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


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

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


Man kills two sons, himself, police say —  A man shot his two young sons and then killed himself in an apparent murder-suicide on Saturday, police said.   The father, identified as Christopher Cadenbach, said St. Louis County Police Department's Deputy Chief Kenneth Cox. He was wanted for domestic violence in Franklin County, Missouri, Cox said. As a result, the St. Louis County police had been looking for him. On Saturday afternoon, Cadenbach, 43, visited his mother and his two children. Amber Alert leads police to dad His mother became worried after hearing him say that he wasn't going to be taken alive, Cox said. She alerted police, who then issued an Amber Alert for his two abducted sons, Ethan, 5, and Owen, 4. Later that evening, a park ranger spotted a 2006 Ford Focus matching the Amber Alert description in a local park and alerted police. As soon as the officers arrived, shots rang out, Cox said. "He was apparently shooting his children. We tried to engage him and it appears he took his own life."

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


This Is What It’s Like on the Front Lines of Nigeria’s Unseen Hunger Crisis —  Millions of Nigerians survived Boko Haram, but now a humanitarian catastrophe is putting their lives at risk again. ABUJA, Nigeria ― After her father died two years ago during a Boko Haram raid on her village in Yobe, Nigeria, 16-year-old Zulyatu, her younger siblings and their mother fled to Biu, a town in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state. A year ago their mother left for another town to get treatment for high blood pressure from a traditional healer, leaving Zulyatu alone to care for her siblings, 12-year-old Abubakar and 8-year-old Amira. Zulyatu said hunger affects every part of their lives. They only eat once or twice a day, and they often feel dizzy from hunger. In their home village, before Boko Haram came, their father was a butcher, so the family always had enough meat to eat. The hunger makes her long for her father, and Zulyatu said that if he were still alive they wouldn’t be having this experience. The focus on their struggle for food also leaves the siblings with little time or access for education. Before they came to Biu, Zulyatu was interested in studying to become a doctor, but they have been unable to attend school since the move. Sadly, experiences of hunger and desperation, like those of Zulyatu and her siblings, are the rule rather than the exception in conflict-weary Nigeria and in the greater Lake Chad Basin area. The hunger has become so strong, that one woman recently told us that she had become so desperate to feed her children that she took to boiling grass. The militant group Boko Haram emerged in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, in 2002, but much of the world first became familiar with the terrorist group when it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in 2014. Years of violence and destruction, combined with widespread and underestimated drought conditions, have created an ongoing crisis here. But as the Nigerian army retakes territory held by Boko Haram, another problem has emerged in the country ― a horrific and massive humanitarian crisis is revealing itself. More than 4 million people are food insecure, not knowing from where their next meal will come. In August, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that in Borno state, where Zulyatu lives, nearly a quarter of a million children are severely malnourished, and one in five will die if they aren’t treated. Mercy Corps, the global organization I work for, is one of the organizations mounting a response to this urgent and largely overlooked humanitarian situation. Our team has accessed remote villages and towns in south Borno state, where regular army checkpoints serve as a reminder of the serious threat Boko Haram still poses. But despite efforts from aid organizations like ours, there are still 2.2 million people living in unreachable areas in northeast Nigeria, with no contact to the outside world ― and no guarantee of safe passage for aid workers. We don’t yet know the full extent of the crisis ― the Nigerian military and humanitarian organizations like Mercy Corps are still trying to push into these parts of the country ― but based on what we’ve seen so far, we fear the worst.  “The carnage becomes more glaring as we gain access to newer areas, and it has become a struggle for those of us in the forefront to comprehend how to help the thousands we come across who need our support,” said Michael Mu’azu, our humanitarian projects manager. “What keeps me going is the fact that I can contribute to making a difference, and because I work with an amazing team of men and women who have dedicated their lives to providing lifesaving assistance, I wake up every day and go to work knowing more people will get to smile.” For now though, many of the people we come across are not smiling. “When I see the people in these communities, I see hunger and suffering in their faces,” Umar Shuaibu, our operations officer, said. In our internal assessments this past July, we found that in the area of Damboa more than 80 percent of shelters were destroyed or partially destroyed, with no roof or doors. Of the people we interviewed, 97 percent reported that they could not afford to buy food in the previous four weeks. Because of continued insecurity, many farmers cannot reach the land where they cultivate food to eat and sell. People in these communities survive by selling foraged firewood and begging or laboring for less than the equivalent of $1 per day. Others have resorted to transactional sex.  The Nigerian military must clear and secure new areas before aid can get in, to make sure humanitarian workers have safe passage and aid does not end up in the wrong hands. And we have also not seen the amount of funding needed to mount a response of this size. Right now, less than one-third of current United Nations appeals for the crisis has been funded, a shortfall of $542 million. As a sovereign nation, Nigeria has a duty to provide for its people. It is ultimately responsible for leading the response to this emergency, establishing strong coordination and allowing for safe and organized access to deliver assistance to people in need. But it is also the humanitarian imperative of the international community to help people in crisis. At Mercy Corps, we are working quickly to meet urgent needs. In south Borno state we have been providing financial assistance, such as cash and vouchers that can be exchanged for food in local markets, as well as grants to jump-start businesses. We are repairing water points and latrines to ensure access to clean water and prevent the spread of waterborne illness. We also provide protection for vulnerable civilians, particularly women and children, and mobilize and train community members to recognize and respond to gender-based violence. We know that the needs are massive, and are going unmet, and we are working as quickly as possible to scale up our operations. Already in the past several months we have shifted to new locations and tripled our financial and staffing resources to reach upwards of 100,000 people. But it is a herculean task for any single organization to tackle on its own, and a risky one because insurgents could attack us unexpectantly. All organizations responding to this crisis in Nigeria face stretched capacity and daunting logistics. But we aren’t giving up. Already we see the benefit of one small act. With the e-voucher she received during Mercy Corps’ first distribution, Zulyatu bought a month’s worth of rice and cooking oil in the local market. When asked what she hopes for the future, Zulyatu said, “I just want to see everyone happy. Everyone would have enough to eat and abundance.” We can make that hope possible, if we act urgently.

One of the biggest fears of a parent, is that they die and can not protect their children especially when they are young, like the children in the article.  The mother has a lot of faith in her child to leave her by herself at the age of 12. It is a sad reminder that some people do not get a childhood and life is very hard. I hope they all get the food that they need.


