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7bdd1d7da3f38b0834cd4817699ca615 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/12/15/maine-man-locks-horns-dmv-and-wins/95488884/ | Maine man locks horns with DMV — and wins | Maine man locks horns with DMV — and wins
Yarmulkes, hijabs, wigs, turbans and habits are all religious head coverings allowed for wear in U.S. driver’s license pictures.
Add “horns of power” to the list.
A Maine man named Phelan MoonSong is now the proud carrier of a state-issued driver’s license that shows his bespectacled eyes peering out beneath a pair of pointy goat horns emanating from his forehead.
“My horns have become very important to me, the feel of them on my head,” MoonSong told The Wild Hunt, a website for pagan news and commentary. “They are like a Spiritual Antenna.”
When he wore the horns to the Bangor, Maine, Department of Motor Vehicles, a clerk asked whether they were implanted in his head. He said they were not. He told the clerk he was a “Priest of Pan” — a neopagan with an Earth-based spirituality — and they were part of his religiously required garb.
The clerk snapped his picture but told him he needed to send the state various documents showing the horns were religiously required attire.
MoonSong’s request is not unprecedented. Numerous “Pastafarians” — those who maintain a tongue-in-cheek belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster — have won the right to be photographed wearing colanders as hats.
MoonSong sent the state documentation from four scholarly tomes on pagan traditions, including one titled “Pagan Religions: A Handbook for Diversity Training.” He also fired off a personal essay about why his horns were important to him, according to the website.
Last month, when he called Maine’s secretary of state’s office, which handles driver’s license photos, he was told his horns would have to go.
MoonSong then appeared at the state’s motor vehicle office — horns firmly in place — and mentioned he was seeking help from Maine’s Civil Liberties Union, a civil rights advocacy group.
His horns were approved and he expects his license soon.
“I do not see any problem as long as sincere beliefs are held and whatever rules are applied are applied to all fairly and equally,” MoonSong told The Wild Hunt. “Freedom of religion means all religions, not just your own.”
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ccf04daca1dd1e4a92ad7ebef0c84e90 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/12/26/reports-mall-disturbances-light-up-social-media/95859862/ | Reports of mall disturbances light up social media | Reports of mall disturbances light up social media
A flurry of reports of mall melees and disturbances rippled across social media Monday on a day Americans swarmed shopping hubs for post-holiday bargains.
Disturbances that led to some malls being evacuated included reports from Elizabeth, N.J.; Fayetteville, N.C.; East Garden City, N.Y.; Aurora, Colo.; Tempe, Ariz.; Beachwood Place, a suburb of Cleveland; and Memphis.
About 10 people were injured during a melee at the Jersey Gardens mall in Elizabeth on Sunday evening, Mayor Chris Bollwage said in a tweet.
The injuries were non-life-threatening, Bollwage said. A fight in the food court led to false reports of a shooting after a chair was thrown and hit the ground loudly, officials said.
Posts on social media showed police with guns responding to the food court. Police evacuated the building as a precaution, and hours later there were still long lines waiting for NJ Transit buses as it began to rain.
Malls reel in families with full-blown Santa 'experiences'
Sergio Cleto, a tourist from Brazil, was waiting for a bus back to Manhattan. "We saw the kids fighting ... then everyone began to run and everything is a mess after that," Cleto said.
In Tennessee, Memphis police arrested seven people and had an eighth in custody Monday evening following melees at two malls that sent crowds scurrying and shut down Oak Court Mall early.
The two incidents were similar to others across the country, but Memphis police couldn't confirm any sort of coordinated effort just a lot of social media chatter.
In North Carolina, Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville was evacuated after a brawl sent shoppers fleeing, WRAL-TV in Raleigh reported. Authorities said a confrontation broke out between teens in the mall food court at about 4:40 p.m. and quickly escalated, the station said. Fayetteville Police tweeted that there were unconfirmed reports of shots being fired, and the mall, not police, made the decision to evacuate. There were no shooting victims or property damage, according to police.
False reports of a shooting sent shoppers fleeing at Roosevelt Field, an upscale shopping mall in East Garden City, N.Y., News 12 Long Island reported. A fight broke out in the food court and panicked shoppers mistakenly thought shots had been fired, the station reported. It said police converged on the mall and gave an all-clear. Seven people were hospitalized with minor injuries, the station reported.
In Cleveland, police officers were called to Beachwood Place just after 6:30 p.m. after a fight that led to a mall lockdown, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported, and officers used pepper spray to disperse the crowd. One man and one police officer received medical treatment after being exposed to the pepper spray, the paper said.
Police there said the incident appeared to have been “loosely organized on social media.”
In Aurora, Colo., "multiple skirmishes" on Monday afternoon at Town Center Aurora led to evacuations, KUSA-TV, Denver, reported. Police said no customers or officers were injured.
No one was seriously injured but five juveniles were arrested during the disturbance at the Town Center at Aurora, police spokesman Sgt. Chris Amsler told the Associated Press.
Officers in Tempe, Ariz., said they found no evidence of a shooting at Arizona Mills Mall after receiving a call reporting possible shots fired, KPNX-TV in Phoenix reported. There were two fights in the food court of the mall and no stores were put on lockdown, according to the station.
In Indiana, several minors were detained after police were called to break up fights at Castleton Square Mall. There were hundreds of young people at the mall with 10 to 12 fighting, IMPD Commander Christopher Bailey said.
"They had multiple fights and a couple different resisters and they were all tied up and there were several hundred kids inside the mall running around and there were a couple other skirmishes inside the mall, so they needed assistance so on-duty officers responded and helped and within a matter of minutes, everything was under control back at the mall," Bailey told Fox59.
Bailey said it wasn't clear what led to the fights but believed those involved may have had some type of feud.
The day after Christmas is known as Boxing Day, a shopping fest akin to Black Friday in some countries such as the United Kingdom.
Contributing: Ron Maxey, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, and Patricia Alex, The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record. Follow Susan Miller on Twitter: @susmiller
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538f3bb2c026394a7d0466fd9b081c31 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/12/28/obama-names-2-new-national-monuments-utah-nevada/95932862/ | Obama names 2 new national monuments in Utah, Nevada | Obama names 2 new national monuments in Utah, Nevada
SALT LAKE CITY — President Obama designated two national monuments Wednesday at sites in Utah and Nevada that have become key flash points over use of public land in the U.S. West, marking the administration’s latest move to protect environmentally sensitive areas in its final days.
The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah will cover 1.35 million acres in the Four Corners region, the White House said. In a victory for Native American tribes and conservationists, the designation protects land that is considered sacred and is home to an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.
It’s a blow for state Republican leaders and many rural residents who fear it will add another layer of unnecessary federal control and close the area to energy development and recreation, a common refrain in the battle over use of the American West’s vast open spaces.
In Nevada, a 300,000-acre Gold Butte National Monument outside Las Vegas would protect a scenic and ecologically fragile area near where rancher Cliven Bundy led in an armed standoff with government agents in 2014. It includes rock art, artifacts, rare fossils and recently discovered tracks.
The White House and conservationists said both sites were at risk of looting and vandalism.
“Today’s actions will help protect this cultural legacy and will ensure that future generations are able to enjoy and appreciate these scenic and historic landscapes,” Obama said in a statement.
His administration has rushed to safeguard vulnerable areas ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. It has blocked new mining claims outside Yellowstone National Park and new oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean.
Obama’s creation and expansion of monuments covers more acreage than any other president.
But Trump’s upcoming presidency has tempered the excitement for tribal leaders and conservationists, with some worrying he could try to reverse or reduce some of Obama’s expansive land protections.
Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, who opposes the Bears Ears Monument, has suggested presidents have the power to undo monuments, though it has not been done before.
A coalition of tribes pushed for the creation of Utah’s eighth national monument, though the tribes asked Obama to make it about 500,000 acres larger than the monument he named Wednesday.
Tribal members visit the Bears Ears area to perform ceremonies, collect herbs and wood for medicinal and spiritual purposes and do healing rituals.
Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye called it an exciting day for his tribe and people of all cultures.
“We have always looked to Bears Ears as a place of refuge, as a place where we can gather herbs and medicinal plants, and a place of prayer and sacredness,” Begaye said. “The rocks, the winds, the land — they are living, breathing things that deserve timely and lasting protection.”
The Navajo Nation is one of five tribes that will get an elected official on a first-of-its-kind tribal commission for the Bears Ears monument. The panel will provide federal land managers with tribal expertise and historical knowledge about the area, federal officials said.
Tucked between existing national parks and the Navajo reservation, the proposed monument features stunning vistas at every turn and a mix of cliffs, plateaus, towering rock formations, rivers and canyons across wide expanses covered by sagebrush and juniper trees.
Opponents agree the area is a natural treasure worth preserving but said the federal designation would create restrictions on oil and gas development as well residents’ ability to camp, bike, hike and gather wood.
No new mining and oil and gas development will be allowed within the monument boundaries, said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Members of Utah’s all-GOP congressional delegation had backed a plan to protect about 1.4 million acres at Bears Ears, while opening up other areas of the state for development.
To many residents in the small, predominantly Mormon town of Blanding that sits near the new monument, the proposal is a thinly veiled, repackaged push from environmental groups who recruited tribes after previous attempts at the designation fizzled out.
In Nevada, retiring Democratic Sen. Harry Reid has pushed for protections at Gold Butte, a remote area northeast of Lake Mead, but GOP members of the state’s congressional delegation have been vocal opponents.
Bundy is one rancher who does not recognize federal jurisdiction in the area. He was accused of illegally allowing his cows to roam there after failing to pay more than $1.1 million in fees and penalties.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges in the 2014 standoff with U.S. agents trying to round up his cattle.
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396afd207d0827355d401be5d16d2800 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/12/29/suicide-kills-more-us-troops-than-isil-middle-east/95961038/ | Suicide kills more U.S. troops than ISIL in Middle East | Suicide kills more U.S. troops than ISIL in Middle East
WASHINGTON — Suicide — not combat — is the leading killer of U.S. troops deployed to the Middle East to fight Islamic State militants, according to newly released Pentagon statistics.
U.S. casualties have been relatively low since the U.S.-led war effort began with a bombing campaign in August 2014, reflecting the limited combat exposure for troops. Of the 31 troops who have died as of Dec. 27 in Operation Inherent Resolve, 11 have taken their own lives. Eight died in combat, seven in accidents and four succumbed to illness or injury. The cause of one death is under investigation.
The reasons suicide ranks as the No. 1 cause of troop deaths are complex and poorly understood, according to experts on military suicide. They likely include mental illnesses that enlistees brought with them to boot camp, post-traumatic stress, multiple combat deployments and heightened anxiety in a military at war for 16 years.
“I don’t think there’s one single cause for it,” said Rajeev Ramchand, a senior behavioral scientist at the Rand Corp. who has studied military suicide. “There are a multitude of factors. They are also picking up on a trend toward more suicide in the U.S. population as a whole. Maybe there’s a universal stress on everyone in the military that affects them in profound ways.”
Read more:
Experts worry high military suicide rates are 'new normal'
Study: Soldiers at highest risk for suicide tries in first year
The nature of the fight against ISIL has also limited combat fatalities. Direct fights between U.S. troops and ISIL fighters are uncommon events. U.S.-led airstrikes have been the principal means of attack, and they have been exceptionally lethal. The military estimates bombs and missiles fired by warplanes and drones have killed 50,000 ISIL fighters.
Thousands of American troops have deployed to train and assist Iraq’s army, and thousands more have been sent to provide security, launch artillery barrages and perform logistics duties. Few of them have come under direct attack.
Several hundred more U.S. commandos are on the ground in Iraq and Syria, conducting raids to capture or kill ISIL leaders and assist local fighters. Some of those missions have been deadly. On Oct. 22, 2015, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, a member of the Army’s super-elite Delta Force, was killed by gunfire as he helped free 70 prisoners from an ISIL prison in northern Iraq.
The largest loss of life in a single incident in the war against ISIL didn’t take place in Iraq or Syria. It occurred in Jordan on Nov. 4, 2016, when three Special Forces soldiers were shot by a guard as they tried to enter an air base. The American commandos were training local forces to fight ISIL militants. Their shooting deaths remain under investigation.
The most casualties in a single attack occurred earlier this year when rockets fired by ISIL fighters targeted a Marine artillery base in northern Iraq. The attack on March 19 killed Staff Sgt. Louis Cardin and wounded eight others. All of them received Purple Heart medals, according to the Navy.
By far, 2016 has been the most dangerous for U.S. forces since the war began. Seven of the eight combat deaths have occurred in 2016, and 21 of the 26 troops wounded in action suffered their injuries this year.
But the military's suicide problem continues.
Between 2001 and 2010, the rate of suicide in the military doubled, Ramchand said. The chief spike occurred around 2005 when fighting and combat deaths soared in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Army shouldered most of the war’s burden.
The Army still has the highest percentage among the services for suicide, according to the Pentagon's latest figures. Of the 269 active-duty troops who took their own lives in 2014, 122 were soldiers, or about 28%.
As a whole, the military’s rate of suicide of about 20 per 100,000 troops in 2014 was comparable to the same civilian population.
Retired general Peter Chiarelli made suicide prevention a top priority when he was the Army’s No. 2 officer as vice chief of staff from 2008 to 2012. He expressed frustration with the failure to drive down the rate of military and civilian suicides.
He called for a research effort, similar to the comprehensive initiative to attack HIV/AIDS, focusing on changes in the brain caused by depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. That will require focused leadership from the Pentagon and Congress and the development of new drugs.
“This really is an illness,” Chiarelli said. “It’s not because you’re weak.”
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ec2309d9a84760cd52dc3a6d492e3723 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/04/lirr-commuter-train-derails-brooklyn-76-injured/96148988/ | 'Total chaos': 100 hurt in LIRR train crash in Brooklyn | 'Total chaos': 100 hurt in LIRR train crash in Brooklyn
More than 100 people were injured Wednesday when a Long Island Rail Road train crashed through a bumper at the end of the line during morning rush, authorities said.
The most severe injury appeared to be a possible broken leg; no injuries were life-threatening, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. He said Brooklyn's Atlantic Terminal suffered minor damage, but the afternoon commute would not be affected.
"A broken leg is not good, but we've been through situations where we've had worse," Cuomo said.
FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Daniel Donoghue said more than 600 people were on the train when it smashed through the last bumper and crashed into a small room at the end of the track. He put the injury total at 76; the Fire Department later tweeted that 103 people were hurt.
"We were fortunate we didn't have more severe injuries," Donoghue said. "When we got there, there were a lot of people that needed help."
Watch video from the scene here.
Cuomo said the train only overshot its stopping zone by a few feet and didn't derail until it hit the bumper. Most of the passengers were able to exit the train and walk away, he said.
“I was getting up from my seat and there was a loud impact, and I flew forward and then flew backward,” a passenger named Amanda told CBS2. “It was total chaos, there was smoke on the train, and we were sitting there in shock.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a go-team to New York to begin an investigation. The crash comes three months after a New Jersey Transit train slammed through the Hoboken Terminal, killing one woman on the platform and injuring 114 people on the train.
The NTSB has yet to announce its findings on that crash. Jack Arseneault , lawyer for train engineer Thomas Gallagher, has said his client "very likely suffers from sleep apnea" that could have been a factor.Read more: Hudson Reporter - Where are answers in Hoboken train crash Questions remain in wake of accident that took life of local mom
Cuomo said the accident Wednesday was not nearly as serious.
"That train was coming in much faster, caused much more damage and hurt many more people," Cuomo said. "All things considered, this (crash Wednesday) was a relatively minor accident."
LIRR, part of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, claims on its website to be the busiest railroad in North America. Its 735 weekday trains transport about 265,000 customers on 700 miles of track. Its reach stretches 120 miles from Montauk on Long Island's eastern tip to Penn Station in Manhattan and Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.
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c4d5e24aa06bde1e56deb1bec39468c2 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/05/now-hear-stop-cleaning-your-ears/96193598/ | Now hear this: Stop cleaning your ears! | Now hear this: Stop cleaning your ears!
(NEWSER) – There's a reason Q-tips come with a warning to never use them in your ears —and it's about time we heeded the advice, says the American Academy of Otolaryngology.
The academy's new guidelines for dealing with earwax, the first in almost a decade, stress that the wax is as beneficial as nose mucus or eyelashes and should be left alone as much as possible. While it might seem icky, earwax traps dirt, dust, and other stuff that might get into our ears; the wax is slowly pushed outward by new skin growth and jaw movement and washed away with normal bathing, reports Reuters and CNN. That means there's no reason to get rid of earwax with cotton swabs, your finger, or any other tool. Doing so is actually a really bad idea.
You might "push the wax in further, and there also is the potential for damage to the ear drum," says Dr. Seth Schwartz, who helped draft the new guidelines. You might also scratch the ear canal, which "can lead to pain and infection," he says. "Wiping away any excess wax when it comes to the outside of the ear is enough to keep it clean."
Doctors say you should seek medical help if your ear feels full, painful, itchy, or if you're experiencing hearing loss, drainage, ringing in the ears, or bleeding, rather than using a cotton swab to poke around.
In fact, they say you shouldn't put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear — including ear candles, which are supposed to remove wax with heat, though there's no evidence they really work, per Quartz. (It turns out your earwax says a lot about you.)
This story originally appeared on Newser:
Stop Cleaning Your Ears
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Newser is a USA TODAY content partner providing general news, commentary and coverage from around the Web. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
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1ceb2175df6b53f9a1cb61ffb8a737c0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/09/mammograms-lead-unneeded-treatment-some-breast-cancers/96367604/ | Mammograms lead to unneeded treatment for some breast cancers | Mammograms lead to unneeded treatment for some breast cancers
One in three women with breast cancer detected by a mammogram are treated unnecessarily, according to a Danish study published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine, which has renewed debate over the value of early detection.
The women didn’t need treatment, researchers write, because they had tumors so slow-growing that they’re essentially harmless.
The study raises the uncomfortable possibility that some women who believe their lives were saved by mammograms were actually harmed by cancer screenings that led to surgery, radiation and even chemotherapy that they didn’t need, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, who wrote an accompanying editorial but was not involved in the study.
Researchers increasingly recognize that not all breast cancers pose the same risk, even if they look the same under a microscope, Brawley said. While some early tumors turn into deadly monsters, others stop growing or even shrink. But assuming that all small breast lesions have the potential to turn deadly is akin to “racial profiling,” Brawley wrote in his editorial.
“By treating all the cancers that we see, we are clearly saving some lives,” Brawley said in an interview. “But we’re also ‘curing’ some women who don’t need to be cured.”
Although experts such as Brawley have long discussed the risks posed by “overdiagnosis,” relatively few women who undergo cancer screenings are even aware of the debate.
The American College of Radiology, which strongly supports breast cancer screenings, acknowledges that mammograms lead some women to be treated unnecessarily but said the problem is much less common than the new study suggests. Another study from Denmark – whose national health program keeps detailed records – estimated the overdiagnosis rates at only 2.3%.
“The amount of overdiagnosis really is small,” said Dr. Debra Monticciolo, chair of the American College of Radiology’s Commission on Breast Imaging. “Articles like this aren’t very helpful,” she said, because they leave women confused about how to be screened for breast cancer.
Yet treating women for cancer unnecessarily can endanger their health, said Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, an advocacy group. Radiation can damage the heart or even cause new cancers. Visco notes that breast cancer activist Carolina Hinestrosa, a vice president at the coalition, died at age 50 from soft-tissue sarcoma, a tumor caused by radiation used to treat an early breast cancer.
Women should understand these risks, Visco said. Instead, women often hear only about mammograms’ benefits.
“Women have been inundated with the early detection message for decades,” Visco said.
The risks of overdiagnosis and false positives, which can lead women with benign growths to undergo biopsies and other follow-up tests, have caused some experts to re-evaluate breast cancer screenings. Although mammograms don’t find all tumors, they reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer by 25% to 31% for women ages 40 to 69, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Medical groups now offer differing advice on mammograms:
In the new study, Danish researchers estimated the rate of overdiagnosis by comparing the number of early-stage and advanced breast tumors before and after the country started offering mammograms. If screenings work as intended, the number of small, curable breast tumors should increase, while reducing the number of large cancers by about the same amount.
Although mammograms in Denmark detected a lot more breast cancers, these were mostly small, early-stage tumors, said study co-author Dr. Karsten Jorgensen, a researcher at the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. The number of advanced cancers did not fall.
The debate about overdiagnosis illustrates the limits of medical technology, Brawley said.
Although researchers can estimate the statistical rate of overdiagnosis, doctors treating actual patients can’t definitively tell which breast tumors need treatment and which might be safely ignored, Brawley said. So doctors tend to err on the side of caution and treat all breast cancers with surgery and, in many cases, radiation and chemotherapy.
An estimated 253,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in U.S. women this year, with nearly 41,000 deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.
An additional 63,000 women will be diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, also known as DCIS, which has some, but not all, of the typical traits of cancer. Although DCIS cells have changed to appear malignant under the microscope, they haven’t invaded surrounding tissue.
The American Cancer Society defines DCIS as the earliest stage of breast cancer, and women with the condition typically undergo the same treatment given to women with early invasive cancers. Although DCIS isn’t life-threatening, doctors recommend treating it to prevent it from becoming invasive.
Other experts note that DCIS carries such low risk that it should be considered merely a risk factor for cancer. Researchers are conducting studies to measure whether it’s safe to scale back treatment of DCIS.
This story comes fromKaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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c054a9381c3c74161850989b72f82675 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/14/ringling-bros-circus-close-after-146-years/96606820/ | Ringling Bros. circus closing after 146 years | Ringling Bros. circus closing after 146 years
The "Greatest Show on Earth" is getting its curtain call. Feld Entertainment, owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus said in a statement that the show will end is 146-year run in May.
The iconic circus declined in recent years due to high operating costs and long, costly legal battles with animal rights groups, such as the one to eliminate elephant acts. Ticket sales had already fallen, but they dropped more significantly than anticipated after the elephants were retired last May, according to the statement.
The company's two circus shows, Out of This World and Circus Xtreme, have 30 shows left, including appearances in Atlanta, Brooklyn and Boston. The final shows are May 7 at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, R.I., and May 21 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.
"This was a difficult business decision to make, but by ending the circus tours, we will be able to concentrate on the other lines of business within the Feld Entertainment portfolio," said Juliette Feld, chief operating officer. "Now that we have made this decision, as a company, and as a family, we will strive to support our circus performers and crew in making the transition to new opportunities."
The company broke the news to circus employees Saturday night after shows in Orlando and Miami, The Associated Press reported.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a major critic of the circus for its treatment of animals, celebrated the announcement.
The announcement means most of the shows' 500 or so employees will be left without work, the AP reported. Feld said some will be transferred to the some of the company's more profitable shows like Monster Jam, Disney on Ice and Marvel Live!, and that it will help with job placement, resumes and, in some cases, housing relocation.
Before Feld Entertainment, there was Phineas Taylor Barnum's traveling show of animals and human oddities, and the five Ringling brothers' juggling act and skits in Wisconsin in the late 1800s. They merged and performed across the country, traveling by train (some still do, to this day). The Feld family bought the Ringling circus in 1967.
At its prime, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was considered a family-friendly outing. But the shows lost their appeal toward the end of the 20th century, CEO Kenneth Feld told the AP. He believes it grew outdated and difficult for audiences with shorter attention spans.
“The competitor in many ways is time,” he said. “It’s a different model that we can’t see how it works in today’s world to justify and maintain an affordable ticket price. So you’ve got all these things working against it.”
When the Feld family first acquired the circus, the show was just under 3 hours. Today, the show is 2 hours and 7 minutes, according to the AP. The longest segment — a tiger act — clocks in at 12 minutes.
Yet it seems the battle over animal rights dealt a fatal blow to the circus. Ringling had been targeted by organizations like PETA who consider forcing animals, such as elephants, to perform cruel.
A battle over elephant acts — a staple of the show since Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882 — ensued between Feld Entertainment and animal rights activists in court. It went on for 14 years, but in 2014 Feld Entertainment won $25.2 million in settlements, the AP reported. By that point, though, cities such as Los Angeles, Oakland, Calif., and Asheville, N.C., had restrictions on animal acts.
Ringling Bros. eliminating elephant acts
The next year they announced the circus would retire its elephants.
"This is the most significant change we have made since we founded the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation in 1995," Kenneth Feld said in a statement in 2015. "...this decision was not easy, but it is in the best interest of our company, our elephants and our customers."
The Center for Elephant Conservation will continue its work, but the lions, tigers, kangaroos, llamas and other exotic animals featured in the shows will be placed in suitable homes, the AP reported.
"Without Ringling Bros., we wouldn’t have the vibrant live entertainment company that we have today," Kenneth Feld wrote on the company website. "Ringling Bros. will always be part of Feld Entertainment, and its spirit will live on in every production and project we do."
Contributing: Alan Gomez.
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51ddf0bd1f013b6ea0c296e59412e370 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/15/circus-closing-major-victory-animal-rights-activists/96614184/ | Animal rights activists claim major win in Ringling Bros. closing | Animal rights activists claim major win in Ringling Bros. closing
Animal rights activists claimed a major victory Sunday after Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus said it would halt its show in May after 146 years.
The move came as circuses and animal-performance shows across the country have struggled with declining attendance and shifting social pressure brought to bear by activists who argued the animals were sometimes poorly treated. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus removed elephants from its performances last May, and the company said ticket sales then dropped drastically. The company had long battled animal rights activists in costly court skirmishes — winning a $15.75 million judgment against them in 2015 — but apparently lost the larger fight over public opinion.
“IT’S OVER,” actress and animal rights advocate Pamela Anderson posted to her 1.07 million Twitter followers.
PETA, which has crusaded against animal treatment, lauded the decision and said the trend should accelerate. “All other animal circuses, roadside zoos, and wild animal exhibitors, including marine amusement parks like SeaWorld and the Miami Seaquarium, must take note: Society has changed, eyes have been opened, people know now who these animals are, and we know it is wrong to capture and exploit them.”
More coverage:
Ringling Bros. circus: How The Greatest Show on Earth got its start
After 146 years, Ringling Bros. circus is closing
Elephants' final act
Circuses have long been a part of the American social fabric, bringing exotic animals to small towns across the country, giving awestruck children a taste of the wilder world beyond. But the past three decades, in particular, have seen a growing concern for the health and welfare of wild animals who spend their lives in captivity.
Most people didn’t realize what went on behind the scenes, said Jan Creamer, the president of Animal Defenders International, which has conducted undercover investigations into circuses for 20 years. Even if only some circuses treated the animals poorly, people began to believe that simply keeping them in captivity and forcing them to perform was its own kind of cruelty, she said.
“People were shocked at the day-to-day casual violence,” Creamer said. “We didn’t know any better. Now, we do. As Ringling has found out, people are better educated and … recognize suffering and cruelty in other species. They don’t want to see animals suffer for 15 minutes of entertainment.”
Feld Entertainment, which owned the circus, said ticket sales dropped after the elephants were retired to the company’s breeding and research facility. The company didn’t specify what will happen to the remaining animals, which include tigers, lions, horses, dogs and camels, but scheduled a Monday press conference to discuss the decision. Company officials declined to be interviewed on Sunday.
"The circus and its people have continually been a source of inspiration and joy to my family and me, which is why this was such a tough business decision to make, company CEO Kenneth Feld said in a statement. "The decision was even more difficult because of the amazing fans that have become part of our extended circus family over the years, and we are extremely grateful to the millions of families who have made Ringling Bros. part of their lives for generations."
Ringling Bros. circus closing after 146 years
The company's two circus shows, Out of This World and Circus Xtreme, have 30 shows left, including appearances in Atlanta, Brooklyn and Boston. The final shows are May 7 at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, R.I., and May 21 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. The company said it would help its circus performers transition to new roles but didn’t offer specifics about how many employees might lose the jobs.
Feld Entertainment said in a statement that the spirit of the circus would live on through the company's other shows.
As with most things, Internet chatter immediately turned the circus conversation to politics. Actor and author George Takei said the title of the “Greatest Show on Earth” would now be taken up by the Trump administration (he used language we can’t print), and multiple USA TODAY readers jokingly suggested that the circus clowns would find work in politics.
Those kinds of jokes previously hit a nerve with Feld Entertainment, which last fall launched a “#TakeBackTheCircus” campaign after growing tired of hearing politicians referred to as clowns.
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8e7f95b40222c8e936664b907655b5ba | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/29/aclu-fundraising-records-muslim-immigrant-ban/97218098/ | Outrage over Trump's immigrant ban helps ACLU raise more money online in one weekend than in all of 2016 | Outrage over Trump's immigrant ban helps ACLU raise more money online in one weekend than in all of 2016
The American Civil Liberties Union shattered fundraising records this weekend after taking the White House to court over President Trump's executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
The ACLU said it has received more than 350,000 online donations totaling $24 million since Saturday morning. The non-profit organization that aims to protect individuals' rights and liberties guaranteed in the Constitution typically raises about $4 million online in a year, according to Executive Director Anthony Romero.
"It's really clear that this is a different type of moment," Romero said. "People want to know what they can do. They want to be deployed as protagonists in this fight. It's not a spectator sport."
The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of two men from Iraq who were detained Friday at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport after Trump signed his executive order. In response to the suit, a federal judge in Brooklyn blocked part of Trump's controversial order late Saturday, barring officials from deporting those detained in U.S. airports because of the ban.
Here's a look at the ACLU's fight with the Trump administration, by the numbers:
Romero said of Trump: "He has to understand governing is different than running for office." The executive order didn't consider the "legal or policy implications, or the practical implications of people traveling to the country."
He said Trump "is walking down a very dangerous path. ... He will be met with resistance every step of the way."
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0e70ec71b762f687650475c2d93b83b8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/29/colossal-crowds-pack-american-streets/97218668/ | Once again, images show colossal crowds taking to the streets against Trump | Once again, images show colossal crowds taking to the streets against Trump
For now at least, this might be our new normal.
One week after a massive Women's March on Washington and similar marches across the world in defiance of President Trump and concerns over a rollback of rights, a rising tide of outrage again sent Americans into city streets.
The first ripples began with protests at about a dozen airports Saturday over Trump's executive order barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
From Seattle to Newark, Houston to Boston, hundreds jammed airport terminals — lawyers, immigration advocates, ordinary citizens compelled to the front lines, many refusing to leave until those who had been detained by U.S. Customs had been freed or had obtained legal counsel.
On Sunday, the movement caught fire and demonstrations and rallies erupted in communities across the U.S. from city halls to airports to parks. In the nation's capital, the site of the march that drew a crushing 500,000 people Jan. 21, Pennsylvania Avenue was shut down Sunday as thousands trekked from the White House to the U.S. Capitol. An energized crowd stopped outside Trump's showcase hotel along the avenue to shake fists and chant "shame."
Boston
Boston's Copley Square, the public square packed with runners when bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon in 2013, was a sea of signs and electrified demonstrators hoisting placards saying "deport hate" and "immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, we will stand with you."
San Francisco
At San Francisco International Airport, hundreds of people choked the international terminal. Signs blared "resist," "1939/2017 never again" and "due process for all." A phalanx of lawyers lined up, offering free legal aid to refugees affected by the executive order. Thunderous applause broke out when teachers and union reps were introduced.
Charlottesville, Va.
College campuses were also spurred to action Sunday. At the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, hundreds of students and community members flocked to the Rotunda, the esteemed centerpiece of Thomas Jefferson's university. They chanted — "2, 4, 6, 8, we don't want your wall of hate" — and read an open letter on behalf of DREAMers on Ground, a student organization dedicated to undocumented students.
New York
And in New York, residents poured into subway stations en route to Battery Park for a second straight day of protests. Demonstrators filled the park, some shouting slogans such as "no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here." As the crowd continued to balloon through the afternoon, the office of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted: "We stand with the 5,000 (and growing!) New Yorkers in Battery Park."
Not long after, came an addendum: "Make that 10,000 (and growing!)"
Los Angeles
Thousands of demonstrators crowded outside Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday, chanting and toting signs, to protest the ban. They were met not only by squads of police in riot gear but by a knot of Trump supporters who stayed across the street from them. They also held up signs and American flags as they tried to engage the crowd with a loudspeaker.
Protesters filled the sidewalks in front of terminal, banging drums and chanting "Donald Trump has got to go!"
Paul Blair, 35, of Los Angeles said he made his first ever protest sign for the occasion. It read, "Cruelty is not strength."
"I've never made a sign before in my life," he told USA TODAY, adding that he felt he had to take action. "If I stayed home and did my routine, I (would feel like) I was supporting the policies."
Seattle
More than 1,000 people packed the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Saturday to protest the immigration ban.
The next day, protests filled the streets surrounding Westlake Park in downtown Seattle. The marched downtown carrying signs that read "No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here" and "Pay forward the American dream."
Contributing: Jon Swartz, USA TODAY, Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY and Mitchell Wellman, USA TODAY College.Follow Susan Miller on Twitter: @susmiller
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eba08ae0c06ea686901cd8da8ae2f5c7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/02/statue-liberty-modeled-after-arab-woman/97387944/?utm_source=related_stories&utm_medium=Presto&utm_campaign=PVs | The Statue of Liberty was modeled after an Arab woman | The Statue of Liberty was modeled after an Arab woman
As Americans grapple with President Trump's ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, it's a good time to point out a little-known irony. The Statue of Liberty — that symbol of American freedom and diversity that has greeted immigrants for generations — was originally modeled after an Arab woman.
The statue's designer, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, was enamored with Egyptian pyramids and monumental sculpture. According to historian Edward Berenson, in the 1860s, Bartholdi decided to build a monument to commemorate the opening of Egypt's Suez Canal.
"And that monument was going to be a woman in the southern opening of the canal holding up a torch over her head and that woman was dressed in Arab peasant garb,” Berenson says. But when the ruler of Egypt, Khedewi Ismail Pasha, went bankrupt, the colossal Suez sculpture project was jettisoned.
Column: Ellis Island visitors wrestle with Trump's immigration order
Happy birthday Lady Liberty
But the artist soon found a way to recycle his design. “A couple of years earlier, Bartholdi and his friends decided they were going to give a gift to the United States that was going to celebrate the centennial of the American Revolution,” Berenson explains. “And then, Bartholdi thought, ‘Ah! I’ve got a great idea! I can reuse this image but change it to fit the American Revolution.’”
Bartholdi changed the woman that was originally dressed in Arab garb into a Greco-Roman goddess of liberty. And the Statue of Liberty, as we know her today, was born.
This article originally appeared on GlobalPost and Pri.org. Its contents were created separately to USA TODAY.
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1247e8e083766b6e8428a36aca67d30c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/11/yale-drops-slavery-proponent-calhoun-college-name/97790734/ | Yale drops slavery supporter Calhoun from college name | Yale drops slavery supporter Calhoun from college name
Yale University is stripping the name of a 19th-century alumnus who was an ardent supporter of slavery from one of its residential colleges and renaming it for a more recent graduate, pioneering computer scientist and Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.
The change comes after several years of debate over the ethics of having a college named for former Vice President John C. Calhoun, an 1804 Yale graduate who fought efforts to end slavery in the United States.
The residential college was named for him in the 1930s when it was built. At one point, it contained a stained glass window that depicted a black man in shackles kneeling before Calhoun. The window was later removed.
Protests over Calhoun's legacy and the building's name roiled the university in 2015.
The new name is a shift from university president Peter Salovey. In April, he said the name would not change. By August, he was reconsidering that decision and created a Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming from among staff and alumni.
"At that time, as now, I was committed to confronting, not erasing, our history. I was concerned about inviting a series of name changes that would obscure Yale’s past,” Salovey said on a post on Yale's website.
In the end, the committee came up with four principles to follow when considering renaming:
• Whether the person's principal legacy fundamentally conflicts with the university’s mission
• Whether that legacy was contested during the namesake’s lifetime
• Why the university honored that person
• Whether the building has a significant role in forming community at Yale.
“The principles establish a strong presumption against renaming buildings, ensure respect for our past, and enable thoughtful review of any future requests for change,” he said.
After Charleston shooting, Yale students petition to rename Calhoun College
The board of trustees voted to rename the college to Hopper on Friday.
Students at Yale were quick to enact the change, taping over a nameplate for Calhoun College and writing Grace Murray Hopper on it instead, with an added note of "Victory!!" below the address.
Calhoun served as U.S. vice president, secretary of state, secretary of war, and was a U.S. senator from South Carolina. He was a leading voice in the first part of the 19th century against the movement to abolish slavery.
Hopper received her master's degree from Yale in 1930 as well as a Ph.D., in mathematics and mathematical physics, in 1934. She worked in the U.S. Navy during WWII. She helped create the first computer compilers and also COBOL, one of the most widely used computer languages in the 1970s. A major annual conference on women and computing is named after her.
Building named after slavery supporter might be changed by Yale, after all
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a64f41ad874512000ed5d4a8bc4b45f9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/13/fake-news-101/97846922/ | Can 'only education' solve the fake news problem? | Can 'only education' solve the fake news problem?
WILLIAMSVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Teachers from elementary school through college are telling students how to distinguish between factual and fictional news — and why they should care that there's a difference.
As Facebook works with The Associated Press, FactCheck.org and other organizations to curb the spread of fake and misleading news on its influential network, teachers say classroom instruction can play a role in deflating the kind of "Pope endorses Trump " headlines that muddied the waters during the 2016 presidential campaign.
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"I think only education can solve this problem," said Pat Winters Lauro, a professor at Kean University in New Jersey who began teaching a course on news literacy this semester.
Like others, Lauro has found discussions of fake news can lead to politically sensitive territory. Some critics believe fake stories targeting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton helped Donald Trump overcome a deficit in public opinion polls, and President Trump himself has attached the label to various media outlets and unfavorable reports and polls in the first weeks of his presidency.
Trump on polls: 'Any negative polls are fake news'
"It hasn't been a difficult topic to teach in terms of material because there's so much going on out there," Lauro said, "but it's difficult in terms of politics because we have such a divided country and the students are divided, too, on their beliefs. I'm afraid sometimes that they think I'm being political when really I'm just talking about journalistic standards for facts and verification, and they look at it like 'Oh, you're anti-this or -that.'"
Judging what to trust was easier when the sources were clearer — magazines, newspapers or something else, said Kean senior Mike Roche, who is taking Lauro's class. Now "it all comes through the same medium of your cellphone or your computer, so it's very easy to blur the lines and not have a clear distinction of what's real and what's fake," he said.
A California lawmaker last month introduced a bill to require the state to add lessons on how to distinguish between real and fake news to the grade 7-12 curriculum.
High school government and politics teacher Lesley Battaglia added fake news to the usual election-season lessons on primaries and presidential debates, discussing credible sites and sources and running stories through fact-checking sites like Snopes. There were also lessons about anonymous sources and satire. (They got a kick out of China's dissemination of a 2012 satirical story from The Onion naming Kim Jong Un as the sexiest man alive.)
"I'm making you guys do the hard stuff that not everybody always does. They see it in a tweet and that's enough for them," Battaglia told her students at Williamsville South High School in suburban Buffalo.
"It's kind of crazy," 17-year-old student Hannah Mercer said, "to think about how much it's affecting people and swaying their opinions."
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Stony Brook University's Center for News Literacy pioneered the idea of educating future news consumers, and not just journalists, a decade ago with the rise of online news. About four in 10 Americans often get news online, a 2016 Pew Research Center report found. Stony Brook last month partnered with the University of Hong Kong to launch a free online course.
"To me, it's the new civics course," said Tom Boll, after wrapping up his own course on real and fake news at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. With everyone now able to post and share, gone are the days of the network news and newspaper editors serving as the primary gatekeepers of information, Boll, an adjunct professor, said.
"The gates are wide open," he said, "and it's up to us to figure out what to believe."
That's not easy, said Raleigh, North Carolina-area teacher Bill Ferriter, who encourages students to first use common sense to question whether a story could be true, to look at web addresses and authors for hints, and to be skeptical of articles that seem aimed at riling them up.
He pointed to an authentic-looking site reporting that President Barack Obama signed an order in December banning the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. A ".co" at the end of an impostor news site web address should have been a red flag, he said.
"The biggest challenge that I have whenever I try to teach kids about questionable content on the web," said Ferriter, who teaches sixth grade, "is convincing them that there is such a thing as questionable content on the web."
Some of Battaglia's students fear fake news will chip away at the trust of even credible news sources and give public figures license to dismiss as fake news anything unfavorable.
"When people start to distrust all news sources is when people in power are just allowed to do whatever they want, said Katie Peter, "and that's very scary."
Editorial: Fake news is not a hoax, it’s dangerous
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2d4d733b691b9f72caae583935849ac5 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/16/president-trump-immigration-raids-target-fewer-criminals/97988770/ | Trump immigration raids show greater focus on non-criminals | Trump immigration raids show greater focus on non-criminals
The first major immigration raid under President Trump shows a clear shift in the federal government’s deportation strategy, focusing more on undocumented immigrants without criminal records than under President Obama.
Of 678 people rounded up in 12 states during raids last week, 74% had been convicted of a crime. That is down from 90% of detained people with criminal records in 2016 under Obama, according to a USA TODAY analysis of more than a dozen federal raids.
For example, during a June 2016 raid conducted in six Midwestern states, 85% of the 324 people arrested had been convicted of crimes. During a raid in those same six states last week, 69% had criminal records.
The increase in arrests of those without criminal records does not appear to be consistent with Trump's promise after his election to use Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to target murderers, rapists and other "bad hombres" who pose serious threats to public safety.
Obama had taken a similar stance by focusing on criminal offenders. After 18 raids in 2016, ICE issued summaries noting that all the undocumented immigrants arrested were "enforcement priorities" who included convicted criminals, gang members, threats to national security, those who recently crossed the border and people with standing deportation orders.
In summaries of each of the five coordinated raids conducted last week, however, ICE explained it was taking a new course of action. "During targeted enforcement operations, ICE officers frequently encounter additional suspects who may be in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws," the summaries said. "Those persons will be evaluated on a case by case basis and, when appropriate, arrested by ICE."
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David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration attorney and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said exposing all undocumented immigrants encountered during raids for deportation represents a "major shift" in enforcement that takes the focus away from serious criminals and creates a sense of panic throughout the immigrant community.
"This is the blueprint for mass deportations," he said.
Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of immigration, said the shift is simply common sense. Krikorian, who has advised the Trump administration on immigration policy, said Obama correctly prioritized limited deportation dollars on the most serious criminals. But he said it was a mistake to limit the ability of ICE officers to arrest other undocumented immigrants caught during their operations.
"What's different now is that we've returned to normal enforcement practices where the 'bad hombres' are still job one, but ordinary lawbreakers are no longer exempt from enforcement," Krikorian said.
The ability of ICE agents to arrest undocumented immigrants encountered during their day-to-day jobs is laid out by orders from the president or the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Over the course of his eight years in office, Obama gradually restricted who ICE agents could apprehend. He created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012, which granted deportation protections to more than 750,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Then, in 2014, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson issued a memorandum outlining "enforcement priorities" and ordered ICE agents to only capture a limited group of undocumented immigrants.
That led to an increasing percentage of people deported under Obama with a criminal record. In 2011, about 67% of undocumented immigrants deported from the interior of the country had criminal records. The figure rose every year after that, hitting 92% in 2016.
All that changed on Jan. 25, when Trump signed an executive order vastly expanding the pool of undocumented immigrants considered "enforcement priorities." The new list added undocumented immigrants who have been charged with a crime but not convicted, those who have used fake Social Security numbers to find jobs or abused public benefit programs and people who "otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security."
This week, new Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly reiterated Trump's earlier call to focus on the most dangerous undocumented immigrants. Kelly said ICE agents would have a "specific focus on those who pose a threat to public safety."
John Sandweg, a former acting director of ICE under Obama, said such pronouncements mean little to ICE agents working in the field. Instead, they operate under guidelines set forth by their superiors, in this case Trump's Jan. 25 executive order.
"The priorities are what govern the operations," said Sandweg. "That’s how they’re graded, that’s how their compensation and benefits are awarded, that's how they’re promoted."
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a61aadbeedacfee41dc38071691611da | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/23/gamer-dies-22-hours-into-marathon-live-stream/98292922/ | Gamer dies 22 hours into marathon live stream | Gamer dies 22 hours into marathon live stream
(NEWSER) – It started as just another day at the office for Brian "Poshybrid" Vigneault, a 35-year-old gamer known to spend multiple days in a given week live-streaming himself playing the game World of Tanks for 20-plus hours straight.
This time, however, the Virginia Beach father of three got up to smoke a cigarette 22 hours into his stream about 4:30 a.m. ET on Feb. 19 and never returned.
People figured he fell asleep, but when a friend sent a message the next day, the response came from a police detective investigating his death, reports Kotaku.
The exhausted-looking father of three had been streaming on the gaming platform Twitch to raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and PCGames reports he'd been doing similar marathon gaming streams over the past few weeks.
While the cause of Vigneault's death hasn't been determined, PVP Live reports that much of the speculation centers on sleep deprivation and related heart complications.
The site notes that big-name streamers have been complaining about the pressure they feel to go for longer and longer stretches, and Vigneault was known for chain-smoking and drinking during his own sessions.
Vigneault's death is being mourned online, with the moderators of his Twitch stream turning his channel into a memorial.
(This man died during a three-day gaming binge.)
This story originally appeared on Newser:
Gamer Dies 22 Hours Into Marathon Stream
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5e42511bd9338fc67b652fa89d402aa6 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/24/lent-turns-digital-churches-try-facebook-live-videos-instagram-hashtags/98362412/ | Lent turns digital: Churches try Facebook Live videos, Instagram hashtags | Lent turns digital: Churches try Facebook Live videos, Instagram hashtags
For centuries during Lent, Christians have sought to grow closer to God through praying, fasting and giving to the poor.
Now they can also mark the 40-day period of penitence that precedes Easter by posting pictures to Instagram, reading a regular reflection in their email or watching a priest answer questions on Facebook Live.
