Saudi women file petition to end male guardianship system —  A petition signed by more than 14,000 Saudi women calling for an end to the country's male guardianship system is being handed to the government. Women must have the consent of a male guardian to travel abroad, and often need permission to work or study. Support for the first large-scale campaign on the issue grew online in response to a trending Twitter hashtag. Activist Aziza Al-Yousef told the BBC she felt "very proud" of the campaign, but now needed a response. In the deeply conservative Islamic kingdom, a woman must have permission from her father, brother or other male relative - in the case of a widow, sometimes her son - to obtain a passport, marry or leave the country. Many workplaces and universities also demand a guardian's consent for female employees and students, although it is not legally required.   Renting a flat, undergoing hospital treatment or filing a legal claim often also require a male guardian's permission, and there is very little recourse for women whose guardians abuse them or severely limit their freedom. How much do you know about life as a woman in Saudi Arabia? WATCH: Are Saudi women really that oppressed? The 'Rosa Parks' of Saudi Arabia 'Flabbergasted' In July, an Arabic Twitter hashtag which translates as "Saudi women want to abolish the guardianship system" went viral after a Human Rights Watch reportwas published on the issue. Saudi women tweeted comments, videos and artwork calling for change. Bracelets saying "I Am My Own Guardian" appeared. The women counted on the petition all gave their full names, though more signed anonymously. Hundreds of women - one estimate suggests as many as 2,500 - bombarded the Saudi King's office over the weekend with telegrams containing personal messages backing the campaign. Human Rights Watch researcher Kristine Beckerle, who worked on the report, described the response as "incredible and unprecedented". "I was flabbergasted - not only by the scale, but the creativity with which they've been doing it," she said. "They've made undeniably clear they won't stand to be treated as second-class citizens any longer, and it's high time their government listened."    However, there has been opposition from some Saudi women, with an alternative Arabic hashtag, which translates as #TheGuardianshipIsForHerNotAgainstHer, gaining some traction, and opinion articles, like this one on the Gulf News website, arguing that the system should be reformed and applied better. Ms Yousef, who was stopped by police in 2013 for breaking the country's ban on women driving, said she did not expect any negative consequences from the petition: "I'm not worried, I'm not doing anything wrong," she said. She and another activist took the petition to the Royal Court in person on Monday, but were advised to send it by mail. She said a key demand is that an age between 18 and 21 be designated, above which a woman be "treated like an adult". "In every aspect, the important issue is to treat a woman as a full citizen," she said. She and other activists first raised the issue five years ago. "We never had a problem with campaigning, but the problem is there is no answer. But we always hope - without hope, you cannot work," she said. There has been no official response to the petition yet.

I think its about time Saudi Arabia get with the rest of the worlds in the push for women to be treated equally. It is a shame that women need consent of a male guardian to go abroad. They are adults and should be free to travel where they wish. I think the need for consent is something from the 1400's and should be abolished now.


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

Syrians and Iraqis granted asylum in Germany far more often than Pakistanis, Nigerians —  BERLIN — One year after the height of Europe’s migrant crisis, Germany — a nation that took in more asylum seekers than the rest of the continent combined — is confronting the Solomonesque task of deciding who gets to stay. Yet as authorities adjudicate cases, a contentious truism is emerging: Not all nationalities are created equal. If you’re from Syria or Iraq, sanctuary is almost guaranteed. But if you’re from Nigeria or Pakistan, chances are you journeyed halfway across the world in vain. Nearly 37 percent of all claims processed by the German authorities are being rejected, including an increasing number of people from countries afflicted with violent insurgencies, such as Afghanistan. Even Syrians are increasingly falling short of winning full refugee status. Authorities say they’re simply applying national and international asylum law, weeding out those who do not qualify. But critics say that overburdened asylum officials are turning a deaf ear to at least some genuine petitions simply because they come from asylum seekers arriving from nations outside the much-publicized war zones of the Middle East. [Germany used to be the promised land for migrants. Now, it’s turning back more of them.] Pakistani Mohammad Nabeel is among the unlucky ones. This month, German migration authorities informed him that his case had been closed before he even had an official hearing. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said he had missed his appointment, although Nabeel said he was never notified. Even if he had been, experts say, his case falls into the gray area that often leads to rejection. The 23-year-old claims he was in love with a rich girl in his hometown. But her family was against the relationship with Nabeel, who was poor and didn’t have the right family name, important factors in some areas of Pakistan for arranging a marriage. The girl’s brother and father set out to kill Nabeel, he says, to protect the girl’s honor. His only proof, he says, are fading scars on his body from being severely beaten by members of her family. Nabeel arrived in Germany after traveling six months and crossing seven different countries. Now, he may be sent back. “I won’t go back; I’d rather kill myself,” Nabeel says. He plans to appeal the asylum official’s decision. There are loopholes in the German system allowing for people like Nabeel — who aren’t strictly fleeing from war or political persecution — to temporarily stay in Germany on humanitarian grounds. Some are eventually granted permanent residence. But only about 4 percent of asylum requests by Pakistanis are currently decided in their favor. And Nabeel’s rejection comes at a time when the German government is increasingly taking measures targeting those migrants it deems ineligible for protection. It is determined to enforce deportation more strictly and even hired a consulting firm to help. Negotiations for deportation deals with Afghanistan and Nigeria are underway on the national and the European level. [Europe pressing harder on countries to take back deported migrants] Politicians in favor of a more restrictive asylum policy argue that some migrants apply for refugee status based on flimsy evidence and come to Germany for purely economic reasons. Others, they say, could escape the dangers they’re facing by simply approaching the local police or by moving to a different part of their home country. Daniel Owolabi Ajibade is one of the more than 10,000 Nigerians who applied for asylum in Germany this year. The business consultant claims that members of a Nigerian cartel attempted to kill him because they feared that the high-quality marbles and tiles he wanted to bring into the country would ruin their business with cheap Chinese imports. Although the 35-year-old has a newspaper article to prove the incident, the chances are high that German migration officials won’t heed his plea. The protection rate for Nigerians is only about 9 percent and to be allowed to stay, Ajibade will have to convince authorities that he had nowhere else to go. “I’m very afraid of what the outcome will be, since going back to Nigeria would be very risky,” he says. “I understand that there’s a real war in Syria and our problems with Boko Haram are mostly in the north . . . but I wish that the German government would also accept more of us until things quiet down.” “Our system caters primarily to those who have a concrete claim for protection, as bitter as this might be for some individuals,” said Ansgar Heveling, a lawmaker with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and chairman of the German parliament’s Home Affairs Committee. Heveling thinks that the vast majority of applicants are given their due. “If in individual cases a wrong decision is made, we have courts to correct them,” he said. [Germany said it took in more than 1 million refugees last year. But it didn’t.] The nongovernmental organization Pro Asyl says that the flood of appeals against the Federal Office’s decision suggest that the system is flawed. So far, 18,666 Syrians went to court this year to fight for a better status of protection than they were granted. Many cases were dropped, but of the 1,943 verdicts, 1,547 were in favor of the plaintiffs. Stephan Dünnwald, spokesman for the Bavarian Refugee Council, said that there is a danger of the German authorities sweepingly rejecting certain groups of asylum seekers because they’re overburdened or because of political decisions made in Berlin. “The decision-making is a disaster, because there are so many new and inexperienced deciders who are under a lot of time pressure . . . In some situations, where there should be additional probing, this simply isn’t done. The quality of the interpreters has declined rapidly. There are no quality standards,” Dünnwald said. “Sometimes it almost feels as if people must be beaten to death before they are being believed.”

