VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to a two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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Singapore Conversation turns to animal welfare

SINGAPORE: A more inclusive society for animals or tougher rules for buying a pet were some suggestions animal lovers brought up at a dialogue on Saturday.

It was also the first time the Singapore Conversation - an initiative to get Singaporeans to come to a consensus on the kind of future they want - focused on animal welfare.

Saturday's event was jointly organised by the Agency for Animal Welfare, the Our SG Conversation Committee and the Singapore Kindness Movement.

Two working dogs - Esme and Joel - were present at the dialogue.

They were there to receive an inaugural Great Pet award given out by the Agency for Animal Welfare to pets which have served their owners in extraordinary ways.

Esme works as a guide dog for her visually impaired master, while Joel is a health service dog who can alert family members during a medical emergency at home.

Awareness of working dogs in Singapore remains low.

Hence animal lovers at the dialogue urged more shops and restaurants to welcome these dogs and their owners.

Their vision is an inclusive Singapore, for animals, too.

But pet owners need to do their part.

A keyword heard throughout the dialogue was "responsibility" - the responsibility of pet owners.

Abandonment cases in Singapore are unfortunately common. Hence some said the process of buying and owning a pet should be made tougher.

One of them is business owner Jill Hum, who said: "It's just far too easy for someone to buy a pet. It's not just buying candy or a teddy bear from the toy store. It's a live animal, you need to know how to take care of the pet. You need to know it's a lifelong commitment."

Others like Melanie Lee want an outright ban on live animals in pet stores.

"If pet shops can be legislated such that they can't have any live pets for sale, that would really help, because we have so many dogs out there - strays dogs, dogs up for adoption that do not have a home right now."

MP for Nee Soon GRC Associate Professor Faishal Ibrahim said the issue will require consultation with relevant stakeholders.

But the dialogue must go on.

"What we need to do is continue to develop and deepen this journey, so that ten years down the road, we will have a more gracious society," said the MP.

One way that can happen, participants said, is to inject the importance of animal welfare into the education system.

- CNA/ir

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Did riots not take place during Congress rule? Rajnath Singh asks Muslims

NEW DELHI: With the BJP being constantly targeted over Gujarat riots, party president Rajnath Singh on Saturday alleged it was being defamed and maligned continuously under a "planned conspiracy".

He said BJP did not believe in politics of divide and creating differences among people, and appealed the Muslim community to help removing the "widespread confusion".

"BJP is defamed and maligned continuously under a planned conspiracy. You all have seen our government in the Centre when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. Who can say that we did politics by creating differences between humans?," he told a group of Muslim leaders who met him at the party office here.

"Our opposition parties allege that BJP is the party which creates enmity (nafrat) between Hindus and Muslims...I want to make an appeal to you people. If anyone can remove this widespread confusion, only you people can do this and this beginning should be made from Delhi," he said.

Stressing that BJP's ideology did not believe in dividing people, he said, "Our ideology and our political thought wants to give only this message that we don't want to create enmity between humans and we don't want to make our government by creating divide."

"If we want to make a government, then we want to base it on the politics of humanity and justice," Singh said.

He also alleged that many more riots have taken place in the country during the Congress regimes.

"Did riots not take place during Congress rule? I can say with confidence that during Congress rule, many more riots took place...We have our government in several of the states...if a riot takes place anywhere, then it should not be assumed that BJP instigated the riot," Singh said.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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Indonesia's January inflation rises to 4.57%

JAKARTA: Indonesian inflation hit a four-year high on a monthly basis in January as food prices soared following severe flooding across the country, an official said on Friday.

The monsoonal downpour pushed inflation to 1.03 per cent last month from 0.54 per cent in December, while it also accelerated to 4.57 per cent year on year, from 4.3 per cent, Central Statistics Bureau chief Suryamin said.

"Bad weather in January caused some food prices to increase, including chillies and chicken. Food was the biggest driver of inflation last month," Suryamin told reporters.

However, core inflation, which excludes volatile food prices, eased to 4.32 per cent from 4.4 per cent the previous month.

The country's central bank, Bank Indonesia, has left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low of 5.75 per cent since February, having kept inflation within the target range of 4.5-5.5 per cent.

- AFP/fa

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McDonald's to pay Rs 15,000 for delivering wrong burger

NEW DELHI: Fast food giant McDonald's has been directed by a consumer forum here to pay Rs 15,000 as compensation to one of its customers for delivering a non-veg burger instead of the vegetarian one she had ordered.