This kind of effort “meets people where they are,” said Jen Sawyer, digital content manager at Busted Halo, a New York-based media ministry run by the Catholic Paulist Fathers that has Lent-related Instagram and Facebook projects. “It gives them a way to think about Lent that’s easier to grasp, a way to integrate faith in their daily life.”
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In the past several years, more churches and Christian organizations have combined digital tools with Lent, which begins this year on March 1. Catholics and Protestants alike are using social media, email and websites to encourage people to pray and reflect in preparation for Easter, when Christians believe Jesus was resurrected.
For the first time this year, congregants at Christ Lutheran Church in Topeka, Kan., will get a word for each day of Lent — including “cross,” “theology,” “forgiveness” and “salvation” — and be encouraged to post a picture inspired by the word to Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #hearingthegospel.
“I would probably say 30 to 40 people will participate” out of 180 to 200 regular attendees, said the Rev. Daniel Ross, the church’s pastor. He expects most of them to be teenagers. “I think some words will be more engaging than others.”
'Ashes to Go' offers Lent ritual outside the church
The project complements the church’s regular Wednesday night Lent services, Ross said, and fits with the overall purpose of the season: “to remember what Jesus did” in dying for sinners on the cross.
At the evangelical Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., the Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts’ online Lent Project is in its fourth year, with 10,000 daily subscribers last year.
“There are people in our community who say, ‘I don’t need a special emphasis or special focus.’ But other people say, ‘I desperately need this — I need to be encouraged and reminded and focused at this particular time,'” said Barry Krammes, planning coordinator for the CCCA. “I think attitudes in the evangelical community are changing about Lent.”
The Lent Project is a daily devotional, continuing through the week after Easter, with Scripture passages, written reflections, visual art, music and video.
“I think that combination has been what’s drawn people in,” Krammes said. “It helps the Scripture come alive.” He added, “We’re trying to draw from as many Christian traditions as we can. We’re trying to feature elements from different parts of the world as well.”
That desire for broad appeal also applies to Busted Halo’s efforts, according to Sawyer. For the fourth year in a row, the organization is doing an “InstaLent” challenge similar to the one at Christ Lutheran — starting with asking followers to “Show us your ash” on Ash Wednesday — and is also changing its regular “Daily Jolts” on Facebook and Twitter to encourage people to “fast, pray (and) give.” Its director, the Rev. Dave Dwyer, plans to answer questions about Lent during a Facebook Live event at 3 p.m. ET Tuesday.
“If somebody isn’t Catholic, they still connect with giving something up or letting something go,” Sawyer said. “We’re intentional about using really approachable language, using these general themes that people can grasp and think about in a deeper way.”
At a time of so much online rancor — political and otherwise — Lenten devotionals can also offer some much-needed breathing space, organizers say.
Catholic Extension, a Chicago-based organization that raises funds for poorer dioceses, is doing a weekly email Lenten Digital Immersion Trip that highlights different communities it serves. So far, over 1,200 people have signed up.
“The Digital Immersion Trip can be viewed as a more productive use of your time on your smartphone or online,” said Matt Paolelli, manager of digital communications for Catholic Extension. “Rather than spending time reading divisive political news or watching another trivial video, participants will be spending time in prayer and reading truly inspiring stories of other American Catholics who are sharing the same faith journey and traditions, even if they are living in vastly different circumstances and another part of the country.”
Whether Christians use any or all of these tools at their disposal, the goal of Lent remains the same, according to Sawyer.
“No matter who we are and how well we try to live our lives, we’re all going to fall short — disappoint ourselves and disappoint God,” she said. “(Lent) is our chance to take stock and think about ways we can improve our relationship with God.”
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02b837baf2f94cb15c76fdc7cae0c99f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/27/latest-wave-threats-vandalism-rocks-jewish-community/98477568/ | Jewish sites reported 31 threats Monday; more than 100 in '17 | Jewish sites reported 31 threats Monday; more than 100 in '17
Desecration of grave sites at cemeteries in Philadelphia and outside St. Louis. Swastikas etched on cars in Miami Beach. Bomb threats forcing evacuation of Jewish community centers.
Another wave of intimidation targeting Jewish communities swept across the nation Monday, and community leaders and law enforcement struggled to stop it.
There were 31 bomb threats Monday, called into 23 community centers and eight Jewish day schools, the JCC Association of North America said. Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the events marked the fifth series of attacks already this year.
"I have been here more than 20 years and I've never seen anything like it," Potok said. "There are provocateurs out there who say that if you don't like somebody, go after them."
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday that President Trump was "deeply disappointed and concerned" by the cemetery vandalism and other acts.
“The president continues to condemn these and any other forms of anti-Semitic and hateful acts in the strongest terms,” Spicer said.
But Potok and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt say Trump has failed to consistently speak out against anti-Semitic rhetoric.
"I think, in large part, the election of Donald Trump let the genie of anti-Semitism out of the bottle," Potok said. "And it's not going to go back in easily."
Philly vandals damage Jewish gravesites
Bomb threats again rattle Jewish centers
Greenblatt said Monday's threats raised the total this year to about 90. No bombs have been found.
In Wilmington, Del., Democratic Sen. Tom Carper was meeting with Jewish community leaders at the Siegel Jewish Community Center to discuss the climate of threats and violence when someone called in a bomb threat. The center was evacuated, police investigated, and programs resumed a short time later.
"It is heartbreaking for such a flash of fear to overtake a place of strong community and joy that brings together people of all ages under one roof — from the babies in the day care center to the senior citizens taking part in exercise classes," Carper said. "These acts must end."
Evacuating small children and the elderly from the building, sometimes in bad weather, is no minor event. The constant threat keeps communities on edge.
"The bottom line is that this is not normal," Greenblatt said. "This is not acceptable. We have people wondering about sending their kids to community center, to their day school."
In Missouri, more than 150 headstones were vandalized Feb. 20 at the Chesed Shel Emeth Society Cemetery. Two days later, hundreds of volunteers showed up to help repair the damage, including Vice President Pence, who addressed the crowd and condemned the “vile act of vandalism.”
In Philadelphia, residents rallied behind the Jewish community after vandals toppled scores of headstones over the weekend.
"Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens did a wonderful job of pulling together an interfaith effort," Greenblatt said. "But you really have to stretch to find a silver lining when a community is under siege."
The FBI launched an investigation into the community center threats last month. The bureau announced that agents and prosecutors assigned to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division were weighing possible civil rights violations. Local law enforcement authorities are overseeing separate investigations into the cemetery vandalism.
Bomb threat cases can be extremely challenging because of the broad access to technology, said Ron Hosko, a former chief of the FBI's criminal division.
"There are so many ways to maintain your anonymity — whether it is special software or throwaway phones — they (suspects) can play this out for some time,'' Hosko said. "You are having to sort through whether this is an organized effort, a single person or copy cats."
More than 100 bomb scares have been called in this year. The threats Monday involved community centers and schools in 16 states and Canada: Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington state, and Calgary (Canada).
In New York state, at least four centers were targeted, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
"Today we witnessed additional bomb threats directed at JCCs," Cuomo tweeted. "We will do everything to catch those responsible for this #antiSemitic act."
Among other threats:
Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., last week wrote a letter urging the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. attorney general and the FBI director to take "swift action" to address the significant number of bomb threats telephoned in to Jewish community centers across the nation. The letter was co-signed by 150 members of Congress.
Law enforcement must "do everything within their power to punish those responsible for the threats that have already taken place, to prevent future threats from occurring, and to ensure these threats are never converted into action," Murphy said.
David Posner, director of strategic performance at JCC association, said his membership was grateful to local law enforcement for ensuring the centers are safe. He called on the White House, Congress and federal authorities to step up their efforts.
“Actions speak louder than words," he said, calling for swift action to identify and capture those "who are trying to instill anxiety and fear in our communities."
Contributing: Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY; Brittany Horn, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal; Joel Burgess and John Boyle, The (Asheville, N.C.) Citizen-Times; Justin L. Mack, The Indianapolis Star.
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dc98e29af419e90c1d645ae0ddc28ec6 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/07/wikileaks-says-has-published-cia-hacking-codes/98844256/ | WikiLeaks: CIA can hack into phones, TVs — everything | WikiLeaks: CIA can hack into phones, TVs — everything
Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified to whom Edward Snowden released classified government information in 2013. Snowden gave the documents to multiple media outlets.
The crusading website WikiLeaks published thousands of documents Tuesday it says detail CIA tools for hacking into web servers, computers, smartphones and even TVs that can be turned into covert microphones.
The website claims the CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal," more than several hundred million lines of code that provide "the entire hacking capacity of the CIA."
Jake Williams, a security expert with the Georgia-based security firm Rendition Infosec, said the information will be used within days or weeks by hackers and the security firms that combat them.
"My first thought was 'Wow!' quickly followed by the realization that this is a treasure trove of information," he said. "We are regularly dealing with corporations being attacked by nation-state hacking groups. This gives us a lot of insight into how they do it."
What is WikiLeaks?
White House spokesman Sean Spicer, questioned at a press briefing, declined to comment on the release.
"These (leaks) appear to be very, very serious," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told reporters at a briefing. "We are extremely concerned, and we are following it closely."
The documents indicate developers created programs in homage to popular culture, such as an implant for computers running Microsoft Windows dubbed "RickyBobby" after the Will Ferrell character in the 2006 film Talladega Nights. A trojan spread via thumb drives was named Fight Club, a reference to the 1996 novel and 1999 movie with Brad Pitt. A smart TV project was called Weeping Angel — recurring villains in the Doctor Who series who only move when no one is watching.
WikiLeaks says it has exposed the CIA's hacking operations. Here's what we know now
The CIA issued a statement declining comment on the "purported" documents. USA TODAY has not yet been able to confirm the authenticity of the documents nor seen anything in them thus far to indicate the tools were used in the U.S. – or at all.
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., called for a congressional investigation in to the details contained in the files. "The potential privacy concerns are mind-boggling," said Lieu, who has a degree in computer science. "We need to know if the CIA lost control of its hacking tools, who may have those tools, and how do we now protect the privacy of Americans."
WikiLeaks says the archive appears to have been circulated among former government hackers and contractors, one of whom provided WikiLeaks with portions of it. The website says the CIA hacking division involved "more than 5,000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other 'weaponized' malware."
"Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook," WikiLeaks claims. "The CIA had created, in effect, its 'own NSA' with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified."
WikiLeaks' Assange says he's willing to return to U.S.
The source of the information, which WikiLeaks did not name, hopes the document dump will initiate "a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons," the website says.
According to WikiLeaks, Apple's iPhone, Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows and Samsung smart TVs were among CIA targets. The TVs can be placed in a "fake off" mode, so the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on, the documents say. "In 'fake off' mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server," WikiLeaks says.
The notes indicate one of the developers' major challenges was maintaining an internet connection for long periods of time after the TVs were shut off by owners. There are notes indicating the teams hoped to extend that recording-and-sending time period to last as long as 24 to 72 hours.
At the other end of the technological spectrum, a project appropriately named Pterodactyl set as its goal giving agents a tool to "rapidly copy 3.5 inch floppy disks in a covert manner." The project appeared to be aimed at a small, easily-concealable device that someone could carry into a space, copy many disks at once and leave with the captured data without the target knowing the disks had been copied.
This alleged CIA technique was named after a 'Doctor Who' villain
Microsoft, Google and WhatsApp were among tech firms saying they were looking into the WikiLeaks report. Scott Vernick, a partner with the data security law firm of Fox Rothschild in Philadelphia, said the documents raise the question of whether the CIA shared its tools with the FBI for use in domestic investigations.
Nathan White, senior legislative manager at the nonprofit advocacy group Access Now, said the documents show the need for limits on government hacking and protection of human rights.
"Our digital security has been compromised because the CIA has been stockpiling vulnerabilities rather than working with companies to patch them," White said.
Wikileaks released thousands of hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of last year's presidential election, in a cyber attack the U.S. intelligence community concluded was carried out by Russia in an attempt to interfere in the race. Wikileaks has denied getting the emails from Russia, which also refuted any involvement in the hacking.
Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia after his own release of classified government documents to multiple media outlets in 2013, tweeted the documents show the government developed vulnerabilities in U.S. products and left them there. "Reckless beyond words," Snowden added.
Timothy Carone, a Notre Dame professor who specializes in data science, says the release reinforces the idea that all information in our lives can be acquired and leveraged in ways most people don't even think about.
"Probably the most disturbing part of the story was that this information was being shared between former U.S. government hackers and contractors with no oversights and no authorization," he said.
WikiLeaks has conducted a global crusade to expose government secrets through a series of controversial and sometimes embarrassing document dumps in recent years. Chelsea Manning, who leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents through the WikiLeaks website, is scheduled for release in May after more than six years in prison.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused of sexual assault, and the United States, where he fears possible espionage charges.
Contributing: Nick Penzenstadler, Elizabeth Weise, Brad Heath and John Kelly
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a3165ac53857de9c34e43cb707dc4240 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/08/police-ambush-killing-trial-pennsylvania-eric-frein/98911422/ | Eric Frein, who led police on a weeks-long manhunt in the Poconos, goes on trial in ambush killing of a Pennsylvania trooper | Eric Frein, who led police on a weeks-long manhunt in the Poconos, goes on trial in ambush killing of a Pennsylvania trooper
MILFORD, Pa. - Bryon and Darla Dickson long to see their son walk through the door. But they know that can’t happen, not in this lifetime. Not after Eric Frein, according to prosecutors, ambushed the state police corporal in hopes of sparking “revolution.”
The couple’s faith teaches them they’ll meet Bryon Dickson II again one day. Until then, they seek a measure of justice for their son when a jury considers capital murder charges against Frein, 33, the anti-government survivalist whose trial opens Thursday with jury selection.
“He killed without restraint” or remorse, said Darla Dickson, 62. “He needs to be held accountable.”
Frein has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not return messages seeking comment.
The sniper attack on Sept. 12, 2014, and the prolonged manhunt that followed rattled communities throughout the Pocono Mountains.
Dickson, a 38-year-old Marine veteran and married father of two, was leaving the Blooming Grove barracks during a late-night shift change when a gunman hiding in the woods across the street shot him twice. Trooper Alex Douglass was just arriving when a bullet shattered his pelvis. He was critically wounded but survived.
Identified as the culprit, Frein led police on a tense, 48-day manhunt over rugged terrain before U.S. marshals caught him outside an abandoned airplane hangar, about 30 miles from the shooting scene.
Prosecutors say Frein spoke of wanting to start a revolution in a letter to his parents and called Dickson’s slaying an “assassination” in a police interview after his arrest. Frein told authorities he wanted to “wake people up” and “make a change (in government),” according to a police affidavit.
Defense lawyers are trying to get Frein’s videotaped confession thrown out, arguing police violated his rights by continuing to interrogate him after he told them he didn’t want to “answer questions about crimes.” Police have said Frein was informed of his right to remain silent but agreed to cooperate.
The defense also contends police should have told Frein his family had hired an attorney for him the night he was captured. Courts have generally ruled that police aren’t required to tell a suspect that an attorney is seeking to speak with him or her.
A judge will hear arguments on the suppression request after a jury is selected.
Even if prosecutors can’t use the confession, authorities have said they gathered plenty of physical evidence tying Frein to the crime, including spent shell casings in his SUV that matched those found at the crime scene.
They also recovered a journal allegedly written by Frein in which the gunman describes how he opened fire on two state troopers — watching one of his victims fall “still and quiet” — and then made his escape.
If Frein is found guilty, the defense plans to call an expert who will testify during the penalty phase that Frein has had a “mental infirmity” since childhood. His lawyers have not elaborated on the infirmity.
Darla Dickson said she and her husband would take no pleasure in a death sentence for Frein, but added death is “warranted under the law and the circumstances.”
Due to blanket news coverage in northeastern Pennsylvania, the jury will come from the Philadelphia suburbs. Opening statements are scheduled for early April.
The Dicksons plan to attend as much of the trial as they can.
Darla Dickson said she sees her slain son in his children: 10-year-old Bryon Dickson III, who took up the trumpet, just like his dad, and possesses his intelligence and quick wit, and 8-year-old Adam, who has the same well-developed sense of humor.
“They’re resilient. Sometimes I think they channel their father, which is a good thing,” she said.
Her own grieving process “was longer than I wanted it to be,” Dickson said. “Because it’s a lifetime of loss. We have our moments where tears come, we miss him, we think it would be nice if he would come through the door. But we don’t have that opportunity.”
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7db3eaea6f31fdb012f90f8abaa321af | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/15/red-cross-urging-kids-ready-tornadoes/98860994/ | 'Monster Guard': The app the Red Cross really wants your kids to play | 'Monster Guard': The app the Red Cross really wants your kids to play
The 2017 tornado season is off to an unusually violent start, and emergency officials say it's time to be prepared — especially children.
As of March 15, there have been 364 reports of tornadoes in the U.S. this year, which is more than double the Jan. 1-March 15 average of 165 tornadoes, based on preliminary data from the Storm Prediction Center.
That is why the American Red Cross is urging children to use an app — a game — to prepare for tornadoes and other disasters. The app will be rolled out to 40,000 educators with a full lesson plan in the next several months to help students learn the science behind natural disasters.
The mobile app “Monster Guard: Prepare for Emergencies” was created in October 2014 and has been continuously updated to educate children 6 to 11 years old on preparedness for disasters such as fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, according to Hilary Palotay, program manager of the Youth Preparedness at the American Red Cross.
“The app blends education and entertainment to inform kids how to prepare for emergencies and stay safe during severe weather and natural disasters in — and this is the important point — a 'stress-free' manner,” Palotay said.
The American Red Cross is targeting children because “they are powerful advocates who are often excited to learn and love to share, making them particularly receptive to preparedness education,” Palotay said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s research found that households with schoolchildren who brought home disaster-preparedness materials were more likely to have disaster supplies, participate in home drills and have a disaster household plan.
Scientists say the number of tornadoes in outbreaks has doubled since the mid-1960s. “Roughly the same number of tornadoes are occurring, but more are occurring in outbreaks than as single tornadoes,” said Michael Tippett, author of a study published in December in the journal Science. He said tornadoes in outbreaks are more dangerous with increased economic losses and injuries than single tornadoes.
Tornadoes can happen in any state, so people need to be more aware of how to react, said Marcus Büker, associate professor of meteorology at Western Illinois University.
The Storm Prediction Center based in Oklahoma advises families to prepare a tornado plan in advance: determine a spot for shelter and practice a family tornado drill at least once a year. Here are more safety tips:
What to do if a tornado warning is issued:
1. Avoid windows and glass. They can shatter and hurt you.
2. Protect your head. Use a coat, a cushion or a helmet. Crouch as low as possible to the floor, facing down, and cover your head with your hands.
3. Cover yourself. Use blankets, mattresses or sleeping bags to protect yourself from falling debris.
4. Move quickly. If you are inside a building, go to a small, enclosed space such as an interior bathroom or a storage room on the lowest floor. If you are outside, take shelter in a sturdy building. If not, lie flat and face down on low ground.
Contributing: Doyle Rice
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f11af276d07f83c4b17e9d549229b82f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/20/colorado-wildfire-likely-caused-humans-officials-say/99402704/ | Back home again: Evacuations end, but Colorado fire still burns | Back home again: Evacuations end, but Colorado fire still burns
BOULDER, Colo. — Residents of almost 500 homes forced to flee a wildfire burning in mountains within a mile of downtown were allowed to return home Monday, authorities said.
Boulder County Sheriff's Cmdr. Mike Wagner said the fire remained 50% contained Monday, but firefighters had essentially surround the fire, which was burning less than 100 acres. He warned that efforts to douse the blaze could be affected by weather conditions.
"One of the firefighters said it feels like June up there," Wagner said. "There is no moisture."
Wagner called the dry conditions "concerning" and said they could contribute to a major fire season this summer.
"June is a more typical fire season, hotter and drier," he said. "But around here it seems that fire season goes all year long."
Wildfire near Boulder, Colo., forces evacuations
Wagner said the fire may have been human-caused. He said investigators had ruled out a lightning strike or downed power lines.
"I know there are transient camps up there," he said.
Wagner said the two Chinook and two Black Hawk helicopters that battled the blaze Sunday were giving way to a small, more maneuverable helicopter Monday. About 180 firefighters were working the fire, he said.
On Sunday, residents in some neighborhoods gathered on streets and watched the Sunshine Fire burning Sunshine Canyon, an area known for camping, biking, hiking and rustic, expensive homes.
More than 1,000 homes were evacuated early Sunday, but many residents were allowed to return later in the day. The Boulder Office of Emergency Management said no homes or other structures were immediately believed to have been lost. In 2010, a wildfire destroyed nearly 200 homes in the mountainous area west of the city, home to the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The East Boulder Community Center was serving as an evacuation shelter Sunday night. Anne Spalding told the Boulder Daily Camera she was staying with her sister Sunday after being forced to evacuate. She said she was "optimistic" that her home would be spared.
"It's really close to my house," Spalding said. "We didn't even get a call. We had firefighters knocking on the door. They are doing a fabulous job. It's a little scary. We put our hearts into our homes."
Wright reported from Colorado, Bacon from McLean, Va.
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f416a87adf2626f4bcf4a2f791cf5ed5 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/23/utah-adopting-nations-toughest-drunken-driving-law/99541252/ | Utah is adopting the nation's toughest drunken driving law | Utah is adopting the nation's toughest drunken driving law
Utah is moving toward adopting the nation’s strictest drunken-driving law under a measure to be signed by Gov. Gary Herbert.
The legislation lowers the standard from the current 0.08 blood-alcohol content level — used nationwide — to 0.05 BAC. The drop means someone could be considered legally too drunk to drive after as little as a single strong drink, depending on their weight and tolerance.
“We’re not asking for Prohibition,” Herbert said during a Thursday press conference. “We’re hoping people take this as a cautionary note.”
The proposal has divided the tourist-dependent state, and Herbert said he’ll call a special legislative session later this summer to hash out additional details, including the exact implementation date. Some critics have urged Utah to delay rolling out the standard until other states act. Herbert hasn’t said when he’ll sign the law, which in its current form takes effect at the end of 2018.
The National Transportation Safety Board backs the new Utah law and recommends all states adopt the 0.05 standard, if not lower, arguing that stricter laws could save more nearly 1,800 lives annually. About 10,000 people die in alcohol-related accidents on U.S. roads annually, the NTSB said.
Utah was the first state to adopt the nation’s current .08 standard in 1983, and safety advocates say the Beehive State should once again lead by example. Herbert said 85% of the world’s population already lives under the .05 standard.
Most of Europe, including France and Italy, along with Australia, New Zealand and Iceland, uses the .05 standard. Experts say the first signs of alcohol impairment manifest around that level of intoxication.
Utah has a complicated history with alcohol: Members of the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, generally don’t consume alcohol, and the state has required non-Mormons to jump through logistical hoops if they want to drink alcohol in restaurants or bars. Some critics say the new law could make people think Utah is “weird,” something Herbert acknowledged he’s heard. Utah is 60% Mormon, and the church has a strong influence on the state’s politics and public life.
“There’s not many Mormons in Rome, and they do this, too,” Herbert said.
The Utah Restaurant Association opposes the change and plans to argue for revisions or delays in implementation. URA President Melva Sine said the new law imperils the state’s fast-growing economy. Liquor sales are usually a key profit maker for restaurants.
“Our concern is that we’re going to criminalize people who are going out to enjoy an evening,” Sine said. “We feel like it will change the social structure of our entire state.”
Herbert said people are free to drink as much as they want as long as they don’t get behind the wheel. But he acknowledged the concerns and said lawmakers would consider changes during the summer special session.
Alcohol is significantly less of a factor in fatal crashes in Utah than excessive speed and lack of seat belt use, state highway officials report. Of the nearly 200 drivers tested for impairment following a fatal crash last year, 57% were completely sober, 9% had alcohol in their system, 30% had some sort of drug in their system, and 4% tested positive for both drugs and alcohol, the Highway Safety Office said.
Acknowledging those statistics, Herbert said he wants to see lawmakers toughen penalties for distracted driving and increase enforcement of existing traffic safety laws.
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51df1bf3518735bbc85ef4a1e04dac9a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/29/watch-update-russia-investigation-senate-intelligence-committee-leaders/99784248/ | Watch: Senate hearing on Russian interference in election | Watch: Senate hearing on Russian interference in election
The Senate Intelligence Committee has been gathering information on Russia's interference in the 2016 elections. They've also been seeking testimony from a roster of prospective witnesses, including Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser.
Thursday the committee heard from witnesses including Russia and cyber security experts in a hearing. You can watch the full hearing in the player above.
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48a0068ff4fa11267287d940215e196d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/30/north-carolina-bathroom-bill-deal/99811894/ | North Carolina lawmakers announce deal to repeal state's controversial 'bathroom bill' | North Carolina lawmakers announce deal to repeal state's controversial 'bathroom bill'
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced via Twitter that a compromise had been reached to repeal the state's controversial "bathroom bill."
Late Wednesday, Cooper tweeted, "I support the House Bill 2 repeal compromise." He said the agreement is "not a perfect deal, but it repeals House Bill 2 and begins to repair our reputation.
Earlier, Sen. Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore held a 10:30 p.m. ET press conference to announce that an agreement had been reached, according to WRAL-TV in Raleigh.
House Bill 142 was moved into the Senate Rules Committee Wednesday evening. The bill initially dealt with occupational licensing boards, but will be stripped and replaced.
According to WRAL and WCNC, the bill will go before the Senate Rules Committee at about 9:15 a.m. Thursday, where it must pass. The bill must then pass two additional votes on the Senate floor during a session scheduled for 11 a.m.
Read more:
NCAA warns N.C. to repeal HB2 or no championships through 2022
N.C. leaders say they back HB2 repeal; governor alleges stunt
The bill will then go to the House for a final vote before being sent to Cooper.
The announcement came ahead of a deadline set by the NCAA, which must start making decisions on where to site future collegiate athletic tournaments. The NCAA has said the organization will not hold events in North Carolina as long as HB2 remains law.
HB2 requires transgender people to use bathrooms based on their birth certificate and not by the gender in which they identify. There have been many unsuccessful attempts to repeal the bill since September when the NCAA relocated its championship events because of its inclusive initiative, which came on the heels of the NBA relocating its All-Star game from Charlotte. Despite losing millions from the removal of athletic events and concerts and despite then-Gov. Pat McCrory, who signed the bill, being replaced by Democrat Roy Cooper, the GOP-controlled legislature had not rescinded the bill.
Contributing: Scott Gleason, USA TODAY. Follow WCNC-TV on Twitter: @wcnc
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cf5393d1833f3d8010a9e5ed169dac15 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/11/united-ceo-employees-followed-procedures-flier-belligerent/100317166/?hootPostID=536ede26a5957219e8a4379ef5b39fb8 | United Airlines says controversial flight was not overbooked; CEO apologizes again | United Airlines says controversial flight was not overbooked; CEO apologizes again
The CEO of United Airlines apologized again Tuesday amid a global uproar sparked when a passenger was dragged screaming from his seat on a flight that, it turns out, wasn't even overbooked.
"I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight, and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard," CEO Oscar Munoz said in a statement. "No one should ever be mistreated this way."
United has been under siege since videos of Sunday night's violent confrontation on the plane at Chicago's O'Hare Airport went viral, drawing hundreds of millions of views around the world. Social media outrage rained down on the Chicago-based airline.
United spokesman Jonathan Guerin said Tuesday that all 70 seats on United Express Flight 3411 were filled, but the plane was not overbooked as the airline previously reported. Instead, United and regional affiliate Republic Airlines, which operated the flight, selected four passengers to be removed to accommodate crew members needed in Louisville the next day. The passengers were selected based on a combination of criteria spelled out in United’s contract of carriage, including frequent-flier status, fare type, check-in time and connecting flight implications, among others, according to United.
Three passengers went quietly. The fourth, who was literally pulled out of his seat and off the plane, was David Dao, a physician in Elizabethtown, Ky.
Late Tuesday, CNBC reported that a pair of Chicago attorneys, Stephen L. Golan and Thomas A. Demetrio, are representing Dao. A statement from Golan said Dao is undergoing treatment in a Chicago hospital for unspecified injuries.
"The family of Dr. Dao wants the world to know that they are very appreciative of the outpouring of prayers, concern, and support they have received," Golan said in a statement. "Currently, they are focused only on Dr. Dao's medical care and treatment" and will not be making any comments to the media.
Munoz issued his first public apology Monday but hours later sent a letter to the airline's employees lauding the behavior of the flight crew in dealing with a "disruptive and belligerent" passenger. Munoz credited employees with following established procedures on the Louisville-bound flight.
"This situation was unfortunately compounded when one of the passengers we politely asked to deplane refused, and it became necessary to contact Chicago Aviation Security Officers to help," the letter says. "While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind all of you, and I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right."
Munoz conceded, however, that "there are lessons we can learn from this experience," and he promised an investigation. Chicago aviation officials placed a security officer on leave, saying the incident "was not in accordance with our standard operating procedure."
UNITED TAKES A HIT
Eric Schiffer, CEO of Reputation Management Consultants, termed United's handling of the incident "brand suicide."
"When you go onto a United flight, you shouldn’t have to be concerned there will be blood or you will get slammed in the face," Schiffer said. "I think you will see an effect on sales from those who are disgusted by the gruesome action. And it’s catastrophic for a brand’s trust."
United stock had dropped steadily by midafternoon Tuesday, amounting to an estimated $255 million of the airline's market value. Schiffer said United, aided by robust advertising, will recover.
"But they are definitely going to lose customers and they should," he said.
The incident came two weeks after United took withering criticism for requiring two girls to change out of leggings before boarding a flight in Denver. United explained that leggings and yoga pants are among banned attire for people flying with employee pass privileges because such fliers are viewed as representing the company.
More:
Video of United passenger dragged off plane fuels outrage in China
United Airlines had a right to remove that flier. But should it have?
United's unfriendly approach: Our view
NASCAR driver defends airline overbooking
The Internet has a few suggestions on new United Airlines mottos following disturbing video
CONFRONTATION TURNS VIOLENT
United spokeswoman Erin Benson said four crew members needed seats on Sunday's flight or another United flight was in danger of being canceled. United offered passengers $1,000 in compensation if they agreed to take a different plane to Louisville but drew no takers.
Passenger Jason Powell said Dao was calm when asked to exit the plane.
"He was very polite, matter-of-fact," Powell said. "I could hear pretty clearly. He was acting appropriately annoyed. I was 100% with him — I wouldn't have gotten off the plane either."
Passenger Audra Bridges said when United officials pressed the issue, Dao became "very upset," saying he was a doctor who needed to meet with patients the next morning. Security officers came and Dao was forcibly removed from the plane.
Bridges posted a video of the incident online Sunday evening, which shows three security officers speaking to an unidentified passenger. One of the men grabs the passenger, who screams as he is yanked out of his seat and pulled down the aisle.
The man managed to get back on the flight after that, Bridges said. She said his face was bloody and he seemed disoriented. Another video that was shared on social media appeared to show the same man who was dragged off the flight rushing to the back of the plane and repeatedly saying, "I have to go home."
The videos went viral and the story roared into national headlines. The videos drew more than 200 million views in China alone, with many Chinese viewers expressing outrage online about possible ethnic bias.
DETAILS EMERGE ON PASSENGER
More details on the passenger kicked off the plane emerged Tuesday. Dao, who came to the U.S after attending medical school in Vietnam in the 1970s, was convicted in 2004 on drug-related offenses after an undercover investigation, according to documents filed with the state Board of Medical Licensure. He surrendered his medical license in 2005, but the Kentucky board permitted Dao to resume practicing medicine in 2015 on a limited basis.
Schiffer said a criminal case dating back more than a decade is no excuse for Dao being "treated like a beaten animal."
"The poor guy, I really do feel for him," Powell said. "This didn't need to happen. I'm sure he didn't expect it to happen to him. I wouldn't have expected that to happen to me."
Dao has played professional poker and has a World Series of Poker profile, according to the organization's web site. His profile shows that he has a total earnings of $234,664 at the card table. Dao won $117,744 at a Tunica, Miss. WSOP circuit championship in 2009, WSOP records show.
Contributing: Morgan Watkins, Lucas Aulbach andBailey Loosemore, The (Louisville) Courier Journal; Associated Press
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43f1c0c5a2fc0bf748221a3dfd007cd8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/19/marijuanas-big-day-here-420-celebrations-ready-roll/100663642/ | Marijuana's big day is here: '420' celebrations ready to roll | Marijuana's big day is here: '420' celebrations ready to roll
DENVER — Christmas is coming for the nation’s legal marijuana stores.
Well, not just Christmas but also Independence Day and Black Friday and Cyber Monday, all rolled into one smoky celebration known as 420 on Thursday.
“It’s my job to get you high,” yells marijuana store worker Jason Coleman to a crowded house at Medicine Man cannabis dispensary in Denver. The crowd laughs and the line moves slowly forward, with more than 30 people waiting to buy pot. Armed guards check and re-check IDs, and cash flows across the counters.
April 20 has long been a day filled with civil disobedience by marijuana users, who gather in public to light up at 4:20 p.m. The phrase "420" is a longtime code for marijuana users, who work it into dating profiles or post it on signs to show their shared interest. But while it used to be a celebration held with a certain level of furtiveness, the rapidly expanding legalization of cannabis means more and more Americans no longer face significant, if any, punishment for smoking pot.
All states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana have also banned public consumption, but those rules are often ignored on April 20, when crowds gather on college campuses and central parks to light up. That means big sales days for stores, especially in states with functioning marijuana marketplaces: Colorado, Oregon and Washington, which could see single-day 420 sales of $20 million, said Matt Karnes of GreenWave Advisors.
Medicine Man, one of Colorado’s biggest pot shops, expected to see more than double the normal number of customers each day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Among the customers were Chicagoans Patrick Olszewski and Savannah Janzen, who came straight from nearby Denver International Airport with their luggage. They planned to attend 420 celebrations while apartment hunting for a planned move to Denver this fall.
“It’s awesome,” says Olszewski, 25. “The feeling of being at ease, of not having to worry, and getting exactly what you want.”
10 best 4/20 sites: Where marijuana history was made
Legalization activists often stage stunts in conjunction with the 420 celebrations.
In Washington, D.C., for example, activists are planning to give out 1,000 marijuana cigarettes to Capitol Hill workers and members of Congress, and then hold a mass “smoke-in” on the Capitol steps Monday. They’re trying to persuade Congress to reauthorize a law banning federal prosecutors from interfering with state-level medical marijuana programs and are also seeking clarity on how the Trump administration will approach voter-approved recreational pot.
While the District of Columbia’s voters have approved recreational marijuana, Congress has banned the district from creating any sort of system to permit taxable sales.
In Washington state, marijuana sales are expected to easily top last year’s volume of $4.8 million from April 20, 2016, according to New Frontier Data, which analyzes cannabis data. And the 2016 numbers themselves represented a staggering 200% increase over 2015. New Frontier said making year-to-year comparisons of marijuana sales is hard because the industry is so young and growing so fast and because people often celebrate 420 on the weekend closest to it, rather than the actual day.
But for many customers, there’s an undeniable attraction to being able to say they bought legal pot for that specific day. In Colorado’s cannabis stores, the demand was obvious Wednesday: lines snaking through lobbies and guards collecting cash as harried workers rushed to complete orders. Many Denver-area hotels are sold out, and cannabis tourists were pouring into the state for free concerts and then a massive rally outside the Statehouse.
Baker, a customer-engagement platform for recreational and medical cannabis dispensaries in 12 states, said pre-rolled joints are among the most popular 420 purchases, with a 221% increase in sales during the 420 period last year over a normal day.
In Nevada, which recently legalized recreational marijuana but still only has medical shops, business was also expected to be brisk.
"In some states, there’s huge lines, but I don’t imagine that we’ll see anything like that," said Curtis Loper, owner of Smokn' Ray's Smoke Shop in Reno and Sparks. "Some places there’s 150 people camping out, but that’s just not Reno." Still, Loper's aid his shop's income leaps 400% on April 20 each year.
In Oakland, Calif, marijuana-infused candy manufacturer Kiva made 60,000 special-edition samples of the company's low-dose Petra mints and plans to hold 55 sampling events around the state this week. And in Tulare County, Calif.'s, only dispensary, Canna Can Help, workers have ordered 1,000 tacos for their planned customer appreciation day this weekend.
Back inside Denver's Medicine Man, first-time cannabis tourists pronounced themselves astounded at the variety and options available. Grams of popular strains were selling for $17 plus tax, and like many stores, Medicine Man was offering 420 specials designed for tourists, including pre-rolled joints.
“Budtenders” like Coleman were also extolling the virtues of other products, including highly concentrated “dabs” or marijuana-infused sex lubricant, his description of which drew nervous titters and more than one skeptical face.
“For people like me, it’s mind blowing,” says Catherine Heelan, 45, who was visiting from Liberty, S.C. “There’s no shame. The stigma and shame is gone here. No one looks down on you.”
Contributing: Jennifer Kane, Reno Gazette-Journal, Sheyanne Romero, Visalia Times-Delta.
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7b4b2533f4f29e18b3e8ce6d2deda29d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/19/young-americans-census-report-millenials/100640966/ | Millennials differ from other generations in almost every regard. Here's the data | Millennials differ from other generations in almost every regard. Here's the data
There is nothing new about comments on how "kids these days" are different from the generations that came before them. In the case of Millennials, the U.S. Census Bureau has some data to back those observations up.
"Today’s young adults look different from prior generations in almost every regard: how much education they have, their work experiences, when they start a family, and even who they live with while growing up," says a report from the Census Bureau released Wednesday.
The report looks at changes in social, economic and demographic trends among young American adults, defined as ages 18 to 34, over the past 40 years.
It found they increasingly live at home and delay starting a family. According to the report, that trend reflects a wider shift in attitudes about the importance of work and education over family. For example, more than half of all Americans think marriage and children are not important steps in becoming an adult, while "more than 9 in 10 Americans believe that finishing school and being gainfully employed are important milestones of adulthood."
The report's author, Jonathan Vespa, a demographer at the Census Bureau, looked at four "common milestones of adulthood:" Getting married, having kids, getting a job and living on your own. He found the percentage of Americans achieving all four of those milestones by age 34 dropped from 45% in 1975 to 24% in 2016.
Vespa also found that while living on your own and holding a job was the fourth most common scenario in 1975, being a "single worker" was the second most common scenario by 2016 (a rise from 6% to 23%).
The report also found young women are pulling ahead in employment and wages, while those numbers on are the decline for young men.
Here are some of the report's highlights:
Vespa cautioned against drawing broad assumptions about young Americans based on this data. For example, living with their parents may now be the most common living arrangement among young adults, "but we want to be careful and not say that one experience describes all of the young adults who are living in their parents' home."
Many assume those young Americans are in the basement playing video games, but most of the more than 8.3 million young people living with their parents are either working or in school. Roughly 25% of those young people are not employed or going to school, but out of that group 28% have a disability and another 21% have a child.
It is also important to note these trends fluctuate among different demographic groups. For example, 37% of black Americans between ages 18 and 34 live at home, compared with 26% of young Asians and 21% of young black Americans live with a spouse or unmarried partner, compared with 44% of whites.
There are also dramatic differences depending on where young Americans live. In many Midwestern states, the increase in young adults living at home has grown far more gradually than in other regions. North Dakota actually had 3.5% fewer young adults living with their parents in 2015 than 2005. Florida, on the other hand, saw that group grow 11% in the same time period.
As the report concludes: "If one theme describes how adulthood has changed over the last 40 years, it is growing complexity."
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e7746e758734439956469f359d2b0ca0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/25/california-judge-blocks-trump-order-sanctuary-city-money/100897066/ | Federal judge blocks Trump plan to punish ‘sanctuary cities’ | Federal judge blocks Trump plan to punish ‘sanctuary cities’
A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday partially blocked President Trump's attempts to withhold federal grant money to punish "sanctuary cities" that do not fully comply with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that Trump exceeded his presidential authority when he signed an executive order Jan. 25 directing his administration to withhold all federal funding from local jurisdictions deemed to be "sanctuary" jurisdictions. That general term describes more than 300 local governments that have limited their cooperation with federal immigration officials.
Orrick said a president has the power to withhold some funding, including three Justice Department grants directly tied to law enforcement. He ruled that the Trump administration can withhold funding under those grounds.
But Orrick said Trump's threats to withhold all federal grants were "coercive" and violated several fundamental principles established in the Constitution.
"The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds," Orrick wrote.
The ruling marks the latest courtroom defeat for Trump in his quest to limit legal and illegal immigration into the country. Federal judges twice blocked the president's attempts to temporarily suspend legal immigration from majority-Muslim countries.
The White House released a statement late Tuesday night, blasting the judge's ruling as an "egregious overreach."
"Today, the rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our Nation," the press secretary's office said in the statement. "This case is yet one more example of egregious overreach by a single, unelected district judge. Today's ruling undermines faith in our legal system and raises serious questions about circuit shopping."
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus condemned the ruling and said the administration would appeal. Opponents of Trump's immigration policies are "forum shopping" by filing cases in the liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Tuesday's ruling is another example of the success of that tactic, Priebus said.
"Again, it's the 9th Circuit going bananas," Priebus said. "We'll win at the Supreme Court level at some point."
The lawsuit was filed by government officials in San Francisco and Santa Clara who said local governments were facing billions of dollars in lost revenue because of Trump's order. They argued in court that the executive order was overly broad, included vague threats and never defined what the administration considers to be a "sanctuary" jurisdiction.
San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee applauded the ruling, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said it will allow local governments to fight back against the "executive overreach" of the Trump administration.
"Today's decision is a historic affirmation of the U.S. Constitution's core principles — that the President cannot usurp powers not given to him, and that the federal government cannot use federal defunding to coerce local governments into becoming federal immigration enforcers," Santa Clara County counsel James Williams said.
Read more:
Justice Department warns 9 'sanctuary' jurisdictions they may lose funding
Errors prompt Trump to halt reports shaming 'sanctuary cities'
Trump can punish 'sanctuary cities' that protect undocumented immigrants
Justice Department lawyers argued that the order never intended to withhold all federal funding from local jurisdictions. The lawyers argued that cities, counties and states must comply with a section of federal law that requires local jurisdictions to share immigration information on people in custody with the federal government. A violation of those conditions, they argued, would bar the local entities from receiving three Justice Department grants and nothing more.
Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said Tuesday that the judge "upheld" the government's ability to withhold some federal funding against sanctuary cities.
"The Department of Justice previously stated to the court, and reiterates now, that it will follow the law with respect to regulation of sanctuary jurisdictions," Prior said.
Orrick disagreed with part of the department's interpretation, saying Trump's order allows for all federal funding to be withheld. He issued a preliminary injunction to rein in the scope of the order that will remain in place if the Justice Department appeals.
"It is heartening that the Government’s lawyers recognize that the Order cannot do more constitutionally than enforce existing law," Orrick wrote. "But (the order), by its plain language, attempts to reach all federal grants."
Orrick's ruling means that the Justice Department can continue working to cut off some grants to local jurisdictions. Last week, the department sent letters to nine jurisdictions warning that they may lose funding from one Justice grant if they do not fully comply with federal immigration law. Cutting off that funding will still be allowed under Orrick's ruling.
The ruling also noted that the Trump administration is free to develop a definition for a "sanctuary jurisdiction" and to determine regulations to handle them in the future.
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11ae0e5c9d2612e0240feed41ff16c3f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/01/fire-chief-2-year-old-among-14-killed-storms-floods-south-and-midwest/101143180/ | Violent storms roll East as death toll hits 15 | Violent storms roll East as death toll hits 15
A storm system that killed at least 15 people across a wide swath of the nation over the weekend brought more weather havoc to the East on Monday afternoon and evening.
Strong winds and hail battered portions of Ohio and Pennsylvania on Monday, the Storm Prediction Center said, while tornado watches remained in effect late Monday across portions of New York and Pennsylvania as a line of dangerous storms rolled east.
By Tuesday, the cold front that drove the bad weather was forecast to head out to sea, AccuWeather meteorologist Jake Sojda told USA TODAY. That will bring a welcome reprieve to the nation after a wave of killer storms and tornadoes over the weekend tore through an area stretching from Missouri to Texas and east into Mississippi and Alabama.
More on storms:
It's been a disastrous, costly start to the year for weather
Tornadoes, storms continue deadly rampage in Midwest, South
Multiple fatalities reported as floods, tornadoes hit Midwest, Texas
On Saturday and Sunday, tornadoes and floods killed four people died in Texas, five in Arkansas, three in Missouri, two in Mississippi and one in Tennessee, the Associated Press reported.
Though the rain has ended in the central U.S., rivers will continue to rise this week in many areas, threatening lives and property, AccuWeather said. Torrential rainfall Friday through Sunday triggered destructive flooding from the Ozarks into the mid-Mississippi Valley, the Weather Channel said, with some river crests smashing records that had stood for over 100 years.
Dozens of river gauges were in flood stage Monday in several central states.
Elsewhere, heavy snow was the story over the weekend and early Monday in portions of the Rockies and Plains. Over a foot of snow hit western Kansas on Sunday, forcing the closure of I-70 west of Salina, Kan., to the Colorado border, AccuWeather said. This portion of the interstate was reopened early Monday morning.
One location in the San Gabriel National Forest in Colorado picked up 39 inches of snow from the weekend storm, the National Weather Service said.
Winter storm watches and warnings remained in effect Monday for parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Anywhere from 1-3 inches was possible before the storm winds down Monday evening.
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0fa1aa7d34610c791337a801fec44f11 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/01/stress-negativity-mindfulness/100989170/ | Stressed? Who isn't? Here's how to conquer it | Stressed? Who isn't? Here's how to conquer it
Americans are reporting record levels of stress. and it's doing a number on our brains, says the author of a new book.