I feel the asylum process is very, very bad in most countries not just Germany. For example in USA it is pretty bad as well. WE need to do better in letting people in to be honest. I feel like it isn't fair that some countries don't get let in as easy as others. IT might have to do with crisis's in countries but it is not fair.


This is something that is hard to choose sides with.  When people seek asylum its fine to want to help. At some point though it becomes too much and a country like Germany can only hold so much people in it. I think what Germany needs is to overhaul their immigration laws and make a change down the middle where asylum is fair but realistic.


A Palm Oil Company Threatens The Third Largest Population Of Orangutan In Indonesia —  The Sungai Putri, meaning River of the Princess, is an exquisite natural forest located in West Kalimantan, providence of Indonesia. It is about 141,000 acres of forest land, has extensive peat areas of up to 14.5 meters deep at some points, and can provide a home to about 750 to 1750 orangutan. Because of these numbers, it is the third largest population of critically Endangered orangutan Species in the province. Due to the fact that the Indonesia government has committed to protecting peat, forests and orangutans, it is alarming that there is no protection to this forest.   The forest is at critical risk of being cut down by a company named PT Mohairson Pawan Khatulistiwa who have plans to clear more than half of their liscence area to covert into an industrial tree plantation. The company is also planning on building a drainage canal from the north to the south side of the area for which some work has already reportedly began.   The Indonesian government has stated its international and national commitments to reducing carbon emissions and deforestation, protecting and restoring peat swamp forests through the Peatland Restoration Agency established by the president and stabilizing all remaining wild orangutan populations. At the same time, they allowed the company to obtain a lisence permissing the destruction of this forest land, peat and the orangutans who live in that habitat.   A satellite image taken of the land in 2016 confirms that about 58 percent of the 48,440 lisence area still remains covered in tall tree peat swamp forest and the rest is covered in medium height swamp forest, heath forest and hill forest.   At the deepest part of the dome, the peat is 14.5 meters deep, with large areas deeper than 3 meters. Indonesian laws such as the Government Regulation no. 71 of 2014 do not allow peat development in areas with more than 3 meters peat.   Threatened orangutans living in the area also raises much concern. The most recent orangutan survey for the 57,000 Sungai Putri block estimated up to 1,750 orangutans. These orangutans will not survive in areas where all forest is cleared. If conversion plans go ahead, some 500 to 1,000 orangutans will likely die or will be in need of rescue. The Indonesian Orangutan Forum FORINA recently recognized this as the largest population of orangutan located in the region and if they lose their habitat they will have  no other place to go. Indonesia’s current national action plan for orangutans aims to stabilize all wild populations by 2017, and destroying the habitat of one of the largest remaining populations is incompatible with that.   A well known developer Norweigian professor who specializes in tropical forests says, “These developments seem to violate Indonesia’s own legal processes not to mention its international commitments. Claims about absence of forest, peat and endangered species – here and elsewhere – clearly need to be assessed and verified in a transparent manner. Those who dispute the conditions can provide their data”.   Improved management is desperately needed in Sungai Putri. There are lots of illegal logging happening in the area, as are fires. According to the Global Fire Watch data, in 2015 alone, there were about 250 fires that occurred on the margins of Sungai Putri. The risk of more fires would only increase if Sungai Putri was drained and deforested as planned.   There are opposing conflicts regarding the deforestation.  Some people welcome the development of the peatland area because of the potential employment opportunities it can bring as well as the possibility to get compensated by the company for their lost traditional land uses. Others see it differently. However, according to the latest science studies, the development of coastal peatlands will never be sustainable.   Instead of going through with this development, there are other solutions available that would allow Indonesia to fulfill its development and poverty alleviations objectives but they require careful planning and close collaboration efforts between the private sector, governments, non-governmental groups, and local communities. The time to initiate those collaborations and find sustainable solutions for Indonesia is now!

We must do something to stop these companies from getting rid of what forest and animals we have left. The fact that orangutans are an endagered species angers me. What have we as humans done to prevent this? I think nothing. If something is done it would be totally unimpressive and do nothing. What we need to do is all come together and work towards the same goal.


