citrus has been used for juice, with much of the remaining fruit used for the holiday gift fruit business. |
Referring to the industry's decline, Sullivan said: "It's discouraging, but we haven't give up hope. New varieties are showing signs of resistance to diseases. Farmers are always optimistic. We just have to work a little harder doing what we do." |
"Obviously, it's a very unfortunate time in the industry," Crisafulli said. |
While disease has played a role, so has the weather. |
"Mother Nature has her time, and she's had a say in where we are today," Crisafulli said. "Whether it's freeze, flood, drought, heat or cold, we're also dealing with disease, and that's a challenge that we'll continue to have." |
Hurricane Irma, for example, impacted the industry in two ways when it passed through Florida in September, Crisafulli said. The high winds blew fruit off the trees prematurely, decreasing this year's crop. But, more significantly, if an orange grove is flooded and water sits on a tree root for more than 36 to 48 hours... |
"The storms were the straw that broke the camel's back" for the remaining retail stands, Crisafulli said. "It's very unfortunate." |
The Crisafulli family now is using much of its former citrus land for other business interests, including residential development and as cattle grazing land. |
Still, Crisafulli said, he and others in the industry are not ready to abandon the industry. |
"Looking forward, looking to the future, we're certainly not going to give up," said Crisafulli, who is a former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. "Farmers are a resilient breed. If it wasn't for farmers, we'd be eating grass next to the cows. So it's certainly a time where we have to pick up and look fo... |
Crisafulli said his 2-acre site on north Merritt Island is part of a widespread efforts involving USDA and state researchers to develop new breeds, new varieties, new root stocks and new places to plant citrus throughout the state. |
"I will certainly say that we're not going to give up. There are opportunities for us," Crisafulli said. "The sad thing is the mom-and-pop operations will have a harder time enduring this period. And you're going to see the larger corporations are going to continue to move forward and try to find opportunities to grow ... |
For his business, part of that future could be an orange variety being called the "Crisafulli navel" that has been developed over the last several years. |
Crisafulli said, while some of the issues may be unique to Florida citrus, the agriculture industry in general constantly has obstacles to overcome. |
"Farmers have that, whether it's citrus or corn or wheat or whatever it might be," Crisafulli said. "There's always going to be challenges. And we're certainly going to fight to the end to try to make sure that we can preserve this great industry." |
Visual journalist Malcolm Denemark contributed to this report. |
Dave Berman is government editor at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact him at 321-242-3649 or dberman@floridatoday.com. Follow on Twitter at @bydaveberman and on Facebook at dave.berman.54. |
Source: Latest available data from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. |
When a player like Rob Gronkowski has a career day, one has to take notice. He tied a career best in receptions (9) while setting new bests in yardage (149) and touchdowns (3). Any questions about his health have been put to rest after this performance. He looked every bit as dominant in this performance as we have eve... |
That’s obviously great news for Gronk owners, but it’s also good news for the Patriots offense as a whole. After an awful start to the season, Tom Brady has now thrown for 1,268 yards and 14 touchdowns without an interception over his last four games. At 37, it was fair to question whether he was starting to decline. H... |
This Patriots team does have more to offer, though. Brandon LaFell logged his second 100-yard receiving game of the season this week. In his six games he has 30 receptions for 461 yards and four touchdowns. The presence of Gronkowski guarantees he sees single coverage at all times, and he has proven capable of beating ... |
The other takeaway from this contest was that Jonas Gray received 17 of the 28 carries Patriot running backs received. He looks to have cemented the between-the-tackles work for the Patriots. That doesn’t mean he is worth starting yet, though. Bill Belichick is a master of match-ups at the running back position. Gray i... |
A look ahead at the Patriots schedule reveals a plethora of potential shootouts with Denver, Indianapolis, Detroit, Green Bay and San Diego being their next five opponents. This offense got hot at the right time. Fantasy owners need to have Gronkowski, Brady, LaFell, Julian Edelman and Shane Vereen ready to roll in eac... |
Pittsburgh racked up 620 total yards in their 51-34 victory over the Colts. On paper, this one looked like it could be high scoring, but 85 points exceeded all expectations. Ben Roethlisberger ended up throwing for 522 yards on the afternoon to raise his season total to 2,380 yards. This leaves him on pace to throw for... |
Reggie Bush took a seat in London courtesy of the ankle injury he suffered back in Week 5 against Buffalo. He has been in-and-out of the lineup, which has probably hindered his ability to get healthy faster. When healthy, he has been pedestrian, scoring just one touchdown and failing to total more than 100 yards in tot... |