The South West District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum said, "By delivering her a non-vegetarian burger instead of the vegetarian burger ordered by her is a gross negligence on the part of the delivery-crew-member, whose conduct is tantamount to deficiency-in-service.

"Allowing the complaint, we direct the opposite party (McDonald's) to pay to the complainant Rs 10,000 as compensation and Rs 5,000 as cost of litigation," the bench presided by Narendra Kumar said.

The order came on the plea of Delhi resident Vimal Chaudhary who had alleged that she had ordered for two vegetarian burgers, but she was delivered one non-vegetarian and one vegetarian burgers.

She had said that she realised it was a non-veg burger only after eating half of it and thereafter, she had started vomiting.

The woman had also alleged that being an Arya Samaj follower and a Hindu, eating the non-vegetarian food has hurt her emotionally and she also suffered religiously.

In its defence, the McDonald's had contended that the woman had wilfully accepted the non-veg burger instead of the vegetarian one ordered by her.

The forum, however, rejected the contention, saying had she wanted a non-veg burger she would have ordered one.

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Sinkhole Swallows Buildings in China

Photograph from AFP/Getty Images

The sinkhole that formed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (pictured) is, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for the country.

Many areas of the world are susceptible to these sudden formations, including the U.S. Florida is especially prone, but Guatemala, Mexico, and the area surrounding the Dead Sea in the Middle East are also known for their impressive sinkholes. (See pictures of a sinkhole in Beijing that swallowed a truck.)

Published January 31, 2013

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Columbia Shuttle Crew Remembered 10 Years Later

Iain Clark is a teenager now. He was eight years old when his mother, Dr Laurel Clark, and six other astronauts died when the space shuttle Columbia fell apart in the skies over Texas 10 years ago today.

Iain's father, Dr. Jonathon Clark, told ABC News recently that he and Iain will never really recover.

"There will always be a sense of loss and pain and hurt," said Clark. "I've lost a lot, but I've gained a lot, too. I have a perspective and reverence for life. I have my son, and seeing him through this has been very rewarding -- though it has been difficult, as well."

Feb. 1, the anniversary of the Columbia accident, is the day NASA chooses to remember all the astronauts who have died during missions.

Spaceflight is a risky business. Some of the accidents are well known. Others, not really. But they all illustrate just how dangerous it is to leave our planet and venture into orbit.

Three accidents, in particular, are seared in our memories because NASA's missions have been so dramatic, and so public.

First, there was the fire on Jan. 27, 1967, which killed Apollo 1's crew of Command Pilot "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger Chaffee. At the time, NASA was racing to beat the Soviet Union to the moon.

Second was the space shuttle Challenger's accident on Jan. 28, 1986, which was seen live by children across the country because its crew included the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe.

Finally, Columbia's accident, on a clear, sunny Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003, as it re-entered from space after a seemingly routine science mission, stunned the country. It also meant the end of NASA's space shuttle program.

This morning at 9:16 a.m. ET, the time Columbia would have landed at the Kennedy Space Center in 2003, there will be a minute of silence. A bell will toll seven times at the Johnson Space Center for the seven astronauts who died on Columbia's final mission, STS 107: Commander Rick Husband, Pilot Willie McCool, Mission Specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla and Ilan Ramon.

It took months for the commission investigating the accident to determine the cause: foam. A piece the size of a briefcase broke off one of the shuttle's external fuel tanks, punching a hole in the orbiter's left wing.

The crew of seven knew something was wrong very late during re-entry, but there wasn't anything they or mission control could do to save them or Columbia. It took managers at the Johnson Space Center months to accept that something so simple as a piece of foam could do so much damage.

Wayne Hale, who guided NASA's space shuttle program back from the accident, was the only NASA employee who publicly accepted responsibility for Columbia's accident.

Hale now works in the private sector, but recently wrote in a blog about the internal discussion at mission control while engineers discussed what they thought might be a problem -- but weren't sure.

"After one of the MMTs [mission management teams] when possible damage to the orbiter was discussed," Hale wrote, "[Flight Director Jon Harpold] gave me his opinion: 'You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the TPS [thermal protection system]. If it has been damaged it's probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don't you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?'