Riot police move in on North Dakota pipeline protesters —  Armed police in the US state of North Dakota have arrested 141 Native American protesters and environmental activists during a tense confrontation. They were among several hundred people who occupied private land in the path of a controversial new oil pipeline. Police fired non-lethal rounds and used pepper spray and sound cannon to push protesters back to their main encampment on public land. Skirmishes lasted overnight and continued until early Friday morning. By then, spent bean bag rounds and pepper spray canisters littered the ground as police towed away vehicles that the protesters had burned to create barricades in the road, including several military-grade Humvees. "They used a sonic device and then also they used rubber bullets and we have shots of people who had rubber bullets right to the face. They maced elders right in the face. They dragged people out of sweat lodges. They shot one 15-year-old boy's horse and killed it under him," Jacqueline Keeler from the Sioux tribe told the BBC. She said members of the tribe were protesting because the pipeline threatened the region's water supply went across land never ceded by the tribe. Police said they had fired non-lethal bean bag rounds in response to stone throwing and one woman who fired a pistol three times at police officers without hitting any. Dozens of officers in riot gear, some armed, moved in assisted by trucks and military Humvees. Morton County Sheriff's office said the operation began at 11:15am local time (18:15 GMT) and that protesters had refused to leave voluntarily on Wednesday. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said the protesters were a "public safety issue" and their actions had "forced law enforcement to respond". "We cannot have protesters blocking county roads, blocking state highways or trespassing on private property," he said in a statement. But Robert Eder, a 64-year-old Vietnam War veteran from the Standing Rock Reservation, said protesters were not scared. "If they take everybody to jail, there will be twice as many tomorrow, and every day that passes more will come," he said. "If they raze these teepees, tomorrow we will be back." Hundreds of protesters have camped on the federally owned land for months, with more than 260 people arrested before Thursday's police operation. Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the project, has said it will boost the local economy and is safer than transporting oil by rail or road. Members of the Sioux tribe say the Dakota Access pipeline will desecrate sacred land and harm water resources. The pipeline will run almost 1,900km (1,170 miles), carrying oil to Gulf Coast refineries. Native American protesters claim the land as their own, citing a 19th Century treaty with the federal government. The protest has drawn the attention of activists and celebrities, including actress-activist Shailene Woodley and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

I think police need to be checked for how they treating protestors. These native people are in the right defending their own land and should not be maced for doing so. The native american people in this country have suffered enough. Its time we give them something good instead of bad again. They deserve this land.


Female Lawyer Accuses Justice Clarence Thomas Of Groping Her In 1999 —  She was 23 at the time. He was a Supreme Court justice. Years after his Senate confirmation hearings were roiled by accusations that he sexually harassed Anita Hill, another woman has come forward to accuse Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of groping her. Moira Smith, vice president and general counsel at Enstar Natural Gas Co., told the National Law Journal that the justice grabbed her without her consent in 1999, when she met him at a Truman Foundation dinner. Veteran Supreme Court reporter Marcia Coyle writes that Smith described the encounter ― which allegedly took place when she was a 23-year-old Truman scholar ― on Facebook earlier this month. She has since deactivated her Facebook page. “He groped me while I was setting the table, suggesting I should sit ‘right next to him,’” Smith wrote, according to the NLJ. Smith told the NLJ that Thomas “cupped his hand around my butt and pulled me pretty close to him” and later “squeezed” her behind during a June 1999 dinner for Truman scholars at the home of Louis Blair, then head of the Truman Foundation. The NLJ spoke with several of Smith’s former roommates and fellow Truman scholars who said they remembered her describing the incident at the time. Through a Supreme Court spokeswoman, Thomas denied Smith’s allegations. “This claim is preposterous and it never happened,” he said in the statement. During Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991, Hill, a law professor, testified that Thomas had harassed her a decade earlier, when he was her supervisor at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  Earlier this month, Hill wrote a Boston Globe op-ed about her experience, sparked by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s recorded boasts about grabbing women “by the pussy” and kissing women without their consent. “What I learned in 1991 is no less true today and no less important for people to understand: responses to sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence must start with a belief that women matter as much as the powerful men they encounter at work or at school, whether those men are bosses or professors, colleagues or fellow students,” Hill wrote. Read more at the National Law Journal. Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.

I think it must be investigated thoroughly and if true this man should be removed from his position immediately. Groping is just as bad as rape in my honest and humble opinion and should be removed fast. I think a precedent has to be set to stop these things and in order for that to happen we must be able to iron the bad ones out.


POLICE ASKING FOR HELP REUNITING UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN WITH FAMILY —  Police are asking for the public's help in their effort to identify a woman who was found wandering in the middle of the night without a coat in Northeast Philadelphia.   The woman was found shortly before 1 a.m. Monday on the 8700 block of Pine Road.   Responding police officers observed the woman walking towards Pennypack Park. She was not wearing a coat despite the cold temperature.   When the officers attempted to stop to speak with the woman, she was allegedly uncooperative and appeared to be confused.   She was eventually transported to the hospital for a medical evaluation.   Police are now attempting to identify the woman and reunite her with her family.   She appears to be in her late 60s or early 70s, 6'0", 175lbs, with gray hair; she was wearing a blue sweatshirt, blue scrub pants, and white sneakers.   Anyone with information is asked to contact Northeast Detective Division at 215-686-3153 / 3154 or call 911.

Its a good thing the cops are asking for help because I dont feel like anyone else would at this point. The fact that the woman was found wandering in the middle of the night without a coat is scary. It also goes to show that most people do not help others. She was confused and obviously drugged I just hope she gets the help she needs.


