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."

I just read an article about a girl who was about my age who died in the Paris attacks a few years back. This particular story hit closer to home because it focused on a specific person and her family. I can't imagine being roused from my bed to hear that my child has been the victim of a terrorist attack at a show. The whole thing sounds terrible.


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.

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."

I just read about a situation in Aleppo where the government sent a mass text to all citizens giving them 24 hours to evacuate before they were potentially targeted by deadly weapons. The thought of receiving a warning like that while you are sitting with your family is just mind boggling to me. What would you do? Where would you go? It's hard to believe people have been living with such violence for such an extended period of time.


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."

I just read an article about the islamaphobia resulting from the election of Donald Trump. The man has lowered the bar so far and affected our country so negatively for years to come due to his voracious appetite for appointing judges. I sincerely hope that more people will pay attention to the corruption and need for a radical restructuring of American politics due to his administration.


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.

I just read a story about school children in Venezuela that are apparently starving due to the lack of government investment in food programs. The image of school children falling asleep or fainting due to lack of nutrition is just absolutely heart breaking. I can't imagine what the parents must feel having to send their children to school where they will not eat at all. A child can't learn without appropriate nutrition.


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."

Just read a story about a father who abducted and then murdered his two sons after being on the run from police. The article didn't give a whole lot of detail, so one has to wonder what drove him to take such drastic action against people who were so close to him. The suspect committed suicide afterward, so I think that it would be considered a crime of passion? Anyway, horribly tragic.


Celebrity jeweler's surrogate son, second man arrested in gruesome stabbing of Manhattan partygoer —  Bloody evidence, a burned body buried under a foot of earth and a botched coverup led authorities to charge two men with various crimes in the stabbing death of a guest after they partied at a luxury East Side apartment.   But neither is charged with killing Joseph Comunale. Investigators have no doubts Comunale was murdered, but did one of the suspects — or both — do it? That's the question they are working to answer.   James Rackover, 25, a Florida ex-con who became a surrogate son to celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover, was charged Thursday with hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence, and concealing a corpse in the slaying of Comunale, 26. Prosecutors also hit Lawrence Dilione, 28, of Jersey City, with the same charges.   Police said the victim was stabbed in the chest 15 times. His bludgeoned and partially burned body was found in a foot-deep grave along the Jersey Shore, police said.   "One or both of these people committed a murder," Assistant District Attorney Antoinette Carter said during an arraignment late Thursday for Rackover Dilione. Both men were ordered held on $3 million bond.   "We're treating this case as a homicide. Both of these defendants were seen in the basement adjusting the surveillance camera. Dilione is the last person who saw Joseph Comunale alive.” The bloodthirsty pair used a luggage rack to cart the body from the ritzy address, drove an hour south and tried to torch Comunale's bruised and broken corpse, according to sources. Cops are still looking to question at least one other person, sources said.   Friends of jeweler-to-the-stars Jeffrey Rackover — whose client list includes Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and incoming First Lady Melania Trump — said he was devastated. "You can't talk to him — he starts to cry," said longtime pal Bo Dietl, an ex-NYPD detective. "You know the old expression: No good deed goes unpunished. This is the perfect frigging example."   James was the son Jeffrey never had, Dietl said.   The younger Rackover's blood-spattered E. 59th St. home provided damning proof, as police recovered 32 pieces of evidence from the gory crime scene, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. There were bloodstains on the wall, and cops pulled the victim's clothes, along with sheets and towels, from trash bags tossed down a garbage chute.   The killers tried unsuccessfully to bleach the blood from Comunale's outfit, Boyce said.   The motive for the gut-wrenching attack remained under investigation, although sources indicated the killing occurred after Comunale rejected the sexual advances of one of the men inside the apartment. Both men clammed up after Dilione told cops where to find the body, prosecutors said. The pair are due back in court Monday.   The gasoline used in the attempt to burn Comunale's body was found as well, and the shallow grave where the Stamford, Conn., man was dumped is 1 mile from Dilione's old residence in Oceanport, N.J.   Boyce said officers were cutting down weeds in the remote wooded area where the body was found in hopes of turning up more evidence. An autopsy was performed at the Monmouth County coroner's office.   Comunale’s father Pat told NBC News late Thursday, “It's horrific that another person can do this to an individual, and take a guy who was the most charismatic, funny guy — always the life of the party — never did steroids or anything else. And his friends can all attest to the type of individual he was.”   A solemn-faced Rackover, his head down and his pompadoured hair just perfect, was led from the 13th Precinct stationhouse in handcuffs Thursday afternoon. The suspect, who spent two days in custody before being charged, ignored questions shouted by reporters.   Rackover, dressed in a finely tailored blue suit, wearing loafers with no socks, and Dilione in a grimy designer hoodie with leather quilted sleeves both looked down throughout the arraignment.   Maurice Sercarz, Rackover's lawyer, insisted the case had “serious problems.” “I can't downplay the brutal nature of what happened to that body in New Jersey,” he said. “These charges are just a place holder. I look forward to conducting our own investigation. I intend to vigorously contest these charges.”   Sercarz said Rackover has worked at an insurance underwriting firm for the past year, and insisted he didn't flee.   James Rackover was home with friends beginning Saturday night watching the Ultimate Fighting pay-per-view event before going out to a Meatpacking District nightclub. Comunale met his killers at the lounge and arrived at the apartment with three other men and three women around 4 a.m. Sunday.   Rackover was known as James Beaudoin when he was busted for a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., burglary in January 2009. He did time from 2012 to 2013 on the burglary rap before starting his new life in Manhattan.   Dietl said the Fifth Ave. jeweler met Beaudoin three years ago in a Manhattan gym and the two became fast friends.   "They go out and have dinner, and the kid says, 'You know what? My father left me. I never had a father,'" said Dietl. "And Jeffrey starts talking about he never had a son, he always wanted a son."   Father figure Jeffrey agreed to let James legally take his last name and helped the younger man find a one-bedroom apartment in his posh East Side high rise, Dietl said.   He even subsidized the rent and found Rackover a job with global management consultants Willis Towers Watson. James celebrated Passover Seders with Jeffrey's parents in the elder man's apartment, according to Dietl.

I just read an article about a man who was given everything in life, literally. A deluxe apartment, a great job and a position of status in New York society were apparently not enough for him. He was involved in the brutal murder of a man because the man refused his sexual advances. He must suffer from some sort of mental deficiency.