Psychologist Melanie Greenberg, author of The Stress-Proof Brain, says changing the way you think about stressors can eliminate this phenomenon. She joined USA TODAY for a Facebook Live appearance Thursday.
The American Psychological Association's annual survey of stress in America recently had its first statistically significant year-over-year increase in stress levels since it launched a decade ago.
It’s not the stressor itself, but how you react to it that determines the effect it has on your health, says Greenberg. She cites a study of mothers with special needs children who didn't actually see their roles as stressful. Their brains didn't experience the cellular aging experienced by other moms who did see their caregiving as stressful.
The brain's amygdala acts as a kind of alarm system for the brain that can hijack it while looking for threats. The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, can calm the amygdala down through meditation and mindfulness.
"The brain can create a lot of worry," says Greenberg, citing the common affliction she refers to as "anticipatory anxiety."
Instead of focusing on what could or did go wrong, Greenberg offers these tips on how to get the better of your stressed-out brain:
1) Live in the moment. There's a lot of talk these days about "mindfulness" — the act of focusing on what's happening right now. To help do that, Greenberg suggests grounding yourself by focusing on your breathing as you describe the "Immediate sensory expeience," to reset your brain.
2) Focus on what you can control. "Our brains don’t like lack of control," says Greenberg. She recommends compartmentalizing what you can't control and redirectlng your mind to what you do have control over.
For example, if you prepared as well as possible for a job interview but didn't get the job, recognize that's out of your control and resist blaming yourself.
3) Examine your thoughts. Ask yourself whether what's swirling in your head is true and helpful. Our brains have a way of focusing on distorted negative thoughts that can "take you down a rabbit hole," says Greenberg. "One negative thought can lead to a negative cycle" that can make you think there's nothing you can do about it.
If not, deliberately think about or do something else. Our brains don’t do well thinking about two things at once.
4) Practice self-compassion. When things go wrong, we're often far tougher on ourselves than we'd ever be to someone else. Ask yourself what you would tell your best friend if she was in a similar situation. "We’re all human," Greenberg notes. "We don’t have to be perfect."
5) Find like-minded people, take action. Misery may love company but companionship can also get your out of your funk. Sharing your concerns with others who understand you can reduce stress and help you find solutions. As Greenberg notes, it's reassuring to know others have experienced the same things and can help you get through yours.
Read more:
Mindfulness, meditation both improve quality of life
Five ways to cut stress in a 24/7 world
Business, community groups boost health partnerships
Nobody likes to admit being lonely, but you should
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56b9563bc2ef6828f8b62e1ff109785c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/05/new-york-cafe-says-starbucks-stole-its-unicorn-drink/101319072/ | Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino sued by NYC cafe in trademark case | Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino sued by NYC cafe in trademark case
A small New York City cafe is taking on coffee giant Starbucks in a legal war of the unicorns.
The End Brooklyn in a new lawsuit accuses Starbucks of trademark infringement, arguing that the color-changing "Unicorn Frappuccino" recently introduced by the Seattle chain overshadows the smaller company's health-conscious "Unicorn Latte."
The End started selling the Unicorn Latte in December, and has had a trademark application for the drink name pending since January, the company said in a Brooklyn federal court complaint filed Wednesday.
Starbucks launched the Unicorn Frappuccino in April as a limited-run item. The sweet offering quickly gained considerable media and consumer attention.
The drinks are similar in that neither contains coffee, but they are on opposite ends of the healthy consumption spectrum. The End says its Unicorn Latte is made from ingredients like dates, ginger root, cashews, blended with "healthy" dried maca root, vanilla bean, and blue-green algae.
The lawsuit, quoting from Starbucks’ website, says the larger competitor's drink is made from milk and artificial sweeteners.
"The size of and scope of Starbucks’ product launch was designed so that the Unicorn Frappuccino would eclipse the Unicorn Latte in the market," confusing the Brooklyn company's customers, the lawsuit alleges. "In addition to having a highly similar name, Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino shares visual similarities to the Unicorn Latte in that both were brightly colored and featured the colors pink and blue prominently."
Starbucks said it was aware of the claims "and believe they are without merit."
"The Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino blended beverage was inspired by the fun, spirited and colorful unicorn-themed food and drinks that have been trending in social media," the company added in a formal statement. "The beverage was offered for a limited time in April and is no longer available in our stores."
The Brooklyn cafe, located in New York City's hipster Williamsburg neighborhood, nonetheless seeks unspecified compensation and a public apology.
Montauk Juice Factory, the cafe's parent company, created the Unicorn Latte "that our clients transformed into a social media sensation, developed (as) a famous and valuable trademark, and took the appropriate steps to protect," attorney Josh Schiller said in a written statement. "Starbucks, with its thousands of coffee shops, launched a competing product with a similar look and name, and marketed it in the same channels where our client's product became famous."
Brooklyn federal court complaint against Starbucks' Unicorn Frappuccino
READ MORE:
A 61-year-old British guy tried the Starbucks unicorn frappuccino. Here’s what happened.
The Unicorn Frappuccino is cool ... for now
Starbucks barista loses it over unicorn frappuccino mania
People are freaking out over Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino
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e877a16f9580ab8feffad9e0a4c89e98 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/11/north-carolina-naacp-leader-william-barber-stepping-down-to-channel-mlk/101542708/ | North Carolina NAACP leader William Barber is stepping down to channel MLK | North Carolina NAACP leader William Barber is stepping down to channel MLK
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Rev. William Barber, who led the state NAACP in blocking North Carolina’s attempts to limit voting rights and fiercely supported gay rights, said he’s stepping down as state chapter president and will focus on a poor people’s campaign like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was building when he was slain.
Barber gained prominence in launching “Moral Monday” protests in North Carolina this decade and trained others in more than 20 states in such peaceful civil disobedience. But he said Wednesday that after 12 years as an NAACP state leader, he wants to focus on the new campaign and “a national call for a moral revival.”
“We need a moral narrative because somewhere along the line we’ve gotten trapped in this left vs. right conversation,” said the 53-year-old NAACP leader in an interview via conference call.
Barber also leads a nonprofit called Repairers of the Breach and said that group, along with the Kairos Center, Union Theological Seminary and others will lead a movement that will concentrate on 25 states and the nation’s capital where voter suppression, poverty and other problems are prevalent. The groups plan major actions next summer, which would mark the 50th anniversary of the start of King’s campaign in 1968.
Barber said more details would be forthcoming at a news conference Monday.
Though Barber’s term officially ends in October, he said he would step down in June. He will remain on the NAACP’s national board of directors, whose chair, Leon Russell, said he’ll “continue to be a voice for North Carolina, for the South and for issues he holds dear.”
Barber took the national stage in the literal sense last July, when he addressed the Democratic National Convention, saying then that the heart of the country’s democracy was on the line in the November elections. He called on voters to be “the moral defibrillator of our time” and to shock the nation with the power of love, mercy and the fight for justice.
Barber’s path to that stage began publicly when he was elected in 2005 to lead the state chapter of the NAACP, turning himself into a national leader fighting on progressive issues both on the streets and in the courts.
The minister of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, Barber founded a movement called “Moral Mondays” during which more than 1,000 people were arrested for civil disobedience at North Carolina’s Legislature, including Barber on several occasions. Typically, the protesters rallied outside the legislative building, then moved to the legislative building, singing and holding up signs. Police warned them to leave before arrests began.
The protests were part of the broader Forward Together movement led by the NAACP, which won several protracted battles over voter access in the state.
Under Barber’s leadership, the NAACP fought the North Carolina law known as House Bill 2, the “bathroom bill” limiting rights for gay and transgender people that drew a national outcry, business boycotts and was subsequently modified under a political compromise.
The NAACP chapter also opposed North Carolina’s constitutional ban on gay marriage, which passed in 2012.
It was clear that the same people who opposed gay rights also supported bills such as voter identification, Barber said. “We refused to allow the extremists to isolate our position,” he said.
The various causes are parts of Barber’s vision for a country where like-minded people work together and not against each other.
“We need a narrative shift that’s ... not just about the normal discussion of left vs. right and conservative vs. liberal, but really a reset of our deepest values,” he said. “Dr. King said in 1968 we needed a moral revolution of values, and we say we need a moral revival.”
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8aa51de8ef975e929ca58362f0d75f50 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/15/penn-state-horrific-death-pledges-family-sue-fraternity/101710090/ | Penn State 'horrific' death: Pledge's family to sue school, fraternity | Penn State 'horrific' death: Pledge's family to sue school, fraternity
Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the university's statement on its attendance at a vigil for Timothy Piazza. A representative of Penn State attended the vigil, the statement said.
The father of a Penn State pledge who died following a night of alleged hazing and drinking says members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity treated his son like "roadkill," adding that the family plans to sue the school, the fraternity and its members.
Jim and Evelyn Piazza appeared on multiple morning shows Monday in their drive to hold accountable those responsible for the loss of their son, Timothy, who died Feb. 4.
"It was horrific,'' Jim Piazza, speaking on NBC's Today show, said of his son's death. "This wasn't boys being boys. This was men who intended to force-feed lethal amounts of alcohol into other young men. And what happened throughout the night was just careless disregard for human life.
"They basically treated our son as roadkill and a rag doll."
Evelyn Piazza told ABC's Good Morning America the family is pressing their case with the national media in the hope that other lives will be saved. She said she remains shocked at how her son's ended.
"I don’t know where their conscience was, where the voice in the back of their head was saying, ‘He’s hurt. I gotta do the right thing,'" she said. "I don’t understand how they could be so heartless and inhumane."
Read more:
Eight more arraigned in Penn State fraternity death
The shocking final hours of Penn State pledge Timothy Piazza's life
UConn expels Kappa Sigma fraternity after student death
Eighteen members of the Penn State fraternity face charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault to recklessly endangering a life. All pleaded not guilty and were freed on bail pending trial. The school placed a "hold" on graduations for students facing charges who had been scheduled to graduate this spring.
A grand jury report released May 5 details the last hours of Timothy Piazza's life, from when he arrived at the fraternity for a night of pledge-related activities until his death in a hospital two days later.
Surveillance video from inside the fraternity show Piazza, dressed in the pledge uniform of khakis, a sport shirt and sport jacket, preparing for a ritual known as the "gauntlet." The cameras recorded Piazza drinking vodka and beer shortly thereafter, and soon he was seen stumbling near the basement stairs.
He was subsequently found at the bottom of the basement steps after apparently falling face-first. Later, after Piazza rolled off a couch, three fraternity brothers picked him up and "slammed him" back on it, putting a backpack containing textbooks on him so he would not suffocate on his own vomit, the grand jury wrote.
The security cameras show Piazza falling multiple times in the ensuing hours. Fraternity brothers called 911 the next morning, about 12 hours after the odyssey began. Less than 24 hour later, he died.
"This is torture," Evelyn Piazza told CNN on Monday. "This was callous and cold and inhumane."
Jim Piazza said no fraternity members nor Penn State representatives attended his son's funeral. The fraternity chapter was shut down. Piazza said Penn State must do more and make "significant changes," adding that his family has received encouragement from across the nation.
"They need to put in a lot of policies and procedures that will eliminate alcohol in the fraternities," he told Good Morning America. "They should not be hazing at all. It’s a crime."
The university issued a statement Monday saying the university official assigned to represent the school at student funeral services was unable to attend due to a family emergency. The school also asserted that a representative was able to attend a vigil with the Piazza family on campus.
The school has been in frequent communication with the family, the statement said. It said it initiated aggressive enforcement, education and monitoring measures well before Piazza's death, adding that binge drinking at universities "is a national problem that has been worsening."
"Our hearts go out to the family," the statement says. "This is heart-wrenching for the family, and our entire community."
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00aa6ccefd07eb1fc2054e01596e4066 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/17/chelsea-manning-prison-release/101783186/ | Chelsea Manning, who leaked 700,000 documents to Wikileaks, released from prison | Chelsea Manning, who leaked 700,000 documents to Wikileaks, released from prison
Pvt. Chelsea Manning was released from Fort Leavenworth military prison Wednesday after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence for leaking thousands of diplomatic cables and other secret documents to WikiLeaks.
The transgender soldier, 29, who entered prison as a man named Bradley Manning, will remain an active-duty, unpaid soldier, eligible for health care and other benefits while her court-martial conviction remains under appeal, said Dave Foster, an Army spokesman. She will also have access to commissaries and military exchanges, but will not be paid.
"After another anxious four months of waiting, the day has finally arrived," Manning said in a statement after her release. "I am looking forward to so much! Whatever is ahead of me is far more important than the past. I’m figuring things out right now – which is exciting, awkward, fun, and all new for me."
She also tweeted "First Steps of Freedom!!" above a photo showing tennis shoe-clad feet — presumably hers — taking a step on a wood floor.
Nancy Hollander and Vincent Ward, Manning's clemency and appellate lawyers, said in a joint statement that she "has expressed her deep appreciation to her supporters and looks forward to the future."
Cynthia Smith, an Army spokesperson, confirmed Manning left Fort Leavenworth's United States Disciplinary Barracks but declined to provide additional information because of privacy act restrictions.
Manning was convicted of leaking more than 700,000 classified documents, including battlefield reports on Iraq and Afghanistan and State Department cables, while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning said the leaks were intended to expose wrongdoing.
The soldier was arrested outside a U.S. Army base in Iraq in May 2010. Her 2013 sentence was commuted in the final days of the Obama administration, a move that infuriated some in the military as well as President Trump. She would have been eligible for parole in six years.
Chase Strangio, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said that despite solitary confinement and four years of confinement, Manning "has emerged with grace, resilience, and an inspiring amount of love for others."
READ MORE:
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The Pulse Films production company announced at the Cannes Film Festival in France that Manning would be filmed for a documentary upon her release Wednesday.
Manning’s mother Susan Manning told the Guardian that it will be very hard for Manning to adjust after four years in prison, but that she will be staying in Maryland where she has family to look out for her.
"Chelsea is so intelligent and talented, I hope she now has the chance to go to college to complete her studies, and to do and be whatever she wants," Susan Manning told the newspaper. "My message to Chelsea? Two words: ‘Go, girl!’”
Courage Foundation, an international organization that supports people who place themselves at risk to contribute to historical records, Reporters Without Borders Germany and the German-based nonprofit Wau Holland Foundation, which says it supports moral courage in the digital realm, started a fundraising campaign Wednesday to help Manning pay for her legal appeal.
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705435dfa67186f4bb9417569d2efdbb | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/17/georgia-execution-death-penalty/101782078/ | Georgia carries out its first execution in 2017 | Georgia carries out its first execution in 2017
JACKSON, Ga. - Georgia carried out its first execution of the year early on Wednesday, putting to death a man convicted of killing a 73-year-old neighbor in 1992.
J.W. Ledford Jr., 45, was pronounced dead at 1:17 a.m. at the state prison in Jackson, more than six hours after his initial execution time. The delay was waiting for a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied his request for a stay.
He was convicted of murder in the January 1992 stabbing death of Dr. Harry Johnston in Murray County, northwest Georgia.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is the only authority in Georgia with the power to commute a death sentence, declined to spare Ledford’s life.
Ledford told police he had gone to Johnston’s home on Jan. 31, 1992, to ask for a ride to the grocery store. After the older man accused him of stealing and smacked him, Ledford pulled out a knife and stabbed Johnston to death, according to court filings. The pathologist who did the autopsy said Johnston suffered “one continuous or two slices to the neck” and bled to death.
After dragging Johnston’s body to another part of Johnston’s property and covering it up, Ledford went to Johnston’s house with a knife and demanded money from Johnston’s wife, according to court filings. He took money and four guns from the home, tied up Johnston’s wife and left in Johnston’s truck. He was arrested later that day.
Ledford told police he had a number of beers and smoked a couple joints in the hours before the killing.
Ledford’s lawyers had asked the parole board to spare him, citing a rough childhood, substance abuse from an early age and his intellectual disability. After a hearing Monday, the board declined to grant clemency. Following its normal practice, the board did not give a reason for its denial.
Because of changes in brain chemistry caused by a drug Ledford has been taking for chronic nerve pain for more than a decade, there is a high risk that the pentobarbital Georgia plans to use to execute him will not render him unconscious and devoid of sensation or feeling, his lawyers wrote in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday. That would violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment enshrined in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit says.
When challenging an execution method on those grounds, a U.S. Supreme Court precedent requires inmates to propose a known and available alternative. Ledford’s lawyers, therefore, proposed that he be executed by firing squad, a method that is not allowed under Georgia law.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying Ledford’s attorneys had failed to show that execution by pentobarbital would be “sure or very likely” to cause him extreme pain as required by U.S. Supreme Court precedent. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones also said the decision to wait until just a few days before his execution date to file the lawsuit suggested a stalling tactic.
Ledford’s lawyers appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and asked that court to temporarily halt the execution. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit on Monday rejected that request. Ledford’s attorneys have asked the full 11th Circuit to take up the case.
Ledford’s lawyers had also asked a state court judge to halt the execution because he was only 20 and his brain wasn’t done developing when he killed Johnston. Just as juvenile offenders are considered less culpable and not the “worst of the worst” for whom the death penalty is reserved, the execution of those under 21 is also unconstitutional, Ledford’s lawyers argue.
A Butts County Superior Court judge rejected that petition, and Ledford’s lawyers have appealed to the state Supreme Court. The Georgia Supreme Court, later Tuesday, rejected the appeal of the lower court refusal to stop the execution.
Ledford would be the first inmate executed this year in Georgia. The state executed nine inmates last year, more than any other state and the most Georgia had executed in a single calendar year since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume 40 years ago.
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45d9d29a408e08d86ec5a2ca7227b98a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/17/texas-man-sues-his-date-texting-during-guardians-galaxy-vol-2/101786452/ | Texas man sues his date — for texting during 'Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2' | Texas man sues his date — for texting during 'Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2'
You know those little pre-movie segments where they ask you to turn off or silence your cellphone and not to talk or text?
Well this guy REALLY takes them seriously.
A Texas man is suing his date for texting while they were watching a 3D showing of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 at an Austin theater.
According to local media, Brandon Vezmar, 37, is asking for $17.31, which was the price of his ticket.
“This is, like, one of my biggest pet peeves,” he told Austin’s American-Statesman.
“It was kind of a first date from hell,” he told the paper, saying that about 15 minutes after the movie began, his date – who he met on dating app Bumble – started texting.
In his lawsuit, which was filed at a Travis County small claims court, Vezmar said the woman “activated her phone at least 10-20 times in 15 minutes to read and send text messages.”
Vezmar told the Statesman she refused to stop when requested and that he suggested she should go outside if she wanted to continue. She left the theater and never came back, he said, leaving him stranded because they had driven in her car.
"I said, 'Listen, your texting is driving me a little nuts' and she said 'I can't not text my friend,’" he told local TV station KVUE. “I said 'maybe you can take it outside to the lobby, I've seen people get kicked out movies for this.'"
“Oh my god, this is crazy,” the woman, a 35-year-old who requested that her name not be used, told the paper.
Later, the woman, who lives in suburban Round Rock, issued a statement to KVUE:
“I did have a very brief date with Brandon that I chose to end prematurely. His behavior made me extremely uncomfortable, and I felt I needed to remove myself from the situation for my own safety. He has escalated the situation far past what any mentally healthy person would. I feel sorry that I hurt his feelings badly enough that he felt he needed to commit so much time and effort into seeking revenge. I hope one day he can move past this and find peace in his life.”
The woman told the Statesman that she only texted on her phone two or three times.
“I had my phone low and I wasn’t bothering anybody,” she said. She was texting a friend who was having a fight with her boyfriend, she said. “It wasn’t, like, constant texting.”
The woman told the paper that Vezmar had called her to ask her to pay him back for the movie ticket but she refused because “he took me out on a date.” Meanwhile, she said, she planned to file a protective order against Vezmar for contacting her little sister to get the money.
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According to the lawsuit, the paper reported, the texting was a “direct violation” of the theater’s policy and that his date “adversely” affected Vezmar’s viewing experience and that of other patrons.
“While damages sought are modest, the principle is important as defendant’s behavior is a threat to civilized society,” the petition said.
“I’m not a bad woman,” the woman told the Statesman. “I just went out on a date.”
Vezmar told KVUE that he is “fully aware of the weirdness of this situation."
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1dc23a92f1adee4d621a85102ac91ef3 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/19/general-robert-lee-statue-monument-new-orleans/101866558/ | New Orleans removes Gen. Robert E. Lee statue, its last Confederate-era monument | New Orleans removes Gen. Robert E. Lee statue, its last Confederate-era monument
NEW ORLEANS — The 16-foot-tall bronze statue of Robert E. Lee in New Orleans was removed Friday from its perch high above St. Charles Avenue where the Confederate general had stood watch for 133 years.
The removal of the last, and perhaps most iconic of the city’s four Confederate-era monuments drew dozens of people to Lee Circle, where it is located, late Thursday and early Friday.
By mid-morning, activity began at the site as cranes and backhoes were used.
The statue was lifted from its pedestal early Friday evening. The largely anti-monument crowd burst into cheers and song.“I cannot believe that it’s down,” said a choked up Rev. Marie Galatas, a civil rights leader who was instrumental in the movement to remove the monuments. “This is the one I was focused on ... there had been monumental obstacles against me from ’73 until now, but they are down now.”
Lee Circle has been a focal point for citizens of the city for more than 130 years, with many not paying attention to the historic significance or controversy of the monument to the general that led the Confederate Army against Union troops.
That history has become a focus for both pro and anti-monument groups.
A crowd of perhaps 200 people were gathered at the circle Thursday night. There were several Confederate battle flags, some American flags and a small band of drummers who led the anti-monument people with a chant of “Take ‘Em Down.”
Without the barricades to separate the two groups, the drummers and dancers edged close to the pro-monument crowd, who remained stoic.
“We want him to stay here,” said Robert Bonner, a supporter of the Lee statue. “We know he’s going to come down, but that’s not going to stop us. We want a voice.”
“I wanted this to be seen with their own eyes,” said DeMirah Howard, who supports the monuments being removed. “It’s not good for our children to view it (the memorial).”
Read more:
Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard statue is 3rd New Orleans monument to be taken down
Statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis comes down in New Orleans
New Orleans begins removing Confederate monuments
For his part, Bonner, who said his family has a long lineage in New Orleans, and whose father fought in several wars, said he believes the takedown of the monument will be emotional.
“I tell you what it felt like with the other ones,” he said. “I cried… Where’s it going to stop?”
By the time crews arrived, much of the overnight gathering had thinned to just a few onlookers.
During the night, dozens of people had spirited exchanges that, for the most part, stayed civil. There was one arrest after a man went past the barricades and climbed atop the stairs leading to the column. Police tried to get the man to come down peacefully, but eventually they handcuffed him and removed him to some cheers and jeers.
Erected in 1884, Lee’s is the last of four monuments to Confederate-era figures to be removed in accordance with a 2015 City Council vote.
The most recent removal of a statue happened Wednesday morning, when the 102-year-old bronze statue of Confederate Gen. P.G.T Beauregard was removed from the entrance to City Park.
The statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis was removed last week and a monument memorializing a deadly 1874 white-supremacist uprising was removed in April.
Unlike the first three statues — which were removed under in the dark — city officials moved to take Lee’s statue down during the day.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the change was made to ensure the safety of the workers because of its proximity to electrical wires and New Orleans' famous streetcar lines. It would be impossible to do the removal "at dark and maintain the safety of the construction workers," he said.
In a news release obtained by The Associated Press, the city said the statues were “erected decades after the Civil War to celebrate the ‘Cult of the Lost Cause,’ a movement recognized across the South as celebrating and promoting white supremacy.”
Of the four monuments, Lee's was easily the most prominent, with the bronze statue alone being close to 20 feet tall. It's an image of Lee standing tall in uniform, with his arms crossed defiantly, looking toward the northern horizon from atop a roughly 60-foot-tall column.
It towered over a traffic circle — Lee Circle — in an area between the office buildings of the city's business district and stately 19th-century mansions in the nearby Garden District.
The city has received offers from public and private institutions to take individual monuments, so it will solicit proposals on where they will go through an "open and transparent selection." Only non-profits and government entities will be allowed to take part, and the city said the process will not include the Beauregard statue because of legal issues.
The city said those taking the statues cannot display them outdoors on public property in New Orleans.
Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Danny Monteverde on Twitter: @DCMonteverde
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35ec0549d5efcdfce9f1fef33b89585c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/24/christian-school-defends-decision-deny-pregnant-teen-graduation-walk/102112558/ | Christian school defends decision to deny pregnant teen graduation ‘walk’ | Christian school defends decision to deny pregnant teen graduation ‘walk’
Countering criticism even from conservative Christians, the principal of a Christian school in Maryland invoked its moral code in defense of a decision to forbid a pregnant student from crossing the graduation stage.
“Maddi is being disciplined, not because she’s pregnant, but because she was immoral,” wrote David R. Hobbs, administrator of Heritage Academy, about senior Maddi Runkles. He issued a statement to the school’s “family” on Tuesday.
The determination to not let Runkles “walk” when she completes her studies at the Hagerstown school prompted a sharp critique from Students for Life of America, which asked its supporters to urge the school to reverse its decision.
But Hobbs said the school is standing its ground about the June 2 ceremony for Runkles’ class of 15 students.
“Heritage is also pleased that she has chosen to not abort her son,” he wrote. “However, her immorality is the original choice she made that began this situation. Secondly, she will receive her diploma that she has earned.”
He noted that all students sign a pledge based on Philippians 4:8 (including language about “whatever is pure”) that “extends to my actions, such as protecting my body by abstaining from sexual immorality and from the use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs.”
The New York Times reported that Runkles, a student with a 4.0 average, was suspended and removed as president of the student council. Her father resigned as the school’s board president. Runkles declined to name the baby’s father but said he is not an academy student and they do not plan to marry.
“I told on myself,” she said to the Times, describing her choice to publicly speak to the student body instead of letting Hobbs share her news. “I asked for forgiveness. I asked for help.”
Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins said her organization remains concerned about the example the school is setting.
“By banning her and her alone, the administration and board collectively decided to make a public example of one student,” Hawkins wrote in a statement, “and has either intentionally or unintentionally communicated to the school community that pregnancy (not simply premarital sex) is a shame and should not be observed within our school community.”
Other anti-abortion activists are adding their support for Runkles. Susan Michelle-Hanson, writing in an open letter on Live Action’s website, called her “a courageous young lady” and thanked her for “choosing life.”
In an earlier blog post, Students for Life said the academy’s treatment of Runkles will be remembered by her classmates because it “wasn’t with love.”
Hobbs, the academy administrator, countered that assessment.
“A wise man told me that discipline is not the absence of love, but the application of love,” he said. “We love Maddi Runkles. The best way to love her right now is to hold her accountable for her immorality that began this situation.”
Runkles’ parents are planning a private ceremony to celebrate their daughter’s graduation.
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4c6e97803e3b8e8c2cacd61ff6eb5e1c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/26/texas-officials-apologize-for-terrorist-award-given-student/102185486/ | Teachers give 'Most Likely to Become a Terrorist' award to 13-year-old girl | Teachers give 'Most Likely to Become a Terrorist' award to 13-year-old girl
CHANNELVIEW, Texas — A number of teachers in a Texas school district are being disciplined after naming a student "most likely to become a terrorist."
Lizeth Villanueva, a seventh grader, received a certificate during a mock awards ceremony Tuesday at Anthony Aguirre Junior High in Channelview, Texas, near Houston. Lizeth said the teacher who signed it handed out certificates to a number of students while other teachers watched and laughed.
"They just found it as a joke," said Lizeth, 13.
The awards were given out a day after the suicide bombing at the end of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.
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“She said that some people might get offended, but she doesn’t really care about our feelings," Lizeth said. “She was laughing about it.”
It’s no laughing matter to Lizeth’s mom.
“I read it twice. I’m like, 'What is this?!' " said Ena Hernandez.
Hernandez said her daughter is in an advanced academic program and has never had a discipline problem.
“It doesn’t look good at all, especially coming from a teacher, a grown-up woman,” Hernandez said. “It doesn’t look good because everything that’s going on right now.”
Hernandez said the principal, Eric Lathan, personally apologized during a meeting at the school.
“I just think it’s going to stop, it’s going to end there,” Hernandez said.
The Channelview Independent School District would not confirm the names of any teachers because it’s a personnel matter, but a spokesperson said those involved are being disciplined in accordance with policy.
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In a statement, the school district said, "The Channelview (Independent School District) Administration would like to apologize for the insensitive and offensive fake mock awards that were given to students in a classroom. Channelview ISD would like to assure all students, parents and community members that these award statements and ideals are not representative of the district’s vision, mission and educational goals for our students.
"The teachers involved in this matter have been disciplined according to district policy and the incident is still under investigation."
Lizeth has an idea of what she would like to see happen to the teachers.
“Get fired, at least, or something,” she said.
She hasn’t been back to class since receiving her certificate.
Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Jason Miles on Twitter: @JMilesKHOU
More: Student: Teacher taught 'God is not real'
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2a55a123dfc9f951feba8e58c17c3909 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/31/did-kathy-griffin-break-law-her-photo-decapitated-trump/356840001/ | Did Kathy Griffin break the law with her photo of a decapitated Trump? | Did Kathy Griffin break the law with her photo of a decapitated Trump?
Kathy Griffin sparked outrage across the political spectrum Tuesday when a photo surfaced of the edgy comedian holding aloft the bloody head of a dummy made to look like President Trump.
Much of the outcry on social media called for the Secret Service, the agency tasked with looking out for the president's safety, to arrest Griffin for threatening the president.
Griffin herself said she "crossed the line" in a video apology. But no matter how guilty Griffin was of bad taste, did she commit a crime?
Threats "knowingly and willfully" made against the president, president-elect, vice president or vice president-elect are a class E felony under federal law. That includes any "threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm" upon those officials.
But, in Griffin's case, there is no question the photo of her holding a mock Trump head is protected speech, said Stanford University Law Professor Nathaniel Persily.
The photograph did not directly threaten the president and it didn't urge other people to harm him, Persily said.
"People are allowed to wish the president dead," up to the point they express a real intent to harm him, Persily said. "To threaten someone you need words that encourage some sort of action," and those words are absent in Griffin's photo, he said.
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In a 1969 ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Robert Watts, a young man accused of threatening former president Lyndon Johnson. Watts said at a 1966 political rally that he was "not going" if he was drafted to serve in Vietnam and added that "if they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J."
The Supreme Court ruled Watts' statement, which is much closer to meeting the definition of a threat than Griffin's photos, was merely "crude political hyperbole."
"In light of its context and conditional nature," Watts speech "did not constitute a knowing and willful threat against the President," the court ruled, citing the importance of the First Amendment.
"A statute such as this one, which makes criminal a form of pure speech, must be interpreted with the commands of the First Amendment clearly in mind," said the court. "What is a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech."
Determining which is which is all about context and the intent of the speaker, Persily said. "You have to get into a person's head" to determine if they really wanted to harm the president and weren't being satirical or making a crude political point.
While the Secret Service did not mention Griffin by name, the agency appeared to address the controversy in two tweets posted after the images had gone viral on social media.
Persily cautioned against any attempt to prosecute Griffin because efforts to stifle speech usually just bring more fame to the speaker and more attention to their grievances, he said.
"When you try to clamp down on offensive speech, you actually expose more people to it," Persily said.
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d2a09fd2f02d20b0adf17dd829e7d67d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/01/good-states-lgbt-advocates-say-there-work-done/102387378/ | Even in 'good' states, LGBT advocates say there is work to be done | Even in 'good' states, LGBT advocates say there is work to be done
Even in states with LGBT protections on the books, activists say there is more work to be done in the quest for equal rights.
Fifteen states and Washington, D.C., are ranked as “high equality” by the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that researches and analyzes state and federal laws with LGBT implications. These states have laws with LGBT protections that cover areas such as employment, housing, public accommodations, schools, health care access and hate crimes.
Lisa Cisneros lives in one of those states: California. Cisneros is the LGBT program director for California Rural Legal Assistance, a program she helped launch in 2007 that provides legal advocacy for rural, low-income members of the LGBT community.
“It’s not simply a matter of establishing a new statute or winning at the Supreme Court,” she said. “We are making sure communities are aware of what legal rights there are and that they have access to affordable legal services.”
Advocacy organizations, policymakers and elected officials have been committed to establishing legal protections and recourse for LGBT people in the state, Cisneros said.
Beyond laws, there is a greater awareness in California “that LGBT people are part of the community,” she said. “Everyone has something to offer, everyone contributes to the community, to the economy, to schools to churches. No one is left out.”
Cisneros is not complacent: “I am proud of our state, but there is more work to do.”
Nate Monson is working to create secure environments for LGBT youths as executive director of Iowa Safe Schools.
Iowa was an early pioneer for marriage equality. Since 2007, Iowa law prohibited discrimination based on gender identity, and many schools had already made accommodations for transgender students. Even though the state has turned “red,” Monson said the LGBT community had no “direct hit” from the Legislature this year, unlike many other states.
Monson works in the most rural corners of the state on anti-bullying, suicide prevention, gay-straight student alliances and other issues. “Our priority right now is making sure if you are LGBT and living in a rural community, you are not alone.”
The LGBT bias he has witnessed has often been brouhahas at local levels. Last year, the issue of transgender school policy came to a head in Fairfield, he recalls, and there were protesters “like a mob with a pitchfork” who wanted to strip trans kids of many rights.
One thing Monson learned from the uproar: When someone actually knows someone who is LGBT, it is a different story. “It’s a lot harder to go after your neighbor if they are just your neighbor. It’s easier to get riled up at a school board level."
Follow Miller on Twitter @susmiller
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ce50c50ca6f20b6f00ddea5ad2cf07a1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/01/onslaught-anti-lgbt-bills-2017/102110520/ | Onslaught of anti-LGBT bills in 2017 has activists 'playing defense' | Onslaught of anti-LGBT bills in 2017 has activists 'playing defense'
Nearly halfway through 2017, LGBT activists say they have weathered a blitz of bills in statehouses that has many in the LGBT community feeling — for the second straight year — that they have a bull’s-eye on their backs.
More than 100 anti-LGBT bills in 29 states have been introduced in the past five months, according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a think tank that researches and analyzes state and federal laws with LGBT implications.
Even though only six measures in five states have become law so far this year, the number of bills that took root speaks volumes, said Alex Sheldon, MAP research analyst. “States like Texas and Arkansas are now trying to pass multiple bills that target people specifically. The clear message to LGBT people: You are not welcome.”
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In 2016, there were about 220 anti-LGBT bills introduced at the state level, according to MAP, four of which were approved.
A backlash to the 2015 Supreme Court ruling sanctioning same-sex marriage and the strong stance by the Obama administration for LGBT rights are among catalysts behind the bills, which signal a troubling turn in the quest for equal rights, said Naomi Goldberg, MAP policy director.
“We were heading in the right direction” after 2015, she said. “Now, there’s definitely been a shift. States are really going after the most vulnerable people. We are playing defense.”
The aggressive action by legislatures stands in stark contrast to a sentiment by many activists that there is broad public support for LGBT protections, as well as progress at the local level in cities and towns. “There is a real disconnect around fairness and equality,” Sheldon said. “It makes you wonder: Are legislators out of touch?”
Bills cite religious freedom
Religious exemption bills made up the bulk this year: 45 bills introduced in 22 states. Those bills would let people, churches and sometimes corporations cite religious beliefs as a reason not to enforce a law, such as declining to marry a same-sex couple.
Of the six total bills that did pass in 2017, four of them provided religious exemptions. Two of them, for example, in South Dakota and Alabama, would let state-funded adoption and foster agencies refuse to place children with same-sex couples.
Supporters of religious exemption bills say "freedom of conscience" is an essential right. "Conscience exemptions can be found in a myriad of state and federal laws on all sorts of issues," said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst at Focus on the Family, a Christian conservative organization. "It’s that type of protection of our freedom that makes America exceptional."
The bills also "protect the safety and privacy of women and children," he said. "We can all agree that these are worthy goals."
As concerns mount over LGBT rights, study shows lack of protections
Transgender community targeted
The transgender community was singled out, MAP research shows, with 39 bills introduced in 21 states: from banning transgender people from using restrooms that match their gender identity to preventing them from obtaining accurate documents like driver’s licenses.
The state action played out amid rollbacks at the federal level. In February, the Justice and Education departments reversed guidance the Obama administration had issued that said Title IX protected the rights of transgender students to use facilities that match their gender identity
Schools generally have been leaders in understanding the needs of transgender students, Goldberg said. “But with the rescinding of the (Title IX) guidance, when a school doesn’t do a good job, the Department of Education won’t stand up for them. That’s what is problematic.”
Beyond the bathroom: Report shows laws' harm for transgender students
'Brutal' session in Texas
In Texas: 'It’s an all-out assault on LGBT people'
Perhaps no state felt the weight of the 2017 legislative session like Texas, which saw about two dozen anti-LGBT bills introduced this year, activists say. “It has just been a brutal session for targeting people that were already marginalized and making their lives more difficult,” said Rebecca Robertson, legal and policy director for the ACLU of Texas.
Two bills took on an 11th-hour fast track in the final days of Texas' legislative session: One was a bathroom bill targeting transgender people that went through a few permutations in the state House and Senate before collapsing over a deadlock among Republicans. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hasn't ruled out reviving the bill in a possible special legislative session in June.
After a ruckus in North Carolina over last year’s HB2 bathroom bill, which led to protests, economic boycotts and an eventual compromise bill, Robertson said activists are astounded a similar measure was considered in their state. Major companies such as Facebook and Apple have lined up against the bill.
“The business community has been adamant in opposition to all of these discriminatory measures, but that hasn’t won the debate,” she said.
The second was a bill, which was approved, that allows publicly funded foster care and adoption agencies to refuse to place children with certain people — such as LGBT couples — because of religious reasons. It also would let state-funded providers discriminate against children in their care, for instance withholding services such as transition care, activists say. Abbott has 20 days from the session's adjournment to sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature.
Hundreds of faith leaders in Texas have spoken out against those bills, such as the Rev. David Wynn of Fort Worth.
“As a Christian pastor, I honestly don’t get it. I think we are all reading the same Bible, but it’s hard to tell,” he said. “You tell me what Jesus would do. Jesus never said one word about homosexuality or gender … but he did have a whole lot say about taking care of each other.."
When states don't act
Even in some states that saw a flurry of “good bills,” the failure of these to win approval was disappointing, activists say.
Florida, for example, had nearly a dozen pieces of legislation that would have provided discrimination protections, stronger anti-bullying laws and a ban on conversion therapy. None passed.
“It’s gone from will it hurt you to do the wrong thing to will it hurt you not to do the right thing,” said Nadine Smith, CEO and co-founder of civil rights group Equality Florida.
The most sweeping of the bills, the Florida Competitive Workforce Act, would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing and in public places like restaurants.
The bipartisan bill had 71 co-sponsors or 44% of the Legislature, Smith noted, an “unprecedented number” that shows wide support. But the legislation never made it to the floor for a hearing in either chamber in the legislative session that just ended in May.
“It’s disappointing that the leadership blocked it from being heard,” Smith said. “It’s the right thing to do economically. Businesses saw it as a way to draw top talent.”
Smith, who was part of a historic Oval Office meeting with President Clinton and LGBT leaders in 1993, is undaunted. She said the legislation will be reintroduced next year.
“We see Florida as a breakthrough state,” she said. “A victory in a Republican-dominated state would demonstrate that LGBTQ equality is a bipartisan issue as it must be to win the country.”
Smith also cites the strides the state has made at the local level — even in places like Jacksonville, considered a conservative stronghold.
“We have passed more local non-discrimination laws than any other state in the country,” she said, noting that those protections cover 60% of Floridians.
Smith said LGBT activists will continue to rely on a three-pronged strategy: nurturing business support, engaging faith leaders and building bipartisan coalitions in Tallahassee.
And then there is the voice of the people in towns small and large.
“We have spent years pursuing local victories one at a time in places where people would step up to the microphone, their voices shaky, and they would just out themselves,” she said.
LGBT? Where you live matters
Does where you live dictate what protections you have? If you're part of the LGBT community, the answer is yes, MAP’s Goldberg said. But the dynamic is complicated.
“It used to be simply that you you’d cross the border from a state where you could get married to one where you can’t,” she said. “But now you can go from being protected in the workplace by a state law to not being protected by a state law … or a transgender person who can use a restroom in school, and in the next state you can’t.”
Sarah Scanlon, 53, knew since she was 5 that she was gay. But growing up in Jonesboro, Ark., she said it “was never safe for me to be who I am.” She left the state in her mid-20s for a more welcoming Seattle. “I thought, wow, this is a whole new world.”
But even in Washington state, she felt the sting of discrimination. “I was fired from a job and punched on a public bus because I was gay.”
Even in 'good' states, LGBT advocates say there is work to be done
Scanlon, who now lives in Little Rock with her wife and 6-year-old daughter, acknowledges the tough pieces of legislation that cropped up in Arkansas’ Legislature, including a “really horrible one that defined indecent exposure.”
The bill — which did not make it into law — would have expanded the indecent exposure statute and included broad wording that could essentially criminalize a transgender person for using the bathroom.
Many lawmakers at the Statehouse “don’t have a worldview,” Scanlon said. “They have a backyard view.”
But she sees a growing awareness among state residents about what is happening at the Statehouse. “The public is saying, hey, quit picking on them so much. There are more important things to be dealt with here."
Looking ahead
Goldberg said the last five months have been challenging to say the least. To be an LGBT person in a place like Texas is “very scary right now,” she said. “But when you see the diversity of support and you see people saying no (to discrimination), that is heartening.”
The massacre a year ago at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando — an LGBT safe haven — had a “profound effect” on galvanizing support from faith leaders and some elected officials in Florida, Smith said.
Smith, who lives in St. Petersburg with her wife and son, 6, often makes the drive back to Callaway, Fla., to visit her 81-year-old father. “The (LGBT) protections that exist along that drive, exist and fall away depending on what county I am driving through.”
For Smith, no one symbolizes an evolution on LGBT issues more than her dad. He had great difficulty accepting that his daughter was a lesbian. But eventually the military veteran embraced Smith, walking her down the aisle at her wedding — and at age 79 made a commercial for LGBT equality.
“My father has been the journey of the country on this issue,” Smith said.
Follow Miller on Twitter @susmiller
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100a5b480c8581769c82dc659c711f78 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/08/chocolate-trafficking-shulaya-mob-crimes-brooklyn/379940001/ | More than 30 charged with mob crimes, including trafficking in, yes, chocolate | More than 30 charged with mob crimes, including trafficking in, yes, chocolate
Drugs. Guns. Bribery. Robbery. Sex. Shakedowns. Gambling. Murder plots. Identity theft.
Now add chocolate trafficking to the list of criminal enterprises allegedly carried out by suspected mobsters.
On Wednesday, federal authorities charged 33 people with a wide variety of offenses, including, yes, the theft and trafficking of “a shipment containing approximately 10,000 pounds of chocolate confections,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. More than two dozen were arrested – most in the New York City area, though others were held in Nevada and Florida – with the remainder still at large.
The suspects are alleged members of the Shulaya Enterprise, an association law enforcement describes as having links to criminal organizations in nations of the former Soviet Union, including Russia, Ukraine and Georgia. The group is named after its alleged leader, 40-year-old Razhden Shulaya, of Edgewater, N.J., who was one of those arrested early Wednesday. Many of those nabbed by authorities lived in Brooklyn, which has a large community of people born in the former U.S.S.R.
“The dizzying array of criminal schemes committed by this organized crime syndicate,” said a statement from Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim, “allegedly include a murder-for-hire conspiracy, a plot to rob victims by seducing and drugging them with chloroform, the theft of cargo shipments containing over 10,000 pounds of chocolate, and a fraud on casino slot machines using electronic hacking devices. Thanks to the remarkable interagency partnership of FBI, CBP, and NYPD, we have charged and arrested 33 defendants allegedly involved in this criminal enterprise.”
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Meanwhile, FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said in a statement: “The suspects in this case cast a wide net of criminal activity, aiming to make as much money as possible, all allegedly organized and run by a man who promised to protect them.”
According to U.S. Attorney’s statement, many members of the Shulaya Enterprise regularly traveled to the former Soviet Union countries, communicated with associates there and also transferred criminal proceeds to associates in those countries.
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66d39fabcaee2a1dc484665a8683c195 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/12/2016-deadliest-year-lgbtq-pulse/373840001/ | 2016 was the deadliest year on record for the LGBTQ community | 2016 was the deadliest year on record for the LGBTQ community
The gruesome attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando a year ago was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Yet even without those 49 victims, 2016 was the deadliest year on record for the LGBTQ community, according to a report released Monday by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP).
Outside of the lives lost at Pulse nightclub, the NCAVP found a 17% increase in hate killings from the previous year. The group collected data on 1,036 incidents of hate violence from 12 local NCAVP member organizations in 11 states for its 20th annual report, "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected Hate Violence in 2016."
"I think with increased visibility comes increased vulnerability," said Shelby Chestnut, director of community organizing and public advocacy at the New York City Anti-Violence Project.
Opinion:Christian clergyman on Pulse, 1 year later: We must protect the vulnerable
In the U.S., gay marriage had been set as a benchmark for equality. But advocates say the Supreme Court's ruling in 2015 — which made same-sex marriage a legal right — was never a measure of societal or cultural acceptance of the LGBTQ community. It was never a guarantee their lives were safe.
Here are just some of the crimes committed against LGBTQ people in 2016:
"We're not sending clear messages that LGBTQ lives are valued," Chestnut said.
Since the presidential election, the New York City Anti-Violence Project has seen a 45% increase in calls to its violence hotline. More than 100 anti-LGBTQ bills in 29 states have been introduced in the past five months, according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a think tank that researches and analyzes state and federal laws with LGBTQ implications.
"Right now you see marginalized communities being pushed further to the margins than ever before," Chestnut said.
