‘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.”

I have mixed feelings about this story, for sure.  On the one hand, I feel sad for the woman who lost her dog.  I had a black lab mix when I was younger and she's gone now and I still miss her.  Dogs are members of the family, so when they go it's very difficult.  This is tantamount to having someone you loved murdered.  However, and it's a big however, I find it completely unacceptable for people to have to be afraid of uncontrolled dogs.  I know people who've been bit in the face by dogs.  People are killed by dogs.  Dogs are weapons, too.  No one should have to walk in a park--especially one that doesn't allow pets off leashes--and worry about being attacked. Do I think the guy overreacted by killing the dog?  Yes.  But the woman shouldn't have done what she was doing either.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 30 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 55000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.5 in openness, 6.5 in conscientiousness, 2.5 in extraversion, 5.5 in agreeableness, and 4.5 in stability.

I just read an article about a dog that was shot in a park when it was off it's leash, it was running and jumping towards a man and he shot and killed it. It is very sad and I am not sure why the man acted in that way, he didn't need to shoot the dog, the dog didn't even bite him. I am shocked there were no charges against him


The person is male. Racially, the person is hispanic / latino. The person is 23 years old. The person has a went to college but did not get a degree. The person earns 70000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.5 in openness, 4.0 in conscientiousness, 6.5 in extraversion, 3.5 in agreeableness, and 5.0 in stability.

This is one of the saddest thing i have ever read that hits especially hard as a pet owner. I keep reading it trying to wrap my head around how he could be so afraid in that moment to think he would need to shoot the dog. Within the frame of the story it just does not make sense but i feel so bad to the owner for having to lose her friend like that. Absolutely sad.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 46 years old. The person has a postgraduate / professional degree. The person earns 150000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 4.0 in openness, 3.5 in conscientiousness, 4.0 in extraversion, 5.0 in agreeableness, and 3.0 in stability.

Its getting out of hand with the misuse of guns under the so called gun right people use to guard themselves and I am highly displeased with this incidence that happened in the article i read.its such a painful thing to go through the loss of a pet and i really cant imagine that for myself. this will deeply hurt me and I will be unhappy deep inside.


The person is male. Racially, the person is asian / pacific islander. The person is 33 years old. The person has a went to college but did not get a degree. The person earns 36000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 4.25 in openness, 4.25 in conscientiousness, 4.5 in extraversion, 4.25 in agreeableness, and 3.75 in stability.

That was a sad story wow that was terrible what happened to that poor dog but then again I hate dogs so I'm glad its one less dog left on this planet if it were up to me I would shoot all the stupid ugly dogs that are out there I can not believe people keep them as pets they should eat them like they do in china


The person is male. Racially, the person is asian / pacific islander. The person is 34 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 36000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 3.5 in openness, 6.0 in conscientiousness, 2.0 in extraversion, 7.0 in agreeableness, and 6.0 in stability.

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."

Read this alarming story about frog populations getting the deadly virus due to garden ponds to some extent. I know we always or mostly mean well but this story amply displayed how when we interfere with natural order of things even with the best of intentions, we can make the matters worse. People were inadvertently spreading the virus beyond the natural reach of infected frog population which in turn was destroying other harmless and healthy frog groups. I think this is a great example of how we should always think twice before taking even the simplest benevolent action towards nature.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 38 years old. The person has a postgraduate / professional degree. The person earns 42000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 3.5 in openness, 7.0 in conscientiousness, 6.5 in extraversion, 5.5 in agreeableness, and 6.5 in stability.

So I can't exactly say this article was heartbreaking to me or anything.  I did find it sad that these frogs and other wildlife are dying and possibly suffering from this disease that people are causing by being careless.  However, like they said creating the garden ponds in general is a positive thing that people shoudl do that generally supports wildlife.  So maybe if people would just be a little more careful and take the precautions they were giving then this kind of thing would not happen so much.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 29 years old. The person has a went to college but did not get a degree. The person earns 39000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.5 in openness, 6.0 in conscientiousness, 1.0 in extraversion, 6.0 in agreeableness, and 5.5 in stability.