Environmental health officers call for smoking ban in playgrounds —  Zoos and anywhere children play should become no-smoking zones, says Chartered Institute of Environmental Health   Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers. Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up. Smoking has been illegal in enclosed public places such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants, as well as public transport and work vehicles, across the UK since 2007. But the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said on Monday it wants local councils to designate any place where children play or learn as a smoking exclusion zone, although adherence would be voluntary, not statutory. Banning it in those locations would also protect children from secondhand smoke, it says. A new YouGov poll commissioned by the CIEH shows that 89% of 4,300 adults surveyed back a ban on smoking in children’s play areas, while 57% want it to end in public parks. “It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of people would support restrictions on smoking in children’s play areas. We would like to see smoking being stubbed out wherever children play or learn,” said Anne Godfrey, the CIEH chief executive. “This would not only include children’s playgrounds but could see no-smoking zones extended to public parks, zoos and theme parks. Children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without seeing someone smoking and thinking this is normal behaviour,” she added. Some councils have already moved to try to stop people smoking in some outdoor places. For example, Coventry city council has asked parents not to smoke outside the gates of its 82 primary schools. The policy has gone down well with parents and headteachers, the council said. Advertisement Wrexham has also decreed that playgrounds, school gates and bus shelters should be regarded as smoke-free places, while Nottingham city council seeks to ensure that all its outdoor attractions are smoke-free for the six weeks of the school summer holidays. “Public opinion – and not just among parents – has swung heavily in favour of protecting children from exposure to tobacco smoke and from the behavioural cues children pick up from seeing adults smoking. This is a real opportunity to make it easier for children to grow up healthy,” said Jim McManus, the director of public health at Hertfordshire county council. “Parents and children, when given the choice, are overwhelmingly supportive of smoke-free playground. Local voluntary schemes have been popular. It’s time to give parents what they are asking for. You might feel like this is the nanny state – you’d be wrong,” McManus added. Forest, the smokers’ rights group, called to the plan “Orwellian”. Its director, Simon Clark, said: “Extending the smoking ban to outdoor parks and play areas would be a gross overreaction. There’s no evidence that a significant number of people smoke near children in outdoor areas, nor is there evidence that smoking outside is a threat to anyone else’s health.” Clark added: “Public parks are for the enjoyment of everyone, including smokers. Most smokers use their common sense and smoke accordingly. They don’t need government dictating how they behave. The idea that children should be protected from the sight of someone smoking is Orwellian. Adults can’t be expected to be perfect role models for other people’s children.” The owners of zoos and theme parks, because they are private businesses, should be allowed to decide whether smoking is banned, Clark said. It became illegal last October to smoke in a car in England or Wales carrying anyone under the age of 18. New figures last week showed that the proportion of adults in England who smoke had fallen to a record low of 16.9%. Deborah Arnott, the director of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “While the ban on smoking in indoor public places resulted in significant health benefits, thousands of children are still exposed to smoke in the home and elsewhere. Growing up in a smoke-free environment is one of the best ways of ensuring that they are not attracted to smoking and lured into a lifelong addiction and ill-health.”     Article Title:‘Mouse droppings were everywhere’: a day in the life of a food inspector   Article URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/day-in-life-food-safety-inspector-newham-east-london-hygiene   Article author(s) Kate Lyons   Article date: Sunday 25 September 2016 17.57 EDT Last modified on Monday 26 September 201609.26 EDT   News source: theguardian    Sharon Nkansah has worked on the food safety frontline in Newham, London, for 10 years, and seen the good, bad and the ugly   When you’ve been a food safety inspector for as long as Sharon Nkansah, you know how to smell a rat. “Last month, there was a place I inspected [where] I walked in and you could smell it,” she says. “You can smell mouse activity. They had droppings in fridges, where they have their sauces, where they have their cutlery; the droppings were everywhere. So I just said: ‘Pull the shutters down’.” You also learn tricks to catch out wily business owners. The best time to inspect a suspect business is in the morning, she says, before staff have had a chance to sweep up anything nasty deposited overnight. Nkansah has worked as a food safety inspector for Newham borough council in east London for 10 years. As we move between businesses throughout the day, she is fun and chatty, talking about her children and her recent holiday, but as soon as she’s in a kitchen, her bright patterned dress is covered with a white coat and her braids are tucked under a hairnet. She becomes brisk, businesslike, at times tough. Her repeated refrain, delivered to staff at the takeaways she inspects who ask her for food hygiene advice, is: “I am not here to train you, I am here to enforce.” A firm approach is needed in Newham. A Guardian analysis of Food Standards Agency data found that the borough has the lowest food hygiene scores in the country: 26% of its food businesses fail inspections, rising to 50.4% for takeaways. Far from being embarrassed by these numbers, Matthew Collins, a principal environmental health officer at the council, and Nkansah’s boss, sees them as a point of pride. “I think it’s an indication that we’re out doing our jobs,” he says. Nkansah began her career as a chef, but wanted a job with more child-friendly hours after having children, so did a one-year degree in food hygiene and began working as an inspector in Newham. Advertisement Cuts to local government funding have meant the number of food inspectors has declined in recent years. The ratio of food safety inspectors to businesses has dropped from 4.2 full-time inspectors per 1,000 food businesses in 2012-13, to 3.7 per 1,000 in 2014-15. This figure is dragged down considerably by England, where there are only 3.2 officers per 1,000 businesses, compared with 5.7 per 1,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The job, says Nkansah, is satisfying, but it comes at a cost: she has seen what goes on in the back rooms of takeaways, cafes and restaurants. Before going to a new restaurant, Nkansah says she always looks up its food safety rating. When asked if she would eat somewhere that scored zero, one or two, Nkansah is appalled. “Absolutely not,” she says. On a good day, Nkansah can inspect three establishments. On a bad day, if she visits businesses where standards are very poor and the management is either belligerent or impossible to track down, she can spend half a day trying to evaluate one. KFC: High Street North, East Ham Nkansah starts at KFC on the high street. She is expecting big things here: large chains often do well with food safety and at its previous inspection in March 2014, this KFC branch was given the highest possible score of five. Inside the KFC kitchen, the first thing Nkansah does is wash her hands. “It’s a way of testing if they have adequate hand-washing facilities. If they don’t, that’s not a good start,” she says. KFC’s hand-washing station passes muster and Nkansah then works her way through the kitchen, starting at the entry point for deliveries, before moving on to the tills. Nkansah is happy with everything – the general cleanliness of the kitchen, the way food is stored and the waste management system. The temperature of the freezer and fridges are good, and she is pleased to see a designated raw chicken preparation area. “They’ve got good separation,” Nkansah says approvingly of the way the fridges are organised: raw chicken is stored on the left, while other products, such as milk, salad and Pepsi, are on the right. “They will maintain their five stars as long as their paperwork is in order,” she tells me as we wind up. When we leave the kitchen, two customers sitting down to chicken wraps and a large serving of chips look up at us, with our white coats and hairnets, in a concerned manner. “Is it all right in there?” one man asks, voice lowered. “Yes,” we assure him. “Looks good.” They nod and tuck into their meal. King’s Peri Peri Chicken: High Street South, East Ham Next is a visit to King’s Peri Peri Chicken. The inspection is a follow-up after the shop was given a score of zero, the lowest possible, in March. Nkansah is back to see if it has made improvements. What were the issues at the last visit? “Oh, everything,” she says. Most significantly, there was no hand-washing station, meaning that employees were either washing their hands in the large washing-up sink or not at all. Today, Nkansah is pleased to see that a hand-washing sink has been installed. The manager is not in, so a staff member shows us around the property, starting with the food preparation area, which is in a basement below the shop. It is small and dark, and the floor is slippery with oil, but quite cool, which Nkansah says is a point in the restaurant’s