Trans people: More visible, and the least safe
The number of Americans who report knowing a transgender person doubled in seven years, according to a 2015 GLAAD survey. From Caitlyn Jenner to Laverne Cox, the trans community is more visible then ever, yet trans people, especially trans women of color, face significant barriers to their health and safety, according to the 2015 report, "Understanding Issues Facing Transgender Americans," co-authored by MAP, the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Transgender Law Center.
Trans people have the least access to resources, to social capital, to housing, to jobs and to medical care. Transgender people in the U.S. are nearly four times as likely to be living in extreme poverty, according to the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey.
"It puts folks in places where they are more likely to be unsafe," said Beth Hamilton, associate director at the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence.
Hate crimes against transgender people are shockingly common. According to the Williams Institute at UCLA, only 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender, yet the NCAVP said in 2016 it tracked 21 homicides of transgender and gender-non-conforming people. In 2017 so far, it's tracked 12, and 10 of them have been transgender women of color.
Transgender people, Hamilton said, are also especially vulnerable to sexual violence. Studies suggest half of transgender people will experience sexual violence at some point in their lives.
"If the only way somebody is going to validate my gender identity or the only access to physical touch I experience is going to be something that is harmful to me or problematic, I'm going to be less likely to sort of stop the behavior," said Hamilton, who identifies as gender variant and uses the pronouns "they" and "them."
Intimate partner violence, sexual violence and stalking
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who identify as LGBTQ experience sexual violence at rates equal to or higher than heterosexuals:
Existing statistics likely don't reveal how pervasive sexual violence is in the LGBTQ community, Hamilton said. Sexual assault is a notoriously under-reported crime, and advocates suspect the rates of reporting are even lower for LGBTQ survivors.
Why it's so hard for LGBTQ survivors
"Folks feel like, well, we're already stigmatized, and people already think a certain thing of us, so putting that out there for the world to see is not something that feels good," Hamilton said.
The ways sexual violence plays out in LGBTQ relationships may sometimes look different from heterosexual ones, especially if an LGBTQ person has not shared their identity publicly.
"If there are folks who are not 'out' in their families or in their communities, that's an added tactic" a perpetrator could use to intimidate a victim, Hamilton said.
As a child, Hamilton was sexually assaulted by a man, and said another obstacle they experienced talking about their assault was overcoming the worry that doing so might undermine their identity.
"I genuinely believe at 38 years old my mom still thinks that because I was assaulted as a child that's why I am queer," Hamilton said.
For years Hamilton was reluctant to disclose the assault for fear others would think the same.
"I think that sparing yourself from some of that — whether that's internalized homophobia or whatever it is — becomes a safety mechanism," Hamilton said.
Hamilton is also a survivor of intimate partner violence, which they experienced with their first girlfriend. After Hamilton came out, their family struggled to accept their identity, and in hindsight Hamilton said that made them more vulnerable.
"I kind of isolated myself, and didn't have a lot of folks I could lean on, to sort of say, I need help getting out," Hamilton said.
When an LGBTQ person does seek help, they face additional obstacles. The NCAVP found that 66% of LGBTQ survivors who interacted with police said police were indifferent or hostile. The report found black LGBTQ survivors were nearly three times more likely to experience excessive force from law enforcement.
LGBTQ sexual assault survivors also face barriers in both accessing and receiving support from service providers such as crisis centers, support groups and shelters.
"Services are sort of set up with this model survivor in mind," Hamilton said. "I think that for many folks who come from oppressed communities, what they are actually met with are services that don't quite work for them, or they don't see themselves represented in the staff or the setting."
A 2015 report from the NCAVP found nearly half of LGBTQ survivors who had experienced intimate partner violence and tried to access an emergency shelter had been turned away. Of those, 71% reported they were denied services because of their gender identity. A women's-only shelter, for example, may not accept a trans woman.
Cause for hope
Chestnut said, despite the daunting statistics that show violence against the LGBTQ community is on the rise, there is something she finds encouraging: More and more people are reaching out to the organization asking how they can help and intervene on behalf of LGBTQ people.
The group typically holds one volunteer orientation per month, but had to add several more in the months following the presidential election to fill the demand.
How to be an ally:During Pride Month and beyond
"People are dying as a result of anti-LGBT violence almost daily in this country, and it is everyone's problem," Chestnut said. "People need to understand that it's happening in their communities whether they're wealthy communities, poor communities, white communities, communities of color, immigrant communities. ... Now, more than ever, people need to stand up and defend the rights of LGBT people."
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6fa3a559d5b0eb5c0e8f37372b3b9a75 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/15/e-cigarette-use-among-youth-drops-1st-time-6-years/102885184/ | E-cigarette use among youth drops for 1st time in 6 years | E-cigarette use among youth drops for 1st time in 6 years
E-cigarette use among youth dropped for the first time in six years, driving a significant decrease in overall tobacco consumption among middle and high school students, according to a survey published Thursday.
The number of students in grades 6-12 using e-cigarettes fell from 3 million in 2015 to 2.2 million in 2016, according to the report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That drop also led to a decrease in overall tobacco usage for the age group, from 4.7 million in 2015 to 3.9 million in 2016.
The change is significant because e-cigarette use among students rose steadily from 2011-2015, according to CDC and FDA data.
Robin Koval, president and CEO of Truth Initiative, said she thinks the dip is largely due to youth-targeted education campaigns by her anti-smoking advocacy group and others in recent years, including the FDA’s “The Real Cost” campaign.
“Seeing this change in the data trend on e-cigarettes is a big deal,” she said.
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Despite the decline, e-cigarettes remained the most commonly consumed tobacco product among youth for the third year in a row, used by 11.3% of high schoolers and 4.3% of middle schoolers.
“Tobacco use in any form, including e-cigarettes, is unsafe for youth,” said Corinne Graffunder, the director of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.
E-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine through an inhaled aerosol, are a double-edged sword, public health experts say.
“For smokers trying to quit, it can be a great public health benefit,” said Nancy Rigotti, director of the Tobacco Research and Treatment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "We think there might be a product that will help smokers quit and save their lives.”
E-cigarettes are safer than traditional cigarettes, she said, but on the other hand, they may lead non-smokers, particularly young people, to eventually become traditional cigarette smokers.
“The trade-off is how much (e-cigarettes) will help current smokers to quit and how much it will induce young people to start smoking,” Rigotti said. Nicotine is an addictive substance, and e-cigarettes, which are often sold on the Internet and come in attractive flavors, can be especially appealing to young people, she said.
CDC and FDA officials stressed the importance of remaining vigilant and continuing to develop preventive and public health measures.
“While these latest numbers are encouraging, it is critical that we work to ensure this downward trend continues over the long term across all tobacco products,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
Follow Sarah Toy on Twitter: @sarahtoy17
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d5e90d574c48574cee7b52cd4411b1bb | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/16/philando-castiles-mother-reacts-not-guilty-verdict/102936184/ | 'Mad as hell,' Philando Castile's mother reacts to not guilty verdict | 'Mad as hell,' Philando Castile's mother reacts to not guilty verdict
After a jury found the Minnesota police officer who killed Philando Castile not guilty on Friday, Castile's mother Valerie pushed back against the decision.
"People have died for us to have these rights and now we're devolving. We're going back down to 1969. Damn. What is it going to take? I'm mad as hell right now, yes I am," she said.
Valerie Castile defended her son, who was killed in July, saying he would never jeopardize someone's life, especially with his girlfriend and her child in the car at the time. Philando Castile was killed during a traffic stop, and his girlfriend live streamed the moments after on Facebook Live.
"I will continue to say murder because where in this planet do you tell the truth and you be honest and you still be murdered by the police of Minnesota?" Valerie Castile asked.
Later Friday, thousands of people gathered on the steps of the state Capitol in St. Paul, holding signs and banners and chanting in response to the not guilty verdict. After the hourlong rally, protesters took to the streets. Saint Paul Police escorted the crowd, which they estimated to be about 2,000 people.
The protest was peaceful, but a smaller group splintered off and walked down an entrance ramp to block Interstate 94, quickly snarling traffic and leading to the freeway’s shutdown in both directions, The Associated Press reported.
Jeronimo Yanez was cleared of a manslaughter charge as well as two lesser charges. After the verdict was read, Valerie Castile yelled an expletive and family and friends left the courtroom in tears.
"My son loved this state. He had one tattoo on his body, and it was of the Twin Cities," Valerie Castile said. "My son loved this city, and this city killed my son."
Valerie Castile also addressed the crowd directly after leaving the courthouse, expressing her disappointment.
"The system continues to fail black people, and it will continue to fail you all. Like I said, because this happened with Philando, when they get done with us, they coming for you, for you, for you and all your interracial children," Valerie Castile said. "Y'all are next, and you will be standing up here fighting for justice just as well as I am."
Contributing: KARE-TV, The Associated Press
Follow Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
Read more:
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Facebook Live violence horrifies users, who say Facebook's still not doing enough
Minn. officer charged with manslaughter in death of Philando Castile
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1e96a2d4ae91c065b16b6fe267ce8414 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/17/texting-suicide-verdict-could-set-bad-precedent-legal-experts-say/102956784/ | Texting suicide verdict could set bad precedent, legal experts say | Texting suicide verdict could set bad precedent, legal experts say
SAN FRANCISCO — The day after a juvenile court judge in Massachusetts convicted Michelle Carter of killing boyfriend Conrad Roy III with her words, some legal and cyber issues experts cautioned that the punishment may not fit the crime.
“I draw a line between moral and legal implications of what she did," says Daniel Medwed, professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University school of law. “In terms of morality, what she did is despicable. But that doesn’t constitute manslaughter, and that’s the problem.”
Carter and Roy were teenagers when Roy, then 18, took his own life in 2014 by pumping his truck cab full of carbon monoxide. During their largely virtual relationship, which started in 2012, the two had traded some texts in which Carter urged Roy to kill himself.
“The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it!” Carter wrote in one message.
But in reaching his verdict Friday, Judge Lawrence Moniz focused instead on Carter’s text message to a friend after Roy’s death.
In that text, she confessed to persuading Roy to return to his truck after he had stepped out. “Get back in,” Carter told Roy, according to the friend, who testified in court.
Tellingly, said Moniz, Carter “did not issue a simple additional instruction: Get out of the truck.”
While Carter’s words were heartless by any definition, experts say that in this potentially groundbreaking case the letter of the law is being stretched.
“It’s true, her words caused great harm, but they didn’t kill this young man, he chose to kill himself,” says Mary Anne Franks, a professor at the University of Miami school of law and vice president of the Cyber Rights Initiative.
“Clearly, this verdict reflects the outrage of a community,” she adds. “But there’s a saying in law: Hard cases sometimes make bad law. That’s true here.”
The case is likely far from over and has implications not only for the law but also society, experts say.
What’s at issue: Cyber bullying has become an increasingly dangerous by-product of the social media revolution. The issues range from the growing phenomenon of revenge porn to the long-standing practice of trolling.
But while many states have laws on the books aimed directly at those who abuse social platforms to harm others, Carter’s case was tried in a state that “does not have a standalone crime on the books for encouraging suicide,” Franks says.
In Massachusetts, an involuntary manslaughter charge can be brought when an individual causes the death of another person by engaging in behavior that is considered reckless enough to cause harm.
A law against encouraging suicide would have made the case both more straightforward and less sensationalist, Medwed says. “We probably wouldn’t be talking now if they’d had that law,” he says.
Carter could face as many as 20 years in jail. “If there had been a specific law, she might have even plead guilty,” Franks says.
Its legality aside, Medwed says the verdict may encourage parents to pay closer attention to what their children are texting to their friends.
What’s at stake: While societal outrage over Carter’s role in Roy’s suicide is understandable, if the verdict stands “the concern is that it could send a message to prosecutors to pursue cases like this,” Medwed says. “As lawyers, that makes us concerned the law is being stretched.”
Medwed adds that in theory a friend who simply expresses sympathy for a despondent friend’s desire to take their own life could soon be held liable for that death. “Don’t forget, there’s a still a big societal debate going on about assisted suicide,” he says. “This sort of verdict would imply that anyone being sympathetic to a loved one could be at fault.”
Franks agrees that the positive public takeway from this case should be “being more careful about what you say, which is not a bad thing, but we need to be concerned with the justice in this case. She’s being held accountable as if this were a homicide.”
What’s next: Carter has a chance of reversing the decision on appeal, which may or may not lead to a retrial depending on what prosecutors decide.
Both Franks and Medwed anticipate that appeal, and suggest that in that case defense attorneys will focus on the “element of causation” and attempt to decouple Carter’s comments to Roy from his decision to get back into the truck.
“There are strong grounds for appeal,” Medwed says. Adds Franks: “It would make sense to reverse.”
Franks adds that “maybe one byproduct of this case will be that the (Massachusetts) legislature will decide that they, too, need a law specific to the crime of encouraging suicide.”
That remains to be seen. There are already conflicting views of the verdict from two state organizations.
In a statement following the verdict, Massachusetts Bar Association chief legal counsel Martin Healy said “the defendant’s fate was sealed through her own words. The communications illustrated a deeply troubled defendant whose actions rose to the level of wanton and reckless disregard for the life of the victim.”
But the state's branch of the American Civil Liberties Union issued a comment condemning the judge's decision, who concluded that a then 17-year-old girl "literally killed Mr. Roy with her words. This conviction exceeds the limits of our criminal laws and violates free speech protections guaranteed by the Massachusetts and U.S. constitutions."
Regardless of what happens next in this case, Franks argues that at the very least, society should take a hard look at itself and revisit the way we interact. There's evidence that some of that soul searching is already taking place on social media, where Twitter erupted with disparate reactions to the verdict.
Most hued either toward absolute approval of the decision ("SO glad Michelle Carter was found guilty. Can't believe there are some people who believe she did nothing wrong," tweeted @hey_christinaxo) to profound concern about its implications ("Michelle Carter is without question a vile human being, but the legal precedent being set here makes me deeply uncomfortable," tweeted @chrisberez).
“This shouldn’t be a matter of Michelle Carter goes to jail for manslaughter, and the rest of us are off the hook,” Franks says. “That a girlfriend would encourage a boyfriend to kill themselves should cause us to ask what this says about our culture.”
Follow USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava on Twitter.
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5e32c08bb5dbe25bf8ead8797ccf7b58 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/21/california-earthquake-twitter/103092826/ | Massive Calif. quake turns out to be a false alarm | Massive Calif. quake turns out to be a false alarm
It was an earthquake felt on Twitter — and nowhere else.
A report of a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Barbara, Calif. turned out to be a false alarm. An automatically generated report went live on Wednesday based on a quake that happened in the same area almost 100 years ago, according to The Associated Press.
“The quake did happen, but it happened in 1925,” Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist from the U.S. Geological Survey told AP.
It turns out that researchers from the California Institute of Technology were researching the 1925 Santa Barbara quake, and it somehow set off the automated alert that went out to email accounts, the USGS stated. Software then interpreted the research as a current event, and sent out the report.
The fake quake never appeared on the USGS website, though, and it sent out a statement via Twitter shortly after, saying the report was “errant” and they were “working to resolve the issue.”
Even though tweets from those who actually felt the tremor were mysteriously silent, the report generated a huge response on Twitter. The initial report sent off a chain of other automated alerts, and was picked up by media outlets like The Los Angeles Times who later had to redact a story.
“We have an algorithm (Quakebot) that automatically writes stories about earthquakes based on USGS alerts,” The Los Angeles Times tweeted. “The USGS alert was incorrect.
That didn’t stop concerned citizens from flocking to Twitter to find out if Californians were safe:
For reference, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake would be felt by millions and would likely cause “considerable damage” and “partial collapse” in average buildings, as well as the fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, and walls, according to the USGS.
The AP reported that false alarms through the service are fairly common, but they rarely report quakes so big or in such populated areas.
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180f60f85740b3f8a716faa805e4dd5d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/26/after-heroic-rescue-question-remains-how-safe-amusement-park-rides/427855001/ | After heroic Six Flags rescue, question remains: How safe are amusement park rides? | After heroic Six Flags rescue, question remains: How safe are amusement park rides?
The heroic actions of an amusement park patron in Upstate New York two days ago may have saved the life of a 14-year-old girl and revived a question almost as old as summer: Just how safe are those wild rides?
Matthew Howard was at a Six Flags Great Escape Amusement Park on Saturday when he saw the girl dangling from the Sky Ride, 25 feet in the air. He persuaded the girl to let go, and he and a group of people on the ground caught her.
Howard was treated for minor back injuries and released from a hospital. The girl was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Park officials said the ride appeared to have been functioning properly, but it was shut down pending further investigation into the incident.
While that event had a mostly happy ending, some do not.
Seven months ago, at Dreamworld in Australia, a malfunction caused two people to be ejected from a raft and two others somehow trapped in the water or machinery of a river rapids ride. All four people died.
In the days that followed, amusement park consultant Ken Martin warned that, due to a mixed bag of oversight rules, Americans should not feel exempt from such horrors.
"It's not a matter of whether it's going to happen, it's when," Martin, an amusement park safety consultant told USA TODAY. "The conditions exist."
Read more:
4 die in horrific accident at Australian theme park
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In fact, tragedy has already happened here. Less than a year ago, a 10-year-old boy died and two women were injured in an accident on a giant slide at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas.
Martin said Australia's rides are at least subject to federal oversight. The U.S. has virtually no federal oversight, with individual states "doing their own thing." In some states that is very little, Martin said.
"They will investigate it faster and they will learn more from it than any investigation in the U.S.," Martin said of Australian investigators after the accident.
U.S. fixed-site amusement and theme parks — permanent sites such as Disney and Six Flags parks — attract about 335 million patrons who take 1.6 billion rides a year, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA). The likelihood of serious injury is 1 in 16 million, IAAPA said.
Though the rides in those parks are generally safe, enough accidents occur each year that a more comprehensive oversight system should be put in place, said Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Martin wants federal oversight.
The IAAPA is not so sure. Spokeswoman Colleen Mangone told USA TODAY there are "well-designed" international standards for design, construction, operation and maintenance of rides that are written into laws in many states.
"There is no evidence federal oversight would improve on the already excellent safety record of the industry," Mangone said.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for overseeing and investigating injuries at traveling carnivals and temporary rides at county fairs, though it doesn't conduct inspections, said Patty Davis, a commission spokeswoman.
The commission used to oversee all amusement parks, but in the early 1980s, Congress removed fixed-site parks from its realm. Martin says it would be difficult to win approval for federal oversight.
"In a nutshell, our amusement park industry has a very powerful lobby in Washington," Martin said.
Martin noted that rides draw heavy traffic each season. They are turned on in the morning and run continuously into the night. And the problems aren't always mechanical — human error in raft inflation and other tasks often play a role in accidents, he said.
Riders generally wearing seat belts, which could make escape difficult if a raft submerges or flips. And many riders can't even swim, he added.
"It's always terrible when people get killed," Martin said. "The question is, what are we willing to do to make these rides safer?"
Contributing: Rick Jervis
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a5b1bf4cb8d71ee3de9f82815bcc2bd6 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/27/3-chicago-cops-charged-conspiracy-obstruction-laquan-mcdonald-shooting/103233878/ | 3 Chicago cops charged with conspiracy, obstruction in Laquan McDonald shooting | 3 Chicago cops charged with conspiracy, obstruction in Laquan McDonald shooting
Three current or former Chicago Police officers have been indicted on state charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct for allegedly trying to "conceal the true facts" in the fatal police-involved shooting death of Laquan McDonald, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
A Cook County special grand jury filed the charges against Detective David March and patrol officers Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney for actions they took in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old McDonald in 2014. McDonald's controversial death led to first-degree murder charges against officer Jason Van Dyke.
“The indictment makes clear that these defendants did more than merely obey an unofficial ‘code of silence,’ rather it alleges that they lied about what occurred to prevent independent criminal investigators from learning the truth,” said Patricia Brown Holmes, the Cook County special prosecutor who has been probing a possible coverup by officers at the scene.
Van Dyke was charged with murder in November 2015 on the same day the city of Chicago released chilling dashcam video that showed the officer firing 16 shots at McDonald, who was armed with a small knife and appeared to be running away from police. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
A grand jury had been weighing for months whether some of Van Dyke’s fellow officers at the scene of the shooting should also face charges. Several officers at the scene told investigators after the shooting that McDonald ignored repeated calls from Van Dyke to drop the knife, putting the officers in danger.
The video footage appears to show that Van Dyke began firing immediately after getting out of his vehicle and continued to fire even after the teen fell to the pavement.
The officers lied about what occurred and mischaracterized the video recordings in the hopes that independent investigators wouldn’t learn what happened and the public would not see the video footage caught on the dashcam, according to the indictment. March signed off on the statements that several officers at the scene gave following the shooting and indicated there were no discrepancies between what the officers said happened and police dashcam video.
The officers named in the indictment — as well as someone identified as Individual A — coordinated their stories to protect each other and allegedly made false police reports, failed to report or correct false information, ignored contrary information or evidence, obstructed justice and failed to perform mandatory duty, the indictment alleges.
They are also alleged to have submitted, reviewed or approved various police department reports that falsely portrayed Individual A, Walsh and Gaffney as having been assaulted and battered by McDonald, the special prosecutor said.
In a subsequent report, Gaffney, Walsh, Individual A and an officer identified as Individual H were identified as victims of McDonald. That report was submitted to independent investigators by March and two other officers identified as Individual B and Individual E. Further, the officers failed to locate and interview three witnesses whose information was inconsistent with police accounts of what led to the shooting, according to the indictment.
Both March and Walsh have left the police department since the incident. Gaffney was suspended following the announcement of the indictment, said Anthony Guglielmi, a police department spokesman.
Holmes declined to say what, if any, cooperation she had received from officers at the scene. She also underscored that the prosecution of the alleged coverup is being pursued separately from the Van Dyke's prosecution for murder charges.
"Officer Van Dyke's case is a totally separate case from this case," she said. "This grand jury investigation is a totally separate grand jury investigation from Officer Van Dyke's case. This case stands alone."
Walsh, who was Van Dyke's partner on the night of the shooting, said that he "backed up" as McDonald got to within 12 to 15 feet of the officers and "swung the knife toward the officers in an aggressive manner," according to police statements released by the police department last month.
Walsh said he and Van Dyke repeatedly called on McDonald, who police said had been breaking into vehicles in the area just before the incident, to drop the knife.
After Van Dyke unloaded his weapon, Walsh approached McDonald and kicked away a knife the teen was holding in his hand. The footage does not show the teen swinging the knife at the police officers.
The three officers are scheduled to be arraigned on July 10. The official misconduct charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $25,000 fine, while the obstruction of justice charge is punishable by three years in prison and $25,000 fine. The conspiracy charges is punishable by a fine and prison sentence that does not exceed the underlying offense.
Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson, who last year recommended the firing of seven officers for making false reports about the McDonald shooting, said in a statement that the department "has fully cooperated with prosecutors and will continue to do so."
Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad
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83b56fceff8a3105b97b71a7258c4a3d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/07/06/mom-has-carry-boy-flight-after-united-takes-his-seat-and-resells/454585001/ | United Airlines forces woman to hold 2-year-old on lap during flight | United Airlines forces woman to hold 2-year-old on lap during flight
Another United Airlines debacle left a Hawaii mother holding her 2-year-old son in her lap for a more than three hour flight, despite paying nearly $1,000 for his seat.
Last week’s incident came after the airline sold her son’s seat to a standby passenger on the last leg of their trip from Honolulu to Boston.
"We had both our tickets scanned, we both went on board no problem," Shirley Yamauchi, told Hawaii TV station KITV. Then a man approached them and showed he had the same seat number, 24A, as the boy.
"It was very shocking. I was confused. I told him, 'I bought both of these seats.'" The flight attendant came by, shrugs and says 'flight’s full,'" Yamauchi said.
Yamauchi, 42, told the station she didn't want to cause a scene, remembering recent United incidents such as the Kentucky doctor, David Dao, who was violently dragged off his flight in April.
"I'm scared. I'm worried. I'm traveling with an infant. I didn't want to get hurt. I didn't want either of us to get hurt," she said.
Instead, she sat with her son Taizo on her lap — or with him standing between her legs — for the entire flight. "I had him in all these contorted sleeping positions,” she told KITV. “In the end, very sadly, he was standing up between my knees."
Guidelines on the FAA’s website strongly advise against a child sitting on someone's lap: "Your arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence."
"What happened to my son was unsafe, uncomfortable and unfair," Yamauchi said.
United Airlines said the seat-reselling error occurred after agents inaccurately scanned the boarding pass for Yamauchi’s son. “As a result, her son’s seat appeared to be not checked in, and staff released his seat to another customer," the airline said in a statement.
The airline apologized for the incident and told USA TODAY it refunded Yamauchi’s tickets and provided additional compensation.
Yamauchi told NBC she is unsatisfied with the explanation. “I saw them zap both tickets. There was no issue, no problem. They let us through. It just doesn’t add up,” she said.
She also doesn’t agree with the compensation: “It doesn’t seem right or enough for pain and discomfort.”
Yamauchi said having to hold her son was an ordeal. "He's 25 pounds. He's half my height,” she told HawaiiNewsNow.com. “I was very uncomfortable. My hand, my left arm was smashed up against the wall. I lost feeling in my legs and left arm."
The teacher told the website she bought the tickets in March to go to an education conference. Because the airline requires children over the age of 2 to occupy their own seat, she purchased a ticket for her son, paying almost $1,000 for each one.
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531eb14da1a361dfbc3fb7c2958f42e0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/07/31/jet-drone-too-close-comfort-above-newark-n-j/524598001/ | Drone, jet too close for comfort above Newark, N.J. | Drone, jet too close for comfort above Newark, N.J.
The FAA is investigating after air traffic controllers saw a drone near a jet that was landing at Newark Liberty International Airport.
United Airlines Flight 135 was descending near the airport Sunday when air traffic control alerted the crew about a drone "in the vicinity of the runway," United said in a statement. The crew of the jet, arriving from Zurich, Switzerland, monitored the drone and landed safely, United said.
The FAA said the incident occurred two miles southwest of the airport at 11:55 a.m. Sunday. The FAA is investigating and that local authorities had been notified, the agency said in a statement.
A month ago, a 54-year-old Arizona man was arrested on charges of endangerment and unlawful operation of an unmanned aircraft after a drone grounded aerial efforts to combat a massive wildfire about 100 miles north of Phoenix.
Last week the FAA tweeted: "Flying your #drone this weekend but not sure how high to fly? FAA's resources can help: http://faa.gov/uas #DosAndDonts #DroneQuestion" The primary piece of advice was not to fly a drone above 400 feet.
Read more:
Arrest made in drone flights over Arizona wildfire
Prison officials say escaped inmate likely used wire cutters dropped by drone
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f25d12f8a2f6fee100a12e8366aa56df | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/07/31/manhunt-underway-after-mass-jailbreak-alabama/524709001/ | Alabama jailbreak: Inmates used peanut butter to fool guard | Alabama jailbreak: Inmates used peanut butter to fool guard
A group of Alabama inmates escaped a county jail by covering the numbers of an outside door with peanut butter, leading a new jail employee to believe it was a door leading to cells, a sheriff told reporters.
"He thought he was opening the cell door for this man to go in his cell, but in fact he opened up the outside door," Walker County Sheriff James Underwood said about the jail employee.
All but one escapee, Brady Andrew Kilpatrick, were captured within hours, and Underwood said he believed Kilpatrick would be caught by day's end.
Kilpatrick, 24, had been jailed on drug charges, the sheriff's office said on its Facebook page. The recaptured inmates had been jailed on a variety of charges, including two for attempted murder.
The inmates' absence was discovered Sunday evening.
"Anytime you have a jailbreak, it's cause for concern," Mayor David O'Mary told USA TODAY. "But at least by morning there was only one escapee still out there, and was being held on drug charges and was not considered by law enforcement to be dangerous."
Still, O'Mary acknowledged that the city of 15,000 people was on edge during the manhunt. He credited social media with keeping residents informed as, one by one, the inmates were recaptured throughout the night and early morning.
"We don’t have a local TV station here," O'Mary said. "The way the information moved across social media was a big help. My wife and I were even following it."
A $500 reward was offered for information leading to Kilpatrick's arrest, the sheriff's office said.
Jasper police and other local authorities were assisting in the manhunt, along with the state Law Enforcement Agency's aviation unit. Jasper is about 40 miles northwest of Birmingham.
"We ask that downtown residents stay indoors and turn on all outdoor lighting," Jasper police said Sunday night on Facebook.
Read more:
Calif. prisoners filmed escape, life on the run
Exclusive: Empty guard towers allowed carjacker to escape maximum security prison
Larry Inman Jr., 29, and Ethan Howard Pearl, 24, were recaptured at a gas station off Interstate 65 a little more than 10 minutes apart early Monday, Al.com reported. Details of the other captures were not immediately revealed.
The county jail, which opened in 1998, was designed to hold 250 inmates. It was not clear how many inmates are currently housed there.
O'Mary credited the close relationship between the county and his city with aiding the manhunt.
"The jail is only a couple blocks south of the Jasper Police Department," O'Mary said. "As soon as we got word of this we put all our people on high alert."
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92bd49aaaa9b67eaa487d74688c78e41 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/07/31/marijuana-district-of-columbia-cookies/507025001/ | In politically charged D.C., cannabis is a cottage industry | In politically charged D.C., cannabis is a cottage industry
WASHINGTON — Stuck between Congress and voters' will, residents of this politically charged town are becoming urban gardeners, turning closets and living rooms into tiny cannabis farms while politicians dither over whether it ever will be legal to sell marijuana in the nation’s capital.
They’re also ignoring a ban on sales and illegally buying cannabis from a myriad of delivery services that “sell” $60 cookies that come with a free gift.
“D.C. is so weird,” said Chris Washburn, who owns a growing supply store popular with marijuana home-growers. “We look at some of the people around us and wonder, ‘How on Earth are you getting away this this?’ ”
► Black market:Marijuana smuggling persists despite legalization► Consequences:What's the big deal with legal pot? No one really knows yet► Across the USA:States forge path through uncharted territory
Voters in the District of Columbia legalized marijuana in 2014, abolishing district-level criminal penalties for possession, consumption and growing small amounts. But the Republican-controlled Congress has ultimate control over the district and must agree if its council wants to create any taxes on marijuana sales.
So sales remain banned.
Complicating matters: Marijuana continues to be illegal at the federal level, and the district is patchworked with federal property from the National Mall to the White House. Federal employees and contractors are barred from using marijuana, and some in the large military community are subject to random drug testing.
But for those who choose to consume, homegrown cannabis is an easy way to avoid problems with illegal delivery services.
At Washburn’s Good Hope Hydroponics, customers easily can spend thousands of dollars to equip their home with lights, ventilators and fertilizer to grow up to six plants per adult.
A well-grown cannabis plant can produce upwards of 30 ounces — nearly 2 pounds — of marijuana. On the open market, that marijuana could be worth at least $6,000, and many are tempted to sell it.
► Alaska:In the last frontier, state's marijuana stores aim for tourists► California:How police chief, marijuana grower made peace
A starter system sells for about $400.
“If we can get a good system into the hands of a customer, I’m happy,” Washburn said.
Inside the store, customers line up to buy soil, fertilizer and lighting systems. They also pick the brains of staff members such as Dan Gomes, 24.
He started growing for himself several years ago, dedicating 20 square feet of his 500-square-foot apartment to his plants. Started from either seeds or cuttings, marijuana plants will grow into high-quality cannabis only if they’re given the right combination of lighting, water and fertilizer.
Although the Internet offers plenty of guidance, Gomes said the store’s customers like talking to experts, until they, like him, become proficient.
“For some people, this is a real passion,” he said.
Other states that have legalized marijuana also have created systems allowing regulators to track each plant from seed to sale, levy taxes and force growers and retailers to undergo testing and routine inspections.
That doesn’t happen in the district. Instead, a network of growers and risk-taking delivery drivers sell marijuana to buyers who place orders over the Internet.
In an attempt to stay legal, or at least in a gray area, the delivery services allow customers to pick from a variety of juices and cookies, T-shirts and artwork, all of which cost far more than you would pay in a shop.
► California:Boutique cannabis shop puts the high in high end► California:This city sees pot shops as key to easing war on drugs inequities
And all come with a free gift: Pot, delivered within an hour. The caveat: You don’t get to pick what kind of marijuana as you would in a store.
District of Columbia police consider the entrepreneurship totally illegal.
“Nobody in the history of the world has paid $55 for a bottle of juice because no one would do that,” said Lt. Andrew Struhar of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. “And that means at least some of that price is for the marijuana. That’s illegal, no matter how they try to word it.”
Police face a constant balance in how officers spend their time, knowing that voters legalized marijuana possession, he said. Because the district is a federal jurisdiction, the U.S. Attorney’s office, not local prosecutors, prosecute most serious crimes.
“We can’t have 1,000 open marijuana cases,” Struhar said. “Well, we could. But we can’t. We have finite resources. (Delivery services) are just so numerous it’s hard to keep up with it all.”
Back at Good Hope Hydroponics, Washburn said he suspects police will largely ignore the delivery services so they can focus on more serious crimes and harder drugs, such as opiates. While politicians can’t figure out how to proceed, entrepreneurs are rushing to fill the gaps.
“Gray areas are what allow small businesses to succeed, no matter the industry,” Washburn said.
Follow Trevor Hughes on Twitter: @TrevorHughes
Other Legal pot in America stories:
► California:County officials remain at odds with legal weed► Colorado:Pot workers face banking hurdles in business, personally► Kentucky:Pot farmer faces life in prison; he's no criminal in some states► Maine:While the marijuana is free, it comes with high delivery fee► Massachusetts:In city of Puritans, chance to buy pot legally moves ahead► Nevada:A mining town straddles the Wild West, marijuana culture► Oregon:Beach, weed go hand in hand on Cannabis Coast► Pennsylvania:Medicinal marijuana converts minister into 'pastor for pot'► Washington:Pot boosts city where timber had been king
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9591b44ca1cf05dd563c362ee3537af7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/07/31/marijuana-maine-delivery/506978001/ | In Maine, the marijuana comes to you | In Maine, the marijuana comes to you
PORTLAND, Maine — Logan Martyn-Fisher checks his phone's GPS one more time and pulls up at the Portland Amtrak station, thousands of dollars of marijuana concealed in a pair of colorful beach totes sitting on the back seat of his BMW SUV.
He’s looking for a guy who’s looking for pot.
Maine doesn’t yet allow legal marijuana sales, so Martyn-Fisher, his girlfriend and their BMW have carved a niche for themselves in a state where possessing, growing and consuming cannabis now is permitted. This past fall, Maine voters legalized marijuana as of the start of this year, but lawmakers still are developing a system of state-regulated stores to sell it.
They hope to have the stores open by February 2018.
► Black market:Marijuana smuggling persists despite legalization► Consequences:What's the big deal with legal pot? No one really knows yet► Across the USA:States forge path through uncharted territory
That’s where Martyn-Fisher stepped in: While marijuana sales remain illegal, he’s giving away pot but charging hefty “delivery” fees.
“It kind of sucks we don’t have a store,” he said. “We have to have all these sketchy meetings in parking lots. It doesn’t really feel like you’re running a legitimate business.”
And so this day finds Martyn-Fisher driving through the train station parking lot, peering through his mirrored Oakley sunglasses for his next customer, wads of cash stuffed in his pocket. Like many marijuana entrepreneurs, Martyn-Fisher can't accept credit or debit cards since most banks are afraid to violate federal drug-trafficking laws.
His girlfriend runs the online ordering via the Elevation 207 Facebook page and directs Martyn-Fisher to the customers. (207 is Maine's sole area code). Much of their time is spent reassuring customers that what they’re doing is legal, especially first-time buyers nervous that they’re ordering a federally illegal drug to be delivered personally.
“Got him,” Martyn-Fisher says as he makes another pass through the station parking lot.
He pulls up and the man, looking a little nervous, opens his wallet and begins counting out $20 bills, handing the stack to Martyn-Fisher, who hands him back packages of vacuum-sealed marijuana. The buyer offers his thanks as he stuffs the packages into his backpack, and Martyn-Fisher discreetly counts the $390 he was expecting.
► Alaska:In the last frontier, state's marijuana stores aim for tourists► California:How police chief, marijuana grower made peace
He hits the road again, headed to a luxury hotel near the waterfront, to meet a frequent buyer and business traveler. The buyer recognizes the arriving BMW and walks to the window as Martyn-Fisher pulls up, handing over a wad of greenbacks in exchange for 2.5 ounces of marijuana, the legal maximum a person can possess.
On a whim a few months ago, Martyn-Fisher posted a Craigslist advertisement offering delivery services. It didn’t get much attention at first, but a series of television and newspaper stories about it has taken him and his girlfriend from about four deliveries a day to more than 30 at their busiest as the summer tourism season was getting under way in June.
“I do this every day, all day long, every day,” he said. “It’s really hard to say no to money.”
Maine’s legislators are meeting nearly daily all summer and fall as they develop a system to tax, regulate and sell marijuana. Like legislators in other states, Maine’s lawmakers are trying to decide who can get a license to sell pot and who will oversee the regulations and collect the taxes.
Martyn-Fisher isn’t waiting for them.
Using Facebook to highlight the day’s offerings, such as $100 for 10 grams of marijuana delivered, he’s quickly building a customer base around the Portland area, stressing that he’s charging a delivery free for a free product.
The minimum delivery fee is $75. His Elevation 207 service is booming as he drops off smokable marijuana flowers, concentrates and cannabis-infused candies to customers.
Based on his encounters with local police, he’s confident his workaround is working, particularly in exploiting the interplay between the state’s medical and recreational cannabis laws.
The recreational laws don’t yet permit someone like him to have so much marijuana. But he’s also a certified medical caregiver, which means he’s allowed to grow and possess larger amounts.
► California:Boutique cannabis shop puts the high in high end► California:This city sees pot shops as key to easing war on drugs inequities
The legal area is gray, in part because Maine hasn’t made marijuana enforcement a priority. In Portland, voters in 2013 decriminalized marijuana, suggesting to Martyn-Fisher and other advocates that police have gotten the message: Hands off our pot.
“They don’t seem to care, and that’s a feeling I’ve had for a while,” he said. “Maine has some pretty relaxed views about marijuana. They’ve got more serious things to deal with.”
One of those more serious things is the state’s rampant opioid and heroin abuse.
Last year 376 Mainers died from drug overdoses. In a state with just 1.3 million residents, those deaths hit extra hard.
For many marijuana sellers, it’s hard to understand why their industry faces such scrutiny when oxycodone — a federally regulated prescription medicine — repeatedly has proven fatal when abused.
The kinds of customers that Martyn-Fisher said he gets show the nation’s drug laws and police are focused on the wrong priorities. In an afternoon, he made deliveries to a man with his kids in the backseat and a married couple with their kids in the backseat.
Baby boomers make up a large portion of his client base. These are not irresponsible drug abusers but instead regular Americans who choose to consume marijuana the way many other consume alcohol: responsibly and in moderation, he said.
Martyn-Fisher's favorite customer so far was an out-of-state father taking his daughter on a college visit
“He was so excited, giving us thumbs up as we were leaving,” Martyn-Fisher said.
► California:County officials remain at odds with legal weed► Colorado:Pot workers face banking hurdles in business, personally
Looking ahead, he hopes Maine’s lawmakers can settle on a regulatory system that rewards and encourages entrepreneurs like himself, people who want to own and operate legitimate businesses, selling a product that millions of Americans clearly want to buy.
Portland police didn’t return a message seeking comment.
“My mom is still worried,” he said as he turns the BMW down one of Portland’s cobblestoned streets en route to the next customer. “But my dad went on deliveries with me.”
Follow Trevor Hughes on Twitter: @TrevorHughes
Other Legal pot in America stories:
► District of Columbia:In politically charged capital, cannabis is cottage industry► Kentucky:Pot farmer faces life in prison; he's no criminal in some states► Massachusetts:In city of Puritans, chance to buy pot legally moves ahead► Nevada:A mining town straddles the Wild West, marijuana culture► Oregon:Beach, weed go hand in hand on Cannabis Coast► Pennsylvania:Medicinal marijuana converts minister into 'pastor for pot'► Washington:Pot boosts city where timber had been king
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7b15c843be24a2a75f8c0e866af6cf35 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/07/31/marijuana-oakland-california-shop-owners/507008001/ | California city to use pot shops to fight racial inequities | California city to use pot shops to fight racial inequities
OAKLAND, Calif. — Convicted marijuana dealers are getting help to go legal under a precedent-setting system here.
The city’s “Equity Applicant” system aims to help poor, longtime Oakland residents — including those with convictions for illegally selling marijuana — get started in a business that otherwise has remained stubbornly white, male and middle class across the USA. City officials designed the system to help rectify what they see as longstanding, provable inequities in how the war on drugs was prosecuted against the poor and communities of color.
In 2015, 77% of the marijuana arrests in Oakland were black; whites made up 4% of those arrests. The city’s population is about 30% white and 30% black, and officials who look at those numbers say police officers obviously were targeting black communities because studies show whites and blacks use marijuana at comparable rates.
In 2004, residents formally ordered the police department to make most marijuana-law enforcement the lowest priority, below even jaywalking.
► Black market:Marijuana smuggling persists despite legalization► Consequences:What's the big deal with legal pot? No one really knows yet
It’s no wonder that whites run most of the city’s marijuana stores, officials say.
“When you look across the country, there are jurisdictions that handed out (marijuana business) permits and not a single person of color got a permit. How does that happen?” asked Desley Brooks, an Oakland city councilwoman who pushed for the special licensing system.
“It is clear, throughout America, that black and brown people have borne the brunt of the war on drugs," she said. "And as government, we should not set up systems that perpetuate inequity.”
In fall 2016, California voters approved legal recreational marijuana, but the system for selling that pot doesn’t exist yet.
Regulators developing the recreational rules are basing them in large part on the existing medical marijuana system, which means what governs medical marijuana businesses today largely will govern recreational pot shops next year.
The key difference: Medical marijuana users need a note from their doctor recommending they use cannabis for a specific condition or disease. Recreational marijuana is available to any adult.
► Across the USA:States forge path through uncharted territory► Alaska:In the last frontier, state's marijuana stores aim for tourists
Oakland’s equity system requires that half of any new medical marijuana licenses be set aside for people who are low income and either have a marijuana conviction or have lived in certain Oakland neighborhoods for at least 10 of the past 20 years. The city will give priority to other applicants if they partner with equity applicants by giving them free space to operate a competing business.
Many of the city’s existing marijuana business owners say the equity provision is a typical Oakland approach. Oakland was one of the first American cities to create a medical-marijuana marketplace, and many other cities later copied portions of its regulations.
“We’re not afraid of being first and being waaaaay ahead of the curve,” said Steve DeAngelo, the founder of Oakland marijuana dispensary Harborside Heath Center. “This city has a tremendous amount of overlooked and underutilized talent. Hopefully, that gets unlocked with the equity program.”
Harborside’s Oakland dispensary serves about 1,000 customers a day, and both customers and staff reflect the city’s diversity. It stands in stark contrast to stores in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington where the face of marijuana is white and middle class.
“Everybody is the same age as I am and the same race as I am. There’s a total lack of diversity,” DeAngelo said of most other marijuana businesses. “Our ambition has always been to reflect the diversity of our community.”
White middle-class operators dominate the legal marijuana industry because regulations favor people with clean criminal records, access to family money for startup costs and an ability to fill out regulatory paperwork.
Would-be entrepreneurs can’t get federal Small Business Administration loans. If they don’t own their own home or if have bad credit, they can’t take out a second mortgage to lease shop space and equipment to get started.
“How can you explain that to people, to look at that and think it’s not discriminatory?” said Darlene Flynn, the director of Oakland’s Department of Race and Equity.
► California:How police chief, marijuana grower made peace► California:Boutique cannabis shop puts the high in high end
“Whether it was on purpose or not, it continues to hold back one part of society," she said. "And if we know that’s the situation, then what is our responsibility?”
Flynn’s office exists in part to foster hard conversations about what Oakland officials call “explicitly racist” past policies. Her goal is not to assign blame but to find ways to ensure everyone has a chance to succeed.
That institutional racism dissuades minority entrepreneurs skeptical that they’ll be left alone when entering the marijuana business. In a searingly honest report, Flynn’s office earlier this year laid out how decades of disproportionate drug-law enforcement hurt minorities while giving white drug dealers a chance to go legal.
The report pointed out that a criminal record can bar access to public housing assistance, good-paying jobs and overall economic security, which leads to gang activity and perpetuates the cycle.
“In contrast, drug trade in white communities and lack of enforcement during the same period has resulted in growth in new business ownership and the financial starting line for the next phase of entrepreneurial wealth and community building,” the report concluded. “This permissive business environment on one hand and the aggressive enforcement of drug laws on the other has widened the opportunity gap between people of color and white residents in the City of Oakland.”
That gap is obvious: A USA TODAY survey shows whites own a disproportionate number of the city’s marijuana businesses. In many cases, those marijuana businesses have faced less competition than they might on an otherwise level playing field.
“It feels horrible that other people haven’t been given the same opportunity,” said co-founder Kristi Knoblich Palmer of Oakland-based Kiva Confections, which makes marijuana-infused candies and snacks.
► California:County officials remain at odds with legal weed► Colorado:Pot workers face banking hurdles in business, personally
Palmer said she’s confident the marijuana industry eventually will ensure everyone has a chance to participate, regardless of background. Oakland’s regulations, including the equity program, establish the groundwork for a world-class system.
“We have an amazing opportunity, and we have to take it," she said. "We have the perfect environment for a knock-your-socks-off cannabis program.”