Last season, T.Y. Hilton caught 85 passes for 1,083 yards and five touchdowns while receiving 138 targets. Through eight games this year he has hauled in 53 passes for 866 yards and two touchdowns. Barring catastrophe he is well on his way to a career year. His evolution as a player has been one of the biggest reasons ... |
Coming off a broken hand, Mark Ingram had a tough first game back in Detroit against one of the league’s best run stuffing units. He predictably underwhelmed, rushing 10 times for 16 yards while adding two catches for 13 yards. The good news was that he saw all of the early down work. Against Green Bay in prime time on... |
Golden Tate parlayed a career-year last year into a lucrative free agent deal to come play second fiddle to Calvin Johnson for the Lions. An ankle injury has hobbled Johnson over the last three-plus games, opening the door for Tate to become the top option. He has taken the job and run with it. After catching 16 passes... |
Back injuries are scary, especially for running backs. The amount of contact these guys take on a weekly basis is inhuman. Because of this, I stayed away from Arian Foster on draft day. That decision looks like a mistake, even with him missing time due to a hamstring injury. When on the field, he has been nothing short... |
EXCLUSIVE: Vera Farmiga and Christopher Plummer will star in road trip pic Boundaries, with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions’ Stage 6 Films acquiring worldwide rights. Also in the cast is Lewis MacDougall, Bobby Cannavale and Kristen Schaal along with Peter Fonda, Christopher Lloyd and Dolly Wells. Shana Feste (End... |
The story follows single mother Laura (Farmiga) who, along with her awkward 14-year-old son Henry (MacDougall), is forced to drive her estranged, care-free, pot-dealing father Jack (Plummer) across country after he’s kicked out of yet another nursing home. The road trip veers off course when Jack decides to make a coup... |
Kavanaugh-Jones’ Automatik is having a banner year, with two Jeff Nichols films out this year: Midnight Special for Warner Bros, starring Michael Shannon and Joel Edgerton, and Loving, again starring Edgerton and Ruth Nagga, which world premieres at Cannes in competition. Focus picked up the latter in a splashy Berlin ... |
Feste is repped by CAA and Marks Law Group. Farmiga is repped by CAA, Authentic Talent and Literary Management and Peikoff Mahan. Plummer is repped by ICM Partners and The Pitt Group. Cannavale is repped by WME, Framework Entertainment and Schreck, Rose, Dapello & Adams LLP. |
Fonda is repped by Alan Somers, Untitled Entertainment and Kleinberg Lange Cuddy & Carlo. Lloyd is repped by Gersh and Andy Freedman. Schaal is repped by UTA and Morris Yorn. Wells is repped by UTA and Anonymous Content. |
In 1936, a state commission appointed prominent eugenicist Harry H. Laughlin to study the "prevention, treatment and care of mental defects" and associated "problems." |
In 1936, Connecticut's governor, Wilbur Cross, commissioned a Survey of the Human Resources of Connecticut that seemed better suited to Nazi Germany than the Constitution State. The survey classified state residents based on 21 factors including race and citizenship. A 1938 report based on the survey called for weeding... |
When I first heard about it, I thought it was a conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, it's true, in all its ugliness. |
The eugenics movement, which would ultimately inspire Adolf Hitler, was born in the second half of the 1800s. Inspired by Charles Darwin's work, his half-cousin, Francis Galton, theorized that successful people could strengthen the human race by breeding with other successful people. Galton coined the term "eugenics" i... |
In 1909, Connecticut became one of several states to enact a sterilization law, by which those believed to have handicaps or mental illnesses could be sterilized without their consent. Between 1909 and 1963, more than 500 people were sterilized this way. |
This practice was only one of several ways eugenics infected the state. The American Eugenics Society was housed in New Haven with an office overlooking the city's green, and the state was home to many outspoken proponents of the movement, including Yale economics professor Irving Fisher, often hailed as the greatest U... |
Of course, Connecticut was not alone. Across the Sound on Long Island, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory housed the Eugenics Record Office of Charles Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin, two prominent eugenicists. Research conducted by Laughlin and Davenport was used to justify the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited dr... |
The practice of forced sterilization of the "unfit" in Connecticut and across the country was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case. "It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent t... |
However, the Connecticut survey of the 1930s stands out, even in that era, for its disturbing ambition. In 1935, an act of the state's legislature called for the formation of a commission to, in the words of its title, Study the Laws and Facilities of Connecticut Pertaining to the Prevention, Treatment and Care of Ment... |
"Laughlin's plan was to sterilize approximately 175,000 Connecticut residents — or about 10 percent of the state's population," writes Edwin Black, a journalist and author. "To save expense, others would not be sterilized but simply thrown out of the state. Immigrants would be deported to their native countries. Unfit ... |
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