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Saturday 16 May 2015

Giant sinkhole appears in a field in southern Turkey


Residents of Konya Province in southern Turkey have spoken of their terror when a giant sinkhole suddenly appeared in a local field.

"We are very afraid (for) our lives. It is luck that no one fell into it," said one local farmer.

Measuring 10 metres wide and 90 metres deep, the crater is thought to have formed in the space of 24 hours.

No one was injured as a result of the ground caving in.

Ohio teacher fired for 'public humiliation' after scolding student bullying other children

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© NBC
Nicole LeMire was fired by the school board Thursday.

    
Glen Oak Elementary School teacher told the Olentangy school board she'd fight to keep her job after a split board voted Thursday, May 14, to terminate her contract over bullying accusations.

Board members Roger Bartz, Dave King and Kevin O'Brien voted to suspend fifth-grade teacher Nicole LeMire without pay pending the final termination of her contract. Board member Julie Wagner Feasel voted against the measure, and board member Adam White was absent.

The board's action led to tears from parents and students who supported LeMire, along with shouts demanding answers about the decision.

According to the resolution the board passed, LeMire on April 14 asked students in her class to take turns saying how another student had misbehaved "and/or why (the student) was annoying or had no friends."

The resolution also states that LeMire disclosed confidential information about the student to a latchkey program employee. According to the document, LeMire received previous unpaid suspensions in June and December 2014 for "missed deadlines" and "poor communication."

LeMire, who has hired an attorney, said the district's accusations were "100 percent false."

"Indirectly, I am being considered for termination because of a single question I asked a student: 'Do you realize how your words and actions are hurting your friends?'" she said.


LeMire said she was not publicly shaming the student but was using the incident as a "sincere, teachable moment" for her students. She said her actions were in line with the district's policies on bullying.

LeMire said officials in Glen Oak's administration were using the incident as a pretense for firing her.

Parent Beth Osterholt said the student LeMire is accused of bullying had attacked her son prior to the incident. Osterholt said LeMire should be commended for being a force against bullying in the school.

"I know that my son needed to be stood up for, and (LeMire) stood up for him," Osterholt said.

Parent Thomas Sweeney said he sees terminating LeMire's contract as a big mistake.

"There's so many future children that she (would) influence in a positive manner," Sweeney said. "Anything that she does, she is always motivated to improve the lives of the children."

Although public comment at the meeting uniformly was in support of LeMire, O'Brien said his vote reflected both the comments and what he had learned in a closed-door executive session regarding the situation.

"We've got to act on everything we've been presented with," he said.

Feasel said, "I'm allowed to vote the way I feel," but she declined further comment on why she voted against initiating the termination process.

LeMire has 10 days after the vote to file a written demand for an appeal hearing before the board or a referee.

Texas high school student finds 'ginormous bugs' in Michelle O's healthy lunch

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© Eagnews

    
Parents knows it can be difficult to get kids to eat their greens, but after an incident at a Texas high school some students may never eat vegetables again.

"There's no way they could've missed (them), picking up a handful of broccoli like they do with their gloves on and not seen these ginormous bugs," Melissa Evans, mother of Caney Creek High School junior Falyn Evans, told Click2Houston.

Falyn Evans and her friend were served the bug-infested broccoli for lunch Monday and the two almost ate the insects before they realized they were there.

"It was kind of strange and gross that we had actually seen it and that it happened to us," she said.

KFOR reports school officials acknowledged the problem in an email to parents that provided very few details.

Officials were "notified this morning of complaints regarding food in the cafeteria," according to the statement Monday.

"Any concerns are taken very seriously and Conroe (Independent School District's) Child Nutrition Department is addressing the situation."

Food inspectors went through the cafeteria food Tuesday and discovered more bugs - the district contends they're aphids - in a batch of frozen broccoli, and believe the infestation was limited to the one batch, KFOR reports.

Regardless, Melissa Evans said she's not taking any chances, and will pack her daughter's lunch for the rest of the school year.

"She will be taking lunches," Evans told Click2Houston. "She will not be eating it anymore, at all."

That means Falyn Evans will join more than 1 million students who have opted out of the National School Lunch Program since new federal guidelines on nutrition went into effect in 2012. The federal lunch restrictions set limits on calories, fat, sugar, sodium, whole grains, and other aspects of school food, including food sold outside the cafeteria.