Follow Trevor Hughes on Twitter: @TrevorHughes
Other Legal pot in America stories:
► District of Columbia:In politically charged capital, cannabis is cottage industry► Kentucky:Pot farmer faces life in prison; he's no criminal in some states► Maine:While the marijuana is free, it comes with high delivery fee► Massachusetts:In city of Puritans, chance to buy pot legally moves ahead► Nevada:A mining town straddles the Wild West, marijuana culture► Oregon:Beach, weed go hand in hand on Cannabis Coast► Pennsylvania:Medicinal marijuana converts minister into 'pastor for pot'► Washington:Pot boosts city where timber had been king
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15e365a6b39791646b5fc8548d242924 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/01/nuclear-labs-radioactive-mail/104058890/ | Nuclear labs endanger public with radioactive mail | Nuclear labs endanger public with radioactive mail
While the materials were not ultimately lost, the documents reveal repeated instances in which hazardous substances vital to making nuclear bombs and their components were mislabeled before shipment. That means those transporting and receiving them were not warned of the safety risks and did not take required precautions to protect themselves or the public, the reports say.
The risks were discovered after regulators conducted inspections during transit, when the packages were opened at their destinations, during scientific analysis after the items were removed from packaging, or — in the worst cases — after unwary recipients released radioactive contaminants, the Center for Public Integrity’s investigation showed.
Only a few, slight penalties appear to have been imposed for these mistakes.
► Nuke labs:Workers' lives endangered as nuke contractors make millions► Fed probe:Nuke material on plane could've leaked like 'cheap ballpoint pen'
In the most recent instance, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a privately run, government-owned nuclear weapons lab about 50 miles northeast of Albuquerque, admitted five weeks ago that in June it had improperly shipped unstable, radioactive plutonium in three containers to two other government-owned labs via FedEx cargo planes instead of complying with federal regulations that required using trucks to limit the risk of an accident.
Los Alamos initially told the government that its decision stemmed from an urgent need for the plutonium at a federal lab in Livermore, Calif.
But “there was no urgency in receiving this shipment. This notion is incorrect,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's spokeswoman, Lynda Seaver, said in an email message.
The incident, which came to light after a series of revelations from the Center for Public Integrity about other safety lapses at Los Alamos, drew swift condemnation from officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration in Washington. It also provoked the Energy Department to order a three-week halt starting June 23 to all shipments out of Los Alamos, the largest of the nuclear weapons labs and a linchpin in the complex of privately run facilities that sustains America’s nuclear arsenal.
“All of those involved from the individual contributor level up the management chain have been held accountable through actions that include terminations, suspensions and compensation consequences,” Los Alamos spokesman Matthew Nerzig said
The documents show that Los Alamos in particular has been a repeat offender in mislabeling its shipments of hazardous materials: For example, in a previously undisclosed 2012 case, it sent unlabeled plutonium — a highly carcinogenic, unstable metal — to a University of New Mexico laboratory where graduate students sometimes work, according to internal government reports.
The plutonium was accidentally opened there, leading to a contamination of the lab that the university to clean it and Los Alamos to dispose of the debris.
► Los Alamos:This Atomic City is a secret no longer► Waste Isolation Pilot Plant:Contractor received 72% of possible profits
In total, 11 of the 25 known shipping mistakes since July 2012 involved shipments that either originated at Los Alamos or passed through the lab. Thirteen of the 25 incidents involved plutonium; highly enriched uranium, which is another nuclear explosive; or other radioactive materials.
Some of the mislabeled shipments went to toxic waste dumps and breached regulatory limits on what the dumps were allowed to accept, according to the reports.
Ensuring that all shipments are accurately labelled is vital to emergency personnel, whose safety and ability to protect the public in the event of an accident rely on correct knowledge of whatever they’re trying to clean up or contain, said Patricia Klinger, a spokeswoman for U.S. Department of Transportation hazardous materials regulators. She did not respond to questions about why the department only rarely appears to have imposed fines.
Internal National Nuclear Security Administration records indicate that in the 25 incidents since July 2012, contractors received three fines. In more than 20 instances, regulators did not directly fine the contractors in enforcement actions stemming from the shipping errors.
Nerzig declined to comment about the shipment of unlabeled plutonium to the University of New Mexico’s nuclear engineering program.
The university had expected to receive “dummy” metal sheets without radioactivity that faculty used to test radiation detectors, according to records obtained under the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act. Los Alamos had commissioned the university to develop the equipment.
When one of the samples crimped during handling, it released radioactive particles that contaminated the room housing the detector, but no one was harmed, according to Los Alamos’ report to the Energy Department. The lab was cleaned within a few days, but disposal and retrieval of the debris took more than a year.
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When the waste was shipped out, the university’s chief radiation safety officer at the time told members of the campus safety staff in an email that the disposal was “very difficult … due to the high radio-toxicity of the radionuclide.”
In the past three months alone, nuclear weapons contractors have made at least three shipping errors besides the errant FedEx plutonium shipments, according to Energy Department records.
• In June, the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, accidentally shipped an unsafe quantity of high explosives to an unspecified off-site laboratory.
• In May, the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn., shipped unlabeled radioactive materials to an unspecified destination.
• Also in May, Los Alamos sent inaccurately labeled highly acidic waste to a Colorado chemical disposal site, according to New Mexico Environment Department records.
In December, shipping personnel at Savannah River sent a container of tritium gas, which is used to boost the potency of a nuclear detonation, to the wrong place. It was supposed to be shipped to Lawrence Livermore but instead was delivered to Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.
In September 2014, the contractors that operate the Nevada National Security Site inadvertently sent unlabeled radioactive material to their own satellite office at Livermore, which lacked a radiation control expert trained to deal with such a surprise, according to an internal Energy Department report.
The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. Follow Patrick Malone on Twitter: @pmalonedc and @Publici
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41f64a882ea07ac1e2357349354ef3ec | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/03/calif-town-may-going-pot-firm-trying-create-marijuana-mecca/538168001/ | Calif. town may be going to pot: Cannabis firm trying to create marijuana mecca | Calif. town may be going to pot: Cannabis firm trying to create marijuana mecca
NIPTON, Calif. — A cannabis investment firm is moving to buy a tiny town in the Mojave Desert outside Las Vegas, imagining a self-sustaining marijuana mecca where public pot smoking is welcome and entrepreneurs face fewer regulations.
The buyer, Arizona-based American Green, said it has made a binding offer to purchase the 80-acre town of Nipton and 40 acres nearby for $5 million. The town includes a hotel, trading post and RV park. American Green also is negotiating to buy a solar array that provides about half of Nipton’s power.
A geologist who once prospected the area assembled all the land under his ownership in the early 1980s. His widow and the current owner, Roxanne Lang, listed the town for sale last year.
“The town is the medium,” said Stephen Shearin, who is managing the project for American Green. “It becomes an icon. This is a legitimate effort to do something significant in this arena. It’s an idea whose time has come.”
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Shearin said he hopes Nipton can be a model for other small towns across America by spurring the creation of made-in-the-USA jobs and industry.
Residents have wondered what the future holds since Nipton went on the market. Recent transplant Carl Cavaness estimates the permanent population at 18 or 19 people. A few weeks ago, Cavaness said, he and his wife were wondering whether marijuana could bring some much-needed traffic here.
“We get a lot of traffic through here that doesn’t stop,” Cavaness said.
California and Nevada both legalized recreational use of marijuana in 2016 — although it’s still illegal to carry the drug across state lines. That means Nevadans couldn’t come to Nipton, buy marijuana and take it home, but Californians could.
Dispensaries are booming in nearby Las Vegas, and California aims to have its marijuana stores running next year.
Interstate 15, which is 20 miles northwest of Nipton, is the primary route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. A red asphalt two-lane road through scrub brush links Nipton to the interstate and the Colorado River, and trains pass almost every hour along railroad tracks at the edge of town.
Today, Nipton’s businesses include a general store, an RV park and a five-room hotel, where the Cavanesses work. If the sale closes, American Green expects it will take about two years to update the businesses to cater to cannabis enthusiasts.
American Green is a publicly traded cannabis company best known for its ID- and age-verifying marijuana vending machines. It also sells non-psychoactive CBD products like mints, body balm and dog treats.
Shearin said the company has made a $200,000 down payment and is testing Nipton’s water as part of its due diligence. If all goes well, it will pay an additional $1.8 million in cash and take possession of the property.
Beyond the $5 million sale price, the company expects to invest up to $2.5 million more to improve the town’s infrastructure and expand the solar plant to offset the energy demands of marijuana production, Shearin said.
Broker Tony Castignano of Sky Mesa Realty said American Green is a “serious prospective buyer” but cautioned that the property hasn’t yet been sold.
In Nipton, the company plans to bottle CBD-infused water drawn from a nearby aquifer. CBD is a marijuana derivative lacking the compounds that give users a “high,” and CBD products are legal to sell in most states. Ultimately, the company said it wants to offer attractions ranging from CBD and mineral baths to cannabis stores, artists-in-residence programs and culinary events.
Nipton will be required to follow California’s marijuana rules, but Shearin hopes it will provide more flexible, business-friendly local regulations.
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For example, company officials said even in states with legal marijuana, many police departments continue to pursue marijuana crime, and thus suppress cannabis use. They want Nipton to be different.
“If you’re outside on your porch, you will not have to worry about the local constabulary swinging by to give you a ticket,” Shearin said. “It will be cannabis-friendly first, but there will be appropriate policies in place.”
Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, and uncertainty over how President Trump’s administration will handle state-legal pot has scared off some investors. But entrepreneurs willing to make bold moves — like buying an entire town — are jockeying for position.
“One thing we commonly hear from cannabis investors is that, even if the Trump administration were to intervene in the industry, it would be short-lived due to the broad-based public support for cannabis legalization,” said John Kagia, the executive vice president of cannabis analytics firm New Frontier Data.
Many cannabis stores already are starting to move beyond storefronts. Ken Nisch, chairman of Detroit-area retail design firm JGA, has been working with Colorado-based dispensary company The Clinic to mimic the farm-to-table approach that many natural grocers have adopted.
“Short of making this consumer connection, cannabis stores will live in the retail purgatory, with little uniqueness differentiating one from the other,” he said.
Shearin said that’s precisely what American Green hopes to do with Nipton: make it a unique destination for everyone, from casual users to people who want to immerse themselves in the growing and production culture.
In Nipton on Wednesday, two motorcyclists from Nevada sat on railroad ties, talking about what might become of the Whistlestop Café next door, the town’s only restaurant, which closed in June.
“There’s been a couple of businesses here that try to make it, they just haven’t been able,” said Walt Mackin, gesturing to the boarded-up café. “You can see Nipton’s been hurting economically. (Marijuana) could be a boom.”
Murphy reported from Nipton. Hughes reported from Denver.
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9fb4853c3d50d3df649bd5cbacb9eaed | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/10/hurricane-andrew-florida-building-codes-weakened/490364001/ | Hurricane Irma could test Florida's Hurricane Andrew-inspired building codes | Hurricane Irma could test Florida's Hurricane Andrew-inspired building codes
Before Hurricane Irma roared into the South Florida hurricane zone this week, there was Hurricane Andrew.
That intense Category 5 hurricane, a compact buzz saw that ripped the roofs off thousands of South Florida homes 25 years ago, was so catastrophic that it led to sweeping changes in the insurance industry, weather forecasting and disaster response.
And Floridians — shocked by acres of flattened houses — rewrote the state's building codes, making them the toughest in the nation.
Now, as memories of the horrendous destruction of Aug. 24, 1992, grow dim, the lessons learned from Andrew may be fading, too. The building codes once hailed as the gold standard other states should emulate are under assault.
At the core of that growing dispute is a simple calculation: the tougher the building code, the more it costs to build a home.
Florida's codes dictate construction methods, require wind testing and mandate extensive training and oversight for inspectors. Those standards, home builders argue, can add unnecessary costs that don't amount to a hurricane-proof home. Insurers and home owners' associations say the tough codes save money in the long run.
This year, alarm bells went up all over the state capital, Tallahassee, when the Republican-led legislature and GOP Gov. Rick Scott passed a new law that untethers Florida's code from international standards and requires fewer votes for the Florida Building Commission to make changes to the building codes.
Opponents said it opened the door for the commission, which is dominated by home builders and contractors, to weaken the codes.
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Craig Fugate, the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the federal agency that responds to disasters, said Florida's latest move sickened him.
"I don't think builders are inherently evil people, but you've got to look at what their business model is," said Fugate, who led Florida's emergency management agency before heading up FEMA. "The quicker they get to sell a home with the least amount of cost and the least time delays increases the money they make."
Republican leaders and the state's home builders say such concerns are overblown. Jeremy Stewart, a Crestview, Fla., developer and president of the Florida Home Builders Association, noted that the bill passed in Tallahassee did not change a single building code. Instead, he said, it simply modernized the process for updating the code.
There's no reason, he said, to think developers will use the new process to weaken the state's building codes, and bristled at the suggestion that builders simply seek to cut costs.
"That's absolutely false and misleading," Stewart said. "There's not a single contractor that I know of in the state of Florida that does not want to be operating under the most stringent code, that's not concerned with the well-being of our customers."
A building boom and haphazard codes
For Florida's builders and building officials, life could be defined as "before Andrew" and "after Andrew."
The Florida peninsula juts straight into the tropical storm-prone area of the Atlantic known as "hurricane alley." Before Andrew, South Florida hadn't suffered a direct strike from a major hurricane since Hurricane King in 1950, said Michael Goolsby, director of building code administration for Miami-Dade County.
Year after year, hurricanes swept by, either slipping up the East Coast or falling apart in the Gulf of Mexico. "That's more than 40 years," Goolsby said. "That brings about a certain level of complacency."
Meanwhile, construction boomed and the state's population swelled. To curb haphazard home building, local governments created building codes, but they varied from county to county.
"I've heard stories that there were up to 26 codes that were being used," Stewart said.
What codes did exist were frequently ignored. Ricardo Alvarez, a former state and federal building inspector, said contractors cut corners as the storm drought dragged on. Instead of using sturdier plywood under roofs, they used a cheaper, flimsier version of particle board. Instead of using roofing nails, they used staples.
Then, Andrew hit.
Its 145 mph winds tore apart the working-class suburb of Homestead, reducing entire city blocks to rubble. Debris torn from roofs or lifted from the ground turned into deadly projectiles, smashing windows and impaling people.
The numbers were staggering: 25,524 homes destroyed, another 101,241 damaged and more than 40 people killed, according to the National Hurricane Center.
All told, Andrew led to $24.5 billion in insured losses, the costliest disaster in U.S. history at the time. Only Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, cost more, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Andrew's costs were so high that 11 insurance companies went bankrupt.
Andrew forced Florida leaders to examine disaster response, insurance laws and evacuation procedures. The legislature created a state catastrophe fund, which now stands at $17.6 billion, to help cover losses from hurricanes. Lawmakers created Citizens Property Insurance Corp., a not-for-profit, government-run insurance company that covers more than 470,000 homeowners who can't find insurance on the private market. And the state changed its procedures for evacuations, communication during disasters and the role of emergency responders.
They took the hardest look at the building codes. Why, they wondered, did thousands of roofs lift from their houses?
Investigators founds dozens of flaws but zeroed in on gables, the triangular areas of a house that sit on top of a masonry wall and under an arched roof. Gables could be made from wood at the time, which investigators realized had created a glaring weakness easily exploited by hurricane-force winds. When water and wind got through the gable, the wind could lift up the entire roof or whip through the house, blowing out windows and doors.
"When the wind came along, these gables folded in like a hinge," Goolsby said.
Andrew drives a new approach
Over the next decade, state leaders studied construction standards, negotiated with home builders, and finally, unveiled a statewide, mandatory building code that took effect in 2002.
The lessons of Andrew drove many of the building code changes. Inspectors now had to approve building plans and sign off on all phases of new construction. The entire "building envelope" of a home — every window, door, skylight or any point that could let in wind — had to undergo testing and approval.
The first major test of Florida's new standards came in 2004, 12 years after Hurricane Andrew. That year, four hurricanes — Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne — walloped the state in one hurricane season. The newer homes, built under the tough code, survived.
A report from FEMA found that homes built after the codes were put into place performed better than the older stock. A separate report from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety found that owners of post-Andrew homes filed 60% fewer insurance claims and the severity of those claims was 42% lower.
"That is not a marginal change," said Julie Rochman, CEO and president of the institute. "The codes proved themselves out beautifully."
Florida scales back
Rather than embrace the success of the new codes, however, the state started walking them back.
The Florida Building Commission — a 25-member board appointed by the governor that includes builders, engineers and inspectors — analyzed data from the four storms and decided to recalibrate how much wind a Florida home would need to withstand.
“The general feeling was that in 2005 we were over-designing," Jack Glenn, the retired director of technical services for the Florida Home Builders Association told the Miami Herald. “We needed to relax a bit because there is a cost impact.’’
Different areas of the state receive different winds on average. The lower the wind, the lower the building requirements. After the 2004 season, state officials redrew the maps. The state increased the wind loads in one area — South Florida — but reduced them by 20% in much of the rest of the state. Jacksonville, on Florida's northeast coast, largely spared by the four hurricanes, saw its wind loads reduced as much as 35%.
Further tweaks to the code led to a startling change in 2015. The insurance institute that had praised Florida for its 2004 hurricane season performance and its tough building code downgraded the state's code from the top spot to second place, behind Virginia.
This year, builders pushed for even bigger changes.
States around the country base their building codes on those developed by the International Code Council (ICC). The council examines the latest technology and uses experts from around the country to update its codes every three years.
Florida had timed its process to the ICC updates. Every three years, the state would adopt the new ICC codes. The Florida Building Commission would remove portions that didn't affect Florida, such as standards for roof-top snow accumulation, and add Florida-specific provisions, such as strict high-wind requirements.
But during the legislative session this year, legislators pushed for big changes. One proposal called for state officials to freeze the code as it stands, with only occasional updates. Another proposal called for a six-year cycle of updates instead of three.
Leslie Chapman-Henderson remembers Andrew vividly. She managed Andrew-related insurance claims for Allstate. The legislature's direction alarmed her.
"We were watching these bills fly out of committees unanimously and we’re thinking, ‘This is not good,' " said Chapman-Henderson, who is now president of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes.
The negotiations ended with a compromise. Florida's building codes would still be updated every three years, but they would no longer adopt the ICC codes. Instead, Florida would keep its current code and pick and choose which parts of the ICC code to adopt.
The law also reduced the number of votes required for the state's building commission to change the building codes. Now a code change requires just two-thirds of the board to support the change rather than 75%. That worries Fugate, the former FEMA director, who said the commission is already stacked in favor of builders and contractors, who account for 10 members of the 25-person board.
Kerri Wyland, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Scott, said the law reduces "burdensome regulations while maintaining Florida's gold standard of safety and innovation through an efficient and effective building code adoption process."
Jimi Grande, senior vice president of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, fears state officials will cherry-pick which technologies to adopt and which to ignore. Grande said insurers are very nervous about that change, which could lead to higher premiums for Florida homeowners.
"What they are doing is tying themselves to a new system that won't keep up with science and technology," Grande said. "That's what's scary about it."
The 2017 hurricane season ends Nov. 30 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted as many as 19 named storms could develop in the waters around the United States. As always, Florida is in the crosshairs. That has Chapman-Henderson worried.
"We are still in a state of shock that the most hurricane-prone state in the country would retreat from its world class building code system," she said. "Florida was the good child. Now they're on the path that led to the failures of Hurricane Andrew."
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0497b50462919dc9908dab9d4f1996d1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/12/social-media-reacts-charlottesville-protests/562461001/ | 'Not what I fought for': Social media reacts to Charlottesville protests | 'Not what I fought for': Social media reacts to Charlottesville protests
At least one person is dead and 19 more injured after a car rammed into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday.
After violence broke out at the "Unite the Right" rally many took to social media to condemn the hatred and share powerful images from the day.
Here's a look at how social media reacted to the #Charlottesville violence:
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583e6ebed483889341b8585d89c4b303 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/14/james-alex-fields-jr-charlottesville-car-attack-suspect-faces-hearing-today/564002001/ | No bail for Charlottesville car attack suspect James Fields | No bail for Charlottesville car attack suspect James Fields
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A judge denied bail Monday to an Ohio man accused of slamming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one of them, during a white nationalist rally.
James Alex Fields Jr., 20, appeared in Charlottesville General District Court by video conference, where a judge read out the charges that include one count of second-degree murder, several counts of malicious wounding and one count of hit and run.
Clad in a striped gray and white shirt, Fields was subdued while answering questions from Judge Robert Downer. Fields said he could not afford a lawyer, and Downer assigned private attorney Charles Weber to the case.
Downer said he could not appoint a public defender due to a conflict of interest —someone linked to the public defender's office was injured in the crash Saturday. Fields’ next court date will be Aug. 25.
Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 19 people were injured Saturday when a Dodge Challenger allegedly driven by Fields rear-ended a sedan, which then hit a minivan that had slowed to allow the counter-protesters to cross at an intersection, Charlottesville police said. The impact pushed the vehicles into the crowd, police said in a statement. The Challenger fled the scene, but officers stopped it a short time later and arrested Fields, police said.
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The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the car attack, and FBI Director Christopher Wray said Monday it does meet the definition of domestic terrorism.
President Trump said he discussed the case with Wray and Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions. Trump, who condemned the violence hours after the tragedy but drew criticism for blaming "many sides," blasted white supremacists Monday.
"Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," he said.
Trump also paid homage to Heyer and to two State Troopers who died when their surveillance helicopter crashed in woods hours after Heyer's death.
Heyer was killed shortly after police broke up the rally, which was a protest against the city's plans to remove a state of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park. The rally drew hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others, some dressed in militia-type garb and carrying weapons.
Clashes between them and counter-protesters prompted Gov. Terry McAuliffe to declare a state of emergency before the rally even got underway. The crowd mostly dispersed after police stepped in, and that is when the crash occurred.
Fields' mother Samantha Bloom told CBS News she heard about the charges facing her son from a news reporter.
"I just knew he was going to a rally," she told CBS. "I didn't know it was white supremacist. I thought it had something to do with Trump."
Fields graduated high school in 2015, and the Army has confirmed that Fields reported for basic training in August of 2015. He was released from active duty a few months later "due to a failure to meet training standards," the Army said in a statement.
Former Randall K. Cooper High School history teacher Derek Weimer, 45, of Florence, Ky., told The (Cincinnati) Enquirer in an interview that he was probably the closest to Fields out of everyone on the faculty.
“I’m sure if you would ask James he would say I was his favorite or one of his favorite teachers,” said Weimer, adding that he had Fields in three classes directly and had regular interaction with him after classes and during free time.
“I feel like I failed and that we all failed,” Weimer said of Fields. “He was a very bright kid but very misguided and disillusioned.”
Weimer told the Associated Press that Fields was fascinated with Nazism, idolized Adolf Hitler and had "deeply held, radical" convictions on race.
"Once you talked to James for a while, you would start to see that sympathy towards Nazism, that idolization of Hitler, that belief in white supremacy," Weimer said. "It would start to creep out."
Toy reported from Charlottesville, Bacon from McLean, Va.
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cadd03170ac5815096942546c1065c14 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/18/aging-healthy-and-happy-during-your-greater-years/579280001/ | Aging healthy and happy during your greater years | Aging healthy and happy during your greater years
Lucy Rose Fischer spent much of her life studying aging, but not even decades of academic research fully prepared the retired gerontologist for getting older herself.
“Theoretically, I knew that people were living longer,” she says. “But what’s really amazing to me is that there is a whole (new) life that starts.”
Many women are expected to live into their 80s, which means a chance at starting new hobbies or watching their grandchildren — and even great-grandchildren — grow up. That kind of longevity is still a relatively new concept, and the health care and social systems haven’t quite caught up.
“We’re having more years of good health, but also having more years of various chronic conditions,” says Andrew Scharlach, a professor of aging in the University of California-Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare.
“We are changing individually much more quickly than our physical and social environments are.”
Even though Fischer, 72, of St. Louis Park, Minn., says she doesn’t love everything about aging, she’s still finding life after retirement to be creatively rewarding. She’s able to focus on her love of creating painted-glass art, and she wrote and illustrated a book about aging called I’m New at Being Old.
“In a way, it feels like starting over,” she says. “But the difference between being 15 and 60 when you’re starting a new stage in life is that you have all this experience behind you that you’re able to use.”
A changing society
An aging population doesn’t come without challenges. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that by the year 2050, nearly 84 million people will be 65 and older. Many in that population will face the risk of chronic diseases, especially as people live long enough to develop them. One in 10 people over age 65 have Alzheimer’s, for example, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, and while overall cancer rates have declined, cancer rates still rise with age, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Scharlach says this could weigh on the American health care system, which is not equipped to deal with long-term conditions on a large scale. The Baby Boomer population is aging, he said, but many physicians don’t have experience treating older adults. Access to medical professionals is also on the decline, Scharlach adds, since some communities don’t have enough doctors and nurses, or people can’t afford the high cost of treatment.
That’s what people like Grisel Rodríguez-Morales, a health promotion and disease prevention manager at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, are trying to change. Her team helps give people the tools they need to “age successfully,” she says, by holding seminars about how to manage their health conditions.
“As providers, this is new to many of us,” she says. “As the aging population continues to grow, we want to make sure that we … are thinking not only about health, but health within the context of aging.”
That requires not only informing doctors, nurses and other health care providers about the needs of aging adults, but family members and friends, too. That way, they understand that something like depression, for example, is not a normal part of aging, she says.
“If you saw an 18- or 20-year-old who didn’t want to do anything, you wouldn’t think twice about immediately taking them to the doctor,” Rodríguez-Morales says. “So if you see an older adult, why not do the same thing instead of just saying, ‘Well, they’re old.’”
As the older population continues to grow, Scharlach says it’s vital that people see beyond age. Americans are slowly starting to value older generations, he says, but there’s still a long way to go.
“Having popular images that reflect aging as it really is and provide a sense that we can age well and age fully will go a long way,” he adds. “It’s about seeing that 80-year-old not simply about what they can’t do, but who they are.”
One of the things Fischer did when she retired was to quit dyeing her hair. Once she accepted her silver hair, she grew to like the look — along with the tiny crinkles around her eyes.
“There is a kind of focus on always trying to look younger,” she says, “but you can be vital at 72 and be beautiful.”
When she was studying aging, Fischer and her colleagues at HealthPartners, a Minnesota-based nonprofit health care organization, developed the ALIVE model.
The acronym stands for five healthy aspects of aging: activity, learning, intimacy, vitality and engagement. Now she tries to apply the model to her own life.
Fischer stays active by hiking with her husband and walking her dog. She considers continuing education an important way to exercise her brain. She maintains close, intimate relationships with friends of all ages. Her artwork and positive attitude give her life vitality, and she remains engaged in her wider community and society.
Healthy and happy aging requires a real investment, Scharlach says. Many people plan carefully for their financial futures, he says, but fail to devote time and effort to other aspects of their lives, like Fischer does with her ALIVE method.
“We have to take care of our body, our mind, our relationships,” Scharlach says. “There’s that old saying, ‘If I had known I was going to live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself.’ There’s enormous truth to those words.”
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5247293a0fa3a9b36bbf4e6e40067e5c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/23/white-nationalist-christopher-cantwell-says-hell-turn-himself/592770001/ | White nationalist Christopher Cantwell turns himself in, report says | White nationalist Christopher Cantwell turns himself in, report says
A white nationalist turned himself in Wednesday after police had issued a warrant for his arrest, alleging he had committed crimes on the University of Virginia's campus one day before the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., according to The Daily Progress.
Chris Cantwell surrendered to Lynchburg, Va., police Wednesday afternoon, and he is currently being held in Lynchburg before being transported to Charlottesville, The Daily Progress reported.
Multiple attempts to reach the University of Virginia Police and Lynchburg Police Department for comment were not immediately returned.
Cantwell was wanted on three felony charges — two counts of the illegal use of tear gas or other gases and one count of malicious bodily injury with a "caustic substance," explosive or fire.
Cantwell told The Associated Press that he had pepper-sprayed a counter demonstrator the night before the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, but he claimed he was defending himself, "because my only other option was knocking out his teeth."
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Cantwell and other white nationalists had marched through U.Va.'s campus Aug. 11, with tiki torches in hand, where they were met by counter-protesters. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed the next day when James Alex Fields Jr. allegedly slammed a car into a crowd protesting the rally.
Cantwell had been featured in a Vice News documentary about the violence in Charlottesville where he said he thought the vehicle attack was "more than justified." He also called the crowd "stupid animals" who "couldn't just get out of the way of his car."
Days later, Cantwell posted a teary video on social media in which he cried due to his fear of being arrested for his alleged role in the violence.
In Charlottesville, lawmakers voted Tuesday to drape the Confederate statues in black fabric. The "Unite the Right" rally had initially been planned in protest of the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Follow Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
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e1e89078ca6ac5830bcf33d46500eb40 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/26/flooding-hurricane-harvey-now-category-1-could-leave-communities-underwater-days/604677001/ | Two dead, at least 30 unaccounted for as Harvey slams Texas | Two dead, at least 30 unaccounted for as Harvey slams Texas
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As residents of the Texas Gulf Coast braced for days of "catastrophic" flooding from a weakened tropical storm Harvey, a law enforcement official confirmed the state's first fatality, a man trapped in his burning house during the height of the hurricane.
Late Saturday, a Houston official confirmed a death there due to flooding.
Aransas County Sheriff Bill Mills said that county's fatality was discovered Saturday in his home, which was destroyed by a fire as the Category 4 hurricane churned through the county.
The hurricane's toll may take time to determine, as Mills said 30 to 40 people remained unaccounted for as of Saturday evening. About 30 people were being treated for injuries in the county.
In Houston and Harris County, highways and major streets were starting to flood as up to 6 inches of rain fell on the city within three hours Saturday night.
The National Weather Service issued a Flash Flood Emergency for the Harris County area until after midnight.
Officials are urging people to stay off of the roads. The weather service said it has received multiple reports of water rescues in Harris County and nearby areas.
Two Aransas County municipalities, Rockport, with a population of 10,000, and nearby Port Aransas, took the brunt of the storm as it slammed into the coast late Friday.
At least 10 injuries were reported from collapsed roofs in Rockport, which is 25 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.
Nearby Port Aransas, with a population of 4,000, was particularly vulnerable perched on a narrow strip of Mustang Island, which sits at the entrance to Corpus Christi Bay. It registered the strongest wind gust of 132 mph from Harvey, according to the National Weather Service.
More:Where is Harvey headed next? What we know now
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The two towns, like dozens over others in the area, reported widespread damage as emergency teams searched for any survivors trapped in low-lying areas or collapsed buildings.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Saturday tweeted a "geocolor loop" of the hurricane's movement Friday and Saturday, illustrating the size of the storm.
As of 10 p.m. CT, the National Hurricane Center reported that Harvey was centered 75 miles east-southeast of San Antonio. The storm was drifting east-northeast at 1 mph, and maximum sustained winds had dropped to 50 mph, with higher gusts.
On Saturday, officials throughout the region prepared for flooding. In the afternoon, the mayor of Rosenberg, a city about 35 miles southwest of Houston, ordered a mandatory evacuation for parts of the city due to potential flooding of the Brazos River, which hit a record high.
About 80 to 100 people are believed to have tried to ride out the storm in Port Aransas, which suffered extreme damage, including downed power lines, destroyed homes and businesses.
Port Aransas Mayor Charles Bujan said he and his first responders were still struggling to reach the island. Police officers and heavy equipment crews were attempting to enter the barrier island from the south, he said. As of Saturday morning, no fatalities or injuries had been reported there.
“The debris is so massive and the destruction is so massive, we haven’t been able to get in,” Bujan said.
Port Aransas City Manager David Parsons said they are mobilizing state police, troopers, National Guard and local law enforcement to conduct search-and-rescue efforts.
Early Saturday, Harvey’s destruction could be seen as far south as Corpus Christi, with downed street lights and trees blocking some downtown streets.
Fulton, a seaside community just north of Rockport, was a tangle of downed power lines, upended RVs and crushed homes. Downed trees blocked some roads in town; others were completely covered in floodwaters.
The roof from a nearby building was strewn across Texas State Highway 35, blocking one of the main entrances to Fulton and Rockport. In the middle of the night, as Harvey’s roars turned to quiet from the hurricane’s eye, some residents retreated to a local elementary school building.
“It was like being in another world,” said David Cameron, assistant chief of the Fulton Volunteer Fire Department, who helped rescue residents. “And there’s still a lot to do.”
Kevin Carruth, city manager of Rockport, said the courthouse had been hard hit, with a cargo trailer ending up halfway in the building. He said several people were taken to a makeshift hospital at the county jail for treatment after the roof of a senior housing complex collapsed.
The Austin American-Statesman reported from Rockport that the smell of gas filled the air at the Rockport-Fulton High School where the gymnasium was destroyed; the auditorium’s doors were caved in, and windows were shattered.
Rockport found itself on the deadly right-hand side of the eye of the storm as Harvey came ashore packing 130-mph winds.That location left it vulnerable to the dangerous storm surges as the winds piled up the Gulf waters and drove it ashore.
In Corpus Christi, city officials appealed to residents to reduce their use of toilets and faucets because of power outages at the city's wastewater treatment plants.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, speaking at the state's emergency operations center in Austin, reported 338,000 power outages statewide.
He also praised the "resilience" of those people who took the state's advice and evacuated the threatened areas for inland cities.
“It was so heartening to shake the hands of those evacuees as they got off those buses,” the governor told reporters. “They were what I call typical Texans. They were resilient, they were strong, but mostly, they were happy to be alive.”
Abbott says state military forces activated 1,300 service members to help with storm response. He said the Red Cross had opened 21 shelters holding about 1,450 people.
In the evening, the governor and his wife, Cecilia Abbott, helped serve dinner at a Red Cross shelter in Austin to people who had been evacuated because of the hurricane. He assured those at the shelter that the state is doing all it can to assist in the recovery effort.
In the Houston suburb of Cypress, a tornado touched down, damaging several homes and buildings but causing no apparent injuries, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
The storm dealt a glancing blow to neighboring Louisiana, where Gov. John Bel Edwards said the National Weather Service had confirmed a tornado touched down Saturday in the Cameron Parish town of Hackberry. Edwards says there were no reports of injuries or fatalities but there was “significant property damage.”
President Trump, who is at Camp David, met via teleconference with officials at the White House Saturday. He praised the "wonderful coordination" between federal, state and local governments in an early-evening tweet.
Although no longer a major hurricane, Harvey is far from a spent force. The National Weather Service says Harvey is expected to stall and spin for the next three to five days, delivering storm surges up to 12 feet in some areas and "catastrophic" flooding along the middle and upper Texas coast. It could also slip back into the Gulf and regenerate as a powerful storm and head up the coast toward Louisiana.
The Coast Guard, which urged Texas residents to stay off the water, reported rescuing at least 20 people in various incidents as Harvey came through the state, the Associated Press reported.
According to the AP, Capt. Tony Hahn, commander of the Corpus Christi sector, said Saturday that two helicopters rescued 18 people in various vessels: three from a fishing boat, four from a barge and 11 from two tugboats. Two people and their dog, who were stranded near Rockport, also were rescued and taken to a hospital.
The hurricane also left some 20,000 passengers stranded on four cruise ships that found conditions too dangerous to return to Galveston, KTRK-TV reported. The Carnival Valor and Carnival Freedom, which planned to return to Galveston on Friday, will instead head for New Orleans, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The Carnival Breeze stayed in Cozumel Friday night and was expected to leave for Galveston Saturday, while the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas was expected to wait until Sunday to sail back to Texas, according to the report.
With Harvey hitting as a Category 4 hurricane, the record 4,324-day span between U.S. “major” hurricane (Category 3 and above) landfalls has ended, said University of Miami meteorologist Brian McNoldy. Before Harvey, the most recent major hurricane landfall had been Wilma in October 2005.
Harvey is only the fourth Category 4 or 5 hurricane to hit the U.S. since 1970, according to Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach. The other three were Hugo, Andrew and Charley.
More:Hurricane Harvey smacks Texas: What we know now
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Contributing: Julie Garcia, Kirsten Crow, Rick Jervis, Doug Stanglin, Doyle Rice and Greg Hilburn of the USA TODAY NETWORK; KHOU-TV, Houston
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fe3ced994b3ac62a3452883fe8774a1e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/27/rockports-most-vulnerable-hardest-hit-harvey/606051001/ | Rockport's most vulnerable are the hardest hit from Harvey | Rockport's most vulnerable are the hardest hit from Harvey
ROCKPORT, Texas — As Hurricane Harvey grew and menaced from the nearby Gulf, Barry Skipper knew he should probably leave. He had been through close calls before and knew he was vulnerable in this seaside community.
But he lacked the money to leave so he and his wife hunkered down in their apartment, covering themselves with a mattress in the shower as Harvey mauled their roof.
On Saturday, Skipper picked through the soggy remains inside his roofless and splintered apartment, wondering what to do next.
“We just didn’t have the funds,” said Skipper, 68, who is retired and on disability. “The ball started rolling and there was nothing really we could do.”
Harvey, the first major hurricane to hit the U.S. in 12 years, left a swath of people like Skipper in its wake: Those on fixed income, infirmed or elderly without the means to evacuate or the wherewithal to seek nearby shelter.
Harvey has been downgraded to a tropical storm but continues to dump torrential rains in the Houston area, flooding that city, and is expected to return to Rockport and the coast by Thursday.
What to do with the most vulnerable residents is one of the biggest challenges of any disaster — before and after a storm hits. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 displaced or killed scores of the poorest residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
In Texas, county and city officials urged residents to evacuate as Harvey intensified in the gulf to a Category 4 storm Friday and took aim at the Texas coast.
Officials couldn’t force residents to leave, even under mandatory evacuation orders, but the vast majority were motivated to get out, said Nueces County Judge Loyd Neal, whose area includes nearby Port Aransas and Corpus Christi, but not Rockport.
“We asked people to get out of harm’s way early on,” he said. “Thank goodness thousands did.”
More:Death toll rises as Harvey hammers Texas with catastrophic flooding
More:Here's how to help victims of Hurricane Harvey
Lois Riley, 61, said she watched with growing angst as Harvey intensified. She would have liked to have heeded the urging of local officials to leave Rockport but also lacked the money or place to go. “I’m on a fixed income and this is the end of the month,” she said.
When she called 211 to inquire about shelters, she was told repeatedly to call back, Riley said. So she and a friend sheltered in her two-bedroom home, huddling in her bedroom as Harvey’s winds punched holes in her roof, disintegrated the front porch and exploded a front window. Water poured in.
“It was horrible,” Riley said.
As Harvey tore apart homes, residents began retreating to the Live Oak Learning Center, an elementary school that had been converted into a makeshift shelter. Christina Tucker, 30, a Rockford waitress, checked into the shelter on Friday.
Not feeling anyone was in charge, she deputized a group of other able-bodied evacuees into volunteer squads and began delegating tasks, such as creating a sign-in sheet, assigning cots and organizing meals.
“We had individuals,” she said, “but no organization.”
Soon, some of Rockport’s sickest and elderly residents were streaming into the school. By Saturday afternoon, 129 people had checked into the shelter. One of them, Sharon Simmons, 53, arrived with her husband, Charles Simmons, 70, an amputee who needs regular dialysis. When the power went out Friday night, Sharon Simmons began panicking. “He has to have dialysis or he is going to die,” she said.
She said would have much preferred to have left Rockport as Harvey intensified but didn’t have the means to leave. Their house was pummeled by the storm, forcing them to the shelter. “My truck is smashed and my house is gone,” Sharon Simmons said. “What do I do now?”
By Saturday afternoon, teams from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Medical Emergency Medical Task Force and other local and state agencies were arriving to deal with the evacuees. Many were being transferred to Austin on large tour buses.
Helping storm victims rebuild their lives will bring more challenges for lower income and elderly residents, who often lack the insurance or means to rebuild on their own. Faced with the first major natural disaster of his presidency, President Trump on Friday ordered a federal disaster declaration for six Texas counties, opening the door for federal aid.
Asked what he will do next, Skipper shrugged. Getting new clothes and a new home will take money he doesn’t have.
“FEMA will get here eventually, I suppose,” he said, referring to the federal disaster agency. “Until then, we’ll just wait.”
Follow Jervis on Twitter at @MrRJervis
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d1991d896731bcea5c3fe0d275b71cac | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/27/spencer-says-department-has-high-water-vehicles-and-airboats-but-certainly-not-enough-he-says-offici/606113001/ | Harvey will drive 30,000 to shelters, FEMA says | Harvey will drive 30,000 to shelters, FEMA says
HOUSTON — More than 30,000 people are going to need shelters as a result of the unrelenting rains and flooding of Tropical Storm Harvey overwhelming Texas, FEMA Administrator Brock Long said Monday.
"The sheltering mission is going to be a very heavy lift," Long said in a Washington news conference, adding that up to 50 Texas counties are dealing with the impact of the storm.
Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service, said some areas of southeast Texas around Houston have already seen more than 30 inches of rain. A wide swath of the region has been with with 15-20 inches of rain, he said.
"We are seeing catastrophic flooding, and this area is likely to expand," Uccellini said.
Tropical Storm Harvey, now spinning near Port O'Connor, Texas, is forecast to move back into the Gulf of Mexico today, the National Hurricane Center said. It will meander over the Gulf for a couple of days before making a second landfall somewhere near the Texas/Louisiana border, likely on Wednesday.
Harvey is then expected to slowly move northeast across Louisiana and Arkansas as a tropical depression from Thursday into Saturday.
As it spins offshore, the storm is expected to dump an additional 15 to 25 inches of rain through Friday over the upper Texas coast and into southwestern Louisiana, exacerbating the life-threatening, catastrophic flooding in the Houston area, the hurricane center said. Isolated storm totals may reach 50 inches over the upper Texas coast, including the Houston/Galveston metropolitan area.
"Reliable weather forecasts still show taking whatever rain has already fallen around Houston and doubling it over the next 4-5 days," said WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue.
The scenes from Houston were harrowing.
Residents of this embattled city spent the night in dark, flooded homes, continued rescuing neighbors throughout the night and braced for another round of heavy rains Monday that could further ravage this flood-gorged city.
From Katy to Dickinson to downtown Houston, the waters continued rising to new heights and plunged the greater Houston area and its nearly 6 million residents into unchartered chaos. The pounding rains were remnants of Harvey, which roared ashore last week as a Category 4 hurricane and has lingered as a tropical storm. They were forecast to continue through the next few days.
In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers early Monday began releasing water from the overfilled Addicks and Barker reservoirs in west Houston. The release was necessary, officials said, to avoid a collapse of the reservoirs’ dam and inundate downtown Houston but puts several thousand homes in the area at further flood risk.
“The idea is to prepare ... pack up what you need and put it in your vehicle and when the sun comes up, get out,” Jeff Lindner, of the Harris County Flood Control District, said Sunday. “And you don’t have to go far, you just need to get out of this area.”
More than 1,000 rescues had been conducted since the floods picked up early Sunday. Throughout Houston, drivers abandoned cars overtaken by flood-swollen streets and emergency alerts on radios and cell phones continuously warned of possible tornado activity – all as rain continuing pelting the city in steady sheets.
Families urgently piling into canoes, rafts and anything inflatable to get to higher ground.
The deluge from Tropical Storm Harvey was so intense that authorities were urging residents to seek refuge on roofs as emergency crews struggled to make their way through the city by land, water and air amid desperate pleas for help.
Interstate 610, a freeway forming a 38-mile long loop around downtown Houston, was engulfed in floodwaters that were creeping closer to overhead highway signs — another sign of how dire the situation was becoming.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said authorities had received more than 2,000 calls for help and would be opening the city’s main convention center as a shelter.
"I don’t need to tell anyone this is a very, very serious and unprecedented storm,” Turner said at a news conference. “We have several hundred structural flooding reports. We expect that number to rise pretty dramatically.”
Residents were being told to stay on roofs instead of climbing into attics — and to wave towels or sheets to flag down rescuers.
As people fled to rooftops, the scene was strikingly similar to another epic flooding event: 2005's Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
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Amid the horror, there were reports of heroics.
Father David Bergeron, a Catholic priest, used a kayak to get from his home in southeast Houston to higher ground where he hoped to say Mass for those stranded on the streets. Bergeron said he tried to buy some wine for Mass at a convenience store but couldn’t because sales are prohibited in the state on Sunday before noon.
"This is how America was evangelized — by canoe,” he told TV station KTRK.
KPRC2 broadcast video of dozens of Houston residents wading through an inundated street in East Houston, some in rubber boats, many helping others through the torrents. The station captioned the scene: "Good Samaritans Help Flood Victims."
Jesse Gonzalez, and his son, also named Jesse, used their boat to rescue people from a southeast Houston neighborhood. Asked what he had seen, the younger Gonzalez told TV station KTRK: “A lot of people walking and a lot of dogs swimming.”
Harris County sheriff’s spokesman Jason Spencer said flooding throughout the county that includes Houston was so widespread that it’s “difficult to pinpoint the worst area.”
Spencer said the department has high-water vehicles and airboats but “certainly not enough.” He says authorities are prioritizing hundreds of phones calls for help to ensure life-and-death situations were at the top of the list.
The situation was “heartbreaking,” he said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Follow Miller on Twitter @susmiller
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18976f64d8cbf03505b54d44a729f18a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/29/hurricane-harvey-shark-photo-fake-and-part-bigger-problem/612601001/ | Hurricane Harvey: That shark photo is fake — and part of a bigger problem | Hurricane Harvey: That shark photo is fake — and part of a bigger problem
Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated the role of the Fox News employee fooled by the shark photo. He is a host.
As a captivated nation watches a historic storm ravage the Texas coast, people around the country are sharing extraordinary images of Harvey and its aftermath.
Except some of them aren't real.
• There's the shark on a freeway in Houston (the doctored image has been online for years and made appearances during Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy, but still managed to fool a Fox News host — who later apologized).
• There are the planes submerged on the tarmac in Houston (the photoshopped picture actually shows New York's LaGuardia Airport).