3,800 dead ... and more on the way —  (CNN)Rickety boats that should never have sailed. Unscrupulous smugglers with no regard for life. And desperate people risking everything. That mix of fear, hope and greed has now produced a horrifying record. More people have drowned in the Mediterranean this year than ever before: at least 3,800. That's about 90 a week. It's nearly 13 every day. Here's a look at how we got to this point. Why are they doing it? They have no choice. They are Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, escaping war. They are Nigerians and Eritreans in search of a better life. More than 65 million people have fled their homes; 1 in 3 of them are refugees. We're in the midst of the largest migration of refugees since World War II. The sheer number dwarfs the population of many countries. Would you risk these odds? Even though fewer people are crossing this year than in 2015, more people are dying as they try to make the journey. One person out of every 88 has been lost at sea trying to reach the shores of Greece, Italy or Spain. That means they're 90 times more likely to die on the journey than an American is likely to die of gunshot wounds. Where are they heading? There are three main routes across the Mediterranean. Eastern Route: Last year, the route from Turkey to Greece was the busiest by far, but a deal between the European Union and Ankara has brought the numbers down. Still, it remains a heavily trafficked route. Central Route: Libya has no government, which gives people smugglers plenty of freedom to operate out of north Africa. Traffic has been busy this year between Libya and Italy. Central Route: Libya has no government, which gives people smugglers plenty of freedom to operate out of north Africa. Traffic has been busy this year between Libya and Italy. Western Route: West Africa is far from the Middle Eastern hotspots and poor sub-Saharan African countries that produce most migrants to Europe. And relatively small numbers of people try to reach the continent from there. But even so, a steady trickle crosses the sea at the narrow point south of Spain.  Where are they fleeing from? More than a million people have fled Somalia. Nearly three million have escaped Afghanistan. But it is Syria, wracked by civil war for more than five years, that produces the most refugees: nearly five million. Just how bad is it in Syria? The Syrian refugees may outnumber any other country's refugees, but they make up less than half the number of Syrians driven from their homes by the war. Far more are internally displaced -- still in Syria, but living like refugees in the country. And then, of course, an unknown number of people have been killed in the war. International agencies stopped trying to count the dead years ago. The latest estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number somewhere around 430,000. If that's right, it means about one out of every 50 people in the country has been killed. Where do they go? President Obama vowed that the United States would resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees this year, and by August, the administration was saying it would surpass the target. Justin Trudeau vowed Canada would take 25,000 when he became prime minister last year. But far more are claiming asylum in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would take one million refugees. And all across Europe, refugees from Syria are claiming asylum. But far more stay in the Middle East. Syria's own neighbors host the vast majority of people trying to escape the war. And there's little hope the war will end any time soon -- so the refugees will keep fleeing. And they will keep dying.

Anytime these tragedies happen one can't help but wonder what could've been done to prevent this? The fact that 3,800 are dead is just mind boggling. Drowning continues and its at 90 a week that is just crazy. They have no choice one must assume but surely we can help better those countries? We must do something.


Janet Reno, first female US attorney general, dies at 78 —  anet Reno, former US attorney general under President Bill Clinton, died Monday morning following a long battle with Parkinson's disease, her sister Maggy Hurchalla said. She was 78.   Reno, the nation's first-ever female attorney general, served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 2001. What is Parkinson's disease? In a statement, former President Bill Clinton said that he and his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, were "deeply saddened" by the passing of Reno, calling her "an extraordinary public servant who dedicated her life to advancing justice, equality, and innovations in criminal justice that would save and lift lives." "As Attorney General for all eight years of my Presidency, Janet worked tirelessly to make our communities safer, protect the vulnerable, and to strike the right balance between seeking justice and avoiding abuse of power," Clinton said in the statement, listing some of her top accomplishments. "It's fitting that she spent her last years with family and friends, living in the house her mother built with her own hands. Janet was her mother's daughter. I will always be grateful for her service, counsel, and friendship." Convictions and controversies As part of the Clinton administration, Reno oversaw the high-profile convictions of numerous bombers including Ted Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist infamously known as the "Unabomber;" Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for their roles in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. "Speak out against the hatred, the bigotry and the violence in this land. Most haters are cowards. When confronted, they back down. When we remain silent, they flourish," Reno said one month after the Oklahoma City bombing. Reno's time in office was also bookended with a pair of major controversies that gripped the country. In 1993, she took office as the Waco, Texas, standoff was already underway. On the 51st day of the standoff, the attorney general ordered federal agents to raid the compound -- a decision that resulted in the death of approximately 80 members of the Branch Davidian sect. "The buck stops with me," Reno said after the incident. She later said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that her decision was "obviously wrong." In April 2000, Reno played a pivotal role in the saga of six-year-old Cuban immigrant Elian Gonzalez. Gonzalez, found off the coast of Fort Lauderdale in November 1999, was the only survivor among a group of 13 Cuban migrants trying to make it to the US. The incident sparked an international custody dispute between Gonzalez's relatives in the US and his father in Cuba. Reno ultimately ordered a raid that sent Gonzalez back to Cuba. When Clinton's administration was rocked by the Whitewater scandal, Reno was the person tasked with appointing special prosecutor Robert Fiske to lead the probe in 1994. The Clintons were never charged with criminal wrongdoing. In Clinton's second term -- months before his impeachment -- the Republican-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted to cite Reno for contempt of Congress for failing to hand over key memos. Reno eventually provided those documents. Congress never moved forward with a vote on the matter. From Miami to Washington D.C. Born in 1938, Reno grew up in Miami, Florida, with parents who both worked as reporters for Miami newspapers. After attending Cornell University for her undergraduate degree, Reno enrolled at Harvard University for law school in the early 1960s. During her first year, she heard one of her heroes, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, speak at the Sanders Theater. "She was so wonderful and her voice was still so clear and so magnificent," Reno later recalled in a 1993 speech to the Women's Bar Association. "And I went up to her afterwards, and I said, "Mrs. Roosevelt, I think you are perfectly wonderful." And I will never forget her looking at me and saying, 'Why, thank you, my dear. Those words mean so much to me.' And she seemed to mean it." After law school, Reno worked for four years as an associate at Brigham & Brigham, before becoming partner at Lewis & Reno, where she stayed for four years. In 1971, Reno decided to work with the Florida House of Representatives as a staff director. After a brief return to the private sector, she was appointed as Florida's State Attorney in Miami, becoming the first woman to ever hold that position. Reno stayed in the job for about 15 years until Clinton tapped her to become the 78th US attorney general. After the White House At a ceremony to honor Reno in 2009, then-Attorney General Eric Holder praised his predecessor for her tenacity and tireless work ethic during her eight years in the job. "I don't know how many times she said to me, 'What's the right thing to do?'" Holder said. "It was never what's the easy thing, what's the political thing, or the expedient thing to do." In 2002, Reno ran to become Florida's governor, but narrowly lost in the Democratic primary. Reno died at her home in Miami. She had battled Parkinson's disease for 20 years.