Aleppo’s oldest residents fear they’ll die alone —  BEIRUT — Before the war convulsed his native Syria, Marea Marea relished retirement. He enjoyed leisurely morning walks, played with his grandchildren and took afternoon catnaps. Then the fighting began in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Airstrikes have pulverized his neighborhood, and a brutal siege has forced him to skimp on food so other members of his family have enough to eat. ADVERTISING Now the 70-year-old feels weak, frightened and helpless. “My entire life has been spent trying to build something for my family,” he said, speaking by Skype from his home in the war-divided city. “I built this home. My body aches from the decades of work that I did to make them a better life. But now this? There’s little dignity in this kind of life.” The war has taken an immense toll on the more than 200,000 people still in eastern Aleppo. Marea and other older residents face especially difficult circumstances, according to aid workers and doctors there. Some choose — or are asked — to make sacrifices for younger family members or are left to cope on their own after their children and grandchildren flee to safety in other countries. “People are being forced to make sacrifices, and this often involves the older people getting neglected,” said Bacry al-Ebeid, who distributes food to residents in rebel areas of Aleppo for Mercy-USA, a Michigan-based charity. [Darkness and fear in Aleppo as the bombs rain down] Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, has become perhaps the most important battleground in the conflict, which began in 2011 and has left more than 400,000 dead and millions displaced. Rebels seized the city’s eastern districts in 2012, and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have intensified efforts to take them back. If they do, it would mark a significant victory for the embattled leader. In recent months, warplanes operated by Assad’s government and its ally, Russia, have increasingly bombed hospitals and homes in the city’s opposition-held areas. Food and fuel shortages have worsened because of the siege imposed by pro-government forces, who control the city’s west end. As a result, residents and aid workers in eastern Aleppo say, it has become nearly impossible to find medicine to treat heart disease, diabetes, rheumatism and other conditions most commonly experienced by older people. Overstretched medical facilities must turn away people suffering from such conditions because of the overwhelming number of more-urgent cases, such as people with shrapnel wounds and other war-related injuries. Pablo Marco, Middle East operations manager for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, said the situation is so bad that fewer than three dozen doctors are still working in eastern Aleppo. The area has only one functioning dialysis unit left, he said. “If that unit stopped working, then that would mean more deaths,” he said. “The doctors just don’t have the time and facilities to take care of chronic diseases that, if not properly treated, will kill you in a matter of weeks and months.” As some become frail, they might see themselves as a burden on their family, which can fuel anxiety, Ebeid said. Some families have had to take extreme measures and have abandoned older family members, he said. In Arab societies, older people generally live with their children until death. [Syrian regime and Russia may have killed more children in latest bombing] There are no reliable age breakdowns of people living in the city’s besieged eastern areas, but before the war, Aleppo had a population approaching 3 million. Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled since the conflict erupted. “In a lot of cases, though, what we see are elderly people who refuse to leave their homes,” Ebeid said. “So that means their families, when they flee to other countries, are forced to leave them behind.” In another neighborhood of eastern Aleppo, 83-year-old Reema Salama lives alone in the home where she raised her children. Most of her family escaped to Turkey last year, but Salama chose to stay put, she said during a recent interview over Skype. Because of the siege, she cannot leave, and her family cannot visit. She receives food from Ebeid’s organization but struggles to cook it, relying on neighbors for help. “I’m all alone! I’m going to die alone here!” she said before abruptly ending the conversation. Marea said he would never leave his home. To pay for it, he worked for years as a freelance farmhand and day laborer. But even if he tried to leave, the government’s siege would prevent him. So he spends most of his time at home feeling isolated and hoping airstrikes do not obliterate him and his family. “I’m afraid our house will get bombed but that we won’t die in the attack,” he said, describing the fate of many people in his area of town. “We’ll just be stuck in the rubble for days and slowly die.” He also thinks constantly about trying to balance what he and his 70-year-old wife, Ajoun, need to survive with the demands of the 10 children and grandchildren living with them. Already, the family struggles to care for one son, 45-year-old Ahmed, whose leg was amputated last year after shrapnel struck it during an attack. “We eat twice — once in the morning and once in the evening — because we are trying to reduce the amount we eat so the kids still have enough,” he said. He fears the effect this could have on his wife, who suffers from high blood pressure and rheumatism. Marea has received unexpected help from another son, Hameed, who was visiting from Turkey and became trapped in the city when the government imposed its siege several weeks ago. Asked whether Hameed intends to return to Turkey, Marea choked up. “No, he can’t go back. The siege. He can’t leave us here,” Marea said. Then, he said, “I’m an old man. I shouldn’t have to think about these kind of things.” Heba Habib in Stockholm and Zakaria Zakaria in Istanbul contributed to this report.

It would be a hard decision for me to stay or leave my family. I guess at the older age, I would not want to leave my home. It would be bad for your own government and rebel forces fighting making it hard to get food. I would worry if I had to leave my parent of grandparent alone back in war tore country.  I hope the war ends soon.


Help Demand That Nosey The Elephant Be Rescued From Decades Of Abuse —  Nosey, a 34 year old female African elephant has been held captive and forced to live in solitary, for almost 3 decades. Nosey has been bound by chains and compelled to perform for public entertainment in circuses and forced to give rides to adults and children in between performances across the United States, for most of her life. This causes major stress to her health as well as to her psychological well being. Much of Nosey’s life has been spent in confinement inside of an inappropriately sized trailer and she is crated from one location to the next, receiving little exercise and no socialization which goes against the highly social nature of her spices. She has been seen to exhibit stiffness in her joints, indicating that she has arthritis which has likely been formed due to her years of longterm confinement. Since 1993, her owner, Hugo Tommy Liebel, has been cited by the the USDA over 200 times and has made 30 direct violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Regardless of these violations, Liebel’s license is still approved for renewal each year. Despite complaints being filed by numerous citizens and organizations looking to seek freedom for Nosey, there has been little or no response from the USDA. The department refuses to order a comprehensive medical exam for nosey after evidence has shown that she is suffering from chronic, untreated health problems and lives everyday in physical and psychological pain. The USDA has the power under the AWA as well as the responsibility to the animal’s well being to respond to complaints made by citizens to stop the repeated violations made by Nosey’s owner to confiscate her and release her into a true elephant sanctuary. Action must be taken NOW to stop the daily abuse to this animal.

For the past few years I have been struggling about the ideas of zoos. I know that they are educational, but I think to myself about how the animals feel. I believe that elephants are one of the most intelligent animals on the planet. To keep one in isolation is pure cruelty. I have seen elephants cry over the lost of loved ones and they are very communal animals.


