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1d9a098466e9e1f29d2d6996329083f1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/14/frank-cali-reputed-gambino-bosss-slaying-throwback-bygone-era/3168967002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Alleged Gambino crime boss Frank Cali's slaying a throwback to bygone era, experts say | Alleged Gambino crime boss Frank Cali's slaying a throwback to bygone era, experts say
WOODLAND PARK, N.J. – The gunshots that killed the alleged boss of New York's infamous Gambino crime family Wednesday night could be called the mafia's crackling proof of life: Yes, we are much diminished. But we're still here. And we're still dangerous.
Authorities have released little information on the death of Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, 53, of Staten Island. But mafia watchers across the region suspect that a rival ordered a hit on the boss. And at least one thinks the killing was meant to send a message.
“It’s a high-level thing,” David Shapiro, a distinguished lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY Network New Jersey. “They exterminated the rat. You kill them like that – six bullets, in front of his house at 9 p.m. – you’re saying loud and clear that this guy’s demise was meant just like a sewer rat. It’s serious business.”
It was a bloody death for an otherwise unremarkable don. He lacked the swagger of John Gotti, his strutting 1980s-era predecessor, or the pure menace of earlier bosses like Al Capone or Vito Genovese. If Cali's killing was indeed a hit, it was far less spectacular than the execution of Paul Castellano, who was famously killed as he got out of a black limousine outside a midtown Manhattan steakhouse in 1985.
Castellano, known as "Big Paul," was the last New York don to be killed in such fashion. Cali's death drew immediate parallels, though it happened on a tree-lined street in a quiet outer-borough neighborhood during an era when the mob is widely viewed as a shadow of its former self.
More:Alleged Gambino crime boss Francesco 'Franky Boy' Cali shot and killed in front of New York City home
"It just goes to show that the mob isn’t quite dead,” said Christian Cipollini, an organized crime historian who operates ganglandlegends.com. "I get asked this all the time: ‘Does it still exist?’ Yes, the American mafia will always exist. It’s just to what degree is the question.”
Cali lived in the same Staten Island neighborhood as Castellano but oversaw a much feebler organization. Between the 1930s and 1980s, New York's "Five Families" had their tentacles in everything from building construction to the garbage industry to the Fulton Fish Market.
But its power shrank in part because of the Castellano assassination, said Larry McShane, a reporter for the New York Daily News who has written two books about the mafia. Gotti, who ordered the hit so he could seize the Gambino crown for himself, courted the media spotlight and caught the attention of law enforcement as a result.
He and other mob figures were widely prosecuted in the 1980s and 1990s, further gutting the families and poisoning the public's perception of the once-glorified mobster, McShane said.
“I think the mob has been demystified to a large degree over the years – I don’t think anybody sees them as the Corleones, this kind of nice family," McShane said. "They’re not sympathetic characters. A lot of the details in the cases in the '80s and '90s made it clear just how much murder was involved. I don’t think there’s much mystery or allure to the mob life anymore.”
Still, organized crime appears to be enjoying at least a slight resurgence in both Italy and America, according to Cipollini. But as legitimate business in America changes, so has the mobster's approach to ripping it off. Construction is down, unions are depleted and state and federal authorities stand ever-ready to crush organized crime under an avalanche of racketeering charges.
This has pushed the mafia away from its traditionally rigid command structure and into an era of smaller cells operating on their own, a job at a time. Yes, the mob has joined the gig economy, said Shapiro, of John Jay.
"The structure is looser," Shapiro said. "You don't need a 20-person crew; you can have four or five members and be very fluid and do different things ... but the opportunities are not as plentiful. So they have to be creative: identify theft, credit card scams, counterfeit goods. Whatever scheme you can make."
Cipollini echoed this, saying the mob will make money whichever way it can. And it's always going to call the New York/New Jersey area its home – no matter how much the "families" shrink.
“They’re not going to be El Chapo and run a giant cocaine and heroin business, but they’ll certainly get their piece of the pie in their respective geographic region," Cipollini said.
Cali was known as an “ambassador” between the Gambino family and mobsters in Sicily. Authorities say he may have been lured out of his red-brick colonial-style home by a gunman who backed his pickup into Cali's Cadillac, damaging it.
A video showed the assailant pulling a 9mm handgun and firing on Cali about a minute into their conversation, said Dermot Shea, chief of detectives for the New York Police Department. Shot several times, Cali tried to crawl under his SUV to hide. The gunman sped away in a pickup truck. No arrests have been made.
An emergency medical team rushed Cali to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Some experts say Cali's death may have stemmed from a personal slight, or a concern that he was about to flip and help law enforcement. Or it may have been something simple, like an old-school turf war in which a rival wanted Cali's business and thought the only way to take it was by force.
In the end, Cali's grisly death may be his lasting legacy.
“In recent years, I’d say it’s more likely that a boss would be taken out by federal prosecutors than by somebody with a gun," McShane said. “The biggest headline he ever made was getting murdered by his cohorts.”
Contributing: The Associated Press.
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e46483151edefa95db3800cbebd44c9b | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/14/keith-raniere-nxivm-founder-child-porn-charge-alleged-cult-case/3165006002/ | NXIVM founder Keith Raniere faces new child porn charge in alleged sex cult case | NXIVM founder Keith Raniere faces new child porn charge in alleged sex cult case
ALBANY, N.Y. – NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere was indicted on new charges late Wednesday as prosecutors say they have evidence he had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl and images of her that amount to child pornography.
Raniere, 58, is now facing child pornography and sexual exploitation of a child charges as part of a new indictment unveiled in federal court in Brooklyn, where he was already accused of leading a widespread criminal enterprise in which some women were groomed for his sexual pleasure and branded with his initials on their pubic region.
In court filings this week, the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's Eastern District said it has electronic communications between Raniere and the victim — identified in court documents as "Jane Doe 2" — proving their sexual relationship began when she was 15.
More:NXIVM co-founder Nancy Salzman pleads guilty in sex-cult case
The prosecutors also said they have dated images of the victim that were created and possessed by Raniere and evidence showing his co-defendants, including actress Allison Mack and Seagram's liquor fortune heiress Clare Bronfman, knew of two relationships he had with underage girls.
"The government also intends to offer evidence that members of the Enterprise, including the defendants, were aware of and facilitated Raniere’s sexual relationships with two underage victims," prosecutors wrote.
Marc Agnifilo, Raniere's attorney, told the Associated Press the new charges "serve only to taint the jury pool."
"If the charges were legitimate, they would have brought them a year ago," he said.
NXIVM billed itself as a self-help organization and amassed a devoted following that paid thousands of dollars to take classes based on the spiritual teachings of Raniere, who had long claimed to be one of the smartest people in the world.
But former followers have alleged NXIVM is a cult, and prosecutors have accused Raniere and his co-defendants of creating a secret sorority in which women were branded and treated as slaves groomed for Raniere's sexual tastes, in part with extreme diets that allowed them to eat less than 1,000 calories a day.
Attorneys for Raniere and prosecutors have battled for months over what evidence would be admissible for his coming trial, which is scheduled to begin next month.
In previous filings, Agnifilo has dismissed prosecutors' accusations of Raniere engaging in relationships with underage girls as "hearsay."
More:The charges against sex cult NXIVM's Keith Raniere, Allison Mack and Clare Bronfman, explained
In their most recent filings, the U.S. Attorney's Office said that's not true: They intend to introduce the images of his alleged victim as evidence for the trial.
The superseding indictment was filed Wednesday just after Nancy Salzman, who co-founded NXIVM with Raniere, pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering conspiracy.
Salzman admitted stealing the email addresses and passwords of NXIVM enemies to monitor activities, as well as altering video that was used in a lawsuit against a prominent NXIVM critic.
In court documents last week, prosecutors said Jane Doe 2 was a former employee of Salzman's.
Follow Jon Campbell on Twitter: @JonCampbellGAN
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01533bc8df20a39a12b004110f4147e8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/14/mayor-bill-de-blasio-extend-manhattan-shoreline-counter-storms/3171145002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | NY Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to extend Manhattan's shoreline to protect against flooding | NY Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to extend Manhattan's shoreline to protect against flooding
ALBANY, N.Y. – New York wants to extend its shoreline around lower Manhattan in an effort to fight off climate change and another potential flood.
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday announced that the city intends to embark on a $10 billion plan to protect lower Manhattan, the epicenter of the financial markets and the nexus of its subway system, from the type of damage sustained during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
“Hurricane Sandy showed us how vulnerable areas like lower Manhattan are to climate change,” de Blasio said.
“That’s why we not only have to reduce emissions to prevent the most cataclysmic potential effects of global warming, we have to prepare for the ones that are already inevitable."
The initial plan is to spend $500 million to fortify most of lower Manhattan with grassy berms in parks and removable barriers than can be installed this year when major storms approach.
But the mayor and the city's Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency project call for a more ambitious long-term plan.
Lower Manhattan is home to the financial district, 500,000 jobs, 90,000 residents and is the hub of the regional transit system.
"It will be one of the most complex environmental and engineering challenges our city has ever undertaken and it will, literally, alter the shape of the island of Manhattan," de Blasio said in a column in New York magazine.
The 3.3-mile shoreline in lower Manhattan, city officials said, needs to be better protected because it sits so close to sea level, just 8 feet above the waterline, and is packed with utilities and subway lines that make any coastal protections difficult to achieve.
So the proposal is to extend the shoreline into the East River by as much as 500 feet, or two full city blocks.
The new land will have high points that are 20 feet from sea-level, creating a flood barrier as the city braces for future storm surges.
It's unclear how the city would pay for it, but de Blasio said he will advocate for the federal government to help cover the cost, saying too often funding only comes after a disaster.
Superstorm Sandy ravaged parts of the city, putting 51 square miles of it under water, damaging or destroying 17,000 homes and killing 44 people.
"It's only when the destruction is done when the money starts to flow," de Blasio said. "We can't live that way anymore."
The city's study Thursday said the changes are desperately need.
By the 2050s, 37 percent of properties in lower Manhattan will be at risk from storm surge.
And by 2100, with over 6 feet of projected sea level rise, almost 50 percent of properties will be at risk from surge.
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618637f6fda4cad138e9e7aa89bb32d8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/15/california-drought-free-after-7-years-dry-conditions-remain/3168753002/ | 'Mediterranean climate': California drought ends after more than 7 years, but dry conditions will return | 'Mediterranean climate': California drought ends after more than 7 years, but dry conditions will return
California is completely drought free for the first time since 2011 as a wet winter winds down, scientists said.
Abnormally dry conditions linger in less than 7 percent of California, the U.S. Drought Monitor said on Thursday, as storms have filled reservoirs, built snow pack and improved soil moisture. The state had experienced some form of drought for 376 consecutive weeks, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center.
Parts of Southern California are drier than normal, the drought monitor said in its weekly report, because of prior years of little rain, but none qualify as having drought conditions. Reservoirs in San Diego County are only at 65 percent capacity.
While Newsha Ajami, Stanford University's Director of Urban Water Policy, described the drought report and this winter's rain and snow as exciting, she said they are not signs for a wet future.
"If we have a few more years of this, then maybe our groundwater conditions will be in a much better shape and we might be in a better shape to deal with another potential drought, which will come," Ajami said. "California has a Mediterranean climate so we do experience a lot of ups and downs in our weather conditions."
Multiple years of dry periods back to back, Ajami said, can cause drought conditions. The water year before the drought began in December 2011, Ajami said California recorded rainy, snowy and cool conditions similar to the way it did this year.
Record hot and dry years thereafter led then-Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a drought state of emergency. Between 2010 and 2016, more than 102 million state trees died on 7.7 million acres of the forest, the U.S. Forest Service said.
The state only ended executive orders for water restrictions in 2017, when less than 9 percent of the state recorded drought conditions. But at the start of 2019, more than 75 percent of the state experienced some level of drought.
Above average amounts of rain and snow since have boosted water supplies and the the snowpack in mountain ranges including the Sierra Nevada, where the state recorded levels 153 percent of average at the end of February. Wildflowers have also blossomed in Southern California because of the rain.
Related:Deadly California floods swamp 2,000 homes, turn 2 towns into 'islands'; record snow hits Sierra
Related:Mudslides, floods, rain, howling winds: California hit by dangerous storm
But downpours have also triggered mudslides and flooding, including in areas burned by recent wildfires. Rain transformed the Sonoma County wine country town of Guerneville into an island and caused millions in damage to highways in the San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles.
As the capital reports 126 percent of normal rain levels, according to the National Weather Service's Sacramento office Wednesday, the situation is far different from when state campaigns encouraged residents to let their lawns “fade to gold for the summer.”
Regardless of current drought conditions, Ajami said, conserving water and using the resource efficiently and consciously should be an everyday practice.
"The reality is we will be going in and out of drought over time," Ajami said. "We can't waste water for purposes that are not necessary."
Contributing: The Associated Press
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e073050c0df65d14c50b94f9c7a93570 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/15/flying-tires-missing-part-18-wheeler-tulane-student-death-mississippi/3173765002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Did missing truck part lead to freak accident that killed college student? | Did missing truck part lead to freak accident that killed college student?
JACKSON, Miss. – A missing part on an 18-wheeler probably led to the death of a college student at a Mississippi rest stop, a Mississippi Department of Transportation official told The New Orleans Advocate.
On March 5, Tulane University student Margaret Maurer was at a rest stop with friends in Gautier. Police said a tractor-trailer was traveling westbound on Interstate 10 when two of its wheels came off. The wheels then crossed the eastbound lanes, entering the rest stop. Maurer and two friends were about to get back into their vehicle when the tires hit her and two cars.
The absence of a locking ring, a $3 part, was cited as a probable cause of the incident, said Willie Huff, director of the transportation department's office of enforcement. Huff said the metal ring – a 3-inch locking washer – was missing when inspectors unpacked the outer hub of the wheel assembly. It is one of two rings that are meant to lock in place the large lug nuts holding the wheels in place. Only one ring was found, Huff told The Advocate.
The findings are still preliminary, Huff said.
March 7:'Gifted' college student killed by flying tires in freak roadside accident in Mississippi
It is not mentioned in a brief report by the Mississippi Department of Transportation on the inspection that was done after the incident. That report, provided to The Advocate by the Gautier (Mississippi) Police Department after a public-records request, found "out of adjustment" brakes where the wheels came off, but blamed the problem on a common failure of newer air-brake systems.
Inspectors also found a leaking seal, a violation that prompted state officials to order the trailer taken out of service for repairs. Huff said the leak may have been caused by damage from the loss of the wheels. Neither of those issues would have caused the wheels to come off.
Huff said that the missing ring wouldn’t have broken off. He thinks it is more likely it was not installed.
The truck is owned by Dana Transport Inc. of Avenel, New Jersey. It also is listed under a related company, Suttles Truck Leasing of Demopolis, Alabama.
Both companies are in good standing with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, with "satisfactory" ratings and a better-than-average record on crashes and vehicle safety.
Huff said the missing ring would not have been detected in the kind of unannounced roadside inspections that are logged into the federal database.
David Dorrity, a South Carolina trucking-safety expert who frequently testifies in court cases, told The Advocate there are three main reasons that wheels can fly off big-rigs:
• A wheel-seal failure in which grease is lost and the metal overheats
• An installation error
• A sheared axle.
Dorrity said wheel separations usually occur on the left side of a truck, where the wheels turn against the clockwise torque of the nuts.
Maurer, of Minnesota, was a senior at Tulane University in New Orleans, where she studied ecology and evolutionary biology, USA TODAY reported.
University President Mike Fitts described Maurer as an "extraordinarily gifted student and a leader among her peers" in a written statement.
"She was planning to graduate in May to pursue a career in scientific illustration – a field that combined her skill as a scientist, her incredible artistic talent and her love of nature," he said.
Speaking with Minnesota's KSTP-TV, Maurer's mother said the "freak accident" occurred as her daughter and her friends took a restroom break during a spring-break road trip.
"It's absolutely a random freaky thing," Tracy Maurer told the station. "It's not right. There's so much that's wrong about this. It's just random. I really want to be angry at somebody, but I can't be."
Follow Harold Gater on Twitter: @haroldgater
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1b632cc22b2245809f44c72a1d093efb | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/15/new-zealand-christchurch-mosque-shootings-who-brenton-tarrant/3172550002/ | 'Violent terrorist': Who is the white supremacist suspected in New Zealand mosque shootings? | 'Violent terrorist': Who is the white supremacist suspected in New Zealand mosque shootings?
Brenton Tarrant was charged Saturday with murder in the terrorist attack shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch that killed at least 50 people. He livestreamed his own rampage, the deadliest massacre in the nation's history.
Tarrant is a 28-year-old white male with white supremacist views. He captured Friday's deadly incident at Masjid Al Noor mosque in a 17-minute video taken on a helmet camera.
Here's what we know about him:
'Extremist, right-wing violent terrorist' from Australia
Tarrant, 28, was born in nearby Australia, the country's Prime Minster Scott Morrison confirmed, according to the New Zealand Herald. Morrision called Tarrant "an extremist, right-wing, violent terrorist."
Media reports have found that Tarrant is from Grafton, a town of around 19,000 people in New South Wales, Australia.
Author of an anti-immigrant manifesto
Tarrant is the author of a more than 70-page anti-immigrant "manifesto" called "The Great Replacement," which according to The Guardian, consists of a rant about white genocide and advocates for "an atmosphere of fear” against Muslims.
He posted the document on Twitter before the shooting. His Twitter account has since been disabled.
'Just a regular white man,' he wrote
In the document, Tarrant refers to himself as "European" instead of Australian and also says he grew up in a low-income working class family, The Guardian reported.
He wrote that his language, culture, political beliefs, philosophical beliefs, and identity are all European and "most importantly, my blood is European.”
"I am just a regular white man, from a regular family, who decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people,” it says. “My parents are of Scottish, Irish and English stock. I had a regular childhood, without any great issues.”
Had planned attack for two years, he claims
Tarrant describes himself as a ethno-nationalist and a fascist in the manifesto, The Guardian reported, and claims to have planned Friday's attack for two years. He said New Zealand wasn't his original choice as a target but had scoped it out for three months.
In addition to the shooting, police defused explosive devices found in a car.
Tarrant arrived at the mosque in a car with at least three guns. On the stereo, he played a song glorifying a Bosnian Serb war criminal. His riles were covered in white-supremacist graffiti.
At least two rifles used in the shooting, according to the Associated Press, mention Ebba Akerlund, an 11-year-old girl killed in an April 2017 truck-ramming attack in Stockholm by Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old Uzbek man.
The number 14 is seen on the gunman’s rifles. It may refer to “14 Words,” which according to the Southern Poverty Law Center is a white supremacist slogan linked to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
Worked as a personal trainer at a gym, traveled the world
ABC reported that Tarrant worked as a personal trainer at Big River Gym in Grafton from 2009 to 2011, when he then traveled in Asia and Europe.
He also made income through Bitconnect, a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, that he used to help fund his trips. He was described by his gym employer as "a very dedicated trainer" and someone who didn't seem interested in guns.
"I think something must have changed in him during the years he spent traveling overseas," gym manager Tracey Gray told ABC.
Father died of cancer nearly a decade ago
Tarrant's father, Rodney Tarrant, died of cancer in 2010, when his son was in high school. Gray, his former employer, said she believes that he has a surviving mother and sister.
Some media reports have pointed to his death as the period when Tarrant started to become radicalized.
Inspired by far-right terrorist Anders Breivik
Tarrant in his manifesto, according to MSN News, wrote that he has read the writings of Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine African-Americans in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, "and many others."
But he wrote that he "only really took true inspiration from Knight Justiciar Breivik." Breivik killed 77 in a terrorist attacked in Oslo, Norway.
Contributing: Associated Press
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de48b83bf898445bf76fa731bc7dbf21 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/15/weather-forecast-midwest-floods-heavy-rain-snowmelt-swamp-states/3175578002/ | Historic, deadly Midwest floods are worst 'anybody has ever experienced' in some areas | Historic, deadly Midwest floods are worst 'anybody has ever experienced' in some areas
Days of heavy rain and snowmelt brought historic flooding to the Upper Midwest on Friday. The floods have left one man dead, threatened a Nebraska dam and nuclear power plant, and halted traffic on the Missouri River.
The situation has prompted evacuations in Wisconsin, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota.
Heavy rain was courtesy of the massive "bomb cyclone" that battered the central United States this week with heavy snow, howling winds and several tornadoes. Rain and melting snow from the storm have already produced record high water levels along portions of the Boyer and Floyd rivers in Iowa and the Loup River in Nebraska, AccuWeather said.
So far, 19 locations in the Midwest have set new flood crest records, said weather.com meteorologist Jon Erdman. Overall, more than 300 river gauges were in flood stage in the central United States, the National Weather Service reported.
A Nebraska farmer was killed Thursday after the tractor he was in got carried away by floodwaters, the Omaha World-Herald said.
Also in Nebraska, the Cooper Nuclear Station along the swollen Missouri River will likely be shut down early Saturday as the river keeps rising, officials reported Friday. The shutdown is a precautionary measure only: even if it floods there is no danger, thanks to built-in safeguards, according to Nebraska Public Power District spokesman Mark Becker.
The U.S. Coast Guard says all traffic on the Missouri River from about 50 miles south of Omaha, Nebraska, downstream to St. Joseph, Missouri, has been shut down due to the river’s high water levels.
Flooding also reached the Dakotas: In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, at the Leif Erickson YMCA camp, executive director Mike Murphy said "the severity of this particular flood event isn’t something that anybody has ever experienced. It came up so rapidly, we weren't able to get our vehicles out or get anything out that we could drive or save," he said.
More:Tornadoes hit Kentucky as deadly bomb cyclone pounds central US
Though dry weather is forecast for the next several days across much of the USA, this round of Midwest flooding should persist into the weekend, the weather service warned.
AccuWeather warned that the worst flooding may be yet to come for some areas along the upper and middle portions of the Mississippi River over the next several weeks, as much of the snow over the northern Plains, Upper Midwest and central High Plains melts.
Contributing: Jeremy Fugleberg, Sioux Falls Argus Leader; The Associated Press
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7bf367c1965ee1fd17875cba1b28909d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/17/california-town-sues-owner-flintstone-house/3195607002/ | Yabba Dabba ... no? California town sues over 'Flintstone House' | Yabba Dabba ... no? California town sues over 'Flintstone House'
An owner adding dinosaur sculptures to the Flintstone House did not make one San Francisco Bay Area town shout “Yabba Dabba Doo."
The town of Hillsborough sued Florence Fang last week, alleging she violated local laws by landscaping the yards of the orange-and-purple, bulbous-shaped house.
Local officials last year labeled the property with figurines of characters from “The Flintstones” animated cartoon series as a public nuisance. Fang installed large metal sculptures, a staircase, a parking strip, a deck and a driveway sign labeled "Yabba Dabba Doo" since buying the building in 2017.
Drivers can spot the hillside multi-domed home from Interstate 280. Architect William Nicholson designed it in the 1970s, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, spraying concrete over a wire mesh and steel frame.
A code enforcement panel ordered Fang to remove the features by December after determining the "highly visible eyesore" falls short of community standards. The city also charged Fang, former publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, a $200 penalty, the Chronicle reported.
The lawsuit asks a judge to make Fang remove the dinosaurs and figurines. Fang's grandson said in a statement that she “will fight to save the Flintstone House.”
“I think the dinosaurs are beautiful. They make everyone smile and should stay,” Sean Fang said.
Related:Flintstones Bedrock City closes; Raptor Ranch is coming
Related:Police mock 'arrest' man - and car! - dressed as Fred Flintstone
Contributing: The Associated Press
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2ac293e53da53d000fc6c38807b9b498 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/17/new-zealand-mosque-shootings-facebook-removed-1-5-million-videos/3193970002/ | Facebook removed 1.5 million videos of New Zealand attack within 24 hours | Facebook removed 1.5 million videos of New Zealand attack within 24 hours
Facebook said Sunday that it removed or blocked from the social media site 1.5 million videos of a gunman's rampage on two New Zealand mosques that killed 50 people and wounded dozens more.
Mia Garlick, spokeswoman for Facebook New Zealand, said that about 300,000 videos were removed within the first 24 hours of the terrorist attack Friday. More than 1.2 million were blocked at upload, she said.
"Out of respect for the people affected by this tragedy and the concerns of local authorities, we're also removing all edited versions of the video that do not show graphic content," Garlick said in a tweet.
Garlick said that Facebook was using technology and people "around the clock" to remove content that violates its violence policy.
Minutes before the attack, the alleged shooter posted a 74-page manifesto on Twitter and sent it to numerous officials and media outlets in New Zealand. The gunman also livestreamed the rampage via helmet cam on Facebook and Twitter.
Footage of the massacre circulated for hours after the shooting, despite efforts by Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Reddit to take it down as quickly as possible. Twitter and YouTube said they were continuously monitoring and removing any content depicting the tragedy.
"Our hearts are broken over today’s terrible tragedy in New Zealand," YouTube tweeted within hours of the attack. "Please know we are working vigilantly to remove any violent footage."
Twitter issued a statement citing its "rigorous processes and a dedicated team" that activates in such emergencies. The site also stressed that it cooperates with law enforcement investigations.
Church services and candlelight vigils were taking place across the nation of fewer than 5 million people Sunday. Dozens of people wounded in the assault on the Al Noor and Linwood mosques remained hospitalized.
New Zealand Police on Sunday released some details of the initial response to the attack.
"There has been some speculation around the Police response times to the first attack," New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said in a statement. "To clarify, police received its first 111 call at 1.41pm. The first armed police unit was on scene at 1.47pm. That’s six minutes to respond."
The department's highly trained Armed Offenders Squad arrived with 10 minutes, and the 28-year-old suspect was in custody within 36 minutes, Bush said.
"I am very proud of the police response to this terrible attack," he said.
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a865e35053bbbdbf8a764b0bdb139315 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/17/teacher-resigns-allegedly-disciplining-students-duct-tape/3194495002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Ohio teacher resigns after allegedly using duct tape on students who talked during an exam | Ohio teacher resigns after allegedly using duct tape on students who talked during an exam
CINCINNATI — A Cincinnati Public School District teacher accused of disciplining students with duct tape has resigned.
Charles Igwekala-Nweke resigned his position on Jan. 18, according to district spokeswoman Lauren Worley.
“The teacher acknowledged in a written statement that his actions were inappropriate and resigned Jan. 18, 2019,” Worley said.
Igwekala-Nweke taught math at two schools, Clark Montessori High School and Hughes STEM High School, she said. He had been employed by the district since 2015.
In late December, district administrators learned about the alleged duct taping, Worley said.
“As soon as the school principals were informed, they met immediately with the employee, removed him from the classroom and instructed him to not return to any CPS schools pending an investigation. The parents of the students involved were immediately notified,” she said.
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A letter in Igwekala-Nweke's personnel file by Hughes Principal Kathy D. Wright indicates that the incident happened Dec. 21. Another teacher reported the incident to administrators after a student told him that "Mr. Igwekala-Nweke had placed duct tape on his mouth."
In an email to Wright, also in the personnel file obtained by The Enquirer, Igwekala-Nweke said that he engaged in behavior "unbecoming of a teaching professional."
"In my 7th bell, students were talking during their semester exam," he wrote in his email. "In the efforts of maintaining a proper test environment, I told students I would give them zeros to counter their conversations. But, instead of giving them reprimands and zeros on their semester exam, I proceeded to using duct tape on students."
He apologized for his action.
"I allowed gross rationale to justify gross behavior," Igwekala-Nweke wrote.
The personnel file also includes statements from three students who said Igwekala-Nweke used duct tape on them.
The district reported the allegations that day to 241-KIDS, Worley said. The district also initiated its own investigation and reported the allegations to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Professional Conduct, per the district’s protocol, according to Worley.
A disciplinary conference was held in January by CPS at which point, Worley said, Igwekala-Nweke resigned.
There's no further action on the part of the district, Worley said.
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Follow Sheila Vilvens on Twitter: @SVilvens
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d1f1c50439e41da45b5d92be38a97521 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/18/dna-evidence-reveals-identity-jack-ripper-scientists-claim/3206856002/ | Jack the Ripper identified by DNA evidence, forensic scientists claim | Jack the Ripper identified by DNA evidence, forensic scientists claim
Researchers say they have finally unmasked Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who terrorized London in the late 1800s.
A forensic investigation published in Journal of Forensic Sciences has identified the killer as Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and prime suspect at the time.
Kosminski was previously named as a suspect over 100 years ago and once again in a 2014 book by British businessman and Ripper researcher Russell Edwards. But the latest finding marks the first time that Edwards' DNA evidence has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, according to the magazine Science.
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“To our knowledge, this is the most advanced study to date regarding this case,” the study authors wrote.
Jack the Ripper is believed to have killed at least five women in the Whitechapel district of London between August and November of 1888. Researchers Jari Louhelainen and David Miller ran genetic tests on a silk shawl stained with blood and semen that investigators say was found next to the body of the killer’s fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, Science reported.
Researchers compared fragments of mitochondrial DNA — which the magazine noted is inherited from one’s mother — to samples from living relatives of Eddowes and Kosminski and found they matched those of Kosminski’s relative.
The study also includes an analysis of the killer’s appearance which suggests the killer had brown hair and brown eyes. which matches the only reliable witness statement, according to Science.
The study’s findings may not satisfy other Ripper experts who say the shawl may have been contaminated over the years. The shawl was given to Louhelainen by Edwards, a self-proclaimed “armchair detective” and author of "Naming Jack the Ripper," who bought it at an auction in 2007, according to the Guardian.
“I’ve got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case,” he told the newspaper in 2014. “I’ve spent 14 years working on it, and we have definitively solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was.”
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7739c83ac303f7349f961556ef449a59 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/19/powerball-jackpot-lottery-draw-days-draw-times-numbers-and-more/3217219002/ | Powerball jackpot climbs $550M: Everything you need to know | Powerball jackpot climbs $550M: Everything you need to know
March Madness isn't the only game causing a frenzy this month.
The Powerball jackpot continues to climb after no one matched all six numbers in Saturday's drawing.
The jackpot for Wednesday's drawing is now worth an estimated $550 million. According to lottery officials, it’s the eighth largest Powerball prize in history.
The winner can choose to receive the prize in annuity payments or take the lump sum option, which is $335 million before taxes.
Lottery madness swept the nation late last year when the Mega Millions grand prize soared to over $1.537 billion. The sole winner, a woman from South Carolina, anonymously claimed the prize earlier this month.
As big as it was, last year’s Mega Millions wasn’t the biggest lottery jackpot in history. In 2016, ticket holders in three states split a nearly $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot.
Here's everything you need to know about the latest Powerball drawing:
Powerball numbers
The Powerball numbers from the Saturday, March 16 drawing were 30, 34, 39, 53 and 67, and Powerball 11.
When are Powerball draw days?
Powerball draws occur every Wednesday and Saturday.
What time is the Powerball drawing?
Powerball drawings are at 10:59 p.m. EDT.
Deadline to buy Powerball tickets
Powerball sales end at 9:58 p.m. EDT in Indiana. Check with your local state lottery for cut-off times.
How much do Powerball ticket costs
Powerball tickets are $2 apiece. Tack on the Power Play for $1 and your non-jackpot winnings could be multiplied up to five times. Players can multiply non-jackpot wins up to 10 times when the jackpot is $150 million or less.
How to play Powerball
Select six numbers from two separate pools of numbers. Choose five different numbers ranging from 1 to 69. Then, choose one number from 1 to 26 for the Powerball.
The there are nine ways to win, six of which require the correct Powerball. Players can match three, four or five numbers without the Powerball and also win.
Odds of winning Powerball
Approximately 1 in every 24.87 Powerball tickets sold are winners. The likelihood of winning the jackpot is 1 in 292,201,338.
Contributing: Sheila Vilvens and Jennie Key, The Cincinnati Enquirer. Follow Chris Sims on Twitter: @ChrisFSims.
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3a88289b96521f6fa8de67e94bbc4e92 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/20/harvard-university-sued-descendants-slaves-over-photos-renty/3213537002/ | Harvard University sued over allegedly profiting from what are believed to be the earliest photos of American slaves | Harvard University sued over allegedly profiting from what are believed to be the earliest photos of American slaves
BOSTON – In 1850, a Swiss-born Harvard University professor commissioned what are believed to be the earliest photos of American slaves.
The images, known as daguerreotypes and taken in a South Carolina studio, are crude and dehumanizing – and they were used to promote racist beliefs.
Among the photographed: an African man named Renty and his daughter, Delia. They were stripped naked and photographed from several angles. Former professor Louis Agassiz, a biologist, had the photos taken to support an erroneous theory called polygenism that he and others used to argue that African-Americans were inferior to white people.
Now, a woman who says she is a direct descendant of that father and child – Tamara Lanier, the great-great-great granddaughter of Renty – is suing Harvard over the photos.
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She has accused Harvard of the wrongful seizure, possession and monetization of the images, ignoring her requests to "stop licensing the pictures for the university's profit" and misrepresenting the ancestor she calls "Papa Renty."
The university still owns the photos. Lanier, who lives in Connecticut and filed the suit against Harvard in Middlesex County Superior Court on Wednesday, is seeking an unspecified amount of damages from Harvard. She's also demanding that the university give her family the photos.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Lanier said she has presented Harvard with information about her direct lineage to Renty since around 2011, but the school has repeatedly turned down her requests to review the research.
"This will force them to look at my information," Lanier said. "It will also force them to publicly have the discussion about who Renty was and restoring him his dignity."
The suit, which lays out eight different legal claims, cites federal law over property rights, the Massachusetts law for the recovery of personal property and a separate state law about the unauthorized use of a name or picture for advertising purposes.
It also singles out the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, arguing that Harvard's possession of the photos "reflects and is a continuation of core components or incidents of slavery."
"For years, Papa Renty's slave owners profited from his suffering. It's time for Harvard to stop doing the same thing to our family," Lanier said.
Who was Renty?
Lanier called Renty a "proud man who, like so many enslaved men, women and children endured years of unimaginable horrors."
"Harvard's refusal to honor our family's history by acknowledging our lineage and its own shameful past is an insult to Papa Renty's life and memory."
The suit also says Harvard has "never sufficiently repudiated Agassiz and his work."
Jonathan Swain, a spokesman for Harvard, said Wednesday that the university "has not yet been served, and with that is in no position to comment on this lawsuit filing."
Lanier is represented by the law firms of national civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump of Florida, who has worked high-profile cases for the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, as well as Connecticut-based attorney Michael Koskoff.
The photos taken in 1850 of Renty, Delia and 11 other slaves disappeared for more than a century but were rediscovered in 1976 in the attic of Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
One of the photos of Renty, showing him waist-up as he looks defiantly into the camera, has four decades later turned into an iconic image of slavery in the U.S.
The lawsuit argues that Harvard has used the Renty images to "enrich itself." The image is on the the cover of a 2017 book, "From Site to Sight: Anthropology, Photography and the Power of Imagery," published by the Peabody Museum and sold online by Harvard for $40.
The photo also was displayed on the program for a 2017 conference that Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advance Study hosted on the school's relationship with slavery.
According to Lanier's attorneys, Harvard requires that people sign a contract in order to view the photos and pay a licensing fee to the university to reproduce the images.
Archives:Harvard Law drops controversial seal
"These images were taken under duress, and Harvard has no right to keep them, let alone profit from them," Koskoff said. "They are the rightful property of the descendants of Papa Renty."
He accused Harvard of not wanting to tell the "full story" of how Renty's image was seized – against the will of slaves for a professor who sought to "prove the inferiority" of the black race.
"Harvard continues to this day to honor him, and that's an abomination," Koskoff said.
In recent years, Harvard leaders have publicly acknowledged the school's role in fostering slavery. In addition to the 2017 conference on slavery, the school convened a faculty committee a year earlier to jump-start scholarship and research on Harvard's history with slavery.
Former University President Drew Faust said in a speech in 2016 that Harvard was "directly complicit" in America's system of racial bondage until slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1783. She said Harvard remained "indirectly involved through extensive financial and other ties" to slavery in the South.
"This is our history and our legacy, one we must fully acknowledge and understand in order to truly move beyond the painful injustices at its core," Faust said.
How the lawsuit began
The suit charts how Lanier, a former chief probation officer in Norwich, Connecticut, has on multiple occasion sought to engage the university about the photos to no avail.
Her attorneys say her effort began in 2011 when she wrote a letter to then-president Faust, whose "evasive response" did not provide an opportunity to discuss returning the photos to Lanier's family.
Five years later, she says, she reached out to the student-run Harvard Crimson newspaper, but its editor relayed that the story had been "killed" because of concerns from the Peabody Museum.
In the university's use of the images, the lawsuit says, Harvard has "avoided the fact that the daguerreotypes were part of a study, overseen by a Harvard professor, to demonstrate racial inferiority of blacks."
"When will they not condone slavery and finally free Renty? Because their actions denote something different than what they might say," Crump said.
"We are trying to tell as many people throughout America, and especially black people, that Renty does deserve the right to have his image. He was 169 years a slave, but based on this lawsuit, we sought to make sure he would be a slave no more."
Agassiz was considered one of the greatest biologists and geologists in the world in the mid-19th century. But his record has become problematic over time. He was an opponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. And in fiercely subscribing to polygenism, he held the now-debunked belief that white people and African-Americans came from different species.
The photos he commissioned were taken by J.T. Zealy in a studio in Columbia, South Carolina. He published them a month later in an article titled "The Diversity of Origin of the Human Races."
Agassiz's legacy still lives on at Harvard. He founded the school's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and his wife, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, also a Harvard researcher of natural history, was founder and the first president of Radcliffe College, now the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women. A street in Cambridge is named after Agassiz, and so is a Harvard theater, the Agassiz House.
Lanier has spent recent years researching and talking to genealogical experts who she said have validated her ancestry.
Lanier said she began studying her family's ancestry after her mother died in 2010 to follow up on family stories she heard about Papa Renty. She worked with Boston genealogist Chris Child, who is known for tracing ancestors of Barack Obama, according to a 2018 article in the Norwich Bulletin.
"It was a journey," she said. "It was important to my mother that I write this story of who Papa Renty was down and to do a family tree.
"I made a promise to my mother," she added.
According to the newspaper, Lanier said she can trace her great-grandfather, named Renty Taylor and then Renty Thompson, to a plantation near Columbia, South Carolina, owned by Benjamin Franklin Taylor. This is where the photos are believed to have been taken.
She said she started providing Harvard evidence that she's a descendant of Renty but that the school has been "non-responsive." "Most importantly, I want the true story of who Renty is to be told. That's all I've ever asked for."
The Bulletin quoted Pamela Gerardi, the Peabody Museum's director of external relations, who described the photos last year as "extremely delicate" and well cared for.
"We anticipate they will remain here in perpetuity," she said at the time. "That’s what museums do.”
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187c1c61bb57ead876aa52b3d68c9fc9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/20/nebraska-floods-more-water-coming-heres-what-mankind-should-do/3214576002/ | The waters are rising, the floods are coming. What are we doing to save ourselves? | The waters are rising, the floods are coming. What are we doing to save ourselves?
Houses on stilts. Floating buildings. More parks to absorb water. Better maps to warn those at risk.
City planners, builders, engineers and scientists race to find new ways for people to make a home as climate change threatens increased heavy flooding, dangerous weather conditions and extreme storm surges.
Recent events have made clear how urgent the problem is. Dozens of flood records have been broken this week in the Upper Midwest, the National Weather Service said. Heavy flooding that began last week from Minnesota to Missouri has killed at least four people, caused more than $1.5 billion in estimated losses and damages and destroyed more than 2,000 homes. The National Weather Service said flooding in South Dakota and Iowa could soon reach historic levels.
In southern Africa, a cyclone and related flooding devastated parts of Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe last week. The confirmed death toll has surpassed 500, with hundreds more feared dead in towns and villages that were completely submerged.
Experts said that even as some areas grow drier and more drought-prone, others will experience more violent and wetter storms as climate change makes global weather more variable and extreme.
Nebraska underwater: 74 cities, 65 counties declare emergencies as flooding envelops state
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For areas experiencing more flooding – U.S. coastal communities and those living near rivers – there is hope. Answers range from the fanciful to the concrete (literally).
The book “2100: A Dystopian Utopia” envisions what cities will look like after climate change: Low-lying and coastal cities have been destroyed by rising sea levels and storm surge inundation. Inland towns struggle with droughts and wildfires. Global megacities have become more compact and are almost completely rebuilt to deal with new norms. São Paulo, Brazil, frequently floods, so homes are suspended above the waters. The Brooklyn borough of New York City is protected by storm-surge barriers while turbines and parks line Gowanus Canal to soak up water and energy from the frequent storms that would otherwise flood the nearby homes.
Though these scenarios might seem far-fetched, some of what’s described in the book by architect Vanessa Keith is based on technologies that have already even been built.
For example, planners know that near river systems, the best protection against flooding is to leave the areas around the watercourse as parkland or farmland.
This type of mitigation is common in the Sacramento Delta in California and along the Mississippi River, said John Cain, director of conservation for California flood management with the nonprofit American Rivers, which works to protect and restore the nation’s rivers. Heavy rains this spring near California filled those flood bypasses, which protected nearby cities and towns.
One response to increased flooding is simply to move.
That was the choice made by the town of Pattonsburg, Missouri, in 1998. After flooding more than 33 times, the town voted to move as a group to higher ground. The town of Valmeyer in Illinois made the same decision.
If moving is not an option, many areas build levees and dams to protect against flooding. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, more than 14 million people in the USA live behind levees, in all 50 states. Such barriers carry risks.
“Levees and dams only work up to a point, and when they fail, they fail catastrophically, like Katrina,” said Cain, referring to more than 50 levee and floodwall failures in the greater New Orleans area in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. The resulting flooding killed at least 1,833 people.
One option for newly built areas is creating holding ponds to capture runoff during storms, so the water doesn’t pour as quickly into streams and rivers, said Kenneth Kunkel, a professor of climate science at North Carolina State University in Asheville.