I remember reading about her growing up during the Bush era. She seemed to be a rude person with that whole Elian Gonzales saga. However we must pay our respects every time somebody dies. For that I really feel like she should be honored and I hope people close to her find peace after all of this loss.


I remember as a child watching Janet Reno in the news. Never really know what s he did back then just knew that she was a big part of the Elian Gonzales case when he was deported back to Cuba. This is crazy and honestly I'm surprised to hear her name again and its unfortunate it has to be under these circumstances.


Islamic State militants are kidnapping thousands of people to use as human shields —  TULUL AL-NASIR, Iraq — Islamic State militants have rounded up thousands of villagers at gunpoint to use as human shields as they retreat toward their stronghold of Mosul, the latest brutal war tactic inflicted on civilians in areas the group controls. Military officials and some who escaped said that the vast majority of people in more than half a dozen villages were forced to walk north toward the city as the army advanced from the south, and that those who refused were shot. Some villagers said they ran and hid in the desert to avoid being captured, sleeping out in the open for days. Others said they were taken but later managed to flee. Villagers also described mass executions of former policemen and army officers as the militants become increasingly paranoid about spies and collaborators. The kidnappings and killings compound fears about the plight of civilians as Iraqi forces advance toward the northern city of Mosul, a prize the militants don’t appear ready to give up without a hard fight. Humanitarian organizations have said they have grave concerns that civilians are at risk of being caught in crossfire, trapped between fighting or used as human shields. Holding civilian populations hostage is among the tactics the militants use to waylay advancing forces and complicate the U.S.-led airstrikes that support them. They also have set fire to oil wells and a sulfur plant south of the city, sending noxious fumes over hundreds of miles. Before launching the offensive for Mosul last week, Iraqi officials estimated that as many as 1.8 million residents were still in the city, with expectations of an exodus as forces advanced. But residents of Tulul al-Nasir, a gray, cinder-block settlement about 25 miles south of the city, said they were forced to flee the other way. [Signs of panic in the heart of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate] “They told us on the loudspeakers that whoever stays will be killed,” said Mohammed Ali, 45. They were ordered by the militants to walk about 15 miles north to Hamam al-Ali, a larger village that is still under Islamic State control. As he spoke, men crowded around him to list their family members who are missing. Some said dozens had been taken, with families divided in the confusion. More than 90 percent of the village’s 5,000 residents were kidnapped, said Iraqi army Col. Faisal Ali Abdellatif. “When they retreat from every village, they take the civilians with them to use as human shields,” he said. At her house in Tulul al-Nasir, Bushra Hussein recalled how two armed militants came by one recent day. “They said we had to gather on the road and that if they came back in 30 minutes and found us here, they’d kill us,” she said. With thousands of her neighbors, she was marched north, pushing her disabled 26-year-old son in his wheelchair, which broke after several days. Unable to move him, she was allowed to stay by the side of the road with him, where she remained until security forces advanced. Her husband, three other sons, three daughters and grandchildren were all forced to move on with the militants, she said. They called her briefly two days earlier to say they were in Mosul. “Thousands of families have been taken,” she said. “No one wanted to go.” [Sunnis fleeing Islamic State rule in Mosul brace for revenge] For those who refused to leave, the punishment was swift. On the outskirts of the village, Moyad Atallah, 40, was attending a funeral for his three brothers, who were shot after protesting. Eight Islamic State fighters in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns had arrived at their house at sundown to round them up, he said. One brother refused. “They shot him just there,” said Atallah, pointing at the dust outside his home. When his two other brothers then fought back, they were also killed, he said. The militants took their money and the family car, then kidnapped another brother and said they would return. The rest of the family fled and hid in an abandoned house nearby, including 11 now-orphaned children. The Islamic State’s utter disregard for the safety of civilians and its apparently deliberate use of human shields is putting people trapped in areas of active conflict at even greater risk as Iraqi forces advance, said Lynn Maalouf, a Beirut-based researcher for Amnesty International. Iraqi security forces have slowly won back villages and towns outside Mosul, but the militants have shown little sign that they will give up ground easily, and Iraqi and U.S. military officials say they expect the fight to get tougher as they near the city’s outskirts. As the militants are gradually squeezed, they have stepped up their savagery against local populations, residents have said. Abdulrahim al-Shammiri, the chairman of the human rights committee in the Iraqi parliament, said that 190 civilians were executed in Hamam al-Ali on Wednesday after being “kidnapped” from surrounding areas. Those who escaped said that former police or army officers were separated from their families and executed. “They killed 20 people in front of me,” said one 19-year-old from the village of Safina, who was held for three days in Hamam al-Ali before his family escaped at night, walking for days before reaching the Iraqi security forces. The family members were separated during their escape, and militants on motorbikes recaptured some of them while others watched from a ditch. Those who escaped were shot at as they fled; one woman was hit in the abdomen and is receiving treatment in Irbil. The family members declined to give their names because of concerns about the security of 30 relatives who are still missing. “All of us were against them, but they dragged us with them, all the village,” said his aunt, whose husband, four sons and three daughters are missing. Mustafa Salim contributed to this report.