The changes, which have resulted in student revolts across the country, are the brainchild of first lady Michelle Obama, and are intended to fight childhood obesity through bureaucracy. The new federal school food regulations also require students to take a fruit or vegetable with every meal, whether they want it or not.

In many schools, student simply dump the greens in the garbage, a major reason why school food waste has ballooned to $1 billion annually since the new restrictions were implemented.

The broccoli bugs are only making matters worse.

KFOR reports another school district in Virginia has also struggled with school food issues recently, prompting parents in King and Queen counties to complain the food is making their children sick.

"Two boys are coming home daily with migraines because they can't eat what's on their plates at school," Beth Paulette, the boys' mother.

Paulette told WTVR the pizza, ribs, and hamburgers served to students at King and Queen Central High School are burnt beyond recognition and inedible.

"It looked so unappetizing I could not bring myself to try it at all," ninth grader Precious Jackson told the news site.

A WTVR reporter broached the issue with Stanley Jones, district superintendent.

"Would you want the children here eating food that looked like that or being served food that looked like that?" the reporter questioned.

"Of course not," Jones said, according to WTVR.

Jones blamed the problem on cafeteria staff not working as a team, and said he suspended the head of the district's food services a few weeks ago.

But the food services manager, Suzanne Gilbertson, showed WTVR multiple emails she sent Jones asking to intervene, and was rebuffed.

"I was advised that these employees, they do not report to me, as they report to human resources and the superintendent," Gilbertson told the news site.

Families heading towards homelessness: UK rental property evictions hit record high

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© Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett

    
Housing campaigners are calling for a drastic intervention in the housing market as the number of individuals being evicted from rental properties is at its highest level since records began.

The latest government figures show the number of evictions in the first quarter of this year rose to 11,307, an increase of 8 percent on the same period in 2014 and the highest level in a single quarter since records began in 2000.

The figures show the level has risen owing to a peak in the number of repossession claims made by landlords in 2014, followed by a lag time while the authorities processed the claims, of which there were 47,000 according to the Ministry of Justice.

Claims have since fallen, with roughly 42,000 during the first quarter of 2015, which suggest a trend that evictions will follow suit next year.

Homelessness charity Shelter said the results were a "glaring reminder" that the price of houses and "welfare cuts are leaving thousands of people battling to keep a roof over their heads."

"Every day at Shelter we see the devastating impact of a housing market at boiling point, with the cost of renting so high that many families are living in fear that just one thing like losing their job or becoming ill could leave them with the bailiffs knocking at the door," Chief Executive Campbell Robb said.

He urged the government to strengthen measures to "make sure people aren't left to fall through the cracks and hurtling towards homelessness."

Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said authorities had put measures in place to ensure families did not become homeless.

"There are strong protections in place to guard families against the threat of homelessness.


"We increased spending to prevent homelessness, with over £500 million made available to help the most vulnerable in society and ensure we don't return to the bad old days when homelessness in England was nearly double what it is today."

The report also found there had been a fall in the number of mortgage repossessions, which have dropped 56 percent since 2004.

The data coincided with another report from the Council of Mortgage Lenders which also reported a fall in mortgage repossession.

Every man, woman and child: Why NSA surveillance is worse than you've ever imagined

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© Matt Mahurin

    

Last summer, after months of encrypted emails, I spent three days in Moscow hanging out with Edward Snowden for a Wired cover story. Over pepperoni pizza, he told me that what finally drove him to leave his country and become a whistleblower was his conviction that the National Security Agency was conducting illegal surveillance on every American. Thursday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York agreed with him.

In a long-awaited opinion, the three-judge panel ruled that the NSA program that secretly intercepts the telephone metadata of every American — who calls whom and when — was illegal. As a plaintiff with Christopher Hitchens and several others in the original ACLU lawsuit against the NSA, dismissed by another appeals court on a technicality, I had a great deal of personal satisfaction.

It's now up to Congress to vote on whether or not to modify the law and continue the program, or let it die once and for all. Lawmakers must vote on this matter by June 1, when they need to reauthorize the Patriot Act.


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© WIKIPEDIA/Screenshot of a Laura Poitras film by Praxis Films
Edward Snowden during an interview with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, June 6, 2013.

    
A key factor in that decision is the American public's attitude toward surveillance. Snowden's revelations have clearly made a change in that attitude. In a PEW 2006 survey, for example, after the New York Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed the agency's warrantless eavesdropping activities, 51 percent of the public still viewed the NSA's surveillance programs as acceptable, while 47 percent found them unacceptable.