favour. On the bench is a large plastic crate full of flour in which the raw chicken is tossed before being taken upstairs to be fried. There are two other containers on shelves below the work surface, each holding flour, bits of which are stuck to the sides of the container with, Nkansah assumes, chicken juice. She worries that the same flour is used to coat chicken day in and day out. The chef, who has been working at the shop for two weeks, struggles to understand Nkansah’s questions about how often they are cleaned, first saying they were cleaned every week, then every day and then every two days. It is unclear how much of this is a language barrier and how much is his uncertainty about the details of the cleaning schedule. “I’ve been in this business for a long time,” says Nkansah, gesturing to the crates. “This is not today’s flour.” Storage is also a problem: food should be kept on shelves off the ground. But a bag of rice and a sack of chicken breading mix, both open, and a bag of bread rolls, are on the floor. A large rice cooker sits in the corner of the kitchen next to cleaning chemicals. Nkansah looks into the fridge, which she says is kept at a good temperature, and pulls out large open tins of jalapeños and olives, as well as a large uncovered saucepan of sticky sauce meant to go on rice. “This is one of my pet hates,” says Nkansah. “I wouldn’t even do this at home, putting the whole pot in the fridge.” She orders the staff to throw out the contents of the saucepan and both tins. Nkansah revisits the shop a week later when the manager is in. He shows her the food safety paperwork. Because the shop had taken some measures to improve standards since the March inspection, it is rated up from a zero, meaning “urgent improvement necessary”, to a two, signifying “improvement necessary”. As we leave the shop, we pass a long queue of people waiting to buy chicken and I wonder whether they would keep standing in line if they knew the store’s food safety rating. There is evidence that forcing businesses to display their food hygiene scores improves quality. When Wales made it mandatory for businesses to publicly display their ratings in November 2013, the proportion of places with a zero rating fell from 0.6% to the current rate of 0.2%. Northern Ireland will introduce a similar mandatory display policy on 7 October, but publicly displaying ratings is not mandatory in England or Scotland. Agraba Grill: Barking Road, East Ham The final visit for the day is supposed to be to a chicken shop, Peri Peri de Griller, which Nkansah shut down in July. She is back to see if it has improved conditions and can be allowed to reopen. Instead, we find that the shop has been sold and a new store, Agraba Grill, has opened in the same location. It is in its second week of operation. The business is a Turkish takeaway, advertising kofta, kebabs and falafel wraps, but it still seems to sell a lot of fried chicken. Again, the manager is not in, so someone who says he is a friend of the manager shows Nkansah the premises. Walking through the kitchen, the problems are immediately evident. The food preparation area, covering half of the kitchen, has no lights. “Can I tell you one thing?” Nkansah says. “You cannot be running this food business in this darkness, it will not help you.” She moves on to the other problems, among them the ceiling, which has a large hole, and an open drain. “You see, all these holes is where you can get cockroaches,” she says. There are large piles of junk in the back of the kitchen – an old cooker, bags of rubbish and stacks of boxes. “If pests come in, they’re going to live in there and breed, so all the boxes and things you don’t need, they need to go,” Nkansah says. There are other problems. There is no basin in the staff toilet – “So where do you think they’re washing their hands?” Nkansah asks, with a raised eyebrow – and she is unimpressed to find an ashtray in the kitchen. “If someone is smoking back here, they need to stop, it’s illegal,” she says. Nkansah is immediately reassured that no one does. Mostly, she is frustrated that conditions have not improved since the previous business was shut down. Places that are closed down cannot be reopened without being reinspected, but they can be sold on. Owners of a new food business are required to register it with the council 28 days before they start operating, which leads to a food safety inspection, often within a month of operation. But this direction is frequently ignored and Collins says he knows of just one instance of a successful prosecution of a business for failing to register with the council. Nkansah and Collins are adamant that the way to combat this problem is to introduce licences for food businesses, which would require owners to show proof of food safety training before they start serving customers. Checking back with the council two weeks later, Collins tells me that the business has been sold again – the shop now has its fifth owner in nine months. The new proprietor is working with the council on improving standards at the premises before opening. Back in the office, inspections done for the day, the food safety team are deciding where to go for a late lunch. But with the morning’s inspections playing on their minds, they opt for a safe bet: McDonald’s on the high street, food safety rating five.   Article Title:Greeks Appeal for Aid After Fire Damages Refugee Camp   Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/europe/refugee-camp-greece-fire.html?ref=europe Article author(s) NIKI KITSANTONIS Article date: SEPT. 20, 2016 News source: nytimes ATHENS — Thousands of people were left homeless after a fire tore through a refugee camp Monday night on the Aegean island of Lesbos, and the Greek authorities appealed on Tuesday to the European Union for more support in managing the migration crisis. The fire, which started in the island’s main Moria camp, destroyed 50 prefabricated homes and dozens of tents, driving 4,400 migrants into nearby fields, according to humanitarian aid workers. Footage aired on Greek television showed the bulk of the camp in flames. About 100 unaccompanied children were the first to be resettled to a hostel Monday night, and about half the families had returned to the Moria camp by midday on Tuesday. The Shipping Ministry said it would send a vessel to anchor at the island, providing temporary accommodation for about 1,000 of the migrants. “Things are very difficult,” an Interior Ministry official, Nikos Toskas, told Greek radio. “The Europeans must send real, genuine aid,” he said. He condemned European countries that “build fences and then send blankets,” an apparent reference to Balkan states that closed their borders to migrants this year, leaving thousands trapped in Greece. The cause of the blaze remained unclear. Local news media said clashes had broken out between different ethnic groups in the camp amid rumors that large numbers of migrants would be sent back to Turkey. The police detained nine camp residents. Earlier in the day, residents protested, calling for the migrants to leave the island. In the wake of the unrest, Mr. Toskas said, two riot police units would be sent to the island. A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said frustrations had frequently bubbled over into clashes in camps, as many migrants have been living in poor conditions for months amid uncertainty about their future. “These people gave up everything to seek a better life months ago, and now they’re stuck,” said Roland Schoenbauer, the agency’s representative in Greece. He said frustrations and tension were being fueled by the slow pace at which the Greek authorities were processing the migrants’ asylum applications, and a sluggish European relocation program that has moved 3,700 people to other countries from Greece over the past year, far short of the target of 66,400. If the pace does not pick up, “it will take several years to resolve the problem,” Mr. Schoenbauer said. “This is not going to go away,” he continued, adding that economic migrants who do not merit asylum should be repatriated “in a humane and dignified way” to free up space at the camps. More than 60,000 refugees or asylum seekers are in Greece, the vast majority in camps across the country, most of them cramped and dirty. Over 5,700 are on Lesbos, which has borne the brunt of the migrant influx into Greece. Arrivals from neighboring Turkey have dropped since the peak of the crisis this time last year, when thousands made the short, perilous journey across the Aegean Sea aboard rickety boats, many drowning in the attempt. An agreement in March between the European Union and Turkey to curb human smuggling across the Aegean reduced the arrivals to virtually zero. However, there has been a significant uptick since July, after the failed coup attempt in Turkey. Now scores, sometimes hundreds, are arriving daily. The increase in arrivals and rising tensions in the camps have fueled protests in some communities close to state-run camps where many residents are fed up with the growing migrant populations. Last week, residents on another Aegean island, Chios, protested. The upheaval has been exploited by members of far-right groups who have also protested, often clashing with more moderate demonstrators. Mayor Spyros Galinos of Lesbos said the protests were being “guided by certain circles, far-right circles who are being supported by members of other parties that have found the opportunity to boost their following, and all this is a dangerous climate that can become explosive.” Addressing a United Nations summit meeting in New York on Monday, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, called on other European Union countries to take in more refugees from Greece and emphasized the risk of giving “space to nationalistic and xenophobic forces to show their faces.”