These are common enough nationally that they're listed as a flood mitigation strategy by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. One example is the High Point neighborhood in Seattle, which was redeveloped in the early 2000s to include a stormwater pond to keep homes from flooding during heavy rains. It was the first large-scale natural drainage system in the area and diverts 80 percent of the area's stormwater runoff, so nearby Longfellow Creek doesn't overflow.
Cheaper over the long term
For private developers and individual homeowners, there are many ways to build more safely in flood-prone areas.
"It’s actually cheaper to build hazard-resistant homes than it is to build to the minimum building codes and then fix things,” said Jeremy Gregory, a research scientist at the department of civil and environmental engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied Katrina and other disasters.
“Over its lifetime, you spend more time on the repairs than on the initial construction costs,” said Gregory, who directs the Concrete Sustainability Hub, which studies how concrete can be used for engineering applications.
Individual homeowners can raise foundations, so their homes are farther above ground and less likely to flood. In areas of Florida and the East Coast, homes are built on piers to hold them even higher.
“It’s really an elevation game, is what it comes down to. The higher you are, the less likely you are to get wet,” said William Sweet, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expert on sea level rise.
The one downside is that although “you can raise your house, you’re still driving through water to get to your house,” he said.
An old-but-new choice is to build houses above ground level, in which the first story holds the garage or storage, and living quarters are up one floor.
This style of home goes back to building techniques people in flood-prone areas have long known, but it became less common as flood insurance became available and people moved often enough that they didn’t have a stake in building for the long term.
These types of homes were so common in the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi Delta that the style had a name, the raised cottage. These houses featured living quarters above a raised foundation. This was cooler in warm climates because air could circulate underneath.
A simple change in New York City involves building owners moving utilities to the roof or higher, rather than in the basement.
“That was a big challenge in Hurricane Sandy, the heating and cooling systems and water heaters were in the basement and were destroyed,” Gregory said.
More extreme is to create homes that can move up and out of harm’s way when waters rise.
A British company, the Larkfleet Group, is working on an experimental house that could rise on jacks above floodwaters. The house could be raised 4 1/2 feet in less than five minutes.
In Holland, 29 percent of which is susceptible to river flooding, water remediation is taken seriously. In the town of Maasbommel, a community of amphibious and floating houses was built that go up and down with the rising of the Maas river. The homes are built on floating concrete barges connected to mooring posts.
No news isn’t good news
One of the biggest adaptation tools is simply information, so home buyers and homeowners, along with their communities, can make informed decisions.
Unfortunately, what’s mostly available are government maps that show 100-year flood and extreme precipitation areas. Created using data from the past, they don't take into account what modern climate models predict as weather patterns change.
“They’re based on the assumption that the future will be like the past, and that’s just about the worst assumption that a person could make in our current situation,” Kunkel said.
At the University of California-Irvine, environmental engineering professor Brett Sanders and his team build computer models that show historic flooding and areas at risk because of climate change to give residents access to as much information as is available. He hopes to make the program more widely available as they get more funding.
There’s no magic bullet for dealing with the consequences of climate change. Putting the data into forms people can use isn’t quick, easy, or cheap. Even once they have the information, “these communities have to make smart choices and tough decisions,” he said.
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e995dbeddaf91a0f483012ed4d8a6003 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/ceasar-sayoc-pipe-bomb-mailing-suspect-spree-targeted-trump-critics/3221797002/ | Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc pleads guilty in spree aimed at Trump critics, including Obama, Biden | Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc pleads guilty in spree aimed at Trump critics, including Obama, Biden
NEW YORK – Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc tearfully apologized as he pleaded guilty Thursday for the domestic terrorism attacks in which he mailed 16 crude explosive devices to prominent Democrats and critics of President Donald Trump in late 2018.
The 57-year-old Florida resident sobbed as he entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan federal court. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and possibly as much as life behind bars at his scheduled September 12 sentencing.
"I know that these actions were wrong and I am extremely sorry," the sobbing defendant told the judge in a voice that was little more than a raspy whisper before pleading guilty to 65 criminal counts that included using weapons of mass destruction and illegal mailing of explosives with intent to kill or injure.
Responding to questioning by Rakoff, Sayoc said he had not intended for the devices to explode and hurt anyone, but instead "to threaten and intimidate people."
However, he acknowledged knowing that his creations — "designed to look like pipe bombs," packed with fireworks powder, fertilizer and glass fragments, and with a digital alarm clock and wires attached — could have detonated and caused death, serious injuries, and property damage.
"I was aware of the risk they could explode," he said.
Left unanswered during the hearing was whether forensic evidence showed the likelihood that the devices, as designed, actually would have detonated.
The plea covered the criminal elements of the charges against Sayoc, covering all of the explosive devices he mailed in October from southern Florida to New York, California, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere in a spree that sparked fear and jangled nerves nationwide.
The allegations superseded the 30-count criminal indictment handed up against Sayoc in November when he initially entered a not-guilty plea.
Appearing in court in a dark-colored jail smock and pants, Sayoc admitted he mailed the bomb packages to former president Barack Obama, former vice president Joe Biden, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, actor-director Robert De Niro, cable network CNN and prominent Trump critics.
Federal investigators located and disabled the devices, and no one was injured.
Guilty pleas or convictions on some of the counts in the original indictment could have subjected Sayoc to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. The superseding allegations eliminated the possibility of a mandatory life term, giving Rakoff discretion in deciding the ultimate sentence.
Sayoc still faces a potential maximum punishment of life imprisonment on 16 of the charges. One charge, carrying explosives while committing a felony, carries a mandatory 10-year prison sentence to be served on top of any other punishment Rakoff imposes.
Federal prosecutors and a team of federal defenders representing Sayoc agreed to the plea terms in a negotiated agreement that does not bind the judge.
"I may agree with that. I may not agree with that," Rakoff said of the plea agreement.
Amy Gallicchio, one of Sayoc's lawyers, said the defense team would argue for leniency.
Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, took a harder stance in a statement that said Sayoc "will soon be sentenced to significant time in prison."
"For five days in October 2018, Cesar Sayoc rained terror across the country," said Berman. "Thankfully no one was hurt by these dangerous devices, but his actions left an air of fear and divisiveness in their wake."
The spree erupted in October when suspicious packages were found in U.S. Postal Service facilities and at the offices or homes of Sayoc's targets.
Authorities captured Sayoc in Plantation, Florida, on Oct. 26, 2018. They tracked him down through evidence from FBI laboratory tests that allegedly linked him to 11 of the 16 packages.
Cesar Sayoc seizure:How the federal agents caught bombing suspect: A single fingerprint, DNA match
Who is Sayoc:For accused pipe bomber, life was a stage where the truth was a bit player
Sayoc's personal history – pieced together from interviews with relatives, friends and associates, along with public records – sketches a portrait of a troubled man who at times seemed estranged from reality.
The details: New Yorker by birth. High school and college soccer player. Male stripper and dancer. Arrested for steroid possession, and other crimes. And the founder of multiple failed businesses.
Sayoc broke off contact with his mother, Madeline, and other relatives more than three years ago, said Ronald Lowy, a Miami lawyer who represented Sayoc in four court cases. In their last conversation before his most recent arrest, he told his mother he hated her, Lowy said.
Trial scheduled:Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc pleads not guilty, trial scheduled for July 2019
Terrorism in USA:10 days, 4 hate crimes: The parallel paths of 4 angry men who terrorized America
A letter Sayoc's mother sent to ABC News after his arrest hinted at mental health issues as one possible reason for the inter-family animosity, as well as for Sayoc's alleged crimes.
"My son has been ill for a long time and my family and I have tried, over and over again, without success to urge him to get the help he needs," Madeline Sayoc wrote.
Lowy said the relatives' fears were based on a series of incidents, including Sayoc's arrest in 2002 for threatening to blow up a Florida Public & Light building if the utility shut off his electricity. The threatened blast would be "worse than 9/11," prosecutors alleged he warned.
"He was clearly mentally ill," Lowy said. "Because you would have to be mentally ill to do something that dumb a year after 9/11 and not think that there would be consequences."
Despite his other arrests, Sayoc is no master criminal, said Daniel Lurvey, an Aventura, Florida, attorney who represented him in court.
"I would never think he would do violence to another person," Lurvey said.
During the months before the pipe bomb mailings, Sayoc lived in his van, a white vehicle festooned with images and words that praised Trump and blasted his critics, investigators discovered. Sayoc attended political rallies held in 2016 to boost Trump's White House campaign.
The turn toward conservative Republican booster clashed with his family's historical preference for Democratic candidates, Lowy said.
Sayoc's alleged pivot toward violence puzzled Joseph Nunn, an entertainment booking agent based in Las Vegas. Nunn said he and Sayoc were roommates in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, years ago when the two performed as male strippers and dancers.
The arrest and charges against his old friend "blew my mind, literally," Nunn said.
"He was a dear friend," Nunn said. "Evidently, he went off the deep end."
Follow USA TODAY reporter Kevin McCoy on Twitter: @kmccoynyc
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f1aa90999426f90a7e0b2427d2a22353 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/ethiopian-boeing-737-max-crash-warning-lights/3238792002/ | Reports: Boeing will add warning light to aid pilots after Ethiopian 737 Max crash | Reports: Boeing will add warning light to aid pilots after Ethiopian 737 Max crash
An additional warning light will become standard equipment in Boeing 737 Max jetliners to help prevent the kind of troubles that may have led to two crashes, multiple news reports indicated Wednesday.
The light will let pilots know when two sensors that gauge the plane's angle of attack, meaning whether it is pointed up or down, are in disagreement. The sensors work in tandem with the plane's automatic system for lowering the plane's nose if it senses it is popping up, which appears to have been a factor in both the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October and an Ethiopian Airlines disaster earlier this month.
The warning light has been available as an option. Now Boeing will make it standard, the Associated Press and other news outlets reported, based on anonymous sources.
The light adds "an important piece of information," said Clint Balog, a veteran pilot and associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "This will be a benefit for flight crews."
All 371 of the 737 Max jets worldwide are presently grounded while the investigation continues intto the cause of the crash of the jet in Ethiopia on March 10. French authorities charged with analyzing the 737 Max 8's flight data and cockpit recorders recently confirmed that there appears to have been similarities between that accident, which killed 157 passengers and crew, and the Lion Air jet that crashed Oct. 29, taking 189 lives.
Besides the warning light, Boeing has already said that it plans to add a software update to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS, which is meant to prevent stalls.
In the Lion Air crash, pilots fought to try to lift the nose as MCAS apparently kept trying to lower it. They eventually lost control of the plane, which plummeted into the Java Sea.
The MCAS system makes decisions on nose angle based on two sensors on the fuselage that tell it whether the plane is level, pointed toward the sky or toward the ground. If a plane climbs too steeply, it can lose speed and stall. By knowing that one of the sensors is giving a different indication than the other, the warning light could indicate a condition that would render MCAS ineffective.
Adding another warning light isn't always an easy call, Balog said. Such decisions are made carefully so as to not overload or confuse crews. But in this case, the warning light could help explain a critical anomaly, likely leading pilots to quickly assess how to best stabilize the aircraft and go to an abnormalities and emergencies checklist.
The latest move by Boeing comes amid a criminal probe into how the 737 Max 8 was certified as safe. The FBI has joined the investigation, which is expected to look at whether the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing had too cozy of a relationship during development of the airplane.
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d80e138e784e9a5422d2b2886f088376 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/florida-man-birthday-why-google-search-challenge-has-gone-viral/3235270002/ | This is why everyone is Googling 'Florida man' and their birthday | This is why everyone is Googling 'Florida man' and their birthday
Let's face it: There's a little bit of "Florida Man" in all of us.
At least, that's the idea behind the Florida Man Challenge, a viral social media joke that plays upon the plight of Florida residents who find themselves in strange predicaments – and sometimes in handcuffs.
The Florida Man meme dates to 2013, according to website Know Your Meme, focusing on news headlines featuring "bizarre domestic incidents involving a male subject residing in the state of Florida."
Jan. 29, 2019:Florida man thought he was stealing opioids but instead got laxatives, police say
Sept. 7, 2018:Florida man, drunk and naked, allegedly set house on fire in failed cookie baking attempt
Why Florida?:Here's why Florida is the source of so many wild crime stories
The challenge started with a simple game: Google "Florida Man" and your birthday to find out what headline turns up.
Since the challenge took off, countless Twitter users have posted their special "Florida Man" birthday headlines.
Nov. 7, 2018:Florida man accused of breaking into alligator farm is attacked by crocodile, leaves Croc shoe behind
If you can't get enough stories about "Florida Man" (or Woman), there are plenty more that could fit the Florida Man challenge. Here are some of our recent "Florida man" headlines:
July 16, 2018:Florida man faked his murder using a gun and a weather balloon
Feb. 3, 2018:Florida man to run marathon in 3-piece suit in pursuit of world record
July 11, 2017:Florida man escapes alligator by punching it in the face while searching for golf balls
Contributing: Will Greenlee, Treasure Coast Newspapers
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dbde406f09a7fb18037da137eecf765e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/florida-man-challenge-why-do-so-many-crazy-crimes-happen-florida/3240636002/ | Googling Florida man for the viral birthday challenge? Why there are so many wild crime stories | Googling Florida man for the viral birthday challenge? Why there are so many wild crime stories
Americans are searching the internet to see what wild crime story from Florida is associated with their birthday. And there are reasons why Florida has become the butt of this viral joke.
There's no simple explanation for the phenomenon, according to accounts from local journalists, a prosecutor and a First Amendment advocate.
Crime stories are relatively easy to report in the state. That means when a Florida man does (allegedly) commit a crime with salacious details, it's not difficult for reporters to find out.
But the culture of the state can't be discounted, other experts will say. You'll hear descriptions of Florida ranging from "diverse" to "crazy" — few would describe it as a boring place.
Here's are three major reasons why Florida has become the home of the "Florida man" meme.
Crime stories are easy to report in Florida
In Florida, there are few barriers that would keep a reporter from writing a "Florida man" story, Assistant State Attorney Ryan Butler told USA TODAY on Thursday.
That's because of the state's general approach toward government records: "Florida starts with the premise that every document ... is a public record," Butler said. Everything is open unless there's an exception that says it isn't, he said.
That's not the case in all states.
So when the Miami New Times attempted to explain the "Florida man" phenomenon in 2015, they pointed to the state's "proud open government laws."
The publication detailed the streamlined process of obtaining information about a suspect from authorities before bluntly saying, "For journalists in many other states, it's not that easy."
'There's a general craziness here'
Everyone explains it differently, but few deny the state that is home to the Conch Republic has a real affinity for the off-beat.
It's prompted Tampa Bay Times reporter Craig Pittman to write a book titled "OH, FLORIDA! How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country."
And when Treasure Coast Newspapers columnist and Florida transplant Gil Smart tried to explain "Florida Man" last year, he did so this way:
There's a general craziness here that's almost palpable. Maybe it's because so many people — like me — aren't from here. They're expats of sorts; they come here to hide, to escape, to forget their past, to reinvent themselves.
A Tuesday opinion column in the University of Florida student newspaper "The Independent Florida Alligator" (a very Florida name) admitted the state has no shortage of odd behavior to report, before explaining the role of the state's Sunshine Laws in crime reporting:
We can try to attribute some of the bizarre stories to the suffocating humidity or a few bad cases of sun poisoning, but in reality, Florida just has some strange people doing some strange things.
The 'Florida man' cycle
A final explanation offered by the President of Florida's First Amendment Foundation: The popularity of the meme has encouraged the spread of new "Florida man" stories.
"It's kinda sad, in one sense, that Florida gets such recognition," Barbara Petersen told USA TODAY on Thursday.
She said one clue that something is amiss: the phrase "Florida woman" hasn't gotten such viral attention.
Petersen believes the attention on the Florida man trope makes such stories more interesting, more likely to be reported. It becomes a cycle.
Florida Man has become a myth, she said. But a myth "based in reality, as most myths are."
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9ac6c30f1d4402182f67dfae2163aa37 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/pew-survey-whites-fearful-minority-country-will-weaken-american-culture/3217218002/ | 46% of whites worry becoming a majority-minority nation will 'weaken American culture,' survey says | 46% of whites worry becoming a majority-minority nation will 'weaken American culture,' survey says
Almost half of white Americans say the USA becoming a majority nonwhite nation would "weaken American customs and values," a new Pew Research Center survey says.
The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that before 2050, the majority of the USA will be made up of minority populations. According to Pew's research, 46 percent of white people fear that would weaken U.S. culture.
A quarter of Hispanics and 18 percent of black people have similar fears. Forty percent of blacks and 46 percent of Hispanics say the shift would strengthen those customs and values.
"The finding speaks for itself. It suggests concern broadly held by whites about a majority-minority country," says Rich Morin, a senior editor at Pew Research Center.
The survey of 2,524 U.S. adults conducted in December focused on Americans' view of the future of the country and asked about political, economic and societal changes that could come by 2050.
Pew did not define "American customs and values" or "American culture" for the survey.
More:New Zealand mosque shootings: Some rights leaders say US is exporting extremism
Will a majority-minority country be good? Americans divided
More than half of Americans say they are at least somewhat optimistic for the future of the USA, but when they're asked about specific issues – national debt, affordable health care, environmental degradation, political divisions – a grimmer picture emerges.
Americans' opinions are divided when asked broadly how a majority-minority population would affect the USA.
Roughly 40 percent of Americans say the shift to a majority nonwhite country wouldn't be good or bad, and more than one-third say it would be good.
Roughly half of Americans say a majority nonwhite population would lead to more racial and ethnic conflict, according to the survey.
White Americans make up more than half of the country's population, according to the Census Bureau. The bureau predicts the year 2044 will be when minorities make up the majority. In 2060, minorities will be 56 percent of the U.S. population, the Census Bureau predicts.
Study:A race gap in air pollution – whites largely cause it; blacks and Hispanics breathe it
More:Hate group count hits 20-year high amid rise in white supremacy, report says
A quarter of white Americans say having a majority-minority country would be good, as do more than half of blacks and Hispanics (53 percent and 55 percent, respectively).
Fifty-three percent of white Americans say it would lead to more conflict between racial and ethnic groups compared with 43 percent of nonwhites who say the same.
Rise of anti-immigrant sentiments
Anti-immigration and nationalistic actions and rhetoric have been on the rise in the USA and Europe in recent years, and debates over immigration persist in the news.
This week, the Pentagon listed what projects might be delayed to pay for President Donald Trump's border wall. Trump and Republicans say the wall is necessary to combat what the president calls a "humanitarian crisis" at the border. Democrats called his declaration of a national emergency a political stunt.
A man with extremist anti-immigration views is accused of firing on two mosques last week in New Zealand, killing 50 people and wounding dozens. In the USA last year, a gunman killed 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue on the Sabbath. The suspect has expressed anti-Semitic, anti-immigration sentiments.
Anti-immigrant views are nothing new in the USA, even as historical circumstances change, and often look similar across periods, says Jack DeWaard, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota who studies demography and migration.
More:Number of undocumented immigrants in USA falls to 12-year low, researchers say
More:These 25 cities are losing more residents than they are gaining as population declines
"What seems to be different is there's sort of a politics of fear and resentment," DeWaard says. "The issue of migration has become so much more politicized, hijacked and divorced from facts and reason than it ever has in the past."
Fears tied to becoming a majority-minority country can partially be explained by demographic segregation and inequality in society, DeWaard says. When people don't meaningfully interact with the "other" in their daily lives, they more easily have prejudices and fears, he says.
DeWaard says there's an increasing lack of empathy in society.
"The refusal to put yourself in someone else's shoes ... people are just unwilling to do this," he says.
Follow USA TODAY's Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
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bdbaaf50bc19bc380d4d627e87cd2042 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/weather-spring-flood-forecast-historic-floods-200-million-us/3233517002/ | Spring flooding could be 'unprecedented' with 200 million Americans at risk | Spring flooding could be 'unprecedented' with 200 million Americans at risk
Spring flooding has already been disastrous, and it's likely to get worse, federal forecasters announced Thursday. Floods could reach "unprecedented" and "potentially historic" levels.
Almost the entire eastern two-thirds of the nation should see flooding this spring, National Weather Service deputy director Mary Erickson said at a news conference on Thursday. Some 25 states are forecast to see "moderate" to "major" flooding, the weather service said.
The Midwest floods are “a preview of what we expect throughout the rest of the spring,” she said. "The flooding this year could be worse than what we have seen in previous years ... even worse than the historic floods we saw in 1993 and 2011," Erickson added.
Start the day smarter:Get USA TODAY's Daily Briefing in your inbox
The deadly, destructive flooding that began last week from Minnesota to Missouri has killed at least four people, caused more than $1.5 billion in estimated losses and damages and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.
Scientists said this month's flooding was caused by rapid snow melt combined with heavy spring rain and late-season snowfall in areas where the ground was already saturated. Much of the precipitation fell during the "bomb cyclone" that whipped the region last week.
"This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million people at risk for flooding in their communities," said Ed Clark, director of NOAA's National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Catastrophe:Before and after satellite images show destruction in Nebraska and Iowa after Midwest floods
The water that's now soaking the Upper Midwest will eventually make its way down the Mississippi toward the Gulf Coast, where flooding will worsen in May.
“The extensive flooding we’ve seen in the past two weeks will continue through May and become more dire and may be exacerbated in the coming weeks as the water flows downstream,” Clark said.
Forecasters say the biggest risks include all three Mississippi River basins, plus the basins of the Red River of the North, the Great Lakes, the eastern Missouri River, the lower Ohio River, the lower Cumberland River and the Tennessee River.
Global warming:The waters are rising, the floods are coming. What are we doing to save ourselves?
Record-breaking:Historic, deadly Midwest floods are worst 'anybody has ever experienced' in some areas
It’s still too early to determine if human-caused climate change played what, if any, role in the flooding. However, scientists said the conditions are consistent with what they expect from global warming.
“You can think of climate change as steroids for these rain events,” Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler said.
As for the spring weather forecast, meteorologists said the East Coast and Northwest should see warmer-than-average temperatures from May through June. However, the central and northern Plains should stay unusually cool.
For rainfall, nearly the entire nation east of the Rockies should see a soggier spring than usual, with the Southeast and the central Rockies seeing the wettest conditions. The only unusually dry spot will be the Pacific Northwest.
Federal meteorologists do not issue forecasts for severe weather, which includes tornadoes, high winds and large hail.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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515262c74feb12b0ddf30272985ed17e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/22/rare-american-crocodile-makes-itself-known-on-florida-golf-course/3243414002/ | In rare photo, crocodile suns itself with alligator at Florida golf course | In rare photo, crocodile suns itself with alligator at Florida golf course
FORT MYERS, Fla. – Florida golfers know alligators all too well, but they don't often encounter rare American crocodiles.
That's changing on a local barrier island, where an adult croc has recently been photographed sunning itself alongside alligators at the Sanibel Island Golf Club.
"The crocodile is here all the time, she hangs out on hole No. 11, and she’s a female," said Mary Donnelly, wife of course owner Drew Donnelly. "Don't ask me how they know it's a female. And the maintenance guys call her Fred."
Start the day smarter:Get USA TODAY's Daily Briefing in your inbox
Crocodiles have been documented on Sanibel before, and a few have even been found in the Cape Coral area.
Their ranges overlaps in extreme southern Florida, along the coasts and in Florida Bay.
Seeing one is unique, but capturing both species in one photo is akin to winning a scratch-off lottery.
"I hadn’t seen it until that picture, but I know a guy who walked up and the croc was laying there with its head on the alligator’s tail," Drew Donnelly added. "But he didn’t get a picture."
What's the difference?:How to tell the difference between a crocodile and an alligator
University of Florida researcher and crocodile expert Frank Mazzotti said a few crocodiles have made it as far north as Tampa.
Nests have been documented on Sanibel, but none of the eggs hatched.
"Before that horrible freeze in 2010 we had a crocodile that spent much of its time in the (J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife) Refuge and it used to nest in people's yards," Mazzotti said. "That animal nested over a number of years but there was never any evidence that the eggs were fertile."
Mazzotti said there are fewer than 2,000 American crocodiles, which is up from a population that only had 20 recorded nests per year during the 1970s.
More:Rare American crocodiles living on Sanibel
Today, there are more than 150 nests in an average year, he said.
Mazzotti said both American alligators and crocodiles are relatively docile among the crocodilian world, which includes the 20-foot varieties found in Africa and Australia.
"Alligators are a wee bit more aggressive," Mazzotti admitted. "You can tell that when you catch them. Alligators put up a little more of a struggle than crocodiles."
Who wins in a fight?
"An old newspaper article written in the 1920s described a bunch of Everglades City boys with a big alligator and some Key Largo boys that had a big croc," Mazzotti said. "And the story is they pitted them against each other and the alligator ended up winning because it had a larger jaw."
Follow Chad Gillis on Twitter: @ChadGillisNP
Just the facts
American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus)
►Found in South Florida, Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
►Nesting occurs on well-drained, sandy areas near salt or brackish water. Females begin building nests in March and typically lay about 40 eggs in late April or early May. They return in July or August to dig up the nest and sometimes transport the hatchlings to the water.
►Like alligators, crocodiles control their body temperature by basking in the sun or moving to a cool, shaded area. Crocodiles sometimes lay with their mouths open, which is not a sign of aggression.
►Will eat almost anything that moves. Hatchlings and young crocodiles feed on small fish, snails and insects while adults eat fish, crabs, turtles, snakes and small mammals.
►Listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1975.
►State and federal laws prohibits killing, harassing and possessing crocodiles.
Sources: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, University of Florida, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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b8c3c34c6f14b55bd02ad9d4adab0246 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/22/salem-hospital-infant-dies-bacterial-meningitis-mom-questions/3253371002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Mom questions hospital after infant's meningitis death | Mom questions hospital after infant's meningitis death
SALEM, Ore. – In a matter of days, an Oregon mother watched her 7-week-old baby go from happy and alert to gravely sick with meningitis to dying in her arms.
Now she's searching for answers, urging parents to trust their instincts and demanding changes at Salem Hospital's emergency room after her sick daughter was discharged hours before her vital signs crashed.
"My hope is that something good can come out of this," Ginger McCall said. "What I want the most is to raise awareness so this doesn't happen to anyone else."
McCall, an attorney and state official who works as Oregon's public record advocate, moved from Washington, D.C., to Salem with her husband a year ago.
She was thrilled to discover she was pregnant.
"I wanted a baby for years," McCall said. "I feel like I waited my entire life to meet her and we only got seven weeks together."
Salem Hospital officials declined to comment on the death, citing privacy concerns.
“This is a heartbreaking loss, and Salem Health offers its deepest condolences," officials said in statement.
McCall sat Friday in her living room surrounded by flowers and cards, a program from her daughter's memorial next to her on the table. It had been less than a week since Evianna Rose Quintero-McCall – Evi for short – died.
Evi came down with a fever the morning of March 15. She cried a weak, moaning cry – a cry McCall now knows is a telltale sign of Group B strep meningitis.
She and her mother-in-law rushed Evi to Salem Hospital where she was given Tylenol and sent home with a lingering fever.
More:Valley fever: Why the CDC calls this little-known disease a 'silent epidemic'
Hospital staff called infection routine
Looking back, McCall wishes she would've known to insist on a meningitis test, or driven 90 minutes to OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, where they might have recognized the infection that would go on to kill her daughter.
She tried to stay calm, trusting the doctors.
"There's a stereotype of a hysterical, panicked, first-time mom, and that probably affected the situation," McCall said.
She told staff she tested positive for Strep B while pregnant. Expectant mothers are typically tested for the Group B strep infection and treated with antibiotics. The bacterial infection can be passed to babies during delivery.
McCall said hospital staff told her Evi probably just had a routine infection.
But Evi's wounded cry – "the worst sound you could imagine" – continued.
"I knew she was in real, terrible pain," she said.
A few hours later, McCall drove her baby to her pediatrician. Still feverish, Evi threw-up in the exam room. Her doctor told her: Go to the emergency room. Now.
He called ahead to alert hospital staff.
"I figured the doctors would be able to fix it," McCall said. "I remember thinking – we don't live in the 1800s, surely someone will save my child."
Once there, everything became a blur as hospital staff performed a spinal tap and tried to stabilize her daughter.
"It happened so fast. ... All of the sudden, she was crashing and they didn't take a moment to tell us what was happening. We were left in the dark."
Evi was transported via ambulance to OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital. Her condition deteriorated.
"They did their very best, but by the time she got there, it was just too late," McCall said.
Doctors have to end life support
Her daughter was placed on life support and declared brain dead.
McCall and her husband, Omar Quintero, slept fitfully next to Evi. Alarms woke them at 5 a.m. Sunday – her vital signs were dropping.
Doctors withdrew life support, and McCall and her family took Evi to a hospital courtyard where they held her as she died.
"I will never get to know what color her eyes would've been or what her voice would've sounded like or who she would've grown up to be," McCall said. "That just kills me."
In the days that followed, McCall learned she wasn't the only Salem mother to lose her baby to meningitis.
In May 2018, a 7-month-old boy was taken to Silverton Medical Center, where he was given Tylenol and sent home despite the family's concerns.
The infant was later flown to Doernbecher and died from bacterial meningitis.
More:Separate vaccine can protect against meningitis B strain
An average of 4,100 cases of bacterial meningitis resulting in 500 deaths are reported every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Babies are at an increased risk of contracting meningitis, which can be spread during birth. They can also contract it through the air from people coughing and sneezing, or from contaminated food.
McCall said she was told Evi had late-onset Group B strep, which caused the meningitis. She wants parents to know the warning signs.
"I hope they will strongly advocate for themselves and their children," McCall said. "I hope they will appreciate every moment they have with their children."
Mom believes better training needed
Symptoms of Group B strep meningitis and recording samples of the cries commonly heard in those infected are available at groupbstrepinternational.org.
McCall said her real hope is for hospital staff to become better educated about meningitis symptoms and change their protocol about diagnosis and discharge. She wonders if her daughter would be alive if someone spotted her weak cry as a sign of the infection during her first ER visit.
"I would like if for them to be trained to recognize the signs of this because it is so catastrophic and it happens so fast," she said. "Every minute matters."
She said she's not interested in suing the hospital for money. She just wants to see change.
With her good job, supportive family and law degree, McCall said she feels like she has the social, political and economic capital that most people do not have.
"I think it is my responsibility to use that to ensure this doesn't happen again," she said.
An outpouring of support followed Evi's death. Friends, family, government officials and co-workers filled Salem First Presbyterian Church Thursday for her memorial service.
McCall said she tries to remember the beautiful moments from her daughter's short life – a faint smile as she slept, an appetite so voracious they dubbed her the "Milk Monster," and trip to the coast where she looked up with awe at the light streaming through the moss-covered trees.
McCall and her husband loved nature and hoped to share that love with Evi. They summited 14,439-foot Mount Elbert in Colorado last year and took a picture of themselves smiling, holding a sonogram of Evi.
"We wanted to climb mountains with her," she said.
Follow Whitney Woodworth on Twitter: @wmwoodworth
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e3606874de07f242f5d9dc39c83b0b8e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/23/michigan-to-no-longer-fund-adoption-agencies-that-refuse-lgtbq-parents/3254974002/?fbclid=IwAR3QbFSN6lqsT4y6Wfg0d-TvP8SC4HtBEVOoFo1P1nAFECD351XLidLYWTk | Michigan will no longer fund adoption agencies that discriminate against LGBTQ parents | Michigan will no longer fund adoption agencies that discriminate against LGBTQ parents
DETROIT – Michigan will no longer financially support adoption and foster care agencies that refuse to work with same-sex couples and LGBTQ individuals because of religious beliefs.
The decision comes under the terms of a settlement of a lawsuit negotiated by Attorney General Dana Nessel.
The settlement, announced Friday, sets up a battle with the Republican-led state legislature, which passed a law in 2015 that allows adoptions agencies to refuse to work with members of the LGBTQ community.
The terms of the settlement require the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services agrees to maintain nondiscriminatory provisions in its foster care and adoption agency contracts.
It also calls for the department to enforce the nondiscrimination provisions by ending contracts with agencies that either discriminate against or refer to other agencies same-sex couples or LGBTQ individuals who would otherwise qualify to become foster or adoptive parents.
In exchange for the policy, the plaintiffs in the case – Kristy and Dana Dumont of Lansing and Erin and Rebecca Busk-Sutton of Detroit – agreed to dismiss their claims and pay their own attorney fees and costs.
“We are so happy that for same-sex couples in Michigan who are interested in fostering or adopting, opening their hearts and homes to a child no longer comes with the risk of being subjected to the discrimination we experienced," the Dumonts said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the case on behalf of the couples. "We are hopeful that this will mean more families for children, especially those who have been waiting years for a family to adopt them. And we can’t wait to welcome one of those children into our family.”
More:Tennessee bills would allow adoption agencies to deny LGBT couples on religious grounds
In 2015, Republicans in the Michigan Legislature, voting mostly along party lines, passed a controversial bill that allows adoption and foster care agencies to cite religious convictions when refusing to work with same-sex couples who want to adopt or foster a child.
The two couples filed a lawsuit in 2017 challenging the Michigan health and human services department contract with taxpayer-funded and state-contracted foster care and adoption agencies that refused to work with same-sex couples.
The couples said they approached St. Vincent Catholic Charities and Bethany Christian Services to adopt children the agencies had accepted through referrals from the department. They said the agencies refused to work with them.
The state contracts with 59 private adoption and foster care agencies and while it wasn't able to say specifically how many don't work with same-sex couples or LGBTQ individuals, 20 of the agencies are affiliated with religious organizations.
After the settlement was announced Friday, the Michigan Catholic Conference tweeted, "The settlement announced today by the Attorney General in the Dumont/Lyon case does nothing to protect the thousands of children in foster care looking for loving homes. As such, it is highly unlikely this is the last chapter of the story."
Lori Windham, an attorney with Becket, a Washington D.C.-based law firm that works on religious freedom cases, said the settlement violates Michigan law that protects religious adoption agencies.
"The Michigan AG and the ACLU are trying to stop the state from working with faith-based adoption agencies," she said in a statement. "The result of that will be tragic. Thousands of children will be kept from finding the loving homes they deserve."
More:Mom shocked adopted kids are biological siblings, says they were 'meant to find each other'
Nessel, the first lesbian to be elected to statewide office in Michigan, is most well-known for her representation of a Madison Heights same-sex couple, a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and led to the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
“Discrimination in the provision of foster care case management and adoption services is illegal, no matter the rationale,” Nessel said in a statement. “Limiting the opportunity for a child to be adopted or fostered by a loving home not only goes against the state’s goal of finding a home for every child, it is a direct violation of the contract every child-placing agency enters into with the state.”
The ACLU said the settlement was a victory for the 12,000 children in foster care in Michigan.
“Our children need every family that is willing and able to provide them with a loving home," said Leslie Cooper, deputy director of the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project. "When agencies choose to accept taxpayer dollars to provide public child welfare services, they must put the needs of the children first.”
OPINION:Let Catholic adoption agencies be Catholic. We should focus on finding every child a home.
But the settlement is sure to spark a backlash from Republicans in the state legislature, who argued that businesses, including adoption and foster care agencies, shouldn't be forced to conduct business in a way that violated their moral and religious beliefs.
State senate majority leader Mike Shirkey blasted Nessel and the settlement.
“Dana Nessel has shown us that she cares little for the Constitution and even less for the vulnerable population of children in need of forever homes," the Republican said. "Nessel’s actions make it clear that she sought the office of attorney general to further her own personal political agenda."
He claimed that faith-based adoption agencies will have to stop operating in Michigan because of the lack of taxpayer-funded support.
Republican state Rep. James Lower said the decision proves that the state legislature was right when it passed a bill late last year that would allow lawmakers to intervene in any case brought against the state. One of the reasons behind the bill was fear that Nessel would try to undo laws passed by Republicans. That bill was vetoed by former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.
"I’m just disappointed. This proves our point that the attorney general is unwilling to defend the laws in this state," he said, adding that he's sure the GOP caucus will talk about how to move beyond this one settlement. "We can still request to become a party to cases, but I think this one is over."
Lower wasn't in the state legislature when the original bill passed in 2015, but he said he would have supported it.
"It made sense – the situation puts these agencies in a tough situation because they have been able to refer couples to another agency that is willing to work with same-sex couples," he said. "But now, they'll have to choose to either not to help the kids or violate their religious beliefs."
Follow the Detroit Free Press' Kathleen Gray on Twitter @michpoligal.
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1fe2a7f94cc93cbd0f621d5290263ed7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/23/saturdays-powerball-jackpot-eclipses-300-million-mark/3260160002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Powerball numbers drawn for $638.8 million jackpot: Did you win? | Powerball numbers drawn for $638.8 million jackpot: Did you win?
Spring is in the air.
And dollars are up for grabs. Try $638.8 million.
The drawing for the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot in history – and the seventh-largest prize of any game played in the U.S. – was Saturday night.
And the winning numbers: 24, 25, 52, 60 and 66, with a Powerball of 5.
There was no word yet if anyone matched all six numbers.
The odds of winning the big prize: 1 in 292,201,338.
No one matched all six numbers Wednesday night, in which the jackpot grew to $562.1 million.
Four players across the country, including one in Florida, won $1 million for matching the first five balls, and one player in South Carolina won $2 million by playing the multiplier.
Saturday's jackpot would be the largest payday of any game so far in 2019. A New York player claimed the $437 million Mega Millions jackpot on New Year's Day.
More:Should you take your Powerball ticket jackpot as a lump sum or annual payments?
More:Here's how the Powerball winning numbers are selected
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815bc548b73f1e077dcaa763b35d3e32 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/boeing-max-8-crash-ethiopian-official-says-early-report-out-week/3278928002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Ethiopian official: Preliminary report on Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash due out this week | Ethiopian official: Preliminary report on Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash due out this week
Plane crash investigations take months, but an early report on the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 may be released within days.
That’s the assessment of Mussie Yiheyis, spokesman for Ethiopia’s transport ministry, who said a high-ranking government official will announce the preliminary result of the probe into the March 10 accident that occurred outside the capital city of Addis Ababa.
“A date has not been set, but it will be released later this week,” Yiheyis told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, France’s BEA and an Ethiopian Transport Ministry department have been conducting the investigation. It has been conducted as per International Civil Aviation Organization rules and regulations.”
The crash has drawn widespread attention not only because it claimed the lives of all 157 people aboard, but also because of its similarities to an Oct. 29 accident involving a Lion Air plane that plummeted into the Java Sea off Indonesia, killing its 189 passengers and crew.
Both tragedies involved the new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, and in both cases the planes went on erratic flight paths that prompted the pilots to make a desperate, futile attempt to return to the airport shortly after takeoff. Within days of the second crash, the jets were grounded worldwide.
One that was getting transported to a storage facility north of Los Angeles had to make an emergency landing Tuesday afternoon at the Orlando airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“The crew of Southwest Airlines Flight 8701, a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, declared an emergency after the aircraft experienced a reported engine problem while departing from Orlando International Airport in Florida about 2:50 p.m. today,” the FAA said in a statement. “The aircraft returned and landed safely in Orlando. No passengers were aboard the aircraft, which was being ferried to Victorville, Calif., for storage. The FAA is investigating.”
On Monday, Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told the Wall Street Journal that he believes the stall-prevention system known as MCAS, a new feature on the MAX models that debuted in 2017, was activated on his company’s doomed flight.
More:Are pilots outside the U.S. getting the training needed to fly jets, including Boeing 737 MAX 8?
Warning:Reports say Boeing will add warning light to aid pilots after Ethiopian 737 MAX crash
Investigators believe the MCAS’ response to a faulty angle-of-attack sensor was a factor in the Lion Air disaster and likely in the Ethiopian Airlines crash as well.
At a testing session attended by pilots from five airlines Saturday, Boeing re-created the conditions encountered by the Lion Air crew in a simulator, and also presented the same scenario with updated software meant to allow the pilots more control over the automated system.
The New York Times, citing two unnamed sources, said pilots discovered they had less than 40 seconds to rectify the problem and avoid disaster under the old system.
In a statement on the company website Monday, GebreMariam refuted reports that the pilots of Flight 302 were not trained on the new aspects of the MAX 8, saying: "After the Lion Air accident in October, our pilots who fly the new model were trained on all appropriate simulators.”
More:American Airlines to cancel 90 flights every day through most of April
GrebeMariam expressed support for the carrier's partnership with Boeing but did not address whether Ethiopian intends to go through with its order of 25 more MAX planes.
Last week, Garuda Indonesia announced that it would cancel its order of 49 MAX 8 jets.
"Let me be clear: Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing,'' GrebeMariam said in the statement. "More than two-thirds of our fleet is Boeing. ... Despite the tragedy, Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines will continue to be linked well into the future.''
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg responded with a Tuesday web post expressing appreciation:
"All of us thank Ethiopian Airlines for their commitment and share their resolve to doing everything possible to build an even safer air travel system,'' Muilenburg said.
Boeing is updating the MAX series software and has invited more than 200 pilots, technical experts and regulators to its factory outside Seattle for a briefing Wednesday.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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d978577e414b889c52f2c17e20402ffc | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/california-mosque-arson-suspect-new-zealand-graffiti-police/3281949002/ | California mosque arson suspect left graffiti about New Zealand attack, police say | California mosque arson suspect left graffiti about New Zealand attack, police say
California police say they are investigating a fire at a mosque as an arson and a hate crime after graffiti that made reference to the deadly New Zealand mosque attacks was found at the scene.
The incident happened early Sunday about 30 miles north of San Diego in Escondido, police said in a release. Police say the graffiti was left by the suspected arsonist.
Seven people were in the mosque at the time, but no one was injured, police say. The fire caused minor damage to the outside of the building.
The San Diego office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the incident: "It is disturbing enough that some sick individual would attempt to burn a house of worship to the ground, but referencing the slayings in New Zealand is beyond the pale," Executive Director Dustin Craun said in a written statement.
The statement says the California incident was motivated by the "same hatred" held by a gunman who killed 50 people in a terrorist attack on two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand.
An emotional return:New Zealand shootings: Family of slain boy visits Christchurch mosque as it reopens
Police believe the fire was set with an accelerant, but there are no suspects as of Tuesday, The New York Times reported. The fire, which scorched an outside wall, was put out using a fire extinguisher, the newspaper reports, citing police.