Mom, 2 girls killed on Halloween trailer in Mississippi —  U.S. 80 in Newton County is still littered with the spoils of a night meant to be fun for children and families but now holds tragic memories for the small town of Chunky.   Skid marks, accident location paint, dried blood and Skid marks, accident location paint, dried blood and vehicle fluids remain after a pickup truck slammed into a small utility trailer on Monday, Halloween night on U.S. Highway 80 in Chunky, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016. Mississippi Highway Patrol said the crash left a few people killed and several injured. (Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/AP) A pair of shoes lay separately among the candy and in the weeds on the side of the road, apparently knocked from the feet of their owner and left behind when the victims of a Halloween night vehicle accident were transported to hospitals in Jackson and Meridian. Some of them have life-threatening injuries, officials said. The shoes are not far from the scene where Kristina Shaver and her two daughters, Baylee, 8, and Brooke, 2, were fatally injured while riding in a trailer for a Halloween party Monday night.   The trailer was hit from behind by a pickup, authorities said.   The Shavers were among 10 on the trailer, but they were the only fatalities as of Tuesday. Community members said the others injured in the wreck were Shaver's middle child, McKensey, Shaver's sister, Melissa Cook, 31, and her children. Shaver's husband was killed in a car wreck earlier this summer, family friends said. Cook's husband died in 2012.   Kristina Shaver is shown in this photo of a Facebook Kristina Shaver is shown in this photo of a Facebook post. (Photo: The Clarion-Ledger) McKensey Shaver is the last living member of her immediate family. She is in critical condition at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.   UMMC confirmed they are treating five patients. Two pediatric patients are critical, and two are fair. Cook was in critical condition at UMMC as of 3 p.m. Tuesday.   Don Jones, who lives on Chunky Duffee Road, said his wife keeps count of the trick-or-treaters, and that the trailer had come by their home earlier in the evening.   "She was hollering, 'How cute, how cute!' so I came to the door and they were all there, just precious, just small kids. I guess door steps, you'd call them. And they were just having a good time," he said.   The tenor of the night changed when Jones and his family could hear sirens in the distance, he said.   "When the local fire department takes off, everyone can hear the sirens," he said.   Shortly after that, there were three helicopters landing on the ballfield not far from the wreck site, he said.   Mississippi Highway Patrol Spokesman Sgt. Andy West said the vehicle and trailer was turning off U.S. 80 around 7:45 p.m. when a Ford F-150 driven by Chase Cook, 20, who family friends say is not believed to be related to Melissa Cook, drove into the back of the trailer. West said that "a full investigation will be conducted into the cause of the wreck."   OTHER AREA ACCIDENT: Fiery fatal auto crash in Jackson   The tire marks on the road, highlighted in orange reconstruction paint, drew a fairly clear picture of where the vehicles collided and where they came to rest in a yard on the side of the highway. But it doesn't answer how or why.   "It would be inappropriate for us to speculate why the driver drove into the rear of that trailer, and we want to refrain from making any statements until the investigation is complete," West said.   The trailer was being pulled by a Jeep driven by Terry Smith, 58, of Chunky.   Newton County Elementary School Principal Jason Roberson said counselors were on campus Tuesday to help students and faculty with the impact of the accident.   "Any time you deal with loss, it's difficult, but when you're trying to explain it to children it compounds it even more," he said. "What we've focused on is remembering the good times we've had here."   Roberson said the counselors will remain on campus for the rest of the week.   "I've never dealt with anything of this magnitude, and it's been a lot to take in," he said. "Everybody's been touched by this."   Jones said he's praying for the families of the dead and injured. He said he doesn't know Cook, but he's praying for him, too.   "I pray for him because he's going to be scarred for life to know what happened when he hit that trailer," he said.

I feel bad for the mother and her two daughters that died in the accident. I'm a person that worries and being in a trailer would have me worrying. It is very sad that their life were cut short because they wanted to enjoy sometime together and go for a ride on Halloween.  I hope that the other people involved in the crash find peace.


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.

To this day I can not understand people who kill someone then kill themselves. If your life is going that bad and you want to kill yourself then you should do it, but leave other people out of it. I feel bad for the man who lost his life and his children that had to lose their father like that. I even feel bad for all the people at the airport that had their lives interrupted.


73 killed in tanker explosion in Mozambique —  A fuel tanker exploded in northern Mozambique as residents gathered around to buy fuel from the driver on Thursday, killing 73 people and injuring 110 others, Mozambican media reported.   Dozens of charred bodies were scattered around the blast site in the town of Caphiridzange in Tete province, and government officials believed more bodies might be in surrounding woods, Radio Mozambique reported. Some badly burned people had tried to run into a nearby river, the radio said.   A truck driver from neighboring Malawi had turned off the main road to sell fuel to local residents, who were gathered around the vehicle when the fuel caught fire, according to Radio Mozambique.   Medical teams rushed to the scene of the accident, evacuating the injured in ambulances and other vehicles. Searchers looked for more victims, though their efforts were hampered as night fell.   The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Citing Mozambican reports, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said one theory was that a fire near the tanker set off the blast, while another theory pointed to a lightning strike as residents were collecting the fuel.   A national government task force planned to travel to the accident site on Friday.

Sometimes living in the United States we forget how a lot of the people of the planet live. I would not think about buying fuel from a truck that stops in my community. We think of gas stations, not thinking that everybody in the world do not have access to a gas station. I feel sorry for the people who died and was hurt in the accident.


UW-Madison student charged in alleged attacks on 5 women —  (CNN)One woman's allegations of sexual assault against a University of Wisconsin student led to multiple charges based on claims from five women. Alec Cook, 20, appeared Thursday in Dane County Circuit Court to hear the charges against him. He faces 14 felony counts, including second- and third-degree sexual assault, strangulation and false imprisonment, and one misdemeanor count of fourth-degree sexual assault. The court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to the misdemeanor charge. Under Wisconsin law he will not enter a plea to the felony counts until after his arraignment. He is being held on $200,000 bail in Dane County Jail. Cook's name and face spread through social media and local news reports after his October 17 arrest based on allegations from another UW-Madison student. She told police that Cook sexually assaulted her October 12 in a nearly three-hour ordeal, grabbing her by the hair and neck so tightly that, she told police, her "vision started to go." Cook was charged with four counts of sexual assault, strangulation and false imprisonment stemming from the allegations. Within a week, police said "dozens" more women came forward with potential information about Cook. CNN reached out to Cook's lawyers about the additional allegations but they declined to comment on the new charges. March 2015 The earliest count goes back to March 2015, when Cook allegedly invited a woman back to his apartment about two weeks after meeting her at a party. She told police that kissing turned to unwanted touching despite her attempts to push him away. When she tried to leave he grabbed her and pinned her to the futon and resumed kissing and touching her, according to a criminal complaint. She told investigators that after he assaulted her, she again tried to leave but that Cook pinned her to the futon again, wrapping his arms around her neck and torso. The detective asked what she thought would happen if she tried to leave she said she didn't know. "That's what I was afraid of. I didn't know." When she saw his face on the news in connection with his arrest she told police she "knew immediately" it was him, according to the complaint. Cook was charged with sexual assault and false imprisonment based on her allegations. January to May 2016 Two women who took ballroom dance classes with Cook reported to police being groped by him during the class. One woman told police the behavior continued even after she told him to stop. Their complaints led to the misdemeanor count of fourth-degree sexual assault. February 2016 Another woman described to police a similar scenario of a February 2016 encounter that started with consensual kissing and quickly escalated to sexual assault. She told police she repeatedly said no as forceful touching turned into forced oral sex and then vaginal rape. She had smoked marijuana earlier that night and drank a beverage she could not identify, and as the evening progressed she began feeling "fuzzy" and out of it, she told police, according to complaint. When she awoke the next morning he tried to have sex with her again, she told police, according to the complaint. Her allegations formed the basis of three counts of felony sexual assault. August 2016 Another woman to come forward said she took a psychology class with Cook, according to the complaint. He sent her a Facebook message and they began corresponding. She told police that she went to his apartment and they started kissing and having consensual sex. She rebuffed his efforts to choke her, though, and eventually he relented. About 45 minutes passed before he forced himself on her, hitting her backside with an open palm as he raped her. She told police she went along with it so he would not force her to have oral sex, according to the complaint. Sexual assault: Changing the conversation before college Defense lawyers: Wait for the facts When questioned by police on October 17, Cook said the encounter that triggered his arrest was consensual and that he did not recall grabbing the woman by the neck. He acknowledged pulling the woman's hair. Cook's lawyers called on the public "to wait for the facts before condemning" him, and railed against a "politically correct" culture that leads to "blind acceptance of mere accusations." "Alec, a 20-year-old business major with no criminal history, has seemingly been charged, tried, and convicted," read the statement from attorneys Christopher T. Van Wagner and Jessa Nicholson. "The rapid-fire news cycle, combined with the viral nature of social media, has resulted in modern-day character assassination that is very real and very wrong." How to help survivors of sexual assault CNN's Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report.

