The Raw Story

Saturday, 14 February 2015

U.S. gunman kills three young Muslims; motive disputed

A gunman who had posted anti-religious messages on Facebook and quarreled with neighbors was charged with killing three young Muslims in what police said on Wednesday was a dispute over parking and possibly a hate crime.

© REUTERS/Chris Keane

Namee Barakat and his wife Layla Barakat, parents of shooting victim Deah Shaddy Barakat, react as a video is played during a vigil on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, a full-time paralegal student from Chapel Hill, was charged with first-degree murder in Tuesday's shootings around 5 p.m. two miles (three km) from the University of North Carolina campus.

The victims were newlyweds Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, a University of North Carolina dental student, and his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, and Yusor's sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. All were involved in humanitarian aid programs.

Students at UNC, where Yusor Mohammad was going to join her husband as a student later this year, gathered on Wednesday for an evening vigil and prayer service.

The suspect, in handcuffs and orange jail garb, appeared briefly on Wednesday before a Durham County judge who ordered him held without bail pending a March 4 probable cause hearing.

© REUTERS/Chris Keane

Namee Barakat, father of shooting victim Deah Shaddy Barakat, cries as a video is played during a vigil on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina February 11, 2015.

Police said a preliminary investigation showed the motive to be a parking dispute. They said Hicks, who has no criminal history in Chapel Hill, turned himself in and was cooperating.

The killings drew international condemnation. The shooting sparked the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter on social media with many posters assailing what they called a lack of news coverage.

"I guess that Muslims are only newsworthy when behind the gun, not in front," tweeted a poster who goes by the handle @biebersrivals.

Muslim activists demanded authorities investigate a possible motive of religious hatred.

"We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case," Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue said in a statement.

Hundreds of people gathered on the UNC campus Wednesday evening for a candlelight vigil for the victims.

University and city leaders urged inclusiveness during a time of unease, while a brother of one of the victims called for nonviolence.

'EXECUTION-STYLE MURDERS'

The killings occurred in a condominium complex in a wooded area filled with two-story buildings. Neighbors said parking spaces were often a point of contention.

"I have seen and heard (Hicks) be very unfriendly to a lot of people in this community," said Samantha Maness, 25, a community college student. But she said she had never seen him show animosity along religious lines.

© REUTERS/Chris Keane

A woman places flowers near a building where three young Muslims were killed on Tuesday, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina February 11, 2015.

On Facebook, Hicks' profile picture reads "Atheists for Equality" and he frequently posted quotes critical of religion. On Jan. 20 he posted a photo of a .38-caliber revolver that he said was loaded and belonged to him.

Hicks' wife, Karen Hicks, told reporters at a news conference that her husband had been locked in a longstanding dispute over parking and the killings had nothing to do with religion. She said Hicks was not hateful and believed "everyone is equal."

Barakat's family urged the shooting be investigated as a hate crime and said the three were killed with shots to the head.

"Today, we are crying tears of unimaginable pain over the execution-style murders," Barakat's older sister Suzanne told reporters. She said her brother was light-hearted and loved basketball.

The incident appeared to be isolated and not part of a targeted campaign against North Carolina Muslims, Ripley Rand, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, told a news conference with local police officials.

Imam Abdullah Antepli, chief representative of Muslim affairs at Duke University, told the news conference it may or may not have been a hate crime and called for an easing of tensions.

A TURNING POINT?

© REUTERS/Chris Keane

A makeshift memorial for Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad and Yusor's sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, who were killed by a gunman, is pictured inside of the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina February 11, 2015.

Groups including the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the local Raleigh-based Muslims for Social Justice called for a federal investigation into possible hate crimes.

"I hope this terrible tragedy will be a turning point that brings the reality home that if we keep demonizing Muslims and equating their religion to terrorism, it will lead to more attacks," said Manzoor Cheema, co-founder of Muslims for Social Justice.

Barakat, an American citizen of Syrian origin, wrote in his last Facebook post about providing free dental supplies and food to homeless people in downtown Durham. He was raising funds for a trip to Turkey with 10 other dentists to provide free fillings, root canals and oral hygiene instruction to Syrian refugee children.