Escondido police said Sunday that Federal Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives agents are assisting with the investigation.
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c89ba0db51a3c535390761bdb4c99e9f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/jussie-smollett-case-chicago-crime-reputation-rahm-attack/3282352002/ | Chicago's image is muddied by crime and inequity. The Jussie Smollett case doesn't help | Chicago's image is muddied by crime and inequity. The Jussie Smollett case doesn't help
CHICAGO — The stunning decision by prosecutors to drop all charges against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett for staging an attack made to look like a hate crime is another smudge for a city whose reputation has been tarnished by violent crime and questionable police practices.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office announcement Tuesday that effectively clears Smollett, who earlier this month was indicted on 16 counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false report, seemed to come out of the blue.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said that neither he nor his detectives were given any forewarning about the prosecutor’s move. Nor were any witnesses who helped police and prosecutors with their investigation — a courtesy typically offered by prosecutors to citizens assisting a case, said police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Media who have been covering the ongoing saga of Smollett learned from the actor’s legal team that he was headed to court for an emergency hearing shortly before the proceedings were set to begin.
“They chose to hide behind secrecy and broker a deal to circumvent the judicial system,” said an angry Johnson, who learned that the State’s Attorney’s office was dropping the charges against Smollett while he was attending a police officer graduation and promotion ceremony.
The State’s Attorney’s office said dropping the charges did not amount to the office exonerating Smollett. As part of the deal, Smollett agreed to forfeit $10,000 bond that he posted after being charged to the city of Chicago.
“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the State’s Attorney’s Office, said in a statement.
Prosecutors were effectively making the case that in a city with no shortage of serious crime, pursuing Smollett wasn’t worth the effort.
Indeed, Chicago has had one of the highest per capita homicide rates among major U.S. cities in recent years. Police have recovered more than 1,800 illegally possessed weapons off the city’s streets already this year. The state’s crime lab is so overwhelmed that it has a backlog of more than 5,000 cases — including hundreds of Chicago homicide cases — that are awaiting DNA testing, Illinois State Police officials testified Monday.
Smollett cleared:Charges dropped against 'Empire' actor Jussie Smollett; Chicago mayor, police outraged
Text lobbying:After Michelle Obama's former aide's urging, prosecutor pushed for FBI to investigate Smollett
More:Taraji P. Henson is 'happy' for Jussie Smollett: 'Thank God the truth prevailed'
The city’s 13,000-officer police department has also been beset by no shortage of scandal.
A federal judge in January approved an agreement, known as a consent decree, between the State of Illinois and City of Chicago that will require the Chicago police to undertake dozens of reforms. The department has spent more than $700 million since 2010 on settlements and legal fees related to lawsuits alleging police brutality.
In October, a Chicago Police Officer was found guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery for the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald, an incident that led to street protests and national outrage.
In brief comments to reporters, Smollett maintained he "had been truthful and consistent" with police throughout the investigation. One of his attorneys, Patricia Brown Holmes, criticized police for trying the case in the press.
Frank Chapman, co-chairman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, called the decision by prosecutors to drop the charges further proof of corrupt policing in the city.
“This is just another example of the Chicago Police Department doing what they do,” Chapman said.
Meanwhile, police brass and Mayor Rahm Emanuel were seething with outrage after learning of prosecutors' decision. Emanuel claimed the decision created the appearance of a two-tier justice system.
“This sends a clear message if you’re in a position of influence and power you’ll get treated one way and other people will get treated another way,” Emanuel said. “This is wrong.”
The allegations by Smollett, who is black and gay, garnered national attention.
He reported to police early on Jan. 29 that he had been attacked by two men who yelled homophobic and racists slurs at him, while they beat him near his apartment in the city's tony Steeterville neighborhood. Smollett also told police the attackers yelled, “This is MAGA country,” a reference to President Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, during the assault.
Police dedicated dozens of officers and detectives to the case, and for weeks called Smollett a victim of a vicious attack. They eventually arrested two brothers, Abel and Ola Osundairo, who worked on the set of “Empire” with Smollett.
Initially, police considered the brothers to be suspects. But the siblings, on the cusp of being charged, told investigators that they had been paid $3,500 by Smollett to stage the attack. The brothers said Smollett, who was unhappy with his salary, wanted to use the incident to boost his profile, according to Johnson and prosecutors.
Police said that the brothers’ account was bolstered by bank records, surveillance video, rideshare receipts, and other evidence.
Rev. Marshall Hatch, a Chicago pastor who ministers in one of the city’s most violent neighborhoods, didn’t disagree with Emanuel’s contention that Smollett case reeks of inequity.
But Hatch, who leads New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago's West Garfield Park neighborhood, said in an interview he was having a hard time swallowing Emanuel’s and Johnson’s outrage over the matter.
“The way that people in my neighborhood have been looking at this whole Smollett case from the beginning is by noticing the glaring differences in the way police extend resources on certain crimes in certain neighborhoods, while not on others,” said Hatch, who has been a frequent critic of Emanuel. “We have a very low murder closure rate in this city. So, when people see this kind of attention and expense that police and the State's Attorney put into this case, it just reinforces the sense that the police and criminal justice works for everybody else, but it doesn’t work for us.”
“I am having a hard time caring about Jussie Smollett or whether or not he was let off easy,” Hatch added.
In the eight weeks since Smollett reported being attacked, there have been no shortage of twists and turns in the case.
Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat who represents a Chicago-area district, called on FBI director Christopher Wray to open "an immediate and sweeping civil rights investigation into the racist and homophobic attack" on the actor and Democratic presidential hopefuls, Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, expressed concern for Smollett.
And as the investigation plugged along — and before Smollett was charged — there were signs of tension between the actor and investigators.
On Feb. 12, police raised concerns that heavily-redacted phone records provided by Smollett to authorities did not meet the burden of a criminal investigation.
Earlier this month, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx released a series of texts and emails detailing messages she exchanged with an unnamed Smollett family member and a high-profile Chicago attorney, Tina Tchen, who asked Foxx to press for Johnson to send the case to the FBI. (Tchen was the chief of staff to former first lady Michelle Obama when her husband was in the White House.)
The messages were exchanged from Feb. 1 to Feb. 13, when police were still identifying Smollett as the victim of a crime.
Foxx decided to recuse herself from the investigation prior to Smollett being charged, because of her interactions with Smollett's family. She tapped her first deputy, Joseph Magats, to oversee the case.
The announcement to drop charges came just one week before the city’s mayoral election, pitting Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot. The two are vying to become the city’s first black woman to hold the office.
Foxx served as Preckwinkle chief of staff before she was elected in 2016 to serve as the county’s top prosecutor. Preckwinkle was measured in her response to the decision.
“I’m not a lawyer and I’m not the state’s attorney,” Preckwinkle said. “I think it’s really important that the state’s attorney be allowed to provide a fuller explanation as time goes on.”
Lightfoot urged prosecutors to provide further explanation about their decision.
“The state’s attorney, First Deputy Magats, has to come forward and provide a much more fulsome explanation, so people have confidence that nothing untoward happened, that they were really calling balls and strikes” Lightfoot said. “If there’s an issue with evidence, put it out there and talk about it.”
Kevin Graham, president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, said Tuesday he would ask the Justice Department to investigate the State’s Attorney’s Office's handling of the case.
“I don’t think justice was done here today,” Graham said.
Contributing: Jayme Deerwester
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e1dda09acaffb59ed6cc87ec59352a16 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/kate-steinle-family-cant-sue-san-francisco-court-rules/3282366002/ | Court: Kate Steinle's parents can't sue San Francisco for negligence in daughter's death | Court: Kate Steinle's parents can't sue San Francisco for negligence in daughter's death
The parents of a woman fatally shot by an undocumented immigrant in July 2015 cannot sue San Francisco for neglecting to hold him for deportation proceedings, a U.S. appeals court ruled.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday unanimously refused to reinstate the lawsuit that sparked national debate over sanctuary cities limiting cooperation with federal immigration officials.
Jose Ines Garcia-Zarate, a Mexican national, fatally shot Kate Steinle after being deported five times. San Francisco's former sheriff, Ross Mirkarimi, released him from jail three months before the shooting, despite a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to hold him until he could be picked him up for deportation proceedings.
On Monday, the court ruled Mirkarimi violated no federal, state or local laws by refusing to tell ICE about his release date.
The attorney representing Steinle’s family, Frank Pitre, did not immediately reply to The Associated Press' request for comment. Steinle, 32, was shot while posing for pictures with her father on a San Francisco pier.
The verdict:Undocumented immigrant not guilty of murder in polarizing San Francisco case
'Where was sanctuary for Kate Steinle?': Trump says he'll make Kate Steinle's killer a 2020 campaign issue
Describing the case as "undeniably tragic," 9th Circuit Judge Mark Bennett said the sheriff had authority to issue a memo limiting local cooperation with immigration officials. Federal immigration laws did not require Mirkarimi to share Garcia-Zarate’s release date, he added.
“The tragic and unnecessary death of Steinle may well underscore the policy argument against Sheriff Mirkarimi’s decision to bar his employees from providing the release date of a many times convicted felon to ICE,” Bennett said. “But that policy argument can be acted upon only by California’s state and municipal political branches of government, or perhaps by Congress.”
A San Francisco jury in 2017 ruled Garcia-Zarate was not guilty of murder, but convicted him of illegal gun possession. He is pleading guilty to federal gun charges.
Part of the lawsuit against the federal government relating to the gun used in the shooting is moving forward. Steinle’s parents allege a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger left his .40-caliber Sig Sauer in plain sight in an unlocked car on a downtown San Francisco street. The ranger had reported it stolen from his SUV.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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ae4b7a65716d5cc5880be91d3d50f02a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/montana-murder-mystery-solved-dna-linda-clifford-bernhardt-dead/3274960002/ | DNA test solves 45-year-old double-slaying mystery in Montana | DNA test solves 45-year-old double-slaying mystery in Montana
A Montana cold-case investigative unit has teamed up with a Virginia DNA lab to crack the mystery of a double slaying 45 years ago, authorities say.
Linda and Clifford Bernhardt, both 24, were found dead in their Billings home on Nov. 7, 1973, by Linda Bernhardt's mother after the younger woman failed to show up for work. Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder on Monday identified the killer as Cecil Stan Caldwell, a co-worker of Linda Bernhardt who died in 2003 at the age of 59.
Caldwell had no arrest record, and authorities likely will never know the motive for the slayings, Linder said.
"Anything we have would be an assumption," he said. "Linda was probably the target, but we will never know."
Linder said the first break in the case came in 2004, when DNA was discovered on some evidence collected from the scene. No match was found in the FBI criminal database, however.
In 2012, the county formed a cold case unit and the Bernhardt murders were a priority. Thousands of hours of work generated leads, most of which led to dead ends.
Scott Goodwin, a volunteer who helped with the investigation, said the team was "obsessed" with finding the killer.
"These two young people didn't deserve what happened to them," Goodwin said. "They didn't do anything. They came home on a Tuesday night, and they were murdered."
In 2015 the county brought in Parabon NanoLabs to analyze the DNA by comparing it to genetic samples available through a public genealogy database.
Parabon identified relatives of the killer through shared DNA and created a composite of what the killer might have looked like, Linder said. Parabon reverse engineered the killer's family tree, and in January determined the suspect was either Caldwell or his brother, who lives in another state.
The brother's DNA was analyzed by the Montana State Crime Lab, which eliminated him as a suspect. Authorities had their man, Cecil Caldwell, who worked at Ryan's Inc., Linda Bernhardt's employer, for 10 years until 1976. Caldwell then became a longtime employer of the Billings Sanitation Department, Linder said.
"Today is a good day, a somber day as we celebrate some closure," Montana Attorney General Tim Fox said.
The families of the victims released a statement thanking law enforcement officials for their efforts.
"We just learned of the developments in the case," the families said in a statement provided by the sheriff's office. "We've had little time to process and understand this information and we ask for privacy at this time."
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1e5f32c384625bbf5a00982e5ce46d1e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/nasas-new-goal-land-astronauts-moon-2024/3283613002/ | Pence calls on NASA to land astronauts on moon by 2024 | Pence calls on NASA to land astronauts on moon by 2024
MELBOURNE, Fla. – Americans should put new boot prints on the moon within five years, the Trump administration said Tuesday, attempting to harness the space race urgency that drove Apollo astronauts to the lunar surface 50 years ago this summer.
Calling on NASA to achieve that goal “by any means necessary,” Vice President Mike Pence sought to unveil an inspiring exploration vision and also put current NASA programs on notice that their slow progress is unacceptable.
“If NASA is not currently capable of landing Americans on the moon in five years, we need to change the organization, not the mission,” he told the National Space Council in Huntsville, Alabama.
Previous plans aimed to plant another U.S. flag on the moon by 2028, after spending several years visiting a small space station called the Gateway in orbit around Earth’s closest natural satellite.
Pence’s more ambitious direction came two weeks after the administration requested a slight cut to NASA’s current $21.5 billion budget, raising obvious questions about how the moon landing program can be accelerated without an infusion of money.
Space policy expert and historian John Logsdon said the new goal could euphemistically be called “challenging.”
“We don't have a landing vehicle, no elements of the proposed Gateway have been launched, and the choice of launch vehicle for such a mission has not been made,” said Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University. “I will be very interested in seeing how Pence's policy goal is translated into an executable and affordable plan.”
More:Here's why NASA scrubbed the first all-female spacewalk
The five-year plan also comes as the administration fumes over more delays to NASA’s 322-foot Space Launch System rocket, which Pence said was "plagued by bureaucratic inertia."
The $10 billion rocket was supposed to launch an Orion capsule on an uncrewed test flight by next summer but might not be ready to fly before 2021.
NASA recently studied whether commercial heavy-lift rockets could launch the capsule on its mission instead.
But NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Tuesday told Pence that will not be possible on the current timeline and budget, and he was confident the SLS could get back on track.
That was cause for applause from an audience drawn largely from NASA’s nearby Marshall Space Flight Center, which is responsible for developing the SLS along with lead contractor Boeing.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who heads the Senate Committee on Appropriations, remains an influential backer of the “monster" rocket.
But Pence repeated the threat that NASA would seek alternatives if the SLS, which has faced criticism since its inception, failed to stay on schedule.
“If our current contractors can’t meet this objective, then we’ll find ones that will,” he said. “If commercial rockets are the only way to get astronauts to the moon in the next five years, then commercial rockets it will be.”
Dale Thomas, a former deputy director of NASA’s Constellation moon program, which the Obama administration canceled in 2010, said the local audience felt encouraged, not threatened.
They heard strong support for NASA and a promise to provide longer-term budgets and to ease contracting rules that have proved “a killer” for past programs.
“We all know that getting back to the moon in five years is very possible,” said Thomas, an engineering professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. “There are no big technology hurdles we have yet to solve. The thing is how NASA has to do business.”
Pence called on NASA to attack the new mission with "urgency," insisting there is a new space race to beat other nations to the moon and maintain American leadership.
However, Logsdon said that China is not planning a human lunar landing until after 2030, and Russia's space program is in weak shape.
If achieved, a 2024 moon landing would deliver an exploration triumph just before the end of Trump's presidency, should he win a second term.
National Space Council members and panelists discussed a need for the nation to accept more risk and a willingness to "fail smarter" along the way. But astronauts and independent safety advisers are sure to scrutinize any hint of a rush that creates undue schedule pressure, a factor in two shuttle disasters.
"I think our community is up for it," former astronaut Sandra Magnus told Pence. "I think it will be challenging. We want to make sure that we’re doing it safely as well."
Follow James Dean on Twitter: @flatoday_jdean
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e5fa3644f3066acfd2e7e3c15659126f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/plea-deals-people-who-claim-wrongful-conviction-tucson-louis-taylor-pioneer-hotel-fire-alford-plea/3284393002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Plea deals are Catch-22 for those who claim wrongful conviction | Plea deals are Catch-22 for those who claim wrongful conviction
PHOENIX – A black Arizona teenager went to prison in the 1970s to serve a life sentence for a fatal fire he has always claimed he didn’t start.
In 2013, experts using new science technology determined that the Tucson Pioneer Hotel fire that killed 29 people may not have even been arson.
That same year, after spending 42 years in prison, Louis Taylor was freed at age 59.
But he was never compensated for his decades in prison. And recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that he likely never will be – all because of the legal maneuver Pima County used to let him out.
“We take no pleasure in reaching this unfortunate result, given Taylor’s serious allegations of unconstitutional actions by the county,” Circuit Judge Susan P. Graber stated in the ruling.
Now, Taylor is using Graber's own words to ask the full 9th Circuit to reconsider the three-judge panel's decision, saying in court filings that restitution is the only way to "remedy this profound injustice."
And they appear ready to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general under the Obama administration, has joined Taylor's legal team. Katyal has argued nearly 40 cases before the Supreme Court.
Louis Taylor’s story
His mother told him to stay home, but the 16-year-old didn't listen that December evening in 1970, Taylor told The Arizona Republic in 2013.
He went to a pool hall in downtown Tucson before walking to the Pioneer Hotel to attend a party hosted by the Hughes Aircraft company, according to court records.
While he was there, a fire started in the hotel.
“Mr. Taylor was seen throughout the hotel, banging on doors, waking people up, and guiding disoriented people out of the burning building,” court documents said.
Twenty-nine people died in the fire, including two families.
According to court documents, a hotel employee approached a police officer, and said he saw a “Negro boy” inside the hotel who “appeared startled” and that two other “boys with bushy hair were fighting when a fire started.”
Police questioned Taylor for hours and didn't allow him a phone call, according to court documents.
He went to trial in Maricopa County because of all the publicity in Pima County. An all-white jury found him guilty of 28 counts of second-degree murder; he wasn't charged for the 29th death, a woman who died of smoke inhalation several months after the fire.
Help from the Arizona Justice Project
For 10 years, the Arizona Justice Project worked to secure Taylor’s freedom.
The nonprofit organization began 21 years ago as a way to provide free investigation and legal representation to the wrongfully convicted.
At the time of its creation, it was the fifth innocence organization in the country. Unlike the other organizations, it was the only one created by the defense community and not through a law school, said executive director Lindsay Herf.
Formerly, the project operated out of a private law firm. Now, it's inside the law library at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
The organization handles many of the cases itself. But it provides law students the opportunity to help with a few through the school’s Post-Conviction Clinic, which attorney Katherine Puzauskas leads.
Over the years, the Arizona Justice Project has helped get 25 people released from prison.
“We don’t always win,” Herf said. “It is an adversary system.”
For Taylor, attorneys and law students combed over thousands of files, including from the trial, juvenile records and Tucson Fire Department reports. They found and interviewed witnesses who were still alive so many years later.
The project hired fire experts from across the country to review the Fire Department’s findings. They concluded the fire was caused by the effects of flashover and had one point of origin, unlike what original investigators said. The trial expert for the defense, Marshall Smyth, also based his opinions on flashover and said the cause should be classified as undetermined, according to court records.
The Arizona Justice Project filed a petition for post-conviction relief in 2012, asking that Taylor be released or his sentence reduced. His petition claimed newly discovered evidence could demonstrate his conviction was obtained in violation of his constitutional rights and that "no reasonable fact-finder would have found him guilty of the underlying offense beyond a reasonable doubt."
However, before the court could respond to the project's filing, Pima County offered a plea agreement.
"The reason we engaged in the plea discussions was that after more than 40 years, there were few, if any, remaining witnesses alive, the evidence in the case had been lost or destroyed over the previous decades and the likelihood of being able to once again successfully try the case were remote," Deputy Pima County Attorney Rick Unklesbay told The Arizona Republic.
He said the County Attorney's Office still believes Taylor is guilty, citing evidence at trial, testimony to the police, statements made to others in detention, and witnesses at the hotel.
"In short, while the evidence in the 1972 fire was strong, we would not have been able to bring those witnesses in front of a jury again," Unklesbay said. "Therefore, both sides agreed to settle."
For Taylor, it offered a faster and more assured route to freedom, as opposed to going through years of new court proceedings or hoping a governor would grant him clemency.
By taking the plea agreement, Taylor's original convictions were vacated. He pleaded no contest to the 28 counts, was resentenced to time served, and then released.
"Four decades is a long time. It's a lifetime for some people," he told the Republic in 2013. "Some babies never make it out of the womb. I thank God I persevered through all of that."
Allegations of wrongful conviction
There isn’t one reason that causes wrongful convictions and prosecutors can’t take all of the blame, according to experts.
Carmen Naso, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said there is a deeper problem: systemic injustice.
“Louis’ case had a lot of intentional misconduct by the police and by the county attorney,” Herf said. “But not every case has that.”
According to Louis's petition, there were numerous problems with Louis' case. It alleges:
"There was a report not turned over to the defense regarding lab tests done for an accelerant that came back negative," Puzauskas said. "There was a conversation with a dismissed juror by the state's investigator regarding how the jurors were leaning."
Naso said people who are participating in the system may have “tunnel vision” and not realize at the time that what they are doing isn’t right, such as:
The former prosecutor worked with the Ohio Innocence Project to help exonerate three men who spent 20 years in prison. According to The Associated Press, their team discovered a prosecutor hid witness statements.
Naso said sometimes people want to look for a scapegoat instead of looking for the sequence of events and looking for how things went wrong.
“People from both sides of the spectrum agree that we should not have innocent people in jail," he said.
Plea agreements for the wrongfully convicted
After Taylor pleaded no contest in 2013, he was resentenced for time served and released from prison the same year. Pleading no contest means that a person is not admitting that they are guilty – but it also means they still have a criminal record.
Across the country, many people who are wrongfully convicted have accepted plea agreements in order to be released from prison. Many of these agreements can be considered “Alford pleas,” named after Henry Alford.
Alford was a North Carolina man charged with first-degree murder. He was offered a plea agreement if he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. However, he maintained his innocence and said he only agreed to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1970 that there is no difference between a defendant who maintains his or her innocence but takes a plea agreement and a person who admits to the crime.
In Arizona, even pleading no contest can be considered an Alford plea.
One of the most well-known cases involving an Alford plea took place in West Memphis, Arkansas, where the bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found in 1993.
Three teenagers spent 18 years in prison after being convicted of the murders. Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison. Their friend, Damien Wayne Echols, was sentenced to death.
The New York Times reported there was a concern across the country at the time that teenagers were involved with satanic cults.
Echols wore all black and listened to heavy metal music. According to The Times, prosecutors argued the teens were members of a cult, and witnesses testified they heard them speak of the murders.
When new evidence arose, even though they always maintained their innocence, the three agreed to Alford pleas in order to secure their freedom.
According to Naso, some people believe plea bargains are unacceptable in cases of possible wrongful convictions because they can be coercive contracts leading an individual to think he or she is eliminating the risk of not being released.
Alford pleas may secure a person's freedom, but they leave a criminal record, making it more difficult to find employment and transition back into society.
Jessica Henry, a professor at Montclair State University who researches wrongful convictions, said Alford pleas would be less necessary if prosecutors would shift their focus from just winning to the quality of their case.
She said prosecutors should remain open to reviews on what may have gone wrong in a case.
Some cities or counties, including Dallas and Cleveland, have created panels to review and address claims of wrongful convictions.
Pima County created a conviction integrity unit in 2014, a year after Taylor accepted his plea agreement. Unklesbay told The Republic the unit's creation had nothing to do with Taylor, but with the awareness of the growth of units across the country.
"We felt that our obligations as prosecutors to make sure justice is done in all cases called for us to review claims of wrongful convictions," he said.
The unit claims if it determines someone is wrongfully convicted, the County Attorney's Office will file a motion to vacate the verdict.
However, in a brief to the court, the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice claims the unit has not brought a case to court to correct a wrongful conviction in nearly five years.
Why can’t people receive compensation?
Arizona is one of 17 states that do not have compensatory laws requiring that individuals who are wrongfully convicted be paid for their time in prison.
That would require an act of the Legislature and governor – an unlikely option under Arizona's current Republican-led Legislature.
The other path to possibly getting such compensation is through a civil lawsuit. That's the route Lewis and his attorneys took.
After being released from prison, Taylor filed a lawsuit against Pima County and Tucson in federal court. He accused them of violating his constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial.
“With respect to the County, Taylor alleged unconstitutional practices, policies, and customs regarding criminal prosecutions, including racially-motivated prosecutions of African-Americans and a failure to train and supervise deputy prosecutors,” court records stated.
The county argued that because of Taylor’s 2013 plea agreement, he could not receive damages.
The appeals court agreed – but it was a split decision.
“This decision magnifies an already tragic injustice,” Judge Mary M. Schroeder stated in her dissent. “At the time of Tucson’s Pioneer Hotel fire in 1972, Louis Taylor was an African American male of sixteen. Arrested near the hotel, he was convicted on the basis of little more than that proximity and trial evidence that ‘black boys’ like to set fires.”
The judge later stated, “We should not tolerate such coercive tactics to deprive persons of a remedy for violations of their constitutional rights. To say such a plea justifies the loss of 42 years, as the majority asserts, is to deny the reality of this situation and perpetuate an abuse of power."
Since the ruling, several groups have submitted opinions to the court supporting Taylor, including the Innocence Project, the National Police Accountability Project, and the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
"Withholding release from prison until a prisoner first pleads 'no contest' or 'nolo contendere' is an exercise of power, providing a troubling example for prosecuting authorities in Arizona and nationwide," Phoenix attorney David Abney stated in Arizona Association For Justice/Arizona Trial Lawyers Association's brief to the court.
The appeals court ruling came on top of a series of losses for Taylor.
After he was released, he was not placed on parole or put in a transition program. His mother was dead, leaving him mostly on his own to learn how to become an adult in society at a later age than most people.
Taylor worked jobs landscaping and at a local movie theater. At one point, he was homeless.
In 2017, he was arrested for attempting to rob Tucson's Riverpark Inn with a baseball bat. He is at the Lewis facility in Buckeye and is expected to be released in 2020.
Follow Lauren Castle on Twitter: @Lauren_Castle.
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c792e00718aa62ae8f1dc0bbb233948f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/27/facebook-and-instagram-ban-white-nationalism-separatism/3285419002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-techtopstories | After New Zealand mosque shootings and civil rights backlash, Facebook bans white nationalism, separatism | After New Zealand mosque shootings and civil rights backlash, Facebook bans white nationalism, separatism
SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is banning explicit praise, support or representation of white nationalism and white separatism on Facebook and Instagram, including phrases such as "I am a proud white nationalist," following deadly attacks at two New Zealand mosques and a backlash from black history scholars and civil rights groups.
"Over the past three months, our conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups," Facebook said in a blog post Wednesday.
Users searching for white nationalism and separatism will be directed to resources that help people leave hate groups starting next week, the company said.
Explicit expressions of support for white supremacy are not permitted on Facebook. The decision to extend that ban to white nationalism and separatism addresses one of Facebook's most controversial content moderation policies that control the speech of more than 2 billion users around the globe.
The social media company had previously defended the practice, saying it consulted researchers and academic experts in crafting a policy drawing a line between white supremacy and the belief that races should be separated. In training documents obtained by Vice's Motherboard last year, Facebook said white nationalism “doesn’t seem to be always associated with racism (at least not explicitly).”
That position provoked a strong reaction from civil rights groups.
"By attempting to distinguish white supremacy from white nationalism and white separatism, Facebook ignores centuries of history, legal precedent, and expert scholarship that all establish that white nationalism and white separatism are white supremacy," the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law wrote Facebook in September.
Facebook's policy reversal marks a major step toward reckoning with the vast amount of white nationalist content that continues to fester on social media services.
With a growing number of populist movements gaining hold around the globe, technology companies have been reluctant to ban white nationalist content, wary of charges of censorship.
White nationalism hurtled back into the spotlight after a gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 people. In a 74-page manifesto, he described himself as an "ordinary white man" whose goal was to "crush immigration and deport those invaders already living on our soil" and "ensure the existence of our people, and a future for white children." He livestreamed the attack on Facebook.
"This is something that has been in the works for some time, but following the horrific attacks in New Zealand is more important than ever," Facebook said in a statement.
Implicit or coded expressions of white nationalism and white separatism will not be banned right away as those are harder to detect, Facebook told Motherboard.
Rashad Robinson, president of the civil rights group Color of Change, called on other tech companies "to act urgently to stem the growth of white nationalist ideologies, which find space on platforms to spread the violent ideas and rhetoric that inspired the tragic attacks witnessed in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh and now Christchurch."
The House Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing in early April on the rise of white nationalism. Researchers say that rise in attacks by white supremacists and anti-government extremists is being fueled by growing political polarization, anti-immigrant sentiment and the ease with which proponents can spread their beliefs over the internet.
A 2016 study from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism in D.C. found that white nationalists had seen their followers grow by more than 600 percent since 2012, outperforming the Islamic State in nearly every metric, from follower counts to tweets per day.
More:New Zealand mosque shootings: Are social media companies unwitting accomplices?
More:California mosque arson suspect left graffiti about New Zealand attack, police say
More:New Zealand debates free speech after ban of accused mosque shooter's manifesto
In a tense political climate, hate speech – how to define it and how to root it out – has become a priority for Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube. Facebook has taken steps to curb hate speech on its platforms using a combination of computer algorithms and thousands of moderators trained to scrub posts that violate the company's rules.
After a 2017 white supremacist rally turned deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia, Facebook wrestled with how to police white supremacy on its platform, according to the documents leaked to Motherboard. Facebook stopped short of a policy prohibiting white nationalist or separatist content after expressing concern that such a ban would extend to black separatist groups, the Zionist movement and the Basque separatist movement.
After an outcry from civil rights groups, Facebook told Motherboard in September it was reviewing its policy on white nationalism and separatism.
Facebook said Wednesday it had considered "broader concepts of nationalism and separatism – things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people's identity."
Content relating to separatist and nationalist movements such as the Basque separatist movement in France and Spain will still be allowed on Facebook.
"Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism," the company said.
Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said Facebook's new policy is a "step forward in the fight against white supremacist movements," But, she said, much work remains to be done.
"Putting in place the correct policy is a start, but Facebook also needs to enforce those policies consistently, provide meaningful transparency around any AI techniques used to address this problem, and adequately retrain its personnel. Without proper implementation, policies will prove to be just empty words, and white supremacy will continue to proliferate across its platform,” she said.
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bd5fb21928a2e0764abc5f8a32139025 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/27/immigration-advocate-uses-legal-knowledge-prevent-ice-arrest/3293206002/ | Watch: Immigration advocate stopped by ICE uses legal knowledge to prevent immigrants' arrest | Watch: Immigration advocate stopped by ICE uses legal knowledge to prevent immigrants' arrest
ALBANY, N.Y. – A video of an immigration advocate fending off an arrest by a federal immigration agent this month has gained national attention as it shows him debating the officer on the law.
Bryan MacCormack, executive director of the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, said he hopes the March 5 incident in Hudson, New York, with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer will help people facing deportation by ICE understand their rights.
"I hope it spreads the word about know your rights and exemplifies the behavior that an individual can have when they are being confronted by ICE," he said Wednesday.
The video shows MacCormack debating the law with the ICE officer near the Hudson courtroom where MacCormack had two immigrants in the backseat and was helping them with their legal cases.
The video, taken by one of the passengers, shows MacCormack explaining to the officer that he would need a judicial warrant signed by a judge to search the vehicle and passengers, and he calls his attorney, putting him on speakerphone during the brief incident.
The ICE agent contended he had a "lawful warrant" under the Immigration and Nationality Act of the United States.
The officer asks MacCormack if he's familiar with immigration law that makes it illegal to harbor and transport "illegal aliens," and MacCormack said he is, but that the order the officer provided was only an administrative warrant not signed by a judge.
The video ends soon after, but MacCormack said local police were then called to help with the situation.
Chief Edward Moore told the Times Union in Albany he sent two cars after an ICE agent reported he was meeting resistance from MacCormack and his passengers.
MacCormack's attorney then showed up and ICE ultimately left, an agency spokesperson told the paper.
MacCormack contended local police shouldn't have even been involved because the ICE officer didn't have a judicial warrant, and Hudson has declared itself a sanctuary city, which means it won't enforce certain federal immigration laws.
But Moore told Columbia-Greene Media that he was contacted after the stop and not told the reason for the warrants.
The warrants against the two individuals were for “immigration violations,” ICE told the website.
“I told (the officer) to proceed to the scene with the mission of ensuring public safety as ICE attempts to make their arrest,” Moore said. The officers did not approach the vehicle or assist ICE officers, he said.
Immigration groups and lawmakers in New York, meanwhile, are pushing for legislation called "ICE Out of Courts" that would aim to protect immigrants in the country illegally from being arrested in and around the courthouse.
Follow Joseph Spector on Twitter: @GannettAlbany
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fa9d93c4e237f5ac3699798725e5bf54 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/27/jussie-smollett-investigation-ex-michelle-obama-aide-tina-tchen/3294546002/ | Ex-Michelle Obama aide says she had small role in assisting Jussie Smollett's family | Ex-Michelle Obama aide says she had small role in assisting Jussie Smollett's family
CHICAGO — An ex-Michelle Obama aide said Wednesday she had limited involvement in assisting “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett’s family get in touch with the Chicago-area’s top prosecutor last month.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx earlier this month released a series of text messages and emails to and from Tina Tchen, a prominent Chicago attorney and former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, and an unnamed Smollett relative.
The messages were sent to convey the family's unease with how police were handling their investigation of an alleged attack on the actor at a moment when police were still classifying Smollett as a victim, according to Tchen.
“I know members of the Smollett family based on prior work together,” Tchen said in a statement. “Shortly after Mr. Smollett reported he was attacked, as a family friend, I contacted Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who I also know from prior work together. My sole activity was to put the chief prosecutor in the case in touch with an alleged victim’s family who had concerns about how the investigation was being characterized in public.”
Foxx said she recused herself from the investigation because of her contacts with Tchen and the Smollett family member. The prosecutor wrote to Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson after the contacts to convey that the family wanted the FBI to take over the investigation, according to copies of emails and text released by the State’s Attorney’s Office.
What happened:Jussie Smollett: How did prosecutors go from indictment to wrist slap?
Text lobbying:After Michelle Obama's former aide's urging, prosecutor pushed for FBI to investigate Smollett
Tchen's comments are her first about her involvement in the case and come one day after Foxx’s office abruptly announced they were dropping charges against Smollett, who was charged last month for disorderly conduct for filing a false police report.
The decision to suddenly drop the charges, less than three weeks after Smollett was indicted by grand jury, was met with sharp criticism by police officials and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The case was being overseen by Foxx's first deputy, Joseph Magats, after the chief prosecutor's recusal.
Police and prosecutors say Smollett paid two brothers, Abel and Ola Osundairo, $3,500 to stage an attack on Smollett near his apartment building in Chicago’s swanky Streeterville neighborhood in which he was made to look like the victim of a vicious hate crime.
Smollett hoped to use the incident to raise his profile and salary, according to Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday they would drop the charges against Smollett, who in turn agreed to forfeit the $10,000 bond he put up to secure his release after he was arrested.
Smollett and his attorneys maintain the actor is innocent. Prosecutors, who said the deal should not be seen as an exoneration, described the decision to drop the charges as simply a “just disposition and appropriate resolution” to the case.
Johnson said Foxx and her deputies did not give him or his aides any forewarning of their decision to drop the case.
Foxx told the Chicago Tribune Wednesday that she regretted her contact with the family about the case. She also told the paper she had nothing to do with the decision to drop the case, but defended her deputies' decision.
“It’s frustrating to me that the reliability of the work of the people of this office has been challenged,” she said. “What happened with Jussie Smollett and having this type of diversion is something we offer to people who do not have his money or his fame.”
For weeks, police treated Smollett as a victim before shifting course and charging him with staging the attack. The Smollett family member and Tchen raised their concerns amidst of a series of leaks about the case to news media before the actor was charged.
Tchen first contacted Kim Foxx by text on Feb. 1 and said the actor's family had "concerns" about the investigation, according to the communications.
“Spoke to the Superintendent Johnson,” Foxx responded by email to Tchen on Feb. 1, referring to the city’s top cop, Eddie Johnson. “I convinced him to Reach out to FBI to ask that they take over the investigation.”
Foxx also texted with one of Smollett’s relatives, whose name was redacted in copies of the communication released by her office.
“Spoke to the superintendent earlier, he made the ask,” Foxx wrote. “Trying to figure out logistics. I’ll keep you posted.”
Johnson said in an interview with USA TODAY earlier this month that he told Foxx he was “amenable” to conversations about having the FBI take the lead in the Smollett investigation.
But ultimately, police and federal officials determined it was most appropriate that the investigation continue to be led by Chicago Police, Johnson said. The FBI had been providing city police with technical assistance since soon after it launched its investigation.
“I did speak to the FBI because they handle hate crimes,” Johnson said. “We had conversations about it, but at the end of the day it stayed where it should have, in my opinion.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel continued his criticism of Foxx and the prosecutor’s office on Wednesday for their handling of the case.
“There is something rotten in Denmark,” Emanuel told USA TODAY, paraphrasing a famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “It doesn’t add up . . . I don’t get it.
“People better get their stories straight,” Emanuel said of Foxx's team. “We’re all owed a sense of accountability by the system.”
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42bb126798088655a26eceecb35358e7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/27/male-birth-control-pill-passes-early-tests-but-doctors-cite-unknowns/3287799002/ | Male birth control pill looks 'exciting' after early safety tests: Could it work? | Male birth control pill looks 'exciting' after early safety tests: Could it work?
A male birth control pill passed early safety tests and looks promising, researchers said. But doctors noted that unknowns remain about the contraceptive – and the cultural hurdles it may face.
Dr. Christina Wang, a researcher with Los Angeles-based nonprofit LABioMed, presented findings on the drug this week at an Endocrine Society conference in New Orleans. The pill "greatly" reduced hormones needed for sperm production in an early study, the society said, but it remains far from final approval.
“Safe, reversible hormonal male contraception should be available in about 10 years,” Wang said in a statement.
Forty men took part in the study at LABioMed and the University of Washington in Seattle. Ten took placebos over a 28-day period, while the rest took dosages of the drug, known as 11-beta-MNTDC.
All 30 who took the drug passed safety tests, the society said. Twenty-two of those men reported side effects, including slightly decreased sex drive and headaches, but none so bad that a participant stopped taking the drug.
"There were no serious adverse events or significant clinical concerns," researchers said in an abstract of the study, which was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The pill's development remains "really early," Wang said.
Why the 10-year wait? More and longer studies are needed to verify the drug's effectiveness in men and, eventually, in sexually active couples, she said.
Dr. Paul Turek is a male fertility specialist and founder of the Turek Clinic in California. He called the pill's research "exciting" but not without unknowns.
Turek questioned whether the pill actually decreases sperm production or only hormones tied to it.
"They do not show any effect on sperm," Turek said. "We have no idea whether sperm will actually drop. And it needs to drop to zero."
Wang said the drug's effect on sperm production could take up to three months to set in.
That could prove a barrier for users, said Dr. Bobby Najari, director of male fertility at NYU Langone. A pill that takes months to kick in feels less "immediately on and off as female contraception," he said.
If users faced a lessened sex drive after only 28 days, Najari asked, what side effects could occur when the pill is used for years?
Still, the research is "very exciting," he said. "This is sort of a wide-open space that is sort of under-researched and underdeveloped."
Why has the male pill taken so long to develop? Cultural attitudes, Najari suggested.
Women mostly handle the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy, he said, so contraceptive solutions – and perhaps research dollars for them – have focused largely on women.
That has led to the idea that men don't care about birth control for them, Najari said.
"My impression talking to men in the clinic every day is that that’s increasingly changing," he said, "if that was ever true."
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f67aa13261a42215ad4ef14bd155fdba | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/27/megan-jayne-crabbe-and-celeste-barber-tell-women-love-their-bodies/3201945002/ | 'Chubby, brown & braless': These women are unapologetic about their bodies, and Instagram fans can't seem to get enough | 'Chubby, brown & braless': These women are unapologetic about their bodies, and Instagram fans can't seem to get enough
A movement that keeps gaining traction on social media is sending a message to women who obsess over images of fit celebrities: love the skin you're in.
The body positivity movement — which advocates for the acceptance of all body types — is being spread by authors, actors and influencers as the number of plastic surgeries performed in the United States rises each year.
Instagram sensations Megan Jayne Crabbe and Celeste Barber have shared raw images of their bodies in swimsuits and lingerie to show what most women really look like without plastic surgery, Photoshop or filters.
Crabbe, a full-figured woman from the United Kingdom, embraces her stomach rolls in one photo with a caption reading, "It is possible to make peace with a stomach that isn't flat."
In another post, she talks unapologetically about showing up at a red carpet event: "chubby, brown & braless."
Barber, an Australian comedian, recreates model or celebrity poses and shares them side-by-side on Instagram with the original images.
In a Dec. 27 post, she imitated rapper Cardi B's seductive pose in an orange mini skirt, except Barber wore a shirt that came to her thighs. She also recreated the mirror shot of actress and singer Jennifer Lopez in a black thong swimsuit on Sept. 30.
Experts are urging women with insecurities about their body image to follow these types of social media pages, saying Instagram sex symbols like the Kardashian-Jenner clan can trigger body dysmorphia — a mental disorder that causes people to constantly think about their flaws and avoid social situations.
And influencers of the movement represent all shapes— the women are thin, full figured or fall within the category of the national average size 14.
"I encourage everyone to diversify their social media feeds," said Gina Susanna, a Chicago-based ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). "We have the ability to choose the influences we want in our lives. If you’re following someone who makes you feel bad about yourself, or makes you compare negatively, unfollow them. Look for people who challenge your perception of beauty."
Research has linked frequent Instagram use to increased self-objectification and negative body image among women between the ages of 18 and 25, according to the NEDA. This was particularly apparent among women who regularly viewed "fitspiration" pages that promoted working out to achieve an ideal body.
Daria Hamrah, a cosmetic surgeon at Nova Surgicare in McLean, Virginia, said many patients show him photos of celebrities they want to look like, or point to flawed facial features in their own selfies.
Hamrah said this often signals a psychological problem, especially when he doesn't see those flaws.