As a father of three girls, I hate to see stories like this one. I know in today's climate people can be convicted in the eyes of the public before an actually trial, but I think this guy did it. It is too many different women saying that he did the same thing to them. It is hard for me to see what any man gets from doing this.


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.

As a father of three women, I hate that the gender gap is nowhere close to closing. I feel like it should be simple, equal pay for equal work. The world is a complex place and I'm glad that some nations are getting it and that they are closing the gender gap. I do still think there are some jobs are require more males than females and that it just because of physical strength.


'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.

Living in a war tore country must be horrible. I feel the pain of all the lost. Having air strikes hit your home has to be horrible and seeing love ones buried under what is left from your home is also horrible. I do not wish this on anybody. I hope that the country can find peace and the people can return to a normal life.


13 civilians killed by cross-border shelling in Kashmir, say India, Pakistan —  India and Pakistan say 13 civilians have been killed in cross-border shelling from both sides of the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir.   At least seven civilians on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) were killed Tuesday and 15 others injured in shelling that came from the Pakistani side, according to local Indian authorities. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that six civilians on the Pakistani side had been killed by shelling from India Monday, and eight injured. Could India and Pakistan go to war? Women killed 'inside their homes' The casualties on the Pakistani side were in the Nikial and Jandrot areas, the statement said, adding that Pakistan's Director General had summoned India's Deputy High Chief Commissioner on Tuesday to strongly condemn the "unprovoked ceasefire violations." Of the Indian casualties, five civilians were killed in heavy shelling in the Ramgrah sector of India's Samba district, Sheetal Nanda, Samba's district magistrate, told CNN. Nine others were injured in the area. Two women were also killed in shelling in the Manjakote area of Rajouri district, according to Johnny Williams, deputy inspector general of police in the district. "The two ladies were inside their homes when shells landed there. They died on the spot," he said, adding that three others were injured in the strikes. Three civilians were also injured in India's Poonch district, police chief J.S. Johar told CNN. Neither side has responded to the allegations of ceasefire violations. The latest clashes come at a time of heightened tension between the neighbors over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region that has been disputed territory between India and Pakistan for the past 70 years. Both of the nuclear-armed countries hold separate parts of the region and have fought two wars, in 1947 and 1965, over their claims. They came close to a third, in 1999. Tensions have flared since 19 Indian soldiers were killed in September in an attack by armed militants on an army base in Uri, about 63 miles (102 kilometers) from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the aftermath, India launched what it described as a "surgical strike" across the Line of Control to attack what it said was a terrorist launching pad. Pakistan denied that the target was a terrorist base, pointing out that two of its soldiers were killed. Amid the continuing fallout, India has relocated more than 10,000 people from around the disputed border area, and a top Bollywood director has refused to hire Pakistani actors.


The Jewish Struggle to Understand Trump's Election —  Synagogues hosted prayer and healing services on Wednesday for congregants grappling with the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. PHILADELPHIA—On November 8, 1938, Nazi paramilitary soldiers and German civilians looted and vandalized thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues. Jews were murdered. Up to 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration camps. On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The next day, a man discovered that someone had painted swastikas on an abandoned storefront in South Philly, placing the symbols next to Trump’s name and the words “Sieg Heil,” a salute used by Nazis during World War II. Maybe it was an anti-Trump protester. Maybe it was an anti-Semite. Either way, it underscored the ways in which Trump’s election has evoked the persistent Jewish nightmare: That America will become like Germany in 1938. Jews, who have a keen eye for the repetition of history, might be forgiven for worrying about the fragility of American democracy. This is the scale of fear, grief, and anger about Trump in some Jewish communities across America. In Philadelphia, at least three synagogues held prayer services on Wednesday; congregations in a number of other cities, including Durham, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., held similar events. “No matter who we voted for and how we are feeling this morning, we all know that we and our country are in desperate need of healing,” read the Facebook invite for an event at the Germantown Jewish Centre in north Philly. “We will sit together, sing together, pray together, and have a chance to share what is on our hearts with the support of the community.” A woman was crying when I walked into the cavernous sanctuary of GJC on Wednesday night. Roughly 100 people were gathered in a circle of chairs toward the front of the room; the cream ceiling and warmly brown furniture gave the space a living-room feel. In the center of the gathering, a single candle sat burning on a small round table. The space was still except for the occasional baby squeal or patter of toddler feet at the side of the room; people had brought their children because, as someone on Facebook observed, they need to heal, too. Trump’s daughter Ivanka came up—whether Jews would be safe because one of the president’s children is an Orthodox convert. The congregants were concerned about the racism and sexism revealed during the campaign, and discussed the stages of grief. They talked of making aliyah, or emigrating to Israel—not as a plausible possibility, but as a back-of-mind option in case things get really bad. And yes, people brought up Nazi Germany. Unlike Muslims, Mexicans, African Americans, the disabled, and women, Jews have not been directly insulted by Donald Trump during this election. Anti-Semites have arguably been empowered by his campaign: Jewish journalists have been consistently threatened and harassed on Twitter since the election got underway, often by people who self-identify as Trump supporters. But the fear seems to be less that Trump will specifically persecute Jews than the sense that America under Trump will become an increasingly hostile space for Jews and other minority groups. Trump doesn’t have to be an anti-Semite to bear responsibility for anti-Semitism. While exit polls suggest that roughly 25 percent of American Jews voted for Trump—fewer than voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but more than voted for John McCain in 2008—the group as a whole is overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic. Adam Zeff, the rabbi at GJC, said in an interview that the synagogue’s neighborhood, Mt. Airy, is so left-wing that it’s almost “self-parody.” Most Jews live in cities or stay concentrated in “little enclaves,” as Zeff called them—he pointed out that on the map of the election results, there are tiny blue spots even deep in Trump country. “That’s where Jews live,” he said, along with other minority groups. It wasn’t Jews Trump promised to ban some 13 months ago. It was Muslims. This clustering creates a dual challenge for Jewish communities. People at GJC spoke about Trump’s election like they might about a death in the family—with a sense of real and personal loss, and a staggering alienation from their fellow Americans. “It is kind of shattering to people to feel like, wow, there’s such a difference,” said Zeff. “To think that racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and misogyny could be given a pass by so many people makes Jews feel like anti-Semitism could also be given a pass.” And yet the congregants also spoke about the need for understanding. “The people for whom this is a happy day—we have to think about them, too,” Zeff said during the prayer service. Mt. Airy is about a half hour drive from Bucks County, a swing area in Pennsylvania where nearly half of voters went for Trump this year. But even within such a short distance, it’s difficult to imagine how the liberal Jews of Philadelphia and the Trump supporters one county up would start to know one another or be in community. The other challenge for Jews who are scared is putting that fear into context. Other groups are hurting just as much as Jews are right now, and in some cases, their fears are more tangible. It wasn’t Jews Trump promised to ban from entering the country some 13 months ago—it was Muslims. It wasn’t Jewish neighborhoods Trump described in apocalyptic terms in the presidential debates—it was black neighborhoods. At times, Jews have struggled or declined to find solidarity with both of those groups, often over the issue of Israel. “When disaster strikes, the Jewish impulse is to look inward, to say, ‘What t’shuva,’” or repentance, “do I need to do?” Zeff said. If his community looked inward and asked what kind of allies they have been to African Americans, Latinos, and other groups in Philadelphia, Zeff said, “I know what [those groups’] answer is, which is: not very good ones.” For Jews, as for other groups who feel threatened by Trump, this new era has begun with a struggle of contradictions: to understand Trump supporters while maintaining their value commitments; to experience their particular and unique pain while finding solidarity with others. When Zeff sent out a note to his synagogue about the election, “I got a response back from a congregant that said, ‘This is very nice, rabbi, but you’re asking us to do two contradictory things: You’re asking us to reach out, and you’re asking us to stand up,’” Zeff told me. He wrote back, “‘Yes, and isn’t that the lot of the Jew?’”