After Snowden's revelations, those numbers reversed. A PEW survey in March revealed that 52 percent of the public is now concerned about government surveillance, while 46 percent is not.

Given the vast amount of revelations about NSA abuses, it is somewhat surprising that just slightly more than a majority of Americans seem concerned about government surveillance. Which leads to the question of why? Is there any kind of revelation that might push the poll numbers heavily against the NSA's spying programs? Has security fully trumped privacy as far as the American public is concerned? Or is there some program that would spark genuine public outrage?

Few people, for example, are aware that a NSA program known as TREASUREMAP is being developed to continuously map every Internet connection — cellphones, laptops, tablets — of everyone on the planet, including Americans.

"Map the entire Internet," says the top secret NSA slide. "Any device, anywhere, all the time." It adds that the program will allow "Computer Attack/Exploit Planning" as well as "Network Reconnaissance."

One reason for the public's lukewarm concern is what might be called NSA fatigue. There is now a sort of acceptance of highly intrusive surveillance as the new normal, the result of a bombardment of news stories on the topic.

I asked Snowden about this. "It does become the problem of one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic," he replied, "where today we have the violation of one person's rights is a tragedy and the violation of a million is a statistic. The NSA is violating the rights of every American citizen every day on a comprehensive and ongoing basis. And that can numb us. That can leave us feeling disempowered, disenfranchised."

In the same way, at the start of a war, the numbers of Americans killed are front-page stories, no matter how small. But two years into the conflict, the numbers, even if far greater, are usually buried deep inside a paper or far down a news site's home page.

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© REUTERS/Michaela Rehle
​A parabolic reflector with a diameter of 18.3 metres (60 ft.) at the National Security Agency’s former monitoring base in Bad Aibling, south of Munich, June 6, 2014.

    
In addition, stories about NSA surveillance face the added burden of being technically complex, involving eye-glazing descriptions of sophisticated interception techniques and analytical capabilities. Though they may affect virtually every American, such as the telephone metadata program, because of the enormous secrecy involved, it is difficult to identify specific victims.

The way the surveillance story appeared also decreased its potential impact. Those given custody of the documents decided to spread the wealth for a more democratic assessment of the revelations. They distributed them through a wide variety of media — from start-up Web publications to leading foreign newspapers.

One document from the NSA director, for example, indicates that the agency was spying on visits to porn sites by people, making no distinction between foreigners and "U.S. persons," U.S. citizens or permanent residents. He then recommended using that information to secretly discredit them, whom he labeled as "radicalizers." But because this was revealed by The Huffington Post, an online publication viewed as progressive, and was never reported by mainstream papers such as the New York Times or the Washington Post, the revelation never received the attention it deserved.


Another major revelation, a top-secret NSA map showing that the agency had planted malware — computer viruses — in more than 50,000 locations around the world, including many friendly countries such as Brazil, was reported in a relatively small Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, and likely never seen by much of the American public.
Thus, despite the volume of revelations, much of the public remains largely unaware of the true extent of the NSA's vast, highly aggressive and legally questionable surveillance activities. With only a slim majority of Americans expressing concern, the chances of truly reforming the system become greatly decreased.

While the metadata program has become widely known because of the numerous court cases and litigation surrounding it, there are other NSA surveillance programs that may have far greater impact on Americans, but have attracted far less public attention.

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In my interview with Snowden, for example, he said one of his most shocking discoveries was the NSA's policy of secretly and routinely passing to Israel's Unit 8200 — that country's NSA — and possibly other countries not just metadata but the actual contents of emails involving Americans. This even included the names of U.S. citizens, some of whom were likely Palestinian-Americans communicating with relatives in Israel and Palestine.

An illustration of the dangers posed by such an operation comes from the sudden resignation last year of 43 veterans of Unit 8200, many of whom are still serving in the military reserves. The veterans accused the organization of using intercepted communication against innocent Palestinians for "political persecution." This included information gathered from the emails about Palestinians' sexual orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions and other private matters to coerce people into becoming collaborators or to create divisions in their society.

Another issue few Americans are aware of is the NSA's secret email metadata collection program that took place for a decade or so until it ended several years ago. Every time an American sent or received an email, a record was secretly kept by the NSA, just as the agency continues to do with the telephone metadata program. Though the email program ended, all that private information is still stored at the NSA, with no end in sight.