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Myanmar's Suu Kyi picks up decade-old rights award

GWANGJU, South Korea: Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi finally collected a human rights award in South Korea on Thursday, nearly a decade after it was conferred.

The democracy icon had been awarded the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights back in 2004, but was still under house arrest at the time and unable to receive it.

The prize is named for the southern South Korean city where a pro-democracy uprising in 1980 was brutally suppressed.

In her acceptance speech, Suu Kyi thanked the foundation behind the award and the many Korean pro-democracy activists who attended the ceremony.

"They are true friends and comrades who understand what we are going through because they have gone through the same troubles themselves," she said.

The Nobel peace laureate who was released in 2010 after spending the best part of two decades under house arrest, urged global support for political and economic reform in Myanmar.

"Over the last year, I was fortunate enough to visit ... countries I haven't seen for more than 20 years," she said.

"Visiting these countries and seeing how they have prospered, I am struck by the difference between the life of our people and that of those in more developed nations.

"I'm confident that as we move forward to democracy, we will have the support and help from our true friends, and in this way, we will be able to achieve peace and prosperity that we so desire," she added.

Suu Kyi arrived in South Korea on Monday for a four-day visit that has included meetings with outgoing President Lee Myung-Bak and his successor Park Geun-Hye.

Later Thursday, she was scheduled to meet with a collection of South Korea soap opera stars, including Lee Young-Ae and Ahn Jae-Wook, who are popular in Myanmar.

Lee was a main actress in the pan-Asian TV hit "Jewel in the Palace" and Ahn starred in the 1997 TV drama "Star in My Heart".

On Friday, she will deliver a speech at Seoul National University and accept an honorary doctorate.

- AFP/al

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Cabinet approves Lokpal Bill amendments; Govt not serious on giving autonomy to CBI, BJP says

NEW DELHI: The amended Lokpal Bill, which delinks the central government from creation of state Lokayuktas, was on Thursday approved by the Union Cabinet, paving the way for its consideration by Parliament.

The revised Bill incorporates a number of changes recommended by the Rajya Sabha select committee, including appointment of the director of prosecution by the CVC.

The government, however, has not accepted a key recommendation of the panel that an official facing an inquiry by the Lokpal should not be given an opportunity to be heard at the stage of the preliminary inquiry.

The select committee, to which the controversial Bill was referred in view of sharp differences between political parties, has recommended delinking of the creation of Lokayuktas from the Lokpal Bill.

This was one of the most controversial provisions with several parties contending that it amounts to the central government encroaching upon the rights of the states.

The Bill had said state governments will have to set up Lokayuktas within one year of enactment of Lokpal.

On the issue of giving opportunity to an official to present his or her view, the government feels that such a protection is required and depriving the officials facing allegations the opportunity to present their views was against the "principle of protection".

Another recommendation made by Rajya Sabha select committee was that when a CBI officer investigating a case is sought to be transferred for any reason, prior approval of the Lokpal should be required.

The Cabinet has not favoured the proposal and has suggested an amendment saying transferring any official would remain the exclusive right of the government and the CBI chief as it was an administrative matter, sources said.

Another amendment to the select committee report approved by the Cabinet is that societies and trusts which receive government aid and not funds have been kept out of the ambit of the Lokpal.

But organisations which receive major funding from the government have been kept under the ambit of the proposed ombudsman.

The amendments will now be be put to vote in the Rajya Sabha where the measure is stuck since last year. After getting cleared from the Upper House, the legislation will travel back to Lok Sabha for fresh approval of the amendments.

The Bill has already been passed by the Lok Sabha but government's efforts to provide Lokpal with constitutional status did not succeed in the lower house.

Govt not serious on giving autonomy to the CBI: BJP

BJP on Thursday said that the government was not serious on giving autonomy to the CBI. BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the party had recommended that CBI should be made an independent body but the government did not consider it.

Prasad also said that the process of appointment of Lokpal should be transparent and free from the government control.

Cannot trust PM, Sonia to bring stringent Lokpal Bill : Anna Hazare

Questioning the UPA government's commitment to root out corruption in the country, anti-graft activist Anna Hazare on Thursday said he does not trust Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi for enactment of a stringent Lokpal Bill.

"Both PM and Sonia Gandhi can no more be trusted to bring a stringent Lokpal bill to root out corruption ... Had they been committed to the issue it would not have taken two years to take concrete decision in this regard," Hazare told reporters in Patna.