I'm starting to feel like these militants dont represent that whole religion as a whole. I feel like they are twist to the religion that is out to give them a bad name., Kidnapping children is just too low even for the hardest of criminals. WE must do something to stop this and that is hurting their finances and freezing all of their bank accounts.


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."

these hate crimes have been rising lately and i feel it is due to more than just terrorists. These hate crimes have not only risen in muslims but also other minorities if you look closely at the news. I feel like more needs to be done to fix this. The fact that we haven't fixed things yet is quite scary and we need to do the right thing and take steps to clean up the problem.


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.

This breaks my heart because no children should have to go through this! I really want to help these kids not go hungry and will look into how I can help after this. I feel like to be honest it is our duty and should be mandatory that we help these kids. It is the best thing overall because no one seems to be helping them.


The treatment of Calais camp children isn’t just neglectful – it’s abusive —  The Calais camp lies in limbo, with most of its inhabitants long gone. Those who remain face hardship beyond anything the camp has previously known. Before, there was shelter – now hundreds sleep on the fringes of its dirt tracks. Before, there was at least some sense of ease – now shocked and abandoned refugees live in a state of constant tension. Fire is a constant threat, and the bulldozers are coming.   Volunteers grapple not only with the urgency of the situation, but also with the knowledge that it should – and easily could – have been prevented.     When the French authorities began the registration and resettlement of refugees, those of us involved felt an initial sense of relief. But after three days of relatively smooth action the warehouse where the registration took place closed its doors. It did not open them again. This was despite previous assurances that all refugees would be accommodated. Those left behind had no chance of safely reaching asylum centres. Most minors, registered separately, were confined to a fenced-in yard and housed in shipping containers. The rest were left homeless alongside the adult population of the camp.   Despite being provided with up-to-date and detailed census information from my organisation, Help Refugees, and the local charity, l’Auberge des Migrants, the authorities chose not to take heed of these estimates. The 50-person, four-day census operation identified exact numbers of men, women, and children within the camp, and put the total population at 10,188. Though promised over 12,000 spaces in accommodation centres throughout France, almost 2,000 refugees have been abandoned once again by an uncaring government, and are left behind in the ruins of the Calais camp.   Over two weeks ago Help Refugees warned authorities at a local tribunal in Lille that housing minors in the “container camp” would be tantamount to exposing them to fire, violence, and extreme trauma. My colleague’s words went unheeded, and now seem almost prophetic. There are now approximately 1,500 children subjected to these conditions.   Children housed in the containers report choking on the smoke that blows in from their burning former homes. They say there is no drinking water, that the toilets are never cleaned and the showers are not working. Food is served only from 3pm to 5pm, and there is only one meal a day.   There is no drinking water. The toilets are never cleaned. The showers are not working. There is only one meal a day The authorities have utterly failed to safeguard these young people, and show little to no regard for their wellbeing, health, or mental states. The children in this camp are starved of care and attention, and are in constant danger. Their treatment is not just neglectful – it’s abuse.   The lack of organisation has permeated every aspect of these children’s lives. The crippling hunger pangs reported by many are alleviated only when groups of volunteers are allowed to distribute food. Without an identification wristband, children are not permitted to use the few still-working shower facilities – a fact made worse by the decision of the authorities to register some children without providing wristbands.     The stories you need to read, in one handy email  Read more Arbitrary security measures mean that services such as the Refugee Info Bus – founded by long-term volunteers to provide refugees with WiFi and legal services – are barred from approaching the container camp, cutting the children off from means of communication and legal assistance. With this, and the recent banning of human rights lawyers acting as observers from entry into the camp, it is feared that the mistreatment of the camp’s children will go unchecked.   Volunteers are banned from putting up tents to house the homeless adult and child refugees outside the container camps, in yet another example of the restrictions that serve only to further endanger refugees’ lives. With a large portion of the camp in flames, many are sleeping on the dunes surrounding the camp, exposed to the rain, the cold, and the people smugglers.   Despite desperate conditions and daily heartbreak, the volunteers of Help Refugees and other organisations continue to provide food, water, and some comfort to the refugees who are left. Many volunteers are from the UK, and express their devastation that their country is not answering France’s calls and the refugee children it is failing – at present, it seems unlikely that the UK will take in more than the 274 children it already has. Many other volunteers are French, and must bear witness, distraught, to their nation’s mistreatment of refugees already so weakened by months of subsistence in the camp.   On 1 November charities operating within the camp received notice from the French authorities promising that all children in the container camp would be transferred by bus to accommodation centres across France this week. A representative from the UK Home Office on each bus will ensure that any children legally eligible for asylum within the UK are able to apply for transfer to the UK. It is unknown how long this legal process will take.   This is a testament to the work of the volunteers and legal workers in the camp, and presents an opportunity for these children to leave behind the trauma and misery of life in a refugee camp. However, there are no guarantees, and charities must continue to work to ensure that refugees throughout France are given a far better standard of care than was provided for the children of the Calais container camp.

Why is the rest of the world just sitting around watching this go on. It disgusts me that we are sitting idly by watching these children get abused. I understand it is not America's problem but it is all our problem when children are being hurt . We must stand up and fix this, its the right thing to do no matter what.


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.

I think its sad what is happening in Nigeria with the hunger crisis. What happened to Zulyatu and he siblings making the mother flee to Biu is just crazy. I think we should step in as a nation and do the right thing here. It is the correct thing to do honestly and we must get it done as quick as possible.