With NSA fatigue setting in, and the American public unaware of many of the agency's long list of abuses, it is little wonder that only slightly more than half the public is concerned about losing their privacy. For that reason, I agree with Frederick A. O. Schwartz Jr., the former chief counsel of the Church Committee, which conducted a yearlong probe into intelligence abuses in the mid-1970s, that we need a similarly thorough, hard-hitting investigation today.

"Now it is time for a new committee to examine our secret government closely again," he wrote in a recent Nation magazine article, "particularly for its actions in the post-9/11 period."

Until the public fully grasps and understands how far over the line the NSA has gone in the past — legally, morally and ethically — there should be no renewal or continuation of NSA's telephone metadata program in the future.

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Family outraged after cop pulls over entire funeral procession for driving too slow

© KTLA
Grieving daughter Rachel Behn-Humphrey arguing with CHP officer

    
Hollywood, CA — The CHP is under fire this week after one of their finest pulled over an entire funeral procession for driving too slow.

In an ostensible attempt to prevent a traffic problem caused by the procession, the CHP officer caused a far worse problem after having 100 cars stopped along the freeway.

The incident was captured on cell phone video as the family members were embarrassingly detained on the roadside during this somber time.

A uniformed officer was acting as an escort for the procession as the cars drove to Forest Lawn Cemetery when they were stopped by another officer, apparently drunk on power.

"I'm looking and I'm seeing the car my mom was in on the side of the freeway too. That was embarrassing," said Rachel Behn-Humphrey.

Behn-Humphrey said the actions of the CHP cop were outrageous, and he showed no compassion.

"A lot of the family members did not make it to the gravesite," Behn-Humphrey said. "We sat on the side of the freeway so long, they had to go on. I saw some of them drive past."

According to KTLA,

Humphrey has retained an attorney and was demanding a public apology from California Highway Patrol. Her lawyer admits the officer had complete discretion to pull over a traffic escort, but said the incident was handled poorly, and caused the family tremendous emotional distress.

"It exceeds the bounds of all human decency," said family attorney Edward Ramsey. "An officer has the discretion to stop or not stop a funeral procession. If it was me, I would have probably escorted this procession to the burial."

The CHP had not responded to KTLA request for a statement.

What exactly was this officer thinking? Here we have a funeral procession, headed up by a uniformed officer and this other officer felt it was necessary to pull over 100 people for driving too slow. In what world would that be okay?

Police officers pulling people over during the most inopportune of times is certainly not isolated. has reported on everything from pregnant women on the way to the hospital being held at gunpoint, to asthmatics in distress dying on the roadside as police ignore their pleas for help.

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Virtual Victory Day Celebrations

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Five ingredients that poison your brain

    
There is no shortage of things driving us crazy in the world today, but there are some things that could do it in a shorter amount of time. These gut disturbing, liver compromising, and brain damaging ingredients have come from the "infinite genius" of man, and have clearly ruined our ability to think clearly.

Avoid these 5 ingredients scrupulously, and watch your brain function improve:

Gluten

Gluten is a common protein molecule found in wheat, barley, rye, kamut, and spelt. This sticky protein binds to the small intestinal wall where it can cause digestive and immune system disorders. Celiac disease is the most common condition associated with gluten sensitivity. However, there is also a condition termed non-celiac, gluten sensitivity (NCGS), and it is a major factor in the inflammatory disorders of the brain and nervous system.

Studies have shown many associations between gluten sensitivity and disorders in every part of the neurological system including the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. Gluten has been shown to be a big trigger in psychiatric disorders, cognitive impairment, dementia, and virtually every other neurological disorder.

Artificial Sweeteners

Whether it is aspartame (or AminoSweet), sucralose (Splenda), or saccharin (Equal, Sweet 'N Low), artificial sweeteners so popular due to their zero calorie marketing, have been poisoning brains for decades. Aspartame is a combination of chemicals, namely aspartic acid (an amino acid with excitatory effects on brain cells), methanol, and phenylalanine, and when broken down produces a compound that is a powerful brain-tumor-causing chemical.