I just read an article about ranavirus that affects amphibians in the United Kingdom. Apparently, human made garden ponds are contributing to the spread of this virus, but the article seemed wishy washy about how to best deal with the problem. It mentioned that one should not refrain from building garden ponds, but instead refrain from transferring material from said ponds? The whole article kind of missed the mark, I think.


The person is male. Racially, the person is asian / pacific islander. The person is 29 years old. The person has a high school degree or diploma. The person earns 44000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.0 in openness, 5.5 in conscientiousness, 4.5 in extraversion, 6.0 in agreeableness, and 5.0 in stability.

Dear friend,                                     I have just read an article that explains how garden ponds are helping to spread diseases among frogs in the UK. The diseases infect frogs and fish as well. It has had a large impact on the local frog population. The story upset me because I don't want any animal to suffer.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 27 years old. The person has a went to technical / vocational school. The person earns 25000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.0 in openness, 6.0 in conscientiousness, 6.0 in extraversion, 6.0 in agreeableness, and 6.0 in stability.

Frogs are not my most favorite animals but this article was truly sad. This disease seems to be very painful for them and killing and infecting them at alarming rates due alot to human interferance. I think that more awareness on what to do and what not to do when it comes to frogs and ponds needs to be out there on the news and told to people so they know maybe alot of it is just ignorance. Any living being should be protected if possible from dying a painful death and frogs are an important part of our ecosystem that we need to protect. Alot of time human interferance in nature will do this and cause some sort of issue.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 41 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 28000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 2.0 in openness, 2.5 in conscientiousness, 1.5 in extraversion, 2.0 in agreeableness, and 1.0 in stability.

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.

This is such a messy issue.  While I believe sexual harassment is wrong, I also think we've gone past the point where allegations can be trusted.  I also think we've overblown the seriousness of many of these encounters.  No, I don't think a man should grab a woman's toilet parts or breasts without some implication of consent (it doesn't have to be explicit--that's idiotic).  But the idea that one aggressive move by a guy towards a girl should ruin people's lives is stupid.  Are women not stronger than that?  Are women so fragile that one guy who catcalls at them or hugs them when they don't want it should be tarred and feathered and she has to go into perpetual mourning?  Men go after women and always will.  There are repercussions for women wanting it all.  Sorry.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 37 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 135000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.0 in openness, 6.0 in conscientiousness, 1.5 in extraversion, 7.0 in agreeableness, and 3.0 in stability.

This is disgusting. I have no doubt this woman is telling the truth. It seems men these days including our own president think that this behavior is acceptable. Because there is no proof, probably nothing will be done. God help any woman these days who is harassed or touched or even raped and doesn't have proof. There is no justice any more. We have to worry about our daughters.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 31 years old. The person has a two year associate degree. The person earns 82000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 2.5 in openness, 3.5 in conscientiousness, 2.0 in extraversion, 4.5 in agreeableness, and 5.0 in stability.

I wonder when this kind of stuff will stop.  While I do believe that there are many cases of abuse like this that occur.  All it takes are a couple of false accusations that destroy the fabric of the whole movement.  I'm sure this sound insensitive, but this new trend of people coming clean about harassment that occured decades ago, and is basically unprovalbe is getting old.  It's hard to believe people, particularly after the Kavanaugh case where I don't think the accuser was very believable.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 21 years old. The person has a high school degree or diploma. The person earns 20000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 3.0 in openness, 5.0 in conscientiousness, 5.0 in extraversion, 4.0 in agreeableness, and 3.5 in stability.

I dont think that any women, who is accusing someone of harassment should be immediately questioned/doubted. Innocent until proven guilty should be applied the other way around too. If we immediatly doubt a women when she is already dealing with trauma, that will make the whole thing worse for the case and for the women.