I did not know that the Trump election hit the Jewish community that hard. I guess if my family went through what happened during world war 2, I would also be on the look out for history to repeat it self. I wish that all the communities that were mentioned in the article would band together to support each other.


Americans feel guilty about wasting too much food, but still do it —  Americans eat a lot, also throw a lot of food. That is the main point worth underlining in the new study published at Plos One, a peer-reviewed journal. Surprisingly, it is just one of the two large-scale papers about food waste.   In 2010, the study says that about one-hundred and thirty-three billion pounds of edible food both at the retail and consumer levels went uneaten. That’s about one-thousand two-hundred and forty-nine calories per person per day. Two-thirds of which were attributed to consumers, meaning people in homes that waste the food that they purchase.   In addition to the significant waste of resources, the paper says that this behavior of consumers has a substantial negative impact to the environment as about ninety-five percent of food waste enter the United States landfills.   In a press release, Ohio State University professor Brian Roe explains that the results provide the data required to develop targeted efforts to reduce waste of food each year. “If we can increase awareness of the problem, consumers are more likely to increase purposeful action to reduce food waste,” he said. “You don’t change your behavior if you don’t realize there’s a problem in the first place.”   The team of researchers has developed a national survey to identify the awareness and attitudes of Americans regarding food waste. Last year, it was administered to five-hundred people representative of the country’s population.   The study has found that about fifty-three percent of American respondents said that they’re aware that it is a problem; that’s about ten percent higher than the related research published by Johns Hopkins last year.   Doctoral student Danyi Qi, one of the authors of the research, says that they’ve found three things that people consider regarding food waste: First, about sixty-eight percent of respondents believe that throwing away edible food after the package date has passed is reducing the chance of food-linked diseases and illnesses. Meanwhile, about fifty-nine percent believe that some food waste is ‘necessary’ for freshness and flavorful certainty.   Second, seventy-seven percent said they feel a “general sense of guilt” when throwing food away. Also, about fifty-eight percent claimed to understand that throwing away of food is bad for the environment. Meanwhile, only forty-two percent said they believe wasted food is a “major source of wasted money.”   And third, which is perhaps the most interesting, is that fifty-one percent of respondents believe it would be difficult to reduce home food waste. Plus, about forty-two percent said they don’t have enough time to worry about it. For the economic perspective, fifty-three percent admit that they waste a lot of food but still buy more in bulk or in large quantities during store sales.   For the throwing-the-blame perspective, about eighty-seven percent believed that they waste less food than other similar households.   The research in full is available at the PLOS One website, and it is titled ‘Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers.’

I think that food waste is a large problem.  I think that American's are lucky to be in position of  having more food than they need, but we do need to start thinking about the environment.  I was surprised that the wasted money factor did not get more people to monitor the amount of food waste that they generated.


Wife Who Died Alongside Husband, Children in Murder-Suicide Alleged Abuse, Had Plans to Leave —  Megan Short, who died alongside her husband, Mark, and the couple's three children in an apparent murder-suicide over the weekend, had been planning to leave her husband, according to Mark Short's relatives. Mark Short's cousin and aunt told NBC10/Telemundo62 reporter Andrea Cruz that Megan and Mark Short had been going through a tough separation recently, and that Mark had been trying to keep the family together. "He was a family, family guy. He was all family. He worked himself to death to try and keep his family together," James Short, Mark Short's cousin, said. "It was just work, work, work and family. That was it." Megan Short, though, alleged on Facebook that her husband was abusive, a friend told the Reading Eagle. She posted about her desire to leave the marriage on her Facebook profile, the friend said. Mark Short's relatives, who live in Folcroft, Delaware County, where he grew up, said that he took his wife and their children, 2-year-old Willow, 5-year-old Mark Jr. and 8-year-old Liana, to Disney World in February in hopes of improving his relationship with his wife and convincing her to stay together. That didn't help, though, the relatives said, and Megan Short still planned to leave. Police have said their investigation revealed the couple had "domestic issues," but they have not provided additional details. On Saturday, police found 40-year-old Mark and Megan Short, 33, along with their three children and the family's dog, all dead of gunshot wounds in the living room of their home in the Berks County Borough of Sinking Spring. Officers paid a visit to the stately single home where the family lived on Winding Brook Drive when one of Megan Short's relatives called them, concerned after she failed to show up for a planned lunch, authorities said. Police have not yet said who they believe did the shooting, but said investigators did find a "murder-suicide note" in the home, along with a handgun near one of the adults' bodies. Authorities called the family's deaths "an apparent tragic domestic incident." Mark Short's relatives described him as a laid-back man who worked in the real-estate industry and would do anything for anyone, particularly his family. "He was just a really good guy. You wouldn't think he would do this kind of thing, but in the situation he's in right now, you never can tell with people," James Short said of his cousin. "Don't think any less of him, because he's a really, really good guy. He would do anything for anybody," James Short continued. "You don't know the situation, so don't try to judge." James Short and other relatives said that Megan Short began dating Mark, who was seven years her senior, when she was just 17 years old, and that the couple had a child and married not long after that.  The family struggled with serious health issues in their youngest child, Willow, who was born with a congenital heart defect that required her to have a heart transplant when she was just days old. Articles in both the New York Times and the Reading Eagle chronicled the Shorts' struggles with Willow's health problems. Megan Short also recently wrote about the post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety she suffers due to dealing with her young daughter's illness in a blog post on the Philly at Heart blog. "There are very few moments when you can clearly see your life as separated into the before and after," Megan Short wrote. "Having a child born with a severe congenital heart defect has been the most significant shift of my life." She wrote that she began taking medication and going to therapy for her PTSD in the blog post, which was published in April. Despite the family's struggles, their Facebook pages seem to tell a different part of the story. Mark and Megan Short's profiles both show dozens of photos of them together and with their blond-haired children, smiling. On a photo of Mark Short and Megan posted on his page in December, he wrote, "She's still the most beautiful girl I've ever met ... I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have her as my wife and the mother of my three amazing children." Mark Short's relatives said they expected his body to be released Monday afternoon following an autopsy, and that they plan to have his funeral in Delaware County. They said Megan Short's family is handling arrangements for her and the children.

I know that the cousin said not to judge Mark, but he did wrong. No matter how he felt he should have not killed his wife and children.  As a father myself, I feel my job is to protect my children at all times. I wish he would have seen a bright future of his children even if he was not married to his wife.