Aspartame consumption causes a variety of symptoms including anxiety attacks, slurred speech, depression, and migraines. It and other artificial sweeteners can be found in sodas, yogurt, chewing gum, cooking sauces, tabletop sweeteners, flavored water, cereal, and sugar free products.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

MSG is a form of concentrated salt added to foods to enhance flavor. It tricks the taste buds and the brain into thinking food tastes delicious, but as an excitotoxin, it triggers the brain to produce excess quantities of the feel-good drug, dopamine. Unfortunately, the good feelings don't last, but the side effects do. Excitotoxins have been linked to brain damage and other neurological diseases including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, MS, lupus, and more.

Be on the look out for MSG in any processed products, including "healthy" snacks, salad dressing, barbecue sauce, bouillon cubes, and canned soups and vegetables.

Refined Sugar

Refined sugar has become one of the most prolific ingredients in our food, and one of the most dangerous. Its constant consumption has been linked to many different health problems, all which have a negative effect on the brain.

Refined sugar consumption suppresses brain derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, a very important growth hormone for the brain. This factor triggers new connections between neurons in the brain that are vital for memory function. Studies have shown low BDNF levels in patients with depression and schizophrenia, and the consumption of sugar could exacerbate those conditions by further contributing to those low levels.

Refined sugar also increases inflammation, which can disrupt the digestive and immune systems. If this inflammation is chronic, it can lead to a higher risk of depression and schizophrenia. Dr. Ilardi, associate professor of psychology at University of Kansas, encourages depressed patients to remove refined sugar from their diets, and those who were willing to comply reported significant improvements in mental clarity and mood.

Fluoride

The decision to add fluoride to public drinking water has had perhaps one of the most dangerous and widespread effects on our overall health, most notably the brain.

The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) reported a study that found fluoride was linked to lower IQ, even at ranges added to U.S. water supplies. One study sponsored by UNICEF found that IQ was reduced at just 0.88 mg/l of fluoride, a level that is added to U.S. drinking water systems and considered within the optimal range.

FAN also stated that 34 studies now link fluoride to lower IQ levels in humans, while other studies link it to learning and memory impairment, fetal brain damage, and altered neurobehavioral function.

These 5 ingredients can be relatively easy to avoid, with the right motivation and knowledge. However, some of them can be tricky. To learn more about MSG and the dozens of other names it can go under, read What is MSG? Side Effects Explained. To find out how to choose a water solution that is free of fluoride, check out this Guide To Drinking Water. See the first source below for more on brain health.

Sources

http://bit.ly/1AavicP
http://bit.ly/1KorJie

Hailstorm causes injuries in Germany

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Residents described seeing large hailstones

    
At least nine people have been injured and dozens of homes damaged in a hailstorm in southern Germany.

There were reports of hailstones the size of golf balls in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Winds of up to 120 km/h (75mph) were reported on Wednesday night and residents near the Bavarian city of Augsburg spoke of seeing a tornado.

Roofs were badly damaged, blocks of flats had to be evacuated and a local school had to be closed on Thursday.

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Two people were taken to hospital with severe injuries caused by lightning strikes.

Seven more were hurt in Bavaria, where several houses in villages near Augsburg were no longer habitable. Authorities appealed for help from construction workers to repair the damage.

"First it rained, then very briefly hail, then there was a whoosh and everything flew through the whole area!," one resident told Bavarian media.

German weather officials did not confirm claims of a tornado.

One person was killed last week in northern Germany when a tornado swept through the town of Buetzow, near Rostock,

Ohio cops shoot unarmed man who was skateboarding


image used for illustrative purposes from COPS episode 2733

    
Police officers in Cincinnati, Ohio are investigating an officer-involved shooting of a man riding a skateboard in the neighborhood of College Hill.

Cincinnati Police Department detectives say that officers had been called to the 6000 block of Hamilton Avenue on Friday, but they have revealed little else about the shooting.

Eyewitnesses, however, say that the man was unarmed and the police had no justification for the shooting. The man in question, they say, was in the process of skateboarding when he was shot by officers.

They say that there were a total of nine shots fired at Camrin Starr, 30, before all was said and done.

Paramedics arrived on the scene shortly thereafter and took the man to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead.

One eyewitness said that someone else ran from the scene after the shooting.

Another eyewitness told local reporters with NBC 5 that this was all initiated by "Citizens on Patrol" officers who were in the area. They did not elaborate on who they saw fire the shots.

Watch the local report

The Cincinnati Police Department are still tight-lipped about the whole thing and have refused to release any more information about the victim or even the identity of the shooter.

College Hill residents with more information, eye-witness accounts or photos and video footage of the incident are asked to send content to [email protected].