I think it is disgusting men in such high power positions use it to just attack women like this. They think they can just get away with it and there actions have no consequences. So many stories like this are popping up and i think we need more education early on about sexual assault and what is okay and not. And more programs for women to feel safe telling on these men so it prevents it from happening again. These poor girls felt so trapped because he was in a position of power and you cant go against that. I think i would be scarred for life if this happened to me. Noone should deal with this alone and it should never be swept under the wrong or at blame of the women.


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.

Just saw this news story about an old lady who was confusingly wandering without proper clothes late at night and and thought I would share it with you. As we move well into our 30's, the cruelness of old age seems to be becoming clearer and clearer. Maybe there were other reasons for her state but my immediate reaction was that it was due to age related general loss of senses and awareness. May we help those of us who need help in such state and may our old age be free from such sad endings.


The person is male. Racially, the person is black / african american. The person is 37 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 40000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.5 in openness, 7.0 in conscientiousness, 1.0 in extraversion, 6.5 in agreeableness, and 6.0 in stability.

I feel sorry for the old lady because my grandmother had similar problems. It must be hard when you get old and your mind does not work like it use to. I hope that they find her family or where she came from so she can be returned safety. I know that she was scared and confused because that is what use to happen to my grandmother.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 47 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 110000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.5 in openness, 7.0 in conscientiousness, 4.5 in extraversion, 5.5 in agreeableness, and 7.0 in stability.

I feel so badly for this lady's family. They may not even realize that she is missing at the time of the article, but I'm sure they are already realizing that she is having problems with her memory. I have seen many family members with Alzheimer's, including my dad, and it is horrible to watch and to deal with.


This is kind of a sucky story.  As apart of my job, I run into these types of things all the time.  I think that they can go one of two ways.  Either they're drunk, and annoying and you want them out of your hair as  quickly as possible, or they're having a legitimate medial issue, and you want to help them.  It's tough because you want to thelp them, but with such limited information, it's hard to do so.


Articles like this really hit home for me. I think older people should really be protected and watched carefully as this happens alot. Alot suffer from dimentia and have no idea what is going on and can get lost very easily. It makes me think if this was my parent or grandparent I would be heartbroken. She was wondering with no coat probaly cold and very scared. I am very thankful that these officers found her before something bad happened to her. I hope she is able to be reunited with her family quickly and they put safeguards in place so it never happends again. Mayb it is to much for the family now and she requires more assistance like a group home.


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.

A just read a piece about the refugee crisis circa 2016. I'm wondering how many of the one million that Germany promised to provide asylum to are currently living in Germany. I know that this mass migration of refugees is part of the reason for the rise of nationalistic/fascist sentiment in a lot of places. I fear things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.


I feel bad for all the people that have to leave their home country to try to find a better life. It must be bad for people to take the bad odds of dying at sea instead of staying where they are at. I think it will take an international effort to solve the problems facing all the nations that have so many immigrants leaving.


To me, this refugee crisis is a huge problem with no clear solution.  It's extremely sad that all these innocent people are dyng and I can't even imagine having to live in one of these countries and constantly have my life and my loved one's lives in danger.  It's also difficult for other nations to have to accept so many refugees into their nation but I guess it is the right thing to do.  Hopefully they can contribute to society.  It is sad that terrorists are abusing the system to try to sneak into countries.


Dear friend,                                             I have just read an article about the horrible conditions of the syrian people and the refugees who are fleeing the country. I feel awful for these people and would like to find a way to help them at least to be more comfortable. It was a very moving article.


The whole refugee crisis is a big controversey these days. You think of the people that are doing this and put yourself in there shoes but also the countries who get these transplants and have to deal with them. Every human deserves a life free from harm and these lands really arent anyones but i can see having undocumented people invade your country is a bad thing that is why there is systems in place to keep track of people. I think more should be done to help these countries so people do not want to flee we need to build there government and police up so they are equipped to fight terrorist groups and rebels who push there citizens out.


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.