Millions exposed to dangerous lead levels in US drinking water, report finds —  More than 18 million Americans are served drinking water by providers that have violated federal laws concerning lead in water, with only a tiny proportion of offenses resulting in any penalty, a new report has found. The toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is “not anomalous”, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report states, with widespread violations of national rules designed to protect people from lead, a known neurotoxin that is harmful even in small doses. NRDC’s analysis of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data shows that 5,363 water systems, which provide water to more than 18 million people, breached the federal Lead and Copper Rule last year. These violations include the failure to properly test water for lead or inadequate treatment of water to prevent lead from leeching from old pipes into the drinking supply. Instructions provided varied greatly, ranging from those that contained protocols the EPA advised against a decade ago to those that were periodically updated Read more The violations occurred across virtually every US state last year. Most seriously, 1,110 community water utilities provided water that exceeded the EPA’s actionable limit for lead in water. This means that more than 3.9 million Americans were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead in 2015. Despite the widespread failure of water suppliers across the US, very few were punished by the EPA last year. Of more than 8,000 violations of federal laws, enforcement action was only taken against 11% of cases. Penalties were sought for just 3% of violations, meaning there is “no cop on the beat”, according to the NRDC. In a statement, the EPA said it recognized there are “ongoing challenges in compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule”. “The agency has intensified work with state drinking water programs with a priority focus on implementation of the rule, including engagement with every state drinking water program across the country to ensure they are addressing any high lead levels and fully implementing the current rule,” the regulator said. The EPA said that many water systems that violated the rules in 2015 have already resolved their problems. A revised Lead and Copper rule won’t appear until 2017 at the earliest, despite the widespread problems in Flint and beyond. “Flint symbolizes how disastrous the gaps are in the system and there really is a much broader problem across America,” said Erik Olson, director of NRDC’s health program. “Americans take for granted that the water flowing from their taps is clean and safe but that assumption is often false. “Providing safe drinking water to citizens is a fundamental government service. If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing your job. Unsafe drinking water is a national problem and it needs a national solution.” Flint residents hold bottles of contaminated water after attending a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the water crisis. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images Olson said that water utilities are routinely “gaming the system” to underplay the amount of lead found in water. The Guardian has revealed that at least 33 US cities have used various methods that can mask the true level of lead when conducting tests. In the wake of the Flint water crisis several schools have shut off their drinking water due to high levels of lead, raising the question: ‘How big is this issue?’ Read more The failure of the system to pick up violations is underscored by the fact that Flint wasn’t among the places considered in violation of the Lead and Copper Rule last year. The city, which has a poverty rate of around 40%, failed to treat drinking water to prevent lead corrosion when it switched its supply from Lake Huron to the Flint river. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released this week, lead levels in the blood of Flint children aged under six were “significantly higher” once the supply change was made. The chances of a child having dangerously high lead levels increased by nearly 50% after the switch, the CDC found, risking developmental, behavioral and learning problems for thousands of children in Flint. Flint’s water is now considered by the EPA to be safe to drink if a filter is used. However, some lawmakers have voiced concerns that more needs to be done to avoid a repeat of the disaster that befell the Michigan city. “Flint wasn’t an isolated example,” said Dick Durbin, a Democrat senator. “We need a coordinated effort at all levels, we need people in communities to speak up so they don’t become the next Flint.”

I feel that this will become a national problem soon. I feel that the pipes that built America are getting old and that many cities will suffer the same issues as Flint Michigan. I hope that the people in charge of these cities will be punished for their crimes in my opinion. I believe they knew it was wrong and turned a blind eye.


Death of former Putin aide at D.C. hotel is ruled accidental —  A onetime aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose body was found last year in a D.C. hotel room died of head injuries suffered in accidental falls after days of “excessive” drinking, authorities in Washington said Friday as they closed the death investigation. Mikhail Y. Lesin, 57, a former Russian advertising executive who helped create the Kremlin’s global English-language Russia Today television network, was found dead Nov. 5 in the upscale Dupont Circle Hotel, and for much of a year, the manner of death was ruled “undetermined.” [Former Putin aide found dead in D.C. hotel] The manner has been amended to an accident with “acute ethanol intoxication” as a contributing cause, the office of U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips said Friday. Lesin was alone in his hotel room at the time of the falls, the statement said. The new ruling was made by the office of the D.C. chief medical examiner. Shortly after Lesin’s body was found, his family said he died as the result of a heart attack. More than four months later, the chief medical examiner’s office and D.C. police set off worldwide speculation when they said Lesin had suffered blunt-force injuries to his head and elsewhere on his body, although not explicitly declaring his death a criminal act. [Death investigation remains mystery] The statement Friday said that the investigation determined from video footage, interviews and other evidence that Lesin entered his room for the final time about 10:45 a.m. Nov. 4 after days of excessive alcohol consumption and was found dead the next morning. He “sustained the injuries that resulted in his death while alone in his hotel room,” the statement said. [Former aide died of blunt force trauma, medical examiner says] Lesin died of blunt-force injuries to his head, the statement said, and also suffered injuries to his neck, torso, arms and legs caused by falls. In describing the investigation, the statement referred to “new evidence” developed in the nearly year-long investigation. Asked about that reference, Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said, “We typically do not comment on specifics of our investigation and have no further comment on this particular matter.” On Friday, interim D.C. police chief Peter Newsham said, “I am comfortable with the ruling being an accidental death.” The investigation of Lesin’s death was conducted by D.C. police and the U.S. attorney’s office with assistance from the FBI, the statement said. Lesin, who made his fortune in the advertising business in the 1990s, was an architect of the Kremlin-dominated media landscape under Putin. As minister of the press during Putin’s first term as president from 2000 to 2004, Lesin orchestrated the takeover of the independent television network NTV and oversaw government propaganda and censorship laws during the war in Chechnya. In 2005, he helped launch Russia Today, now RT, a government-funded channel that broadcasts news with a pro-Moscow slant around the world. Known for his volatile temper, Lesin was reported to have antagonized powerful media interests, and an investigation by the anti-Putin whistleblower Alexei Navalny in 2014 revealed that Lesin owned real estate in the United States worth millions of dollars. He resigned later that year as head of Gazprom-Media, a holding company that owns several prominent pro-Kremlin TV networks, and kept a low profile until his death. Two days before his body was found, Lesin failed to appear as expected at a $10,000-a-table fundraiser in Washington organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, whose honorees included a philanthropist and chief executive of the largest private bank in Russia. Kremlin critics earlier this year theorized that Lesin may have been killed because officials feared that he was about to cut a deal with federal authorities investigating his land dealings in California. However, a longtime friend and business associate of Lesin’s, Sergey Vasiliev, said in March that he believed that Lesin died after a bout of heavy drinking, an account he said he formed after speaking to the Russian Foreign Ministry and others familiar with the sequence of events. Andrew Roth and Peter Hermann contributed to this report.

Whenever Russia and Putin are involved  I do not trust what is being said. The story about him being drunk and drinking all day sounds weird. I do not see how he falls and hits his head and then falls over and over causing harm all over his body. I think they was killed, but I do not know why. I feel bad for his family.