• And there's President Obama serving food to people evacuated from the Houston floods (which is a shot from a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C., where Obama and his family served Thanksgiving dinner in 2015).
On the Internet, things that seem unfathomable are legitimatized through reinforced attention. When enough people tweet a photo, it can seem real. Media experts say when false images go viral, feeling often trumps reason.
Why fake photos spread
Doctored photos aren't reserved for natural disasters. This month, a widely circulated image that appeared to capture a member of anti-fascist group Anitfa beating a police officer during a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned out to be fake. After President Trump held a rally in Phoenix last week, his supporters shared an image of what was purportedly a massive crowd in the streets ahead of his speech, but the photo is actually an aerial shot from the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers parade.
Jonathan Albright, research director at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, said there are times when the nation is more susceptible to the spread of false images.
"I think emotion drives a huge part of this," he said. "There's going to be emotion involved in any kind of political campaign, any type of social debate or heated cultural issue, and also natural disasters are going to fall into that same category," he said.
Al Tompkins, of the Poynter Institute for media studies, said the reasons why people share fake photos fall into three buckets:
When people fall for them
"I think natural disasters create a kind of perfect storm for viral rumors," said Peter Adams, senior vice president of educational programs at the News Literacy Project. "These are very emotional events. There is a lot fear in the immediate area. There's a lot of confusion and there's intense curiosity on the part of the rest of public to see what's happening on the ground."
It can be hard to spot the ruse. Some of that has to do with confirmation bias. If a person is told the storm's destruction is unprecedented, they'll look for images to confirm it, especially if the story becomes political.
"Climate change immediately came into the debate about [Harvey's] scale of destruction, so some people are going to go find certain images and content to support those ideas," Albright said.
People also don't always know what's possible. For some, the image of a shark swimming through Houston is unbelievable. For others, it's plausible.
"What's feasible is really an unknown for I think the average citizen," Adams said. "There are videos on Reddit of fish in people's basements ... so is it feasible that a shark would be swimming down the flooded highway, coming in from the Gulf? People aren't really sure."
When the phrase 'fake news' is 'weaponized'
Adams worries about conflating individuals who doctor photos for virality with journalists who make mistakes when reporting breaking news.
"Fake news actually does refer to a very specific kind of misinformation, that's entirely fabricated and designed to look like standard journalism," Adams said. "That meaning has been lost as the term has been politicized and weaponized ... and I think the public — especially when it comes to political news — doesn't know what to believe because they have pundits telling them that news organizations are engaging in some of the same tactics that fake news purveyors are, which absolutely isn't true."
So what might happen if the public grows overly wary of being inundated with false information?
"I worry that we will become a society of cynics who believe nothing," Tompkins said.
He isn't alone.
"I think being skeptical is not just great but necessary for citizens now in this information landscape," Adams said. "But that means asking more questions. ... Your skepticism is the beginning of a process, where you're trying to confirm the details and facts. Cynicism in my view is turning away from the possibility of knowing. If you believe nothing is knowable unless 'I see it myself, I don't trust anyone to tell me anything,' you're really ending inquiry. You're not finding out. You're not willing to believe anyone and that's ultimately very disempowering personally, but also for the country."
How to spot a fake photo
To curb the spread of false images, Albright and Adams say when you see something that seems unthinkable, think before sharing it.
"If you have a strong emotional reaction to something — whether it's a picture of a flooded airport or a natural disaster, or if it's something that outrages you or angers you politically — if you find yourself having a strong emotional reaction, stop, take a breath, try to have your rational mind kick back in and set your emotions aside and try to evaluate the truth," Adams said.
To avoid being duped, Adams encourages readers to follow reporters who cover misinformation. Craig Silverman of BuzzFeed News studies media inaccuracy and the site has a running list of false and inaccurate information coming out of Harvey.
And there are practical steps you can take, as well:
Checking the veracity of an image means a person can more confidentially share a compelling photo.
One of the most evocative images from Harvey is of elderly residents trapped in waist-deep water in a nursing home near Houston. Many Twitter users said it was fake, and were reluctant to share it, but the photo was proven to be authentic.
"It was so incredible," Albright said. "I don't know if I've ever seen an image like that."
Albright shared the photo from his Twitter account, but not immediately. He looked at the source of the tweet, a user named Timothy J. McIntosh, who, while not verified with the platform's authoritative blue checkmark, appeared to be what Albright deemed a credible source. McIntosh responded to users in the thread of the original tweet insisting the image was not fake. A user in the comment thread posted a photo of what she said was a home less than a mile away that appeared to be partially underwater. McIntosh followed up the original tweet with another imploring emergency services to head to La Vita Bella nursing home.
A reporter for The Daily News in Galveston interviewed McIntosh and local authorities, who confirmed the residents were rescued.
In the age of the Internet, readers not only consume news, they disseminate it. It's paramount, Albright said, that they act responsibly in that dual role.
"It's up to people," Albright said. "If something looks so unbelievable and it barely makes sense and you can't fathom how it can be possible but you still share it anyway, I think that's a problem."
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f262e1161553784d9da49ab1aa0b41a1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/31/weary-firefighters-begin-block-by-block-hunt-harvey-survivors/619603001/ | Drinking water issues, fire intensify Harvey crisis | Drinking water issues, fire intensify Harvey crisis
HOUSTON — Floodwaters knocked out the water system in Beaumont and prompted a chemical fire in Crosby as weary Southeast Texas struggled Thursday to regain some form of normalcy almost a week after Hurricane Harvey roared into the region.
In Houston, firefighters began a block-by-block search for survivors in some of the city's most devastated areas. In Port Arthur, officials tapped city dump trucks to expedite rescues.
"We continue to push the lifesaving operations, we continue to evacuate people out of areas where the rivers have receded," FEMA Administrator Brock Long said. "This mission is going to continue."
In Beaumont, 100 miles east of Houston, flooding damage knocked out the main and secondary sources providing water to the city of more than 100,000 people.
"At this time there is no water supply," the city said in a statement Thursday, adding that officials won't know the extent of the damage or how long repairs will take floodwaters recede.
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The Neches River isn't expected to crest until Saturday, and City Manager Kyle Hayes was scrambling to procure enough bottled water to avert a crisis. The Salvation Army was handing out water by the case while it lasted.
Baptist Beaumont Hospital shut down, airlifting and driving almost 200 patients to other facilities. Christus St. Elizabeth hospital remained open but urged residents to come only if there was a "critical, life-threatening medical need."
In Crosby, 25 miles northeast of Houston, chemicals sparked flames that spewed black smoke from the Arkema Inc. plant. The plant was flooded when more than 40 inches of rain fell in the area.
When the plant lost power and backup generators also failed, chemicals requiring refrigeration warmed up and began to "degrade," Arkema executive Richard Rennard said. One of nine canisters burned, and the others likely could face the same fate, Rennard said.
“We are not intending to go into the site," he said. "We don’t think that is a safe thing to do."
More:Best Buy says $42 bottled water near Houston was a 'big mistake'
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Authorities evacuated a 1.5-mile area around the plant. One Harris County sheriff's deputy was taken to hospital after inhaling fumes and 14 others drove themselves to the hospital as precaution, the sheriff's office said. All were released hours later.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the smoke was not toxic and that he saw no danger to the community.
In Houston, the fire department began a block-by-block, door-to-door search in some of the city's most flood-damaged areas for people who may want to get out. The search could also result in an increased death toll. The storm claimed dozens of lives, and authorities fear the receding waters will reveal more bodies.
In Rockport, where Harvey slammed ashore last Friday as a Category 4 hurricane, Vice President Mike Pence visited a church and spoke with survivors.
"President Trump sent us here to say we are with you, the American people are with you," Pence said. "We are here today, we will be here tomorrow, and we will be here every day until this city and this state and this region rebuild bigger and better than ever before."
More than 33,000 people were in shelters Thursday in Texas, the American Red Cross said. The number increased only slightly from the previous day. White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert estimated that 100,000 homes were damaged by Harvey.
"Shelters are never an ideal situation, we understand that," FEMA's Long acknowledged.
At the George R. Brown Convention Center, the evacuee population was reduced Thursday from 10,000 to 6,800, said Scott Toncray, a Red Cross spokesman.
"More people have found friends or family to take them in, in some cases the water has receded enough where they live," Toncray said, adding that FEMA had also started to distribute hotel vouchers.
Max Gonzales, 33, his partner Vanessa Gomez and their two young daughters were picked up on Thursday afternoon by a Good Samaritan who offered to open her home in suburban Houston. The woman contacted him after seeing him interviewed on a local television station.
His family's first floor apartment and workplace — a north Houston bicycle shop — were both ravaged by the storm water. That left the couple homeless and jobless.
"It's really unbelievable that somebody would do this for us," said Gonzales. " All we can do is quickly get our life back together. Get a new job, get a new place and get something going again.
AccuWeather estimated Harvey's toll at $190 billion — making Harvey the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history — and called Harvey a "1,000-year storm."
Susan Gammon, who was flooded out of her home in 2001 when Tropical Storm Allison pummeled the Texas Coast and again on Monday, made her way around the convention center in a wheelchair with the help of a volunteer as she sought to sign up for food stamps and register with FEMA.
"During Allison, we at least had my mother to go stay with while we got back on our feet, but she has since passed away," Gammon said. "I don't think I can go through this again."
Madhani reported from Houston, Bacon from McLean, VA. Contributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY; KHOU-TV, Houston
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83926832ae532aa46c7b8356cfc5a033 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/01/daca-immigrants-terrified-president-trump-decides-their-fate/625619001/ | DACA immigrants terrified as President Trump decides their fate | DACA immigrants terrified as President Trump decides their fate
Leezia Dhalla is spending her days glued to the news, anxiously waiting for President Trump finally to announce whether he will kill the program that has protected her and nearly 800,000 other young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Trump is considering ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, a program he inherited from President Barack Obama that allows DREAMERS — immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children — to remain.
After weeks of speculation over the future of the program, Trump told reporters Friday that “We love the DREAMers," and will announce a decision "sometime over the weekend ... probably Sunday, Saturday. The latest will be Monday."
A short time later, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the announcement would come Tuesday.
That leaves DACA enrollees terrified heading into what should have been an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.
Dhalla, 27, legally entered the U.S. from Canada with her family when she was 6, but they lost their legal status. After being approved for DACA in 2012, Dhalla has been able to buy a home, purchase a car and work at different jobs. Now, with the future of her status unclear, she doesn't know what to think.
"Many of us are having that moment where our life is flashing before our eyes," said Dhalla, a communications associate at FWD.us, an advocacy group founded by technology leaders that include Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. "I’m leaving tomorrow to go to Kentucky to my best friend’s wedding. Is this the last wedding in the United States I’ll get to go to?"
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More:1,850 U.S. leaders to Trump: Don't kill DREAMer protection program
The DACA program grants two-year stays for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States before their 16th birthday who have attended school or joined the military and have not committed any serious crimes. It also grants them work permits.
Trump faces a Tuesday deadline imposed by Republican leaders in nine states. The group, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has grown impatient with the president's decision to leave DACA in place through his first seven months in office after vowing to end it during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The group successfully used a lawsuit to block a broader program created by Obama to protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. If he doesn't phase out DACA by Tuesday, they have vowed to sue the administration to kill it.
"The DACA amnesty that President Obama initiated orders (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to break the law, it also violates two other federal laws, and the constitutional separation of powers," Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas and Trump adviser, told MSNBC on Friday.
Expectations of an imminent decision by Trump have prompted a massive public outcry by DACA supporters, including law professors who say the program is legal, Democratic governors who say DREAMers have helped their states, faith leaders who call DACA a moral imperative, and technology leaders who praise the DREAMers' contributions to the U.S. economy.
"If the Trump administration ends DACA, it’ll be one of the most disgraceful, cruel and heartless decisions in modern American politics," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a group that advocates for immigrants in the U.S.
A surprise voice entered the fray on Friday when one of the Republicans threatening to sue the Trump administration had a change of heart. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery wrote a letter to the state's two senators saying he could no longer support the lawsuit because of the "human element" involved.
"Many of the DACA recipients, some of whose records I reviewed, have outstanding accomplishments and laudable ambitions, which if achieved, will be of great benefit and service to our country," Slatery wrote.
Even some Republican leaders in Congress are pleading with Trump to hold off on his decision to give them time to pass legislation that would let DREAMers stay permanently.
"These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don’t know another home," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., told WCLO, a local radio station.
The loudest pleas have come from the DREAMers themselves, who are facing the prospect of losing their deportation protections and their ability to legally work in the U.S.
Oscar Hernandez, a DACA enrollee who was brought to the U.S. from his native Mexico when he was 2, spent the week volunteering to help victims of Hurricane Harvey in Houston. He said the prospect of Trump revoking DACA was a "moral nightmare" that will only serve to continue the "racist agenda" that swept Trump into office in November.
Still, Hernandez said DACA recipients are ready to fight for their rights one more time. They have seen their hopes dashed several times when Congress came close, but ultimately failed, to pass a law protecting them. And now, even if Trump ends the program, he said they're ready to keep on working.
"No matter what happens today or tomorrow or the next day, we continue to fight for our people," he said. "When immigrant communities come under attack, we rise up, we fight back and we win."
Contributing: Gregory Korte and Eliza Collins in Washington, D.C.; Adam Tamburin of The Tennessean.
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5b02233ab72ab4ccc763a136e9593a90 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/05/hurricane-irma-what-we-know-now/632372001/ | Hurricane Irma: What we know now | Hurricane Irma: What we know now
Hurricane Irma is spinning angrily in the Atlantic Ocean, a Category 5 monster with sustained winds of 185 mph roaring west toward islands in the northern Caribbean and, possibly, Florida. The storm is one of the strongest ever in the Atlantic.
Here is what we know about Irma right now:
Irma is a mighty storm
Irma is an "extremely dangerous" storm likely to see some fluctuations in intensity over the next 48 hours, the National Weather Service says. Irma will remain a powerful Category 4 or 5 hurricane during the next couple of days, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 60 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extending 160 miles.
Irma's path: Florida could be slammed
The storm is heading west, and could roll across the Leeward Islands, Antigua and nearby islands later Tuesday. The Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico could take a hit Wednesday. After that, the forecast becomes less firm, but the storm has South Florida in its sights. Forecasters say that by early next week Florida, Georgia and/or the Carolinas could see Irma's wrath, depending on where Irma tracks. The storm could even sweep into the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
More:Hurricane Irma strengths to Category 5 storm, with 180 mph winds
More:Hurricane Irma: How to prepare an emergency kit
More:Hurricane Irma could be a $300 billion catastrophe if it hits South Florida
Damage could be catastrophic
If Irma slams into the U.S. as a Category 5 hurricane, it wouldn't be the first. Hurricane Andrew roared into South Florida 25 years ago, a fast-moving, tightly-wound hurricane that leveled entire neighborhoods, tossed cars, boats and mobile homes like small toys and left millions without power. The storm destroyed more than 25,000 homes and damaged 100,000 others. Fifteen people were killed directly by Andrew, and another 25 died in the hard weeks that followed. When a Category 5 hurricane hits land, "a high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed," the National Hurricane Center warns, adding power could be lost in some areas for "weeks and possible months."
Preparations are underway
Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello declared a states of emergencies Monday. Rossello on Tuesday met with mayors, National Guard leaders and emergency officials on the island. He issued a list of shelters and urged residents in high-risk areas to evacuate. He spoke by phone with White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and with FEMA administrator Brock Long. FEMA tweeted a photo of a warehouse loaded with bottled water and other supplies "if needed."
Scott executed his state of emergency across all 67 counties and ordered all 7,000 of the state's National Guard members to report for duty Friday. He reached out to FEMA for food, water and tarps. Monroe County, home of the Florida Keys, closed schools and government offices starting Wednesday and said evacuations will begin Wednesday morning. Miami-Dade County closed schools and offices starting Thursday and urged tourists to leave the area as soon as possible.
More:Irma is new threat to airline flights
More:Cruise ships alter course to avoid Irma
Travel, tourism making adjustments
Some of the islands in Irma's path are major tourism draws, and the scramble to reroute tourists is on. Cruise lines are taking steps, with Carnival saying four of its ships are rerouting to avoid the Eastern Caribbean and Irma. The Royal Caribbean's 5,400-passenger Allure of the Seas, one of the world's largest cruise ships, also announced a re-route. Some airlines have begun waiving change fees to Caribbean destinations, and the program could be expanded to the U.S. mainland in coming days.
Contributing: Doyle Rice, Alan Gomez, Gene Sloan and Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY; Arek Sarkissian, Naples Daily News
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1575662b652f2efc11a4179e28b67e35 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/07/conversation-campus-rape-so-much-bigger-than-title-ix/632803001/ | The conversation about campus rape is so much bigger than Title IX | The conversation about campus rape is so much bigger than Title IX
America just entered a new era in the campus rape debate.
In a speech at George Mason University on Thursday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she is rolling back Obama administration rules on investigating campus sexual assaults, which she said created a "failed system" that was unfair to students.
President Obama's 2011 guidance on Title IX, a 1972 federal law that prevents discrimination in education based on sex, required schools to respond to reports of sexual violence. It was controversial from the start, embroiling the country in a politically divisive conversation about how investigations into campus sexual assault are handled and where they ultimately belong: at universities or in the criminal justice system.
More:DeVos to revamp Title IX guidance on school sex assault
Survivor advocates say many students want their cases handled by their colleges, because they don't trust the legal system. Most criminal reports of rape never lead to an arrest. Advocates for the wrongfully accused and some legal experts, however, argue universities lack the legal tools — such as subpoena power — needed to conduct fair investigations.
But investigations happen after the fact. At the true heart of the debate is sex itself: how college kids are having it, how they get consent from partners and when the line into sexual assault is crossed.
"Everybody's been so focused on 'let's blame Vanderbilt, or the University of Kansas.' ... I think it's almost like they don't want to talk about what they're really talking about, which is straight-up sex, and who has the power," said Vanessa Grigoriadis, a journalist who spoke extensively with universities, survivors and the accused for her new book, Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus.
Q&A:Campus rape gets serious look in 'Blurred Lines'
Power is a huge part of sex, and men have historically held most of it, Grigoriadis said. Power influences who initiates sexual activity and who calls the shots during it.
Sexual dynamics are shifting, though, especially among younger women. While the nation might tune in only when there's a high-profile rape case, negotiations around consensual sex are happening on college campuses every night.
New definitions, shifting dynamics
In June of 2016, sexual assault survivor Emily Doe read an impassioned victim impact statement in court to her attacker, Stanford student Brock Turner. The letter went viral, and elevated campus sexual assault to a new level of national attention. But while millions were moved by Doe's eloquence and horrified by the details of her case — she was assaulted behind a dumpster while unconscious — Grigoriadis said cases like Doe's are not the norm. In most of the stories she heard first-hand during three years of research in interviews with 120 students, cases were far more complex, and it was not always easy to discern whether consent was obtained.
"There has been an expansion of the definition of sexual assault that not every American agrees with," Grigoriadis said. "At the same time, there is confusion around consent. What is consent? How do you get it? What did she have to say in the moment?"
The FBI updated its definition of rape in 2013 from "carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will" to "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." Definitions around consent are changing, too. States such as New York and California have passed affirmative consent laws — also known as "yes means yes" laws — and many schools have implemented their own affirmative consent policies.
With a "yes means yes" standard, silence doesn't count as consent. Neither does a lack of resistance. Consent — which can be given through words or actions — must be voluntary and mutual and can be withdrawn at any time.
While it's clear to most people that it's not OK to have sex with someone who is passed out, young men and women aren't always on the same page when it comes to what constitutes consent when both people are conscious. A 2015 Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll of current and recent college students found 95% of of the men surveyed agree sex when a person is unconscious or incapacitated is assault. But that same poll found while at least 40% of respondents said undressing, getting a condom or nodding establishes consent, at least 40% said those same actions do not.
Despite these differences, Brett Sokolow, executive director of the Association of Title IX Administrators, a professional association that helps schools ensure Title IX compliance, believes affirmative consent is becoming entrenched.
"Rape laws and definitions of sex offenses have historically been defined not only from a male perspective, but from a patriarchal lens and a property lens," Sokolow said. "Our society is shifting more and more toward women's autonomy, so a consent-based rule makes a lot of sense. ... It's something [college kids] feel is reasonable."
What's changed, and what hasn't
Definitions may be shifting, but sexual assault on college campuses remains pervasive: A 2015 survey from the Association of American Universities, a higher-education policy advocacy group made up of dozens of schools, found that 23.1% of female undergraduate students surveyed said they had experienced sexual assault or misconduct through physical force, threats or incapacitation.
And now is when students are most at risk. More than 50% of college sexual assaults take place between August and November, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), which advocates nationally against sexual violence. It's why colleges have dubbed the early part of the school year "the red zone."
Many colleges have stepped up their sexual-assault prevention and awareness efforts to address the red zone, but activists say that's not enough: They criticize the policies for focusing more of their campaigns on how women can avoid rape (travel in groups, don't put down your drink), and less on discouraging men from committing violence.
"We need more honesty that there is a sexualized culture, that girls are participating in it, but that they deserve to be able to participate in it without being assaulted," Grigoriadis said.
Ending rape means changing more than definitions; it means changing culture — and young people know it. The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll that found men and women don't always see eye to eye on consent did find widespread agreement on something: To prevent sexual assault, 93% said men should respect women more.
Consent. Hook-ups. Harassment:Why you must talk to your teen about all of it before college
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f0fb2b0fab7bf18817d06da716f72b6f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/07/how-protect-your-pets-during-hurricane-irma/637736001/ | How to protect your pets during Hurricane Irma | How to protect your pets during Hurricane Irma
Don't forget the dog dish, the cat's meds and crickets for the gecko.
These are the urgent messages veterinarians, animal shelter operators and other animal advocates are promoting as hundreds of thousands of Floridians flee the angry approach of Hurricane Irma.
Gov. Rick Scott urged hotels that ban pets to waive the rule for pet owners fleeing the storm. The University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine, part of the state’s disaster response system, assured pet lovers the state is setting up pet-friendly people shelters that allow the whole family to stay together.
"Do not leave your pet behind," the school's shelter medicine program implored in a statement. "If it’s not safe for you, it’s not safe for your pet."
More:Florida under hurricane watch as Irma roars toward U.S. mainland
More:Hurricane Irma: Where is the Category 5 storm now and where is it headed next?
The American Veterinary Medical Association is reminding families developing disaster plans to include pet kits — and the list is extensive. Important components include three to seven days' worth of food, a two-week supply of medicine, seven days of water, a dish and water bowl, flea and tick prevention, ownership documents and some "comfort" toys. And don't forget the pet first-aid kit of antibiotic ointment, bandages, saline and related equipment.
"First aid care is not a substitute for veterinary care, but it may save your pet's life until it receives veterinary treatment," the group says.
"The critical things are food, medication and identification," veterinarian Michael Topper, president of the AVMA, told USA TODAY. "And if the food is canned, make sure you don't need a can opener to pry it open."
And of course don't forget your pet's favorite blanket or toy.
"In general, pets do alright if they are with their owners," he said. "But they are going to be stressed if they see that you are stressed."
Topper says to take a picture with your pet so that you can prove ownership if you get separated.
Laura Bevan, the southern region director for the Humane Society of the United States, says pets should be transported in crates and kept close by.
"Even most of the exotics you can put in a crate," she said. "You are going to have a lot more trouble ID'ing it. You won't have a dog tag on an iguana."
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services temporarily suspended the intrastate movement requirements for animals. Shelters were sending animals to facilities in other states. Border states waived their import requirements for Florida’s pets and livestock leaving the expected impact areas of Hurricane Irma.
Bevan said there are places around the state and elsewhere taking cattle and other farm animals. The Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, N.C., opened 400 stalls for animals whose caretakers were forced to evacuate.
"If you have a horse, the main thing is to get them to high ground," Bevan said. "See if you can get them somewhere where there won't be trees flying at them."
Contributing: Elizabeth LaFleur, The Greenville (S.C.) News
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999de788ecf97c6a1234efbd0b015478 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/08/gander-newfoundland-september-11-terror-attacks-kindess-come-from-away/631329001/ | An oasis of kindness on 9/11: This town welcomed 6,700 strangers amid terror attacks | An oasis of kindness on 9/11: This town welcomed 6,700 strangers amid terror attacks
GANDER, Newfoundland — They still don't know what all the fuss is about.
Sixteen years ago, this small Canadian town on an island in the North Atlantic Ocean took in nearly 6,700 people – almost doubling its population – when the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York and Washington forced 38 planes to land here.
Their simple hospitality to the unexpected house guests drew worldwide accolades and even inspired a Broadway musical.
“Everyone looks at us and says that’s an amazing thing that you did, and the bottom line is I don’t think it was an amazing thing, I think it was the right thing you do,” says Diane Davis, 53, a now-retired teacher who helped 750 people housed at the town's elementary school.
In a world today seemingly fraught with division, terrorism and hate, they’d do it all over again. Kindness is woven into the very fabric of their nature — they don’t know any other way to live.
“What we consider the most simple thing in life is to help people,” says Mayor Claude Elliott, who retires this month after serving as the town’s leader for 21 years. “You’re not supposed to look at people’s color, their religion, their sexual orientation — you look at them as people.”
To give you a glimpse of life here, start with this: Many Ganderites don’t lock the doors to their homes or cars. Everyone says hello to everyone. People know their neighbors. “My love” or “my dear” adorn every other sentence — except the Newfie accent makes the “my” sound like “me.”
Still, there’s a wariness here: Not for the town itself, nor its future, nor the anchor of civility it represents. Instead, there’s a concern for the rest of the world, especially the U.S., as it faces terrorism, rogue nations and violent protests in the streets.
“I'm scared at the way we're going and what the world will look like in 10 years,” says Elliott, 67. “If we keep on going, we’re going to set our world back 100 years.”
A sinking feeling
When Garry Tuff, then acting manager of safety and security for emergency response services at Gander International Airport, saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center, he knew his town of 10,000 people would be impacted. The airport here marks the closest point between Europe and the U.S. and is a preferred emergency landing spot for medical and other emergencies.
The 38 planes came “fast and furious” into the airport a short while later.
After figuring out how to park all the planes, some of which later started sinking into the pavement because of their weight and the warm temperatures, officials spent the next 24 hours unloading luggage and people. Passengers faced intense scrutiny as they passed through customs. “Everybody was a suspect,” says Des Dillon, 75, then the manager of the Canadian Red Cross in Gander.
But everyone was a guest, too. Beyond the basics of food and water, some passengers on board needed medicine. Many left prescriptions in checked, inaccessible luggage. Pharmacists in town worked around the clock, calling dozens of countries to fill prescriptions.
Then, there were the smokers on board, unable to get a fix for hours. “We bought every bit of nicotine gum that was in town,” Tuff says.
Welcome to Gander, casserole city
To say this town of 10,000 people and its surrounding communities welcomed the passengers and crew from nearly 100 countries with open arms is an understatement. The town all but shut down for the “plane people,” inspiring the Tony-award winning Broadway musical Come From Away.
“We did not know how we would be affected, if these people were staying, if the people who were coming were good people or not so good people,” says Linda Sweetapple, 54, business manager and partner at Sweetapple Accounting Group. “We just knew that we had to make room for them and take care of them. They were here, and they needed our help.”
As the planes, still packed with passengers, sat for hours at the airport, the town bustled with activity. Volunteers readied makeshift shelters — every school, gym, community center, church and camp, any place that could fit a planeload of people. Gander’s 500 hotel rooms were reserved for pilots and flight crews.
Bus drivers in the middle of a nasty strike laid down picket signs. Donations of toiletries, clothes, toys, towels, toothbrushes, pillows, blankets and bedding piled up. For security reasons, passengers weren’t allowed to take checked bags.
Gander residents began cooking — a lot. Grocery store shelves went bare. The Walmart ran out of nearly everything — underwear was a particularly hot commodity — and the local hockey rink transformed into the world’s largest refrigerator.
“It was like casserole city,” says Reg Wright, 43, president and CEO of Gander International Airport.
‘Poster child for hospitality’
Stuck on planes for up to 31 hours since taking off from Europe and in the age before smartphones and social media, many passengers didn’t know exactly what caused their diversion to this tiny Canadian province. Those who did still couldn’t fathom the terror attacks in the U.S. without seeing them.
When passengers finally saw the destruction, Gander Police Constable Oz Fudge, 62, remembers the gasps.
“You hear this ‘huh’ when the plane hit the towers,” says Fudge, the town’s police constable. “That sound I hear all the time, of the shock that’s on their faces as they’re standing there looking at this TV and the look of loss on their faces.
"I’ll live with that for the rest of my life."
The outpouring of kindness in the town only multiplied over the next five days. Gander residents took passengers sightseeing, moose hunting, berry picking and barbecuing. They entertained with music, stopped anyone walking down the street in case they wanted a ride and brought strangers into their homes for showers or even as guests for a few nights. They refused to accept money, though passengers later donated thousands to the town.
“They couldn’t comprehend what we were doing,” says Dave Blundon, 67, who took in one of the families. “The way they looked at you — they almost wanted to touch you to make sure you’re real.”
Robert Steuber, 55, stranded with his wife and elderly father-in-law after their Paris to St. Louis jet diverted, never felt like an outsider.
“That whole community is the poster child for how hospitality and just a sheer act of humanity should be because they had such a high level of open arms, and come in and welcome and here’s my house,” says Steuber, whose St. Louis family eventually ended up with the Blundons. “It just absolutely floored me.”
The 'come from aways'
Israel, Austria, Spain, Poland, France, the Philippines, Iran, Italy, England, Germany, Thailand, Belgium, Ukraine, Africa, Hungary, Uganda, Senegal, Russia, United Arab Emirates and just about every state in the USA. The “come from aways,” as Newfoundlanders call anyone not from the island, were from all over the world, and despite the intense situation, no one in Gander batted an eye — prejudice against anyone is an entirely foreign concept here.
Today, the crosswalk in front of Gander’s town hall is painted as a rainbow, and churches raised thousands of Canadian dollars to welcome four Syrian refugee families into the community, with a fifth scheduled to arrive next year. Many here don’t understand the division and hate in other parts of the world.
“One thing this world is lacking today is common sense, that’s going out the door. We have to set more of an example and show the world we can all live in harmony regardless of what we are,” Elliott, the mayor, says.
That lesson wove its way into and changed Kevin Tuerff’s life. Sixteen years after his Air France flight from Paris to New York diverted to Gander, Tuerff, 51, is a character in the musical, author of the book Channel of Peace: Stranded in Gander on 9/11 and the force behind a Pay It Forward 9/11 movement that urges everyone to perform acts of kindness each year.
Gander is like a second home to him. “They are a shining beacon for how America once was kind to strangers, immigrants and refugees, and we need to get back that way,” he says.
Yet, over and over again, residents here say what happened in Gander isn’t unique, that anyone would lend a hand in a crisis, even pointing to residents in Texas and around the U.S. who helped during Hurricane Harvey.
“No matter where you go people are good. I truly believe that in my heart. There’s 1% arseholes everywhere and if this happened where you live, you would help,” says Karen Mills, 54, manager of the Comfort Inn in Gander. “But Newfoundlanders, we’re a different breed in a lot of ways."
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594c6c7c2199e1f70b1c7e1fe26b3940 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/08/hurricane-irma-fliers-miami-airport-some-depart-others-stranded/646402001/ | Wait and see for fliers at Miami airport: Some depart, others stranded for Irma | Wait and see for fliers at Miami airport: Some depart, others stranded for Irma
MIAMI — As anxious fliers waited to see if their planes would depart, hundreds of others with already canceled flights evacuated Miami International Airport for hurricane shelters Friday.
Many of the stranded travelers who didn't get out in time were visiting from abroad and spoke little English, causing confusion about what was happening. Around 1 p.m. shuttles began collecting fliers and airport staff went person-to-person checking on needs.
The airport is a substantially constructed building with large indoor spaces away from windows, but is not a designated hurricane shelter. The airport said its terminals would remain open and only close if Irma causes severe damage or safety concerns, in which case passengers would need to be evacuated.
By 11 a.m. Friday, 271 departing flights and 324 arrivals were canceled at the airport, more than half its average daily schedule.
More:Police shoot knife-wielding man at Miami airport as thousands try to flee Irma
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More:Stranded cruisers escape Florida on ... a ship called Escape
For days, airport officials asked outbound passengers to stay away from the terminals if they could. But many fliers have nowhere else to go, especially those connecting to or from international destinations.
Big-screen TVs broadcast the latest storm predictions Friday afternoon amid a tense atmosphere as anxious passengers waited to see if their flights would depart or join the growing list of cancellations.
"We couldn't drive anywhere," said Fidelma Farinas, 33, of Miami as she waited with her German shepherd, Max, for an afternoon flight to Grand Cayman. "The roads were a mess, there's no gas."
When Farinas' boss suggested her family come to Grand Cayman to avoid the storm, she quickly rounded up her husband, two kids, in-laws and two dogs, plus an elderly neighbor.
"There's going to be nine of us camping out at my boss' mansion," said Farinas, 33, who works in insurance. Her family photographed all their belongings before they left, but are expecting to see their Miami home significantly damaged.
"Our expectation is we will come back to nothing," she said. "It's just tough. All of it can be bought again. But what you can't get back is your family."
More:Florida flight cancellations spiking
More:A list of all the Florida airports halting flights
More:Hurricane Irma's track through center of Florida is unusual
Mary and Mike Street lived through Andrew trashing their Miami-area house 25 years ago, so they didn't have to think too hard about not canceling a long-planned dream vacation to Utah and Wyoming. Knowing Irma will likely leave large portions of Florida without power for days or longer, the couple headed to the airport.
Excitedly discussing their trip to both Park City and the Grand Tetons, the Streets said they don't have any second thoughts. Their kids evacuated out of the storm's path, and they know there's not much they could do to protect the house anyway.
"There won't be any electricity or services or anything for days, if not weeks," Mary Street said, recalling how they bathed in the nearby canal for days after Andrew.
"We knew from Andrew we didn't want to go through it again," Mike Street laughed.
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917b979a11d08acd6897b067e17fd2c9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/11/hurricane-irma-how-you-can-help/653373001/ | Hurricane Irma: How you can help | Hurricane Irma: How you can help
Many relief organizations are doing double duty responding to the whammy of Hurricane Harvey and Irma in a two-week time frame.
On Monday, as the now-Tropical Storm Irma continued its perilous trek northward — and a third hurricane was lurking near Turks and Caicos — jurisdictions begin to pick up the pieces and assess the toll. And Americans, again, are eager to help.
Here are some organizations where you can direct your dollars:
UNICEF USA says it is targeting children impacted by Irma and is on the ground with staff and equipment for water treatment, hygiene and more within the Caribbean.
Catholic Relief Services is soliciting donations to respond to Irma and to prepare for Hurricane Jose for people in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and other Caribbean Islands.
World Vision is providing immediate supplies as well as long-term aid to families along Irma's path. The Christian humanitarian organization says 90% of a donation goes directly to help those impacted.
The Red Cross, whose management has come under fire after a congressional report and media probes in recent years, says it has mobilized its second massive hurricane response in two weeks and is providing critical aid for Irma and Harvey victims.
Operation USA, a Los Angeles-based disaster relief group, offers a wide variety of ways to lend a hand from sending a check to donating air mileage.
Americares, which is providing emergency health care access in Texas for Harvey victims, is also partnering with health centers in Florida along Irma's path.
GoFundMe, a crowdfunding platform, has created a landing page that aggregates all campaigns created by and for Florida victims as well as relief efforts in the Caribbean. People can donate to a direct-impact fund or create their own fundraisers.
PayPal, which operates a worldwide online payments system, has launched a disaster relief campaign and says it will waive processing costs to ensure that 100% of donations go toward the effort. The company, which is also running a campaign for Harvey, is a sponsor of a telethon called Hand in Hand – A Benefit for Hurricane Relief. It will air Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on multiple networks and feature more than 40 celebrities.
Habitat for Humanity is working with its local offices in Florida and the Caribbean to inspect damage from Irma. The group is helping families clean up after both Harvey and Irma and will help with rebuilding efforts. Donations can be made at habitat.org/hurricanes or by calling 1-800-HABITAT.
The Salvation Army has mobilized Harvey and Irma relief teams to provide meals, shelter and emotional and spiritual care, the organization says.
The American University of Antigua has created a fund specifically for the battered nation of Barbuda to provide food, water and medicine in addition to longer-term recovery assistance. All donations to this fund will be matched by AUA, the university says.
Charity Navigator, a watchdog that appraises charities based on their tax filings, lists 22 groups responding to Irma that hold at least a three-star rating. You can find the list here. The group advises people to research relief organizations before making a donation.
Retailer Target has pledged up to $1 million for Hurricane Irma relief. The donation is in addition to the $3.5 million the company committed last week to Hurricane Harvey assistance. Target says the money will benefit the store's team members affected by the storms and other national and international relief organizations.
And Pet Smart Charities says it has committed $1 million in grant funding to help pets and pet families in need after Irma and $2 million to Hurricane Harvey relief. Shoppers also can donate to hurricane relief efforts at PetSmart stores.
More:Faith groups provide the bulk of disaster recovery, in coordination with FEMA
More:Not sure where to donate for Hurricane Harvey relief? Here are 40 (highly rated) places
More:Irma, still battering Florida, weakens to tropical storm
More:As hurricane needs swell, some suggest steering clear of Red Cross. Why?
Follow Miller on Twitter @susmiller
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7094abe9e4c883b2f789e0958b78d26e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/20/aclu-sues-michigan-over-religious-exemptions-adoptions/682065001/ | ACLU sues Michigan over religious exemptions for adoptions | ACLU sues Michigan over religious exemptions for adoptions
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit Wednesday challenging Michigan's practice of allowing adoption agencies to spurn potential LGBT parents under the guise of religion.
Religious exemption laws let people, churches and sometimes corporations cite religious beliefs as a reason not to enforce a law — such as declining to marry a same-sex couple or letting state-funded foster agencies refuse to place kids with same-sex couples.
The Michigan adoption law leads to “fewer options for children” when the pool of qualified adopters is diluted because of unreasonable legislation, ACLU lawyer Leslie Cooper said. “There is a desperate need for families. We need more families, not fewer.”
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed the state’s controversial bill into law in June 2015. The law in essence lets faith-based agencies say no to prospective parents if saying yes violates the group’s religious or moral beliefs.
The ACLU is hoping for a “clearer ruling” in court that says private agencies — ones receiving taxpayer dollars — can't turn away potential adopters if they don't share the agency’s religious convictions, Cooper said.
Religious exemption bills made up the bulk of anti-LGBT bills that wove their way through statehouses this year, according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a think tank that researches and analyzes laws with LGBT implications: 45 exemption bills were introduced in 22 states.
Michigan is one of seven states with adoption exemption laws on the books, three of which were passed in 2017. The others: Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia.
"These bills are primarily driven by anti-LGBT animus. However, because explicitly targeting LGBT people would be clearly unconstitutional, the bills are written very broadly,” MAP Executive Director Ineke Mushovic said. “Very few people understand how profoundly harmful the effects of this type of legislation could be.”
Supporters say religious exemption bills provide “freedom of conscience,” which they believe is a critical right.
"Focus on the Family strongly supports the religious freedom rights of all businesses and organizations, including faith-based adoption agencies," said Jim Daly, Focus on the Family president.
"Not only have the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby and Trinity Lutheran decisions reaffirmed long-standing principles by which government should respect the free exercise rights of organizations that seek to operate according to their deeply held beliefs, but such respect enables entities like faith-based adoption agencies to fill a critical need in society," he said.
And faith-based groups have a "proven track record" when it comes to placing children in good homes, Daly said.
KIDS IN NEED OF HOMES
Legislation that undercuts adoptions can be detrimental on many levels, Cooper said. “We want to send a message to legislatures. We have to make clear these kinds of laws are unconstitutional,” she said.
MAP paints a stark picture of the number of kids in need of homes in a report released Wednesday to coincide with the ACLU suit. There are nearly 428,000 children in foster care in the U.S. — and 111,000 of those are awaiting adoption, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stats cited in “Kids Pay the Price: How Religious Exemptions for Child Welfare Agencies Harm Children."
More than half awaiting adoption – 53% — had been waiting more than two years to be placed; 10% waited more than five years for a permanent home.
"Older children are adopted at lower rates and may exit care without finding a loving, permanent home,” Mushovic said, noting that in 2015, 20,000 children “aged out” of the foster system.
Exemption laws like Michigan’s result in children spending more time in the welfare system instead, according to the MAP report, which is unhealthy for kids and costly for states.
The report notes that diverse families — single parents, unmarried couples, families headed by LGBT parents — are key members of the foster and adoptive world. Same-sex couples are four times more likely than married opposite-sex couples to raise an adopted child and six times more likely to raise foster children, according to the Williams Institute.
More:Onslaught of anti-LGBT bills in 2017 has activists 'playing defense'
More:Even in 'good' states, LGBT advocates say there is work to be done
More:Beyond the bathroom: Report shows laws' harm for transgender students
And there are other worrisome issues, Mushovic said.
“An agency may decide that LGBT children should only be placed with parents who will place them in conversion therapy programs to try to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. Or what happens when a child welfare worker has religious objections to vaccinations …. and won’t support placements with parents who disagree?”
Michigan’s exemption law requires that agencies who turn down prospective parents refer families to another agency or to Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services website. But they are not required to inform the applicants of the impetus behind the rejection and the group has the authority to say no even if there are no other nearby service agencies.
“A couple can go to another agency, but a 12-year-old can’t,” Cooper said. “These children are losing the opportunity to get placed.”
OTHER ISSUES IN PLAY
Religious exemption laws have other sweeping implications even beyond the LGBT community, the MAP report suggests:
• An agency that provides counseling services could turn away a family in crisis because the family doesn’t attend a certain place of worship or the parents are unmarried.
• A Christian child placement agency could refuse Jewish parents or a Jewish child placement agency could nix Christian parents.
• Cohabitating unmarried couples could be rejected for consideration.
• Agencies could use the law to argue for practices such as faith-healing of sick children or military-style discipline.
“These laws open a can of worms and are ripe for abuse,” Mushovic said. “It’s not just LGBT parents who can be rejected. It’s a wide range of parents that don’t meet the agency’s religious criteria — and depending on the agency, that could be a big list.”
REJECTED BY AGENCIES
Kristy and Dana Dumont were together for 11 years and married since 2011 when they made a life-changing decision: to start a family by adopting a child. Kristy Dumont, a state employee, was well aware of the need for adoptive families. The couple decided to "open their home and hearts" to one of those kids and chose a residence near Lansing with a top-notch school district, she said.
But when they reached out to state-contracted child placement agencies in their county, they say they were rebuffed by two groups because they are a same-sex couple.
The Dumonts, along with another same-sex couple and a former Michigan foster youth, are now plaintiffs in the suit filed Wednesday challenging the state's Health and Human Services' policy on adoptions and foster placement
“So many children in Michigan need homes," Dumont said. "The state should do all that it can to make sure children in the foster care system have access to all available, qualified families.”
Follow Miller on Twitter @susmiller
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0f38eef2b2f0790b96abea94e3196f17 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/20/frustrations-boil-over-miami-following-hurricane-irma/685262001/ | Frustrations boil over in Miami following Hurricane Irma | Frustrations boil over in Miami following Hurricane Irma
MIAMI — Ten days after Hurricane Irma made landfall on the west side of the Florida peninsula, residents on the east side are growing increasingly frustrated that government and power officials haven't yet gotten the region completely up and running.
After threatening to plow straight into downtown Miami, Irma veered west and spared the booming metropolitan region from its full wrath. The National Weather Service estimates that Miami-Dade County received sustained tropical storm force winds between 50 and 70 mph, with frequent Category 1 and 2 gusts up to 100 mph.
Those winds were strong enough to knock out power to 90% of homes in the county, and many feel that the region's most vulnerable remain in the dark. The Miami-Dade County Commission held a budget hearing on Tuesday night that transformed into a public venting session for angry residents, who were repeatedly asked by commissioners to keep their cool as their voices raged.
"In the days after the storm, families went hungry, elders suffered from the heat, people with diabetes were desperately asking for ice for their insulin, and the level of need was reprehensible," said Andrea Mercado, executive director of the New Florida Majority, a group that organizes political campaigns focused on poor and minority communities. "It didn’t need to be this way."
Valencia Gunder echoed those concerns. The community activist estimates that she coordinated 200 volunteers who helped hammer plywood on people's windows and delivered food and water to poor neighborhoods. She pleaded with commissioners to stop congratulating themselves over their hurricane response and start scrutinizing the gaps in their response that has still left some people without help.
"I do not know the complete protocol for emergency response after a storm, but I really believe that it needs to be revisited now," Gunder said. "We need to revisit every plan, turn over every page."
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez bristled at accusations that the county has been slow to respond to poor neighborhoods in the county. He pointed out that the county oversaw 661,000 evacuations and opened 43 shelters that housed 31,500 residents — all county records.
"I’ve never heard of these people," Gimenez said during a break in the commission meeting Tuesday. "So their claim of feeding people, etc., etc., I don’t even know if it’s true. I know the county response was very good. In the street, we get complimented all the time."
More:Florida volunteers step in to prepare for Hurricane Irma
More:Analysis: After hurricanes, President Trump takes up role of 'responder-in-chief'
The anger in South Florida has also been directed at Florida Power & Light (FPL) which powers half the state and nearly all of the Miami region.
While Miami-Dade County was spared the worst of Irma's winds, they were still strong enough to knock out power to 90% of homes in the county. Residents pointed to the nearly 10,000 homes that were still in the dark Tuesday night and wondered how the city could survive a stronger storm if Irma was able to do so much damage.
"The hurricane didn’t hit. The power stayed out for how long? It’s still out in some places. Have you talked with those people?," said David McDougal, who worked with activist groups to help low-income residents prepare for and respond to the storm.