Empathy is not finite. Some people would have you believe that it is, but I think that humans are capable of more than the capitalists would have you believe. I think that I'm going to stop paying attention to the news. It's become a negative force in my life and I think that I would be much happier if I didn't pay attention to American politics ever again.


Airline worker gunned down at Oklahoma City airport, suspect found dead —  A gunman murdered a Southwest Airlines employee, then killed himself Tuesday at Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport in what police described as a premeditated attack.   Michael Winchester, 52, was shot while walking between a crowded terminal and the airport employee parking area. The unidentified suspect was later found dead in a pickup truck in public parking garage overlooking the scene. Police said the suspect appeared to die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Oklahoma City Police Capt. Paco Balderrama said the shooter apparently knew the victim's schedule and routine.   "This individual went there and waited for the employee to either be coming or going to take this opportunity," Balderrama said. He wouldn't say conclusively that it was a "sniper-type" attack. A LinkedIn page with Winchester's name described him as a ramp supervisor for Southwest and said he was from Washington, Okla., about 35 miles south of the airport.   Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said in a statement that the airline would cancel all flights scheduled to depart Oklahoma City for the remainder of the day Tuesday.   The 1 p.m. shooting set off a scramble at the airport, with police immediately closing the sprawling complex and asking passengers inside to seek cover. They diverted incoming flights and refused to give already-loaded aircraft permission to leave. There were concerns the gunman might have entered the terminal and mingled among passengers or employees. "We have a heightened level of security all the time. These people have access to aircraft so we're very concerned about that," airport spokeswoman Karen Carney said. Hundreds of people were stranded inside the terminal for more than three hours before officers began letting them leave slowly. Carney said about 300 people were held on aircraft away from the terminal after their planes landed ahead of a ground stop. Once police determined that a suspect found in a red pickup truck on the second floor of a public parking garage was dead, officers gave an all-clear. The airport handles between 7,000 and 8,000 passengers daily for Alaska, Delta, Southwest and United airlines and has a separate terminal that serves as a transfer center for federal inmates. A jet carrying inmates to the transfer site was allowed to land while the rest of the airport was shuttered. Video from a television station helicopter showed what appeared to be a pool of blood about 100 feet from the airport's employee parking area -- and about 100 yards from the airport's ticket counters and departure area. While airports have high security, it wasn't immediately known whether surveillance cameras might show the shooting, Balderrama said. Balderrama initially said police had received reports of a possible second victim, but no one was found. Police found the suspect's truck in the garage about three hours after the shooting and determined that someone was inside. They were not sure whether he was dead or alive. After about 75 minutes, using a robot, officers determined the suspect was dead. A number of inbound flights were diverted to other airports after Will Rogers suspended operations. Southwest redirected one flight back to Dallas while a Las Vegas to Houston flight that stops in Oklahoma City went to Amarillo, Texas, instead. Two commercial flights from Chicago's O'Hare Airport were directed to Tulsa, about 100 miles away. Michael Winchester was a punter on the University of Oklahoma's 1985 national championship team. His son, James, also played for the school and currently plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. "Our hearts are truly heavy for the entire Winchester Family. Mike was a former Sooner student athlete as was his son James/daughter Carolyn," the school's athletic director, Joe Castiglione, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. He added "daughter Becca was also a student athlete. Please keep this beautiful family in your prayers" in a later tweet.

Sometimes I wonder about the impetus that drives people who murder other people. I think there would be a lot less murder if guns didn't make it so simple. Pulling a trigger. Driving a blade into someone would take a lot more conviction that simply shooting a bullet. I don't know. Have you ever felt like killing another person?


Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi under fire as alleged military abuse follows militant attack —  SITTWE, Burma — A security crackdown following militant attacks has exacerbated the humanitarian situation in a predominantly Muslim region of Burma and focused international attention on the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Burmese troops launched a wide-ranging manhunt last month in a troubled area of northern Rakhine state populated largely by Rohingya Muslims, leaving scorched homes and displaced residents in their wake. The manhunt followed an Oct. 9 attack on police posts that left nine policemen dead. The government has accused members of the Rohingya community of being behind the attack. Another police officer was killed in what may have been a second militant attack last week, according to state media. Renata Lok-Dessallien, the United Nations resident coordinator in Burma, was among a team of United Nations officials and diplomats who visited the affected area last week. She said authorities had assured the U.N. that aid would resume after being effectively cut off for weeks. But how soon is not clear. U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel has called for a “thorough investigation” into alleged abuse and for the restoration of humanitarian access, the State Department said. An estimated 15 members of the security forces — roughly 10 police and five soldiers — have died and more than 30 Muslim residents have been reported killed in the security crackdown. Burma is also known as Myanmar. Human Rights Watch has reported that satellite data shows villages that have been burned, and the Reuters news agency and the Myanmar Times newspaper have chronicled the alleged rape of Muslim women by soldiers. The Myanmar Times reporter was fired following her report on the issue. “Any allegation of rape or sexual violence is a profound concern to us,” Lok-Dessallien said. Residents in Rakhine describe a landscape of fear in which members of the Rohingya community have allegedly been barred from going to mosques or work. “We can’t go anywhere, as we’re not allowed to,” Min Hlaing, a Muslim businessman in a restricted area near Maungdaw, said last week by telephone. He said food prices had risen as a result of roadblocks and claimed that at least one community leader was held by security forces. The crisis marks the first major test of Suu Kyi’s new democratically elected administration, which took over March 31 after decades of military rule. Analysts say she must find a way to work with Burma’s powerful military, which still controls the country’s security forces. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been accused of not doing enough to address the Rohingya crisis despite her lifelong commitment to Burmese freedom. In an interview with The Washington Post in New Delhi on Oct. 18, Suu Kyi said border security posts must be strengthened, rule of law followed and a development plan created for the area. “So many things have to be done simultaneously. It’s not an easy job,” she said. “But we are, of course, determined to contain the situation and to make sure that we restore peace and harmony as soon as possible.” Suu Kyi’s government has said the men who attacked police posts on Oct. 9 were from a little-known group with foreign backing. In YouTube videos, the group has called itself the Movement of Faith. There are about 1 million Rohingya Muslims in Burma who are essentially stateless, and many in the Buddhist-majority country consider them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. More than 120,000 Rohingya remain confined to dirty camps in the area after violent clashes with their Buddhist neighbors in 2012. Rohingyas said they do not believe that there was a militant group operating in the state. “This is a rumor. This is not true. This is the deliberate assassination from the government,” said Mohamed Amin, 21, a Rohingya who lives in the heavily guarded Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe. More than 16,000 people from both faiths have been displaced by the search, and 100,000 are without their regular food assistance, according to Pierre Peron, of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Health services have been suspended, and weeks have passed without access to mobile health clinics and emergency referrals. “You have a very vulnerable population that is even more vulnerable now,” Peron said last week. The state government spokesman, Tin Maung Shwe, said the matter was “an internal affair, not an international affair.” Residents in the crowded camps said that in the days after the attacks, doctors who normally visit a few times a week did not show, although some visits have resumed. Suu Kyi blamed the health-care deficit on the security situation. “It’s even difficult for us to provide enough security to give them the health care that they need,” she said. “It is another big problem, because doctors and nurses who go to camps [for displaced people] are not treated well by the communities when they go back.” She added, “The whole thing is a rigmarole.” At a community health clinic in the Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe one day recently, there were no doctors, just a weary-looking pharmacist and several patients waiting in a dimly lit room. “We are doing as much as we can,” said Maung Htun, 54, the pharmacist. “But now we are only capable of healing small things.” Suu Kyi said that the government must create a resettlement program. A controversial citizenship-verification process that has been criticized by rights groups has been stymied because, Suu Kyi said, many Rohingya refused to participate. “We can’t fix a time frame, because it depends on how much everybody is prepared to cooperate,” she said. “We started off this movement for citizenship verification in order that we might move forward, but then, if there is no cooperation, it has been very difficult for us.” On the ground, the latest flare-up has frayed hope and diminished an already low level of confidence in Suu Kyi’s government. Maung Aye Shwe, 18, a volunteer teacher in one of the camps, said nothing has changed since Suu Kyi’s historic election a year ago. “There is no improvement within this year. We are having just oppression — no changes or improvement,” he said. Maung Kyaw Win, 42, said that he once worked as a goldsmith in his village, and that he does not know when he and his family will be able to return home. But he does know that relations with his Muslim neighbors will not be the same. “No one will trust each other until the end of the universe,” he said. Gowen reported from New Delhi. Aung Naing Soe contributed from Sittwe.