Social media, he said, has turned into a competition among women that causes a downward spiral in mental health.
“It promotes this narcissistic behavior that spirals into depression," Hamrah said. “They don’t know how to get out of it. And they don’t even realize what’s happening.”
Nearly a quarter million more cosmetic procedures were done in 2018 compared with 2017, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Susanna said people have been conditioned to think edited images in the media, especially across Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, are reality. But they are oftentimes void of stretch marks, arm and leg hair, and show thinner thighs and smaller waists than the person's actual figure, she said. Most models, however, are already thin women, she added.
The message from the body positivity movement helped Susanna overcome her own eating disorder and prompted her desire to promote body acceptance on Instagram. Her page is filled with images of women of all sizes and memes encouraging people to eat every day and love their natural selves.
"I saw a movement filled with people existing in, loving, and celebrating their bodies — bodies that didn’t look like mine," Susanna said. "And in that space I began to understand that in seeing beauty in others, I could learn to see it in myself."
The body positive movement is nothing new in the United States but social media has given it a different twist. The movement has been around for the last century in different forms. In the 1960s, campaigns were launched to fight "fat shaming."
Between January and December of 2018, the use of the #bodypositivity hashtag on Instagram grew by 30 percent reaching its peak in August of that year, according to the social network.
There is also a growing number of influencers using Instagram to spread their message of self love, said Besidone Amoruwa, a spokeswoman for Instagram.
"I think by women being able to share their daily experiences, their struggles with weight and their challenges in a positive manner, other people have been able to self identify and take confidence in who they are," Amoruwa said. "And that has created different pockets of communities."
Sara Maria, author of "Love Your Body, Love Your Life," said she believes society is moving toward greater acceptance of all body types. Curvy models and stars, she said, are celebrated now.
Maria said it's also more common to see plus-sized models than it was 10 years ago. "Losing weight for your health, fine," Maria said. "But not thinking you’re good enough, it’s purely a psychological issue."
Jennifer Goodman, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto, said women should also take an occasional break from social media toavoid having a negative body image.
“We have these infinite images of other people to compare ourselves to," Goodman said. "Check in with yourself and say, 'how do I really feel after scrolling through Instagram?'"
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3ea38cd725ca19b4021e895b872fbbb9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/27/midwest-flooding-farms-superfund-sites-remain-underwater/3285776002/ | Two weeks after 'bomb cyclone': Midwest farms, Superfund sites still underwater | Two weeks after 'bomb cyclone': Midwest farms, Superfund sites still underwater
Two weeks after a "bomb cyclone" storm pummeled a large swath of the Midwest with heavy snow, drenching rains and historic flooding, farms remain under water and Superfund waste sites inaccessible.
And more snow and rain are on the way.
Millions of acres of farmland were underwater or threatened by flooding in Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas and Iowa. In South Dakota, a Native American reservation as big as Delaware and Rhode Island combined was battling swamped roads and broken water lines overwhelmed by flooding creeks and rivers.
"Thankful to the SD National Guard, tribal leadership, and volunteers who are working hard to help people in need," Gov. Kristi Noem tweeted after visiting the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Almost 8,000 of the 20,000 people who live on the reservation have had water supplies disrupted, the tribe said. Three people who suffered medical problems died before ambulances slowed by floodwaters could get to them, the tribe said.
“This is going to have a devastating effect on us," reservation President Julian Bear Runner said.
In Missouri, Langston farmer Richard Oswald told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch his 160- acre farm is so besieged by water that he evacuated. He doesn't expect to return for a couple of weeks.
“I’m no youngster,” Oswald says. “I’m 69 years old. I’ve lived here all my life. And I’ve never seen weather like this.”
The Environmental Protection Agency said at least eight contaminated sites in three states affected by the flooding remain inaccessible. Spokesman Ben Washburn said two sites had "real impacts that required action" – the Nebraska Ordnance Plant in Mead, 45 miles west of Omaha, and the Conservation Chemical Corporation in Kansas City, Missouri.
At the Nebraska site, a groundwater treatment system and wells were shut down for two days. Flooding at the Kansas City plant required an increase in the pumping rate of the groundwater treatment system, Washburn said.
Washburn added that no releases of hazardous contaminants have been detected.
A half-dozen other sites are dealing with standing water or are as yet inaccessible, Washburn said. As floodwaters recede and more areas can be reached safely, the EPA will determine whether action is necessary, he said.
Parts of Nebraska, Colorado and South Dakota can expect significantly more precipitation over the next couple of days, in many areas starting as rain before colder air sweeps in and changes it to snow, AccuWeather says.
"Some of this new snow and remaining older snow from the winter eventually will melt and join the high water levels along the Missouri River in the coming days and weeks," Sosnowski said.
Rain and thunderstorms along the southeastern flank of the storm will add to the flooding trouble across the region, meteorologist Renee Duff said.
The news was not all bad. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday that people should be on guard for localized flooding but that the state is prepared for any catastrophic flooding.
“I don’t want anybody to let their guard down, (but) when it comes to the actual boots on the ground and the organization, very confident,” Walz said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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5afba8649b4c74a93fee01ff6497651d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/27/powerball-750-million-jackpot-winning-numbers/3293620002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | Powerball's $768.4M jackpot has a single winner in New Berlin, Wisconsin | Powerball's $768.4M jackpot has a single winner in New Berlin, Wisconsin
A ticket sold in New Berlin, Wisconsin, won the third-largest lottery prize in United States history on Wednesday night.
The lucky numbers for the $768.4 million jackpot were 16, 20, 37, 44, 62 and Powerball 12. The top prize surged from an estimated $750 million due to strong ticket sales.
The lump sum payout is $477 million.
“It’s going to be a very green spring for our first Powerball jackpot winner of 2019,” David Barden, Powerball Product Group chairman and New Mexico Lottery CEO, said in a statement. “A jackpot of this size can make many dreams come true – not just for the winner, but for all Lottery beneficiaries and the lucky state of Wisconsin.”
The winning jackpot is the largest in the Wisconsin lottery's history. The retailer that sold the winning ticket has not yet been identified, but is in line for a $100,000 payout, according to the state lottery office.
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“This is an amazing milestone moment for Wisconsin,” said Wisconsin Lottery Director Cindy Polzin. “It truly is incredible to think that the winning ticket for this historic jackpot was sold in our own backyard. I am extremely excited for the winners and for our state. This event puts us in the national spotlight and turns Wisconsin into WINsconsin.”
The Powerball jackpot had grown since December, when a ticket sold in New York won an estimated $298.3 million. The jackpot resets to $40 million for Saturday's drawing.
The odds of hitting Wednesday's prize – the largest lottery jackpot of 2019 – was 1 in about 292 million according to Powerball. But Powerball says 1 in every 24.87 tickets wins a prize, starting at $4.
In the previous drawing eight tickets won $1 million prizes and another two scored $2 million. Tickets cost $2 each, or $3 if players choose to multiply non-jackpot prizes with Power Play.
For the big winners:Should you take your Powerball ticket jackpot as a lump sum or annual payments?
Avoid lawsuits:Powerball jackpot: Read these tips before joining that workplace lottery pool
Powerball is played in 44 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Some lotteries sell Powerball tickets online, but only to residents of the jurisdiction. Residents of the six states that don't play – Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada and Utah – could throw their hat in the ring by traveling to another state.
The only jackpots larger than Wednesday's include the world record $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot in January 2016 shared by winners in California, Colorado and Tennessee.
A woman from South Carolina anonymously claimed the second biggest prize of a $1.537 billion Mega Millions jackpot last October. And in August 2017, a Massachusetts hospital worker's pipe dream came true when she won a $758.7 million Powerball prize.
Contributing: Trent Tetzlaff of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Contributing: The Associated Press
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a37b17b2a162b1e5a485ef966ad7a92b | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/28/college-admissions-scandal-california-reform-proposals/3306274002/ | California lawmakers propose sweeping reforms to counter college admissions scandal | California lawmakers propose sweeping reforms to counter college admissions scandal
In response to the nation's largest-ever college admissions bribery scheme, California lawmakers on Thursday proposed a package of six bills aimed at preventing a repeat of wealthy families cheating the system.
The package includes measures seeking to audit public universities' admissions practices and ban preferential admissions for students related to a college's donors or alumni.
Not only did the scam's ringleader William "Rick" Singer reside in California, said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty of Sacramento, but 25 of the 33 families and 10 of the 17 coaches and university officials named in the indictment live in the Golden State. Four of the eight schools named in the case are in California.
“We’ve all watched in complete disgust by the outright fraud,” McCarty said. “It stings even more because so much of this was based in California.”
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Other proposals aim to require college admissions consultants register with the state, as well as mandate three administrators approve any special admissions. The latter would discourage bribing one official, McCarty said.
The group of Democratic lawmakers also seek to phase out SAT and ACT exams and prevent parents convicted in the scandal from taking tax breaks from donations.
McCarty and Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco rejected concerns that the set of six bills might make the admissions process too burdensome or hurt qualified applicants with connections.
"We must close the side door that enables privileged families to get their children into elite colleges, taking the place of deserving students," Ting said.
Federal prosecutors say that rich and powerful parents of underqualified students paid $25 million collectively since 2011 to Singer, who led a sham nonprofit, to either have someone cheat on their ACT or SAT exams or to pay off athletic coaches who accepted their children on their teams even if they didn't play the sport. Singer has already pleaded guilty to racketing conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and other charges.
Both private and public universities could be excluded from the Cal Grant student aid program if they give preferential treatment to students related to donors or alumni. Cal Grants are based on need or merit and pay for college tuition or living expenses.
The University of California said in a statement that staff are already auditing admissions practices and reviewing the value of standardized admissions tests. Instead of SAT scores, McCarty said institutions could rely on grade-point averages recommendations, essays and extracurricular activities. He said wealthy families can game admissions tests without paying an official to correct answers.
About 2 percent of students are special admissions, the university added, and are usually exceptional, nontraditional or disadvantaged students. The system said it gives no preference to children of donors or alumni.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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7495f4a232c7f9e7cfbb3fdf230eec9d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/28/florida-man-applied-job-arrested-when-dna-matched-cold-case/3304568002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | A Florida man's job application led to his arrest in a 1998 cold case | A Florida man's job application led to his arrest in a 1998 cold case
Police in Florida stumbled upon a suspect in a cold case when a man applied for a job that required a background check decades later – and his fingerprints were allegedly a match, authorities said this week.
Todd Barket, 51, was arrested Wednesday and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the 1998 slaying of Sondra Better, a 68-year-old woman working alone in a consignment shop at the time of her killing, Delray Beach, Florida, police said in a statement.
Barket's prints appeared in a fingerprint database in December because he was applying for a job as a certified nursing assistant, police said.
In 1998, Better's killer left "a bloody, evidence-laden scene behind" when they stabbed and bludgeoned her to death, police said.
Droplets of the suspect's blood leading from Better's body to a cash register and out the door as well as the suspect's fingerprints on a decorative ball were found at the scene. Nothing matched in a national database in 1998, police said.
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Authorities even had a description of a suspect at the time – a thin, white man in his late 20s, early 30s spotted talking to Better about a couch in the store – but the killer eluded them.
Detective Robert Stevens retired in 2007 after he had worked the case for nearly a decade, and no leads led to an arrest.
"Our detectives worked years trying to find the killer in this case," acting Delray Beach Police Chief Javaro Sims told reporters on Wednesday, per the Sun-Sentinel. "But the person responsible for this heinous case seemed to just disappear."
When Barket applied for the job, his fingerprints came up as a match for the suspect in the killing. Police later tracked the man down and nabbed his DNA, which also came back as a positive match on Tuesday for the killer's DNA found at the crime scene, police said.
Barket was being held in Hillsborough County jail and is set to be extradited to Palm Beach County, where the crime occurred. No attorney was listed for Barket in online court records.
Police said they are still trying to determine a motive in the case.
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According to the Sun-Sentinel, Better had planned to leave the consignment shop and was working one of her final shifts before she and her husband planned to renew wedding vows in New York.
"It felt really good," Stevens said of telling Better's family of the arrest, per the Sun-Sentinel. "There were some tears, there was some joy and of course now it’s gonna bring some closure to them."
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Contributing: The Associated Press.
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9a97f8718f51ba3c9292ea5d56304b77 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/28/man-sword-shot-killed-scientology-church-california/3296606002/ | Man with sword fatally shot at Scientology church, two California officers injured | Man with sword fatally shot at Scientology church, two California officers injured
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Two officers were wounded and a suspect was killed during a shootout after police responded Wednesday to reports of a man with a sword entering the Church of Scientology in Inglewood, California, authorities said.
The suspect was shot in the head and died at a hospital, Inglewood police Lt. Oscar Mejia told reporters at the scene. He was not immediately identified.
Gunfire erupted around 3:30 p.m. inside the front entrance of the church after police approached the man, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and wielding the sword, officials said.
One officer was struck in a hand, and the other was hit in an arm, officials said. They were hospitalized in good condition with non-life-threatening injuries, police Chief Mark Fronterotta said. Both officers are in their late 20s, the chief said.
Officials didn’t say who fired first or whether a gun was recovered from the suspect.
Inglewood is a city of about 100,000 residents about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southwest of downtown Los Angeles.
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9052f5ac6fbf33e1bf625cece77a03e7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/28/nasa-wants-pay-you-19-000-stay-bed-2-months/3298555002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomnation-topstories | NASA will pay you $19,000 to stay in bed for 2 months | NASA will pay you $19,000 to stay in bed for 2 months
Slobs of the world, here's a job for you.
NASA and two other space agencies are asking for 24 volunteers to lie in bed for two months as part of a study. The pay? About $19,000.
"We are looking for test persons to take part in a bed rest study from September to December 2019 in Cologne (Germany) and spend 60 days lying down," according to a statement from the German Aerospace Agency, NASA and the European Space Agency.
The point of the study is to "research how the body changes in weightlessness. Bed rest simulates this condition," the statement said. Based on the study results, scientists will develop techniques to reduce the negative effects of weightlessness on astronauts.
During the two months, the volunteers will live in a single room, but will be divided into groups. One group will be rotated around in a centrifuge, similar to an artificial gravity chamber, which will force blood back into their extremities, ABC News reported.
A second group will not be moved.
A previous study participant, identified as Janja, said that "participation in the study was a very special and good experience for me....What surprised me the most: after a few days my body got used to the bed rest, it was much easier than I had imagined. I did not get bored by the many exciting experiments, on the contrary, time flew by."
And when they say you'll do everything while lying down, they aren't kidding: People must eat, exercise, get dressed and even shower while lying flat on their beds. Another catch: The participants’ beds are tilted slightly downward to encourage fluids to pool in the upper body, NBC News said.
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The study will take place in a special, state-of-the-art facility known as the "envihab," which comes from the words environment and habitat.
Applications for the study are available online from the German Aerospace Agency. The agency is looking for 12 men and 12 women volunteers.
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3f9d2ebcc208e118c4af0f54265fa33d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/29/dinosaur-fossils-discovered-day-asteroid-hit-earth/3313515002/ | Fossils discovered from the day the dinosaurs died 66 million years ago, when an asteroid hit the Earth | Fossils discovered from the day the dinosaurs died 66 million years ago, when an asteroid hit the Earth
It's like a time capsule of the end of the world.
66 million years ago, in what's now North Dakota, a group of animals died together, only a few minutes after a huge asteroid smashed into the Earth near present-day Mexico.
Scientists Friday announced the discovery of the jumbled, fossilized remains of the animals, all killed when a tsunami-like wave and a torrent of rocks, sand and glass buried them alive.
This graveyard of fish, mammals, insects and a dinosaur is a unique, first-of-its-kind discovery from the exact day that life on Earth changed forever, according to the study lead author Robert DePalma, a curator at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History.
“This is the first mass death assemblage of large organisms anyone has found associated with the (asteroid impact). said DePalma, who is also a doctoral student at the University of Kansas.
In a statement, he said that at no other spot on Earth "can you find such a collection consisting of a large number of species representing different ages of organisms and different stages of life, all of which died at the same time, on the same day.”
DePalma added that the find provides spectacular new detail to what is perhaps the most important event to ever affect life on Earth.
At the dig site, scientists found fish with hot glass in their gills from flaming debris that showered back down on Earth. Study co-author Jan Smit of the University of Amsterdam said his colleagues discovered charred trees, evidence of an inland tsunami, melted amber and even dinosaur footsteps from just before their demise.
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The asteroid impact and resulting mass extinction, which scientists call the K-T boundary, marked the end of the Cretaceous Era. The aftereffects of that infamous asteroid collision killed 75 percent of all species on Earth, including the dinosaurs. It's the planet's most recent mass extinction.
“We’ve understood that bad things happened right after the impact, but nobody’s found this kind of smoking-gun evidence,” said David Burnham, a study co-author and geologist at the University of Kansas in a statement. “People have said, ‘We get that this blast killed the dinosaurs, but why don’t we have dead bodies everywhere?’ Well, now we have bodies. They’re not dinosaurs, but I think those will eventually be found, too.”
The discovery was made at a site called Tanis in North Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation, a well-known area for fossils.
While the asteroid impact has been the most likely cause of the mass extinction, some scientists have claimed recently that massive volcanic activity in India also played a role. A pair of research studies released in February made the case for the volcano theory.
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DePalma understands the significance of the exact moment the asteroid hit in regards to Earth's history: "This particular event is tied directly to all of us – to every mammal on Earth, in fact. Because this is essentially where we inherited the planet. Nothing was the same after that impact. It became a planet of mammals rather than a planet of dinosaurs."
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The research paper – Prelude to Extinction: a seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota – will be published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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5d1078ff75171a617ead7b5968edd510 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/noreaster-hit-east-coast-rain-wind-and-maybe-snow/3314940002/ | No foolin! Nor'easter to bring rain, wind and maybe snow to East Coast next week | No foolin! Nor'easter to bring rain, wind and maybe snow to East Coast next week
This is no April Fool's joke.
A powerful early April nor'easter storm is forecast to wallop the East Coast with rain, wind, pounding surf, and maybe even some unwelcome snow next week.
AccuWeather said coastal areas should see the worst impact.
Rain is forecast to fall all the way from Florida to Maine from late Monday into early Wednesday.
The rain could be heavy enough to cause urban and poor drainage area flooding as well as significant water rises on small streams from Louisiana to Virginia.
Since it's April, almost all of the precipitation that falls will be rain, although some accumulating snow is possible in the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia, the National Weather Service said.
Snow could also whiten areas of the interior Northeast, including portions of Pennsylvania, New York and New England.
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"Given that it will be early April, temperatures will be marginal and the time of day of precipitation will influence actual accumulation," the weather service said.
These type of storms are called "nor'easters" because they usually bring strong northeast winds over the East as they move north along the Atlantic Coast.
Historically, nor'easters have brought the East Coast its heaviest snowfalls. If these storms are unusually intense and develop quickly they are known as "bomb cyclones."
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f34d2f717d0d87ba604447978de85942 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/01/dolphins-and-climate-change-warming-seas-threaten-marine-mammals/3331033002/ | Warming seas are devastating to survival of dolphins | Warming seas are devastating to survival of dolphins
Everyone’s favorite marine mammal likes to keep cool, but scorching seawater appears to be wreaking havoc with dolphins in some parts of the world, a new study suggests.
Scientists first noticed the problem after a 2011 heat wave in Australia: Unusually warm seawater off Australia's western coast that year was followed by a significant decrease in dolphin births over the next six years. By tracking hundreds of dolphins during that time, scientists also found the warmth had dropped the mammal's survival rate by 12 percent.
“The extent of the negative influence of the heat wave surprised us,” said study lead author Sonja Wild in a statement. “It is particularly unusual that the reproductive success of females appears to have not returned to normal levels, even after six years,” said Wild, a Ph.D. student at the University of Leeds in the U.K.
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The dolphins studied live in Shark Bay, a UNESCO world heritage site in Western Australia. During that 2011 hot spell, temperatures in the bay were as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit above average, scientists said. The extreme warmth damaged seagrass, a key cog in the bay's ecosystem that provides food and shelter for its inhabitants.
"Our findings suggest that extreme weather events may be too sudden or disruptive for even highly adaptable animals to respond," study co-author Simon Allen of the University of Bristol in the U.K. said.
Fish species in the ocean are also threatened by climate change: A study in February found that warming oceans have shrunk the populations of many fish species around the world.
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Some good news from Monday's study: The heat wave did not have the same effect on all dolphins. Dolphins that use sponges as tools – a technique that helps dolphins locate food in deep water – were not as affected as those that don't use this technique.
Still, Wild said the declines in dolphin populations "are a stark reminder of the negative effects of climate change.”
In fact, even beyond dolphins, climate change may have more far-reaching consequences for the survival of many other marine mammal species than had been previously thought. "Marine heat waves are likely to occur more frequently in the future due to climate change," said study co-author Michael Krützen, an anthropologist from the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
"This is worrying not only for the long-term prospects of marine mammal populations but also for the entire oceanic ecosystems," he said.
The study was published Monday in the peer-reviewed science journal Current Biology.
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6d1706b8def861f0563d35d22ec9cf69 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/01/nevada-area-worlds-darkest-spots/3334276002/ | Remote corner of Nevada ranked among world's darkest spots | Remote corner of Nevada ranked among world's darkest spots
Nevada's Massacre Rim to join list of Dark Sky Sanctuaries in New Mexico, Texas, Utah, New Zealand and Chile
RENO, Nev. - Computer scientist Chris Schmandt doesn’t visit Nevada for the casinos, but he does appreciate the state’s nightlife.
Schmandt, of Boston, prefers to go beyond the glowing reach of lights in Las Vegas and Reno to relax in the most remote corners of the state.
“I’m one of those people who thinks about what the world was like before electricity,” said Schmandt, who noticed Nevada’s dark night skies while poring over satellite images depicting the spread of light pollution across North America.
“I was looking for places to go and NASA has a nice composition image of the Earth at night from space,” Schmandt said. “I figured the dark places were places where there weren’t a lot of people. And there is a lot of dark in Nevada.”
Soon, people won’t have to search satellite photos to learn about Nevada’s position among the best places for night sky enthusiasts to escape light pollution.
That’s because a remote area in the northwest corner of the state is poised to become just the seventh spot on the planet to be designated a Dark Sky Sanctuary.
The designation for the Massacre Rim area in northern Washoe County will be just the fourth sanctuary of its kind in the United States and the first in Nevada.
Other U.S. dark sky sanctuaries are Cosmic Campground in New Mexico, Rainbow Bridge National Monument in Utah and Devils River State Natural Area-Del Norte in Texas. There are also sanctuaries outside the U.S. in New Zealand and Chile.
“This designation literally puts Washoe County on the Dark Sky map,” said Shaaron Netherton, executive director of Friends of Nevada Wilderness, a group that led the charge for the designation. “We are just thrilled that this special place has been recognized for its natural values.”
Friends of Nevada Wilderness announced the designation Saturday.
The designation shows the International Dark Sky Association, founded in 1988 in Tucson, Arizona, considers the area to have "exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights and a nocturnal environment" and should remain protected for scientific, ecological and cultural benefit.
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Research shows artificial light can disrupt wildlife that depends on natural cycles of light and darkness for everything from hunting to sleeping to migration.
Skies unpolluted by artificial light, which are rare throughout much of the world, also provide a glimpse at the way the sky and landscape would have looked to people throughout the majority of humans' time on the planet.
"The sky ruled more of your life than it does now," Schmandt said.
It won’t change any access rules or regulations for Massacre Rim, a designated wilderness study area of 101,000 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management about 150 miles north of Reno and 160 miles east of Redding, California, near the borders of Nevada, California and Oregon.
But it will elevate its profile as a destination for people who want to experience solitude and starlight the way humans would have experienced it before electricity and industrialization.
“The sanctuary designation is for places that have extremely dark skies,” said Adam Dalton, the association’s Dark Sky Places program manager. “Sanctuaries not only are dark but are really remote.”
BLM spokesman Jeff Fontana said the agency wrote a letter of support for the designation in 2016.
To achieve the designation, workers from Friends of Nevada Wilderness had to document the darkness of the sky using objective measurements.
The group, which advocates on behalf of wilderness designations in the state, sent workers into the field on several nights in April and July 2018.
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They drove around the fringe of the area by four-wheel drive and hiked into the interior and used light-measuring instruments to capture readings to show how the look of the sky rated on the Bortle Scale, a nine-point system that measures the visibility of stars and other natural light in the night sky.
“It is something magical to drive around the WSA at night,” said Kurt Kuznicki, associate director of Friends who helped take readings. “You start drinking coffee at 10 o’clock at night and drive around listening to the radio.”
They documented qualities such as the ability to see distinct features of the Milky Way, entities such as the M33 galaxy and natural starlight bright enough to cause objects to cast shadows.
Their findings showed the area ranked at the top of the Bortle Scale and worthy of the Dark Sky Sanctuary designation.
Kuznicki said visiting Massacre Rim at night reminded him of hiking into the Golden Trout Wilderness in the Eastern Sierra with his dad in the early 1970s.
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It was on those trips from Long Beach, where Kuznicki was raised, that he gained an appreciation for escaping light pollution that prevents people in urbanized areas from the primeval experience of a pure night sky.
“I would like to see folks appreciate the resource they have in northern Washoe,” Kuznicki said. “Right in our backyard we have these special places and we have the opportunity to protect it right now.”
Follow Benjamin Spillman on Twitter: @ByBenSpillman
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ceee2a280ff20d949fc8f3b3c8f8ef31 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/02/black-holes-first-ever-photo-should-unveiled-next-week/3343250002/ | 'Something no human has seen before': The first-ever photograph of a black hole will likely be unveiled next week | 'Something no human has seen before': The first-ever photograph of a black hole will likely be unveiled next week
They've captured our imaginations for decades, but we've never actually photographed a black hole before – until now.
Next Wednesday, at several press briefings around the world, scientists will apparently unveil humanity's first-ever photo of a black hole, the European Space Agency said in a statement. Specifically, the photo will be of "Sagittarius A," the supermassive black hole that's at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
But aren't black holes, well, black, and thus invisible, so none of our telescopes can "see" them? Yes – therefore the image we're likely to see will be of the "event horizon," the edge of the black hole where light can't escape.
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Even that will be challenging, however, as the black hole at the center of our galaxy is "shrouded in a thick cloud of dust and gas," according to Science Alert. Even more confounding is that spacetime around a black hole is "weird."
(Black holes are actually collapsed stars, with gravity so strong that even light cannot escape their grasp.) So the photo may show a dark blob surrounded by a ring of bright light, according to Yahoo.
Science News said that the black hole research was done using the Event Horizon Telescope, a network of eight radio observatories around the world.
Whatever the announcement is next week, "we’ll almost certainly be seeing something no human has ever seen before," Popular Mechanics reported.
On Wednesday, tress briefings will be held simultaneously in the U.S, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo.
In the U.S., the discovery will be unveiled by the National Science Foundation at a 9 a.m. ET press conference.
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f17b177e0b755564a857015f0158257a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/04/california-woman-fired-maga-hat-starbucks/3370307002/ | California woman fired after confronting man wearing MAGA hat at Starbucks | California woman fired after confronting man wearing MAGA hat at Starbucks
A woman who confronted a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat this week at a Starbucks in California has been fired, according to her employer.
The woman, identified by local news outlets as Rebecca Mankey, was terminated from Gryphon Stringed Instruments after posting on social media about the incident. After seeing someone wearing the hat, a hallmark of President Donald Trump's administration, she "yelled at him about how it was not okay to hate brown people” and threatened “to publicly shame him in town and try to get him fired,” in since-deleted posts, according to KTVU.
“Gryphon does not believe anyone should be harassed or subject to hate speech no matter their beliefs,” the music shop said in a Facebook post. “We would like to make it clear that the opinions expressed and actions taken by the employee are not indicative of how we conduct ourselves at the shop and we hope we can continue to serve our customers across the country respectfully and universally as we have done for nearly 50 years.”
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Owner Richard Johnston told USA TODAY via email that "everyone at Gryphon just wants to move on and get back to what we do best, which is musical instruments and playing music."
Palo Alto Weekly reported that Mankey called the 74-year-old Jewish man “Nazi scum” and posted his photo on Twitter, asking for help in identifying him. The man, identified only as Victor by NBC News, described the incident and expressed regret that it resulted in her firing.
"This woman comes over and she says, 'Is that a Trump hat?' I said, 'I think it is, yes.' And then she turned to the rest of the audience, the people in Starbucks and said, 'Hey, everybody! Come over here! Let’s get this guy! He’s a hater! I’m calling him out! He hates brown people. He’s a Nazi," he told the station.
Mankey’s posts drew criticism among right-wing outlets and Palo Alto Weekly reported that Mankey and her family have received online death threats.
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Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
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8abfd1766fd166f0f64d9431fbe74e96 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/04/global-warming-earths-carbon-dioxide-levels-highest-3-million-years/3367027002/ | Earth's carbon dioxide levels highest in 3 million years, study says | Earth's carbon dioxide levels highest in 3 million years, study says
Carbon dioxide – the gas scientists say is most responsible for global warming – has reached levels in our atmosphere not seen in 3 million years, scientists announced this week in a new study.
At that time, sea levels were as much as 65 feet higher than they are now, Greenland was mostly green and Antarctica had trees.
“It seems we’re now pushing our home planet beyond any climatic conditions experienced during the entire current geological period, the Quaternary,” said study lead author Matteo Willeit of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “A period that started almost 3 million years ago and saw human civilization beginning only 11,000 years ago. So, the modern climate change we see is big, really big; even by standards of Earth history.”
Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activities are the primary reason for climate change.
Willeit and his colleagues used sophisticated computer simulations of Earth's past climate to reach their conclusion. He said his team compared their results with hard data from the deep sea, which matched what the computers said.
Today, CO2 levels measure over 410 parts per million. While that may not sound like a huge amount, scientists have known for decades that even trace amounts in the atmosphere can raise temperatures around the world.
The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into Earth's atmosphere and oceans.
The extra CO2 caused temperatures to rise to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors, scientists report. In the past 20 years, the world's temperature has risen about two-thirds of a degree Fahrenheit, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Carbon dioxide is called a greenhouse gas for its ability to trap solar radiation and keep it confined to the atmosphere.
It is invisible, odorless and colorless yet is responsible for 63% of the warming attributable to all greenhouse gases, according to NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
All the nations of the world – except for the United States – are part of the Paris climate agreement, which aims to reduce humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, in order to prevent rising global temperatures.
The study appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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e7a065e21fb2fce64158d8f4007411a8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/04/hurricane-forecast-colorado-state-forecasters-say-5-form-2019/3363430002/ | Hurricane season is approaching. This is the first forecast for 2019 | Hurricane season is approaching. This is the first forecast for 2019
After yet another catastrophic hurricane season in the USA in 2018, which featured such ferocious storms as Florence and Michael, top hurricane forecasters made their first prediction for the 2019 season, which begins June 1.
Thanks to a weak El Niño, experts expect a "slightly below-average Atlantic hurricane season." Meteorologist Phil Klotzbach and other experts from Colorado State University – among the nation's top seasonal hurricane forecasters – predict 13 named tropical storms will form, five of which will become hurricanes.
An average season has 12 tropical storms, six of which are hurricanes.
A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when its wind speed reaches 74 mph.
Of the five predicted hurricanes, two are expected to spin into major hurricanes – Category 3, 4 or 5 – with sustained wind speeds of 111 mph or greater. The group said there's a near-average chance for major hurricanes to make landfall along the U.S. coastline. Klotzbach put the chance of a major hurricane strike at 39%.
Last year, Florence and Michael combined to kill more than 100 Americans and cost nearly $50 billion in damage, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, though storms sometimes form outside those dates.
The team predicts that 2019 hurricane activity will be about 75% of the average season. By comparison, 2018’s hurricane activity was about 120% of the average season.
Colorado State's prediction in 2018 was quite good. Last year, the team predicted 14 tropical storms would form, of which seven would become hurricanes. In all, 15 tropical storms developed, and eight strengthened into hurricanes.
One of the major determining factors in hurricane forecasting is whether the USA is in an El Niño or La Niña climate pattern.
"The current weak El Niño event appears likely to maintain intensity or perhaps even strengthen during the summer/fall," according to the forecast.
El Niño is a natural warming of tropical Pacific Ocean water, which tends to suppress the development of Atlantic hurricanes. Its opposite, La Niña, marked by cooler ocean water, tends to increase hurricanes in the Atlantic.
Another limiting factor: Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures are slightly cooler than average. Hurricanes are fueled in part by warm seawater.
Insurance companies, emergency managers and the media use the forecasts to prepare Americans for the year's hurricane threat. The team's annual predictions provide the best estimate of activity during the upcoming season, not an exact measure, according to Colorado State.
"We issue these forecasts to satisfy the curiosity of the general public and to bring attention to the hurricane problem," the university said. "There is a general interest in knowing what the odds are for an active or inactive season."
The university, under the direction of meteorologist William Gray, was the first group to predict seasonal hurricane activity in the mid-1980s. Gray died in 2016.
This is the team's 36th forecast. It covers the Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
AccuWeather released its hurricane forecast for the upcoming season Wednesday, predicting that 12-14 named storms would form, of which five to seven will be hurricanes. The firm said two to four are likely to hit the USA.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will issue its forecast in late May.
The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season will be Arlene, followed by Barry, Chantal, Dorian, Erin, Fernand and Gabrielle.
Colorado State forecasters will update their predictions three times over the next few months, on June 4, July 2 and Aug. 6.
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157e7852f3406f83a800f668daaeb173 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/04/opioid-crisis-drug-injection-site-sparks-battle-philadelphia/3364461002/ | A Philadelphia nonprofit wants to open the first drug injection site in the US to combat the opioid crisis. Is it against federal law? | A Philadelphia nonprofit wants to open the first drug injection site in the US to combat the opioid crisis. Is it against federal law?
The U.S. attorney in Philadelphia and a high-powered nonprofit are embroiled in a legal battle over the organization's plans to open a supervised drug injection site to try to rein in the city's raging opioid crisis.
U.S. Attorney William McSwain said Wednesday that his decision to challenge the effort by the group Safehouse to open the first-in the-nation drug injection site was a matter of following federal law.
“Normalizing the use of deadly drugs like heroin and fentanyl is not the answer to solving the epidemic,” McSwain said.
The issue is especially critical for Philadelphia, which has the highest opioid death rate of any large U.S. city with more than 1,000 deaths per year – nearly four times its homicide rate.
Philadelphia Health Commissioner Thomas Farley has called the opioid crisis "the largest public health crisis this city has seen in a century."
In its response to the federal effort to block the center, Safehouse argued in court papers filed Wednesday that it would not be providing illicit drugs to its clients but instead would provide sterile equipment, counseling and access to medical care.
"This intervention will not solve the opioid crisis, but it will provide a critical life raft," Safehouse told the court. It notes that in more than 30 years, not a single fatal overdose has been reported at any of the 120 similar sites that operate openly worldwide.
For its part, the federal prosecutors argue that Safehouse's conduct is prohibited by federal law, and that "it does not matter that Safehouse claims good intentions in fighting the opioid epidemic."
Safehouse, whose board includes such heavy hitters as former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, is trying to raise almost $2 million to open the injection site this spring in an open-air drug buying area north of downtown.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner says the aim was to provide aid at the center for people who face serious medical problems because of their drug use.
“We are not going to prosecute people who are trying to stop people from dying,” Krasner said after McSwain’s announcement. “We had 1,200 people die last year. I think it is inexcusable to play politics with their lives.”
Safehouse says its staff will include medically trained professionals, social workers, case managers and certified specialists in recovery techniques.
The staff will be trained in CPR and the administration of Naloxone, a medication designed to rapidly reverse opiod overdose, it said.
Safehouse plans to push ahead with its plans, despite the federal opposition, Rendell said.
“There’s no harm that comes from a facility like this, and if we save even on the low side, 25 lives . . . isn’t that worth it?" Rendell told The Washington Post. “The federal and state and city governments aren’t giving us any money. Where’s the harm?”
Rendell said last month Safehouse has been offered a building in the drug-infested Kensington area for $1 by a prominent developer whose son recently died from an ovedose,The Philadelphia Tribune reported.
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6012134d151970989a818b11ef9e591e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/04/vatican-upholds-guam-archbishop-apuron-sex-abuse-conviction/3361961002/ | Vatican upholds conviction of former Guam archbishop on child sexual abuse charges | Vatican upholds conviction of former Guam archbishop on child sexual abuse charges
HAGÅTÑA, Guam – The Vatican permanently removed Anthony S. Apuron as Guam's archbishop, stripped him of his title as bishop, and banned him from ever returning to the Archdiocese of Agana for sexual abuse of minors.
The news Thursday out of Rome announced that a tribunal upheld the guilty verdict of Apuron, 73.
The Tribunal of Second Instance's decision was made Feb. 7, and is considered final.
"This decision represents the definitive conclusion in this case. No further appeals are possible," the Vatican said.
Apuron: I'm deeply saddened
Apuron, in a statement, maintains his innocence and likens his exile from Guam to a "death sentence" for him.
"I am deeply saddened by the decision of the Holy Father to confirm the decision of the court of first instance," Apuron said in a statement emailed Thursday night by his counsel, Jacqueline Terlaje.
Apuron led Guam's Catholic Church for some 30 years before he was suspended in 2016 after former altar boys came forward, saying Apuron raped or abused them when they were minors in the 1970s and he was a parish priest in the village of Agat. More of his victims, including his own nephew, came forward later.
He appealed the conviction in 2018. The appeal has been concluded, the Vatican said.
"I totally submit to the judgment of the Holy Father as I thank him for allowing me to continue serving as a priest and archbishop without insignia. This sentence exiles me from my beloved Guam: a penalty analogous to a death sentence for me. I lose my homeland, my family, my church, my people, even my language, and I remain alone incomplete humiliation, old and in failing health," Apuron wrote.
Penalties imposed
The Vatican announcement said the tribunal "upheld" the sentence of First Instance finding Apuron "guilty of delicts against the Sixth Commandment with minors."
Feb. 20:As Vatican meets on sex abuse, Pope must defrock Guam's Apuron, groups say
Jan. 15:Guam archdiocese files for bankruptcy to pay off clergy sex abuse claims
"The penalties imposed are as follows: the privation of office; the perpetual prohibition from the dwelling, even temporarily, in the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Agana; and the perpetual prohibition from using the insignia attached to the rank of Bishop," the Vatican said in its announcement.
'Dark chapter' has closed
Concerned Catholics of Guam, which was instrumental in exposing Apuron's church mismanagement and sexual abuse of minors, welcomed the Vatican's final decision.
"A dark chapter in our church's history on Guam has been closed," said David Sablan, president of Concerned Catholics of Guam.
Sablan said it seems Apuron was stripped of his title of bishop as well, so Apuron is now "a priest banned from living on Guam forever."
Aug. 28:Pope Francis says he'll personally review, speed up appeal of archbishop accused of child sexual abuse
Aug. 17:Why the Roman Catholic Church still struggles with sexual abuse scandals
Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes, who was appointed coadjutor archbishop by the pope in October 2016, is "now the true Archbishop of Agana," Sablan said.
Apuron is among more than 20 Guam clergy who are named defendants in more than 200 clergy sex abuse cases filed on Guam since 2016 when the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse was lifted.
The Archdiocese of Agana has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to help compensate clergy abuse survivors.
Apuron raises accusation
Apuron, in his statement, said there's been a coordinated campaign against him.
"The pontifical secret prevents me from litigating my good name in public, but I wish to take this opportunity to offer my deepest thanks to the many individuals who have privately and publicly come forward in my defense, despite threats and the climate of fear on my beloved home of Guam," he said.
Apuron said this climate, "shown by the local media, which hampered the work of the court of first instance, testifies to the presence of a pressure group that plotted to destroy me, and which has made itself clearly known even to authorities in Rome."
Follow Haidee Eugenio on Twitter: @haidee_eugenio
March 2018:'They believed us': Victims of Guam clergy abuse react to Vatican verdict
March 2018:Guam archbishop guilty of sexual abuse, exiled from island, Vatican tribunal rules
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2027507ceb81e175a074d2c9fb4c8dc2 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/05/3-black-churches-10-days-burned-louisianas-st-landry-parish/3384344002/ | ‘Suspicious’ fires destroy three black churches in 10 days in Louisiana parish | ‘Suspicious’ fires destroy three black churches in 10 days in Louisiana parish
LAFAYETTE, La. – Fires that destroyed three predominantly black Baptist churches in St. Landry Parish in the last 10 days are "suspicious," the state's top fire investigator said Thursday, adding that they’ve discovered several “patterns” at the three crime scenes.
But it’s too soon to classify the fires as arson, State Fire Marshal Butch Browning said at a press conference, walking a tight line without actually linking the three blazes.
“There certainly is a commonality,” he said. “Whether that leads to a person or persons or groups, we just don’t know. And that’s not unusual for us not to know at this point.”
The fact that it is three black Baptist churches in the same parish is obviously a pattern. “And there are several other patterns,” Browning added.
The third St. Landry Parish church fire in 10 days erupted early Thursday at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church south of Opelousas.
Mount Pleasant is about 10 miles south of Greater Union Baptist Church, which burned down early Tuesday. St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre was destroyed in a fire early in the morning on March 26.
St. Landry Fire District 3 received a 911 call about the Thursday fire at about 3:40 a.m., said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the State Fire Marshal’s Office.
The fire consumed the inside of the rural church, burning holes through the roof, but leaving much of the brick exterior standing. At daybreak, smoke continued rising from the historic structure.
State troopers had a section of the highway in front of Mount Pleasant blocked off early Thursday.
The Rev. Gerald Toussaint, who leads Mount Pleasant, said he was heartbroken when he saw what remained of his church, which he said is more than 140 years old.
“My church has a lot of history,” he said. “I don’t understand it. What could make a person do that to a church?”
Toussaint, who works full time as a truck driver, said he was on his way to work in Lafayette when he received news of the fire from his wife. He immediately turned around and headed to the church.
“By the time I got back here, it was gone,” he said. “It burned hot and fast.”