Two law firms filed a lawsuit against FPL this week, arguing that Floridians have been charged higher rates intended to strengthen an electrical grid that failed during Irma. City leaders in Coral Gables and the Pinecrest neighborhood of Miami have also threatened litigation over the outages.
FPL dismissed those threats, issuing a strongly worded statement blaming Coral Gables in particular for not controlling the massive, street-covering trees that define the upscale city and knocked out power lines throughout the city.
By midday Wednesday, FPL had restored power to all but 890 accounts in Miami-Dade County, meaning 99.9% of homes that lost power during Irma were back online. FPL spokesman Peter Robbins said that's a remarkable turnaround given the widespread outages throughout the state.
"There’s no such thing as 'only' a Cat 1 or 'only' a weak hurricane," he said. "By definition, they are incredibly powerful forces of nature and Irma was no exception."
Engineering experts agreed. Jerry Paul, an engineer and former state legislator, said he feels terribly for anybody still living without power 10 days after the storm. But he said overall, FPL's ability to get the majority of Miami-Dade County homes back online within a week was "extraordinary."
The company has spent nearly $3 billion since Hurricane Wilma in 2005 to install concrete power poles for its transmission lines and make its entire system more resilient. Paul, who used to worked at the U.S. Department of Energy, said that resulted in a statewide response following Irma that is the envy of the nation.
"Any state in the country will give anything to have that response following a tornado or a hurricane," Paul said. "That’s no consolation if it’s you that is out of electricity. But relative to other places and how long they’re out, it’s night and day."
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13d5f85fbd71dd5da3ecb1c2bf3930d9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/22/ex-baylor-president-some-women-willingly-make-themselves-victims-sexual-assault/694376001/ | Ex-Baylor president: Some women 'willingly' make themselves victims of sexual assault | Ex-Baylor president: Some women 'willingly' make themselves victims of sexual assault
WACO, Texas (AP) — A court filing this week reveals that the former interim president of Baylor University referred to some women who said they had been sexually assaulted as willing victims, amid lingering allegations that the nation's largest Baptist school repeatedly mishandled or stifled claims of sexual and physical abuse.
HAPPENING TODAY:Betsy DeVos scraps Obama-era guidelines on sexual assault
The remark came in an email exchange last year between David Garland and a Baylor administrator. The email was obtained by lawyers for 10 women who are suing Baylor on claims the school ignored their allegations.
Garland also said in the email that he had heard a radio interview with an author who chronicled her alcoholism at college, the Waco Tribune-Herald reports. He wrote in the email that the interview "added another perspective for me of what is going on in the heads of some women who may seem willingly to make themselves victims."
BAYLOR SCANDAL: 'Violated' a reminder of Art Briles' role
He then cited verses in the New Testament referring to God's wrath on those who commit sexual sin.
The plaintiffs in Wednesday's federal court filing argue that it's central to their case that Garland "would conclude that these young women made themselves willing victims of sexual assault" and "would then immediately find relevance in 'God's wrath' upon them."
Garland didn't return a request for comment from the newspaper.
Waco attorney Jim Dunnam, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said Garland's viewpoint is shared by other Baylor leaders.
"Unfortunately, it reflects an attitude at the top of the university, which, frankly, anyone who loves Baylor should be disgusted by," he told the paper.
CAMPUS RAPE:The issue goes so much deeper than Title IX
In a statement released Thursday, the university said, "As stated previously, we will maintain our efforts to keep discovery focused on this specific case while protecting the privacy of our students and their records. This filing is one step in a long process, and out of respect for the legal proceedings in this case, the university will decline to comment further."
The university earlier this month settled a federal lawsuit filed by a former student who said she was gang raped by two football players and alleged the school's football program fostered a "culture of violence."
The settlement was one of several in recent weeks as Baylor moves to close out lawsuits filed following an investigation into how the school handled reports of sexual and physical assaults for years. The probe led to the firing of former football coach Art Briles and the departure of former school President Ken Starr.
Garland is on sabbatical and scheduled to return to Baylor in August to teach. Linda Livingstone has been named the new Baylor president.
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6e69c6b921aafd9030667570e40ca8b4 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/25/hurricane-irma-shuts-door-keys-most-affordable-housing-rvs-and-trailer-parks/697097001/ | Hurricane Irma shuts the door on Keys' most affordable housing -- RVs and trailer parks | Hurricane Irma shuts the door on Keys' most affordable housing -- RVs and trailer parks
BIG PINE KEY, Fla. — As Hurricane Irma bore down as a Category 4 behemoth, Kevin McNamara evacuated his trailer home on this island in the Florida Keys.
The storm passed, but a frantic text message rolled in. There was a letter taped to his door advising McNamara to clear out and find new housing, his sister wrote in the text. Irma had caused massive damage to the Sea Horse RV Park and crews would sweep out the debris and damaged trailers "within the week."
The only offer of help: the phone number and website for FEMA.
The roughly 50 residents who live in the Sea Horse RV Park remained on edge this weekend, wondering when they would be kicked out of the only homes they could afford on this increasingly-expensive chain of islands.
"I was fuming, man. Everybody panicked," said McNamara, 52, a carpenter who moved to the Keys from Lowell, Mass., 22 years ago. "I thought, 'I can't wait to meet the (person) who wrote it."
To the residents, the letter represented the latest affront in what has been a decades-long trend throughout the Keys: expensive hotels, ritzy resorts and fancy homes replacing simple, affordable Keys bungalows.
Patty Neice, 63, who has tended bar for 33 years at Coconut's Bar & Liquor Store, a Keys fixture that includes a rare drive-through window, said Sea Horse represents one of the last places that working-class people could afford in the Keys. She and her husband pay $525 a month to rent their spot, where they've had a trailer for 10 years.
"I've learned to share this island with the rich people, they've got to learn to share with us," Neice said. "We deserve the same right to live here as anybody else."
More:Hurricane Irma takes toll on already limited affordable housing in Florida Keys
More:Irma aftermath: Florida Keys boat captains fear they won't stay afloat if tourism sinks
More:First post-Hurricane Irma cruise ship docks in Key West
If history is any indicator, the RV park residents have reason to worry.
Keys authorities severely restrict new development. Monroe County's Rate of Growth Ordinance sets number of housing units allowed . But developers can transfer units they own from island to island: If they remove one home in Big Pine Key, for example, they can build a new one in Key West.
Matthew Strunk bought the Sea Horse RV property in 2014 and eliminated 100 units from the property. He used the credits for those units to build the 100-room Perry Hotel Key West, an upscale, boutique hotel that overlooks a marina and the ocean.
Now the remaining residents fear Strunk and his company, Longstock II LLC, will use Irma to boot them off the property.
"He's looking for his excuse to get us out," said Gregory Scorza, 62, who makes his living taking pictures of Key West tourists posing with his parrots and snakes. "But you're not supposed to take advantage of people in the middle of a disaster."
Mike Hartman, the general manager of Strunk's hotel who was handling the post-storm situation at the RV park, admitted the letter taped onto residents' homes was misleading and caused undue aggravation to people already struggling to recover.
"We had just come off an intense week. It was written with a fair amount of haste," Hartman said. "We probably shouldn't have written it at all."
But during an interview on Sunday, Strunk said the underlying problem remains — the trailer park is no longer safe to live, and residents will have to clear out. Strunk's attorney said the outdated electrical system in the park took even more damage from saltwater flooding from Irma, and said the park now constitutes a "life safety" problem for anyone living there.
Officials from the company spent the week visiting residents at the park and said they tried their best to help. They signed residents up for FEMA assistance and offered them rides to hurricane shelters that remain open nearby.
Strunk said he will offer the Sea Horse park to house FEMA trailers. But, he said, residents will still near to clear out so the Army Corps of Engineers can fix the widespread damage to the property.
In a new letter to the residents on Sunday, the company said ownership it will try to get the residents into new trailers if Sea Horse is chosen as a FEMA site. But Strunk made clear that the park will be closed, and couldn't say how much longer the residents could remain.
"They don’t have to leave right away," Strunk said. "The lack of information caused this rush to judgment. We take responsibility for that. We need to find a better way to communicate."
That matters little to residents who say they won't be able to find a temporary solution.
McNamara, the carpenter, rented a 6-by-6 storage unit to keep his tools safe for now. Where he goes, he has no idea.
He said finding affordable housing anywhere in the Keys is already hard enough. "'Affordable housing' around here is a two-bedroom for $2,500," he said.
And with most properties in the Keys still undergoing repairs following Irma, McNamara said there won't be anywhere left for him and his neighbors to go.
"It all comes down to greed, doesn't it?" he said.
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aa96ed419cdaa678df1525c111094c6f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/27/mosquito-coast-hurricane-irma-still-has-lots-bite-left/705702001/ | Mosquito coast: Hurricane Irma still has lots of bite left | Mosquito coast: Hurricane Irma still has lots of bite left
CUDJOE KEY, Fla. — Hurricane Irma has come and gone, but the massive storm left behind a looming public safety threat: mosquitoes.
Officials throughout South Florida are always fighting the never-ending battle against mosquitoes in this hot, humid region sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Everglades. Hurricane Irma tilted that fight even more in favor of the blood-sucking, disease-carrying insects.
Neighborhoods throughout the region are now brimming with hurricane debris, including tree limbs, construction materials, and all kinds of damaged containers that can hold water, the perfect breeding ground for mosquito larvae. In a region where mosquito control officials go door-to-door to remove even the tiniest receptacle that can pool water, the growing mountains of debris are overwhelming.
"We really are behind the eight-ball," said Andrea Leal, executive director of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District. "We have been lucky that we haven't seen significant rainfall since the storm, but as soon as we do, we're going to see mosquitoes."
Officials throughout the region had to hold off on any kind of insecticide spraying in the days immediately following the storm. Irma knocked out power to more than 90% of homes in some counties, leading residents to keep their windows open day and night. Government officials didn't want pesticides floating into people's homes, so they halted spraying for several days.
As soon as power was largely restored, however, mosquito crews go to work.
In the southwest corner of the Florida mainland, where Hurricane Irma made its second landfall on Sept. 10, Collier County has been spraying inland cities like Immokalee and Ave Maria. They are surrounded by swamps and agricultural fields, prompting city officials to use both trucks and aerial spraying starting last week.
On Florida's east coast, Broward County is using trucks to spray for mosquitoes all week long in several cities that have large debris piles following Irma. Palm Beach County warned of a "large mosquito hatch" following Irma and has been spraying the region with insecticide for days, especially in cities closest to the Everglades.
The mosquito problem is especially worrisome in Miami, which was the focal point of a Zika outbreak in 2016 that led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take the unprecedented step of issuing domestic travel warnings.
More than 1,100 people in Florida contracted the virus while traveling overseas, which led to the virus beginning to spread locally in at least 285 cases, according to the Florida Department of Health. Miami-Dade County had the highest number, forcing local mosquito control officials to fight back aggressively.
Gayle Love, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Department of Solid Waste Management, which oversees mosquito control, said the county would resume its regular schedule of truck-spraying on Tuesday night targeting neighborhoods hit by the 2016 Zika outbreak.
She said the county has not done any aerial spraying since Irma, but they've resumed their usual procedures to monitor the county to determine where and when spraying will be needed. Love said they inspect mosquito traps, analyze complaints from citizens, and deploy inspectors to identify areas suffering from large mosquito swarms.
"We stand ready should those numbers go up," Love said.
That strategy will be even harder in the Keys, where Irma made its first landfall and caused the most destruction. Leal said the storm has eliminated former mosquito breeding areas and opened up new ones, meaning her inspectors will now have to reassess the entire chain of islands from Key Largo to Key West.
"We’re going to have to go through every single square inch of all of these islands and figure out where are these new breeding sites going to be, and how we’re going to be able respond to them, because things have changed so drastically out there," she said. "We’re going to be playing catch-up for probably the next couple of months."
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02f80af03989c5811cf4bdd1782ebb3f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/28/fatberg-grease-wipes-blamed-baltimore-sewer-overflow/711574001/ | 'Fatberg' of grease, wipes blamed in Baltimore sewer overflow | 'Fatberg' of grease, wipes blamed in Baltimore sewer overflow
A "fatberg" made up of grease, fat, wet wipes and other garbage that slowly grew in a Baltimore sewer main is the culprit of the release of more than 1 million gallons of sewage into a Maryland stream last week.
The Baltimore public works department says the massive plug near Baltimore Penn Station caused the overflow into Jones Falls on Sept. 21 despite dry weather.
Baltimore's fatberg appears modest compared to monsters dredged up in Britain. In London, Thames Water engineers this month began a three-week sewer war against a fatberg almost the length of three football fields and weighing 130 tons — more than 10 of the city's iconic, double-decker buses.
In Baltimore, authorities began to smell trouble when overflows of the sanitary sewer started to become common following heavy rains. Finally, a dry-weather overflow convinced the department to take a peek. They sent a machine with a closed-circuit TV camera into the sewer, and soon discovered the walls of the sewer pipe were caked with congealed fats, oils and grease. The lovely concoction is sufficiently common to have drawn an acronym — FOG.
While working in the pipe, a backup occurred, leading to another sewer overflow. Engineers estimate 85% of the pipe, which is 24 inches across and more than 100 years old, is blocked.
Most of the gunk has been scraped away, and any repairs or replacement of the sewer pipe will be determined once the fatberg has been entirely removed, the department said.
The overflow is diverted into the stormwater system and then into the Jones Falls. The overflow system will be closed once a related wastewater treatment project is completed in late 2020, the department said. The city’s sewers are being repaired and replaced to avoid infiltration of stormwater.
The department has a FOG program that includes monitoring food service outlets that discharge wastewater. Officials urge everyone to can the grease, trash and even so-called "flushable" wipes.
The makers of flushable wipes doth protest, saying their product is part of the solution, not the problem.
Says the department: "The only items that should be considered flushable are poo, pee and toilet paper."
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3c67f5bd1f941101aa5e23b71e21d13d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/30/puerto-rico-by-the-numbers/720731001/ | By the numbers: More than half of Puerto Rico still without drinking water | By the numbers: More than half of Puerto Rico still without drinking water
SAN JUAN — Access to drinking water has been restored to 45% of Puerto Rico — but more than half of the U.S. territory of 3.4 million is still going without.
The statistics come as a war of words between President Trump and the mayor of Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan, escalated Sunday. Trump is trying to defend his administration's handling of the humanitarian crisis that has enveloped the island since Hurricane Maria's brutal onslaught Sept. 20.
But local officials say the response is paltry at best.
Here is a look at where the numbers stand Sunday:
• Access to drinking water: 45%
• Death toll: 16
• Gasoline stations open: 721 of 1,100
• Electric customers with power: 5%
• Supermarkets open: 295 of 456
• Pharmacies open: 337
• Municipalities visited and provided with emergency supplies: 78 (all of them)
• Staging areas across the island for food, water and other supplies: 11
• Shelters open: 139
• Hospitals open: 51 of 69
• Hospitals connected to the electric grid: 9
• Functioning cell towers: 14%
• Open ports: 75%
• Roads: 50% of major roadways cleared
• U.S. response team: 12,600 people on the island
Source: Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, status.pr., White House. Follow Oren Dorell on Twitter: @OrenDorell
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9e76e145678354a33a4efae042d6e5ef | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/02/victims-identified-las-vegas-shooting/723126001/ | 'I felt him get shot in the back': Victims identified in Las Vegas shooting | 'I felt him get shot in the back': Victims identified in Las Vegas shooting
When the bullets started raining down on the crowd at a Las Vegas country music festival on Sunday, Sonny Melton's first reaction was to protect his wife.
"He saved my life," Heather Melton said. "He grabbed me from behind and started running when I felt him get shot in the back."
Sonny Melton, 29, a registered nurse from Tennessee, was soon pronounced dead, one of 59 people who were killed during the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night.
Dozens of families are going through their own version of agony as Las Vegas officials process the massive crime scene and notify next of kin. Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said Monday that nearly 60 people were dead and another 527 injured.
"It's a long, laborious process to identify the victims and reunite them with family members to advise them of their situation," Lombardo said.
Elizabeth Reitz and boyfriend Joe Thomas, both of Las Vegas, arrived early to one of two vigils set for 5 p.m. Monday in honor of the victims.
Reitz, a Mandalay Bay bartender on medical leave prior to the shooting, said her best friend was at the festival Sunday night and called her just after the gunshots stopped, still afraid for her life. A man in her friend's group was shot in the stomach; they still weren't sure of his fate Monday afternoon.
"It doesn't even seem real right now," Reitz said, crying into her boyfriend's shoulder.
Reitz was at home in panic, not knowing how many of her friends had been at the shooting, including her longtime coworkers, whom she considers family.
The couple tried to find out whatever they could on social media.
"Later in the evening, I just kept seeing statuses (on Facebook), people posting that there was still an active shooter at Mandalay," Reitz said. "All my friends were posting that they were put down in the basement. It was just post after post of people saying their goodbyes and that they wish they could talk to their family."
Here is a look at some of the victims.
Sonny Melton, 29, Tennessee
Melton lived in Big Sandy, Tenn., and was a registered nurse at Henry County Medical Center in Paris, Tenn. Heather Melton, his wife, is an orthopedic surgeon there, and officials from the center said they will provide counselors to staff who are struggling to deal with this "horrible incident."
"The thoughts and prayers of the entire HCMC family are with Sonny and Heather’s families," the center's CEO, Thomas Gee, said in a statement.
The couple married in June 2016, according to the wedding website The Knot.
"We were the couple that never should have met, fallen in love or had a future together....but life is funny and we believe God brought us together as soul mates," read their wedding page. "We have shared amazing times together and nearly unbearable heartaches but through it all we have grown stronger in our love for each other and our families."
On Monday, Heather Gulish Melton said she was not yet ready to open up about what she went through.
"I want everyone to know what a kind hearted loving man he was but at this point I can barely breathe," she wrote to USA TODAY.
Adrian Murfitt, 35, Alaska
For Adrian Murfitt, the country music festival was a group celebration after a successful fishing season off the Alaskan coast.
His sister, Shannon Gothard, said Murfitt was every bit the Anchorage native — he played hockey "since he was just a little tot" and would spend months at sea as a commercial fisherman. Gothard said her brother was even talking about going in with a friend to buy their own boat.
That all came to an end Sunday night when a man opened fire and Murfitt, 35, was shot in the neck while he stood near the stage. Gothard said the family was reeling, and she struggled to describe the kind of person he was.
"He was my brother, so of course I thought he was an arrogant little cuss," she said, struggling to laugh. "But only I can say that cause he's my brother. He had this big, jovial, goofy laugh. He'd always try to do the right thing. He had a big heart."
Sandra Casey, California
Teachers at Manhattan Beach (Calif.) Middle School started their day Monday delivering tragic news to their students: one of their own died in the Las Vegas shooting.
Sandra Casey, a special education teacher at the school for the past nine years, was among those killed, according to the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. She was part of a group of school officials who attended the music festival.
The school informed students Monday morning, and had counselors on call to help students, and Casey's colleagues, as they struggled to make sense of her death.
The district released a statement saying Casey will be remembered for her sense of humor, her own continuing education, and, above all, her dedication to her students.
"We lost a spectacular teacher who devoted her life to helping some of our most needy students," said district superintendent Michael Matthews.
Quinton Robbins, 20, Nevada
Robbins, a 20-year-old victim of the Las Vegas shooter, was an avid fisherman and snowboarder who spent his final moments with his sister, according to social media posts. He lived in Henderson, Nev.
Family members paid tribute to the young man on Facebook on Monday and established a GoFundMe account to help pay for his funeral expenses.
"He was the most kind and loving soul," his aunt, Kilee Wells Sanders, wrote on Facebook. "Everyone who met him loved him ... He was truly an amazing person."
Robbins studied at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and worked in recreation for the city of Henderson. City officials said Monday they could not comment on his death.
His Facebook account and those of his friends are full of pictures of him fishing and snowboarding.
His sister, Skylar Robbins, wrote a touching tribute on Twitter, citing the times they snowboarded and rode off-road vehicles together. She also described his final moments after the shooting.
"Everything you said made me laugh no matter how stupid it was," she wrote. "Laying next to you in the hospital bed all night was the hardest thing I've gone through, but you made me feel so at peace and I know you are with me."
Susan Smith, 53, California
Within hours of learning about the shooting, visitors started dropping off flowers outside Vista Elementary School, where Susan Smith was a popular office manager.
"She's the hub...really the heart of the school," said Jake Finch, a spokesperson for the Simi Valley Unified School District.
Smith, an ardent country music fan who was married with two adult children, attended the music festival with two friends from the school district. By Monday morning, the front office at Visa Elementary was filled with red-eyed parents and employees broken up over her death.
Crisis teams visited each classroom to share the news in an "age-appropriate way," Finch said. Some classes made sympathy cards for Smith's family.
"She was wonderful," Finch said. "She had a great sense of humor. She's patient and kind."
Jordan McIldoon, 23, Canada
McIldoon was attending the country music festival with his girlfriend when he was shot and killed. His parents, Al and Angela McIldoon, told CBC News that he was scheduled to return home Monday night.
"We only had one child," they told the Canadian broadcast network. "We just don't know what to do."
They said McIldoon was a heavy-duty mechanic apprentice and was preparing to start trade school in the Okanagan region of the Canadian province directly north of Washington state. They couple said they were working through the Canadian consulate to figure out the next steps.
Rachael Parker, 33, Manhattan Beach, Calif.
The first person anybody walking into the Manhattan Beach (Calif.) Police Department saw was Rachael Parker, a civilian employee of the department who served as a records technician and the front desk clerk.
"She was one of the faces of the department," said Kristie Colombo, the department's community affairs officer. "She was always funny and smart and bubbly and always had a smile on her face."
Parker was attending the music festival with three other department employees. One was an off-duty police officer who was shot — Colombo said he's expected to recover. Parker died after being transported to a local hospital.
Colombo said the department was still in shock on Monday. The police chief went to Las Vegas to assist in the cleanup, and those those that remained struggled to cope with their loss.
"She knew and touched a lot of people's lives over the years," Colombo said.
Contributing: Josh Susong, Ryan Randazzo, and Yihyun Jeong, Arizona Republic; April McCullum, Burlington Free Press; Wendy Leung, Ventura County Star.
More:What we know about what happened at Las Vegas shooting
More:Who is shooter Stephen Paddock?
More:Las Vegas shooting now tops list of worst mass shootings in U.S. history
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edb21057d2433abd3eeb7669c3cd4f13 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/04/las-vegas-shooting/730489001/ | Vegas killer's girlfriend: He was 'a kind, quiet caring man' | Vegas killer's girlfriend: He was 'a kind, quiet caring man'
The girlfriend of the man behind the Las Vegas bloodbath that killed 58 innocent people said Wednesday that the man she knew was a kind person who gave no hint of his oncoming murderous rampage.
“I knew Stephen Paddock as a kind, quiet caring man,” Marilou Danley in a statement through her attorney after an FBI interview. “I loved him and I hoped for a quiet future together with him. He never said anything to me or took any action that I was aware of, that I understood in any way to be warning that something horrible like this was going to happen.”
Danley, who described herself as a mother and a grandmother, returned to the U.S. Tuesday night after visiting her family in the Philippines, where she has ties. She was in the Philippines when Paddock fired the fatal gunshots out of a 32nd-story window of a Las Vegas high rise hotel on Sunday.
Danley, 62, said in the statement that a couple of weeks ago, Paddock told her he had found an inexpensive plane ticket for her to go visit her family. Once she was there, she said, he wired money to her that was to be used to to buy a home for Danley and her relatives. Investigators say he wired $100,000.
She said that the plane ticket and money for the home made her concerned that Paddock was pushing her away.
“I was grateful, but honestly, I was worried that first the unexpected trip and then the money was a way of breaking up with me,” Danley said. “It never occurred to me in anyway whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone.”
“I have not made a statement until now because I have been cooperating with authorities. I voluntarily flew back to America, because I know the FBI and the Las Vegas Police Department wanted to talk to me, and I want to talk to them. I will cooperate fully with their investigation. Anything I can do to help ease suffering and help in any way I will do.”
As investigators continued their quest for Paddock's motive, details continued to emerge. The victims included construction workers, government employees, college students, even Disneyland cast members. The latest fatality was a Californian, a hero removed from his ventilator about 12 hours after the hailstorm of bullets finally concluded.
President Trump arrived in Las Vegas on Air Force One, with the shattered windows of the hotel room from which Paddock conducted his grisly assault visible from the runway.
"America is truly a nation in mourning," Trump said after meeting with some of the hundreds who were wounded in the attack.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said investigators are working to reconstruct Paddock's life and patterns. McCabe added that investigators were looking to speak to “anyone and everyone who may have crossed his path in the days and the weeks leading up to this horrific event.”
More:Las Vegas shooting: Marilou Danley's relatives speak out
More:Marilou Danley lived a 'normal life' before meeting gunman
More:Vegas shooter modified guns for rapid fire, used cameras to monitor police
More:90 minutes of terror: How the Las Vegas shooting unfolded
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joseph Lombardo initially named Danley as a “person of interest” in the investigation, although Danley is not considered an accomplice. Nevertheless, investigators were expected to subject her to extensive questioning about the gunman’s activities prior to the assault, the extensive cache of weapons acquired by Paddock and the state of his finances.
Paddock also engaged in several unrelated transfers of thousands of dollars, believed to be related to his high-stakes gambling activities in Las Vegas.
Authorities updated the number of casualties in the attack from 527 to 489, and they said 317 have been discharged from hospitals. Lombardo said some patients at the hospitals were inadvertently double counted, and some who were injured prior to the shooting were mistakenly counted in the attack.
The victims were shot by Paddock in an 11-minute barrage from his perch at the Mandalay Bay resort hotel on the city's iconic Strip. The high-stakes gambler and retired accountant killed himself before a SWAT team blasted into his suite.
Investigators say the shooting rampage was meticulously planned and included specially modified weapons. Investigators found a computer and 23 guns in Paddock's hotel room. Nineteen more guns were found at the home he shared with Danley in Mesquite, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, and seven at his house in Reno.
Authorities said at a press conference late Wednesday that Paddock also had 1,600 rounds of ammunition and several containers of an explosive commonly used in target shooting in his car. The total amount of explosives weighed about 50 pounds.
Lombardo said he didn’t know what Paddock was planning with the explosives, if anything. He added that the sheer volume of the cache of weapons that Paddock amassed seemed to indicate that he got help from somebody, but he quickly added that the investigation has thus far found no accomplices. But “he had to have some help at some point,” the sheriff said.
Lombard said Paddock contemplated the idea of escaping from the hotel but eventually he abandoned the idea and killed himself. He didn't elaborate on why police believe Paddock may have had an escape plan.
Lombardo also said none of the surveillance cameras Paddock installed were recording. Authorities say he set up cameras in the peephole of the door and outside the room to watch for police closing in on him.
Paddock made his attack even more deadly by adding legal "bump stocks" to 12 semiautomatic rifles that allowed them to mimic fully automatic gunfire.
Paddock had gambled during his stay at the Mandalay Bay. And he had rented a room at Las Vegas’ Ogden hotel the week prior, during Life is Beautiful, a three-day music and arts festival. It was unclear whether Paddock had initially targeted the Life is Beautiful festival or was scoping out his later attack, Lombardo said, but he indicated that officials would review recorded footage of his stay.
The Life is Beautiful festival featured Chance the Rapper, Muse, Lorde and Blink-182.
Lombardo said that Paddock, a seemingly bland and dull retiree who liked to spend hours playing video poker, may have had "a secret life."
Lombardo appeared to be in disbelief that Paddock could plan such a meticulous attack undetected. He referred to the statements of an FBI profiler, who said there were typically “telltale signs” associated with these types of attacks, such as living a reclusive life.
“We have not found that yet,” Lombardo said.
Before Danley moved in with Paddock, she was an outgoing person and a "great neighbor," people who knew her said Tuesday.
The Australian Associated Press reported Danley was born in the Philippines and moved to Queensland in eastern Australia in the early 1980s. She left Australia for the U.S. in 1989, where she worked in casinos.
Her two sisters, who live in Australia, told the country's Channel 7 TV network there was no way Danley knew what Paddock was planning. Their identities were concealed and their names withheld.
"She was sent away. She was away so that she will be not there to interfere with what he's planning," said one sister who lives in Queensland.
Paddock's victims were among more than 20,000 people celebrating country music at the Route 91 Harvest festival. The gunfire erupted in the concert's closing minutes while headliner Jason Aldean performed.
The 58th victim was Californian Chris Hazencomb, 44, of Camarillo. His best friend, Nicole Torres, says Hazencomb used his 6-foot, 5-inch frame to shield her from the hailstorm of bullets.
Several hours later, his mother Maryanne was at his bedside. Told there was no hope, she consented to removing Chris from a ventilator.
"It was 10:50. I looked at my watch," she said. "You don't expect your kid to go before you go."
Contributing: Megan Cassidy, The Arizona Republic; Jane Onyanga-Omara, USA TODAY; Sarah Litz, Reno Gazette-Journal; Wendy Leung, Ventura County Star; Brett Kelman, Rosalie Murphy and Corinne S Kennedy, The Desert Sun
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4b87d96773cf0a98505381be3a9d27a2 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/05/las-vegas-survivors-ptsd/726748001/ | Las Vegas survivors have been through hell. And it's not over. | Las Vegas survivors have been through hell. And it's not over.
Now is about the time you've got Las Vegas fatigue. For the sake of your sanity, you turn your attention to other things, lighter things.
Now is about the time survivors of that attack are beginning to feel the shock subside and an onslaught of emotions — anguish, grief, guilt — take over.
"There's national recognition and solidarity around these big events, (but) that sense of attention and care and compassion seems to fade with the next news cycle," said Seth Gillihan, a psychologist and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder researcher. "The country pretty quickly returns to its baseline."
But survivors can't return to their baseline. Those who escaped the bullets can go home, and the injured will leave the hospital, but they can't go back to the lives they had.
"The world they knew before it happened is profoundly changed," Gillihan said. "They're probably going to have a different way of seeing the world, they may have a different way of seeing themselves, they may be critical of themselves for how they reacted during the event."
Las Vegas survivors have been thrust onto a new trajectory, one that will feel worse before it gets better. They are joining an unfortunate fellowship of those who've endured trauma — but one that can at least provide guidance down this too well-trodden path.
This is how it starts
"I don't think it's really sunk in yet," said Megan O'Donnell Clements, a 33-year-old mom who ran when Stephen Paddock's gunfire rang out Sunday.
"I am just numb right now," said Justin Zimmerman, who hit the ground.
If you've watched interviews with the Las Vegas survivors, you might be amazed by their poise, but those who've dealt with trauma personally or professionally say this is what the initial aftershock looks like: numbness.
"If I'm being quite frank, the shock part was probably the easiest," said Brandon Wolf, who survived the Pulse nightclub shooting that killed 49 in Orlando in June 2016. "I was almost machine-like in preparing for the funerals, in talking to the media and politicians. The despair hadn't set in yet."
People react this way because they've experienced "more than the nervous system can process at once," Gillihan said.
"Most people who've gone through something this horrifying will have symptoms that look like PTSD initially. It's only when they continue to linger that a diagnosis would be given," Gillihan said.
Though rates of PTSD vary depending on the trauma, Gillihan said he would expect a "high percentage" to experience it in this case.
"Survivors of sexual assault, for example, the majority will develop PTSD, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case for this as well," Gillihan said.
While a mass shooting is obviously different from sexual assault or a natural disaster or combat, "we have one stress system and so it responds to different things in common ways," Gillihan said. Part of the reason he would expect high rates has to do with the "interpersonal" nature of this attack.
"It's something that was so unpredictable, senseless and intentional ... when it's done by a person, not a natural event, it adds another layer of trauma."
This is how it persists
Whether or not a trauma survivor is diagnosed with PTSD, they may share a number of these feelings and experiences after the fact:
"I was really, really confident as a person before June 12. I didn't struggle with crowded spaces, I was always the life of the party," Wolf said.
Now, that is lost. "I immediately look for an exit when I'm in a crowded room. I get a tight chest if I'm in a space I can't find a way out of. Sometimes I'm more afraid to sleep than I am to be awake because the things I dream about are really scary," he said. "And you don't know what to do. You seek therapy, you talk to people about it, but it's like you're trapped in your own mind."
Knowing this, experiencing this, Wolf said, is why his "heart breaks" for the Las Vegas survivors. Just as he described a number of situations that "set him off," Vegas survivors may experience similar triggers, Gillihan said, including:
But survivors won't need a trigger to have the memory.
"Part of the haunting quality of PTSD is that these memories live with us," Gillihan said. "The memory can come up uninvited without any obvious triggers and these memories will just run through as your mind tries to process and make sense of them."
This is how it heals
On April 15, 2013, Jeff Bauman lost the lower portion of his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing. In the years since, he has learned to compartmentalize.
“Sometimes I have nightmares and wake up to explosions, but it hasn’t been like that for a while," Bauman told USA TODAY last year. "I want to show people you can overcome a tragedy."
Even people with severe PTSD see dramatic improvement with treatment, Gillihan said. "No one has to suffer forever."
However, survivors should know there's a "process to what's unfolding" and it doesn't move in a straight line, psychologists say.
"How they're feeling now won't be how they always feel ... it will change over time. It's not static the way we respond to these things," Gillihan said. "We can get frustrated with ourselves: 'I should've moved on, there must be something wrong with me.' But it's important to give ourselves space, treat ourselves gently."
That necessary space can be encroached upon, both psychologists and survivors note, when people who didn't experience the tragedy have imagined deadlines of when someone should be "over it."
"There's a lot of things they say when you go through something like this — 'life gets better,' 'you're so lucky to be here' ... but the one I probably hate the most is 'if you need anything, I'm here.' The reason I don't like that particular phrase is it's not accurate," Wolf said. "I was that person. But it never fails that life moves on, we go back to work, we go back to living our lives, the news covers something else and we stop checking in on those people ... but that's when they need it the most."
Wolf believes the "time limit" outsiders place on healing focuses on the physical, when "it's so much harder to deal with the haunting insomnia, the nightmares, the mood swings." He recalled attending the GLAAD awards after Pulse with a friend who had been visibly injured in the attack.
"This woman walked up to me and said, 'You have no idea how lucky you are to be standing next to such strength.' And I turned and I saw my friend with his crutches and his boot. And she said, 'That is a hero right there.'" Later that night, Wolf went back to his hotel room and cried. "Will she still see him as a hero once that boot is off but he cries himself to sleep at night? ... People don't know what it means to survive."
But Wolf did find help through a mental health specialist and finding a good "coping mechanism" — in his case, activism and outreach.
"The thing that made me feel most at peace is finding my community ... they are the ones who understood me," Wolf said. "And they are the ones who made me survive."
And Wolf has a message for Las Vegas survivors:
"You are not alone. As much as you're going to want to feel alone and as easy at it will be to isolate yourself and wonder why not you — you're not alone. And the only way it's going to get better ... is if you're not ashamed to ask for help."
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2c8fd138580ae378355a743fe8c38f44 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/05/navy-vet-las-vegas-victim-christopher-roybal-survived-combat-tour-afghanistan/734081001/ | Navy vet who died in Las Vegas shooting had survived combat tour in Afghanistan | Navy vet who died in Las Vegas shooting had survived combat tour in Afghanistan
Navy veteran Christopher Roybal survived combat in Afghanistan and had recently moved with his wife to Colorado for a new job before he was killed in Sunday's attack at a Las Vegas country music festival.
Roybal, 28, served from 2007 to 2012, according to his public service record. He was deployed to Afghanistan from July 2011 to May 2012 as part of a military working dog team, according to the U.S. Navy.
In July, he wrote a candid post on Facebook describing what it was like being under fire in a war zone and how profoundly it affects soldiers. He described being shot at while finishing a patrol with his canine partner, Bella.
"I remember that first day, not sure how to feel. It was never fear, to be honest, mass confusion. Sensory overload ... followed by the most amount of natural adrenaline that could never be duplicated through a needle. I was excited, angry and manic.
"What's it like to be shot at?" he continued. "It's a nightmare no amount of drugs, no amount of therapy and no amount of drunk talks with your war veteran buddies will ever be able to escape."
His Facebook post has been read by thousands since his death, with many visitors thanking him for his service.
"It's just heartbreaking he wrote this Facebook post back in July what it was like to be shot at," his co-worker, Robert Alexander of Colorado Springs, told the Associated Press after Roybal's death. "He had a unique experience serving in the military. ... He could speak to it with passion."
Alexander said Roybal was always upbeat at the gym where he worked in Colorado.
"Chris had that attraction power," he said. "He had that ability to make people want to hang around him and his smile was infectious. He had just great energy, full of enthusiasm for life, and really had a purpose."
Roybal traveled to Las Vegas with his mother to attend the concert, but the two were not together when the gunfire began, according to an account his mother shared publicly.
He is survived by his wife, Dixie Roybal; his parents; two brothers; and a sister. His family declined comment.
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12aecef07be698f70282cba0f42b99c6 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/05/rotc-teen-challenges-transgender-military-ban/733117001/ | ROTC student takes on transgender military ban: 'I still want to fight for my country' | ROTC student takes on transgender military ban: 'I still want to fight for my country'
A passion for patriotism has been a constant coursing through Dylan Kohere’s short life.
When he was in the sixth grade, dreams of a military career started to crystallize. In high school, he weighed enlisting after graduation.
The Mount Olive Township, N.J., native eventually decided the smartest path would be college and enrollment in the Army's Reserve Officers' Training Corps.
Military service is “the thing I wanted to do, hoped to do my entire life,” he said.
But now Kohere, 18, is on the front lines in a battle he never imagined — as a plaintiff in the first lawsuit challenging President Trump’s directive to reinstate a ban on transgender people serving in the military, a ban that could crush the college freshman’s aspirations.
Late Wednesday, Trump administration lawyers requested that the lawsuit be dismissed, saying it's too early for courts to block a ban since no policy changes will be effective until at least after January.
The brief also stated that no plaintiffs face a "current or imminent threat" of harm.
For Kohere, the impact of a potential ban is already taking a toll.
“I worked for years to become physically able and ready enough to serve,” said Kohere in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY. “To be told I couldn’t simply because of how I identify was really frustrating.”
Kohere, who came out as transgender his first year in high school, is only a few months beyond orientation at the University of New Haven in West Haven, Conn. Instead of dealing with the ebbs and flows of the freshman experience, he is mired in uncertainty over whether he will be able to complete his ROTC program or enter the military.
“Dylan has a tremendously powerful voice,” said Jennifer Levi, transgender rights project director for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). "His example makes it obvious how deep and scarring this ban could be.”
A tweet and outrage
Transgender troops have been able to serve openly since the Obama administration lifted a ban in 2016.
But in July, Trump said via Twitter — and then in an order to the Pentagon — that he intended to overturn that policy. The U.S. military, he said, “must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
The order outraged LGBT activists and caught many by surprise, including military officials. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis later said that transgender troops will be allowed to continue serving pending the results of a study by a panel of experts.
Supporters of a ban point to the medical costs. But a report by the non-partisan RAND Corp. found that paying for transgender troops’ health care needs would amount to about $8 million a year and the consequences on military readiness would be negligible.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and GLAD answered quickly. The groups filed the first suit Aug. 9 (other suits have been filed since) on behalf of five transgender service members with nearly 60 years of combined service. Kohere and a U.S. Naval Academy midshipman joined the suit as plaintiffs Aug. 31.
GLAD and NCLR will respond to the latest motions in court later this month.
"Rather than even attempting to defend it, the DOJ is asking the court to turn a blind eye to the devastation the president has caused in the lives of real people and real families,” Shannon Minter, NCLR’s legal director, said in response to Wednesday's court filing.
More:Trump seeks to ban transgender people from serving in U.S. military 'in any capacity'
More:Transgender military ban: Mattis and Congress must say no to Trump
More:Mattis freezes transgender policy; allows troops to continue serving, pending study
Declarations by former top U.S. military officials from all branches of the service have added heft to the suit, Minter said.
“It is very powerful to see senior military leaders weigh in,” Minter said. “It’s not something they do lightly. That is indicative of how concerned they are about this issue. ... Never before in our nation’s history has a president attacked a group of currently serving troops.”
A face on the issue
There are more than 15,000 transgender people serving in the military today, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, and about 134,000 U.S. veterans are transgender.
Minter notes that the U.S. military has “a long history of eliminating categorical bans and discrimination” such as with African-Americans and women. If the transgender ban becomes policy, it will be “a shocking turn of events for the military.”
Kohere puts a face on a potential casualty of a ban: young people determined to join the armed forces.
“It is heartbreaking to see Dylan at such a young age in a terrible situation for no reason,” Minter said. “Why in the world wouldn’t the president and U.S. military want to welcome and embrace an idealistic, young person who wants nothing more than to serve his country?”
Many young people enlist as a “route to stability,” Minter said. Others come from families with deep military traditions.
And many take the ROTC route. “There are many more Dylans out there,” he said.
Today’s Army ROTC has 275 programs at colleges and universities throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and Guam and an enrollment of more than 30,000, according to the U.S. Army Cadet Command. More than 40% of current active-duty Army officers were commissioned through the ROTC.
A transgender ban would “create a huge, destructive mess” on campuses, Minter said, thrusting schools back into the don’t ask/don’t tell era.
A ban would also conflict with states that have laws prohibiting bias based on gender identity and could lead to the demise of ROTC programs that did not want to be forced to embrace discriminatory practices, Minter said.
Army Maj. Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman, said he could not speak to the specific desires of colleges and universities or the future of their ROTC programs.
But “until the policy review process is complete, we will adhere to current (transgender) policy,” Eastburn said.
'The light bulb went off'
Kohere loved going camping and doing other “guy” things with his two older brothers when he was a kid. “I always wanted to do what the Boy Scouts did even though I was in the Girl Scouts.”
Still, “I never thought of myself as a guy trapped inside a girl’s body. I never had a concept of gender.”
People accepted his gender non-conformity, he said, until middle school when he was bullied.
In high school, Kohere had what he calls “an epiphany.” He became a member of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, and at his very first GSA meeting transgender issues were discussed.
“That’s pretty much where the light bulb went off,” Kohere said. “I was no longer confused about being myself.”
Danielle Kay, Kohere's GSA adviser at Mount Olive High School, recalls a student with lots of "tenacity" who eventually became president of the group and shined as a role model and leader who other students admired.
Kohere would be an ideal candidate for service, Kay said. "He is a protector, the kind of person who is always looking out for others. ... Dylan's voice is the voice of a generation of young adults, LGBTQ+ and everything in between, who are often discredited or labeled as lazy and apathetic."
'Look at me as a person'
Kohere’s two grandfathers served in World War II, and while their service played a part in the appeal of the armed forces, he chose his career path “on my own.”
Even though he was just a tot when 9/11 shook the country, reverberations through the years cemented an enduring respect for the U.S. military. “I grew up being protected for 18 years of my life,” he said. “I feel obligated to return the favor. I have always been a very patriotic person.”
Kohere felt “anger and frustration” when he first learned of Trump’s tweet and it began to sink in that his dreams could be derailed — especially after being so thrilled a year earlier when he learned transgender people could serve openly, he said.
“I am fully capable,” Kohere said. “I can do the push-ups, run the miles, do the sit-ups.”
Kohere said he is working with doctors on a treatment plan for his transition, one that should be complete long before he graduates from college and paid for by his parents’ health insurance.
But his future still hangs in the balance. At risk, he said: leadership training and educational opportunities unique to ROTC, the chance to compete for military scholarships that could cover tuition and living expenses — and the ultimate plan, a career in the military.
Kohere, who lives in ROTC housing, calls his sergeant and fellow cadets “fantastic people. They have had my back since the beginning.”
Despite the dark cloud Kohere is under, Levi said the college freshman is optimistic: “He believes in the America Dream. … He believes there is a better path forward.”
If he could meet the president, “I would tell him to look at me as a person,” Kohere said.
“I identify as an American; it’s always been that way. I still want to fight for my country.”
Follow Susan Miller on Twitter: @susmiller
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929e3a2ac33d3f4606889841e2405d95 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/06/las-vegas-shooting-victim-fallen-officer-honored-charleston-hartfield/738500001/ | Las Vegas officer Charleston Hartfield gave his 'life protecting others' | Las Vegas officer Charleston Hartfield gave his 'life protecting others'
LAS VEGAS — He wore an oversized cowboy hat and a black shirt with cut-off sleeves while his police uniform mostly likely lay neatly folded at home.
It was a yearly tradition for Las Vegas Metropolitan Officer Charleston Hartfield, 34, to attend the Route 91 Harvest Festival with his wife. Leaving their two young children at home, he could let loose and have some off-duty fun.
Photos from the weekend show him enjoying a deep-fried Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and taking seflies with his high school sweetheart, their faces lit from the neon lights of the Vegas Strip.
'He ultimately gave his life protecting others'
But when the first spray of bullets rained down on the festival from the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay Sunday night, Hartfield “immediately took action to save lives,” Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Moving fast and with the authority of a man who spent his life as a soldier and police officer, he worked to escort people safely out of the packed venue as the barrage of bullets fell. He looked around to assess the grounds and to the sky to help other officers locate the shooter before more lives could be taken.
Then, a bullet found him. No one would argue he didn’t die in the line of duty.
“He ultimately gave his life protecting others,” McMahill said.
On Thursday evening, few words were spoken regarding the final moments of Hartfield’s life or what led gunman Stephen Paddock to unleash the volley of ammunition that killed 58 people and injured hundreds more.
Instead, family, friends, fellow officers and the community packed Police Memorial Park, whispering words of comfort in tearful hugs and honoring the 11-year police veteran they call “the most American man.”
'You should be extremely proud of him'
Hartfield had recently published book, “Memoirs of a Public Servant,” in which he described himself as an officer in the “busiest and brightest city in the world, Las Vegas.”