Reading about the plight of the Rohingya is always a very sobering experience. Basically, these people are nation-less. They are being persecuted in Burma and forced out of neighboring Bangladesh. I feel like Suu Kyi is being unfairly blamed for a situation that is just too complex for the country to solve effectively. I'm really trying to put myself into the shoes of one of the oppressed Muslim minorities like the Rohingya or the Uyghers and having a very difficult time imagining what a day in their lives must be like.


US-Backed Air Campaign Accused Of War Crimes In Yemen —  On an August morning, a taxi driver in northwestern Yemen hugged his kids and jokingly told his family, "Forgive me if I don't come back." It was his way of laughing off the danger of driving in a country where airstrikes can hit any road at any time.   In the afternoon, Mohammed al-Khal happened upon just such a strike. Three missiles had hit a highway, leaving bystanders wounded. Al-Khal took one of them, an ice cream vendor, in his car and rushed him to the nearest hospital, run by the international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.   But the warplanes were still hunting.   Moments after al-Khal pulled up at the hospital in the town of Abs, a missile smashed down by his car, just outside the hospital entrance. Al-Khal, a father of eight, was incinerated. The blast ripped through patients and family waiting in an outdoor reception area. Nineteen people were killed, along with two civilians killed on the highway.   The Aug. 15 attack typified what has been a pattern in the nearly 2-year-old air campaign by Saudi Arabia and its allies against Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis. Rights groups and U.N. officials say the U.S.-backed coalition has often either deliberately or recklessly depended on faulty intelligence, failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets and disregarded the likelihood of civilian casualties.   Experts say some of the strikes amount to war crimes.   "The Saudis have been committing war crimes in Yemen," said Gabor Rona, a professor teaching the laws of war at Columbia University. He warned that American personnel helping the coalition "may also be guilty of war crimes."   Nearly 4,000 civilians have been killed in the war, and an estimated 60 percent of them died in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, the U.N. says.   Saudi Arabia launched the coalition campaign in March 2015 in a bid to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, after the Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and the north of the country. The Iranian-backed Houthis are allied with troops loyal to Hadi's ousted predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh.   The war has devastated the country of 26 million, causing widespread hunger and driving 3 million from their homes.   Warplanes have hit medical centers, schools, factories, infrastructure and roads, markets, weddings and residential compounds.   The U.S. and its allies have sold billions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia for the campaign. The U.S. military provides it with intelligence, satellite imagery and logistical help.   Washington underlines it does not make targeting decisions and calls on the coalition to investigate reported violations. Over the summer, the U.S military reduced the number of military personnel advising the coalition from several dozen to fewer than five, an apparent move to distance itself from the campaign.   "U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said.   The coalition says it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and notes rebels often operate among civilians. Rights groups and U.N. officials have reported probable war crimes by the Houthis, including shelling civilian areas and basing their fighters in schools and other civilian locations.     "This is the fog of war," the coalition's spokesman, Saudi Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri, told The Associated Press when asked if there is a pattern of civilian deaths. "In war, there are decisions that should be taken fast."   The coalition, which says it investigates every claim of violations, has made nine investigations public. In two it acknowledged mistakes and said it would pay compensation to victims. In most of the other cases, it said the strikes were against a justified military target.   But critics say the American and international backing has given Saudi Arabia and its allies a free rein.   "We believe that the coalition understood ... it has a green light to commit more massacres in Yemen," said Abdel-Rashed al-Faqeh, the head of Muwatana, one of Yemen's most prominent rights groups.   The strike in Abs underscored several of the problems experts point to in many strikes — the failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets and a lack of proportionality, the principle that use of force must be balanced to avoid civilian casualties.   In the strikes, warplanes initially fired a rocket targeting a Houthi checkpoint manned by two rebels on a highway outside Abs. The fighters escaped, but two more rockets were fired, killing two bystanders and wounding others. It appears the warplanes followed al-Khal's Camry, believing he was carrying a wounded fighter, and struck him outside the hospital.   The hospital was on a coalition list of sites not to be targeted in airstrikes, and had markings on its roof to show it was a medical facility.   The AP interviewed witnesses to the strikes on the highway and at the hospital, as well as al-Khal's two wives.   The head of Doctors Without Border's mission in Yemen, Colette Gadenne, said the coalition acknowledged to the group privately that the strike was a mistake.   The head of the coalition's investigation team, Mansour al-Mansour, said he could not discuss the investigation results in public. He said the coalition gave Doctors Without Borders all information it gathered.   The effect of the strike — the fifth on a facility run by the group in Yemen — has been wide-reaching. The organization pulled its personnel from northern Yemen, straining staff at multiple hospitals.   The Abs hospital served around 100,000 peoplpe, said its manager, Ibrahim Ali. Now it is shut down and the nearest medical facilities are two or three hours away by car. "Patients sometimes die on the road," Ali said.   Rona, the legal expert, said those behind the Abs strikes "didn't take sufficient precautions to determine that the people in the taxi are targetable." Then, warplanes struck where "there would be significant collateral damage to the hospital."   "Any way you look at it, it is a war crime."

I just read an article about the devastation in Yemen. I think that the alliance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia has been nothing but trouble since we decided to started to lust after their wealth. Millions have been killed or displaced in conflicts that we are either tacitly or actively backing and it looks like there is no end in sight.