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

A month after Hurricane Matthew, 800,000 Haitians urgently need food —  FONDTOUTANU, Haiti — There is no food, so along the road through the mountains there are children begging for something to eat. Most of the trucks rumble past with donations for somewhere else. But one stopped here the other day with sacks of rice, beans and dried herring, setting off a stampede. Valleur Noel, a trim, short man with a checkered shirt and a shiny crucifix, climbed to the top of the tailgate and told everyone to calm down. It was futile. His organization, Pwoje Men Kontre, had 412 bags of food, a gift from the German ambassador and U.S. donors. Within minutes there were people pouring through a notch between the mountains, hollering and stumbling down the rocky hillside toward the truck. “No pushing, no pushing!” Noel yelled. “There is enough for everyone!” It wasn’t true. The latecomers got nothing. But many others did, and Figaro Phito, 29, hugged his sack with both arms, like a pillow. “This will keep us alive until another donation arrives,” he said. “Because that is our only way to survive right now.” A month after Hurricane Matthew blasted through southwestern Haiti, the region is a blighted, apocalyptic landscape of wrecked homes and growling hunger. At least 800,000 people need food urgently, according to the United Nations, including more than two-thirds of families in the worst-hit departments of Grand’Anse and Sud. Emergency help is arriving, but there is not enough of it, and it will take several more weeks to reach remote mountain communities where officials say the destruction was total. The desperation is so explosive that truckloads of food and medical supplies have been looted by crowds gathered along the roadways. A teenage boy was killed Tuesday by police in the city of Les Cayes, where hungry crowds burned tires and blocked roads. Haitian police shot four people, one fatally, on Oct. 26 in the coastal village of Dame Marie, where the arrival of an aid shipment sent crowds surging onto the docks. The Oct. 4 hurricane hit some of the poorest places in the Western hemisphere. It smashed fishing villages and shredded mountain hamlets with the force of a bomb blast, obliterating crops, killing livestock and leaving fruit trees as bare as matchsticks. Haiti, a country still digging out from its devastating 2010 earthquake, will need months of emergency aid to stave off famine, according to relief groups and government officials. More than 141,000 storm victims are in shelters, and those are just the ones with someplace to go. “We are sleeping under the trees,” said Jeudina Alexis, 63, who hadn’t eaten in two days but now had a sack of food from Noel to carry home up the mountain. In some towns, 80 to 90 percent of homes were destroyed by Matthew’s 140-mile-per-hour winds. The Category 4 storm converted tin roofing panels into flying razors and broken tree branches into spears. The death toll stands at 546, according to the government, but local officials have reported more than twice that many killed. Some remote mountain villages are so inaccessible that government emergency workers say they will not be able to reach them until the end of November. One man who walked out of the mountains recently after hiking two days told authorities that too many people had died in his town to bury the bodies, so villagers burned them and put the ashes in the river. The United Nations has raised just one-third of the $120 million in emergency funding it says it needs to help 750,000 people, including 315,000 children, get through the next three months. Noel has told his donors he will need to feed people for even longer. “If they plant sweet potatoes and corn, it will be three or four months before they can harvest, but they don’t have seeds,” he said. ‘We are starving, too’ The storm-hit areas have reported at least 3,500 suspected cholera cases in recent weeks, but some of the outbreaks are happening in far-off settlements where help has yet to arrive. The aid organization Doctors Without Borders recently sent staff by helicopter to one village, Pourcine, to investigate reports of a patient with cholera, only to find 20 stricken from it. The disease spreads rampantly once the bacteria enters the water supply. “We are sending materials to contain the epidemic, but there are people dying from cholera every day,” said Emmanuel Massart, the group’s field coordinator in Grand’Anse. It is largely a challenge of distribution. Tim Callahan, the U.S. official in charge of the American emergency response, said the U.S. government has delivered 34 metric tons of water treatment tablets to Haiti, enough to supply the entire country for three months. But getting them to families is another matter because roads are impassable or nonexistent in the worst-affected areas. The 2010 earthquake killed at least 200,000 and damaged many of the government buildings in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The city was largely spared by the recent storm, and that has allowed the Haitian government to take a more active role in directing the relief effort, Callahan and others say. Peter Mulrean, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, said the fact that so many international relief organizations were doing post-quake reconstruction left them better prepared to respond to the hurricane. Unlike in the post-quake period, when aid efforts were often haphazard and inefficient, international relief organizations have been coordinating their donations and activities with Haitian officials, using the network of modern, air-conditioned emergency response centers set up in every region after the earthquake. “We want Haitian institutions to come out stronger than before,” Mulrean said. But the man-made disasters of Haitian politics remain an obstacle. Last year’s contested presidential election led to a political impasse and the installation of a caretaker government. New elections are scheduled for Nov. 20, but it’s hard to see how Haitian officials can deliver and count ballots in hurricane-hit areas. Making matters worse, the public schools that double as polling stations are being used as homeless shelters. At the Lycee Nord Alexis in Jeremie, the battered capital of Grand’Anse, children sleep on the cement floors of classrooms, some naked or clothed in adult-sized T-shirts that hang below the knee. Food comes irregularly. The blind, disabled and maimed lie around in dark, stifling rooms, swarmed by mosquitoes. Guerline Brumaches, 40, was languishing in a corner, naked from the waist up, with a suppurating wound the size of a baseball on her swollen left foot where she had been cut by flying debris. A month-old chemistry lesson was written on the chalkboard above her. Flies nibbled at her foot. “If I lose my foot, I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said. The school had no running water. One of the stairwells had become a latrine. Xavier Charlemagne, 20, said there were several hundred people sleepingevery night in the classrooms and corridors. “We’re not leaving until they give us tarps,” he said. Jeremie is the only town with large-scale daily food distribution in Grand’Anse, in part because it is the only place with armed security to suppress potential rioting. The U.N. World Food Program gives out 1,000 one-month rations of rice, chickpeas and cooking oil each day in the central plaza, in the shadow of a 200-year-old cathedral with a ripped-off roof. But the sight of so many convoys headed to Jeremie has stirred resentment in towns that say they are not getting their share. At one highway junction where a broken-down truck carrying beans had been attacked a day earlier, dozens of young men lingered on a recent day, watching for signs of mechanical trouble among the vehicles groaning up the pass, as if stalking wounded herd animals. “We are starving, too,” said Ricardo Dauphin, 29, alongside dozens of other men in the town of Carrefour Charles, watching U.N. trucks roll by in a cloud of dust, escorted by police and Brazilian soldiers. There is no electricity across a wide swath of southern Haiti where utility lines are down, so at night families burn storm debris and garbage with huge bonfires that leap into the darkness and foul the air. On a muddy hillside near the town of Cavaillon, scores of people have settled in crude lean-tos made of sticks, plastic and tattered bedsheets. The nearby river flooded in the storm, forcing those living along the banks to higher ground. Olicia Jean-Louis, 23, said her widowed mother was washed away in the storm, along with the family’s house and all the secondhand footwear they used to sell in the market. Now Jean-Louis was in charge of her siblings, ages 12, 10, 5 and 2. The youngest ones had started calling her “mama,” she said. None of them had eaten that day, Jean-Louis said. It was raining again, and the 2-year-old boy, naked, leaned into her threadbare blue dress, his nose running. Asked what she would do next, Jean-Louis shook her head. “I will rely on you,” she said. “Can you help me?”