His sister-in-law, Abu-Salha, a sophomore at nearby North Carolina State University, was involved in making multimedia art to spread positive messages about being Muslim American.

Students at UNC said the three friends came from two of the most prominent Muslim families in the Raleigh area.

"Deah was a very proud Muslim American. He was proud of all his identities," said Sofia Dard, a 21-year-old senior psychology major. She said Muslims were used to occasional harassment in post-9/11 America, but the shooting "adds a whole level of seriousness."

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Earlier this week, noted security researcher and consultant Mark Burnett made waves when he posted 10 million stolen usernames and passwords on his blog. Of course, the security expert didn't post the passwords with malicious intent. Instead, his goal was to "release a clean set of data" that gives the world insights into user behavior, and also to draw attention once again to the arrest and prosecution of Barrett Brown.

Burnett didn't steal the passwords in question, of course, but they're now easily accessible to anyone and everyone — here's how you can quickly and easily find out if you are affected.

Burnett posted the 10 million leaked usernames and passwords in one big torrent file that anyone with a computer can download in a matter of minutes. Thankfully, one of the people who downloaded that file used it to create a simple site where anyone can check to see if their accounts have been compromised.

Here's how you can check:

Simply visit this page on programmer Luke Rehmann's website, where you'll be able to search for your usernames and passwords in the leaked file.

Now, before you start wondering if Rehmann is just using this page to collect the usernames and passwords people input, it's important to note that you can (and should) search with partial entries. So, for example, if your password is "trustno1," you can simply search "no1″ or "trus" and see if one of your accounts comes up.

As Burnett notes in his blog post, the usernames and passwords he posted are a small sample pulled from earlier username and password dumps containing upwards of 1 billion sets of stolen credentials. As a result, running a check on the site linked above doesn't guarantee that your usernames and passwords aren't floating around on the deep web.

To check your usernames against more complete databases of stolen credentials, visit Havibeenpwned.com and Pwnedlist.com.

Paranoid America: Alabama cop accused of paralyzing Indian man during pat-down

An Alabama cop is under investigation after allegedly using excessive force while handcuffing a man visiting from India who has since been diagnosed as partly paralyzed.

The altercation occurred last Friday when Sureshbhai Patel, a 57-year-old Indian citizen from the small town of Pij, was approached by an officer of the Madison Police Department while outside his own son's home in an affluent up-and-coming community in northern Alabama.

Police say they were responding to calls concerning a suspicious person in the neighborhood when they confronted Patel, according to a statement provided to the AL.com news portal, and learned he did not speak English.

According to local news network WHNT, Patel's son said his dad told the officers: "No English. Indian. Walking," then pointed to the family home he had been staying in for less than two weeks.

The officers then attempted to search Patel, according to the police. But when the man allegedly put his hands in his pockets and pulled away, one of the cops forced him to the ground.

"He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time," his son, Chirag Patel, told AL.com on Tuesday. "They put him to the ground."

"The only thing that would have been suspicious is that he was of brown skin," Hank Sherrod, an attorney for the Patel family, told RT on Wednesday.

Not only did the incident end without arrests, but Patel had to be hauled off to an area hospital temporarily paralyzed. At first he was unable to move his legs and had limited motion in his arms, but some mobility was restored after doctors performed cervical fusion surgery the next day.

"The doctors say there was trauma to the cervical spine that caused immediate swelling," Sherrod told RT, "and they needed to do the cervical fusion in order to go in there and relieve the pressure on the spine."

"This is just one of those things that doesn't need to happen," the lawyer told AL.com. "That officer doesn't need to be on the streets."

Indeed, the Madison Police Department has since placed the officer on administrative leave pending the results of an internal investigation, and soon the agency may have a better idea of what exactly happened.

Capt. John Stringer, a spokesman for the force, told AL.com that both audio and video exists of the incident, but the recordings will be kept from the public for now, since they are considered evidence in the internal affairs probe.

"You only release the video and the audio , which they admit they have, but you only release that when it supports you. You don't do that in this case when obviously you're concerned it doesn't," Sherrod told RT.