Child sex abuse victim recalls horror of being forced to sleep with father and mother —  A woman has recalled the horror of being forced to have sex with both of her parents and being plied with alcohol from the age of 11.   In a particularly heartbreaking episode of The Dr Phil Show, an incestuous child abuse survivor confronted her biological mother two decades on. Victim Amanda divulged her horrific experience, including her parents making her pose for explicit photographs and videotaping their sexual encounters with a view to sell them online.   Mother Justine – who appeared remorseful for her actions – claimed that she "hates" herself for the crimes made against her daughter. She said: "I know I made poor choices."   The daughter told her mother and the audience: "My innocence was stolen from me."   Television host Dr Phil questioned the mother: "In what parallel universe does a mother watch her daughter performing a sex act on her husband and her father?"   Justine and Amanda's biological father Jim were charged with sexual assault and exploitation of their then 13-year-old daughter in 1996. They both pleaded guilty and received sentences of 20 years in prison.   Amanda shocked the audience when she said: "My parents forced me to have sex with them," before revealing that she was given rewards for the sexual acts and that her mother showed her how to "enjoy" sex. "Justine would show me how good sex would feel by having sex in front of me with my father," she added. The young woman also claimed she was forced to have sex with both parents. She said that mother Justine both coached her sexually and was a "willing participant" in the ongoing sexual abuse.   Amanda revealed that Justine photographed and videotaped much of what she refers to as "encounters." After her parents "got what they wanted", family life would resume as normal.   Following the abuse, Amanda gave an account of what would typically happen thereafter. She said: "Afterwards, it was a normal night, dessert, brush my teeth and bedtime."   She also claimed that her parents threatened her if she revealed their dark secret to anyone in a bid for help. "It's been 20 years since that nightmare ended, but it's still hard to grasp the idea that they are out of prison," she said. According to the victim, her mother Justine had allegedly refused "to acknowledge that she had any significant part" in the molestation.   Jim, who has since reached out to his daughter on Facebook before becoming "manipulative," has yet to apologise to Amanda. She said: "I don't think I've ever received a real apology from Jim. Justine claims that her and her husband's behaviour was fuelled by money. She said: "Jim found out how much money could be made from child pornography.   "If I could take it all back I would. I hate myself for what I did," she added, along with claims that Amanda's father made her "join him" in abusing their daughter. She suggested it was all her then-husband's idea and that she had initially fought him for three months, but eventually "gave in". Contrarily, Jim has previously branded his ex-wife a liar, and stated that she was a willing participant in their heinous sex crimes against their own child. He is to appear on The Dr Phil Show today (17 November) and explain why he had sex with his daughter.   Since the episode aired, the official Twitter account for Dr Phil has posted a slew of tweets regarding child abuse and information on paedophiles.   Many viewers have expressed their horror on Amanda's story, with one person writing on the social media sharing site: "This show is a hard one... don't know how I'm going to stomach tomorrow's continuation," as another put: "SO Sad. Her parents are sick and should be ashamed of themselves".

So, I just read an article about an episode of Dr. Phil that features a young woman who was groomed and sexually abused by both of her parents because of a potential windfall from selling child pornography. I have a hard time wrapping my head around men who abuse their children for sexual gratification, but the fact that her mother was involved in this too makes it almost too horrible to be true.


China: Boy trapped in well found dead after 4 days —  A young boy stuck in a well in northern China since Sunday has been found dead, according to local media.   Rescue crews found the boy's body Thursday in a narrow, abandoned well in the province of Hebei, bringing an end to an almost five-day search involving more than 500 responders. He fell down the well -- just one foot (30 centimeters) wide -- while helping his father harvest vegetables, state news agency Xinhua reported. Too narrow for adults to climb into, rescuers began digging out the 40-meter deep well. Aerial shots of the scene showed excavators working on soft sandy soil around the dry well. Xinhua said the earth was prone to collapse and measures had been taken to support the shaft.

I just read a story about a Chinese boy who went missing and five days later was found dead at the bottom of a well. Apparently, he had been harvesting vegetables with his father. My question is, if you know that you have a well on your property and your son simply vanishes, wouldn't that be the first place that you look?


The World Economic Forum's annual gender gap report is out and it doesn't look good —  The World Economic Forum (WEF) revealed its annual global gender gap report today, and the results are depressing.   The US slipped down to 45th on their ranking of countries by gender equality, behind four African countries and all major European countries (all of which are in the top 20), and down from 28th last year.    This dramatic fall is partly because women's participation in the labor force has declined over the past year and the number of women in senior positions is shrinking.   On a more positive note, the US closed its education gender gap in 2016. This means there is a large pool of educated female talent, even though fewer women are actually working, as can be seen in the table showing the United States' scores below. The annual report looks at progress towards equality between men and women in four key areas: educational attainment, health and survival, economic opportunity, and political empowerment.   Progress towards economic equality in 2016 has slowed globally, with the economic participation and opportunity sub-index dipping to 59% — worse than any point since 2008.  According to the report, the global economic gender gap is not forecasted to close until the year 2196.    That slowdown is partly due to imbalances in salaries, with women around the world on average earning just half of what men earn despite working longer hours, as well as a drop in women's labor force participation, with the global average for women standing at 54% compared to 81% for men. This is  despite the fact that women attend university in equal or higher numbers than men in 95 countries.    The number of women in senior positions also continues to be low, with only four countries in the world having equal numbers of male and female legislators, senior officials and managers.    "The world is facing an acute misuse of talent by not acting faster to tackle gender inequality, which could put economic growth at risk and deprive economies of the opportunity to develop," according to a statement issued by the WEF.   More progress has been made in the education sub-index, with the gender gap there having closed 95%. Similarly, the health and survival sub-index has also improved, with that gap having closed 96%.   The slow rate of economic progress for women poses a particular risk because many of the jobs that usually employ women are "likely to be hit the hardest by the coming age of technological disruption" says the report.   "This 'hollowing out' of female livelihoods could deprive economies further of women’s talents and increases the urgency for more women to enter high-growth fields such as those demanding STEM skills." STEM refers to a high education skill set consisting of science, technology, engineering and math.    The top four nations that lead the WEF's report are all Scandinavian countries, with Iceland taking the lead, followed by Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The next highest are Rwanda, Ireland, the Philippines, Slovenia and new Zealand. Rounding out the top 10 is Nicaragua.    The Global Gender Gap Index ranks 144 countries to understand whether countries are distributing their resources equally between women and men, irrespective of their overall income levels. The variables used to create the index come from publicly available data from international organizations like the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organization among others, and from perception surveys conducted by the WEF.

I just read an article from a couple years ago about the U.S. ranking in comparison to other countries with regard to gender equality. It turns out our backward little country has slipped down to 48th in the international rankings. Am I surprised? No. Will things get worse before they get better? Yes.