Electric wound care developed in England

© Thinkstock
Hospitals might need to capture this in the future.

    
Researchers at the University of Manchester are developing a shocking new solution to an age old problem: A medical method that can improve wound healing by electrifying a patient's skin.

Dr. Ardeshir Bayat and his colleagues recruited 40 volunteers and gave each of them a harmless, half-centimeter cut on their upper arm. Those study participants were then divided randomly into two groups - one group that was left to heal normally, and another which was treated with electrical pulses over a two-week period.

The researchers found that those pulses stimulated angiogenesis—or the process of forming new blood vessels, increasing blood flow to the wounded area. As a result, individuals receiving this type of treatment saw their wounds heal significantly faster than the control group. The authors published their findings in a recent edition of the journal .

Devices to speed up healing

Slow-healing skin wounds can be a huge pain for people all over the world, the researchers explained. In the UK alone, the NHS spends more than £1 billion, or $1.5 billion, on chronic wound care. Chronic wounds, they noted, are wounds that remain open and fail to heal for at least six weeks.

Dr. Bayat's team, in collaboration with Oxford BioElectronics Ltd., hope that these injuries can be treated using new devices that take advantage of electrical stimulation, based on the findings of their study. The university and the company teamed up on a five-year project to develop and evaluate dressings that can generate nerve impulses to the site of the damaged skin.

"This research has shown the effectiveness of electrical stimulation in wound healing, and therefore we believe this technology has the potential to be applied to any situation where faster wound healing is particularly desirable, such as following human or veterinary surgical wounds, accidental, or military trauma and in sports injuries," Dr. Bayat said in a statement.

"This is an exciting partnership, working on a pioneering project with the potential to change substantially the way cutaneous wounds are managed in the future," he added. "When used in acute and chronic wounds, bandages are essentially just a covering. With this technology we hope that the dressings will be able to make a significant functional contribution to healing the wounds and getting the patient back to full health as quickly as possible."

Odd animal behaviour: A beaver walks into a hardware store in Fairbanks, Alaska

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© Angelesa Ward
A beaver pauses in the middle of an aisle at the Lowe's store in Fairbanks, Alaska, Friday, May 15, 2015.

    
Sometimes driftwood just isn't enough, one beaver decided when it took an impromptu trip to Lowe's early Friday morning.

The beaver wandered into the parking lot of the Lowe's construction and home improvement store on the Johansen Expressway at about 7 a.m., triggering the automatic doors and strolling inside.

Once inside the store, the beaver made its way to the plumbing department, where store employees attempted to provide assistance to the wild animal.

A cellphone video of the incident shows employees asking the beaver if there is anything they can help it find in the store. However, the beaver — like many construction store shoppers — seemed to prefer to wander aimlessly through the store instead of asking for help.

One witness in the video observed that the beaver appeared to be injured.

Eventually, employees were able to trap the beaver under a cardboard box until a technician with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game could arrive to remove the animal from the store and bring it to wildlife biologist Tony Hollis, who had received a wake-up call about the beaver from the Alaska State Troopers dispatchers.

"Oftentimes it's usually something like there's a bear in town or an ornery moose or something, but this was a little different," Hollis said.

Hollis took the beaver for a ride down to the Chena Pump Boat Launch, where he released it into the Tanana River. He said he chose the location because it seemed like a place at which the beaver wouldn't become too much of a nuisance.

It's not exactly clear where the beaver came from since there is no open water in the direct vicinity of the Lowe's store, but Hollis guessed it may have come from the wetlands several blocks to the north and come south across the Johansen.

Ironically, the beaver was actually most likely looking for home-building supplies.

The beaver was about the age where it would typically be kicked out of the house and head out to build its own lodging, according to Hollis.

"I'm not really sure what he was thinking, but he was the age class that's dispersing out of the house," Hollis said. "Whether he got confused or who knows what happened in his mind that he ended up at Lowe's."

According to Assistant Store Manager Adam Vanhoveln, this is the first time an animal has triggered the store's automatic doors. Vanhoveln said the beaver didn't cause too much of a disruption to the store's operation.

Luckily for Lowe's, the beaver was unable to locate the lumber department.

8 inches of snow falls in May in Flagstaff, Arizona

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© National Weather Service
The National Weather Service office in Bellemont just west of Flagstaff had received 8.4 inches of snow from the storm through late Friday afternoon.