Also sealed, for the time being, are the names of the two officers who responded to the suspicious person calls.

"The Madison Police Department takes all use of force incidents seriously and reviews them as a matter of policy," the department said in a statement.

Chirag Patel, the victim's son, came to the United States roughly a decade ago, according to AL.com, then attended college and married a US citizen. After gaining full citizenship in 2012, the older Patel was approved for permanent residency on account of being an immediate family member, the news portal reported.

"He came here to help; he came here to be a granddad," Sherrod told RT.

German civil defense officials collect bodies and start sifting through the rubble in the aftermath of the attack in Dresden

More people died in the fire bombing of Dresden on February 13th to 14th, 1945 than in the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Holocaust (noun) - "Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire."

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Starving sea lion pups have been washing ashore along the California coast for the past three winters and experts have very few clues as to why this is happening.

"They're extremely emaciated, basically starving to death," Shawn Johnson of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California told National Geographic.

Since the start of the year, almost 500 pups have been admitted to the state's rehabilitation centers, with the Sausalito facility handling 171 cases so far. Last year, it took until April for the center to hit the 100-case mark.

Officials said they are particularly concerned because they've yet to hit the peak stranding season, which is traditionally a few months away.

"We're all kind of holding our breath," said Justin Viezbicke, stranding network coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Canaries of the sea

Sea lions are sort of the "canaries in the coal mine" for ocean health and an unhealthy population usually means that something has gone wrong. Unfortunately, scientists aren't sure exactly what that might be.

Scientists have mentioned that the stranding pattern was similar to that of significant El Niño years, when warm waters replace the cool, nutrient-rich waters that typically fuel the area's production. However, these aren't El Niño years.

In addition to the struggling pups, nothing else has been clearly wrong, with not one other species likewise affected. Also, adult sea lions looked fine.

Theories

So far, scientists have eliminated known diseases and ecological toxins, which might be likely to affect greater than just pups. Some scientists question if the sea lion population has grown so big that the offshore environs simply can't support their numbers.

The most popular theory appears to be that changes populations of sardines and other sea lion prey are forcing nursing sea lion mothers to go farther in trying to find food. These extended forays keep sea lion mothers away from their pups. This could cause the small animals wait on the beaches and go without food until they ultimately go out their own, well before they're ready to handle the Pacific Ocean.

NOAA teams are out on the Channel Islands, investigating the sea lion population and attempting to fill in the knowledge gaps.

One thing that scientists have seen come out in the last year is a substantial, prolonged spot of warm ocean water that has established offshore and may be bumping the ecosystems of western North America out of whack.

"It's been a really unusually warm year, and disruptive to the normal marine food web, from Baja all the way up to Alaska," said Nate Mantua of NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Mantua noted that wind and weather patterns in 2014 generated patches of warm water from Mexico to Alaska. Those patches then merged, forming a large pool that experts think may hang around for awhile.

The NOAA researchers emphasized that it is too soon to tell if the warm-water pool is affecting the sea lions, or if the pups are a harbinger of something else going on beneath the waves.

Drones to explore Amazon for evidence of ancient civilizations

Scientists plan to use drones to scour the Amazonian forests for evidence of ancient civilizations. New discoveries suggest that sophisticated cultures similar to those in other parts of the Americas once occupied the area.

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Data on ancient settlements in the Amazon, which have been accumulating over the last few years, show that civilization there was far more advanced than previously thought. BBC News is reporting that the discovery of geoglyphs, where deforestation has taken place, may point to highly developed urban cultures similar to other peoples in pre-Columbian times, such as the Olmecs, Mayans, Aztecs and Incas.

Until now, the idea that an advanced civilization was lost in the Amazonian forests was considered to be just a myth or the stuff of films. Early European explorers called it El Dorado or the City of Z. Hundreds of them ventured into the Amazon's dark interior searching for its legendary cities, which were reputed to possess gigantic riches.

Also, most scientists in the last century thought that the soil was too poor and ecological conditions too severe for anything other than tribes and small farmers to have existed there. However, the discoveries over the recent period are seriously challenging this view.