Describing the Lokpal Bill approved by the Union Cabinet as 'a farce', Hazare said he had written a letter to the Congress president in reply to her letter to him seeking clarification whether the proposed Bill will be a stringent one and whether CBI and the CVC will be kept out of the government's control.

But she has not responded to these clarifications, he said and trashed the proposed Lokpal Bill. "The Centre is trying to befool the people by going ahead with it."

If the government went ahead with the enactment of a 'weak' Lokpal Bill, he would launch another agitation, Hazare, who had sat on indefinite hunger strike at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi last year to press for the Jan Lokpal Bill, said.

Present Lokpal Bill will not check corruption: Kejriwal

Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal has criticised the UPA government for not coming out with a "strong" Lokpal bill, saying that the proposed law would not check corruption.

"Why should you have any Lokpal? If an agency is created which will not stop corruption, will lead to increased corruption and provide protection to ministers, then what is the point," Kejriwal said.

(With inputs from PTI)

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New Theory on How Homing Pigeons Find Home

Jane J. Lee

Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. They've served as messengers during war, as a means of long-distance communication, and as prized athletes in international races.

But there are places around the world that seem to confuse these birds—areas where they repeatedly vanish in the wrong direction or scatter on random headings rather than fly straight home, said Jon Hagstrum, a geophysicist who authored a study that may help researchers understand how homing pigeons navigate.

Hagstrum's paper, published online Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Biology, proposes an intriguing theory for homing pigeon disorientation—that the birds are following ultralow frequency sounds back towards their lofts and that disruptions in their ability to "hear" home is what screws them up.

Called infrasound, these sound waves propagate at frequencies well below the range audible to people, but pigeons can pick them up, said Hagstrum, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.

"They're using sound to image the terrain [surrounding] their loft," he said. "It's like us visually recognizing our house using our eyes."

Homeward Bound?

For years, scientists have struggled to explain carrier pigeons' directional challenges in certain areas, known as release-site biases.

This "map" issue, or a pigeon's ability to tell where it is in relation to where it wants to go, is different from the bird's compass system, which tells it which direction it's headed in. (Learn about how other animals navigate.)

"We know a lot about pigeon compass systems, but what has been controversial, even to this day, has been their map [system]," said Cordula Mora, an animal behavior researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who was not involved in the study.

Until now, the two main theories say that pigeons rely either on their sense of smell to find their way home or that they follow the Earth's magnetic field lines, she said.

If something screwed up their sense of smell or their ability to follow those fields, the thinking has been, that could explain why pigeons got lost in certain areas.

But neither explanation made sense to Hagstrum, a geologist who grew interested in pigeons after attending an undergraduate lecture by Cornell biologist William Keeton. Keeton, who studied homing pigeons' navigation abilities, described some release-site biases in his pigeons and Hagstrum was hooked.

"I was just stunned and amazed and fascinated," said Hagstrum. "I understand we don't get dark matter or quantum mechanics, but bird [navigation]?"

So Hagstrum decided to look at Keeton's pigeon release data from three sites in upstate New York. At Castor Hill and Jersey Hill, the birds would repeatedly fly in the wrong direction or head off randomly when trying to return to their loft at Cornell University, even though they had no problems at other locations. At a third site near the town of Weedsport, young pigeons would head off in a different direction from older birds.

There were also certain days when the Cornell pigeons could find their way back home from these areas without any problems.

At the same time, homing pigeons from other lofts released at Castor Hill, Jersey Hill, and near Weedsport, would fly home just fine.

Sound Shadows

Hagstrum knew that homing pigeons could hear sounds as low as 0.05 hertz, low enough to pick up infrasounds that were down around 0.1 or 0.2 hertz. So he decided to map out what these low-frequency sound waves would have looked like on an average day, and on the days when the pigeons could home correctly from Jersey Hill.

He found that due to atmospheric conditions and local terrain, Jersey Hill normally sits in a sound shadow in relation to the Cornell loft. Little to none of the infrasounds from the area around the loft reached Jersey Hill except on one day when changing wind patterns and temperature inversions permitted.

That happened to match a day when the Cornell pigeons had no problem returning home.

"I could see how the topography was affecting the sound and how the weather was affecting the sound [transmission]," Hagstrum said. "It started to explain all these mysteries."