St. Landry Sheriff Bobby Guidroz said he is working with Opelousas police to provide extra security and patrols to the parish’s churches. He said he’s willing to do “whatever it takes to prevent these fires” and to “try to catch this individual.”
“We have a lot of churches in this parish. Lots of churches,” Guidroz said. “We’re going to take it one day at a time and try to provide the security that they need.”
In addition to the State Fire Marshal, the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office and the St. Landry Fire District 3, the Opelousas Police Department, the Louisiana Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI also are investigating the fires.
“Our churches are sacred, central parts of our communities and everyone should feel safe in their place of worship,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a written statement.
In general, church fires are not uncommon in the United States, according to National Fire Prevention Association data. There were about 1,660 fires in religious and funeral properties in 2011, with the vast majority of those occurring on religious properties.
Intentionally set fires account for only about 16 percent of fires at religious properties in the U.S. That’s still more than 250 fires per year, said Greg Harrington, a fire protection engineer with the NFPA.
“Having a string of fires like you’ve experienced down there in such a short period of time, I would say its safe to say that’s unusual,” Harrington said. “It certainly seems appropriate that they’ve been deemed suspicious.”
The United States has a long and complicated history of church arson, which was common during the civil rights movement. In the 1960s, white supremacists attacked black churches for both symbolic and practical reasons. They often served as strategic command posts for the civil rights movement, said Christopher Strain, a professor of American studies at Florida Atlantic University and the author of “Burning Faith: Church Arson in the American South.”
A 1996 House Judiciary Committee report found an out-sized percentage of church arsons were at black churches in the South.
But Strain said not every instance of church arson is hate-based or racially motivated.
“Churches burn for a variety of reasons,” he said, “and because they are often unoccupied, they are ripe targets for ‘firebugs’ and vandals. Arsonists are drawn to inviting targets, and churches unfortunately often make inviting targets.”
Browning, the State Fire Marshal’s Office chief, said there are many reasons people burn churches, including to disguise burglaries and because of religious disagreements.
He pointed out that the three churches burned in St. Landry were vulnerable because of their remote locations.
“These buildings are kind of off the beaten path, kind of out of town,” he said.
Leaders of several of the parish’s black Baptist churches met Thursday morning at First Benjamin Baptist Church to talk about the fires, discuss options for protecting their buildings and to offer one another support.
The Rev. Freddie Jack, president of the Seventh District Missionary Baptist Association, said he is encouraging members to install security systems and surveillance cameras, make sure they have adequate insurance and to consider hiring security guards.
The churches that haven’t been affected by fires are offering their facilities to the churches that have burned, he said.
“We don’t want nobody losing their members,” he said.
Jack said the local Baptist pastors aren’t afraid, but they’re concerned about the fires.
“They remain optimistic. Other than that, we’re going to do everything necessary to try to prevent any re-occurrence,” Jack said. “We’re just going to trust in believe in God to prevent this from happening.”
Contributing: Bobby Ardoin
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6fb0720ce868ff9883defb1027f552ef | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/05/new-mexico-joins-national-compact-casting-electoral-college-votes/3374747002/ | New Mexico is latest state to join National Popular Vote compact to cast all electoral votes for popular winner in presidential elections | New Mexico is latest state to join National Popular Vote compact to cast all electoral votes for popular winner in presidential elections
New Mexico is the 15th state to join a compact system that aims to cast all its electoral votes for the winner of the national popular presidential vote, leaving the plan only 81 electoral votes shy of taking effect nationally.
Delaware joined the pact last week and Colorado in February.
A total of 15 states, commonwealths or jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, have adopted the measure for a combined 189 electoral votes.
The compact kicks in as soon as it is adopted by states possessing a combined 270 electoral votes, or a majority of the 538 electoral votes.
The New Mexico bill was signed this week by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan who said she hopes her state will gain more influence in national elections with the elimination of the "archaic" electoral system.
"Presidential candidates don't even bother to come into the state anymore because they really don't need to. They'll go after states that have a large number of delegate votes and exclude New Mexico," said state Sen. Carlos Cisneros, who co-sponsored the bill. "For us it is crucial that the election for president is predicated on popular vote rather than the traditional and historical way of doing that."
The National Popular Vote project, which began in 2006, in effect renders the Electoral College moot, eliminating any chance that a candidate can win the presidency without winning the popular vote nationally.
New Mexico joins California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state in the compact.
The bill has been introduced in various years in all 50 states, according to NPV. It has passed a total of 37 states' legislative chambers in 23 states, but not always with the approval of a state's other chamber.
In Oregon, a bill in favor of the National Popular Vote moved closer to adoption when it was approved for a vote on the floor. If approved, it would add seven more electoral votes to the national tally.
The push to change the electoral voting system was launched after Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 but lost the election to Republican George W. Bush in the electoral votes. The advocacy group NPV that backs the plan was organized in 2006.
In 2016, Trump won the presidential election with 306 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 232. But Clinton won the popular vote, picking up 48.5% to Trump's 46.4%.
Cisneros introduced the bill last year, but the legislature took it up too late in the session to pass it. He said it also failed because some lawmakers viewed it as "anti-President Trump" and a move aimed at diminishing the prospects of Republican candidates, according to CNN.
In Colorado, Republican state lawmakers argued the compact would induce candidates to bypass smaller, rural, often Republican-leaning states during their campaigns. They say Colorado, which voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the 2018 midterm elections, would be added to that “flyover” territory.
Advocates said it would force the candidates to fight for votes in more states, including solidly red states like Texas and solidly blue states like California.
The project counts politicians of both parties on its advisory board, including former senators Birch Bayh, D-Ind., Jake Garn, R-Utah; former member of congress, Tom Downey, D-N.Y., and Tom Campbell, R-Calif.
Contributing: Associated Press
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060e6749c49b486b6dd5c791c31f21d8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/06/abel-reyes-clemente-fourth-person-die-ice-custody-6-months-detainee-immigration/3390939002/ | Fourth person in six months dies in ICE immigration detention center | Fourth person in six months dies in ICE immigration detention center
PHOENIX – A 54-year-old Mexican man held in a detention center by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement died this week after showing signs of the flu, the federal agency said.
Abel Reyes-Clemente is the fourth person to die in ICE custody since Oct. 1, officials said. Two children held by the border patrol began vomiting and died in December. Lawsuits have alleged poor hygiene and medical care at detention centers.
ICE provides detainees with "comprehensive medical care," the agency said.
Reyes-Clemente was detained at a Florence immigration center on Feb. 26 after serving time at a Maricopa County jail for a misdemeanor conviction of driving under the influence, officials said. He had been deported five times before, most recently in 2008, the agency said.
Reyes-Clemente became sick and was "placed into medical observation" on April 1, ICE said. Two days later, facility personnel found him around 6 a.m., unresponsive and not breathing.
Medical staffers at the detention center and local paramedics who responded failed to revive Reyes-Clemente, the agency said. Doctors at Mountain Vista Medical Center declared him dead at 6:33 a.m.
"All ICE detainees receive medical, dental and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to daily sick call and 24-hour emergency care," officials said in a written statement. "ICE annually spends more than $269 million on the spectrum of healthcare services provided to detainees."
An autopsy to determine the cause of death is pending.
Follow Rebekah L. Sanders on Twitter: @RebekahLSanders.
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976f43958fab451d73a038422e30d596 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/07/florida-man-arrested-burglarizing-cars-jail-after-release/3393541002/ | Florida man arrested for burglarizing cars in jail parking lot moments after being released | Florida man arrested for burglarizing cars in jail parking lot moments after being released
A man was arrested in Florida for allegedly breaking into cars in the jail parking lot moments after he was released, according to police.
Michael Casey Lewis, 37, was originally arrested on charges of grand theft Thursday morning, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.
Lewis had just bonded out of county jail and been released Thursday when deputies said they spotted him behaving suspiciously.
“After being released, deputies in the parking lot of the jail observed Lewis pulling car door handles and learned he had just burglarized several cars right there at the jail,” the statement said.
Surveillance video captured Lewis briefly getting into a silver vehicle and then walking around the rest of the parking lot looking into cars and checking to see whether they were unlocked, according to his arrest affidavit.
One officer approached Lewis, who said he was "waiting for his girlfriend" to pick him up, the affidavit said. The officer noticed he had cigarettes and cash, which is unusual for someone who's just been released from jail.
Another officer confronted Lewis after seeing the surveillance video, and the suspect handed him a brown paper bag he'd taken from a car filled with cigarettes, a debit card, a Florida driver's license and $547 in cash, police said. Lewis had also taken an iPhone 7 worth approximately $1,000, according to the owner who told police she'd accidentally left her car unlocked.
Lewis was then “rebooked” at the jail on additional burglary charges and released again with a bond of $11,250.
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Contributing: Will Greenlee, Treasure Coast Newspapers
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
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95c6ecd91f5fc9e9e707751871c6e7c2 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/07/suspected-rhino-poacher-south-africa-killed-elephant-eaten-lions/3393755002/ | Suspected rhino poacher in South Africa killed by an elephant, eaten by a pack of lions | Suspected rhino poacher in South Africa killed by an elephant, eaten by a pack of lions
A suspected rhino poacher in South Africa met a gruesome death in an attack by other wild animals.
A skull and a pair of pants were the only remains found after an elephant killed the man and a pack of lions ate the body Tuesday at Kruger National Park, a news release from the South African National Parks said.
Relatives of the victim, whose name has not been released, had notified park authorities after being informed by four others who were with him of his fate. A two-day search for his body turned up only scant evidence at the popular game reserve in the northeastern part of the country, but enough for officials to make an identification.
“Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise, it holds many dangers, and this incident is evidence of that,’’ park managing executive Glenn Phillips said in a statement. “It is very sad to see the daughters of the deceased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
Kruger National Park is a protected area, but poaching rhinos remains a major problem because the price for their horns has skyrocketed to $27,000 a pound – or $1,700 an ounce, $400 more than the current price of gold – according to the website poachingfacts.com.
The horns are treasured in some Asian countries, particularly in Vietnam, as an ingredient in traditional medicine, as an aphrodisiac and as a symbol of wealth.
The World Wide Fund for Nature, a wilderness preservation group, said the number of rhinos poached in South Africa soared from 13 in 2007 to 1,215 in 2014, despite efforts by the government to deter the killings. The WWF considers black rhinos “critically endangered’’ and white rhinos “near threatened.’’
In a report last year, South African Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa called rhino poaching “a national priority crime’’ and said 446 of the 502 poaching arrests the previous year had taken place in and around Kruger National Park. As of 2016, there were an estimated 7,000 to 8,300 rhinos in the park.
Last’s week’s incident is being investigated, and the four people who had been with the hunter are under arrest awaiting a court date.
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23f97616cfcd983508a63eea854cde37 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/08/simi-valley-mom-shot-killed-hawthorne-police-station-custody-exchange/3406322002/ | Man kills mother of his child during custody exchange outside California police station | Man kills mother of his child during custody exchange outside California police station
HAWTHORNE, Calif. – A 28-year-old Simi Valley woman was killed Sunday when the father of her 17-month-old child shot her during a custody exchange in front of the Hawthorne police station.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Monday Brenda Renteria was killed in the incident. The baby was not injured.
Hawthorne Police Lt. Jim Royer told The Star on Monday that they arrested Jacob Munn, the baby's father, who faces murder charges.
Royer said Renteria was approaching the front door of the Hawthorne Police Department on Sunday evening to pick up the child, who was inside with a third party, when Munn appeared and shot Renteria. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
An officer from inside the police station came out and opened fire as Munn left the parking lot in a vehicle that was then abandoned four blocks away, Royer said. Munn was not injured. Three hours later Munn was arrested, Royer said.
Munn, a 30-year-old Hawthorne resident, was being held in lieu of $2 million bail, according to officials.
Anyone with information about this incident should call the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500.
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36e0e19e36d6ab81d07dac84ce2c67eb | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/09/survey-race-relations-u-s-bad-and-trump-has-made-them-worse/3418375002/ | Poll: Americans say Trump has made race relations worse | Poll: Americans say Trump has made race relations worse
A new survey by the non-partisan Pew Research Center reveals nearly six in 10 Americans believe race relations in the country are bad, and 56% think President Donald Trump has made them worse.
Some experts on the subject and community leaders are nodding in assent.
The study, released Tuesday, supports critics’ belief that Trump’s stance on matters of race – whether his reluctance to condemn marchers at a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, or his rhetoric tinged with discriminatory statements – has only emboldened bigots and made life harder for non-whites.
About two-thirds of the respondents said it’s more common for those with racist or racially insensitive views to express them than before Trump was elected, and 45% said it has become more acceptable to do so.
The reaction to the survey results?
“Yeah, this is about right,’’ said Terri Jett, associate professor of political science at Butler University in Indianapolis. “It’s predictable based on the tenor and the climate of the country that everybody can feel. Nothing is surprising, especially what they say about the effect of President Trump on the racial divisions.’’
Jett, who is African American, said the topic has been widely discussed among her fellow academics and in her social circles, and it has prompted her to be more mindful of her surroundings, especially when traveling to unfamiliar cities.
In a recent conversation with organizers of a speakers bureau she belongs to, Jett took the rare step of inquiring about safety.
“My everyday walk makes me very aware of the racial tensions that exist,’’ Jett said, “and a lot of it is centered around some of the things that are happening on the national level at the direction of the president.’’
The Pew survey, based on a nationally representative sample of 6,637 adults, was conducted online Jan. 22-Feb. 5 in English and Spanish.
While Jett said the poll at least raises awareness of racial disparity, it revealed skepticism among blacks about the likelihood they would achieve equal rights with whites – 50% considered it unlikely.
The study also indicated the majority of blacks (76%), Asians (75%) and Hispanics (58%) believe they have experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly because of their race or ethnicity. Only 33% of whites said they have.
Kenneth Nunn, a law professor and race relations expert at the University of Florida, noticed a downcast mood among non-white respondents.
“It seems to me there is a great degree of pessimism in terms of the ability of people from minority groups being able to claim a share of the American dream today,’’ Nunn said. “People are frustrated. People do not think the country is fair. So it will be interesting to see whether there will be political or social responses to that perception.’’
Nunn believes Trump has expressed racism “in very straightforward terms; he hasn’t really tried to hide it at all,’’ and he said all the studies he has seen indicate racial incidents have increased because of that. But Nunn is not ready to say the country as a whole has gone backward when it comes to race relations.
Related:Race in admissions: White House gets Texas Tech med school to stem affirmative action
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Respondents to the poll did take that leap, with blacks (71%) holding a more negative view of the current state of relations than Hispanics (60%) or whites (56%). In addition, 59% percent of those polled said being white helps when it comes to getting ahead in the U.S., with at least 56% of all four major ethnic groups saying as much.
That helps explain why so few of the white adults surveyed said their relatives talked to them while growing up about challenges they might face because of their race, with a mere 9% indicating that. By contrast, 64% of African Americans heard “the talk’’ from their families, along with 42% of Asians and 35% of Hispanics.
The discrepancy was jarring to Les Simmons, pastor of a multiethnic church in California called the South Sacramento Christian Center.
“What struck me was that 91 percent of whites never had to talk about race and culture in a way that relates to them being hindered by their race,’’ Simmons said. “That’s a huge number that says they have not had the same issues as black folks.’’
Simmons has been involved in activities to remember Stephon Clark, the unarmed black man gunned down by Sacramento police during a vandalism call in March 2018, and in the push for a law to raise the legal standard for justifiable use of deadly force by police.
Rather than engaging in more confrontations with law-enforcement agents, whom he believes have been “inflamed’’ by Trump’s rise to power, Simmons says communities of color need to mobilize and make their voices heard to avoid being left behind.
“We have to not accept the narrative that it’s just the way it is,’’ he said. “And we’re going to have a big enough imagination to change things and apply political pressure and voting power pressure.’’
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621d80ff5846eef74ff822b06e0a85ee | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/10/abandoned-pet-fish-north-carolina-man-not-prosecuted/3423414002/ | North Carolina man will not be prosecuted for abandoning his pet fish | North Carolina man will not be prosecuted for abandoning his pet fish
A North Carolina man will not face charges for abandoning a pet fish.
Michael Hinson, 53, was charged on April 4 with three counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty and one count of misdemeanor abandonment. He posted a $4,000 bond and was released in Wilmington, North Carolina, according to the Washington Post.
Authorities dropped all charges Tuesday, however, because North Carolina law protects dogs, rabbits, baby chicks, fowl and other animals – but not fish, specifically.
"We take a very dim view of anyone who would abuse any creature great or small and appreciate (animal services) enforcement of the laws to protect vulnerable animals," New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David said in a statement to USA TODAY. "Fish are not included in this statute, however, so my office is dismissing these charges."
Hinson was evicted from his home in Wilmington on March 22. New Hanover County Sheriff's Office deputies visited the home three days later and found a fish tank in "deplorable" conditions, according to Lt. Jerry Brewer, the Washington Post reported.
The fish, an Oscar fish, was suffering from hole-in-the-head disease, a parasite caused by poor water quality and malnutrition, The State reported. The fish stayed alive by eating cockroaches that fell into its tank.
The fish is recovering at The Fish Room in Wilmington, store employee Ethan Lane told The State on Wednesday.
"It was a pretty severe case of the disease, which opens sores and lesions on the fish’s head. It is an infection that can be fatal," Lane said.
Lane said the fish wasn't "cheap" and would sell for $40 to $50. He said the 6-inch fish, about a year old, could grow up to 16 inches.
After its recovery, the fish will be put up for adoption or live out its life at The Fish Room or the New Hanover County Sheriff's office, Lane said.
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106c846e96f29249d39bf3ccd24d507e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/10/alligator-seen-salt-water-near-panama-city-florida-beach/3420961002/ | Alligator takes rare saltwater dip at Florida beach in viral photos | Alligator takes rare saltwater dip at Florida beach in viral photos
An alligator was photographed crawling out of the ocean at a Florida beach over the weekend.
Lisa Powell Niemiec shared photos of the alligator on Facebook, saying it was spotted at St. Andrews State Park near Panama City Beach. The photos show the reptile emerging from ocean water and crawling up on the sandy beach.
“We were fishing and he swam up on us,” Niemiec said, Panama City News Herald reports. “I think he was tired because of the current in the pass, and he laid there on the beach for a while then he swam around Deepwater point in to North Lagoon.”
Alligators are freshwater animals that primarily live in lakes, rivers and ponds but they can tolerate salt water for a few hours and even days, according to the National Ocean Service.
Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
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3c356c03d3f8161149e762fb125f669d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/10/heartbeat-bill-ohio-house-expected-pass-abortion-ban/3426835002/ | Heartbeat bill: Ohio lawmakers pass one of the nation's most restrictive abortion bans | Heartbeat bill: Ohio lawmakers pass one of the nation's most restrictive abortion bans
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled Ohio House passed one of the nation's most restrictive abortion bans Wednesday afternoon.
Senate Bill 23 would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected and prosecute doctors who perform them anyway. It passed the Ohio House of Representatives, 56-40.
As lawmakers debated the "heartbeat bill," dueling groups of demonstrators chanted outside the House chamber so loudly they could be heard on the other side of the Statehouse. One side yelled "stop the bans" and "my body, my choice" while the other chanted "Jesus" repeatedly.
There were tears and prayers.
Under the bill, doctors would face a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison for performing an abortion after detecting a heartbeat. The bill has an exception to save the life of the woman but no exception for rape or incest – in line with current state law.
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A fetal heartbeat can be found as early as six weeks gestation with a transvaginal ultrasound or at about eight weeks gestation with an abdominal ultrasound. The bill would neither require nor exclude transvaginal ultrasounds.
Ohio law already requires doctors to inform women if a fetal heartbeat is detected and the statistical probability of bringing the fetus to term.
Lawmakers in the Ohio House made some changes to the version the Senate passed last month. They increased the fine that the state medical board could impose on physicians who perform these abortions to $20,000.
"Americans and Ohioans have been waiting for this bill," said Rep. Candice Keller, R-Middletown. "They agree that a child is a child when their heart is beating."
Rep. Tim Ginter, an ordained minister, cited several Biblical passages in support of restricting abortion in Ohio.
"Is the fetus a person, regardless of the level of development? I believe it is," said Ginter, R-Salem.
Democratic Rep. Beth Liston, an internal medicine and pediatrics physician, said there was no way for a fetus to survive outside the uterus at six weeks gestation or even 12 weeks gestation.
"Simply put, you need lungs and a brain to live, and no amount of technology we have will change this," Liston said.
On Wednesday, Democrats offered a slew of amendments to offer an exemption for rape and incest, eliminate the statute of limitations on rape, prevent taxpayers from paying the legal bill for the imminent court battle and exempt African-American women from the abortion ban and even require DNA from all men to ensure child support is paid.
All were rejected by the GOP-controlled House.
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Democrats expressed frustration with the amount of time devoted to abortion restrictions rather than tackling infant mortality, education or drug addiction.
Proponents of abortion access are expected to file a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the law – similar to legislation passed in Arkansas, North Dakota, Iowa, Kentucky and Mississippi. To date, all courts have found the legislation unconstitutional; some litigation is ongoing. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up the issue so far.
"If this is what it takes, we'll see you at the Supreme Court," said Iris Harvey, chief executive officer and president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio.
The heartbeat bill has been introduced five times since 2011. Former Gov. John Kasich vetoed it twice, saying Ohio would foot a costly legal bill defending the unconstitutional proposal.
The Ohio Senate will need to approve the House's changes before sending the bill to Gov. Mike DeWine's desk. DeWine has already said he would sign the anti-abortion legislation.
Follow Jessie Balmert on Twitter: @jbalmert
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062e3adb62795982403e8ab28dddc0be | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/10/rapid-dna-tests-identify-rape-suspects-hours/3428435002/ | Kentucky says it will be first to use 'rapid DNA' to identify rape suspects within hours | Kentucky says it will be first to use 'rapid DNA' to identify rape suspects within hours
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Law enforcement officials in Kentucky plan to apply a growing technology to testing sexual assault kits, possibly leading to suspect identification within hours — not months.
Kentucky officials announced Wednesday that their plan to take advantage of what's called "rapid DNA" technology in which machines analyze a forensic sample and can produce a DNA profile within about two hours.
The technology would more quickly identify suspects and exonerate the innocent, state police Commissioner Rick Sanders said.
He said that Kentucky will be the first state to use the technology for its sexual assault cases.
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"In time, this should drastically reduce sexual assault crimes across the state," Sanders said.
Kentucky is getting its rapid DNA machines from the Massachusetts and Colorado-based ANDE Corp., a DNA-testing technology company.
The state has made a major push to test backlogged kits since 2015, when an audit found about 3,000 untested kits across the state. Kentucky has since sent about 4,600 kits for laboratory DNA testing, a process now nearing its end.
These kits, some more than 40 years old, were either never submitted for testing, were tested with outdated techniques or were submitted for testing but then were recalled.
Speakers at a Wednesday news conference said using rapid DNA technology would allow the lab to keep up with the flow of new cases from across the state and more quickly provide leads to police.
Laura Sudkamp, Kentucky State Police's Forensic Laboratory System director, said the technology can help solve both unsolved stranger assaults as well as cases in which there’s already a known suspect.
“It’s amazing to us,” Sudkamp said. “We may be able to put a name to that DNA profile within a matter of hours.”
Under the current process, there can be laboratory and law enforcement delays during which victims may drop out of the process. This tool, she said, will speed up the timeline, helping keep victims engaged.
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She cautioned the technology is new and that what KSP has undertaken is a limited pilot.
“We have to be extremely cautious with every step that we take,” she said.
The process starts by taking an additional DNA sample from consenting victims when they’re at the hospital undergoing a sexual assault exam.
The sample, separate from what is collected for a traditional rape kit, is then run through the rapid DNA equipment the same day.
According to ANDE, its technology outputs a “DNA ID,” not a genetic profile, which it says doesn’t carry any genealogical or health information and is akin to a fingerprint.
Sudkamp noted that the full rape kit is still getting tested and compared to the rapid DNA machine results.
Under the pilot, the KSP laboratory is accepting about 100 cases from Louisville, Lexington and perhaps Covington, Sudkamp said.
If the pilot were to be expanded to the many KSP labs across the state, the technology would cost approximately $3 million per year, she said, adding that the lab will apply for grants to fund the technology until the next budget cycle.
Gov. Matt Bevin said he hopes expedited handling of sexual assault cases will encourage more victims to report.
“We’ll find the money to keep this moving,” he said. “The price should be the least of our concerns.”
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Follow Matthew Glowicki on Twitter: @MattGlo
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205fd704194f20ddc7c42db925a4debd | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/11/seniors-long-term-care-turning-to-suicide/3437990002/ | 'A desperate place in the end': Seniors in long-term care turning to suicide | 'A desperate place in the end': Seniors in long-term care turning to suicide
When Larry Anders moved into the Bay at Burlington nursing home in late 2017, he wasn’t supposed to be there long. At 77, the stoic Wisconsin machinist had just endured the death of his wife of 51 years and a grim new diagnosis: throat cancer, stage 4.
His son and daughter expected him to stay two weeks, tops, before going home to begin chemotherapy. From the start, they were alarmed by the lack of care at the center, where, they said, staff seemed indifferent, if not incompetent – failing to check on him promptly, handing pills to a man who couldn’t swallow.
Anders never mentioned suicide to his children, who camped out day and night by his bedside to monitor his care.
But two days after Christmas, alone in his nursing home room, Anders killed himself. He didn’t leave a note.
The act stunned his family. His daughter, Lorie Juno, 50, was so distressed that, a year later, she still refused to learn the details of her father’s death. The official cause was asphyxiation.
“It’s sad he was feeling in such a desperate place in the end,” Juno said.
In a nation where suicide continues to climb, claiming more than 47,000 lives in 2017, such deaths among older adults – including the 2.2 million who live in long-term care settings – are often overlooked. A six-month investigation by Kaiser Health News and "PBS NewsHour" finds that older Americans are quietly killing themselves in nursing homes, assisted living centers and adult care homes.
Poor documentation makes it difficult to tell exactly how often such deaths occur. But a KHN analysis of new data from the University of Michigan suggests that hundreds of suicides by older adults each year – nearly one per day – are related to long-term care. Thousands more people may be at risk in those settings, where up to a third of residents report suicidal thoughts, research shows.
Each suicide results from a unique blend of factors, of course. But the fact that frail older Americans are managing to kill themselves in what are supposed to be safe, supervised havens raises questions about whether these facilities pay enough attention to risk factors such as mental health, physical decline and disconnectedness – and events such as losing a spouse or leaving one’s home.
More controversial is whether older adults in those settings should be able to take their lives through what some fiercely defend as “rational suicide.”
Tracking suicides in long-term care is difficult. No federal regulations require reporting of such deaths and most states either don’t count – or won’t divulge – how many people end their own lives in those settings.
Briana Mezuk, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, found in 2015 that the rate of suicide in older adults in nursing homes in Virginia was nearly the same as the rate in the general population despite the greater supervision the facilities provide.
More:U.S. deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide hit highest level since record-keeping began
In research they presented at the 2018 Gerontological Society of America annual meeting, Mezuk’s team looked at nearly 50,000 suicides among people 55 and older in the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) from 2003 to 2015 in 27 states. They found that 2.2% of those suicides were related to long-term care. The people who died were either people living in or transitioning to long-term care or caregivers of people in those circumstances.
KHN extrapolated the finding to the entire U.S., where 16,500 suicides were reported among people 55 and older in 2017, according to federal figures.
That suggests that at least 364 suicides a year occur among people living in or moving to long-term care settings or among their caregivers. The numbers are likely higher, Mezuk said, since the NVDRS data did not include such states as California and Florida, which have large populations of elders living in long-term care sites.
But representatives of the long-term care industry point out that by any measure, such suicides are rare.
The deaths are “horrifically tragic” when they occur, said David Gifford, of the American Health Care Association. But, he added, the facilities offer “a very supervised environment,” and settings that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding are required to assess and monitor patients for suicidal behavior.
“I think the industry is pretty attuned to it and paying attention to it,” Gifford said, noting that mental health issues among older adults in general must be addressed. “I don’t see this data as pointing to a problem in the facilities.”
KHN examined over 500 attempted or completed suicides in long-term care settings from 2012 to 2017 by analyzing thousands of death records, medical examiner reports, state inspections, court cases and incident reports.
Even in supervised settings, records show, older people find ways to end their own lives. Many used guns, sometimes in places where firearms weren’t allowed or should have been securely stored. Others hanged themselves, jumped from windows, overdosed on pills or suffocated themselves with plastic bags.
(The analysis did not examine medical aid-in-dying, a rare and restricted method by which people who are terminally ill and mentally competent can get a doctor’s prescription for lethal drugs. That is legal in seven states and the District of Columbia.)
A variety of reasons
Descriptions KHN unearthed in public records shed light on residents’ despair: Some told nursing home staff they were depressed or lonely; some felt that their families had abandoned them or that they had nothing to live for.
Others said they had just lived long enough: “I am too old to still be living,” one patient told staff. In some cases, state inspectors found nursing homes to blame for failing to heed suicidal warning signs or evicting patients who tried to kill themselves.
A better understanding is crucial: Experts agree that late-life suicide is an under-recognized problem that is poised to grow.
By 2030, all Baby Boomers will be older than 65 and one in five U.S. residents will be of retirement age, according to census data. Of those who reach 65, two-thirds can expect to need some type of long-term care.
And, for poorly understood reasons, that generation has had higher rates of suicide at every stage, said Yeates Conwell, director of the Office for Aging Research and Health Services at the University of Rochester.
“The rise in rates in people in middle age is going to be carried with them into older adulthood,” he said.
More:Emergency room visits rise for children who attempt suicide, study says. Here's what's needed to help
Long-term care settings could be a critical place to intervene to avert suicide – and to help people find meaning, purpose and quality of life, Mezuk argued: “There’s so much more that can be done. It would be hard for us to be doing less.”
Children ran out of time
In Wisconsin, Anders’ children chose to speak publicly because they felt the nursing home failed their father.
Anders, a taciturn Army veteran, lived a low-key retirement in Waukesha, outside of Milwaukee. He grew asparagus, watched “Wheel of Fortune” with his wife, Lorna, in matching blue recliners and played the slot machines at a Chinese restaurant.
Following the November 2017 death of his wife, and his throat cancer diagnosis, he initially refused treatment but then agreed to give it a try.
Anders landed at the Bay at Burlington, 40 minutes from his home, the closest facility his Medicare Advantage plan would cover. The first day, Lorie Juno grew worried when no one came to greet her father after the ambulance crew wheeled him to his room. The room had no hand sanitizer and the sink had no hot water.
In his week in the Burlington, Wisconsin, center, Anders wrestled with anxiety and insomnia. Anders, who rarely complained, called his daughter in a panic around 2 a.m. one day, saying that he couldn’t sleep and that “they don’t know what the hell they’re doing here,” according to Juno.
When she called, staff assured her that Anders had just had a “snack,” which she knew wasn’t true because he ate only through a feeding tube.
His children scrambled to transfer him elsewhere, but they ran out of time. On Dec. 27, Mike Anders, 48, woke up in an armchair next to his father’s bed after spending the night. He left for his job as a machinist between 5 and 6 a.m. At 6:40 a.m., Larry Anders was found dead in his room.
“I firmly believe that had he had better care, it would’ve been a different ending,” Mike Anders said.
Research shows events like losing a spouse and a new cancer diagnosis put people at higher risk of suicide, but close monitoring requires resources that many facilities don’t have.
Nursing homes already struggle to provide enough staffing for basic care. Assisted living centers that promote independence and autonomy can miss warning signs of suicide risk, experts warn.
More:Teen suicide is soaring. Do spotty mental health and addiction treatment share blame?
In the weeks before and after Anders’ death, state inspectors found a litany of problems at the facility, including staffing shortages. When inspectors found a patient lying on the floor, they couldn’t locate any staff in the unit to help.
Champion Care, the New York firm that runs the Bay at Burlington and other Wisconsin nursing homes, noted that neither police nor state health officials found staff at fault in Anders’ death.
Merely having a suicide on-site does not mean a nursing home broke federal rules. But in some suicides KHN reviewed, nursing homes were penalized for failing to meet requirements for federally funded facilities, such as maintaining residents’ well-being, preventing avoidable accidents and telling a patient’s doctor and family if they are at risk of harm.
For example:
•An 81-year-old architect fatally shot himself while his roommate was nearby in their shared room in a Massachusetts nursing home in 2016. The facility was fined $66,705.
•A 95-year-old World War II pilot hanged himself in an Ohio nursing home in 2016, six months after a previous attempt in the same location. The facility was fined $42,575.
•An 82-year-old former aircraft mechanic, who had a history of suicidal ideation, suffocated himself with a plastic bag in a Connecticut nursing home in 2015. The facility was fined $1,020.
Prevention needs to start long before these deaths occur, with thorough screenings upon entry to the facilities and ongoing monitoring, Conwell said. The main risk factors for senior suicide are what he calls “the four D’s”: depression, debility, access to deadly means and disconnectedness.
“Pretty much all of the factors that we associate with completed suicide risk are going to be concentrated in long-term care,” Conwell said.
Most seniors who choose to end their lives don’t talk about it in advance, and they often die on the first attempt, he said.
‘I choose this shortcut'
That was the case for Milton P. Andrews Jr., a former Seattle pastor, who “gave no hint” he wanted to end his life six years ago at a Wesley Homes retirement center in nearby Des Moines, Washington. Neither his son, Paul Andrews, nor the staff at the center had any suspicions, they said.
“My father was an infinitely deliberate person,” said Paul Andrews, 69, a retired Seattle journalist. “There’s no way once he decided his own fate that he was going to give a clue about it, since that would have defeated the whole plan.”
At 90, the Methodist minister and human rights activist had a long history of making what he saw as unpopular but morally necessary decisions. He drew controversy in the pulpit in the 1950s for inviting African Americans into his Seattle sanctuary. He opposed the Vietnam War and was arrested for protesting nuclear armament. His daughter was once called a “pinko” because Andrews demanded equal time on a local radio station to rebut a conservative broadcaster.
In 2013, facing a possible second bout of congestive heart failure and the decline of his beloved wife, Ruth, who had dementia, Andrews made his final decision. On Valentine’s Day, he took a handful of sleeping pills, pulled a plastic bag over his head and died.
Milton Andrews wrote a goodbye note on the cover of his laptop computer in bold, black marker.
“Fare-well! I am ready to die! I choose this ‘shortcut,’” it read in part. “I love you all, and do not wish a long, protracted death – with my loved ones waiting for me to die.”
More:More young adults are depressed and thinking of suicide, study says
Christine Tremain, a spokeswoman for Wesley Homes, said Andrews’ death has been the only suicide reported in her 18 years at the center.
“Elder suicide is an issue that we take seriously and work to prevent through the formal and informal support systems that we have in place,” she said.
At first, Paul Andrews said he was shocked, devastated and even angry about his dad’s death. Now, he just misses him.
“I always feel like he was gone too soon, even though I don’t think he felt like that at all,” he said.
Andrews has come to believe that elderly people should be able to decide when they’re ready to die.
“I think it’s a human right,” he said. “If you go out when you’re still functioning and still have the ability to choose, that may be the best way to do it and not leave it to other people to decide.”
That’s a view shared by Dena Davis, 72, a bioethics professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Suicide “could be a rational choice for anyone of any age if they feel that the benefits of their continued life are no longer worth it,” she said.
“The older you get, the more of your life you’ve already lived – hopefully, enjoyed – the less of it there is to look forward to,” said Davis, who has publicly discussed her desire to end her own life rather than die of dementia, as her mother did.
But Conwell, a leading geriatric psychiatrist, finds the idea of rational suicide by older Americans “really troublesome.” “We have this ageist society, and it’s awfully easy to hand over the message that they’re all doing us a favor,” he said.
‘So preventable’
When older adults struggle with mental illness, families often turn to long-term care to keep them safe.
A jovial social worker who loved to dance, Ellen Karpas fell into a catatonic depression after losing her job at age 74 and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Concerned that she was “dwindling away” at home, losing weight and skipping medications, her children persuaded her to move to an assisted living facility in Minneapolis in 2017.
Karpas enjoyed watching the sunset from the large, fourth-story window of her room at Ebenezer Loren on Park. But she had trouble adjusting to the sterile environment, according to son Timothy Schultz, 52.
“I do not want to live here for the rest of my life,” she told him.
On Oct. 4, 2017, less than a month after she moved in, Karpas was unusually irritable during a visit, her daughter, Sandy Pahlen, 54, recalled. Pahlen and her husband left the room briefly. When they returned, Karpas was gone. Pahlen looked out an open window and saw her mother on the ground below.
Karpas, 79, was declared dead at the scene.
Schultz said he thinks the death was premeditated, because his mother took off her eyeglasses and pulled a stool next to the window. Escaping was easy: She just had to retract a screen that rolled up like a roller blind and open the window with a hand crank.
Pahlen said she believes medication mismanagement – the staff’s failure to give Karpas her regular mood stabilizer pills – contributed to her suicide. But a state health department investigation found staffers were not at fault in the death.
Eric Schubert, a spokesman for Fairview Health Services, which owns the facility, called Karpas’ death “very tragic” but said he could not comment further because the family has hired a lawyer. Their lawyer, Joel Smith, said the family plans to sue the facility and may pursue state legislation to make windows suicide-proof at similar places.
More:'We are losing too many Americans': Suicides, drug overdoses rise as US life expectancy drops
“Where do I even begin to heal from something that is so painful, because it was so preventable?” said Raven Baker, Karpas’ 26-year-old granddaughter.
Nationwide, about half of people who die by suicide had a known mental health condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mental health is a significant concern in U.S. nursing homes: Nearly half of residents are diagnosed with depression, according to a 2013 CDC report.
That often leads caregivers, families and patients themselves to believe that depression is inevitable, so they dismiss or ignore signs of suicide risk, Conwell said.
“Older adulthood is not a time when it’s normal to feel depressed. It’s not a time when it’s normal to feel as if your life has no meaning,” he said. “If those things are coming across, that should send up a red flag.”
'They all missed the signs'
Still, not everyone with depression is suicidal, and some who are suicidal don’t appear depressed, said Julie Rickard, a psychologist in Wenatchee, Washington, who founded a regional suicide prevention coalition in 2012. She’s launching one of the nation’s few pilot projects to train staff and engage fellow residents to address suicides in long-term care.
In the past 18 months, three suicides occurred at assisted living centers in the rural central Washington community of 50,000 people. That included Roland K. Tiedemann, 89, who jumped from the fourth-story window of a local center on Jan. 22, 2018.
“He was very methodical. He had it planned out,” Rickard said. “Had the staff been trained, they would have been able to prevent it. Because none of them had been trained, they missed all the signs.”
Tiedemann, known as “Dutch,” lived there with his wife, Mary, who has dementia. The couple had nearly exhausted resources to pay for their care and faced moving to a new center, said their daughter, Jane Davis, 45, of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Transitions into or out of long-term care can be a key time for suicide risk, data shows.
After Tiedemann’s death, Davis moved her mother to a different facility in a nearby city. Mary Tiedemann, whose dementia is worse, doesn’t understand that her husband died, Davis said. “At first I would tell her. And I was telling her over and over,” she said. “Now I just tell her he’s hiking.”
More:Retirement planning: Older Americans face tough long-term care choices
At the facility where Tiedemann died, Rickard met with the residents, including many who reported thoughts of suicide.
“The room was filled with people who wanted to die,” she said. “These people came to me to say: ‘Tell me why I should still live.’”
Most suicide prevention funding targets young or middle-age people, in part because those groups have so many years ahead of them. But it’s also because of ageist attitudes that suggest such investments and interventions are not as necessary for older adults, said Jerry Reed, a nationally recognized suicide expert with the nonprofit Education Development Center.
“Life at 80 is just as possible as life at 18,” Reed said. “Our suicide prevention strategies need to evolve. If they don’t, we’re going to be losing people we don’t need to lose.”
Even when there are clear indications of risk, there’s no consensus on the most effective way to respond. The most common responses – checking patients every 15 minutes, close observation, referring patients to psychiatric hospitals – may not be effective and may even be harmful, research shows.
But intervening can make a difference, said Eleanor Feldman Barbera, a New York psychologist who works in long-term care settings.
She recalled a 98-year-old woman who entered a local nursing home last year after suffering several falls. The transition from the home she shared with her elderly brother was difficult. When the woman developed a urinary tract infection, her condition worsened. Anxious and depressed, she told an aide she wanted to hurt herself with a knife.
She was referred for psychological services and improved. Weeks later, after a transfer to a new unit, she was found in her room with the cord of a call bell around her neck.
After a brief hospitalization, she returned to the nursing home and was surrounded by increased care: a referral to a psychiatrist, extra oversight by aides and social workers, regular calls from her brother. During weekly counseling sessions, the woman now reports she feels better. Barbera considers it a victory.
“She enjoys the music. She hangs out with peers. She watches what’s going on,” Barbera said. “She’s 99 now – and she’s looking toward 100.”
If you or someone you know has talked about contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or use the online Lifeline Crisis Chat, both available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
People 60 and older can call the Institute on Aging’s 24-hour, toll-free Friendship Line at 800-971-0016. IOA also makes ongoing outreach calls to lonely older adults.
Kaiser Health News is a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
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d4c5f553ec7b16fe9ccba195234475cb | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/12/mall-america-child-allegedly-thrown-balcony-minnesota/3448853002/ | A 5-year-old was reportedly thrown from the third-floor balcony at Mall of America | A 5-year-old was reportedly thrown from the third-floor balcony at Mall of America
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – A 24-year-old man was arrested Friday in an incident in which a 5-year-old child may have been pushed or thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America, police said.
Bloomington Police Chief Jeffrey Potts said witnesses told police that the child may have been pushed or thrown from the mall’s third level to the first floor on Friday. Officers gave first aid but the 5-year-old child suffered “significant injuries” and had been taken to a hospital, Potts said.
Potts said the suspect took off running right after the incident but was quickly found and arrested at the mall.
He said police don’t think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child’s family. He says police don’t have an idea about possible motive.
“At this point we believe this is an isolated incident,” Potts said. “We’re actively trying to figure out why this occurred.”