Since 2010, some 450 geoglyphs have been discovered. (Geoglyphs are huge geometric patterns carved into the landscape, which can often only be seen from the air.) The new findings in the Amazon show perfectly designed circles, lines and shapes, which are accompanied by huge mounds and massive ditches stretching over a 155 mile (250 kms) area.

© Sanna Saunaluoma, Antiquity Journal

Aerial photograph and plan of earthworks at Fazenda Colorada made up of clear geometric shapes. Excavations suggest inhabitants lived in the three-sided square.

Dr Jose Iriarte from Exeter University, UK, told the BBC that, "This evidence suggests that Amazonia may have been inhabited by large, numerous, complex and hierarchical societies." Certainly, to have carried out such large scale projects it would have been necessary to have a huge, housed labor force, perhaps as large as the Egyptians used to build the pyramids.

Indeed, Alceu Ranzi, a geographer and paleontologist with the Federal University in the Brazilian state of Acre earlier told Archeology News Network that regions of the Amazon were home to civilizations that may have rivaled those of the ancient West. "It could be something as important as an unknown Roman empire, or a Mesopotamia."

Some researchers estimate that as many as 90,000 people may have lived in the complexes which make up the ruins around the geoglyphs. Anthropologist Michael Heckenberger, who has been working for some twenty years on Brazil's Xingu river, a few hundred miles away, believes he has uncovered "garden cities" of 50,000 inhabitants, which were "small and medium residential areas built around central plazas and interconnected by elaborate road systems."

Aerial photograph of ditches at Fazenda Parana

Ancient Origins reported last year that a study published in the journal, , says that the geoglyphs and surrounding constructions predate the existence of the Amazonian rain forest. Analysis of sediment shows that the climate was far different 6,000 years ago, when it would have been much drier and unsuitable for a jungle ecosystem. That changed about 2-3,000 years ago. Until now the geoglyphs and constructions were thought to have been built around 200 AD, but since they predate the forest, it means that a very ancient civilization existed there before 1,000 BC.

Many believe that the ancient civilization remained in the area during the climate changes and created an elaborate system of land and water management combined with deforestation. This is a key issue which scientists want to investigate with the drone research, in order to see if there is any relevance or lessons to be gained for today's destruction of the rain forest.

Some archeologists think there could be as many as 2,000 other structures hidden below what is now the dense canopy of the rain forest. While some of the shapes and mounds were first seen back in 1999, exploration has proved difficult and is expected to continue for some time to come. The drones will be a major contributor to accelerating this process. Equipped with lidar instruments, which digitally remove the trees from images, the drones should be able to penetrate larger areas of the forest and help researchers pinpoint places to explore on the ground. It may also go a long way to answering the questions about the size and sophistication of the civilization.

The BBC reports that the new project was announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose. It will be a British-led team, which just won a 1.7m Euro (£1.25m; $1.9m) grant from the European Research Council.

© Surprise Police Department

A sinkhole in Surprise injured two when their car fell into it Friday afternoon, according to officials.

A sinkhole in Surprise sent two people to the hospital Friday and forced an overnight road closure, authorities said.

The sinkhole on 163rd Avenue about a 1/2 mile north of Grand Avenue was about as wide as a lane of traffic. Attempts to repair the damage were underway Friday afternoon.

Two people received minor injuries when the vehicle they were in entered the sinkhole, according to a Surprise Fire Department official. The pair were taken to Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center in Sun City for treatment.

Traffic was initially moving through the area with restrictions. Officials closed 163rd Avenue overnight and the road was expected to be off limits to traffic at least through this morning.

It wasn't clear when repairs would be complete and the road restrictions would be cleared.

The Raw Story

Focused on providing independent journalism.

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Saturday, 14 February 2015

U.S. gunman kills three young Muslims; motive disputed

Ten million stolen passwords were released

Paranoid America: Alabama cop accused of paralyzing Indian man during pat-down

70th Anniversary of The Dresden Holocaust

500 starving sea lion pups have washed ashore along the California coast since the start of 2015

Drones to explore Amazon for evidence of ancient civilizations

Sinkhole injures two in Surprise, Arizona

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