Eh I don't have strong feelings about this.  I'm sorry about the passing of a person and sorry for their family's loss, but I disagreed strongly with her political positions.  So I can't say I'm especially sad or sorrowful for her.  I am sorry just in a general sense because the loss of a life is always a sad thing and I'm sad for the family members who were left behind to grieve her loss.  So those things make me feel sad and empathetic but otherwise I Feel neutral about this.


So, I guess I just read a write up on the life of Janet Reno. The whole thing was pretty middling and seemed unbiased. Based on the information presented it seemed like she was an upstanding person, although you can never tell from an article written after someones death. I had heard her name before, but I was a child during the Clinton administration, so I really didn't know who she was until reading this article.


I was impressed by the many first, like being the first AD of the state of Florida. Then becoming the first female Attorney General for the United States of America. For that she will always be remembered.  Some of her dealing with the Clintons and the some of the ways she handled the illegal immigration case of that little boy I do not agree with.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 28 years old. The person has a two year associate degree. The person earns 50000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.0 in openness, 6.0 in conscientiousness, 5.0 in extraversion, 4.5 in agreeableness, and 3.5 in stability.

The first female attorney general passed away at the age of 78. She had long battled parkinsons disease. This is very sad. She worded under Bill clintons presidency. She had so many accomplishments over the years. Her predecessor Eric Holder praised her work. She was an example for many women who struggle to find there path with sexism.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 25 years old. The person has a went to college but did not get a degree. The person earns 55000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.5 in openness, 5.5 in conscientiousness, 3.5 in extraversion, 4.5 in agreeableness, and 4.0 in stability.

I'm not a huge fan of the Clinton's so it's hard for me to feel for this lady when the article is mainly about how Clinton's thought she was a wonderful lady. With political bias' aside, I think Parkinsons disease is devastation to have. My husband's grandma suffers from it but still has a very positive outlook on life.


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."

This article was sad for me.  It definitely humanized the event and focused on the father, whom I felt sympathetic towards.  I also laughed a lot at the sentence about someone wrapping bacon around the door handle of a mosque.  But I thought the portrayal of the father was very real and relatable.  I thought his quotes were also interesting and very self-reflective, recognizing what he was probably doing in his writing and why.  But the article overall was pretty vivid in allowing you to experience all aspects of the event.  People there, trying to survive.  People afterwards finding out loved ones were dead.  People angry.  People trying to keep the public safe.  All angles were shown.


The person is male. Racially, the person is hispanic / latino. The person is 32 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 35000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.0 in openness, 5.5 in conscientiousness, 2.0 in extraversion, 5.5 in agreeableness, and 4.5 in stability.

Its always sad when these tragedies occur. We must cohesively find ways to improve this and lessen the chances these attacks occur. I just wonder what we can do though. We have to be able to make a positive change and to be honest the only way to do that is to have stricter laws. These laws would mean less freedom but I am okay with that.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 40 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 140000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.5 in openness, 6.0 in conscientiousness, 4.0 in extraversion, 4.0 in agreeableness, and 5.5 in stability.

This would be a horrifying experience to go through. I can't imagine how a father could handle that experience, especially the way that he learned about his daughter's tragedy. That would be just entirely too much to go through. How can can that even be processed? its just all seems so surreal, like something you would read about, but not actually go through.


I hate that the man had to lose his daughter to such a senseless act of violence. I hope that the man finds peace. I also would not like to find out that my daughter had passed away on social media. Those few hours where they could not get in touch with her had to be the hardest hours in the world and to finally find out on social media had to be heartbreaking.


This is an incredibly sad story!  All these people out trying to have fun and then they lost their lives.  I imagine the fear when they were hiding, it must have been so terrible.  And the families are just as much victims as the people who lost their lives.  The whole thing is terrible, and all of this for nothing.  Terrorist attacks are the most senseless killing and loss of life.  It is really tragic to me, and these people seem to have no regard for human life or suffering.  IT's not even human.


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.