No details were immediately available about the child’s condition.
The 4.2-million-square-foot Mall of America is in Bloomington, about 10 miles south of Minneapolis.
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c40810aa6807d6595c2c7205388d3b96 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/12/mark-riddell-test-taker-college-admissions-cheating-scandal-court/3445143002/ | Mark Riddell, test-taker ace in college admissions cheating case, pleads guilty in court | Mark Riddell, test-taker ace in college admissions cheating case, pleads guilty in court
BOSTON — Mark Riddell, the man who secretly took ACT and SAT tests for students in exchange for cash in an elaborate college admissions scheme involving wealthy parents and coaches, pleaded guilty Friday in Boston federal court.
Riddell, a 36-year-old former private school counselor from Florida, took the stand, stood and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud and one count of money laundering.
He was appearing before U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton, who accepted the plea agreement. Prosecutors and Riddell reached a deal in February, three weeks before the nation's largest-ever college admissions cheating case was unsealed in court.
Riddell, who last month publicly apologized for what he called his "needless actions, arrived at court alongside his attorney wearing a scarf tightly around his neck, blue suit and brown plastic-framed glasses.
He needed help from the judge to locate the witness stand when he was called up. He then listened to Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Rosen reel off the claims against him – that Riddell took bribes of usually $10,000 from rich parents to fly to cities such as Vancouver, Houston and Los Angeles and take ACT or SAT tests for their children to artificially boost their scores.
Prosecutors say he was paid to take exams 25 times, and that it was part of a larger scheme, led by ringleader Rick Singer, to help students get into some of the nation's finest colleges and universities.
"No, your honor, I do not," Riddell said when asked by the judge whether he disagrees with any of the charges Rosen described.
More:The 'really smart guy' who aced SATs for rich students: 'I will always regret' the scandal
Riddell, a Harvard University graduate who majored in biological sciences, faces maximum penalties of up to 20 years in prison, supervision for three years and a fine of $250,000. But prosecutors have recommended that his jail time and fees be at the "low end" of the sentencing ranges because of his guilty plea.
It would mean between 33 months and 41 months of prison time, but that won't be decided by the judge until a July 18 sentence hearing.
Riddell would also have to forfeit $239,449 that he made from the scheme, under the recommendations of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts. He would not be able to be released on parole.
When asked by the judge if he understood the consequences of his guilty plea, he replied, "I do, your honor."
Riddell, who resides in Palmetto, Florida, and his attorney Ben Stechschulte declined to comment as they were swarmed by a horde of media members leaving court on the way to their vehicle.
Riddell joins other main participants in the alleged college admissions scheme who have pleaded guilty to charges. They include Singer, the alleged middleman who accepted bribes from parents through a sham college counseling organization, and former Yale women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith, whose cooperation with prosecutors is seen as the key domino that helped open the case for the FBI.
Earlier this week, 13 parents, including actress Felicity Huffman, agreed to plead guilty to bribery and other forms of fraud to get their kids into elite colleges and universities.
More:Felicity Huffman pleads guilty in college admissions cheating scam; 'I am ashamed,' she says
Prosecutors say Riddell, a counselor at the prominent athletics-focused boarding school IMG Academy for the past decade, sometimes took the tests for the students himself and in other instances corrected their answers. They say the scheme lasted from 2011 to February.
A former soccer player at Harvard University, Riddell not only had the ability to ace the exams, prosecutors say, but he could also achieve an appropriate score that would not raise the suspicion of the test companies.
Rosen, the assistant U.S. attorney, told the judge that Riddell first accepted cash payments from Singer to carry out the test-cheating scheme. Later, he accepted checks.
He said Rosen's participation began by taking the test of student at a private school in Miami before later flying to Vancouver to take the test for the son of businessman David Sidoo. He used a fake ID to take the ACT for Sidoo's son and received nearly a perfect score. The son was later accepted to the University of California-Berkeley.
Riddell would go on, Rosen said, to secretly take tests in Texas and California in addition to Florida.
He would sometimes take the tests at hotels, prosecutors say, and return the completed exams to one of two test administrators – one from Houston, the other Los Angeles, who are also defendants in the case. Both were allegedly paid off to accept the falsified tests.
"At times, the students were in on it," Rosen said.
On one occasion, he said, Riddell and one of the daughters of Manuel and Elizabeth Henriquez "celebrated" in a car on the way back to Riddell's hotel in San Francisco after he had helped her cheat on a test.
More:Ex-Yale coach pleads guilty for soliciting almost $1 million in bribes in college admissions scandal
Parents involved in the cheating scheme would make donations to Singer's college counseling organization. Singer then funneled money to Riddell, they say. To facilitate the cheating, prosecutors say Singer often counseled parents to seek extended time on the children's SAT or ACT exams by having their children pretend to have learning disabilities.
In addition to the test-cheating allegations, prosecutors say other parents accused in the conspiracy allegedly paid Singer to bribe college coaches in exchange for classifying their child as an athlete on their team as a way get them admitted into a school.
In his public apology in March after being arrested, Riddell said he understands how his actions "contributed to a loss of trust in the college admissions process" and that he accepts "full responsibility for what I have done."
But he sought to clarify that he "absolutely, unequivocally never bribed anyone," rejecting an assertion that he claims has has risen in media coverage. The Justice Department has not accused him of bribery, but rather accepting the payments.
"I will always regret the choices I made, but I also believe that the more than one thousand students I legitimately counseled, inspired, and helped reach their goals in my career will paint a more complete picture of the person I truly am," Riddell said last month.
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82f3050718eb5f6ba9b57e94bfd00014 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/12/nj-husband-and-wife-admit-4-5-m-food-stamps-fraud/3446111002/ | N.J. husband and wife admit $4.5M food stamps fraud scheme | N.J. husband and wife admit $4.5M food stamps fraud scheme
A New Jersey couple has admitted to a scheme in which their grocery store fraudulently exchanged food stamps for cash — totaling more than $4.5 million over four years — while they kept some of the money for themselves.
The couple, Ibrahim Zughbi, 65, and his wife, Miriam Zughbi, 61, of Wayne, New Jersey, owned and worked at Jamaica Meat Market in Paterson from 2014 to 2018, according to a statement from the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office.
Ibrahim Zughbi was previously barred from the federal food benefits program for allowing cash exchanges at a different store he owned. He listed someone else as the store's owner so the store could participate in the program.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once known as the Food Stamp Program, provides people with an Electronic Benefit Transfer card, similar to a debit card.
A court document outlined one example of how the scheme ran: A Jamaica Meat Market would buy $5 worth of food, but Ibrahim Zughbi charged the customer's EBT card $75, handing the customer some of the extra cash and keeping the rest.
Ibrahim Zughbi pleaded guilty to a fraud charge related to SNAP and money laundering, according to the statement. Miriam Zughbi pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States through SNAP benefit fraud.
“They’re good people," said Alan Zegas, attorney for Ibrahim Zughbi. "They made a mistake and they admitted to it."
Zegas noted that the $4.5 million figure reflected the total sale price, not the sum the Zughbis took home. He said he didn't know how much they kept, but it was "not close" to $4.5 million.
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71432fb9f307513db3b4079cb1222117 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/12/nyc-chinese-restaurant-blasted-racist-promotion-clean-food/3445548002/ | NYC restaurant owner promotes 'clean' Chinese food, gets blasted for racist stereotypes | NYC restaurant owner promotes 'clean' Chinese food, gets blasted for racist stereotypes
A white New York City restaurant owner is addressing backlash for marketing her Chinese food as "clean," and saying other Chinese food makes people feel “bloated and icky."
The comments, shared in an Instagram post that has since been deleted, placed Lucky Lee's restaurant in the middle of a debate about racism, stereotypes and cultural appropriation.
Lucky Lee's opened this week in Union Square, offering menu items including gluten-free baked orange cauliflower and baked General Tso's Chicken. The spot caters to people with dietary restrictions.
As of Friday, its Facebook page is no longer live and its Instagram is responding to previous posts that ignited the flurry of recent criticism.
Owner and Manhattan nutritionist Arielle Haspel posted a few weeks ago that the restaurant's lo mein won't make people feel bad because it isn't "too oily" or salty like other Chinese food out there.
Food writer MacKenzie Fegan was among many calling out Lucky Lee's marketing as uninformed, saying Haspel labeled "the entire cuisine of a sprawling, diverse country as 'unhealthy' and suggesting that the half-million people of Chinese descent living in New York have all been waddling around, bloated and puffy-eyed, waiting for a white wellness savior."
Yelp suspended reviews for Lucky Lee's due to "unusual activity," saying Yelp's Support team is monitoring it.
The restaurant responded to the backlash, promising to listen to "cultural sensitivities related to our Lucky Lee’s concept." It also said it will continue to market its food as "high quality," made to "make you feel great."
As for the name of the restaurant, it's reflective of Haspel's husband's name. Defending the restaurant's Chinese decor, Lucky Lee's said "Owners Arielle and Lee are both Jewish-American New Yorkers, born and raised … New York is the ultimate melting pot and Lucky Lee's is another example of two cultures coming together. To us, this is a good thing."
The restaurant has continued to open for lunch amid the controversy and says it will continue to serve food that is gluten-free, dairy-free and wheat-free.
More:What does 'white fragility' mean? Facebook discussions about race add new words to dictionaries
Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
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2e9fab755d5f1272d751721cda3f01a1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/12/video-chicago-police-hit-dragged-student-dnigma-howard-lawsuit-says/3450778002/ | 'It's tragic': Video shows Chicago police officers hitting, dragging student down stairs | 'It's tragic': Video shows Chicago police officers hitting, dragging student down stairs
Newly released surveillance video shows Chicago police officers dragging a high school student down a flight of stairs and kicking and hitting her and using a stun gun.
Dnigma Howard, 16, initially faced felony charges after police said she initiated the January incident at Marshall High School. However, the charges were dropped, and the newly released video contradicts what police reported, Andrew M. Stroth, Dnigma's attorney, told USA TODAY on Friday.
"You have an unarmed 16-year-old girl that was tackled and thrown down the stairs, punched, kicked then tased by the officers," Stroth said. "It's a saving grace for that young lady that the video tape existed."
Laurentio Howard, Dnigma's father, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Thursday against the city of Chicago, its board of education and the two police officers.
In the suit, Howard says his daughter "was, without justification, physically abused and traumatized by two Chicago police officers."
Chicago police spokesperson Christine Calace declined to comment on the specifics of the case but said the Civilian Office of Police Accountability was pursuing an independent investigation of the incident.
According to the lawsuit, the incident began when Dnigma was told to leave school on January 29 because she had her phone out in class.
She was being escorted by a school security officer when the officers approached her, the lawsuit says. Howard was also present during the incident.
Dnigma was near a staircase with the police officers when she hugged a friend goodbye, the suit says. She then turned and took two steps away from the stairs when police grabbed her and dragged her toward the stairs, according to the court filing.
The officers "within moments escalated the situation," Stroth said.
The video shows Dnigma taking the steps then an officer grabbing her and pushing her toward the staircase.
Surveillance video from the level below shows one officer pulling what appears to be her leg as the other officer tries to pin her to the ground at the bottom of the stairs. The officers then hit, kicked and used a taser as Dnigma was on the ground, the suit says.
Dnigma was initially charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery, but had the charges dropped a week later "in the interest of justice," prosecutors said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The suit also alleges the officers "made deliberately false statements about the incident," including that the teen swung at them and that she became irate and initiated the physical altercation.
The video refutes any claims that Dnigma initiated the incident, Stroth and the lawsuit say.
"It's tragic," Stroth said. "The video speaks for itself."
Stroth says the girl was physically and emotionally traumatized by the incident and has since switched schools.
Additionally, the lawsuit says the school did not follow an Individual Education Program that Dnigma has established with the school based on an emotional disability.
A spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools, Emily Bolton, said CPS was cooperating fully with the independent review by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
"CPS is committed to creating a safe and supportive learning environment for all students and we are deeply disturbed and troubled by this incident which has no place in our schools," she said in a statement.
Stroth, a civil rights attorney who has worked on cases of police abuse of power across the country, says the case highlights a larger issue of police oversight in Chicago's schools.
The lawsuit says the city lacks oversights and standards for officers in schools that leads to students' civil rights being violated.
"This case can be a catalyst for change within Chicago Public Schools and say 'We don't want this for our children.'"
Follow USA TODAY's Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
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e660540d4ebe036851b8ed15a8ddee0c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/14/florida-man-attacked-and-killed-by-large-flightless-bird/3465706002/ | Florida man attacked and killed by his cassowary, the ‘world’s most dangerous bird’ | Florida man attacked and killed by his cassowary, the ‘world’s most dangerous bird’
A large, flightless bird native to Australia and New Guinea attacked and killed its owner on a farm in Florida, according to authorities.
The man, identified by police as 75-year-old Marvin Hajos, raised cassowaries and was injured after falling on a path near their enclosure Friday, according to Alachua County Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Jeff Taylor. Paramedics found Hajos just after 10 a.m. on Friday and transported him to the hospital where he died of his injuries, police said.
“Our crews worked very hard to give the victim the best chance possible at survival," Taylor said via email.
There were two birds onsite but Taylor said it’s unclear whether they both participated in the attack.
Cassowaries are similar to emus and stand up to 6 feet tall and weigh up to 130 pounds, with black body feathers and bright blue heads and necks. The San Diego Zoo’s website calls cassowaries the world’s most dangerous bird with a four-inch, dagger-like claw on each foot.
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“The cassowary can slice open any predator or potential threat with a single swift kick. Powerful legs help the cassowary run up to 31 miles per hour through the dense forest underbrush,” the website says.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lists cassowaries along with animals such as alligators, clouded leopards and wolverines as Class II wildlife because they can “pose a danger to people.” Owners must have a permit and “substantial experience and specific cage requirements must be met.”
Police spokesperson Lt. Brett Rhodenizer said the cassowary involved is currently secured on private property.
"Sheriff's Office personnel will continue their investigation, and may coordinate with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) if necessary as the case progresses," Rhodenizer said. "Initial information indicates that this was a tragic accident for Mr. Hajos and his family."
Contributing: The Associated Press
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
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451f6da7c7f45bfe2224d21d3de1f810 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/16/great-white-sharks-flee-orcas-study-shows/3491295002/ | Who's afraid of who? Great white sharks fear killer whales, study shows | Who's afraid of who? Great white sharks fear killer whales, study shows
The great white shark might not be the ocean's top predator, after all.
In research published Tuesday in Nature, scientists found white sharks not only fled from killer whales when they arrived at a marine sanctuary near San Francisco but cleared out until the next season.
"When confronted by orcas, white sharks will immediately vacate their preferred hunting ground and will not return for up to a year, even though the orcas are only passing through," said Salvador Jorgensen, senior research scientist at Monterey Bay Aquarium and lead author of the study.
Minutes after orcas appeared to feed on elephant seals, researchers said white sharks began swimming offshore or crowding together at other seal colonies farther along the coast.
Some of the white sharks that usually dominate the sanctuary stretch more than 18 feet long, said Monterey Bay Aquarium scientist Scot Anderson.
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Researchers compared data from electronic tracking tags on sharks and field observations of orca sightings. The predators don't often encounter each other at the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, researchers said, because orcas only visit the area occasionally while white sharks usually gather for more than a month each fall.
Elephant seals also benefited from the interaction, the study found, suffering four to seven times fewer attacks in the years white sharks fled. Researchers looked at 27 years of seal, orca, and shark surveys in the area in addition to 165 white sharks tagged between 2006 and 2013.
"After orcas show up, we don't see a single shark and there are no more kills," Anderson said.
The study did not conclude whether those orcas hunted white sharks or bullied their competition, but Jorgensen said the research shows how interactions between top predators affect food chains.
Dynamics between marine predators are harder to observe than those on land, he added, noting it may take longer to understand the relationship between orcas and white sharks because they meet so infrequently.
"We don't typically think about how fear and risk aversion might play a role in shaping where large predators hunt and how that influences ocean ecosystems," Jorgensen said. "It turns out these risk effects are very strong even for large predators like white sharks — strong enough to redirect their hunting activity to less preferred but safer areas."
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8cf4ed4ca88a274db84c39eb8a30e731 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/16/most-endangered-rivers-usa-named-american-rivers/3477663002/ | These are the 10 most 'endangered' rivers of 2019. New Mexico's Gila River gets the top 'dishonor' | These are the 10 most 'endangered' rivers of 2019. New Mexico's Gila River gets the top 'dishonor'
Sure, we know about endangered species, but did you know there are endangered rivers, too?
Environmental group American Rivers released its annual list of the USA's top 10 "most endangered" rivers Tuesday, and this year, the top "dishonor" goes to New Mexico’s Gila River. The river got the top spot due to the grave threat that climate change and a proposed diversion project pose to New Mexico’s last free-flowing river.
"New Mexicans can’t afford to dry up their last wild river,” said Matt Rice, Colorado Basin director for American Rivers. “Ruining the Gila River with an expensive diversion project doesn’t make sense when there are better, more cost-effective water supply options.”
These rivers aren't the nation's "worst" or most polluted rivers. According to American Rivers, three factors put rivers on the list: the significance of the river to human and natural communities; the magnitude of the threat to the river and its nearby communities, especially in light of a changing climate; and a major decision that the public can help influence in the coming year.
“Climate change is striking rivers and water supplies first and hardest,” said Bob Irvin, President and CEO of American Rivers, in a statement. “America’s Most Endangered Rivers is a call to action. We must speak up and take action, because climate change will profoundly impact every river and community in our country."
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In addition to the 10 most troubled rivers, American Rivers also named the Cuyahoga River in Ohio as the "River of the Year." The title celebrates the progress Cleveland has made in cleaning up the Cuyahoga, 50 years after the river’s infamous fire that helped spark the USA's environmental movement.
American Rivers has been compiling an annual list of the nation's most endangered rivers since 1984.
Here is the list of American Rivers' top 10 most Endangered Rivers.
1. Gila River, New Mexico2. Hudson River, New York3. Upper Mississippi River, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri4. Green-Duwamish River, Washington5. Willamette River, Oregon6. Chilkat River, Alaska7. South Fork Salmon River, Idaho8. Buffalo National River, Arkansas9. Big Darby Creek, Ohio10. Stikine River, Alaska
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6ec4d59b86c15b2103bb6fbb5a4b298c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/16/planned-parenthood-reshaping-its-image-abortion-health-care/3483497002/ | With abortion services in the crosshairs, Planned Parenthood is reshaping its image. Will it work? | With abortion services in the crosshairs, Planned Parenthood is reshaping its image. Will it work?
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Trump administration is pushing ahead with its reproductive health agenda. It has rolled out changes to the Title X program, which funds family planning services for low-income people, that are designed to have a chilling effect on organizations that provide abortions or include this option in counseling.
It also has nominated federal judges widely believed to support state-level abortion restrictions.
Against that backdrop, Planned Parenthood, known as a staunch defender of abortion rights, is working to recast its public image. Under its president, Leana Wen, who took office in November, the nation’s largest reproductive health provider is highlighting the breadth of care it provides – treating depression, screening for cancer and diabetes, and taking on complex health problems like soaring maternal mortality rates.
More:Challenges women could face if Georgia's 'fetal heartbeat' bill goes into effect, doctors and advocates say
This strategy, analysts say, could buttress Planned Parenthood against the efforts by the White House and other abortion opponents. But it’s complicated. Even as the organization leans into its community health work, Wen isn’t abandoning the abortion-related services that have helped form the organization’s identity – and its opposition.
“We cannot separate out one of our services. That’s not how medicine works,” Wen told Kaiser Health News.
This effort to thread the needle could, if successful, change the public’s perception of Planned Parenthood. But if it backfires, it could make the organization even more vulnerable. Some people are skeptical of the payoff, given how polarizing abortion politics are.
“The minute you start talking about abortion, it’s a risky strategy,” said Karen O’Connor, a political scientist at American University who studies the politics of reproductive health care. It’s likely to attract strong reactions from people who see abortion providers not as reproductive health professionals but as “baby killers,” she said.
More:Supreme Court won't consider state efforts to defund Planned Parenthood
“If I was doing it – and this is as somebody who studies social movements and women’s organizations – I would take abortion out of the equation and talk about ‘reproductive health is health care.’”
'PR exercise' or 'who we are'?
Already, the new strategy is drawing fire from abortion opponents, who dismiss Planned Parenthood’s positioning as a front-line community health provider.
“This framing is simply a PR exercise,” said Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications at the Susan B. Anthony List, a Washington-based anti-abortion group. “I don’t think this campaign will be successful, and I don’t think it will last long.”
Reproductive health experts have a different view, saying Planned Parenthood’s effort to promote its array of health care offerings – including abortion – is consistent with reality and in line with top medical standards. To bolster this message, Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner and the first physician to take the group’s helm, has embarked on a national listening tour.
“It’s who we are. We are a health care organization,” Wen said. “That’s what all of our affiliates do around the country, is meeting people where they are with the health services they need.”
So far, Wen and other Planned Parenthood officials have visited 17 affiliates in locations around the country. They plan to visit several more, Wen’s staff confirmed.
More:Trump administration approves rule to restrict abortion clinic funding
The idea is not to standardize what Planned Parenthood sites offer, Wen said, arguing that each clinic should take the lead in devising its own public health programs, based on its patients. Even so, the organization’s national leadership is working to identify the health programs that could be expanded and encouraging clinics around the country to consider implementing those best practices.
Recently, Wen and her team visited the organization’s Rhode Island clinic to investigate how it is planning to expand its primary care offerings.
The clinic, a 10-minute walk from downtown Providence, serves patients of all genders and ages, its staff noted. It has upped its focus on things like wellness visits, along with its programs to make sure patients who want to have children are healthy before they get pregnant.
Wen also focused on the clinic’s efforts to reduce the area’s maternal mortality rates, a problem that afflicts low-income and black women at far greater rates.
In 2018, 18.3 Rhode Island women per 100,000 births died from causes related to the pregnancy; for black women, the figure was 47.2 per 100,000, and for white women, 18.1. Planned Parenthood leadership touted proposed state legislation that would extend Medicaid coverage to doulas, non-medical birth coaches often seen as a valuable resource in reducing maternal deaths.
More:Planned Parenthood launches its largest voter contact campaign for midterm election
At a Planned Parenthood Mar Monte clinic in San Jose, Calif., staff members highlighted their mental health services – keeping behavioral health professionals in the building to help patients transition seamlessly into care – and its in-house testing center for sexually transmitted infections.
At both clinics, staffers talked about helping patients who face a threat of domestic violence find safe housing resources, and steering them toward available resources for things like healthy food.
Abortion services still key
Even while promoting that work – often overlooked by the public – Wen, a 36-year-old emergency doctor by training, emphasizes abortion services at each stop, trying to weave the message into the public health narrative.
In Providence, the Planned Parenthood team stopped by a news conference to talk about a local bill that, if the Supreme Court scales back Roe v. Wade, would explicitly legalize abortion protections in Rhode Island.
“Abortion is part of the spectrum of full reproductive health care, and we know reproductive health care is health care,” Wen said to applause. “And health care is a human right.”
But it’s unclear how the listening tour and messaging efforts will pan out politically. While a majority of Americans have positive opinions of Planned Parenthood, they are, polling suggests, evenly split on abortion.
“Planned Parenthood to some extent is taking a risky strategy by trying to thread these two. I see these as very different messages,” said O’Connor, the political scientist. “If you take out the ‘abortion is’ and go to reproductive health, you have a winning message that is very simple.”
In other ways, though, this branding effort perhaps comes at the right time, suggested Lucinda Finley, a law professor at the University at Buffalo. She ties the organization to what polling suggests is voters’ No. 1 concern, especially going into the 2020 election: health care.
More:Planned Parenthood names Baltimore health commissioner as its new president
Framing it as “The ‘abortion is health care, health care is a human right’ links it to the larger debate about health care, and how we should provide health care to people in this country,” Finley said.
When asked if this messaging could politically insulate Planned Parenthood from conservative attacks – or win the organization new supporters – Wen suggested the community health emphasis is simply a response to medical needs.
“I don’t want people to think we are doing this because it’s politically the right thing to do,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do because that’s what our patients are requesting.”
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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0158b73779f1f0e10f4a9ebc60af0a2f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/16/plastic-atlantic-ocean-pollution-has-increased-exponentially/3485973002/ | Sea sick: Plastic garbage in the North Atlantic Ocean skyrocketing | Sea sick: Plastic garbage in the North Atlantic Ocean skyrocketing
Sure, we all know there's always more fish in the sea. But there's also plenty more plastic garbage.
Since 1957, scientific gear used to measure plankton in the north Atlantic Ocean has been clogged by plastic trash some 669 times. Almost all of those snarls have occurred since the late 1990s, showcasing how much ocean plastic has skyrocketed in the past two decades.
And since 2000, scientists say the occurrence of plastic entanglement on the gear has increased by around ten times.
Researchers say the study is "the first to confirm a significant increase in open ocean plastics in recent decades."
Study lead author Clare Ostle of the Marine Biological Association and the University of Plymouth in the U.K. said “what is unique about this work is we have been able to demonstrate the increase in ocean plastic since the 1990s."
The researchers looked at how much plastic was entangled on devices that record the amount of plankton in the ocean. The devices, known as continuous plankton recorders, are instruments that have been towed over 6.5 million nautical miles in surface waters of the North Atlantic and nearby seas since 1957.
More:Blown by the wind, 'microplastic' pollution discovered in pristine mountain peaks
The device takes up about the same space as a marine mammal, so therefore is affected by plastic entanglements in a similar way. According to CNN, the researchers didn't set out to do a study about plastic pollution. They were initially studying the plankton.
Some of the biggest increases in the types of trash have been in larger plastic items such as bags, rope and netting.
Knowing where plastic tends to concentrate will be important for conservation, Ostle said to National Geographic.
“It's important for waste management and how we think about tidying up,” she said.
The study was published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature Communications.
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85e21ef7fd1ae4fe534dd52beb8e1818 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/17/columbine-high-school-survivors-find-new-normal-20-years-later/3278509002/ | For Columbine survivors, life is about finding 'that new normal' 20 years later | For Columbine survivors, life is about finding 'that new normal' 20 years later
LITTLETON, Colo. – The nightmares come each spring. In the dark of his bedroom just a few miles from where it all began, Sean Graves relives the feeling of bullets slamming through his stomach, the odd sensation of something somehow sliding through him.
He always worries about shootings, that his wife and daughter will be trapped or threatened by gunmen, that they won't be able to find a way to escape. But as every April approaches, his mind returns to a very specific day, a specific memory, when two classmates with trench coats and duffel bags opened fire.
He is back at Columbine.
Back to being a 15-year-old freshman who loves comic books and MacGyver.
Back to lying on the cold concrete and shattered glass.
Back to the fire alarm ringing and shots being fired and his blood soaking his thin black jacket.
"I'm in the history books," Graves says sadly on a recent afternoon as he watches his 3-year-old-daughter, Olivia, play nearby. "I didn't choose the cards we were dealt. We just have to play them."
Twenty years ago, Graves was shot six times by his two classmates, fellow teenagers who fatally shot 12 students and a coach before killing themselves.
Olivia doesn't yet understand the trauma her father struggles with daily, his nagging injuries from the shooting and the 49 surgeries he has had to help reverse his partial paralysis. She also doesn't yet understand why he asks her to identify exits anytime they go somewhere new, why he worries about who might present a threat, and why he's obsessed with listening to police radio traffic.
The details of Columbine remain seared into the nation's consciousness, in part because of weeks of continuous news coverage at the time. The shooting forced a national conversation about school safety, SWAT tactics, mental health and gun control, and it forever reshaped the simple act of going to school in the USA. For many Americans, it was the first time a school was an unsafe place. Television stations replayed scenes of terrified children racing for safety, and then, as details emerged, photos of the killers. The nation struggled to dissect what had happened and who had missed what warning signs.
While Columbine was one of the first school shootings to reach our television screens, it wasn't the last. And each subsequent shooting, from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, to Parkland, Florida, to Santa Fe, Texas, has left behind a similar legacy of pain and loss for its survivors, the students and teachers and parents who woke up the next day trying to put their lives back together.
Graves, now 35, has tried to help police, school administrators and legislators grapple with changes that could help protect students. He has tried to set aside the dreams he had of becoming a police officer or a soldier and to be a good husband to his wife and protect his daughter.
He also has watched as shootings have continued, each one instantly hauling him back to that fateful day 20 years ago. And he’s watching his daughter grow up in that world.
A 'different' time
Until April 20, 1999, Columbine High School was like most others in the Denver metro area: Not particularly rich, not particularly poor, not particularly big or particularly small. Athletics were important, but so were academics at the school of about 2,000 students. Then, as now, many parents commuted to Denver for work, returning to curvilinear neighborhoods like Dutch Creek and Kipling Hills.
Frank DeAngelis became principal in 1996, having worked his way up from teaching and coaching closer to his home in downtown Denver. He had seen only two classes graduate when the first shots rang out at 11:19 a.m. on what had been a beautiful spring morning. Two students armed with a rifle, handgun, shotguns, knives and bombs began firing at their classmates and teachers.
Like many school administrators that day, DeAnglis ran toward the gunfire, not entirely understanding what was happening. Today, school administrators and teachers lead and participate in regular "active shooter" training, which students also learn. But 1999 was a different world.
Back then, SWAT tactics generally called for officers to surround the school, form a team and enter. The theory was that rushing a shooter might cause the gunman to kill hostages. Today, in large part because of lessons learned at Columbine, officers are trained to rush toward a shooter, confronting the attacker as quickly as possible.
At Columbine, students, faculty and staff remained on their own for 47 minutes after the first shots were fired.
"Today, that strategy of waiting seems nuts," DeAngelis said. "The whole protocol is different now.”
DeAngelis chose to remain at the school until every student enrolled that day graduated. He has watched "his" kids grow up to have children of their own, helped them feel safe about going to Columbine or any other classroom. He became a widely respected consultant who helps manage the fallout of other school shootings.
He recently wrote a book recounting his experience during and after the Columbine shooting. The book, "They Call Me Mr. De," represents the first time DeAngelis has laid out exactly what happened to him during the shooting and his efforts to heal the community in the following years. Its publication was timed for the 20th anniversary of the shooting.
"It's funny what your mind does in a crisis situation," he wrote. "I don't remember hearing the blare of the fire alarms. I guess I blocked out the sound but I remember the strobe lights flashing. I also remember exactly how those shots and the glass shattering behind me sounded."
In the days after the shooting, community members gathered first in candlelight vigils and then in funerals for the 13 victims. Classes eventually resumed at a nearby school building, and graduation took place just a few weeks later. Two of the slain had been set to graduate that day, and the wounds were still fresh.
All summer, contractors remodeled Columbine High School, changing the look and feel, blocking out the library where so many had died, and covering up bullet holes.
But there were other changes, too. Those fire alarms needed a different sound lest they trigger anew the anxiety of an already frightened student body. The cafeteria banned Chinese food, because the smell of the meal served on that fateful day also could trigger anxiety for survivors. Even camouflage clothes or the sight of police cars parked out front frightened some kids, DeAngelis said.
After the shooting, well-meaning community members built a balloon arch in school colors to welcome students back to class. “What we didn’t anticipate was balloons popping and kids diving on the ground,” DeAngelis said.
The principal has his own triggers: The sound of July Fourth fireworks that year at a Colorado Rockies game sent him diving for the ground, the tears flowing.
DeAngelis has learned to avoid driving in springtime. He has crashed his car six times since the shooting, each time around the anniversary. Now he relies on Uber and Lyft rides for a few months.
The new normal
Graves, then 15, was walking outside the school with friends when the shooting began. In addition to the 13 dead, the gunmen shot 21 others, including Graves, and three more people were hurt trying to escape.
Graves was wounded in his back, foot and stomach near the school's west staircase. He collapsed half inside a door to the school, lying there for agonizing minutes as the attack unfolded. Medics eventually reached him. He spent months recuperating from partial paralysis at the world-renowned rehabilitation center at Craig Hospital, just 8 miles away from the school.
Even today, he doesn't like to talk much about what happened. He was angry for a lot of his recovery and credits his work with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation with helping him turn that frustration into constructive assistance to other people who have suffered paralyzing injuries. Fighting his injuries, Graves walked across the stage for graduation in 2002, assisted only by a cane.
His injuries ended his dreams of becoming a police officer or soldier, but his status as a Columbine survivor has given him a platform of a different kind. Today he works with patients at Craig and speaks to law enforcement groups about the importance of school safety – not in the abstract, but in a "you need to do a good job so our kids don't get hurt like me" kind of way.
"I always wanted a badge and a gun," Graves said. "Growing up, that was the thing I wanted, to help people."
Graves and his friends, including 29 children between them all, usually go camping every April 20, all the better to avoid the reminders, which mercifully have grown softer over the years. Guns themselves never bothered Graves – he and his wife go hunting – but the threat from other people remains a concern. That's why he has been teaching Olivia to watch the exits and keep an eye out for threats.
One of his best friends, Daniel Rohrbough, died in the shooting, and the nightmares about that day have started again.
"I call it the gift that keeps on giving," Graves said of the shooting. "I forget what month we're in, and then they start and I'm like, 'Oh, what's the date? Every year, like clockwork."
For a survivor like Graves, Columbine will always be part of life. He and his wife, Kara, have collected seven bins of newspaper clippings and get-well cards after the shooting and during his recovery. They try not to let that single event shape their entire lives, but it's no easy task to put it behind them.
"You have to find that new normal," says Kara, 32. "Out of sight, out of mind doesn't work."
For 16 years she has stood with Sean as he has battled nightmares and crank calls and creepy internet conspiracy theorists. She thought long and hard about marrying him, knowing she'd be signing up for a life that would never be quite normal.
"We always knew we were never going to be like other families," Kara says. "I never thought it was going to be as hard as it was. You want to be able to console them and realize that sometimes you just can't, and that's OK."
With a sly smile, Sean Graves says he's thankful for his wife: "She mows the lawn, so that's good."
Like many trauma survivors, Graves uses humor to help ease himself and his family past difficult moments. A seemingly throwaway line about mowing the lawn, for example, hints at a delicate balance in the Graves' marriage. He's a proud man who wants to do chores, but his injuries make it hard to do yardwork, especially when the seasons change and the cold weather leaves him with constant aches. So Kara quietly gets it done.
Olivia is a new source of joy for the couple, a daughter conceived after six miscarriages and a failed adoption. As Sean chases after the rambunctious girl at a playground near their home, his limp becomes a little more obvious, the stiffness in his long legs slowing his movements a little more than you'd expect for a man who is technically still a millennial.
"I call her and Sean my miracle babies," Kara says as she watches them play on the swings.
The reality is that school shootings remain quite rare, given the number of students and schools across the country. From 1999 to 2013, homicides, bicycle accidents, firearm accidents, falls and swimming pool drownings accounted for 31,827 of the total 32,464 reported deaths, while deaths in school shootings numbered 154, or fewer than 0.5%, according to James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston.
Put another way, a young person in the United States is nearly 11 times as likely to die in a swimming pool than in a school shooting. And most students say they feel safe in school. In a 2015 survey by federal researchers, just 3% of students ages 12 to 18 said they were “afraid of attack or harm at school” during the school year.
Experts say that may be precisely why school shootings are so horrifying: We can't help but think of schools as safe places. And once that sense of safety is gone, it's almost impossible to get back.
Graves works for a commercial irrigation company these days, but he's still interested in law enforcement and spends hours listing to police radio chatter via a smartphone app.
Lying in bed late at night on Oct. 1, 2017, he got an alert from the app about a shooting in Las Vegas – a gunman had opened fire at a concert. Graves listened as police officers, in an echo of their actions at Columbine, struggled to respond.
“I was like ‘Jesus,’ listening to that chaos unfold,” he says. “But when I heard a shot ring through the police mics, you know, mic to mic, that’s when my PTSD kicked in. I knew that my PTSD was probably going to be a problem the next day, but at the time, I was like, I’m committed, I’m listening to this.”
'Trying to make sense of it'
Kara hates the police radio app. She says it’s unhealthy for her husband to listen to it. But she indulges him because she also knows why he feels compelled to listen: It gives him a sense someone is out there protecting the world, even if the stories of violence and hurt also bring him back to that day.
Instead of focusing on the past, Kara likes to keep Sean thinking about the future: camping trips, maybe a new house. Together, they try to avoid letting Columbine fill their thoughts every day. It's a powerful draw, to wallow in that space, to let it fill your thoughts constantly.
Graves says most of his classmates have managed to let it go most of the time, but some are still stuck in the past. Time, it seems, does not heal all wounds.
"They're still trying to make sense of it," he says. "That's all they can talk about. They’ve never healed and moved on."
DeAngelis said communities that have suffered trauma like Columbine need to understand that things will always be different. He said some people will want to talk about the incident obsessively, while others just want to ignore it as best as possible.
“People kept saying, 'When it is going to get back to normal?' And it’s never going to go back to that normal. You can create a new normal, but if you think it’s going to go back to the way it was, well, that’s not going to happen," DeAngelis said. "And that’s where communities get into trouble.”
Like many Columbine survivors, Graves credits the community with providing much-needed support. Chants of "We Are... Columbine" are a staple of school rallies, cheer leaders running their voices hoarse to help build that sense of togetherness. He's still close with many of his classmates and stays in regular contact with DeAngelis.
And once a year on the anniversary, he visits the spot where he was shot. He smokes a cigar in Rohrbough's honor and heads out on that camping trip to avoid the worst of the reminders. This year, however, feels different. Reporters from around the world have been reaching out, and coverage has been ramping up on local and national television.
The Graves family lives just 6 miles from Columbine High School, with its memorial to the Beloved 13 fallen and ever-present police car outside the front doors. Like many cars, the family truck's plates bear the state flower, a purple-and-white columbine with the reminder to "respect life."
It's enough to prompt the question: Have you ever thought about moving away, getting a fresh start?
"No," Graves says. "This is my home."
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4dac58a6f078af932608f7fe26503514 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/17/naval-academy-transgender-ban-starting-2020/3502499002/ | Naval Academy to ban transgender students beginning in 2020 | Naval Academy to ban transgender students beginning in 2020
The U.S. Naval Academy will ban transgender people from attending the school starting with the 2020 school year following a Pentagon policy that took effect last week.
While the academy currently accepts transgender students and retains midshipmen who transition during their education, the Defense Department on Monday confirmed the change to the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis.
The Trump administration's restrictions were implemented Friday after multiple legal challenges. The directive bans transgender troops from serving openly and denies medical care for gender transition, reversing an Obama-era policy. About 14,700 troops identify as transgender.
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A U.S. Coast Guard Academy spokesman confirmed the school also follows the Trump administration's ban. Previous medical treatment such as hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgery may disqualify future applicants, according to the Coast Guard website.
The nation's other service academies — the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy — have not announced plans related to the ban.
An organization representing transgender service members said several attend each academy, although many are not openly transgender.
“The policy turns off access to some of our best and brightest, and that’s not what our country needs to win future wars,” said B Fram, communications director for Service Members, Partners and Allies for Respect and Tolerance for All, or SPARTA.
The Pentagon's directive also bars future applicants who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth.
Under the policy, troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria will be medically evaluated before they are discharged to see if they qualify for disability. If not, gender dysphoria can be considered a “condition that interferes with military service” like sleepwalking and motion sickness.
The American Medical Association has blasted the policy, saying the wording mischaracterizes transgender people as having a “deficiency.” The association recognizes treatment for gender dysphoria as medically necessary.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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534ea984e718a304b040a298e890bf43 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/17/sal-pais-besotted-columbine-shooting-threatens-denver-schools/3494924002/ | Who is Sol Pais? What we know about the woman infatuated by Columbine who killed herself | Who is Sol Pais? What we know about the woman infatuated by Columbine who killed herself
A massive manhunt ended Wednesday after authorities confirmed that Sol Pais, an 18-year-old woman who made "credible threats" against Denver-area schools, was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities said Pais traveled to Colorado on Monday night ahead of the 20th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School and was infatuated with the deadly shooting.
She purchased a pump-action shotgun and ammunition from a gun shop in Littleton, not far from Columbine, authorities said.
Here's what we know about Pais:
Florida connection
Pais is from South Florida and lived in Surfside. She traveled to Denver from Miami on Monday night, authorities said.
“Ms. Sol Pais took her own life. I would like to express the family’s grief for this situation. They are grateful that no one else is hurt,” Surfside Police Chief Julio Yero said Wednesday.
Tragic anniversary:For Columbine survivors, life is about finding 'that new normal' 20 years later
Where she was found
Dean Phillips, special agent in charge for the FBI in Denver, said Pais was found dead in the Mount Evans area near the Echo Mountain ski resort west of Denver on Wednesday morning around 10:30 a.m. to 10:40 a.m. He said she was last spotted there Monday after being dropped off by a ride-share vehicle.
The FBI had been searching for her in the foothills outside of Denver. It is unclear when she killed herself.
Acted alone, FBI says
It's too early to say when she killed herself, Phillips said, adding that the investigation is ongoing to ensure there were no additional participants or sign of foul play. Her body awaits an autopsy.
He said it looks as if she was alone and took her own life with the weapon she had bought.
Three one-way airplane tickets
In addition to Pais's threatening comments regarding Columbine, the FBI says that she purchased three one-way airplane tickets from Miami to Denver for flights that departed on consecutive days: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
It further drew the attention of law enforcement.
"Very unusual activity that caused us great concern that obviously we worked very quickly to identify and address," Phillips said.
Reported missing Monday
Pais was reported missing by her parents on Monday night, according to the Surfside Police Department. FBI agents entered her home Tuesday at 8:20 p.m.
Senior in high school
Miami-Dade County Public Schools confirmed that Pais was a senior at Miami Beach High School.
Pais was enrolled in Advanced Placement courses, according to the Herald, and was known to wear dark, baggy clothing that hung off her thin frame.
Online blog
Someone who identified herself as “Sol Pais” ran an online blog that included pictures of guns and journal entries filled with angst.
"The purpose of this site is for me to give insight into the thoughts I rarely, if ever, share with others, while remaining somewhat anonymous. Everything from journal entries to my personal interests – I want to leave a record of myself before I, well..." the blog reads.