Police chaplains passed around flowers and candles as the crowd broke away from personal conversations to come together, awaiting the arrival of Hartfield’s wife, Veronica, and their children, Isaiah and Savannah.
Chaplain Raymond Giddens said he and fellow chaplains have worked around the clock to comfort Metro police officers. However, more time for reflection will have to come later. For now, the officers continue to respond to Sunday’s shootings
“Tonight, for some, is the first time they’re allowed to comprehend that he is truly gone,” Giddens said.
As the sun set low in the sky, silence fell on the park dedicated as a tribute to fallen officers in the Vegas community. Mourners stood as a line of officers escorted Hartfield’s family to the front.
“I want to thank you for sharing your dad, your husband, and allowing him to be a part of our family,” Steve Grammas, president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said. “You should be extremely proud of him. Judging by this turn out … this community is proud of him as well.”
An officer and a soldier
Before Hartfield was an officer, he was a soldier. He was an active National Guard at the time of his death.
He was deployed to Iraq in 2003, serving in a task force awarded a presidential citation for “extraordinary heroism.” Army records show that Hartfield received numerous other individual commendations and achievement medals.
From a rough upbringing in Los Angeles, Hartfield had enlisted in the U.S. Army to “get away,” 1Lt. Christian Souza told USAToday. Hartfield “went on to change hundred of lives,” as a mentor in the Army and later on the police force, he said.
Men who had gone through the police academy with him took to the stage to give one last send off.
“Third Platoon! Ahhhh!,” the men shouted.
Hartfield had donned a third uniform in his life, a blue polo shirt with the logo “HC,” representing the Henderson Cowboys, the football team his son played on and he coached.
Hartfield didn’t play football himself, according to officers, but he purchased several books on the sport, drills and routes when his son joined the team.
'We're going to take it from here'
Veronica wiped a tear from her son’s face and reached for her daughter. As officers stood up to share their memories, each made a promise: they would support and love Hartfield's family the way they supported and loved Hartfield.
Officer Jenny Rodriguez reminded the crowd that Hartfield had helped pay and design a memorial wall for fallen Vegas officers inside the Southeast Area Command precinct in 2010.
A year earlier, Metro police had its deadliest year, losing four officers. Hartfield thought the wall was “completely unacceptable,” saying “I’m going to honor our fallen officers better than that,” Rodriguez recalled.
Now, the department will honor him, she said, reading a quote that Hartfield had chosen to display on the memorial: "No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."
"We love you, Charlie. Until we meet again my friend, my brother. We’re going to take it from here,” she said.
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f7bdc84f977107e91e8a2db35af86df8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/06/organ-donors-save-lives-tragedies-like-vegas-shooting/736663001/ | Organ donations from Las Vegas victims may help those in need | Organ donations from Las Vegas victims may help those in need
The Las Vegas massacre that killed 58 and wounded hundreds is a ghastly tragedy, but there's a sliver of light amid all the darkness: extending the lives of people desperately needing organ donations.
Organ donations often are borne out of tragic circumstances, with victims of motor-vehicle accidents, homicides and other accidental deaths among the most common sources of organ or tissue donations.
It can be a difficult — if not taboo — subject to discuss after horrific tragedies like the Mandalay Bay shootings. The Las Vegas-based organization that facilitates organ and tissue donations in southern Nevada, for example, has not publicly discussed anything about donations from victims of Sunday night's mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest concert.
The organization, Nevada Donor Network, declined interviews but released brief a written statement offering sympathy to victims' families.
Blood donations surged the day after the shootings, with long donor lines snaking out of donation centers in Las Vegas and other cities. Experts said they expect some donations to emerge — either organs or tissue, or both — from the carnage on Las Vegas Boulevard.
“I feel like donation is going to be part of the tragedy in Las Vegas,” said Deborah Maurer, the transplant and organ management administrator for Arizona's Banner-University Medicine. “For those families, I hope it provides some sense of comfort. We know on the transplant side, there will be an immediate positive impact, and we will know that positive impact has come from profound tragedy.”
A clear need
With 116,596 people waiting for organ transplants and an average of 20 people dying each day awaiting donor organs, there is a clear need for those facing end-stage organ failure.
Organs are often donated after a tragic accident or violent crime. Since 1994, 32,357 donations have come from victims of motor-vehicle accidents and 9,579 from homicide victims, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
During a mass-casualty emergency such as Las Vegas', first responders must assess, treat and transport the wounded to local trauma centers. Those pronounced dead at the scene become part of the crime investigation, and eventually must be taken to a morgue for processing.
Bodies declared dead in the field often do not yield usable organs, but tissue and cornea donations may be harvested, doctors say.
Dr. Bobby Nibhanupudy, a transplant surgeon at Florida Hospital in Orlando, said tissue donations may be viable for up to 24 hours after a person is pronounced dead.
"These protocols for mass casualties do allow for donations down the road," Nibhanupudy said.
But getting viable organs can be challenging, he added. After last year's Orlando nightclub shooting that claimed 49 lives, only nine of those victims were pronounced dead at the hospital.
There were no known organ donations from those patients.
READ:Father of 6 died shielding stranger from shooter
Orlando police engaged in a three-hour standoff with the shooter while dozens of people were trapped inside the club. Some of those inside urged dispatchers to send help because wounded patrons were trapped in the nightclub's bathroom, according to 911 recordings.
In Las Vegas, by contrast, emergency medical crews and Good Samaritans responded by transporting the woundedquickly to nearby hospitals. It is unclear how many of the 58 Las Vegas victims were pronounced dead at the hospitals.
How it works
Hospitals generally are required to notify local donation procurement organizations — Nevada Donor Network, in this case — about patients declared dead after being hospitalized, Maurer said.
Some patients may have been registered as donors. Or family members could have chosen to donate after a loved one died.
Nevada Donor Network declined to answer questions about how representatives discussed the option of donation with families of those killed Sunday.
MORE:Healing Garden rises days after Las Vegas shooting
"Our hearts are heavy. We offer our warmest thoughts and prayers to the victims, their families and our community at large," the network said in a statement. "The priority of Nevada Donor Network and our team is to support those affected by this unspeakable incident, including both local Nevadans and visitors."
The U.S. is divided into 11 transplant regions, with varying wait times for transplants depending on organ type.
Nevada is part of a region that includes Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah.
Cornea and tissue donations, which may include body parts such as skin or tendons, generally stay within the originating transplant region, Maurer said. But organ donations are routed based on time available and patient need.
"Sickest first is the motto," Nibhanupudy said.
Where organs go also depends on whether a local hospital has a transplant program for a particular organ. University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, for example, has a kidney transplant program, but it does not do heart, lung or liver transplants. So donations of those organs would be routed out of state to another center.
Maurer said some families find donating organs and tissue on behalf of loved ones to be a cathartic exercise.
She said her discussions with donor families, and their decisions about whether to meet transplant recipients, typically are emotional.
"For the donor family, their ability to meet someone they potentially saved, I don't know if you can put that in words," Maurer said. "There aren't enough Kleenexes in the room."
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d7bc9c3979a55d822e5c4b5a7dccfa01 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/12/trump-warning-we-cant-keep-fema-puerto-rico-forever/756926001/ | With 80% of Puerto Rico still without power, Trump says FEMA can't stay 'forever' | With 80% of Puerto Rico still without power, Trump says FEMA can't stay 'forever'
President Trump warned Thursday that FEMA and the U.S. military can't provide aid to Puerto Rico "forever," even as the hurricane-battered island struggles to provide power, water and other basic services three weeks after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria.
Trump's tweets drew a sharp response from San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who referred to the president on Twitter as a "hater-in-chief."
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly addressed the issue at a press briefing later in the day, saying the tweet was "exactly accurate," that the goal of an emergency worker is to "work yourself out of a job."
"Our country will stand with those American citizens in Puerto Rico until the job is done," Kelly said.
Trump also tweeted that Congress must decide how much money the federal government will spend and noted that "electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes."
More than 80% of the island remains without power since the Category 4 storm made landfall Sept. 20 with sustained winds approaching 155 mph. More than 40 people were killed and entire communities were destroyed. Communications were compromised and damage to ports, airports and roads further conspired to complicate aid efforts.
"We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!" Trump tweeted.
FEMA spokeswoman Eileen Lainez was somewhat more encouraging, tweeting that the agency would be with Puerto Rico and anywhere else affected by a disaster "every day, supporting throughout their response & recovery"
Trump also quoted conservative talk show host Sharyl Attkisson as saying that Puerto Rico survived Hurricane Maria and now faces a financial crisis "of its own making."
Puerto Rico has been in recession for a decade. Facing more than $70 billion in debts, the island defaulted on its bonds and filed for the equivalent of bankruptcy in May. That has essentially locked Puerto Rico out of the bond market, leaving little room to borrow money for the rebuild.
Cruz and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., led a social media charge challenging Trump's assertions.
Tweeted Schumer: "There is still devastation, Americans are still dying. FEMA needs to stay until the job is done."
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FEMA says 19,000 federal civilian and military personnel are supporting Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Trump has consistently portrayed the emergency response in Puerto Rico as effective and successful. That narrative has drawn scorn from Cruz, whom Trump previously described as "nasty."
The mayor hasn't shied from Trump's wrath, recently donning a "Nasty" T-shirt. And she was not quiet in the face of Trump's tweets Thursday.
"@POTUS It is not that you do not get it; you are incapable of fulfilling the moral imperative to help the people of PR. Shame on you.!" Cruz tweeted, then adding "your comments about Puerto Rico are unbecoming of a Commander in Chief they seem more to come from a “Hater in Chief”.
The territory's congressional representative also weighed in, telling USA TODAY the devastated area "desperately" needs federal support.
"If you take those resources away, you will leave Puerto Rico out in a limbo of catastrophic dimension," Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón said. "I don't know where those comments come from and what's the intel behind it, but the reality on the island is that we need more boots on the ground."
Trump's warning came a day after FEMA awarded the Puerto Rico water authority $70 million for emergency work, bringing the total amount of assistance awarded to individuals and communities to $210 million, FEMA said.
Gov. Ricardo Rosselló has warned that Puerto Rico faces a severe cash crisis, and legislation pending in Congress would provide almost $5 billion in loans to local governments. The money is part of a funding bill totaling more than $35 billion in emergency relief for the island as well as Texas, Florida, California and the Virgin Islands.
Maria hit Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands soon after of the powerful one-two punch to the U.S. mainland dealt by Hurricane Harvey, which laid waste to a swath of the Texas Gulf Coast, and Hurricane Irma, which hammered Florida so unrelentingly that most of the state lost power.
Those storms kept FEMA on full alert for weeks before Maria blasted Puerto Rico.
California wine country is on the aid list because of a series of fires that have killed more than 20 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
Contributing: Jessica Estepa
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e3f0424bc33baaa0ff0996b6cf36ae38 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/20/halloween-best-state-trick-or-treat/759707001/ | Here's the best state to trick-or-treat in this Halloween | Here's the best state to trick-or-treat in this Halloween
Hope you have a sweet tooth, Oregon.
A recent analysis of Halloween candy purchases found that Oregon tops the list of best states to go trick-or-treating in based on how much money residents spend on candy, with 3 Musketeers as the favorite there.
Trailing in second place is neighboring Washington — choosing 100 Grand bars as the top treat — but Oregonians spend on average $11.64 more per person on Halloween sweets.
The top states and amounts spent per person on candy:
What state ranks dead last? Ohio, where residents spend only $11.22 per person on average.
Other states with the lowest candy purchases per person included:
To gather the data, shopping app Ibotta looked at candy purchases the week before Halloween across the USA in 2015 and 2016. During that time, Americans spent an average $16.45 per person on sweets in the days leading up to Halloween, Ibotta's study found.
Best town:The best place to trick-or-treat in every state
Slacking until the last minute on buying those sweets could cost you. Oct. 30 is the worst day to buy treats, costing you $2.75 per unit of candy.
The day-before price hike is likely because the candy aisles are slim pickings on Halloween eve, and shoppers are just grabbing what’s available rather than hunting for the best deal, Ibotta said.
The magic number of days before the big day to do your candy shopping: Four (Oct. 27), when shoppers only spent $1.94 per unit.
Follow Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
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333e568a82da6038eaab1a0a1522c542 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/23/storm-whipped-puerto-rico-power-restoration-plagued-problems-after-maria/792376001/ | Five weeks after Maria most of Puerto Rico remains an island in the dark | Five weeks after Maria most of Puerto Rico remains an island in the dark
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — They're still in the dark. Lady Lee Andrews doesn't know how much longer she can keep her Poet's Passage souvenir shop afloat without electricity — or tourists.
Sonia Rodriguez relies on a generator to power the elevator in her five-story assisted living center so residents can get down for their outdoor meals and some relief from the lack of air conditioning.
More than a month after Hurricane Maria ravaged this island with 155-mph winds, three-quarters of the residents are still without power, lining up at banks for cash and gathering at shopping malls, hotels or government buildings just to charge their cellphones.
Police are directing traffic at major intersections without working traffic lights. Water plants are still out of commission, forcing people to gather water from roadside streams and then boil it to be safe from bacteria. Those without home generators are living without refrigeration, air conditioning and anything but natural light. Those with generators need to pay for gasoline or diesel fuel, and haul those volatile liquids in their cars, along with water and daily groceries.
“Nowadays businesses run with the rising sun and close as soon as whatever they have runs out, or they don’t open at all,” said Andrews, 45, as she sat in a dark hall of her shop in Old San Juan. “Now a business of my caliber, which depends on tourism, is completely affected. It's on total shutdown.”
Even Gov. Ricardo Rosselló admits that his pledge to restore 95% of power by mid-December is “aggressive.”
The task is daunting as the Puerto Rico faces challenges not seen on the U.S. mainland after other recent storms devastated Texas and Florida.
• The entire island lost power after the Sept. 20 Category 5 storm damaged power plants and 80% of the island’s electrical grid, which includes 2,400 miles of transmission lines and 30,000 miles of distribution lines, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
• Getting help to the island is cumbersome. Supplies and people to fix the power problems have to travel through ports and airports that are overwhelmed by aid deliveries, building materials, bucket trucks, helicopters, and every other necessity, slowing the delivery of supplies where needed.
• Puerto Rico’s power grid, saddled with years of financial mismanagement, was already weakened because preventive maintenance and upgrades were deferred to save money.
Col. Jeff Lloyd of the Army Corps of Engineers in Puerto Rico, which the federal government is relying on to help the U.S. territory restore power, would not commit to Rosselló’s mid-December timeline. The Corps has ordered $130 million worth of supplies, including 62,000 telephone poles from the U.S. mainland.
“The governor said that’s an aggressive estimate,” Lloyd said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make it possible. ... What’s going to be most challenging is the rugged terrain in restoring the grid.”
The power restoration project is focused on three tracks, giving priority to critical life-saving, health and public safety facilities.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, working with the governor’s office, has identified 537 sites for emergency power generators that are still being delivered and installed across the island.
Most generators are delivered by trucks, which are sometimes delayed by landslides, missing road signs and cellular service that would help GPS-aided navigation, said Lisa Hunter, a Army Corps spokeswoman. A recent rain storm delayed sending a generator by Chinook helicopter to a government-funded health clinic on the island of Culebra.
Larger generators have been delivered to power stations to help stabilize the grid, Lloyd said. Two General Electric mobile gas turbines that can provide at least 50 megawatts combined, roughly enough to power 50,000 homes, were delivered to the Palo Seco power plant near San Juan. Once that part of the grid is powered, workers can determine damage to distribution lines and fix them, Lloyd said.
Transmission lines that deliver electricity from major power stations are also under repair across the island. Much of that work is being done by Montana-based Whitefish Energy, which specializes in rugged, mountainous terrain.
“The interior of the country is all mountains with minimal road access,” said Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski. “This is why we use helicopters to access points.”
The company brought four helicopters to Puerto Rico, to carry workers to the tops of transmission towers and to act as sky cranes for equipment and lines. The National Guard and PREPA, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, have more helicopters to support Whitefish operations.
Techmanski said recent rains are hampering his 300 workers now on the island. Helicopters can’t be used in pouring rain. And an access road his crews built flooded a few days later.
“You can’t drive a vehicle up a road when it has 3 feet of running water on it,” Techmanski said.
And the power company will have to rebuild the smaller lines that deliver power to neighborhoods, homes and businesses.
As Puerto Rico’s electric grid is rebuilt, some planning is needed to include new technology, said Tom Lewis, president of the U.S. division of Louis Berger, a New Jersey-based contractor helping PREPA, FEMA and the Army Corps. Solar power, wind power and smart micro grids can operate even when other sections of the grid shut down.
That would be “putting something back that is more sustainable and resilient for the next storm,” Lewis said.
He predicted that restoring 95% of the island's power will probably happen in late December or early winter.
“The last mile is always the distribution network,” Lewis said. “Whether it’s more difficult in terms of access or dollars I don’t know, but it’s certainly the last part of the process.”
In the Égida Señora Perpetuo Socorro assisted living center, the 67 residents have power from a generator for about four hours in the morning and four hours at night. That's when they have running water and an elevator, but still no air conditioning.
They have their meals on an outdoor patio sheltered from the sun. But administrator Rodriguez points out she doesn’t always have enough money to buy diesel for the generator.
“Sadly, if there comes a time all our resources end, those with nowhere to go would have to be relocated to a shelter,” she said. But so far they have managed. “While there’s diesel there is hope.”
Contributing: Atabey Nuñez
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af7139938a8ce6e9b2caa1aa795431cf | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/25/brother-las-vegas-shooter-arrested-child-porn-charges/798888001/ | Brother of Las Vegas shooter arrested on child porn charges | Brother of Las Vegas shooter arrested on child porn charges
A brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was arrested Wednesday in Los Angeles on child pornography charges, authorities said.
Bruce Paddock, 59, was taken into custody at an assisted living facility in North Hollywood. A criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in Los Angeles County lists 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of possession of child pornography.
The complaint alleges that between January and August 2014, Paddock possessed and exchanged more than 600 photos depicting children under age 18 engaging in or simulating sexual activity. At least 10 of the images depicted children under age 12, the complaint alleges.
Paddock was a transient when the investigation took place and could not be found, police said. He was recently traced to the North Hollywood facility, and photos from the scene show him in a wheelchair during his arrest.
He was ordered held on $60,000 bail.
"#LAPD: Detectives have arrested Bruce Paddock for possession of Child Porn. In case there are more victims, call Juvenile Div," police tweeted.
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The child pornography investigation was launched after evidence was discovered at a business in the city's Sun Valley neighborhood, police said.
"Paddock had been squatting inside the business, and after his eviction the evidence was discovered," police said in a statement. Paddock has previous convictions for vandalism, criminal threats and theft, NBC reported, citing court records.
Stephen Paddock's shooting rampage on the Las Vegas Strip on Oct. 1 killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more. After the attack, Bruce Paddock told NBC News he was questioned twice about the shooting by the FBI.
“They were just asking about our childhood, what schools we went to, who his friends were,” Paddock said. He speculated that financial difficulties may have driven his brother over the edge. Police have found no such connection, however.
"I don't know how he could stoop to this low point, hurting someone else," Bruce Paddock told NBC. "He killed a bunch of people and then killed himself so he didn't have to face whatever it was."
Stephen Paddock, 64, killed himself after his rampage. Their father, Benjamin Paddock, was on the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives list in 1968 after escaping from a Texas prison that same year.
Benjamin Paddock had been sentenced to 20 years in the Federal Correction Facility in La Tuna, Texas, after robbing Valley National Bank in Phoenix in 1960. After his escape, he fled to Oregon and ran a bingo parlor before he was recaptured in 1978. He died in 1998.
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0e897ebe5f47706755acb22711f9b8c3 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/26/navy-rescues-2-americans-and-their-dogs-who-were-lost-sea-months/803593001/ | Navy rescues 2 Americans and their dogs who were lost at sea for months | Navy rescues 2 Americans and their dogs who were lost at sea for months
A perilous journey for two Americans lost at sea for five months after their boat lost power in a Pacific Ocean storm has ended with the rescue of the women and their dogs, the Navy said Thursday.
"They saved our lives," Jennifer Appel said after the rescue. "The pride and smiles we had when we saw (the ship) on the horizon was pure relief."
Appel and Tasha Fuiaba, both from Honolulu, said they and their two dogs left Hawaii for Tahiti this spring, but their engine failed May 30 during bad weather. The duo said they continued on, hoping to reach land by sail.
Lost and off course, they said they began issuing daily distress calls two months into their journey. But they were not close enough to other ships or land to be heard.
A Taiwanese fishing boat finally discovered them Tuesday, 900 miles southeast of Japan and thousands of miles from Tahiti. The crew contacted the U.S. Coast Guard at Guam.
Help arrived Wednesday morning in the form of the USS Ashland, a 610-foot-long amphibious docking landing ship, the Navy said. The battered boat was determined to be "unseaworthy," and the couple and their dogs were brought aboard the Ashland.
Appel said they survived because they had water purifiers and more than a year's worth of food — primarily oatmeal, pasta and rice.
Cmdr. Steven Wasson, Ashland commanding officer, shrugged off his ship's efforts.
"The U.S. Navy is postured to assist any distressed mariner of any nationality during any type of situation," Wasson said.
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53c8ac4c1a0e7ca841c71ed0b62c45b1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/11/04/legal-experts-bowe-bergdahl-judge-weighed-complex-leniency-factors/833439001/ | Legal experts: Bowe Bergdahl judge weighed complex leniency factors | Legal experts: Bowe Bergdahl judge weighed complex leniency factors
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s brutal five years of captivity by Taliban allies carried significant weight in an Army judge’s decision to spare him prison time for leaving his post in Afghanistan in 2009, legal experts said. Criticism of Bergdahl by President Donald Trump also appeared to push the judge toward leniency.
Army Col. Jeffery Nance didn’t explain how he formulated the sentence that also included a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank and a fine. But the judge had to consider a complex array of arguments for and against leniency.
Prosecutors asked for a 14-year prison sentence, citing several service members’ serious wounds while searching for Bergdahl. The defense sought to mitigate the punishment with evidence of Bergdahl’s captivity, mental illnesses, contrition and Trump’s harsh criticism.
“It’s really rare for there to be this much mitigation evidence,” said Eric Carpenter, a former Army lawyer who teaches law at Florida International University. “It’s kind of hard to distinguish which is the one that Nance gave the most weight to. But I think the Taliban conditions were pretty onerous.”
How did Bergdahl's captivity factor in?
Former Air Force lawyer Rachel VanLandingham noted that Bergdahl’s captivity was twice cited by officers in early investigations as a reason not to send him to prison. The officer who oversaw Bergdahl’s 2015 Article 32 hearing, which serves a similar purpose to a civilian grand jury process, wrote imprisonment wasn’t necessary largely due to “atrocities” against Bergdahl, though he noted he didn’t have evidence of casualties on search missions.
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“The high level folks who have looked at this said: ‘We just don’t think confinement is appropriate because of the amount of torture he suffered,’” said VanLandingham, who teaches at Southwestern Law School in California.
During sentencing, Bergdahl described beatings and torture by his captors with copper wire and unending bouts of illness brought on by squalid conditions. After several escape attempts, he was placed in a cage for four years.
Greg Rinckey, a former Army lawyer now in private practice, said he believes the “brutal conditions” and their duration were the most significant of the mitigating factors.
What effects did Trump's comments have?
In campaign speeches, Trump frequently criticized Bergdahl, calling him a “dirty, rotten traitor.” Nance rejected defense motions that charges should be dismissed or punishment limited because Trump was exerting unlawful command influence. But Nance indicated he would consider Trump’s comments a factor promoting leniency.
“Trump helped take that confinement off the table,” VanLandingham said.
Now, Trump’s condemnation of the lack of prison time on Twitter on Friday could give the defense lawyers a strong hand to get the sentence reduced further by an appeals court, the legal experts say. A dishonorable discharge triggers an automatic appeal to a higher military court.
How important were Bergdahl's mental health and remorse?
Nance also likely factored in Bergdahl’s willingness to take responsibility by pleading guilty, his emotional apology in court, and his mental health issues, the experts said. Bergdahl choked up Monday as he apologized to the wounded searchers in court.
Bergdahl and his lawyers offered evidence of two mental disorders as mitigating factors. A psychiatrist testified Bergdahl was influenced by a schizophrenia-like condition called schizotypal personality disorder that made it hard to understand consequences of his actions, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder after a difficult childhood.
Bergdahl’s escape attempts and valuable information he provided intelligence officers also helped, VanLandingham said.
“You have a mentally ill individual who served five years honorably in captivity. He genuinely showed remorse. And I think those things came across loud and clear,” VanLandingham said.
Did those factors outweigh wounds to Bergdahl searchers?
Nance had to weigh the leniency factors against prosecution evidence of several service members wounded on search missions. Before sentencing, Nance ruled those troops wouldn’t have wound up in separate firefights if they weren’t looking for Bergdahl.
Prosecutors cited a soldier whose hand was shattered by a rocket-propelled grenade and another who suffered a head wound that put him in a wheelchair and rendered him unable to speak. A Navy SEAL suffered a career-ending leg wound on another search.
Carpenter described the wounds as “very compelling” evidence against Bergdahl, but he said Nance likely recognized the searches involved events beyond Bergdahl’s control.
“Because there were so many other factors between Bergdahl’s actions and those injuries, the weight of the evidence went down,” Carpenter said.
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b292e19a6b63535e4fdda2161f1f6ea1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/11/05/gunman-opens-fire-texas-church/833960001/ | Gunman opens fire at Texas church, kills 26 | Gunman opens fire at Texas church, kills 26
A black-clad gunman opened fire Sunday at a rural church outside San Antonio, killing at least 26 — including several children — and wounding at least 10, law enforcement officials said.
The killer, pursued by a good Samaritan with a gun, was found fatally shot a short time later in a neighboring Texas county, said a law enforcement official who is not authorized to comment publicly.
Authorities did not immediately identify a motive for the attack at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, and they did not officially identify the gunman. But two law enforcement officials who were not authorized to comment publicly identified the gunman as Devin Kelley, 26, of nearby Comal County, Texas.
Kelley served briefly in the Air Force but was court-martialed in 2012, a military spokeswoman said.
Speaking to reporters late Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, "There are no words to describe the pure evil that we witnessed in Sutherland Springs today."
Abbott said officials were cautiously releasing information on the shooting, including the names of victims, who ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old.
Officials said 23 of the 26 victims were shot inside the church.
“There’s a lot of information," Abbott said. "We want to piece the puzzle together.”
Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety said the shooter, who was dressed in black and was wearing a ballistic vest, was spotted at about 11:20 a.m. at a Valero gas station across from the church. Witnesses said he drove across the street, got out of his vehicle "and began firing at the church" with a Ruger assault-type rifle.
He moved to the other side and continued firing, then entered the church, Martin said, where he "continued to fire."
As the suspect left the church, Martin said, a bystander retrieved a rifle and began firing at the shooter, who dropped his Ruger and drove away.
"Our local citizen pursued the suspect at that time," Martin said.
As law enforcement responded, the suspect drove off a roadway at the Wilson County/Guadalupe County line, Martin said. He was found "deceased in his vehicle,” he said, but officials were not immediately certain if the fatal wound came from a self-inflicted gunshot or from the person pursuing him.
In a late Sunday news conference around the corner from the church, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said as far as he knows the suspect had no ties to the town or knew anyone in the church, but that information was still being investigated.
“We don’t know why he was even here,” Tackitt said.
When asked if anyone has been able to describe to him the scene in the church, Tackitt replied, “All I can say is it was terrible.”
“It’s unbelievable to see children, men, women laying there,” he said. “Defenseless people. It’s just something you don’t want to see.”
Describing the layout of the church, the sheriff said he doesn’t think people could have escaped the attacker.
“You’ve got your pews on either side when you’re walking down the aisle and he just walked down the center aisle, turned around and was, from my understanding, shooting on his way back out," he said. "There was no way anyone could have escaped.”
Tackitt said he knew quite a few of the people who were in the church, later describing the community as one where “pretty much everyone knows everyone.” He said recently the church hosted a fall festival.
“A week later this happens,” he said.
He confirmed a family had been killed, though he didn’t confirm number of people in the family, describing it as a “a pretty high number.” Tackitt said he’s known the family “forever.”
Frank Pomeroy, who is pastor at the church, told ABC News he was out of town when the rampage took place, but that his daughter was killed. Annabelle, 14, "was one very beautiful, special child,” Pomeroy said.
Paul Buford, pastor of nearby River Oaks Church, said his service was underway when first responders in his congregation were called to the scene. He said some members of the community had "confirmed information" about family members and friends. Buford declined to provide any details.
"We are pulling together as a community," Buford said. "We are holding up as best we can."
President Trump, addressing the shooting before speaking to U.S. and Japanese business leaders at a meeting in Tokyo, said the federal government will give "full support" to Texas as it deals with the aftermath of the "horrific shooting" at the church. While these are "dark times," Trump said, Americans will do "what we do best: We pull together."
Trump ordered that the U.S. flag be flown at half-staff at the White House and elsewhere through Thursday.
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Police, ambulances and helicopters swarmed to the small church 35 miles east of San Antonio.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said agents from its San Antonio office were responding to the shooting. The FBI also was on the scene.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton noted on CNN that Sunday's shooting took place eight years to the day after the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, which unfolded about 150 miles north of Sutherland Springs. In that shooting, Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded 32 in the deadliest domestic military attack in U.S. history.
Paxton said he wondered if there was a connection between the two shootings. "It’s just strange to me that it happened on the same day and in the same state," he said.
Kelley was previously in the Air Force and served in logistics at Holloman AIr Force Base in southern New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, according to Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokeswoman.
Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 for assaulting his spouse and their child. He received a bad conduct discharge, was confined for 12 months and busted to the grade of E-1. He was discharged in 2014.
Authorities on Sunday were examining the timing of the shooter’s acquisition of the firearms used in the assault Sunday, and whether he obtained them after he received the bad conduct discharge, a law enforcement official said.
Among those prohibited from possessing firearms, according to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, are those who have been discharged from the military “under dishonorable conditions,” said the official, who is not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.
Carrie Matula, who works at a nearby gas station near, told MSNBC she heard what sounded like semiautomatic gunfire coming from the modest, white clapboard church with a red door.
"This is something that happens in a big city," she said. "I would never have thought this would have taken place here. It's just too tight a community. It doesn’t make sense."
Elsewhere on Sunday, officials suspended a 20-year-old victory tradition at Texas Motor Speedway: the celebratory firing of a pair of pistols into the air.
Track president Eddie Gossage told USA TODAY Sports that the decision was made out of respect for the church shooting victims. "In light of what happened, it was the respectful thing to do,” Gossage said.
At a prayer vigil held across the street from the church on Sunday evening, people sang and prayed, candles in hand.
Debbie Jones, 55, said she was still trying to find out if a friend survived the shooting. "We’re just devastated," she said. "We’re just waiting."
Contributing: Kevin Johnson, David Jackson, Tom Vanden Brook, A.J. Perez and John Moritz, USA TODAY, and Eleanor Dearman, Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
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690370f3e80a1dde9af2539b43c1d029 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/11/07/harrowing-moments-inside-texas-church-gunman-shouted-everybody-die-fired-crying-children/840109001/ | Harrowing moments inside Texas church: Gunman shouted 'everybody die,' fired at crying children | Harrowing moments inside Texas church: Gunman shouted 'everybody die,' fired at crying children
The gunman who killed 26 people at a rural Texas church targeted churchgoers who made noise and shot crying children at point-blank range, survivors say.
Roseanne Solis told KSAT-TV in San Antonio that Sunday's service at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs began amid smiles and joyous singing. Then, suddenly, tragedy.
"I hear firecrackers popping. Ta-ta-ta," Solis said. "Everybody started screaming, yelling. Everyone got down, crawling under wherever they could hide. It was so scary."
The shooting was coming from outside the church. Solis said she was hit in the shoulder. She and her husband, Joaquin Ramirez, were bloodied and played dead, watching as fellow parishioners were felled in the hail of bullets.
When the shooting stopped, she thought police might have arrived. It was actually the gunman, 26-year-old Devin Kelley, entering the church.
"Everyone was saying ‘Be quiet. It's him. It's him.’ Then he yelled out, ‘Everybody die (expletive),’ and he started shooting again," she said.
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Ramirez, who was hit by shrapnel, told the station the gunman shot the church's camera crew — services are normally posted online — then moved to the center aisle toward the front. Aisle by aisle, the gunman fired away.
Farida Brown, 73, was hiding in the back pew, her son David Brown told CNN.
"She stayed on the ground the whole time — never saw him, just saw his boots as he walked around the church," Brown said.
Ramirez said he made eye contact with the pastor’s 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle, who was crying out for help. He signaled with his finger for her to be quiet, knowing the gunman was listening for sounds and shooting whoever made them.
Pastor Frank Pomeroy was out of town Sunday. Annabelle was among those killed.
The gunman reached the back pew, where he shot the woman next to Farida Brown multiple times, David Brown said. His mother thought "her life was about to end," but Kelley's attention was drawn away and he retreated to the front of the church, Brown said.
Ramirez said he finally crawled out of the church amid the smoke and gunfire and called 911. Kelley left before help arrived, but a neighbor engaged him in a gunfight. Shot twice, Kelley fled in his SUV.
Kelley was found a short time later in the crashed vehicle, dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, authorities said.
"The Lord saved me, because I know it was my last day," Solis said.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt says Kelley had attended the church’s Fall Festival on Halloween night and his behavior did not raise any alarms.
Tackitt did not say if the pastor provided any details on that visit, such as what the shooter was doing, whether he wore a costume, or anything else that stood out.
Tackitt told reporters Tuesday: “The pastor told me he was here at the festival Halloween night, saw him in the crowd.” Tackitt says the pastor told him Devin Kelley had attended services at the church before.
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285b42f52ecb7460839011cde5c7804f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/11/14/museum-of-the-bible-dc-readies-for-opening/861705001/ | In the Capitol’s shadow, massive Museum of the Bible readies for opening | In the Capitol’s shadow, massive Museum of the Bible readies for opening
WASHINGTON (RNS) — In the new Museum of the Bible is a room full of Bibles, color-coded to show the more than 2,000 languages into which the holy book has been at least partially translated — and the similar number for which translation has “not yet begun.”
That exhibit is just one example of how the 430,000-square-foot building with a view of the U.S. Capitol is meant to fascinate, educate and — depending on your perspective — evangelize.
“You could certainly interpret it that way,” said Museum of the Bible President Cary Summers of the language-related exhibit in an interview shortly before the museum’s Friday opening.
Some may see the exhibit as a visual depiction of the Bible’s growing influence over time, and others as a demonstration of the potential for spreading its message further. “We’ve never viewed it as evangelical outreach at all. It’s just part of the history of the Bible. And we’re showing it in this great way.”
Since the nonprofit behind the museum was established in 2010, officials have shifted from their original mission “to inspire confidence in the absolute authority and reliability of the Bible” to one that’s become “nonsectarian” and aimed at welcoming people of all faiths and none.
Strategically placed near the National Mall, a collection of monuments and museums dedicated to the country’s civic ideals, this museum is focused on religious ideals. Its success will, perhaps more than that of other museums, depend on the eye of the beholder. Visitors who swipe its high-tech screens or eat in its Manna restaurant will judge its contents from their own perspectives — religious, Christian or evangelical, or none of the above.
The museum opens amid controversy around its message and its primary funders, Steve Green and his evangelical family, which also run the Hobby Lobby craft store business that three years ago won a much-debated court case giving it an exemption from the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Hobby Lobby recently reached a legal settlement over some of its acquisition of artifacts.
Separately, museum officials say they have responded to critics about the museum’s planned contents and language, adding nuance to signage and switching out artifacts to include a wider representation of cultures drawn to the Bible.
A tour
The museum’s front entrance features a gateway with two 40-foot brass replicas of the Book of Genesis as it appeared in the Gutenberg Bible, the version that first brought the holy book to the masses in the 1400s. Just beyond these panels is a glass vestibule featuring an artistic rendering of Psalm 19 (“The heavens declare the glory of God”), inspired by the Bodmer Papyri fragment that is one of the oldest artifacts in the museum’s collection.
The spacious lobby — its wall etched with “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” — features a 140-foot-long digital ceiling with revolving images of landscapes, stained glass and items from the permanent collection.
Museum staffers will offer visitors heading to the three floors of central exhibits tabletlike digital guides to help them plan their trek based on their personal interests and the amount of time they have to spend in the museum that took three years and $500 million to build. Though the Green family contributed the bulk of the funding, smaller financial gifts have come from schoolchildren sending in a dollar a month as well as Catholics, Jews and atheists, Summers said.
Admission is free but donations are suggested. The museum is offering timed-entry passes but visitors can also attempt to enter without them.
Just above the lobby, the “Impact of the Bible” floor highlights how Scriptures have influenced cultures across the globe — from education and literature to art and architecture. A Bible owned by Elvis Presley is just steps away from mannequins adorned with dresses by fashion designers such as Dolce and Gabbana, who have featured icons of Mary in their luxury brand.
“Secular audiences will be surprised at the influence of the Bible” on many aspects of popular culture, said Seth Pollinger, director of museum content.
The eight-floor museum will display around 1,600 items in its permanent exhibits — about three-quarters of them Bibles and biblical manuscripts. It also will feature separate temporary exhibitions of collections of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem and the Vatican.
Israeli officials are expected to join dignitaries ranging from congressional chaplains to Catholic bishops for a private ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday two blocks from the National Mall. The museum is set to open to the public the next day.
Questionable acquisitions
Despite the fanfare, the museum opens in the shadow of a recent Justice Department settlement in which the Hobby Lobby company paid $3 million and returned 5,500 artifacts that were illegally imported from Iraq.
Museum of the Bible officials have tried to distance themselves from the controversy, saying the museum “was not a party to either the investigation or the settlement.”
Noting that the artifacts in question included cuneiform tablets and not Bibles, David Trobisch, the museum’s director of collections, said that nevertheless there was fallout for the museum.
“It still did affect us because we had a display where we wanted to show the development of writing, and the different tools that are developed,” he said at a gathering with reporters in October. Museum officials had to ask partners to loan them items to complete the exhibit.
But beyond the countless Bibles and fragments on display, much of the museum seems more Disney-like than scholarly. There are videos interspersed between artifacts and touch screens and a sound booth where people can write and speak of their own experience with the Bible.
Visitors can snack in the Milk and Honey cafe, sit in a 472-seat theater where the Broadway musical Amazing Grace will begin its national tour, or take a 4-D ride that will give them the sensation of flying over Washington and viewing its buildings that contain biblical texts.
In the “children’s experience” area, young visitors will be able to pretend to slay Goliath with a slingshot or fish with Peter, helping him fill his boat after Jesus told him to let his nets down again.
On the “Narrative of the Bible” floor, there is an area that looks like a movie-set re-creation of how the village of Nazareth might have appeared in Jesus’ time, including a family dinner table filled with bread and beans and a mikvah used for ritual cleansing. Costumed docents will talk about Jesus, but the museum has decided to generally avoid portraying him physically, Pollinger said, “because it’s just not an issue that we want to solve or take a position on.”
The museum does take on numerous conflicts over faith, from a display of Bible-based arguments for and against slavery to a desecrated 1800s Torah scroll that was turned into shoe inserts in the next century.
It also addresses debates about whether the Bible and science are “mutually exclusive”: “There is broad agreement today among historians that modern science owes a great deal to the biblical worldview,” reads a sign near a sculpture of astronomer and physicist Isaac Newton holding a compass. “The idea that the natural world is orderly springs from the Bible.”
Answering the critics
Citing the recent legal action, the 8,500-member Society of Biblical Literature issued a statement prior to the opening urging museum officials to operate with “transparency and ongoing openness to review and analysis by scholarly peers.”
Summers responded that the museum has done just that: More than 100 scholars have weighed in on aspects of the museum’s plans and content.
Some have commented by email, drafting language in the exhibits, correcting typos — B.C. vs. A.D., for example — or adding explanations, such as one about the importance of the history of ownership of artifacts. Museum staffers also made a change to an art section, adding a contemporary black Madonna painting after they were criticized for not being more inclusive.
One of the key areas in the “History of the Bible” floor is a section on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Pollinger escorted Robert Cargill, incoming editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, through the museum and said he “enriched” how the museum deals with questions about the authenticity of their scroll fragments.
“Because that is an intense discussion now, we wanted to upgrade our signage to be able to discuss how it is that you can tell some of these different clues about potential forgeries,” Pollinger said. “We wanted to make it really an educational opportunity rather than defending whether something is real or not.”
Cargill, an assistant professor of Judaism and Christianity at the University of Iowa, said most museums wouldn’t display any item whose authenticity is in question.
“If there’s any doubt of whether something’s a forgery, you don’t put it out there,” he said. “They’re still going to be criticized for that and that’s just a decision they’ve got to live with.”
Both Cargill and Christopher Rollston, a George Washington University professor and a member of the SBL’s governing council, say they believe the museum officials have heard their concerns and have made at least some of the changes they recommended.
Though there are Scripture-affirming banners, such as one that quotes a verse in 2 Timothy (“All Scripture is inspired by God”), Pollinger said curators squeezed “multiple views” about the origins and timing of the Bible within the 60-word limit of some signage.
“We do acknowledge that some think that God revealed the Torah to Moses,” he said, “but we will say scholars do not agree when different parts were first written down.”
But Pollinger also said he looks forward to the expansion of the “illumiNations” exhibit that shows the languages in which the Bible has been, and has yet to be, written down. He hopes it will be “like the Library of Congress for translations” as more are completed and samples are displayed there.
Rollston said that the exhibit, as with other displays in the museum, will inevitably be interpreted through the lens of whoever is viewing the museum’s offerings.
“I think with a lot of the things that are on display, they often navigate sort of a middle way,” he said, “without saying some things that might disappoint or disturb certain constituencies on both sides, left and right.”
(RNS has a board member who is also on the leadership staff of the Museum of the Bible. RNS board members had no involvement in this story.)
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bb2ae832701dcd6949efd4cb6fbfa6cd | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/11/15/escaped-psychiatric-patient-flew-to-california/865502001/ | 'Violent psychopath' caught by police in California after escaping Hawaii mental hospital | 'Violent psychopath' caught by police in California after escaping Hawaii mental hospital
Police in Northern California on Wednesday arrested a “violent psychopath” accused of murder who had escaped a Hawaiian psychiatric hospital earlier this week.
Randall Saito, 59, was arrested after Honolulu police received a tip that he was on his way to a brother’s home in Stockton, Calif., said Honolulu CrimeStoppers Sgt. Chris Kim. That tip was forwarded to authorities in Stockton, Kim said.
Saito left the Hawaii State Hospital on Sunday, took a taxi to a chartered plane bound for the island of Maui and then boarded another plane to San Jose, Calif., police said. Kim said he received word that Saito had been arrested Wednesday.
Saito was acquitted of a gruesome 1979 murder of Sandra Yamashiro by reason of insanity and committed to Hawaii State Hospital in 1981. Saito randomly chose the victim, shot her in the face and fatally stabbed her, authorities said. Her body was later found in her car at the mall.
The FBI and U.S. Marshals Service reviewed security footage from San Jose International Airport after launching the manhunt for Saito, said Jon Vaden, an airport spokesman. He said police didn't advise him of any threats at the facility.
“He is a very dangerous individual,” said Wayne Tashima, a Honolulu prosecutor who argued in 2015 against Saito receiving passes to leave the hospital grounds without an escort.
Saito left the state hospital outside Honolulu at 10 a.m. Sunday and didn’t return, police said. Hospital staff called 911 to report his disappearance shortly after 7:30 p.m. — two hours after he landed in San Jose, police said. An all-points bulletin was issued an hour later.
It was not immediately clear how Saito was able to leave the facility in Kaneohe, a Honolulu suburb. Hawaii State Hospital Administrator William May said officials are fully cooperating with law enforcement and appropriate steps would be taken if Saito received help from someone inside the facility.
Saito has repeatedly attempted to get released from the state hospital, a move vehemently opposed by prosecutors.
In 2002, prosecutors questioned why Saito was granted unescorted leave from the facility, according to Hawaii News Now. "He is a psychopathic predator whose mental condition continues to represent a serious danger to the community," deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey Albert said at the time.
In 1993, a court denied Saito’s request for conditional release, saying he continued to suffer from sexual sadism and necrophilia.
The state Department of Health operates the hospital, which houses over 300 patients in Kaneohe. The department said it’s investigating the escape.
“There is a serious lack of information for the public,” said Nicholas Iwamoto, who was stabbed 18 times on a popular Hawaii hiking trail in 2009. His attacker was found legally insane and sent to Hawaii State Hospital. He was later granted conditional release to attend community college, a decision Iwamoto wasn’t notified about.
“Public safety has certainly been compromised,” Iwamoto said. “It’s extremely alarming. But nothing from the state surprises me anymore.”
Irving Tam, who has lived near the hospital in Kaneohe for about 30 years and was walking by the facility Tuesday, said he worries about hospital patients getting out in his neighborhood.
“When they do escape, especially someone with this kind of a record, there is a high degree of concern, he could be violent and who knows,” Tam said. “That’s why I have a gun, for this very reason. Hopefully I never use it.”
Tam said he heard about the escape from a neighbor, not the police, hospital or the media, and that patients have gotten out several times in the past.
“This is not totally uncommon, we have had similar incidents in the past, and fortunately nothing has ever happened,” Tam said.
Saito was the impetus for a rule change in 2003, when the state attorney general’s office decided mental patients committed to Hawaii State Hospital have no legal right to conjugal visits.
The issue came to light when the hospital administrator learned Saito had been escorted home for weekend conjugal visits over two years. The administrator blocked visits away from the facility and on its grounds.
Dangerous psychiatric patients have escaped recently from other U.S. facilities, most recently last year, when a man accused of torturing a woman to death broke out of Washington state’s largest mental hospital.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Follow Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis.
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