The terrain between the loft and Jersey Hill, combined with normal atmospheric conditions, bounced infrasounds up and over these areas.

Some infrasound would still reach Castor Hill, but due to nearby hills and valleys, the sound waves approached from the west and southwest, even though the Cornell loft is situated south-southwest of Castor Hill.

Records show that younger, inexperienced pigeons released at Castor Hill would sometimes fly west while older birds headed southwest, presumably following infrasounds from their loft.

Hagstrum's model found that infrasound normally arrived at the Weedsport site from the south. But one day of abnormal weather conditions, combined with a local river valley, resulted in infrasound that arrived at Weedsport from the Cornell loft from the southeast.

Multiple Maps

"What [Hagstrum] has found for those areas are a possible explanation for the [pigeon] behavior at these sites," said Bowling Green State's Mora. But she cautions against extrapolating these results to all homing pigeons.

Some of Mora's work supports the theory that homing pigeons use magnetic field lines to find their way home.

What homing pigeons are using as their map probably depends on where they're raised, she said. "In some places it may be infrasound, and in other places [a sense of smell] may be the way to go."

Hagstrum's next steps are to figure out how large an area the pigeons are listening to. He's also talking to the Navy and Air Force, who are interested in his work. "Right now we use GPS to navigate," he said. But if those satellites were compromised, "we'd be out of luck." Pigeons navigate from point to point without any problems, he said.

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Obama Prods GOP on Immigration Negotiations

Jan 31, 2013 6:00am

                                                                        (Image Credit: John Gurzinski/Getty Images)

President Obama has apparently had enough of leading from behind.

During the health-care push, Obama left Congress to its own devices. On immigration, he’s doing just the opposite, attempting to prod Republican legislators to the middle by demanding a vote on his own plan.

The president insisted Tuesday that Congress vote on his plan as soon as possible, barring agreement on something else.

“It’s important for us to recognize that the foundation for bipartisan action is already in place,” Obama said, referring to a bipartisan Senate bill offered up by the so-called Gang of Eight senators, which looks much more palatable to Republicans than Obama’s own plan. “And if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away.”

In doing so, Obama dared Congress to say “no” to something specific.

It’s the same strategy Obama used in the “fiscal-cliff” talks. With a year-end deadline approaching, he pushed Congress to vote on his own plan: to let higher income tax hikes go into effect if lawmakers couldn’t cut a deal themselves. Obama asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to call “an up-or-down vote” on that plan, the president announced in a Dec. 28 appearance before cameras at the White House.

“If members of the House or the Senate want to vote ‘no,’ they can, but we should let everybody vote,” Obama said then.

Republicans hate such a negotiation tactic. Throughout Obama’s White House tenure, GOP aides have griped that the president and congressional Democrats have sought political gain while refusing to negotiate in good faith. On immigration, it’s the same.

The Obama plan includes a faster path to citizenship and nothing to trigger border-security enforcement. It would also clear an easier path for same-sex couples.

Before Obama rolled out his immigration plan in Nevada Tuesday, Sen. Marco Rubio of  Florida raised concerns that the president would launch a “bidding war.”

In a radio interview with Rush Limbaugh, Rubio dismissed the notion of an up-or-down vote: “It’s going to have to go through committees and people are going to have their input. There’s going to be public hearings.  I don’t want to be part of a process that comes up with some bill in secret and brings it to the floor and gives people a take it or leave it.

“I want this place to work the way it’s supposed to work, with every senator having input and the public having input,” Rubio said.

A Senate Republican aide jabbed, “The president’s been gone from the Senate a long time and perhaps he has forgotten that it’s a lot easier to pass legislation if he works with Congress.”

Obama has presented Republicans with a plan they will like much less than what’s been crafted by the bipartisan Senate group. The group plan includes triggers to enforce border-security measures, more unmanned drones and no provisions making it easier for same-sex couples seeking to immigrate or naturalize.

Unless other Republicans come up with a plan of their own, the president has given Republicans a choice between the left and the middle. It’s not hard to tell which they’d prefer.

SHOWS: Good Morning America World News

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Cricket: Warne calls for new Australia coach

SYDNEY: Test great Shane Warne on Wednesday called on Australia coach Mickey Arthur to be replaced by former New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming days after branding the nation's cricket chiefs "muppets".