Endangered Wildlife Are At Risk After 200,000 Liters Of Fuel Leak Into British Colombia’s Coastal Waters —  Ten days ago, diesel fuel was leaked into Heiltsuk First Nation water near Bella Bella, British Colombia. The leak was caused by a tugboat which crashed in a remote region off British Columbia’s Central Coast.   Following the oil leak, underwater dive images revealed endangered wildlife including abalone, amidst the fuel spill area. Efforts are being made by the Heiltsuk to help recover this protected species. Divers also discovered schools of juvenile herring around the sunken Nathan E. Stewart tugboat.   The outer boom which was put in place to contain the spilled oil had broke free on Friday causing the oil to spread and bad weather had prevented clean up crews from working on the spill for four consecutive days. By Saturday, salvage crews had recovered more than 40 percent of the 200,000 liters of fuel estimated to be in the vessel, but the damage had already been done.   Mike Reid, the Heiltsuk Aquatics Manager said that there is an increased concern about the marine life in the Gale Passage. This is an extremely sensitive ecological and marine rescue area and there is a crucial herring spawning area which is located at the south end of the passage.   “In the first week of the spill, we had the largest tides of the month at 17.4 feet,” he said in a release. “Even without bad weather, the speed of tides rushing through the spill site are likely to flush diesel into the area.”   The local clam fishery has been shut down and BC NDP leader John Horgan criticized the spill response.   “It was tragic to see the sheen of diesel on the water,” Horgan said, adding. “You couldn’t have picked a worse place to drop this boat into the bottom of the ocean.”   The company that owns the tugboat, Kirby Offshore Marine has made their apologies to the Heiltsuk First Nation and gave thanks to the agencies involved in the spill cleanup.   According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), diesel is one of the most toxic types of oil for marine creatures.   Depending weather conditions in the area, 1500 feet of kepner boom will be placed around the primary and secondary containment boom for additional protection.

I just read about a tugboat that spilled a significant amount of oil off the coast of England. There's a lot of talk about automating cars, what about boats? It seems like every little bit we hear about another oil spill that has devastated wildlife and killed a bunch a healthy natural aquatic development. Why does it keep happening? Because people just accept it as a fact of life.


Surprise! British Red Squirrels Carry Leprosy —  Some of them harbor strains that infected medieval Europeans, but that have been eradicated on the U.K. mainland for centuries. In 2006, Anna Meredith came across a dead red squirrel with a weird skin disorder. Its ears lacked the characteristic red tufts, and were instead swollen, smooth, and shiny, like the cauliflower ears of boxers and rugby players. Its nose, muzzle, and eyelids were similarly swollen and hairless. Meredith, a professor of conservation medicine at the University of Edinburgh, had never seen anything like this before. But she soon saw the same problems again—in six more squirrels over the next six years. She and her colleagues analyzed tissue samples from the dead animals. And to their surprise, they discovered that the squirrels had leprosy. That’s astonishing for two reasons. First, even though leprosy still affects at least 385,000 people around the world (including a few hundred in the U.S.), the disease was eradicated from Britain several centuries ago. Second, squirrels aren’t meant to get leprosy. The disease is mainly caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae, which attacks the skin and peripheral nerves. Chimps and some monkeys can occasionally catch it from people, but until now, scientists knew of only two species that naturally harbor the disease: humans, and nine-banded armadillos in the southern United States. The latter actually acquired the disease from the former; European settlers brought leprosy to the New World and then passed it onto armadillos several centuries ago. Meredith’s discovery generated enough publicity that members of the public started sending her pictures of squirrels from their own backyards, some of whom had the same lesions. Most of the shots came from Scotland, but one was from Brownsea Island—an island off the southern coast of England, and some 480 miles away from Edinburgh. “Someone had done a day trip there, seen a squirrel, and said: Is this leprosy?” says Meredith. “I looked at it and said: Wow, it’s identical!” Working with Stewart Cole, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Meredith analyzed the cadavers of 110 red squirrels from Great Britain and Ireland, and found that almost a third of them had leprosy, including several without any clinical signs. Those in Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Wight were infected with Mycobacterium lepromatosis—a second species of leprosy bacterium that was only identified in humans in 2008. By contrast, all the squirrels from Brownsea Island had M. leprae, the more traditional leprosy microbe. By comparing the microbes’ genomes, the team showed that the M. leprae strains currently infecting the Brownsea squirrels are almost identical to those recovered from a medieval human skeleton buried in the nearby city of Winchester some 730 years ago. So it’s possible that humans passed M. leprae to red squirrels several centuries ago, and that the Brownsea individuals have harbored the microbe long after its eradication on the mainland. Could the squirrels ever pass the disease back to us? Armadillos certainly do in the United States, but for the moment, there’s no evidence of squirrel-to-human transmission in Britain. “It’s not impossible, but there’s no evidence that we’re at risk,” says Meredith. “We’re more concerned about the squirrels.” Red squirrels are an endangered species in Britain. Once common, they’ve had to contend with the introduction of gray squirrels from the Americas, which outcompeted them and infected them with squirrelpox—an often fatal disease. As a result, the country is currently home to more than 2.5 million grays but just 140,000 reds, most of which live in Scotland. Those that get leprosy can live for many years with the condition, but Meredith wants to see if their health suffers in the long run. They might eventually die because they’re unable to feed properly, or because leprosy makes them more vulnerable to other infections. (Contrary to stigma, leprosy doesn’t make body parts fall off; instead, deadened peripheral nerves sometimes stop people from noticing injuries or infections in their extremities, leading to eventual amputations.)   Why did the squirrels become infected in the first place? They belong to a different order of mammals than either humans or nine-banded armadillos, and all three species are separated by around 100 million years of evolution. And yet the three of us, out of all the mammals in the world, are the only ones know to harbor M. leprae. And for that matter, why does the red squirrel get infected when the closely related grey squirrel doesn’t seem to? No one knows. Meredith’s team looked at an immune gene called TLR1. A few mutations in this gene have been linked to either a greater or lower risk of leprosy in humans, but none of these specific mutations are found in either armadillos or squirrels. Some squirrels did seem to have their own TLR1 mutations that reduced their risk of infection, but with such a small sample, it’s hard to say for sure. Perhaps the weird troika of host species simply reflects our ignorance about where leprosy hides. It may be lurking in more animals than we realize. “We need to look more closely at the possibility of a wildlife reservoir,” says Meredith. And “there is circumstantial evidence that M. leprae has an environmental reservoir,” says Helen Donoghue, from University College London. That is, the microbe might hide out in water, soil, vegetation, or something else. Perhaps that’s how the red squirrels originally became infected, she adds. The idea of an environmental reservoir has been long disputed, but perhaps needs to be revisited in light of the squirrel discovery. “Although leprosy has been known since biblical times, and still remains a major public health problem in many parts of the world, our understanding of how this infection transmits and causes disease is very limited,” says Anura Rambukkana from the University of Edinburgh. And since the infected squirrels develop symptoms that “somewhat resemble human leprosy”, he adds, they may help us to understand how the disease manifests in humans, and how it spreads between us.

I just read an article about instances of red squirrels in the U.K. contracting leprosy. Apparently. there are only three species of mammal on the planet that can actively carry and suffer from the disease, which include: humans, banded armadillos and now red squirrels. I also wasn't aware that it kills nerves throughout your body so that infections can go unnoticed, resulting in amputations of limbs.