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.

This is sad as somebody with elderly parents the thought of them dying alone is quite scary. We must be able to fix this and the best way how is to just overall understand that they need help. We must strive to do better. To do better means helping them out. There is little dignity in that kind of life since everyone else flees and leaves them alone.


Sheriff: Police dog dies in hot car in western Arkansas —  HUNTSVILLE, Ark. –  A police dog died after she was left in a hot patrol car by her handler in western Arkansas, officials said. Madison County Sheriff Phillip Morgan said the dog, named Lina, died Friday. The sheriff said the dog's handler was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. The 5-year-old dog had been with the sheriff's office for three years, and the sheriff said the animal was used in drug investigations. Morgan described the dog's death as a "bad accident." He said the investigation into the dog's death is being handled by the Washington County Sheriff's Office. Last month, a police dog in Stephens County, Oklahoma, died after being left for 38 hours in a hot car and its handler was charged with animal cruelty.

What is with dog owners lately? This isn't the first story I read in the past few months of a dog being left inside a hot car. I believe the owner should be charged and not called an accident! The owner had to know the risks! Its time we hold these people accountable. It is not fair to the dog nor to the people that have to rescue the dog!


Americans adopted this South Korean man when he was 3. Now 41, he’s being deported. —  Adam Crapser was born in South Korea, but, when he was 3 years old, an American couple adopted him.   Until recently, he lived in Vancouver, Wash., with his daughters and his pregnant wife. He has a son by an ex-girlfriend. He used to own a barbershop, but decided to become a stay-at-home dad, sometimes playing guitar and ukulele and watching a rescue dog.   But that will all soon change — Crapser is being deported back to South Korea, away from his family, away from the place he’s spent 37 of his 41 years of life.   He’s being held in an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Wash.   “He will be deported as soon as Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes the necessary arrangements,” Crapser’s attorney Lori Walls told the Associated Press. “Adam, his family, and advocates are heartbroken at the outcome.”   [They grew up as American citizens, then learned that they weren’t]   Crapser’s deportation is a sad denouement to a life in the United States that’s been anything but easy.   After being abandoned near Seoul, Crapser and his older sister were adopted by an unnamed couple. All he brought with him across the ocean were a pair of green rubber shoes, a Korean-language Bible and a stuffed dog.   That couple, as the New York Times magazine noted in an extensive profile of Crapser, abandoned the children to the foster system after many episodes in which they forced Crapser to sit in the dark basement as punishment.   He and his sister were split up, and after several foster homes, he found himself adopted by Thomas and Dollar Crapser, who had adopted two other children and were also caring for several other foster children.   According to Crapser, that family was more abusive than the first. They would slam children’s heads on door frames, tape their mouths shut with duct tape and hit them with 2-by-4s. Eventually, they would be convicted in 1992 of several counts of criminal mistreatment and assault.   Before that, though, they kicked Crapser out of the house after an argument. It happened so quickly, he left his Bible and rubber shoes — the last remnants of his birth country — in the house. He was caught breaking into that house, trying to retrieve the items and pleaded guilty to burglary. Twenty-five months in prison followed.   In the years following, Crapser committed a number of infractions. He was found guilty of unlawful firearm possession and, later, assault after getting into a fight with his roommate. In 2013, he called his son by an ex-girlfriend despite a protection order she had taken out against him.   “I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I’m not proud of it,” Crapser told the New York Times magazine. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way.”   In the past few years, he’d been working to put his life back on track by getting married and focusing on family.   Now, that’s over.   Difficult as his life here has been, he followed the court’s ordered punishment for his crimes. Returning to a country that the AP described as “completely alien to him” was not a punishment handed down from a judge.   But that’s what’s happening.   He ended up on the radar of federal immigration officials after he applied for a green card in 2012. They dug into his background and found a criminal record, which as the AP noted, makes him eligible for deportation.   In fact, it’s a circumstance created by the very parents who adopted, then abandoned, him in the first place. No family that adopted him, nor the adoption agency, ever registered the boy for U.S. citizenship.   Simple paperwork left undone.   Dae Joong Yoon, executive director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, told the AP this isn’t uncommon — as many as 35,000 intercountry adoptees don’t have U.S. citizenship, through no fault of their own but that of their parents and the agencies that handled their adoptions.   The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 fixed part of this problem by automatically granting citizenship to children adopted by U.S. citizens, but, as NBC noted, it only applied to those under the age of 18 at the time of its passing.   Crapser and many others, thus, were left in their strange limbo. Currently Congress is considering the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2015, which would grant citizenship to all children who have been adopted by U.S. citizens.   But it’ll be too late for Crapser, who still hopes it will pass.   “While I am disappointed in the judge’s ruling and worried about my family’s future, I hope that what has happened to me will further demonstrate the importance of passing the Adoptee Citizenship Act,” Crapser said in a statement obtained by NBC.   Emily Kessel of the Adoptee Rights Campaign finds his deportation “appalling.”   “We do not choose our families,” Kessel told NBC. “But the U.S. does choose to bring adoptees into the U.S. with a promise of placing these children in safe homes to grow up like any other American … Adoptees are not disposable. We urge the community to call members of Congress and underline the need for a legislative fix now.”

The immigration system in this country is terrible there is no other way around it. The fact that this man was raised here since 3 and still not given citizenship? Give me a break. There are far too many stories like this and what angers me the most is that nothing is being done to fix this. We must do better.


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.

Stuff like this is crazy because it is Halloween and kids are expected to be walking the street. You would, or at least I would think that people would be more aware and feel like they have to drive more carefully than usual because at the end of the day they do have to just be more careful overall since kids will be walking the streets during Halloween.


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.

We need gun control now. The amount of deaths like this airline worked being gunned down is everyday news at this point. Everyday is a new story about a new death due to guns. Pro gun activists say that cars or tobacco kill people more but those arent made to kill people and guns are and they do kill people.