The outspoken leg-spinner, who said he was "frustrated on many levels at present", praised Fleming as "the best opposition captain we played against" on his website www.shanewarne.com.

"I believe he brings a lot to the table, a calmness, an intelligent understanding of the game and a very good cricket brain. He's a good communicator too as well as a good leader of men."

Warne, 43, who also wants former Test wicketkeeper Rod Marsh as chairman of selectors, said the current Australian set-up was not working as the players gear up for two Ashes series against England over the next year.

In a post entitled "Where is Australian cricket at? Part 1" on his website, Warne said: "The next 12 months is the biggest 12 months of cricket for the Australian cricket team in a long, long time.

"If we do nothing now, we will be where we were 30 years ago. There needs to be urgent action and a new strategy/plan put in place."

In Twitter comments on Monday, Warne blasted Cricket Australia's policy of rotating players, which has attracted stinging criticism from other greats of the game.

Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has told Warne he is happy to discuss Warne's ideas but has expressed disappointment with the manner in which he expressed his concerns, CA said on its website.

Australia, third in the Test and one-day rankings, lost the recent Twenty20 series against Sri Lanka after drawing the one-day series and beating the visitors in the Test series.

Warne was last week fined A$5,000 (US$5,250) for a code of behaviour breach in the domestic Big Bash League.

And he apologised earlier this month after a foul-mouthed rant against West Indian all-rounder Marlon Samuels that earned him a ban and a A$4,500 fine.

Warne claimed 708 Test wickets in a celebrated career that also courted controversy, including a fine for taking money from a bookmaker. He was sent home from the 2003 World Cup for taking a banned diuretic.

Also on Wednesday, CA said that Australian pace great Dennis Lillee has been appointed to CA's's high-performance team as a fast bowling advisor.

- AFP/al

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Delhi HC stays non-bailable warrants against Raj Thackeray

NEW DELHI: In a relief to MNS chief Raj Thackeray, the Delhi high court on Wednesday stayed the execution of non-bailable warrants (NBWs) issued against him in 2008 for his alleged anti-Bihari remarks.

"The operation of the NBWs is stayed," Justice Sunil Gaur said after hearing brief arguments advanced by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi seeking to quash the summoning orders passed in 2008 by a lower court at Muzaffarpur in Bihar on two private complaints lodged against him.

The court also issued a notice to Sudhir Kumar Ojha, a Bihar-based advocate, and sought his response on the plea of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief while posting the matter for further hearing on April 16.

Initiating the arguments, Rohatgi said, "The summons have been issued on bald complaints of a lawyer and, moreover, the complaints do not satisfy the ingredients envisaged under section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code."

The court, after going through the content of the alleged speeches, said, "It seems it is insulting..."

In response to the observation, the senior lawyer said, "Anybody can have the right to have his or her personal opinion about an issue and they (statements) cannot be held as offensive without being tested".

The counsel for Thackeray sought exemption from personal appearance for the MNS leader during trial court proceedings, saying there were as many as 16 private criminal complaints filed against him and they have been transferred to Delhi following an order of the Supreme Court.

The high court granted exemption from personal appearance for a day to the MNS chief who was to appear in a Delhi court on Thursday in connection with the two cases.

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Timbuktu’s vulnerable manuscripts are city’s "gold"

French and Malian troops surrounded Timbuktu on Monday and began combing the labyrinthine city for Islamist fighters. Witnesses, however, said the Islamists, who claim an affiliation to al Qaeda and had imposed a Taliban-style rule in the northern Malian city over the last ten months, slipped into the desert a few days earlier.

But before fleeing, the militants reportedly set fire to several buildings and many rare manuscripts. There are conflicting reports as to how many manuscripts were actually destroyed. (Video: Roots of the Mali Crisis.)

On Monday, Sky News posted an interview with a man identifying himself as an employee of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a government-run repository for rare books and manuscripts, the oldest of which date back to the city's founding in the 12th century. The man said some 3,000 of the institute's 20,000 manuscripts had been destroyed or looted by the Islamists.

Video showed what appeared to be a large pile of charred manuscripts and the special boxes made to preserve them in front of one of the institute's buildings.

However, a member of the University of Cape Town Timbuktu Manuscript Project told eNews Channel Africa on Tuesday that he had spoken with the director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, Mahmoud Zouber, who said that nearly all of its manuscripts had been removed from the buildings and taken to secure locations months earlier. (Read "The Telltale Scribes of Timbuktu" in National Geographic magazine.)