In the about me section, the individual wrote that “I am the face of loneliness and misery.” There is a picture of the individual as a young girl with the writing "In this tiresome reality that i do not belong in, i take the form of Sol" typed underneath the image.
USA TODAY has not been able to independently confirm that the blog belongs to Pais.
Individual described gun-purchase plan on message board
A person with the same screen name, "dissolvedgirl," posted on a National Gun Forum message board about living in Miami and traveling to Colorado to buy a gun.
Law enforcement has not said whether the person was Pais.
The individual wrote: "Florida resident here. I am planning a trip to Colorado in the next month or so and wanna buy a shotgun while I'm there and I was wondering what restrictions apply for me? I've found a few private sellers I might want to purchase from; is it legal for me as a Florida resident to purchase a shotgun in Colorado? I'm 18 years old too, if it's important. thank you for reading, i appreciate any response!
Another post says: "the problem is i have no friends in FL who are into guns like me so it's not as fun having to do all of this alone (hence the trip to CO to see these more knowledgable friends), but hey, it's my damn choice what hobbies i wanna pick up and i don't need anybody else (save for everyone on this forum, lol)."
'Infatuation' with Columbine mass shooting
Dean Phillips, special agent in charge for the FBI in Denver, said Pais had made many "concerning comments" in the past about the deadly Columbine shooting, which drew their attention. He described Pais as having an "infatuation" with the mass shooting.
'Armed and dangerous'
Phillips said Pais stopped at a store and legally purchased a shotgun and ammunition after arriving in Colorado. She was considered a "credible threat." But law enforcement did not identified any specific threat against any school, Phillips said.
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dc7b65831c5838d8e29218e4997b64ff | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/18/mastodon-bones-ice-age-found-farm-seymour-indiana/3514789002/ | Mastodon bones from the Ice Age discovered on farm in Southern Indiana | Mastodon bones from the Ice Age discovered on farm in Southern Indiana
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Growing up on their family's farm in Seymour, Indiana, Sue Nehrt and her brother would spend plenty of time playing in the field and creek behind their home.
They would often find arrowheads that turned up as their father farmed the 100 acres or so of land.
So when Nehrt's husband, Tony, received a call last week from an Indiana conservation officer regarding bones found behind the farm, she thought maybe they were Native American remains.
Not quite. The bones belonged to something much older and much larger – a mastodon, a forest-dwelling creature that lived during the Ice Age and was similar in size to an elephant.
"It's something you don't ever think was roaming around that many years ago," Sue Nehrt told the Courier Journal on Thursday.
Crews working on a sewer system project in Seymour that crosses the farm discovered the bones last week, according to Tony Nehrt.
Sue Nehrt's brother, Joe Schepman, who continues to take care of the farm, went to check out the scene and sent Tony Nehrt photos of the bones on the ground.
"You couldn't really establish the size of the bones," Tony Nehrt said. "But later on, he sent me pictures of the bones in the back of a truck, and you could really see the size."
On Saturday, Ron Richards, senior research curator of paleobiology at the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, verified the remains belonged to a mastodon.
The bones included parts of a jaw, along with a tusk, leg, teeth and skull, Tony Nehrt said.
Richards told The (Seymour) Tribune he believes the mastodon would have stood between 9 and 9 ½ feet tall and been at its full size of about 12,000 pounds when it died between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago.
"It's a pretty strange feeling when you see the size of these bones," Tony Nehrt said. "Just to hear the timeline of that particular animal, the habitat that they lived in, how things have changed around here. It's interesting information."
The Nehrt and Schepman families own the farm along with Sue Nehrt's cousin, who she said lives in Florida and is driving up to Seymour this weekend to see the exciting discovery.
No one lives on the farm anymore, said Sue Nehrt, who is 56 and lives with her husband in Brownstown, Indiana.
The families hope to donate the bones to the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis. That would allow countless people to observe the mastodon remains for years to come, Tony Nehrt said.
The museum has the largest collection of mastodons in the state, including Fred the Mastodon, whose remains were discovered near Fort Wayne in 1998. (The mastodon is also the official mascot of Purdue University Fort Wayne.)
This is not the first time mastodon remains have been found in Jackson County, Indiana.
According to The Tribune, mastodon remains were reportedly discovered in 1928 and 1949 in different parts of the Southern Indiana county. Though mastodons appeared mostly in North and Central America, they eventually spread to every continent except Antarctica and Australia.
The newly discovered bones in Seymour have been wrapped and kept in water to try to prevent further deterioration, Tony Nehrt said.
Now, the Nehrt and Schepman families are wondering what else may turn up on the Seymour farm.
"When you wake up in the morning," Sue Nehrt said, "you never know what news you're going to get."
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e40b40a4d6067e8510389072f4e5b6f2 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/19/ancestry-com-sorry-pulls-slavery-ad-following-twitter-backlash/3518433002/ | Ancestry.com ad ‘romanticizing’ slavery removed, company apologizes | Ancestry.com ad ‘romanticizing’ slavery removed, company apologizes
Ancestry.com has apologized for an ad critics claim romanticizes the history of slavery.
The ad, which has since been pulled from YouTube by the genealogy testing service, shows a black woman and white man meeting during what appears to be the 1800s.
"Abigail, we can escape to the North," said the man to the woman. "There is a place we can be together, across the border. Will you leave with me?"
The ad then features the tagline "without you, the story stops here."
CNN reports the ad first appeared on YouTube April 2, but didn't catch the attention of social media until Thursday.
Critics blasted the commercial for how it attempts to depict slavery. "Why do white people insist on romanticizing my Black female ancestors experiences with white men during slavery?," said Bishop Talbert Swan in a post on Twitter. "They were raped, abused, treated like animals, beaten, and murdered by white men. Stop with the revisions."
Clint Smith, an author, teacher and doctoral candidate at Harvard University, called the ad an "irresponsible, ahistorical depiction of the relationship between white men & black women during the period of chattel slavery."
In a statement, Ancestry.com said the ad has been removed from YouTube and is in the process of pulling it from television.
"Ancestry is committed to telling important stories from history. This ad was intended to represent one of those stories," said the company in a statement. "We very much appreciate the feedback we have received and apologize for any offense that the ad may have caused."
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
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afb44546291015571afb297719fafda9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/19/jacqueline-ades-accused-sending-man-159-k-messages-speaks-jail/3526847002/ | Woman accused of harassing man with 159,000 texts: 'I can't believe that I'm actually in jail over some text messages' | Woman accused of harassing man with 159,000 texts: 'I can't believe that I'm actually in jail over some text messages'
PHOENIX – A woman accused of sending a man more than 159,000 text messages and breaking into his Arizona home wants her case to go to trial, believing a jury will find her innocent while also ordering her and the man she's accused of stalking to wed.
Those were among the comments made by Jacqueline Ades in a recent phone interview with The Arizona Republicfrom Maricopa County's Estrella Jail, where she has been held since May 2018.
Ades' case has garnered national attention after authorities said she continued to stalk a Paradise Valley man after a single date, broke into his home and sent thousands of text messages to him over the course of 10 months, including some in which she threatened to wear his flesh and devour his organs, according to Maricopa County Court records.
Ades was incredulous that her actions warranted incarceration.
"I just think it's ridiculous," Ades said. "I can't believe that it turned into this. I can't believe that I'm actually in jail over some text messages."
More:One date, 159K texts: Woman threatened to 'make sushi' out of online date's kidneys, police say
She maintained that her threats against the man's life were jokes that she would never act on. She said the man responded to her texts for three months but stopped after she sent the threats. Ades said she threatened the man after a fight with her mother and took out her anger on him.
"I said, 'If I had a perverted imagination, what would I think?' " Ades said. "And then I wrote all these weird things. Just, like, I was literally playing with my imagination and it turned out that that scared him."
Her attorney, Matthew Leathers, requested a hearing in January to evaluate her mental competency to ensure she understood the charges and the proceedings against her and to assist in her own defense.
Ades was deemed mentally incompetent at a hearing in March.
Leathers told The Republic that two of the three mental-health professionals who met with Ades found her mentally incompetent to stand trial, but restorable. One diagnosed her as being mentally competent.
He said the trial was ordered delayed by at least 60 days earlier this month as psychologists attempt to restore her to competency.
"The idea is to get her restored to competency so she's able to assist in her own defense," Leathers said.
Ades rejects time-served deal
Ades, who is being held in a Maricopa County jail without bond for nearly a year, has pleaded not guilty to charges of stalking and criminal trespassing.
Ades could have walked out of jail several months ago by accepting a plea deal that called for her release with time served, Leathers said. The catch is she would have been on probation for 10 years and barred from contacting the man at the center of her obsession.
But Ades told The Republic she refused to take the deal because she didn't believe it was real. She thought it might be the victim's way of testing her resolve, she said.
Ades said she wants to go to trial, where she's positive the jury will not only find her not guilty, but will order her and the man she's accused of stalking to marry her.
"They're going to say, 'You're not guilty and on top of it we, like, demand that you two get married,' " Ades said.
Leathers made the motion for a competency hearing after her decision not to accept the plea deal.
The Republic spoke to Ades as she was being evaluated but before she was found not competent.
She claimed she had been abducted by Walt Disney, whom she believes is a member of the Illuminati and manned a spaceship,
"Does that sound crazy?" Ades asked. "It sounds like I'm crazy. My mom says, 'They're going to put you back in Rule 11 court if you go around telling people.' But this is a true story — I'm not lying."
Ades lamented the jail's living conditions, saying she slept on a thin yoga mat and wasn't allowed to go outside.
Though Ades is certain she will be found not guilty, she said she'd be fine with prison time if the jury felt otherwise.
Ades said she most likely would move back to Florida once she was released and go to school to become a Pilates instructor. She said she wouldn't contact the man again because she believes he would reach out to her on his own.
Stalking became more intense, records say
The victim has not been identified in court records.
According to the documents, Ades met the man on a dating website and began stalking him soon after, flooding him with text messages, sometimes as many as 500 in a single day. The man called police after he found her parked outside his home, records say.
Police, in a statement submitted to court, said she began sending more-threatening messages after that, including death threats.
"Oh what would I do w ur blood! ... Id wanna bathe in it," was an example listed in court documents.
Police later found her taking a bath in the man's home, with a large butcher knife in her car, court documents said.
Ades' next hearing is scheduled for May 21 in Maricopa County Superior Court.
Restoration to mental competency
Amanda Steele, a spokeswoman with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, told The Republic that Ades had been placed into the Restoration to Competency program where an appointed psychologist will oversee the restoration process.
The psychologist will have up to 21 months to restore Ades to competency or deem her not restorable, Steele said.
Ades' case will go back to trial if she's deemed restored. It will be dismissed without prejudice if found not to be restorable. Leathers and the prosecutor can request an additional hearing should one disagree with the psychologist's conclusion.
If Ades is ultimately deemed to be mentally incompetent and unrestorable, Steele said the court could commit her to a mental institution, appoint her a legal guardian or simply dismiss the charges and release her.
Leathers said the psychologist will likely walk his client through the legal process, explaining to her what a prosecutor is and the charges against her – among other things.
Receiving treatment behind bars
Some experts consider this to be a flawed approach.
Joel Dvoskin, a clinical and forensic psychologist who teaches at the University of Arizona, said any belief that most people are deemed incompetent because of ignorance of the legal system is a myth.
"The reason they're incompetent has much more to do with being acutely psychotic than it does with not knowing about courts," Dvoskin said. "And so for those people, the main way they need to be restored to competency is by having their acute psychotic situation resolved."
Though Dvoskin said he wasn't familiar with Ades' case, he noted that problems can arise when those deemed mentally incompetent receive treatment while incarcerated.
"It's expensive to keep people in a psychiatric hospital," Dvoskin said. "So what Arizona did some years ago was that they would keep people in jail while they were being purportedly restored to competency – and there's a lot of problems with that."
Dvoskin questioned the adequacy of mental health services, conditions and safety of inmates suffering from mental illness within jails compared with a dedicated treatment facility.
"All of those things are relevant to what a person's circumstances (are) in a jail and the degree to which it's realistic for them to be restored to competency in a jail."
Follow Perry Vandell on Twitter: @PerryVandell.
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f4617efe3166ccf761582cc6670e93eb | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/22/alleged-leader-militia-group-detained-migrants-court-appearance/3541410002/ | Alleged commander of militia reportedly said group was training to assassinate Clinton, Obama | Alleged commander of militia reportedly said group was training to assassinate Clinton, Obama
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, the alleged "commander" of an armed militia group accused of illegally detaining migrants in New Mexico near the United States-Mexico border, made an initial appearance in federal court in Las Cruces on Monday morning.
Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, who goes by the name of Johnny Horton Jr., is allegedly the leader of a militia based at his home in a trailer park in northern New Mexico.
A federal complaint document stated that the FBI began looking into Hopkin's group at least two years ago and had reports that he had made threats against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and George Soros.
Hopkins was arrested in Sunland Park Saturday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a federal complaint alleging he is a convicted felon in possession of firearms.
The complaint states that a 2017 search of Hopkins' home in Flora Vista, New Mexico, discovered loaded firearms and ammunition.
Hopkins was previously convicted, in Oregon in 2006, of felony possession of a firearm and impersonating a peace officer; and, in Michigan in 1996, of possession of a loaded firearm.
The new charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, three years of probation, and a $250,000 fine as well as possible forfeiture of weapons and ammunition.
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Hopkins was represented at the hearing by a public defender, but stated he had retained counsel. A detention hearing for Hopkins has been scheduled on April 29 in Albuquerque.
"This is a dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families," New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement Saturday. His arrest, Balderas stated, "indicates clearly that the rule of law should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes.”
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The FBI had no comment today on the time gap between the search of the home and the arrest.
"As a matter of policy, DOJ agencies, including the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI, may not discuss investigative matters," said FBI spokesman Frank Fisher via email. "We therefore respectfully decline to respond to your inquiry."
Soros, Clinton, Obama, and Anftifa
The FBI had information that the group supposedly had about 20 members armed with AK-47 rifles and other firearms, the complaint stated.
"Hopkins had also allegedly made the statement that the United Constitutional Patriots were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama because of these individuals support of Antifa," the complaint stated.
Soros, a Jewish liberal billionaire, is the topic of several right-wing conspiracy theories.
In November 2017, a search by FBI agents of Hopkins' home at the Lakeside Ranch Trailer Park uncovered loaded firearms and ammunition.
Agents found 10 firearms in a door-less closet, as well as a shotgun and a handgun in the bedroom and another handgun in the kitchen, the complaint stated.
The document stated that Hopkins told agents that the firearms belonged to his common-law wife, Fay Sanders Murphy.
The document mentions that Hopkins and Murphy invited the agents inside and gave them permission to search the home.
The document alleged that Hopkins is legally barred from possessing firearms due to past convictions
In Oregon 12 years ago, Hopkins was found guilty of the same crime for which he's now being accused.
But Hopkins fled without serving his sentence.
Klamath County, Oregon, court records show an arrest order for Hopkins was issued in January 2007 for after he failed to meet with his parole officer. Hopkins had been given probation the previous year after pleading guilty to two charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and impersonating a peace officer. Police said Hopkins, convicted in 1986 in Michigan of a felony, had shown two firearms and a badge that said “special agent” to a group of juveniles.
After Hopkins appeared for only his initial parole meeting but never returned, his parole officer recommended a 20-month prison sentence. An arrest warrant was issued but last year a judge dropped the case because the parole violation was “too old to effectively prosecute."
United Constitutional Patriots members at the border
The United Constitutional Patriots has deployed armed volunteers to the border in New Mexico, and has posted videos to social media in recent days showing group members ordering families, including young children, to sit on the dirt and wait for Border Patrol agents to take custody of them.
Over its official Twitter account, Border Patrol said it "does not endorse or condone private groups or organizations that take enforcement matters into their own hands. Interference by civilians in law enforcement matters could have public safety and legal consequences for all parties involved."
Near the Anapra neighborhood of Sunland Park, the group operates from a small encampment near the base of Mt. Cristo Rey, a prominent mountain that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.
However, the Sunland Park Police Department and representatives of the railroad that owns the land on which the group was camped told the militia members on Mondaythat they would have to move.
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Contributing: The Associated Press
Follow Algernon D'Ammassa on Twitter @AlgernonActor.
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f8d99b74c0a18e4938c8bc79455530eb | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/22/florida-man-arrested-impersonating-police-officer/3536759002/ | Florida man pretended to be a cop, police say. He was arrested after trying to pull over a real detective | Florida man pretended to be a cop, police say. He was arrested after trying to pull over a real detective
A Florida man was arrested for allegedly impersonating a police officer after he tried to pull over a driver who was a real detective.
According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Matthew Joseph Erris, 26, activated red and blue lights on the grill of his 2007 SUV on April 17 to pull over a vehicle.
Erris didn't know the driver of the car was an undercover detective with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. According to the Tampa Bay Times, the detective didn't pull over, and Erris turned off the red and blue lights and passed the driver.
The detective called 911 and Erris was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy a short time later, the agency said.
After searching his vehicle, the deputy found a realistic-looking airsoft pistol in a holster and law enforcement light bar installed on his SUV, according to the sheriff's office.
The sheriff's office said it's not clear how many times Erris pulled people over. Anyone who believes they were a victim should contact authorities, the sheriff's office said.
Erris told police he installed the lights so he could get through heavy traffic, reports the Tampa Bay Times.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
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842fefaf8f30793aea56d49eead9c236 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/22/heres-what-world-look-like-once-we-solve-climate-change/3400271002/ | Life after solving climate change: Not mud huts and gruel but clean air and warm homes | Life after solving climate change: Not mud huts and gruel but clean air and warm homes
What will life be like after we've solved climate change? Better than today or worse? Mud huts and gruel, or flying cars and the Jetsons?
Comfy homes, good food, whip-smart appliances and robots hopping around on farms all seem pretty likely, experts queried by USA TODAY said. All in all, our living standard will be the same, only a lot greener and more efficient.
That view is in stark contrast to a common complaint by critics who object to making global warming-based changes to the economy, suggesting such changes would destroy America’s standard of living and force everyone to “live in yurts and eat tofu,” as one commenter put it.
More:99.9999% chance humans are causing global warming, and other science-based facts on climate change for Earth Day
“Every single proposed solution will simultaneously improve life and decrease carbon emissions,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor of climate science at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who has provided testimony and scientific expertise on climate change to the White House, the governor of California and U.S. congressional offices.
These predictions presume the shift to carbon-neutral energy, industrial and transportation systems happens in time to slow and eventually reverse the effects of global warming the planet is already beginning to experience: rising oceans, more flooding, worse storms and increase heat waves and droughts.
That means that whatever happens next, experts say, depends entirely on how quickly we act. Many of these technological and policy changes are already underway, but need to be sped up. Today, humans pour 37 gigatons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually. People must shift away from those carbon emissions within the next 20 years to avoid "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society," according to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For Earth Day, let’s presume we've successfully made that shift to a carbon-neutral world and you, your children or your grandchildren are waking up on a crisp fall morning sometime between 2050 and 2100. What’s the day like?
When do you need those dishes?
Houses won’t look all that different, though homes will almost certainly have solar power included if it's appropriate for the area. This will be especially important in hot and sunny parts of the country, to decrease the pressure on power production for cooling during the day. California already has a law requiring that all new homes built after 2020 include solar panels.
Homes will still have heat and cooling, electric lights, lots of electronics and big windows. But the systems and appliances will be much more efficient and much smarter.
This shift is already happening — today's refrigerators are about 20% larger but use one-quarter the electricity compared to those sold 20 years ago. The LED lightbulbs you buy at the grocery store use 20% of the energy the incandescent bulbs of a decade ago did, said Jay Apt, a physicist and professor who directs the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
When occupants get out of bed, the house will likely be a comfortable temperature. Properties will probably still have a furnace or an electric heat pump. But they won’t be used as much because homes will be much better insulated, with windows that keep heat and cold in and out.
The systems used to heat buildings will likely look different than the ones we know today. One example already being used in some U.S. buildings involves pre-heating or chilling water when power is cheap, and then using it during the day when power is more expensive.
“It’s like radiators. In the ceiling of each floor you have a cold-water air heat exchanger, the cold water sits in a series of pipes, the air blows across it and becomes quite cold and it blows in to cool the room,” said Apt.
After getting out of bed, the next step might be to check the dishwasher to get out a cup for coffee. The dishwasher, along with most appliances, will likely be tied to a smart system in your house that knows the power cost at different times of the day. If the local power company gets significant power from wind turbines, the cheapest power may be at night. If it’s from solar, it might be cheapest during the day.
“Your dishwasher may very well communicate with the electric power grid and say ‘OK, Mr. Smith has decided that he only wants to run his dishwasher only when the price of power is less than 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, so your dishwasher may decide to run at 2:00 in the morning,” says Apt.
Or you might set an override to tell the appliance that whatever the price, the dishes have to be done by 6 p.m., in time for dinner.
Another infrastructure change will likely be the more common use of geothermal heat pumps. These take advantage of the fact that the ground beneath our feet tends to stay about 50 degrees Fahrenheit in summer or winter.
That means if you run pipes down 6 to 8 feet below a house or apartment building, you can cool or heat a liquid in those pipes to around 50 degrees. That liquid can then be piped up to the building and used to bring the temperature inside to 50 degrees.
If it's a cold winter day and it's 20 degrees outside, the house is already up to 50 degrees and you only need to heat it another 15 degrees to be comfortable. If it's a hot summer day of 90 degrees, you cool the temperature down with no energy needed, said Apt.
Here a turbine, there a turbine
Coal, oil and many natural gas-fired power plants will have long ago closed. Instead, the nation will likely be powered by a mix of nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric and some natural gas.
The power grid will have been rebuilt to accommodate more periodic power inputs, with the positive effect of also allowing it to be protected against physical and cyber attacks.
Driving across America, the sight of large solar arrays or wind turbines will be common, much as seeing oil rigs is an everyday sight in much of the United States now. You might also run across tall arrays that pull carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into fuel and the raw material for industrial uses.
Fun cars, fast charging
The car of the future will be electric. That’s because electricity is easy to generate from carbon-neutral sources such as wind, solar and nuclear. It’s a shift that’s already underway. In Norway, 58% of all cars sold in March were electric, according to Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council.
That’s a far cry from the fewer than 1% of cars in the United States that are electric today, but most experts presume the shift will happen relatively quickly. It also won’t be wrenching, said Chris Field, director of Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment.
“The electric car I have right now is the best car I’ve ever had. It’s a Chevy Bolt. It’s very practical, well thought out and fun to drive. It’s a really great car,” he said.
Those future cars will have a range between charges that will likely be much more than today’s 225 miles. Many estimates put it at 400 miles by 2028. There will likely be fast charging outlets nationwide, just as there are gas stations today. Already, new homes in Atlanta must be built to accommodate electric vehicles.
Walk to the gym
More and more people will live in cities, which produce dramatically fewer greenhouse gasses per person than suburbs. But the cities will be designed with the kind of human-friendly density that already is being incorporated into city planning across the globe.
They’ll have mostly apartment buildings and townhouses that are walkable and with bike paths built in. Excellent mass transit will be available on electric buses and vans. Businesses and office buildings will be interspersed rather than plunked down miles out of town in office parks and malls.
That shift away from far-flung suburbs is already apparent in today’s generation. “Young people want to be able to walk to the grocery store and the office and the gym,” said Fields.
Others will choose space to spread out or cheaper land and housing, preferences made more sustainable due to the increasing ability to work from home or commute by electric vehicles.
Telecommuting for fun and profit
Work will be more integrated with living areas. But wherever it is, the office will have been built to very high standards to reduce waste, save water and conserve energy. Already more than 33,000 buildings in the United States have gotten LEED certification, marking them as highly efficient.
Not that everyone will still go to an office every day. Telecommuting all or part of the time will become more common as the tools for doing so — fast Internet and good video connections — become cheaper, better and easier to use. More people will also work from communal workspaces near where they live.
Big U.S. companies are already beginning to do this. Amazon, Apple and Google have dozens of offices across the nation where people can work, so they don’t all need to move to Silicon Valley in California or to Seattle. Many young people are already used to working from shared office spaces such as WeWork and ImpactHub.
NYC to Chicago in 5 hours
For travel within the United States, a network of high-speed electric trains will likely crisscross the country, making rapid travel easily accessible. San Francisco and Los Angeles are three hours apart by rail, Chicago to New York five hours.
We’ll still fly places, but it will likely be more expensive than some of today’s rock-bottom prices. Jet fuel has to be very energy dense, so electric planes are out of the question. Instead, they’ll use fuel produced from carbon dioxide pulled out of the air or industrial waste gases, or from aviation biofuel made from organic waste from trash or leftover biomatter from agricultural fields.
Both are already being used. In 2018, Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 747 from Orlando to London using fuel made in part from captured greenhouse gas emissions.
Is that a robot in that field?
What’s old will be new again in many ways when it comes to food and farming, experts say. The nation's food supply is likely to be fresher and more wholesome as growers and sellers become better at managing logistics to minimize travel time and loss.
We’ll eat more seasonably than we do now because we’ll be paying more for energy and farmers will be thinking harder about water and energy usage.
“We’ve gotten into this mode that we expect to see blueberries and oranges every week of the year. As energy costs go higher and water becomes even in more short supply in the future, not every type of food will be available at every moment,” said Robert Myers, a professor of agriculture at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and an expert on climate change and sustainable agriculture.
Not that kiwis won’t be available from New Zealand, or tomatoes in December, but they’ll be more expensive.
Amanda Little, author of the forthcoming book “The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World,” said mankind will likely be eating the same kinds of food we eat today, but it will be produced differently and much more efficiently.
That's especially true of meat, which she predicts will be either plant-based faux meat or tissue grown in vats that is identical to meat on a cellular level.
“It’s very inefficient to raise an entire animal just to eat the edible parts of it,” she said.
Meat from animals will still be available, what we’ll call “craft” or “specialty” meat, but a far bigger portion of the meat industry will come from either plant- or cell-based meats.
Little says cell-based meat is closer than we realize. She had some vat-grown duck just last week.
“It was chewy and greasy but it tasted very meaty. For a very early stage lab meat product, it was very convincing.
Farms will likely look the same driving by, but a closer look will show differences. Older practices, like planting clover and other cover crops during the winter, will be more common to improve soil health, making it more able to withstand floods or drought and decrease the amount of fertilizer needed. Complex crop rotations, aided by computers, will make farming more efficient and cheaper because they will require less fertilizer and pesticides.
Those fields will likely also incorporate wind turbines or solar panels to give growers additional income. That’s already happening today. Many farms in the Midwest are getting rents of $3,000 to $5,000 per year to put turbines on their land, Apt says.
Fields also might have drones buzzing over them or small robots running down the rows, stopping to test the soil for moisture, nutrients and image the crops for weed or insect infestations. That information will be automatically fed to the farmer, who can use it to precisely water and care for each small land unit as required, rather than needlessly wasting expensive water and chemicals.
Ranchers and dairy farmers can use similar technology to move their cows and cattle from one paddock to another on an almost daily basis, mimicking what a buffalo herd would have done. Called intensive management grazing, it results in healthier land and better forage for the animals, ultimately bringing costs down.
Energy for everyone
The world’s air and water will be cleaner as we stop using polluting energy sources. The planet's resources will also become more equitable, as carbon-neutral energy sources become cheaper and more efficient, making them available to people in parts of the world where energy is currently expensive and difficult to obtain.
And it’s all doable, no breakthroughs required, said Stanford's Diffenbaugh. “The knowledge necessary for getting on that path is available,” he said.
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4b11544b6e94234e165e9c87465831bf | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/22/human-composting-washington-legalize-green-burial/3544844002/ | Washington poised to become first state to allow eco-friendly 'human composting' | Washington poised to become first state to allow eco-friendly 'human composting'
Washington is expected to become the first state to legalize an environmentally-friendly burial alternative that turns bodies into soil within weeks.
A bill allowing “natural organic reduction," sometimes called "human composting," has passed the legislature and is headed to Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee's desk.
Inslee, who has staked his 2020 presidential campaign on climate change, is reviewing the bill. A spokeswoman for his office said the accelerated decomposition process "seems like a thoughtful effort to soften our footprint” on the planet.
Compared to burial, the bill's sponsor, Democratic Sen. Jamie Pedersen of Seattle, said the natural organic reduction process takes up less space. It could also reduce carbon emissions emitted by cremation.
Human composting creates an average of one cubic yard of soil per body, or enough to fill about two large wheelbarrows. If the bill passes, relatives could keep the soil in urns, plant a tree with it on private property or spread it on public lands. The laws applying to scattered cremated remains would also hold true for soil, Pedersen said.
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“It is sort of astonishing that you have this completely universal human experience — we’re all going to die — and here’s an area where technology has done nothing for us. We have the two means of disposing of human bodies that we’ve had for thousands of years, burying and burning,” Pedersen said. “It just seems like an area that is ripe for having technology help give us some better options than we have used.”
He got the idea from a constituent, who modeled the process on a method farmers use to dispose of livestock.
After studying the process for her master's thesis, Katrina Spade ran a pilot project decomposing six human bodies last year at Washington State University. Converting the bodies to soil took between four and seven weeks, Spade said.
Her company, Recompose, plans to provide “natural organic reduction” services "to all who want them,” but has not yet listed a price. The company previously told NBC News it aimed to charge $5,500 per body. A traditional burial with a funeral viewing had a price tag of about $7,360 in 2017, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.
Washington state’s cremation rate is the highest in the nation, according to the Cremation Association of North America. More than 78 percent of those who died in the state in 2017 were cremated.
Rob Goff, executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association, said his group has been getting questions about the new process, and Spade has spoken at meetings.
“To be able to provide more options for people’s choices is a very exciting thing,” he said.
Instead of replacing cremation or burial, Spade said she wants to offer a meaningful and sustainable alternative.
“Our goal is to provide something that is as aligned with the natural cycle as possible, but still realistic in being able to serve a good number of families and not take up as much land as burial will,” she said.
The bill, which would take effect in May 2020, if signed, would also legalize alkaline hydrolysis. Already used in 19 states, the process turns bodies into liquid and bone in a pressurized machine with water, chemicals and heat.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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47ae47d926e525e48716b0cf8bcb6764 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/23/cesar-sayoc-trump-campaign-rally-new-found-drug/3555525002/ | Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc describes Trump rally as 'new found drug' | Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc describes Trump rally as 'new found drug'
The Florida man who mailed pipe bombs to critics of President Donald Trump said in a letter to a federal judge that attending a Trump rally "became like a new found drug," according to documents released Tuesday.
Cesar Sayoc, 57, who pleaded guilty to explosives charges last month, claimed in a series of letters that he has abused steroids for over 40 years. The letters were posted in his court case file.
His lawyers say they will cite Sayoc's extensive steroid use at his August sentencing and have asked the court not to conduct a psychological exam.
In the handwritten letters filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Sayoc told U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff that "politics is dirty, ruthless, deadly." He wrote, "I wished it had never come along into my life."
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He faces a mandatory 10-year prison term and up to life at his sentencing, scheduled for Aug. 5.
Sayoc, who described a Make America Great Again rally as fun, also wrote he "was on the front lines of war between right & left" at a rally in Chicago. He is linked to Twitter accounts vilifying Democrats, including liberal donor George Soros, to whom he mailed one of the bombs. Sayoc also drove a van covered in pro-Trump and anti-Democrat stickers.
He previously said he never intended to hurt anyone when he mailed 16 pipe bombs to CNN and top Democrats, including former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and ex-President Barack Obama. Investigators found and disabled the devices, resulting in no injuries.
In a letter filed earlier this month, Sayoc wrote "extreme emotional circumstances" in court influenced his answer when a judge asked if he knew the explosive devices would cause harm.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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d603f96e733da2e31f48b6c2eb3d2ce1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/23/climate-change-global-warming-grandparents-trying-save-earth/2589375002/?fbclid=IwAR3fyEDWrIclJbvhesEKYKyCvMUg-3IoKnm_bT0d31Gkom7OQhpk0gTWnb4 | These grandparents are dropping everything to fight climate change | These grandparents are dropping everything to fight climate change
For Charlene Lange, the breaking point came on her bucket-list trip to see the Northern Lights in Canada’s far north. Her tour came by plane because melting tundra caused local train tracks to sink. Now, she lobbies governors to fight climate change.
Gary Krellenstein was an investment banker who helped finance new power plants. Part of his job was examining the data on global warming so he could argue it wasn’t real. Until he found he no longer could. He spends his time today barraging his state senators with letters advocating for clean energy sources.
Susan Dobra dealt with the consequences up close and personal – literally running down a road as a massive wildfire, partly blamed on climate change, consumed her car, her home and her entire town of Paradise, California, in November. This month, she spoke before the City Council of the town she’s taken refuge in to urge it to pass a climate emergency declaration.
You might call them senior climate commandos. Each is over 60 – some well over – an age not generally thought of as being consumed by activism. And yet they, and a growing number of other older Americans, say climate change has created an all-hands-on-deck moment for humanity, a call they are compelled to answer.
Scientists said in February there’s a 99.9999% chance humans are the cause of global warming. Just seven months ago, a United Nations report said mankind must reduce fossil fuel use and dramatically increase carbon-neutral energy sources to cap the temperature rise caused by the release of greenhouse gasses at 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).
That shift must be well underway within the next 20 years if we’re to significantly reduce floods and droughts, extreme heat, tropical cyclones and sea level rise. It’s that urgent timeline that has galvanized these elders into quitting their jobs, coming out of retirement or devoting all their spare time to mobilizing.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that climate change is going to ruin the planet for my nieces and nephews,” said Mike Shatzkin, a New York publishing industry veteran who’s wound down his business to rally presidential candidates to back the reduction of carbon emissions. “I’m 71 and I expect to see the beginnings of the climate apocalypse before I’m gone.”
A denier turned climate change activist
For Lange, speaking up after her outlook changed on that 2018 trip goes against a lifetime of habit.
“I’ve never fought publicly against or for anything before. I just kept my head down. But I’m not sitting by anymore, I’m not watching us go downhill without doing something,” she said.
The 66-year-old Iowa City, Iowa, native had “pretty much ignored” the issue of climate change, she said. But once she got home she started reading, beginning with old National Geographic magazines.
“Basically, I was a denier,” Lange said. “I was amazed at how my head has been in the sand. This stuff has been going on for 20, 30 years,” she said.
What she learned horrified her, but she said she was also “sometimes pleasantly surprised” to find all the work being done around the world to deal with the problem.
She decided that she needed to be part of that effort, a huge leap for a woman who’d grown up in a conservative family in a conservative area.
“My neighbors and my family all think I’m sort of weird and nuts for what I’m doing,” she said.
She started writing letters to the editor of National Geographic. The first one took a month. “It was an apology letter to the editor. I was apologizing for my ignorance,” she said.
Last year, Lange got involved with a group called 100 Grannies in Iowa City that works on climate issues. She’s lobbied her state Legislature and been on conference calls with governors urging them to fight greenhouse gas-producing energy sources.
“It’s called bird-dogging, where you keep asking them where they stand,” she said.
Recently, women from 100 Grannies held a sewing circle where they took fabric destined for landfill and made reusable bags out of it. They then spent a day on the University of Iowa campus handing out their bags to anyone who turned in a plastic bag.
Lange said she still finds her new role as an activist “really scary” sometimes, but she does it because “it’s been good for me to realize you can change, even in old age!”
America out in front
A common thread among these elders, most of whom grew up in an era when the United States was the world’s economic and political leader, is that this is an arena where their nation needs to again be out in front.
Lange says she believes in America first. “We were first on the moon. We can be first fixing the climate," she said. "I’m not going to watch us go downhill without doing anything.”
For Krellenstein, 62, this is “a lynchpin time where we need the United States to lead the world in. We need something the equivalent of the moon shot or the Manhattan Project.”
An engineer turned financial analyst and investment banker, he never thought the data for climate change was sufficiently convincing. Until finally it became undeniable.
“I don’t think we in this generation have faced a threat of this magnitude before,” he said.
He quickly found that utility executives he worked with didn’t want to hear about it.
“It was a career-ending move for me to begin to advise against our clients who wanted to build fossil fuel power projects. It was very difficult for me to take a firm stance,” he said.
But he felt he couldn’t do anything else. He’d looked at the computer models and they convinced him that without serious change the world is headed toward a fundamental change in the environment.
“What we’re seeing right now, these hurricanes and fires and floods, it’s nothing compared to what’s coming. People don’t realize that. Miami might be gone in 15 years,” he said.
He’s been working full time on climate change for the past two years. He fighting to keep New York state’s Indian Point nuclear power plant open until it can be replaced with a carbon-neutral renewable alternative.
“Right now, it's going to be replaced 100% by natural gas plants,” he said.
While natural gas power plants emit about 50% less carbon dioxide than coal plants, nuclear power puts no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He believes the real and immediate risks from climate change far outweigh the potential risks from nuclear, a point he’s made in presentations at colleges and now to elected officials.
“I worked for decades with governors and municipal officials, but I’ve never lobbied anyone before,” he said.
Late-blooming climate activists
Leslie Wharton calls herself a “late-blooming” activist. Now 67, she still works full time as a lawyer, a career that’s kept her so busy she simply hadn’t paid much attention to the issue of climate change.
She was never much for protesting, even though she was in college during the Vietnam War.
“I didn’t go out and march. I was too deep in my studies,” she said. She ended up getting a Ph.D. in American history, then going to law school.
A six-month sabbatical gave her time to catch up on her reading. What she learned about climate change worried her as someone who had studied the rise and fall of Babylonia, Assyria and ancient Rome and Greece.
“We live in a world we think is forever. Because I had been a historian, I realized that there’s nothing guaranteed,” she said.
She lives in Montgomery County, Maryland and in 2015 she got involved with Elders Climate Action, a national group of grandparents and concerned elders who work to fight climate change. “I stepped out of my comfort zone and went to a gathering in D.C.,” she said.
It’s not something she’s really comfortable with as a “totally introverted non-activist,” but she feels she must. There’s no time to lose, she said.
“If we play our cards right, we could actually come through or we could lose it all. A lot turns on what happens in the next year, five years, 10 years. We can’t wait 10 years to start moving.”
Last month, she did a presentation on climate change at a nearby retirement community. She’s also worked with some elders in a supported living community on the nuts and bolts of political organizing.
“They have been busy protesting fracking gas pipeline construction for the past year!” she said.
Climate pragmatists
Many senior climate commandos say they are probably a little more pragmatic compared with younger generations about what it takes to bring about change.
“People who have worked for 30 years realize that rather than tearing down the existing system we’ve got to work within it,” said Krellenstein.
As a former businessman, he sees real opportunities for companies that are smart enough to begin shifting their focus now. America’s undertaken enormous, important projects before and they paid off for the nation and its people, he said. He sees shifting to carbon-neutral energy as having the same positive effects.
“We did it in during World War II, and during the Eisenhower years, we built the interstate highways. This is going to have to be on the scale of the moon shot,” he said.
Older people tend to approach activism differently than younger people, said Luis Hestres, a professor of communication at the University of Texas at San Antonio who’s studying the climate change movement in the United States.
“Instead of marching or getting arrested, they’re about establishing relationships,” he said.
They tend to be more inclined to have actual face-to-face meetings, rather than doing everything online, for example. Even when they are online, it tends to be in areas such as private Facebook groups.
“They’re not on some of the more attention-getting platforms like Instagram,” he said.
Their experience of the world helps. Though sometimes it’s simply sharing what happened six months ago, as in the case of Dobra, 64.
“I know exactly what it’s like to run for your life from a climate disaster,” she said.
Dobra is an English professor at Chico State University in Chico, California, and lived in Paradise, about 20 minutes east of Chico, for 15 years. She’d known climate change was happening and had even taught courses on it. But her perspective changed on Nov. 8.
“Now it’s here, it’s at our backdoor. It burned down our town. It killed 85 people,” she said.
She estimates that about half the conditions that caused the Camp Fire, the nation’s deadliest in a century, were brought about by climate change, including drought and a massive infestation of invasive bark beetles that take advantage of climate-stressed trees, killing them and adding to combustible material in the nation’s forests.
Losing her town and everything she owned impelled her to act. “I realized it had to mean something, it had to have some purpose in my life,” she said.
After the fire, she became one of an estimated 20,000 fire refugees who moved to Chico. She began volunteering with a group to get the city to pass a declaration of climate emergency with the goal of being fossil fuel free by 2030. She passed out fliers and spoke at meetings.
She spoke at the meeting the final vote took place, on April 2, during what she described as “apocalyptic” weather. The city was lashed with a violent rainstorm at times so loud, speakers at the podium couldn’t be heard. There were tornado warnings and then phone alarms started going off as the county declared a flash flood warning, she said.
A break was declared. “We looked outside to see the streets of Chico completely flooded,” said Dobra. While the storm wasn't linked to climate change, it gave the evening an almost surreal feeling.
When the vote was finally taken, the measure passed 5 to 1. “The mayor voted for it because ‘I have kids.' That's all he had to say,” said Dobra.
Having lived through the fire and now floods, the urgency is so clear to Dobra that it is sometimes surprising others don’t get it.
“Why aren’t we all stopping everything and dealing with this now?” she wonders. “What we’re doing in Chico needs to happen in every little town and ever neighborhood and every state.”
Conservatives, too
Not every senior activist is liberal. William Chapman, 59, is a proud conservative. He’s also a computer scientist who worked for years on Wall Street.
In 2016, he put together a presentation for an event at The Skeptics Society, a national scientific club based in Altadena, California. “I researched both sides of the climate debate and did a talk on it,” he said.
At the time, Washington State had a carbon tax initiative on the ballot, which made a lot of sense to him. But environmental groups such as the Sierra Club refused to support it because they didn’t feel it was progressive enough. That was when he decided to get involved.
“The environmental left is insane and is currently completely unable to fulfill their role in saving the planet,” he said.
He’s since devoted himself to debunking climate change myths. One project he’s taken on is a scientific analysis of a movie called "Climate Hustle," which rejects the existence and cause of climate change
“My degree is in engineering, so I evaluated the science on its merits. I show the movie and serve pizza, and I stop it every few minutes and say what’s wrong with the science,” he said.