This is all disgusting and makes me wonder how anyone could have sympathy or pause for battling militant Islam head-on.  These people are savages and should be dealt with with no sympathy or quarter.  That we pulled out of the region cowardly is disgraceful.  However, I also feel that the people of the region are complicit in their own suffering.  If you allow this type of disease to build, you suffer the consequences.  They can say that it's a function of U.S. interference, but it's not.  It's existed for eons and they've allowed it to grow, and now they either have to fight back or suffer under it.  Other nations fought their oppressors, internal or external, and weren't just passive.  These Arabs and Persians are just so passive and impotent with their overlords.


Reading about the tactics used by the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria is like being transported back in time. They are destroying resources just to maintain a hold on their positions including using people as human shields. They must be aware that this is a fight they can not win, so instead of giving up they are razing people and cities to the ground. The whole thing is disgusting.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 30 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 55000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.5 in openness, 6.5 in conscientiousness, 2.5 in extraversion, 5.5 in agreeableness, and 4.5 in stability.

I am not sure how I have never heard of this happening before but it is so sad. So many innocent people and children are being killed for no reason, it reminds me so much of how the Nazi's treated the jews but it is happening now and nobody is stopping them. It's unbelievable and so sad, I do not understand how the world is letting this happen.


This is a horrific story. It is about islamic militants capturing villagers and using them as human shields. The villagers didn't have much, if any, of a choice to go with them. They also killed most of the police and army so the villagers had no one to protect them. It is absolutely horrifying for these people.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 34 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 68000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.0 in openness, 5.5 in conscientiousness, 5.5 in extraversion, 5.0 in agreeableness, and 6.5 in stability.

it's crazy how islamic terrorism is still a thing. I mean they are just kidnapping people and using them as shields. I cannot believe this is still going on. There needs to be more done to stop this. This war seems like it will never end. What can be done about it? Who knows at this point. This makes no sense at all.


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.

People are suffering in the middle east. I wonder if there will ever be peace over there. I feel like the war is never ending. It just keeps going and going. If it's not al qaeda its ISIS or the taliban. When will it end? Is the war actually making anyones lives better? Or is it just making everything worse for everyone?


I feel like as humans we should all feel the need to help them out. I think in cases like these were its a country that has very low resources with violence all around there should be some sort of humanitarian aid for the people. I believe very strongly that anything else is just not that good overall.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 47 years old. The person has a two year associate degree. The person earns 29000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.5 in openness, 6.5 in conscientiousness, 7.0 in extraversion, 7.0 in agreeableness, and 7.0 in stability.

Going to the middle East was the worst decision for our country! Not only do we send soldiers over there to lose their lives but millions of innocent civilians get killed. This war is a fake war-it's all about the oil and political interest and the innocent suffer as a result. The best thing we can do is to leave these people alone and let them live. We need to focus on own own country and stop our evil deeds overseas.


There is a very bad humanitarian crisis gong on in Afghanistan. The fighting has lead this this insanely bad crisis. There is so much war going on that the innocent people are caught in the middle of it all. It is so sad because theres not enough bring done so all of the innocent people are suffering. Something needs to be done.


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."

Reading about the situation in Syria is always eye opening. It's hard to believe so many people can continue to live in a war zone. The article I read said that a kilo of meat goes for around $40! What do these people eat if there is no food available? It's really hard to wrap my head around. Will the war ever be over?


Aleppo has been having these problems for quite a while now. I feel like the bombings are just the top of the cake in terms of letting the world know about what is wrong with them. I feel like they really need to change things and in order to do that they need the help of the world more so than anything else.


The whole article broke my heart. If I got a text message telling me I have 24 hours to leave my home and all the things that I own, I would not know what to do. Of course I would leave with my wife and children because they are the most important things in my life, but it would be hard to know my house is about to get bombed. Also, paying 40 dollars for a kilogram of meat, I could not afford this and I do not live in a war tore country. I hate this for the people.