'This isn't Pompeii, this is Aleppo' —  As 200 airstrikes hammered Aleppo last weekend, activists and aid workers posted dozens of pictures and videos online. Each of them heartbreaking, each helping to convey the horror of the besieged Syrian city. On Friday afternoon, a photo emerged of Brahim Sawas and his 10-year old son, Mahmoud, who had fallen victim to the war. They were covered in blood and dust, the pressure of the rubble holding their final postures in place. "This isn't Pompeii, this is Aleppo," one social media user wrote. A family devastated   The tragedy of this family doesn't end there. Another image shows Sawas' 8-month-old baby, Muhammad, buried under rubble in a separate room as Syrian Civil Defense workers try to recover the child's body from the dirt and dust. Um Mahmoud, Sawas' wife and the mother of the two dead boys, survived the airstrike along with her daughter. The mother and daughter were sleeping in the same room with the 8-month-old baby. Weekend of horror Sawas and the two boys were among more than 300 people killed last weekend in a new wave of violence. The deadly strike that hit the family home at 5 a.m. Friday in eastern Aleppo's rebel-held neighborhood of Qaterji was the first of a series of hundred. One activist from Aleppo described to CNN a level of bombing never seen before in a conflict that began more five years ago. In response to the surge in airstrikes, activists took to Twitter, using an Arabic hashtag that translates to #HolocaustAleppo and sharing pictures and videos from the city. Some had mistakenly described the photo of the father and son as that of a mother clutching her baby.

Just read an article about people being buried alive in Aleppo. The situation in Syria has gotten so out of hand its gotten to the point that you almost want to ignore it for your own mental health. I know the article is dated, but Trump's decision to remove support from our Kurdish allies in Syria is one of the greatest strategic blunders since the instigation of the Iraq war.


Justice For Disturbing Case Of Kitten Strangled To Death in Spokane, Washington —  Last month, a man named Wesley O’Dell and his wife, were walking around their neighborhood in Spokane, Washington and found something that changed their lives and opened their eyes to the cruelty that humanity can possess. *The real image of the kitten they found was too graphic and disturbing to display. The couple spotted a baby kitten on the side of the road completely wrapped in phone and electrical chargers and dumped like a piece of garbage on the sidewalk. When they approached the helpless kitten, they noticed that it was methodically wrapped so tightly around the kitten’s little body, from its tiny neck, to its small tail and back legs so that so that the poor things appendages were tied up next to its face. When O’Dell began to cut the cords off the the kittens small body, he felt that rigor mortis had already set in and it was hard for him to seperate the wires from its stiff figure. He also saw that the kitten’s jaw was ripped down, with a cord running through its mouth and around its neck. O’Dell was absolutely disgusted with this sight and is now determined to take action and find the culprit accountable for the horrendous crime. This act of cruelty is inhumane, disgusting and it is truly unthinkable that someone would do such a thing to a kitten who had barely even opened its eyes. The couple is now standing up and fighting for animal rights and animal welfare until justice and equality is received by all beings living on this earth. O’Dell is making a point to voice his story so that everyone is aware of the animal abuse that happened in Spokane, Washington and the lack of empathy that his local governing body has over the gruesome death of a helpless baby kitten. “Can you imagine how that would feel? What you would think, the fear in your heart, to be completely helpless at the hands of something much bigger and more poweful than you. Try to feel the pain and sadness this infant feline would have felt. Imagine what you would be thinking as the terror welled up in your swelling throat? The darkness that you would experience as you took your last breath, while someone laughed at you. Think how it would feel to be snuffed out in a cold dark street, scared and alone.” This act happened just two blocks from the couples home while their local police and animal shelters have done nothing about it. O’Dell says that this horrific situation must be remedied and he will try his hardest to ensure justice is served. Since this occurrence, O’Dell has spoken to people throughout the nation who would like to help, including the group “Gaurdians of the Rescue”. The rescue group has sent him flyers to be posted around his neighborhood as well as in local veterinarian hospitals and emergency pet clinics. He is hopeful that by distributing these flyers around town, someone will come forward with information on this crime and possibly who is at fault. O’Dell is asking for the public to repost this tragic story on social media and to talk about the kitten with friends and neighbors, not allowing for the kitten’s death to be in vein. Raising awareness of this story is one of the most important things we as animal lovers can do at this point.

I just read an article about a kitten that had been brutally bound and left to die on the side of the road in Washington. The article itself was a little too cloying to take very seriously. You know when something is trying a little too hard to tug on your heartstrings and it just has the opposite effect?


3 U.S. military trainers killed in gunfire by security units at Jordan base —  At least three U.S. military trainers in Jordan were fatally shot by security forces Friday when their vehicle failed to stop at the gate of a military base, Jordanian and U.S. officials said.   The U.S. military service members “came under fire” as they approached a Jordanian training facility, said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. Few other details about the incident were given. Cook said U.S. and Jordanian authorities were investigating the cause.   Earlier, Jordan’s military said there was “an exchange of gunfire” after the vehicle’s driver ignored demands to stop outside an air base in southern Jordan. A Jordanian officer was injured, the statement said.   Other details of the incident at the King Faisal Air Base were not immediately clear. Investigators were trying to piece together the events, including whether a possible miscommunication was to blame.   The U.S. official said two of the service members died later in Jordan’s capital, Amman, where they were airlifted for treatment.   Jordan is a close ally of the United States, and military training by U.S. personnel is common. Jordan is also part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in neighboring Syria.   [Prominent Jordanian writer gunned down]   The U.S. Embassy in Amman said in a statement it was “in contact with the appropriate Jordanian authorities, who have offered their full support.”   A U.S. diplomat in Amman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said American and Jordanian officials “do not believe” the incident was terrorism-related, but he offered no further details.   The King Faisal base, about 150 miles southeast of Amman and near the border with Saudi Arabia, has long been used for joint exercises between Jordan and its various allies, including the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia. The base is also part of the network in Jordan to train Western-backed Syrian rebels.   According to U.S. diplomats and Jordanian officials, there are more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel based in Jordan, the majority serving as advisers to Jordan’s armed forces and Syrian rebel factions.   Jordan’s military has been on high alert since June, when a suicide attacker driving a bomb-rigged truck barreled through Syria’s border with Jordan, setting off a blast outside a Syrian refugee camp that killed seven Jordanian troops. It was the deadliest attack along the tense border, which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have crossed during the more than five-year conflict in their homeland.   In November 2015, a Jordanian police officer opened fire at a police training academy south of Amman, killing two U.S. contractors.

Just read a story about an incident in Jordan where at least two American soldiers were killed in what appeared to be a mix up. A vehicle carrying American soldiers failed to yield at a gate to an military base in Amman and Jordanian troops ended up opening fire on the vehicle. Apparently, there had been an attack on the base recently, so I can understand why the patrols would be on their toes.


Shooting Occurs Near California Polling Station —  Police have rushed to the scene in Azusa on the night of the election. The person who opened fire earlier this afternoon is dead. Police identified him as a Hispanic male. Police found the suspect dead when they entered the home he had barricaded himself in. It is unclear if he killed himself or whether he died from police fire. The suspect had an assault-style rifle. Police are now searching the area to make sure there are no other suspects and there are no victims. Officials also confirmed the shooting was not related to the election. Previous reports the suspect was a woman were false, police say. Shooting Victim Identified The one fatality from the shooting Tuesday afternoon was a man in his 70s, police say. He was killed after an assailant with an assault-style weapon opened fire. The shooter is still surrounded by police, barricaded in a nearby home.

Just read an article about a shooting that happened in California. The details were sparse, but apparently a man opened fire with an assault rifle in the public space and only killed one elderly man. Say what you will, but this seems like close to an ideal resolution to a scenario like this. The article then doubled back and said the suspect was still alive despite pronouncing him dead earlier in the text. Odd.