He also posted a 2,500-word review of the movie on Amazon, where the film is available for streaming.
He’s not optimistic about the future but hopes to make it less horrible.
“Probably by 2100 it will be really bad. There will probably be mass refugee situation and wars, so it will really suck. The more we do now, the less it will suck,” he said.
Convincing business leaders
Getting the business world onboard is the tack Philip Kahn, 65, is taking. He got a Ph.D. in meteorology but ended up taking over the family textile business. He didn’t really do anything about climate change until 2013 when he read a book by climate scientist Jim Hansen called “Storms of My Grandchildren” and decided he had to get involved.
His goal is to keep climate activism "reality-based." As someone who worked for 20 years in his family’s company, he understands the constraints businesses operate under.
“You have people who have very doctrinaire views on the environment who are totally disconnected from what makes a society work,” he said.
He’s more moderate, and, he likes to think, more realistic.
“We need to have a sustainable energy system but I also believe the market is a powerful way to organize that, compared to having the government run it,” he said. “The challenge of government is to regulate the economy so you don’t kill the golden goose.”
It’s also about crossing the political divide to make everyone realize this isn’t a partisan issue, he says.
“I have a lot of family who are in South Florida and they’re Republicans. I keep telling them not to have their children buy homes in South Florida, the banks are selling 30-year mortgages for that area but it’s all going to be underwater,” he said.
He’s now the co-chair of the New York City chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby and is constantly working to get more people across the political spectrum involved.
“I talk to the policeman on the corner all the way up to Congresspeople. I believe in engaging on all the levels,” he said.
Older, but not checked out
The age of these new-born activists doesn’t surprise Dana Fisher, a sociology professor who directs the program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.
“In my work, I’ve found that the people who are most activist tend to have a median age of 40,” she said. At the People’s Climate March in 2017, the average age was 42.
Older people are slightly less likely to say climate change is personally important to them than younger people, but only slightly.
While 57% of people between 18 and 29 say climate change is personally important to them, 46% of older Americans say the same thing, according to a survey from November by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
In New York City, Shatzkin says while he’s long been aware of climate change, two years ago he became so concerned about new scientific information coming out about the catastrophic effects of inaction that he decided he should focus all this time on the issue. He says he’s had a great life so far and realized, “maybe I can’t fix this, but I really ought to try.”
He began to wind down his publishing business in New York City starting in 2016 and got to work. “I haven’t been active in politics for 40 years. But I joined my local Democratic club,” he said.
His biggest win so far has been convincing the Four Freedoms Democratic Club in Manhattan to pass a resolution calling for Democrats to support a Republican proposal to tax carbon emissions and rebate all the money in equal shares to everybody in the country.
He’s also systematically seeing every presidential candidate as they come through New York City to talk to them about the need for a carbon tax.
“They all come through here raising money and for $250 you can walk right up to them and tell them what you think!” he said.
He is very aware of the pressure of time and worried about the consequences of sea level rise and increasing weather variability if humans don’t start lowering greenhouse gas emissions drastically.
“I worry that government and society will break down. We’re not built to withstand the changes we face,” he said.
But he sees a bright side too: more people of his age getting involved every year.
“There are lots of us,” he said. “We care about our planet.”
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af891528215278c49ebed4ffeec0b44e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/24/james-byrd-jr-killer-execution-john-william-king/3567572002/ | Texas executes white supremacist convicted in gruesome 1998 hate crime | Texas executes white supremacist convicted in gruesome 1998 hate crime
A killer in one of the most gruesome hate crimes in modern U.S. history was executed Wednesday by lethal injection in Texas.
John William King, 44, was pronounced dead shortly after 7 p.m. local time in a Hunstville prison after murdering James Byrd, Jr., two decades ago in Jasper, Texas.
King and two other white men were convicted of murdering Byrd in the early morning hours of June 7, 1998. They beat Byrd, 49, chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him for three miles down a logging road in Japser County, tearing his body apart.
Prosecutors said Byrd was targeted because he was black. King, a white supremacist who orchestrated the attack, is the second man to be executed in the case. Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in 2011 while Shawn Allen Berry was sentenced to life in prison.
Report:Hate group count hits 20-year high amid rise in white supremacy
Explainer:Hate crimes are up in America's 10 largest cities
The Supreme Court refused a last-day appeal from King shortly before his execution. Prison officials said he was stoic as he awaited the lethal injection, which two of Byrd's sisters and a niece witnessed.
One of Byrd's sisters, Clara Byrd Taylor, said the execution was a necessary step in the saga of her brother's murder.
“It’s a very, very sad time,” Taylor, 71, said before the execution. “You don’t feel any satisfaction in observing this but it is absolutely necessary to send a message: Hate crimes – especially this type of savagery – will not be tolerated in our society.”
The murder rocked the city of Japser, a city of 7,600 people about 140 miles northeast of Houston, and drew international and national attention.
Texas and federal hate crime legislation are named in memory of Byrd. The family also created the Byrd Foundation for Racial Healing, which still raises money for diversity training and scholarships today.
The execution may not bring closure for the city's community, said Mia Moody-Ramirez, a Baylor University professor and researcher who has studied the impact of Byrd's murder on Jasper.
"They might say, 'OK, this person has been executed, we could move on,'" she said before the execution. "But people won’t ever forget."
Contributing: Rick Jervis, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
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29c649e38fe5eb4d0cd60e5b528963ee | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/24/maureen-walsh-nurses-send-playing-cards-washington-lawmaker/3570360002/ | Poker, anyone? Washington state lawmaker who belittled nurses gets 1,700 decks of playing cards in mail | Poker, anyone? Washington state lawmaker who belittled nurses gets 1,700 decks of playing cards in mail
A Washington state lawmaker has received about 1,700 decks of playing cards in the mail as of Wednesday after commenting that nurses in rural hospitals "probably play cards" for much of their day.
Republican Sen. Maureen Walsh said she plans to donate the cards to nursing homes and veterans' centers.
“I like poker as much as anyone, but I think I’m pretty well stocked up right now,” Walsh said in a statement released Wednesday.
Although Walsh has apologized for her comments during a debate on a bill requiring uninterrupted rest and meal breaks for nurses, she said the remarks were taken out of context by supporters of the bill.
“Frankly, I am very embarrassed by the comments, but I am more embarrassed by the fact that this whole issue has been sort of gamed politically, and I am really sorry for that,” she said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
The state House and Senate on Wednesday passed a final version of the bill without an amendment supported by Walsh. The bill would apply to all hospitals in Washington, including hospitals with less than 25 beds that Walsh wanted to exempt from the mandatory uninterrupted breaks.
Her office has received more than 35,000 phone calls and 10,000 emails since social media posts of her comments circulated last week, according to a statement.
About 760,000 people signed a petition calling on the Walla Walla County lawmaker to shadow a nurse, and Walsh has agreed.
Apology:After backlash, lawmaker agrees to shadow a nurse for 12 hours
Petitions:Washington state lawmaker angers nurses after saying some 'probably play cards' in rural areas
Walsh said she opposed the bill because she believes hospital staff and administrators should determine their break rules internally.
“Our critical access hospitals serve an important role in smaller communities across the state," she said in a statement released Wednesday. "Many already are operating in the red, and this could put them under.”
The bill now heads to the governor's desk.
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f4c77f0a73f55ca7aa81ddceb8c37c06 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/24/measles-cases-hit-record-21st-century-because-anti-vaxxers/3567137002/ | CDC: Measles cases surge past yearly record for 21st century | CDC: Measles cases surge past yearly record for 21st century
The number of reported cases of measles in the USA has surpassed previous annual totals this century – less than four months into 2019.
Another rash of measles cases, mostly concentrated in New York City, raised this year’s figure to 695, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
The previous highest total since 2000, when measles was declared eliminated in the USA, was 667 in 2014. At no other point in this century had the amount climbed above 400.
Health officials warn that the longer the outbreaks continue, the greater the chance that measles will again become entrenched in the USA.
New York health officials said Wednesday that 61 cases were confirmed since last week, pushing the national figure closer to the 700 mark and making this the worst year for measles since 1994, when there were 963 instances.
The disease, which typically kills one or two per 1,000 cases and can cause long-term damage, has made a comeback largely because of pockets of unvaccinated communities. Some parents reject immunizations because of erroneous information, often distributed through social media.
Wary:Why Big Pharma distrust is fueling the anti-vaxxer movement and playing a role in the measles outbreak
More:Anti-vaxxers open door for measles, mumps, other old-time diseases back from near extinction
“Probably the No. 1 factor we have to fight is misinformation, this concept some people have that vaccines are dangerous," said Judd Hultquist, assistant professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Public health practitioners regard the measles vaccine, administered along with immunization for mumps and rubella, as safe and highly effective. It provides 93% protection after a first dose, recommended at 12-15 months of age, and 97% protection after a second shot at ages 4-6.
About three-quarters of this year’s illnesses in the USA have been in New York state, mainly in two ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and suburban Rockland County, which declared a state of emergency and barred unvaccinated minors from public places in late March. The order was blocked in court.
Ultra-Orthodox rabbis generally have no religious objections to vaccines and urged their followers to get inoculated. But the anti-vaxxer movement has made inroads among the ultra-Orthodox, even though they have little exposure to the internet.
The CDC said measles cases have been reported in 22 states this year, including outbreaks – defined as three or more instances – in six states.
Measles is highly contagious and can spread through coughing and sneezing. Someone who is not immune can become infected after coming in contact with a contaminated surface or airspace, where the virus can last for up to two hours.
Symptoms of the disease, which has no cure, may take a week or two to appear and include a high fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes, followed by a rash that starts in the face and spreads to other parts of the body. In some cases, the illness can lead to pneumonia and dehydration.
Unvaccinated children in impoverished countries are most vulnerable to the harshest effects of measles, which killed 110,000 people as recently as 2017 – most of them under 5 years old – according to the World Health Organization.
Adults are susceptible, too. Last week, an Israeli flight attendant fell into a coma after contracting measles and developing encephalitis.
Nate Smith, director of the Arkansas Department of Health, said the increased opposition to vaccines represents a significant public health concern because the diseases they protect against are no longer being mostly imported by the occasional ill traveler.
“We’re seeing actual transmission of cycles of measles here in the U.S. That’s very concerning," Smith said. “The progress we made to basically build a wall of protection with immunization has crumbled."
Contributing: The Associated Press
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1700f8624911040fc673f6ea8a4031c7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/24/militia-leader-larry-mitchell-hopkins-attacked-new-mexico-jail/3569910002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories | Militia group 'commander' Larry Mitchell Hopkins attacked in New Mexico jail | Militia group 'commander' Larry Mitchell Hopkins attacked in New Mexico jail
LAS CRUCES, N.M. – The "commander" of a militia group that patrolled the U.S.-Mexico border was attacked in a New Mexico jail, officials said Wednesday.
Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, who also goes by the name Johnny Horton Jr., leads the United Constitutional Patriots from his home in northern New Mexico.
The FBI arrested Hopkins on Saturday in Sunland Park on a federal charge that he is a convicted felon in possession of guns. He was being held at the Doña Ana County Detention Center in Las Cruces at the time of the attack.
Officials said they're investigating an assault on Hopkins that occurred after 9 p.m. Monday, but they provided few details.
Hopkins had his first court appearance Monday afternoon, and a complaint revealed that the FBI suspected him of making assassination threats against former President Barack Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and billionaire activist George Soros.
"Hopkins was given medical attention for non life-threatening injuries," according to a Doña Ana County news release. "He was transferred out of the Doña Ana County Detention Center under the direction of the U.S. Marshals Service on Tuesday."
Officials have not released the names of the person or people suspected of attacking Hopkins.
On Tuesday, members of his militia group were evicted from their campsite in Sunland Park.
More:FBI arrests member of armed civilian group that detained migrants
More:Armed militia group that detained migrants kicked out of their New Mexico camp
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f08bfc54bdbf2c0b540d6dd41b72422e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/25/aj-freund-missing-illinois-boy-found-dead-parents-charged-murder/3571333002/ | Parents of 5-year-old boy found in shallow grave allegedly beat him after long, cold shower | Parents of 5-year-old boy found in shallow grave allegedly beat him after long, cold shower
The parents of a missing 5-year-old boy have been charged with murder after their son was found buried in a shallow grave in a rural area of Illinois, police say.
The body of Andrew "AJ" Freund, who was reported missing April 18, was found covered in plastic and buried in Woodstock, Illinois, on Wednesday, Crystal Lake police Chief James Black said.
Police interviewed the boy's parents the night before after authorities had gathered evidence from cellphone data, they said. The couple then gave authorities information that led them to the boy's grave a few miles from their home in Crystal Lake, police said.
Parents Andrew "Drew" Freund Sr. and Joann Cunningham were charged with murder and a variety of other counts related to the boy's death and disappearance.
The couple forced their son to stand in a cold shower for an extended period of time and then beat him, according to court documents. An autopsy conducted Thursday determined the boy's cause of death was "craniocerebral trauma as a consequence of multiple blunt force injuries," according to the McHenry County Coroner's Office.
"To AJ, we know you are at peace playing in heaven’s playground and are happy you no longer have to suffer," the Crystal Lake Police Department said in a statement.
Police began looking for the child after the couple reported him missing April 18, saying they hadn't seen the boy since bedtime the night before. But authorities quickly ruled out kidnapping.
“This is not the outcome that we want to talk about … but it is the unfortunate result,” Jeffrey Sallet, who heads the FBI in northern Illinois, told reporters Wednesday.
The boy and his family were previously known to police, who had visited their house multiple times over the years, records released by the department show.
In one instance, police described the house covered in dog feces and urine, and in a child's room the "smell of feces was overwhelming." Another said the house was "cluttered, dirty and in disrepair."
AJ had also been born with opiates in his system in 2013, and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had been in contact with his family ever since.
AJ's brother was removed from the home and placed in DCFS care last week.
DCFS acting director Marc Smith called AJ’s death "heartbreaking."
"The department is committed to conducting a comprehensive review of the entirety of our work with Andrew’s family to understand our shortcomings and to be fully transparent with the public on any steps we are taking to address the issues," Smith said in a statement.
Contributing: The Associated Press.
Follow USA TODAY's Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller.
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113b31f38bb891c288541e2931f7d10e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/25/coast-guard-terror-christopher-hasson-free-trial/3580298002/ | Coast Guard officer accused in terror plot to 'kill almost every last person' may be released pending trial | Coast Guard officer accused in terror plot to 'kill almost every last person' may be released pending trial
A Coast Guard lieutenant accused of being a domestic terrorist can be released before his trial on gun and drug charges, a federal judge said Thursday.
A federal magistrate did not order Christopher Hasson be immediately released from custody, but gave the defense attorney a few days to propose conditions such as home confinement.
Authorities arrested Hasson in February after he allegedly created a hit list of prominent Democrats and network TV journalists and stockpiled weapons.
The self-described white nationalist has not been charged with any terrorism-related offenses, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Day, although Hasson previously drafted an email saying he was “dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth," according to court filings.
Arrest:Coast Guard officer, self-described white nationalist, planned terror attack to 'kill almost every last person,' feds say
Offenses:Coast Guard officer indicted on gun and drug charges; prosecutors say terror was his aim
Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Robert Hur’s office, said prosecutors would oppose any conditions of release for Hasson.
Day said he still has “grave concerns” about Hasson, who prosecutors said used his government computer to research the Virginia Tech gunman and the Unabomber.
Hasson will be supervised before his release, Day said.
Defense attorney Liz Oyer said Hasson has not made direct or specific threats to harm anyone. She said prosecutors are seeking to punish him for "private thoughts."
“They have not come forward with evidence that Mr. Hasson is a domestic terrorist because he is not,” she told Day.
In court filings, prosecutors said Hasson “intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom said prosecutors had presented “clear and convincing evidence” that Hasson threatens public safety.
“The dots were connected directly by the defendant with his own writings,” Windom said.
Day said he may order home confinement with electronic monitoring for Hasson and restrict his access to firearms and computers.
An opioid painkiller called Tramadol, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition and 15 guns were found at Hasson’s basement apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland. Oyer said Hasson has had a lifelong interest in firearms and likes to hunt and target practice.
Hasson pleaded not guilty last month to charges of illegal possession of firearm silencers, possession of firearms by a drug addict and unlawful user, and possession of a controlled substance. He faces a maximum of 31 years in prison if convicted of all four counts in his indictment.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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2b482c2877dc12882131ffb0f299d843 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/25/spacexs-crew-dragon-incident-sent-hazardous-chemicals-into-environment/3581269002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories | SpaceX's Crew Dragon fire sent hazardous chemical compounds into the environment | SpaceX's Crew Dragon fire sent hazardous chemical compounds into the environment
MELBOURNE, Fla. – When a test fire of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule went up in smoke Saturday, the incident at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station puffed up a reddish plume that was seen for miles.
What few likely knew was just how toxic and potentially deadly that distant cloud could have been if winds had shifted onshore.
The special propellants for the capsule – designed to supply engine firings during liftoff anomalies and navigate the craft in space – are far more dangerous than those used for a typical launch. The hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide used Saturday are called hypergolic fluids, meaning they react violently when they come in contact with one another. They have been used in rockets and spacecraft for decades because they can be stored over a long period of time and still be reliable.
But they are dangerous to handle.
To prevent any potential exposures to the public, tests like Saturday's are conducted when prevailing winds point away from population centers.
More:After SpaceX accident, timeline for domestic astronaut launches is murky
More:Smoke seen for miles as SpaceX suffers 'anomaly' at Cape Canaveral
SpaceX, NASA and the U.S. Air Force have remained tight-lipped about the April 20 incident, offering few details about the fire, which lofted reddish nitrogen tetroxide – sometimes referred to as fuming red nitric acid – into the sky as hundreds watched a surfing festival at nearby Cocoa Beach.
There were no injuries. On Thursday, independent safety advisers said that NASA and the company had followed proper test procedures.
“The test site was fully cleared, and all safety protocol was followed,” Patricia Sanders, chair of NASA’s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, said Thursday during a quarterly meeting. “Both NASA and SpaceX immediately executed mishap plans per the agency and the company guidelines.”
Saturday's test failure cast a shadow of uncertainty over Elon Musk's $1 billion project to get humans back into orbit, launching from American soil. The last time that happened was July 2011, when space shuttle Atlantis made its swan-song mission. Since then, NASA has been buying seats on Russian-made Soyuz rockets to get astronauts to the International Space Station.
SpaceX had said a pair of astronaut test pilots were on track to fly a Crew Dragon to the ISS as soon as July, but Saturday's test failure has clouded timelines.
SpaceX confirmed the capsule involved in Saturday's incident was the same one retrieved from a March 8 splashdown off the Florida coast, a wrap-up of its first successful automated flight to the ISS. Teams were preparing it for an in-flight abort test, which would see the capsule rapidly fly away from a failing rocket.
Florida Today photographer Craig Bailey, covering Saturday's surfing festival in Cocoa Beach, captured an image of orange plume rising from SpaceX facilities at the cape at around 3:30 p.m. Teams were testing the capsule's engines at the time, which propel the spacecraft away in the event of an emergency.
Notifying Space Coast authorities
SpaceX is required as part of their permit with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to have a response plan in place in the event of an incident, which the company implemented, DEP officials said.
"The fire department and base personnel responded accordingly," DEP officials said in a prepared statement. "The facility indicated they were able to fully contain the fire and material to the landing pad area and no other building or areas were affected. At this time, SpaceX is still conducting their investigation into the cause of the incident."
The company must submit a report to DEP within 15 days with details about the incident, the state agency said.
"The Department will review that report and conduct a site visit, and then determine the next steps in the investigation and what further assessment or cleanup activities may be necessary," DEP officials said.
SpaceX could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Brevard County Emergency Management works with Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Emergency Management and Kennedy Space Center Emergency Management to respond to launch hazards or concerns, said Don Walker, spokesman for Brevard County.
Emergency Management is activated for every launch and is notified of static fire testing on the Air Force station, Walker said.
"In the case of SpaceX’s anomaly last weekend, there was no public safety threat, both due to wind direction and due to the distance of the incident from public areas," Walker added.
"If space launches, landings or other on-base activity results in an anomaly that is a public safety threat, Brevard County Emergency Management would use a variety of methods to alert the public to shelter indoors (go inside and stay inside)," Walker said.
The history of nitrogen tetroxide
Mishaps with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide have happened before. Rocket accidents in decades past have led to the evacuation of entire towns. And if Saturday's toxic cloud had reached people, it would have potentially caused severe burns on contact.
When space shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003, most of the hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants were thought to have likely burned up before reaching the ground, officials said at the time.
Nitrogen tetroxide is potentially more dangerous than liquid hydrogen and can produce toxic clouds of gas. The chemical, which was used to ignite hydrazine fuel on the shuttle and Delta and Titan rockets, can eat through metal or skin.
In January 1997, when a Delta rocket blew up after liftoff, debris from the explosion fell into the Atlantic Ocean and at the Air Force station. Some landed around the launch pad, and a small fire flared up and a few dozen nearby parked cars were destroyed. Nearby residents were advised to stay inside, close windows and turn off their air conditioning systems to prevent vapors from entering homes.
The worst accidental spill of nitrogen tetroxide in U.S. history came in August 1978 from a Titan rocket at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, according to a study by a NASA scientist at KSC.
A total of 13,450 gallons of liquid nitrogen tetroxide spilled into the underground missile silo. Two members of the 381st Strategic Missile Wing were killed, and 25 more were injured from the toxic liquid and vapor exposure, according to the study, and the silo suffered extensive damage.
One supervisor died from exposure within minutes after his safety suit failed.
An estimated 100 people had to evacuate the nearby town of Rock, Kansas, to avoid the fumes pouring out of the silo.
Follow Jim Waymer on Twitter: @jwayenviro
Contributing: James Dean and Emre Kelly of Florida Today
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8eba65d92fa217dd17ce2ac8ac27b1f3 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/25/tornadoes-killer-storms-leave-death-destruction-texas-louisiana/3573446002/ | Violent storms, floods, tornadoes leave 5 dead in South | Violent storms, floods, tornadoes leave 5 dead in South
Violent storms unleashed floods and tornadoes across Texas and Louisiana on Wednesday and Thursday, leaving at least five people dead.
The threat for rough weather will continue Friday, the National Weather Service said. Severe thunderstorms are possible across the mid-Atlantic region, and strong winds and tornadoes are both possible in eastern portions of North Carolina and Virginia.
Two people were killed early Thursday in Ruston, in north-central Louisiana, after a tornado ripped through the town and the Louisiana Tech University campus around 2:30 a.m. local time.
"I've never seen it this bad in my 43 years. It's tragic, and it's going to be a while before we can get all this cleaned up," Lincoln Parish Sheriff Mike Stone said.
Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker confirmed the two fatalities.
"It's bad; real bad," Walker said. "We took a direct hit."
Late Thursday afternoon, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency for the entire state due to the fierce storms.
The National Weather Service said the tornado was rated an EF-3, which means its wind speeds were in the 136 to 165 mph range.
Weather service hydrologist C. S. Ross says it appears the tornado cut a track over 130 miles from eastern Texas to the Louisiana-Arkansas border.
The same cluster of thunderstorms produced flooding and severe weather in Texas on Wednesday, the Weather Channel reported.
About 75 miles southwest of Fort Worth, a woman and two children were killed when the family's car was caught in rushing flood waters, authorities said. The incident occurred at about 6 a.m. in what's usually a small creek just outside Dublin.
The Weather Channel said the threat of severe weather, including possible large hail and tornadoes, will continue to move into the Southeast on Thursday night before shifting toward the mid-Atlantic on Friday.
Thursday's opening of the New Orleans Jazz Fest was delayed because of the storms, the event organizers said. The PGA golf tournament in New Orleans was also delayed for several hours because of lightning.
Contributing: The Associated Press; The News-Star (Monroe, La.)
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bb71e031808ac298f40c3c6ac4806166 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/26/aj-freund-beating-death-police-reports-parents-abuse-drug-use/3585183002/ | Police visited AJ Freund’s house 17 times before his brutal death. Why was the boy in his parents’ care? | Police visited AJ Freund’s house 17 times before his brutal death. Why was the boy in his parents’ care?
The alleged murder of 5-year-old Andrew "AJ" Freund and arrests of his mother and father in the case are raising questions about Illinois' child welfare system and what could have been done to remove the young boy from his parents' custody sooner.
Andrew "Drew" Freund Sr. and Joann Cunningham were charged with first-degree murder after police found AJ buried in a shallow grave in a rural part of Illinois.
Court documents revealed AJ's parents would force him to stand in a cold shower and beat him. His cause of death was brain damage as a result of "multiple blunt force injuries," said the McHenry County Coroner's Office.
The Associated Press reports the head of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services will face questions at a state house panel about how the agency handled Freund's case.
"This agency, there is no direction, no mission, and it certainly has not been protecting children,” state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, a Chicago Democrat who chairs the House Adoption and Child Welfare Committee, tells the AP.
Feigenholtz told AP the agency has had 13 directors since 2003, many who have served on an interim basis.
Police visited AJ's home 17 times
Chicago station WLS-TV reports police responded to the Freund family home 17 times for allegations of abuse and drug use.
The DCFS' interactions with Freund's family date back to October 2013, when AJ was born with opiates in his system. A month later, AJ is taken into protective custody following an investigation, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The Tribune reports in June 2015, AJ is returned home. A year later, the case is closed. In 2018, the boy's family was investigated two more times for allegations of neglect and abuse.
On April 18, Freund was reported missing.
'He didn't have a chance from the beginning'
Last December, during one visit to the family home, police reports indicated dog feces and urine were scattered throughout, reports local paper the Daily Herald.
"Upstairs in the room where the boys slept, the window was open, and the smell of feces was overwhelming," said one report, according to the Herald.
WLS-TV reports Cunningham's family had gained custody of her older son from another father six years ago and had recently tried to convince her to move out with AJ and a younger brother.
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services spokesman Jassen Strokosch told CNN the younger brother had been in the home until this week but was living with another family.
WLS reports neighbors had become worried about the kids' well-being. "I feel like he didn't have a chance from the beginning," neighbor Teresa Hay told the station.
Investigation into what went wrong
"The department is committed to conducting a comprehensive review of the entirety of our work with Andrew’s family to understand our shortcomings and to be fully transparent with the public on any steps we are taking to address the issues," said acting DCFS Director Marc Smith said in a statement.
Feigenholtz told the AP there were enough troubling signals suggesting the boys were in danger.
"I got the sense from what I read that the cops were essentially begging (DCFS) to take the child," she said to AP.
New information on the case is expected to be revealed Friday, reports CBS Chicago.
AJ's mom is pregnant. What happens next?
Strokosch told the Chicago Tribune DCFS has a plan in place when Cunningham, who is seven months pregnant, delivers.
The baby would receive the same medical care whether or not Cunningham is incarcerated, said the report. Once the baby is safe to leave the hospital, the agency would take protective custody unless there are plans to place the child with a family member, Strokosch tells the Tribune.
Ryan W. Miller contributed to this report. Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
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f1cb6820b9122504bbdacf2b63879f1b | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/27/april-snow-winter-storm-bears-down-midwest-great-lakes/3598161002/ | Weather: Old Man Winter holds on for another snow storm for 16 million in Chicago, Midwest | Weather: Old Man Winter holds on for another snow storm for 16 million in Chicago, Midwest
A long, narrow band of wintry weather on Saturday brought late April snow along a 1,200-mile swath of the north-central U.S., including Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit, and could dump several inches as far east as New England.
Some 16 million people were under a winter storm warning, from Montana, where a blizzard warning was in effect, to Michigan.
The biggest cities likely to see significant snow are in Wisconsin, including Madison (4-8 inches) and Milwaukee (2-6 inches).
The wintry weather as led to the cancellation of more than 400 flights at the city's O'Hare International and Midway International airports on Saturday, according to flightaware.com. The White Sox and Tigers also postponed their Saturday baseball outing.
By Sunday evening, some snow is possible farther east, in parts of northern Pennsylvania, New York state and New England, according to AccuWeather.
The National Weather Service office in La Crosse, Wisconsin, said that hourly snow rates could be in the range of 1 to 2 inches at times. If this occurs, a slushy snow accumulation would make travel difficult.
"A few inches of accumulating snow are in store over the northern suburbs around Chicago," AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.
Snow is rare but not unheard of in Chicago this time of year: At least an inch of snow was recorded there during the first few days of May in both 1907 and 1940.
In Michigan, Grand Rapids should see about 4 inches, which would be its biggest snowfall this late in the season since 1963. Meanwhile, Detroit is expected to pick up about 2 inches.
While this is probably winter's last hurrah in the Midwest, the white stuff likely will persist in the western mountains.
The northern Rockies could see more significant accumulations, with snow possibly persisting there through at least the middle of next week. Another round of snow may hit late Monday into Wednesday, according to the Weather Channel.
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b38a1e364f2db1324f600266d98769bd | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/27/san-diego-synagogue-shooting-what-we-know-suspect-john-earnest/3605339002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories | San Diego synagogue shooting: What we know about suspect John Earnest | San Diego synagogue shooting: What we know about suspect John Earnest
John T. Earnest, the 19-year-old man detained in Saturday’s deadly synagogue shooting in San Diego, was a student at Cal State University San Marcos, school officials said.
Earnest was being questioned by the FBI and homicide authorities. San Diego Sheriff William Gore said authorities were poring over his social media accounts and a letter that Gore described as a "manifesto" posted online around the time of the attack.
Gore said officials were working to verify the posting's authenticity and did not offer details on any motive. But the letter supposedly details the shooter's hateful motivations and his reasons for targeting members of the Jewish faith.
In the letter, posted on an online text storage site called Pastebin, the author identified himself as a 19-year-old nursing student with the same name as the suspect.
It said in part: "I can already hear your voices. 'How could you throw your life away? You had everything! You had a loving family. You had great friends. You had a church. You were doing well in nursing school. You could have gone so far in your field of study. You could have made so much money and started a happy family of your own.'"
On Saturday evening, San Diego Police had cordoned off the streets near what was believed to be Earnest’s home, some 7 miles southwest of the Chabad of Poway synagogue. Gore, the sheriff, said deputies were serving a search warrant at his home.
Gore said in a tweet that authorities had found "no prior contact" between law enforcement and Earnest.
San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said that as one of his officers was on the way to the shooting at Chabad of Poway, he overheard on the scanner that the suspect had called into police, saying "he was just involved in this shooting" and giving his location along Interstate 15.
The officer quickly spotted the suspect, who pulled over and jumped out of his vehicle with his hands up, surrendering to authorities.
A rifle was found in the front passenger seat, Nisleit said.
Karen Haynes, president of Cal State San Marcos, said in a letter to the campus community: "We are dismayed and disheartened that the alleged shooter – now in custody – is a CSUSM student. CSUSM is working collaboratively with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to assist and gain more information." CSUSM is about 12 miles northwest of Chabad of Poway.
She added: "We extend our deepest condolences to all of the victims, their families, friends and our entire community. We share your grief. This despicable act is entirely against our values as a University, particularly given that many in our community are preparing to observe Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) on May 1. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and reject the rhetoric of divisiveness that feeds hatred."
Gore, the sheriff, said Earnest was also being investigated in connection with an arson at a mosque in nearby Escondido last month. In that incident, a fire broke out at 3:15 a.m. on Sunday, March 24, at Dar-ul-Arqam mosque, also known as the Islamic Center of Escondido.
The suspect in that attack left behind a note referencing the terrorist attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 50 worshippers in mid-March. The letter that investigators are investigating related to Saturday's attack also claims responsibility for the arson at Dar-ul-Argam.
In the Escondido incident, the mosque’s security camera captured a person breaking a parking lot gate’s lock and pouring some liquid near a side door and setting it on fire. Seven people were at the mosque at the time and were able to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher before firefighters arrived. No one was injured; the FBI has offered a $10,000 reward for information related to the incident.
The Islamic Center of Escondido is about 14 miles north of the Poway synagogue attacked Saturday.
Earnest is a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, said Pastor Zachary Keele, who leads the Escondido church. "It's a deplorable act of wickedness," said Keele. "I'm still in shock... I'm kind of numb."
Loralee Visintainer, 29, who grew up in the neighborhood up the hill from the Earnest family, said she was in Girl Scouts with one of the suspect’s sisters, but never knew Earnest. “They’re a great family,” she said. “I feel bad.”
John Earnest had attended Mt. Carmel High School, where his father, also named John, taught science. In 2014, the school magazine published a story about students whose parents taught at the school.
In the article, the younger Earnest, who was then a freshman, said: “At lunch, I go to his classroom. I store some of my stuff inside of his room.” His father said he was happy to have two of his children enrolled in the school.
“I love it, mostly because I know that this is a great school,” the elder Earnest told the publication, “There are great teachers. There are great kids. And, I enjoy being around my children and most of the time they enjoy being around me, but it’s not really about me, it’s about the school. That’s why I am glad they are here.”
Poway Unified School District Communications Director Christine Paik confirmed in a statement that the suspect was a 2017 graduate of Mt. Carmel High School. "The words and actions of this individual are in no way representative of the beliefs held by our school community nor by his father, a long-time teacher at MCHS. Mt. Carmel is a No Place for Hate campus," she said.
The year he graduated, John T. Earnest was honored for his academic achievements along with about 30 other Mt. Carmel classmates in a program called F.A.C.E., or Fraternity of Academic and Civic Excellence.
In a short bio posted by the program, Earnest posed in a dark suit and red tie. The accompanying text said Earnest had a GPA of 4.31, belonged to the varsity swim team, had taken many AP classes, and played the piano.
It said he had an "excellent work ethic" and wanted to major in biophysics at college.
Joey Garrison, Doug Stanglin, Amy DiPierro, Lindsay Collom and Christal Hayes contributed to this report.
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dd7204fe1e8589324ad5a2bad88b4ad5 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/27/washington-hiker-died-but-dog-stayed-side-barked-alert-rescuers/3599094002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories | Hiker died in fall but dog stayed by his side, barking to alert rescuers day later | Hiker died in fall but dog stayed by his side, barking to alert rescuers day later
The dog of a hiker who died in a fall stayed by her owner's side and alerted the rescue team of the man's location with her bark, police say.
A search and rescue team with the Pierce County Sheriff's Department in Washington found the hiker Thursday after he and his dog Daisy had gone out Wednesday morning, the department said in a Facebook post.
"Without the barking of his loyal companion Daisy, we never would have located the missing man. It was amazing," the department said.
The 64-year-old Washington man, who lived near Eatonville, south of Tacoma, regularly went on hikes with Daisy. But by Wednesday evening, they weren't back, and the man had left his wife no note about where they had gone.
The man's wife called 911 and rescue teams began their search early Thursday, the sheriff's department said.
Deputies were able to locate the man's cellphone signal location and eventually spotted his car.
It wasn't until evening that a search and rescue team member heard Daisy's bark.
"The deputy continued hiking toward the sound of the dog's barking, and spotted a dog matching the description of Daisy up a very steep embankment above the Marshall River," the sheriff's department said.
After hiking through thick woods and brush to Daisy, the deputy found the man dead from apparent injuries from a fall, the department said.
The hiker's body was recovered and Daisy was returned home, the sheriff's department said.
"This was a very sad end to a tough search, but we are incredibly proud of our deputies and the volunteers efforts to find the missing man and return him to his family," the department said.
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b7fb8712c3e4cc3d1117bad963af427c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/28/california-synagogue-shooting-donald-trump-call-comfort-rabbi/3613078002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories | Injured California rabbi gets a call from President Donald Trump: 'He was just so comforting' | Injured California rabbi gets a call from President Donald Trump: 'He was just so comforting'
The rabbi injured in the California synagogue shooting on Saturday said he found comfort in a personal call from President Donald Trump.
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein of Chabad in Poway described the 10- to 15-minute conversation with Trump as meaningful.
"He was just so comforting," Goldstein said at a press conference Sunday afternoon. "I’m really grateful to our president for taking the time and making that effort to share with us his comfort and consolation.”
Goldstein, 57, said he received the call at home and was amazed to hear the White House secretary on the line. It was his first conversation with a U.S. president, he said.
The rabbi was one of three injured when a gunman opened fire on Saturday while the congregation celebrated the last day of Passover. One woman, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, was killed as she shielded Goldstein from gunfire. Goldstein said she was a longtime friend and devoted member of the congregation.
“He shared with me condolences on behalf of the United States of America,” Goldstein said of Trump's call. “We spoke about the moment of silence. And he spoke about his love of peace and Judaism and Israel."
The 19-year-old suspected gunman walked into the synagogue with an AR-style assault weapon and opened fire on worshippers shortly before 11:30 a.m. local time, police said.
'Final good deed':Woman hailed as hero after taking bullets to protect rabbi during synagogue shooting
California gun laws:An 'AR-type assault weapon' was used in Poway synagogue shooting, police say
Trump called the attack a hate crime before leaving the White House for a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday night and offered thoughts and prayers on Twitter.
"My deepest sympathies go to the people that were affected – the families, the loved ones – by the, obviously – looks right now based on my last conversations – looks like a hate crime," Trump said. "Hard to believe, hard to believe."
The attack came about six months after the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which left 11 people dead. The gunman in that attack allegedly screamed anti-Semitic epithets at the victims, such as "All Jews must die."
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519ee5cad8b78f92808f2c5ccd4b84ec | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/28/california-synagogue-shooting-who-suspect-john-t-earnest/3608583002/ | California synagogue shooting: Suspect known as quiet, smart while authorities question if he was hateful | California synagogue shooting: Suspect known as quiet, smart while authorities question if he was hateful
SAN DIEGO – Before Saturday, John T. Earnest was known only as a quiet, successful student and an accomplished pianist.
On Sunday, his church reeled, calling a special session to address the news: Earnest had been detained in connection with Saturday’s deadly synagogue shooting near San Diego.
His name had also been linked to a racist online posting that praised mass shooters, spoke of a plan to "kill Jews," and extensively cited scripture.
Police had apprehended him along Interstate 15. A rifle was found in the front passenger seat, police said.
Earlier, one woman was killed and three others wounded when a gunman wielding a AR-style assault weapon entered a synagogue during Passover services at the Chabad of Poway temple and opened fire.
'God didn't want me to die':Rabbi protected children in synagogue shooting despite losing index finger
Photos:1 dead, 3 wounded in shooting at synagogue near San Diego
The suspect, a 19-year-old student at Cal State University San Marcos, is a part of a family known as regulars at the Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
The suspect’s father, John Earnest, is listed as an elder. Pastor Zach Keele said Sunday the younger John always came with his family but was very quiet.
Officials have said they found a "manifesto" posted online around the time of the attack and are working to verify its authenticity.
"I did not want to have to kill Jews," an online text reads in part. It is attributed to a poster by Earnest's name. "But they have given us no other option. I’m just a normal dude who wanted to have a family, help and heal people, and play piano."
It goes on to use repeated slurs and lists Adolf Hitler as an inspiration. It mockingly requests that its author be called a "white supremacist" and "anti-Semite."
On Sunday in Escondido, the suspect's pastor held a session to specifically talk about the shooting and to offer sympathy for the victims. Keele rebuked the manifesto, saying "there is no superior race. We are all created equal." He said also "we are committed to loving all people."
He called the crime “unspeakable in so many ways” and said “we are surprised and we are shocked.”
The attack in Poway, about 25 miles northeast of San Diego, has been called a hate crime by the city's mayor, President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Keele said he took heart that the manifesto said that the suspect's family did not radicalize him.
The suspect was charged Sunday with one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department announced in a news release. He had no previous contact with law enforcement.
"We believe he acted alone and without outside support in carrying out the attack," the release reads.
Security boosted at mosques:'Face to face with this murderer': rabbi recalls terror
More:What we know about the California synagogue shooting
He is also being investigated in connection with an arson attack on a mosque in nearby Escondido, California, in March. The online posting claims responsibility for that crime.
Classmates and published accolades suggest that the suspect lived a generally shy but accomplished academic life.
Palini Ramnarayan, who was in Earnest’s class at Mt. Carmel High School and now studies at Cornell University, recalled him as “very quiet.”
“I think we all just perceived him as very shy. He played piano at the talent show every year and was absolutely amazing. He kept to himself most of the time and honestly it was hard to know what he was thinking,” she said. “He was very clear about his political ideologies in our AP government class. He's a staunch hard-right conservative who's driven by Christian values.”
Owen Cruise, 20, was a classmate of the suspected shooter and a student of his father, John A. Earnest, a longtime teacher at MCHS.
Cruise said he was in disbelief when he saw the name of the suspected shooter because the suspect was "a friend to everybody, including many Jewish students" at their high school.
“It doesn’t sound like the John that I know, or knew,” he said of a letter posted online that supposedly describes the shooter's hateful motives. “It sounds like someone who’s been brainwashed by associating with the wrong crowds.”
The year he graduated, the suspect was honored for his academic achievements along with about 30 other Mt. Carmel classmates in a program called F.A.C.E., or Fraternity of Academic and Civic Excellence.
In a short bio posted by the program, he was pictured in a dark suit and red tie. He had "an excellent work ethic," the biography said. He was an accomplished pianist and a member of the varsity swim team. He had a GPA of 4.31.
In a 2017 interview ahead of a Mt. Carmel High School talent show, a dark-haired student wearing a grey swim team hoodie blankly identified himself as Earnest.
"Hey, I'm John Earnest," he said, staring into the camera.
His act would be a piano arrangement of Pirates of the Caribbean, he said.
What would he do with the prize money, if he won?
"Save it 'till I need it," he said with a shrug.
He went on to be recognized for his performance in that talent show, as he was for three straight years, his F.A.C.E. profile said.
In the wake of the shooting, the suspect's pastor said he wants to "reach out and express my condolences to the synagogue" and is searching for the best way to do it.
Gerrit Groenewold, an elder at the suspect's church, said he remembers attempting to reach out to the suspect.
"I tried to talk to John several times, but he just never said anything," said Groenewold, who has been attending the church for 15 years. "I think it’s not good if someone is as quiet as that."
Contributing: Tom Kisken, Ventura County Star; The Associated Press
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