I really feel for this country as a whole. It is like they are getting attacked from every side. It has got to feel so on edge living in syria. You don't now who to trust not even your government. Innocent people and children are being killed so violently and senselessly. I have nieghbors that are from syria and they are great people who have family still back there and they are just mortified and scared. They can not travel back home anymore and that would just take a huge tole on me. Getting a warning text message that you are going to be bombed I dont now how I would react. You have 24 hours to leave everything you know and love and probably never see it that way again it is crazy.


I can't even imagine getting a text saying we needed to evacuate. It doesn't seem real. We live in a country where that would not be likely to happen but if it did, it would be a total shock for most Americans. I can't even imagine what chaos that would create. That would probably turn the world upside down. I emphasize with those civilians but I can't even imagine being in that position.


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."

It makes me angry that people will attack or kill other people just because they have a different religion, race or sexuality. When will people learn that it is okay to be different. I can see how Trump's words give some people the idea that this is okay. Trump is part of the problem and not a part of the answer.


The person is male. Racially, the person is hispanic / latino. The person is 23 years old. The person has a went to college but did not get a degree. The person earns 70000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.5 in openness, 4.0 in conscientiousness, 6.5 in extraversion, 3.5 in agreeableness, and 5.0 in stability.

You know with all of the issues recently within the country i had not even though about how bad it must been for Muslims living in america. When there is such a culture of racism and rudeness and hate being spewed left and right they are bound to be feeling it terribly. The fact that the number is rising this high is incredibly alarming and that people are only seeing race is awful.


i cant believe stuff like this is going on. I mean you would think our society would be better by now. I feel like we as a society are getting worse in some ways, although in others we are improving, but still. What can be done? How can we improve? This is just par for the course at this point. I'm not even sure what to say about it.


I think its wrong for people to be attacked just because of a select few that make a religion look bad. There are also some bad christians out there and we dont base our whole view on things based on the fact that they were christian. We must learn to differentiate between the two to be honest it makes the most sense.


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.

It is shocking that these poor children are starving because the government cares more about spending money on the military for weapons than food for its people. No child should even know what hunger feels like, the only thing they should be focusing on is playing with their friends and school. What a shame for these poor kids.


I feel very sorry for the children and there families. Eating is one of the basic needs of survival and it looks like there families are trying, but they just can not afford to pay for food. Seeing that supplies for school cost five times the monthly wage was outrageous. I see the situation getting worse before it gets better.


Being a parent of young children this story hits me hard. I do not know what I would do if my children could not eat at home or at school. The country has a lot of work to do to get is people the basic things that they need. I feel like government stealing is partly to blame because the county has a lot of oil but the people are not benefiting from it.


The person is female. Racially, the person is white. The person is 38 years old. The person has a postgraduate / professional degree. The person earns 42000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 3.5 in openness, 7.0 in conscientiousness, 6.5 in extraversion, 5.5 in agreeableness, and 6.5 in stability.

What a sad situation for these children.  Such innocent victims.  No child should have to go without food, and this is really sad for all those involved.  I'm sure the parents feel terrible too for not being able to feed their children.  I know Venezuela has some huge economic crises going on, but they really need to get a grip on their situation or their people will not make it.  The country is a great example of why a dictatorship does not work.  Democracy really is best.


I will always feel so bad for children because they can not help themselves.Food is such a fundamental need in life that children cant be expected to excelif they are hungry during school. It is so sad that people need to keep children home just to line up to get food. They also cant afford to send them lunch and the government isnt stepping in to help which would be a good investment as they are the future of there society.Someone needs to step in send aid as teachers can only do so much they need to demand others to help out. Kids can not help themselves so they need others to step in and step up to help.


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."

I have no clue what would make a father kill his own children. I feel very sorry for the two boys. It must be very fearful to around an irrational person especially that person being your own father. I do not want anybody to kill themselves, but if you feel that way take your own life and let other people live theirs.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 29 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 85000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.75 in openness, 6.75 in conscientiousness, 6.75 in extraversion, 6.75 in agreeableness, and 7.0 in stability.