    
May is looking like March in Flagstaff -- and the National Weather Service in Bellemont is right in the middle of it.

The most recent storm to roll through the Flagstaff stalled over the Weather Service office early Friday, dumping more than 8 inches of snow into its gauge through 5 p.m.

"It's always good to see rain and snow this late in the season," said Brian Klimowski of the National Weather Service. "Every storm we get like this helps push back the onset of our fire season."

Meanwhile, just to the east, Flagstaff's Pulliam Airport recorded just 0.3 inches of snow along with a half-inch of rain.

The snow was coming down so fast early Friday morning that snowplows were dispatched to the I-40 and I-17 corridors.

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© The Associated Press
Animal tracks are seen in the snow in Bellemont on Friday.

    
The snow was coming down so fast early Friday morning that snowplows were dispatched to the I-40 and I-17 corridors.

By Friday evening, the storm was still lingering over the western Mogollon Rim, causing the Weather Service to extend its winter weather advisory to 8 a.m. Saturday. Up to 2 additional inches of snow was forecast overnight, with 5 more inches in the White Mountains.

The Flagstaff airport has seen more than 3 inches of snow on May 15 or later only a handful of times.

Flagstaff and Bellemont have similar climatology, but a cold trough settled over Bellemont overnight and left just traces of snow in Flagstaff on Friday.

By this time last year, many northern Arizona cities and forests had fire restrictions in place.

Flagstaff averages about 1.5 inches of snow in May, but Klimowski said "to see heavy snow in late May is rather uncommon." He said Flagstaff could end up with about 4 inches of snow by the time the storm is done.

The latest snowfall on record for the Flagstaff airport is June 8 more than 100 years ago.

The mountain city is still well below the average 102 inches of snowfall for the season at 62 inches.

Friday's snowfall didn't cause any major problems. A travel center in Bellemont was without power for about three hours after a transformer blew, but Arizona Public Service Co. said it couldn't say definitively whether it was caused by the weather.

Sunday will be sunny with a high near 60 degrees, but two more weak fronts are expected to move through Flagstaff early and later next week.

Rare rainbow phenomenon 'circumhorizontal arc' appears in Tennessee sky

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© Wate.com

    
As you look up into the sky, you will see a different view each day. Many saw a fairly rare weather phenomenon Thursday called a circumhorizontal arc, which may look similar to a sun halo, but it's not the same thing.

A number of viewers sent in photos of the circumhorizontal arc, but many didn't understand what exactly was in the sky.

The sun refracts off of ice crystals in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds to form a spectrum-colored band. The arc was either in full or close to that Thursday, resulting in a well-defined spectrum-colored band running parallel to the horizon below the sun.

We also need a high sun angle, so the sunlight can hit the ice crystals at the needed angle or 58 degrees or more. Since our days are getting longer, we met that requirement and most of the viewer pictures were taken around midday.

In some cases, the arc may appear as a fire rainbow, but that is not the correct way to identify what happened.

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© Wate.com

    
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© Wate.com

    
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© Wate.com

    

Rare rainbow phenomenon 'circumhorizontal arc' appears in Tennessee skies

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© Wate.com

    
As you look up into the sky, you will see a different view each day. Many saw a fairly rare weather phenomenon Thursday called a circumhorizontal arc, which may look similar to a sun halo, but it's not the same thing.

A number of viewers sent in photos of the circumhorizontal arc, but many didn't understand what exactly was in the sky.

The sun refracts off of ice crystals in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds to form a spectrum-colored band. The arc was either in full or close to that Thursday, resulting in a well-defined spectrum-colored band running parallel to the horizon below the sun.

We also need a high sun angle, so the sunlight can hit the ice crystals at the needed angle or 58 degrees or more. Since our days are getting longer, we met that requirement and most of the viewer pictures were taken around midday.

In some cases, the arc may appear as a fire rainbow, but that is not the correct way to identify what happened.

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© Wate.com

    
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© Wate.com

    
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© Wate.com

    

Thousands of criminals including murderers, paedophiles and heroin dealers seek work in British schools


Two people who applied to work in classrooms had been convicted of murder, three for attempted murder and one for soliciting to murder

    
Murderers, paedophiles and heroin dealers are among thousands of convicted criminals who have applied to work in classrooms across Britain.

More than 16,000 people with criminal convictions have applied to work as teachers, teaching assistants and even heads in the past three years, despite racking up more than 44,000 offences between them.