India Kashmir: The teenager blinded by pellets —  Photographer Abid Bhat here describes the life of 14-year-old Insha Mushtaq, who lost vision in both her eyes after being hit by pellets in Indian-administered Kashmir. "I just want to ask the security personnel who fired pellets at me what my fault was," Miss Mushtaq says, as she stands by the same window she was sitting at when pellets blinded her. She has been in and out of hospitals for the past three months in an attempt to regain her vision. Nothing has worked so far, but she remains hopeful. Ms Mushtaq says she wanted to become a doctor before losing her vision. She brings out her text books to show me, and flips the pages though she cannot read them anymore. "I can only feel them now," she says tearfully. Concern in Kashmir over police pellet guns Photoshopped celebrities used for Kashmir pellet gun campaign She also shows me a school photo identity card. The continuing unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir has seen the deaths of 89 civilians with thousands injured. India blames Pakistan for stirring up violence in the region, a charge that it denies. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety but only control parts of it. The region has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years, sparking two wars between the countries. Within the Muslim-majority territory, some militant groups have taken up arms to fight for independence from Indian rule or a merger with Pakistan. And the widespread use of pellet guns to quell protests in recent months has led to more than a thousand people sustaining eye injuries. Pellet guns - a form of shotgun - were first used by the police as a non-lethal weapon to quell protests in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2010. They are normally used for hunting animals. The gun fires a cluster of small, round-shaped pellets, which resemble iron balls, at high velocity. A pellet gun cartridge can contain up to 500 such pellets. When the cartridge explodes, the pellets disperse in all directions. They are less lethal than bullets but can cause serious injuries, especially if they hit the eye. Doctors treating pellet gun wounds in Kashmir told the Indian Express newspaper they were seeing "sharp and more irregular-shaped pellets" which were causing "more damage" this time. Miss Mushtaq's family is struggling to come to terms with her injuries. Her mother bursts into tears as a family member helps Ms Mushtaq don a scarf and sunglasses to hide her eyes and scarred face. "If she was killed, I would have been able to overcome the grief but the sight of her blinded eyes kills me every day," her father says as he shows me pictures of her daughter in the hospital ICU. As for Miss Mushtaq herself, she is trying to stay positive. She greets every guest coming to enquire about her health with a smile, drinks her tea and tries to console her family members and relatives. Later, she goes out for a walk with some of her relatives, smile still intact. But, for her and many others like her, it is going to be a long and difficult road ahead.

The fact that it wasn't criminals that did this to the poor girl but security personnel speaks volumes on the world as a society. Pellets are seen as not harmful but the reality is they c an even cause blindness. We must do what is right and correct the wrongs in society by educating people on the harms that they cause.


I believe that the photographer that happened to describe the life of Insha hit the nail on the head with this description of the life of her after the blindness. A pellet gun has up to 500 pellets and the fact that  she was hit by these pellets in a Kashmir tell me they are not properly trained. I feel like this is a problem all throughout the world. We need to train people better.


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."

This isn't the first time it seems like the US has backed what looks to be a group of terrorists. I feel like we as a country need to do better and investigate just who we support much better than we are currently doing. I think the sooner we do it the more luck we will have in making this world a better place.


At least 10 hurt after massive Arizona apartment complex fire caught on video —  Ten people were hurt when a fire tore through a small apartment complex in Payson. Fire Chief David Staub says the fourplex is a total loss after an explosion ignited the blaze Saturday evening. The fire was reported after sundown and fire crews arrived to find the building completely engulfed.   Staub says eight people inside all suffered minor injuries except one person who was transported to a Maricopa County burn center. That person remains hospitalized in stable condition.   Two people who were outside the apartments also sustained minor injuries. They were treated at the scene.   It took crews about 10 minutes to get the fire under control after the gas company shut off gas in the neighborhood.   Staub says the cause remains under investigation.

I think when accidents like this happen we must sit back and wonder why they happened and what can be done to prevent them in the future. I feel like this Arizona apartment complex probably did not have the necessary protocols to do things the right way and that caused this to happen. We must ensure all buildings have the necessary steps to prevent this.


Flamingo Dead After Busch Gardens Visitor Allegedly Threw Her To The Ground —  A beloved flamingo at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, had to be euthanized Tuesday after police say a park visitor attacked her. Pinky, a female Chilean flamingo known for a distinctive style of walking that became known as the “Flamingo Flamenco,” was 19 years old, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Joseph Anthony Corrao was at the park with his family around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday when he allegedly reached into Pinky’s pen, grabbed her and threw her to the ground. The zoo had to euthanize her because of her injuries, according to a Busch Gardens statement.  “Pinky was a beloved member of the Busch Gardens Tampa Bay family and made many appearances on behalf of the park’s conservation and education efforts,” the statement read. “She will be sorely missed.” Witnesses said that before picking up Pinky, Corrao picked up a different flamingo but put it down unharmed, according to local news station WFLA. Zoo personnel say they never trained Pinky to perform her circular dance, but that she just started doing it on her own. “While making an appearance with Jack Hanna, the team noticed that she was dancing on her own to get attention,” Busch Gardens spokeswoman Karen Varga-Sinka told the Orlando Sentinel. “Since then, she has danced for countless guests, school groups, media appearances and national television shows.” Corrao was charged with animal cruelty and jailed on $2,000 bond. At his first court appearance on Wednesday, Judge John Conrad said that the act “borders on depraved,” ABC Action News reports. “I don’t know if you have other issues, but I don’t know who does that,” Conrad said.

We need to do more to protect life. The fact that this Flamingo died is mind boggling because it was a visitor that did it. With Busch Gardens considers themselves a serious institution they will most certainly end up having to press charges on this guy it is the least they can do here to be quite honest with you.