How sad is it that this kind of pain and suffering, and those kind of living conditions still exsist today? what a gap we have in society between developed countries and those that aren't. It's crazy to drive around the US and see all the money people spend on pointless things, and then to think about how the people in Haiti are living.


Miami Marlins star pitcher Jose Fernandez killed in boating accident —  Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández, who defected from Cuba at 15 and went on to become one of baseball's brightest stars, was killed early Sunday in a boating accident, Florida authorities said.   Fernández, who was 24, and two other men were found dead after their boat was discovered at the entrance of Miami Harbor, said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Lorenzo Veloz. Coast Guard personnel on patrol noticed the vessel upside down on the north end of a rocky jetty shortly after 3:15 a.m., Veloz said at a news conference. Divers recovered two bodies under the boat, and a third victim was found on the rocks. The names of the two other victims -- also in their 20s -- are being withheld until relatives are notified. The men were Fernandez's friends, Veloz said. Veloz said Fernández's death was a loss to Miami, to baseball and to anyone who ever met him. "He was pillar to our community. He was involved in everything that he could be to give back," Veloz said. "I had the experience of talking to him several times -- down-to-earth, great person ... I'm sorry I'm getting goosebumps right now. It's really hitting home and it's horrible." Based on impact evidence and the severity of damage, officials concluded the boat -- a 32-foot SeaVee center console model -- hit the rocks at full speed, Veloz said. Top speed on the boat would be between 50 mph and 65 mph, depending on the engines with which it was equipped, according to SeeVee's website. Fernández was a passenger on the boat, and was not the owner, Veloz said. "The boat is a total loss right now from what we can see," Veloz said. "It's horrible, it's bad, it's bad." Drugs and alcohol did not appear to be factors in the accident, he said, but he added that investigators had been been unable to get under the overturned wreckage. Autopsies have not been conducted. None of the three victims was wearing a life vest, he said. "The magnanimity of his personality transcended culture, religion and race, I mean it just did," Marlins President David Samson said at a news conference where he was flanked by the team and other officials. Several people appeared visibly shaken. "Jose is a member of this family for all time," Samson said. "His story is representative of a story of hope, and of love and of faith, and no one will ever let that story die." Sunday's game against the Atlanta Braves has been canceled. The Marlins' game against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday was canceled, Samson said. "When you watch kids playing Little League... that's the joy that Jose played with -- and the passion he felt about playing," said Marlins Manager Don Mattingly, stopping midsentence to wipe away tears. He appeared too emotionally shaken to continue. People we've lost in 2016 Fernández was born in Santa Clara, Cuba, and defected to the United States in 2008. Drafted by the Marlins in 2011, he went on to become the franchise's star pitcher, named National League Rookie of the Year 2013 and a two-time All-Star. But his story is about more than baseball accolades, and Mattingly certainly isn't the only person to shed tears over Fernández's death. The oft-smiling Fernández had many friends in the game, owing to his cheerful demeanor and fierce competitiveness. He also owned what Miami Herald sportswriter Dan Le Batard once called a "rags to pitches" story that many, especially those in Florida's Cuban-American communities, found inspiring. In 2008, Fernández made his fourth attempt to flee Cuba, according to a 2013 Miami Herald story. He'd been jailed for a previous failed attempt and, this time, was attempting to reach America, via Mexico, with his mother and sister. Once on the open water, the newspaper reported, someone fell off of the boat, and Fernández, a good swimmer, asked no questions; he jumped in to save the person. It turned out to be his mother, Maritza. "I dove to help a person not thinking who that person was. Imagine when I realized it was my own mother. If that does not leave a mark on you for the rest of your life, I don't know what will," he told the Herald. Once in the United States, Fernández had trouble adjusting. Fifteen at the time, he missed his grandmother, Olga, desperately, Le Batard wrote in a 2013 profile. Back home, he was "really, really poor," Fernández told his fellow Cuban-American Le Batard, and he was happy to make $4 a day selling tomatoes and onions. In the U.S., the simplest things, such as computers and motion-activated faucets, eluded him. He wrote phone numbers down in a book because he didn't realize his phone would store them, the profile said. His grasp of English didn't extend much beyond curse words. But there was one language besides Spanish that he understood perfectly: baseball. As a high school sophomore, Fernández threw 94-mph fastballs, as fast as some pros, and he led Braulio Alonso High School to two state championships, Le Batard reported. The Marlins selected him in the first round of 2011 Major League Baseball draft, and he first took the mound for them in April 2013 en route to National League Rookie of the Year honors. It was after that season -- when Fernández told Le Batard how much he missed Olga, who had climbed to her Santa Clara roof with a radio to catch the Marlins games when Fernández pitched -- that the Marlins arranged a surprise. A heartwarming reunion While he conducted an interview in the Marlins locker room that ventured into the topics of his mother and grandmother, whose names he has tattooed inside his bicep, the interviewer asks Fernandez what Olga would tell him if she were there in Miami. "I don't think she would be here," he replied, his sadness evident in his eyes. Little did he know that Olga had arrived in Miami a half hour prior. The Marlins had arranged for her visa. As Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria escorts Olga into the locker room, Fernández beams a boyish grin, clearly in disbelief. He says only, "Oh," as she rushes over to him. His face is bright red as Olga embraces him for the first time in six years. "Oh my God," he says, almost as if he's exhaling. "You've got to be kidding me." "You look so great, papi. You look so great," Olga tells him in Spanish as he clutches her, kissing the top of her head. Jeffrey Loria explained the team's motivation in getting Olga to the United States. "Having watched the dynamic unfold with him, caring about his grandmother so much, it kind of came to our attention here. We have a big family here in this organization and there was a link missing in that family so we closed the gap. We got her here," he said. Baseball world stunned News of his death sent shockwaves through the baseball community, with players and fans alike taking to social media to express their grief. "We are stunned and devastated," Major League Baseball said in a statement. "I've never met anyone who extracted more joy, more passion out of what he did than José Fernández," baseball analyst Buster Olney said on ESPN. "When you watched him pitch, he loved it so much. He had so much emotion." "He's sort of the American dream for the Cuban baseball player," Le Batard said. "This kid is a symbol for Cuban life and the things that can be accomplished in this country." Former MLB pitcher Dan Haren tweeted: "Jose Fernandez is one of the most genuine guys I've ever played with. He loved life, he loved baseball... he will be missed dearly." Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred issued a statement saying, "He was one of our game's great young stars who made a dramatic impact on and off the field since his debut in 2013." Many fans spoke of their sadness that, having already achieved remarkable sporting success, Fernández's life had been cut short just as he was starting a family. Five days ago, the young star had posted a picture to Instagram of his pregnant girlfriend, with the caption: "I'm so glad you came into my life. I'm ready for where this journey is gonna take us together." Baseball fan Matt Birnbach wrote: "Jose was a reason you watched baseball. He was must-see TV and his personality is what made him great. Absolutely crushed right now."

I think that these kinds of stories, are sad, yet inspirational and leave you with kind of a good feeling. Even though his story is sad, it's cool and inspiring/motivational to see that he rose up against his circumstances. That he worked hard to make something of himself and he succeeded in what he wanted to do.