Criminal record checks reveal the applicants had 22 child sex offence convictions, including two for gross indecency with a girl under 16 and 12 for indecent assault on children.

Another six had made indecent pictures of children, according to data obtained by education newspaper Schools Week.

Two applicants had been convicted of murder, three for attempted murder and one for soliciting to murder.
The figures, which were uncovered by a Freedom of Information request, showed more than 300 had drug-dealing convictions - 30 of them for peddling heroin.

Three were for kidnapping, 28 for indecent assaults on women and another 70 related to arson.

Some 228 convictions were for loitering or soliciting to use a prostitute. Others included exposure, blackmail and robbery.

The most convictions - 5,815 - were for drink-driving, while 3,537 were for shoplifting.

It is unknown how many of the applicants are working in schools because it is up to individual heads whether to give them a job. But working with children requires a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, formerly known as a CRB check.

It is against the law to appoint anyone on a list of people barred from working with children.

Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham, said: 'It's astonishing there are so many. Thank goodness for DBS checks, otherwise very serious offenders might be let loose on our children.

'These findings show the importance of the checks in keeping out people who want to be around children for the wrong reasons.

'It may be that some of these people feel they have put their crimes behind them.

'But I think schools are about things beyond teaching maths, English and science - they're about developing character.

'Even if the offence committed was theft, it would still raise question marks about whether they are the right kind of person to be setting an example.'

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: 'Schools are rigorous in carrying out pre-employment checks. Practice in this area is extremely closely inspected by Ofsted.

'The majority of checks are clear. However, occasionally applicants have a conviction in their past for a relatively minor offence which was clearly an aberration. In such cases schools may still decide to employ them if they are certain there is no risk attached to this.'

Schools Week obtained the figures from the DBS, which holds data on those unsuitable to work with children.

The newspaper asked for the total number of people who applied for positions between April 1 2012 and March 31 2015, and the criminal convictions that showed up.

The roles applied for included head and deputy posts, teachers and teaching assistants. The list of convictions did not include the date of the offence.

Human Rights Watch: Mentally ill prisoners suffering abuse in facilities across the US

© prisonpath.com

    
Human Rights Watch has issued a report stating that mentally ill prisoners are being abused in detention facilities across the US, and that these practices are happening in over 5,000 facilities.

US prison staff use excessive & even malicious force on prisoners with mental disabilities http://bit.ly/1IIbcYN http://pic.twitter.com/sK3QqDDPjh

— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) May 12, 2015

The activist group says inmates are being subjected to unnecessary and excessive use of force, and the problem is widespread.

The report provides details of cases where inmates were shocked with Tasers, and where pepper spray was used against them.

In some cases, prisoners were left in restraint chairs for days, or put in scalding showers.

I think the public and legislators for far too long have been willing to send people to prison, without thinking a whole lot about what life behind bars [is like]. And what goes on behind bars is often hidden, people don't know what is happening," Jamie Fellner, one of the report's authors and senior adviser at Human Rights Watch, told RT.

She added that prison authorities

Fellner concluded.

Among the especially troubling cases was Nick Christie, a 62-year-old man who had recently stopped taking his medications for depression and anxiety. He was incarcerated in Florida in 2009 for a nonviolent misdemeanor.

At one point, locked in his cell and crying out for medical help, he kept yelling and banging on the cell door.

Prison officials sprayed him with chemical spray over a dozen times in 36 hours, and immobilized him in a restraint chair with a spit mask covering his face. He died from cardiac arrest.


Another Florida prisoner diagnosed with schizophrenia defecated on the floor of his cell and refused to clean it up.

Officers allegedly put him in a scalding shower, left him there for over an hour, and the inmate subsequently died.

However, the case that specifically caught the attention of human rights activists was 35-year-old Christopher Lopez. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and was discovered on his cell floor semi-conscious.

Staff failed to call medics and instead put Lopez in a restraint chair. A few hours later, he experienced a severe seizure.

The officers finally released him from the chair, but left him lying handcuffed on the floor. Lopez died a few hours later. His lawyer spoke to RT about the case.

attorney David Lane said.

he added.

The lawyer also told RT that the general attitude towards mentally ill inmates in the US is that they are a and they are dealt with like this,

Around 20 percent of prisoners in the US have a serious mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, according to a press release issued by Human Rights Watch. Inmates suffering from such conditions often find it difficult to cope with imprisonment and to comply with instructions.

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