After reading the article, my first reaction was anger. I just couldn't believe that any man would be able to take the lives of his own children. It felt really wrong and that man is very messed up in the head. I was also starting to think that maybe the man just had some sort of mental illness that was very severe. The man could also have been under the influence of drugs.


This is a highly disturbing story.  How could this man feel the need to harm his own children?  If we wanted to take his own life, fine, but why the children?  It is obvious he had some serious issues since there was a pending domestic violence charge, so there is clearly more to this story.  But either way, I find it very sad for the kids who lost their lives for no reason.  And what about the rest of the family?  Where was the mother in this story?  How grieved she must be.  The whole thing was very very sad.


I think this man must of been going through quite a bit of problems in his life to do this! I feel like when someone does this we must check and see what was the cause. We don't know the full details of the story yet. I think we must first realize what happened clearly and why it happened to see the truth there.


After reading the article , my first reaction was that i was really disturbed by what i read. I just couldn't believe that anyone would be able to kill their own children. It also made me feel really bad for the mother because i can't even imagine what i would do if this were to happen to my family. I felt bad for the children as we ll because they didn't deserve it.


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.

I feel really bad for the rangers, who were just doing their job and were treated unmercifully by the villagers.  And unfortunately they didn't get any help from the police officers, who ran away.  What a horribly frightening experience that must have been.  On the other hand, the article is also confusing for me.  Why were the villagers so upset?  Do they earn their livings from poaching? Were they confused about what was going on?  Also, who called for the helicopter?  And how did the rangers survive if they were really confronted by all those villagers with weapons.  If the story is real then it's frightening and disturbing.  But there seems to be a lot of missing information.


I feel like something must be done about these poachers. Not only do they oppose the fact that poaching is wrong but they attack people that try and defend these animals. It is just wrong and I am fed up with  it. There must surely be more moral than immoral people in this world and we must act now to save these animals.


I found this story quite distressing.  It was actually surprising to me that the mob attacked anti-poaching rangers.  But I guess they support poaching in that area?  Perhaps it is important to their economy?  Anyway, it is always distressing to me to read about angry mobs attacking officials who are just trying to do their job and do something positive for the community or for society.  This is an example of that and it is very distressing.  Really, what is wrong with people?


The person is male. Racially, the person is asian / pacific islander. The person is 29 years old. The person has a high school degree or diploma. The person earns 44000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 6.0 in openness, 5.5 in conscientiousness, 4.5 in extraversion, 6.0 in agreeableness, and 5.0 in stability.

Dear friend,                                                                                I am writing to let you know about an article that I just finished reading. Some anti-poaching rangers were captured by a poacher and attacked by the locals of the village. I feel bad for them, they were just trying to protect the animals.


The fact that these villagers are placing money they receive from these poachers in order to side with them and attack anti poachers unit of rangers is pathetic. It shows that money really is the root of all evil! I can not believe it to be honest! It makes my blood boil that people do not care for these animals being hurt for profit.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 41 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 28000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 2.0 in openness, 2.5 in conscientiousness, 1.5 in extraversion, 2.0 in agreeableness, and 1.0 in stability.

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."

I hate hearing about American troop deaths.  I feel sad for the Captain and First Sergeant who died.  Those are experienced and high-ranking people.  I don't feel as sympathetic for the civilians who died.  I believe strongly that if you're going to fight a war, you fight it hard and collateral damage is expected.  We won WWII by leveling Germany and nuking Japan.  You can't try to isolate the bad guys and kill only them.  It doesn't work that way.  Killing civilians may seem harsh but it ends wars.  When you just try to fight the insurgents or guerillas, wars don't get won.  They just keep going.  And that doesn't accomplish anything but more death.


The fact that civilians have to be hurt in the process of trying to get rid of the Taliban is mind boggling. Surely there can be better intelligence found that can fix this and honestly the fact that there is not makes me feel like we are not doing it right. We need to find ways to minimize the risk these civilians take by being in the crossfire.