A Written Legacy

The written word is deeply rooted in Timbuktu's rich history. The city emerged as a wealthy center of trade, Islam, and learning during the 13th century, attracting a number of Sufi religious scholars. They in turn took on students, forming schools affiliated with's Timbuktu's three main mosques.

The scholars imported parchment and vellum manuscripts via the caravan system that connected northern Africa with the Mediterranean and Arabia. Wealthy families had the documents copied and illuminated by local scribes, building extensive libraries containing works of religion, art, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, history, geography, and culture.

"The manuscripts are the city's real gold," said Mohammed Aghali, a tour guide from Timbuktu. "The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?"

This isn't the first time that an occupying army has threatened Timbuktu's cultural heritage. The Moroccan army invaded the city in 1591 to take control of the gold trade. In the process of securing the city, they killed or deported most of Timbuktu's scholars, including the city's most famous teacher, Ahmed Baba al Massufi, who was held in exile in Marrakesh for many years and forced to teach in a pasha's court. He finally returned to Timbuktu in 1611, and it is for him that the Ahmed Baba Institute was named.

Hiding the Texts

In addition to the Ahmed Baba Institute, Timbuktu is home to more than 60 private libraries, some with collections containing several thousand manuscripts and others with only a precious handful. (Read about the fall of Timbuktu.)

Sidi Ahmed, a reporter based in Timbuktu who recently fled to the Malian capital Bamako, said Monday that nearly all the libraries, including the world-renowned Mamma Haidara and the Fondo Kati libraries, had secreted their collections before the Islamist forces had taken the city.

"The people here have long memories," he said. "They are used to hiding their manuscripts. They go into the desert and bury them until it is safe."

Though it appears most of the manuscripts are safe, the Islamists' occupation took a heavy toll on Timbuktu.

Women were flogged for not covering their hair or wearing bright colors. Girls were forbidden from attending school, and boys were recruited into the fighters' ranks.

Music was banned. Local imams who dared speak out against the occupiers were barred from speaking in their mosques. In a move reminiscent of the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's famous Bamiyan Buddha sculptures, Islamist fighters bulldozed 14 ancient mud-brick mausoleums and cemeteries that held the remains of revered Sufi saints.

A spokesman for the Islamists said it was "un-Islamic" for locals to "worship idols."

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All 20 on board Kazakh airliner "killed in crash"

ALMATY, Kazakhstan: All 20 people on board a domestic flight in Kazakhstan operated by the SCAT airline died Tuesday when their Bombardier jet crashed on approach to Almaty airport in thick fog, the airline said.

"Twenty people were on board -- five crew members and 15 passengers," the airline said in a statement, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

"According to preliminary information there are no survivors," the statement added, saying the aircraft was a CRJ-200 made by Canadian manufacturer Bombardier.

SCAT said the plane went down about five kilometres (three miles) short of the financial centre's main airport on a flight from the northern steppe city of Kokshetau.

Commercial KTK television said the plane crashed into a suburb of Almaty but gave no information of possible casualties or damage on the ground.

The Kazinform news agency reported that officials from both the interior and transportation ministry had travelled to the site of the crash.

The accident came just a month after a crash that killed 27, claiming the lives of much of the top echelon of the Kazakh state border service including the acting chief.

Aviation disasters remain a scourge across the former Soviet Union due to ageing hardware that often has not been replaced since the fall of the Soviet regime, as well as human error.

- AFP

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Syrian crisis: India to pledge Rs 14 crore for humanitarian needs

NEW DELHI: Deeply concerned about the hardships and sufferings of the people of Syria as a result of unabated violence there, India will be pledging about Rs 14 crore towards humanitarian assistance in a UN conference which will be held in Kuwait on Wednesday.

This assistance will be in the form of life saving drugs, food and other essential items required by the people of Syria, ministry of external affairs said here.

Minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed will be participating in the 'high-level international humanitarian pledging conference for Syria', an important initiative of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to express support to the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people. It is being hosted by the emir of Kuwait.

"India has been closely following the developments in Syria and is deeply concerned about the hardships and sufferings of the people of Syria as a result of unabated violence in Syria," MEA said, adding it has already responded positively to the humanitarian needs of the people of Syria and had decided to provide humanitarian assistance to Syria in the form of life saving drugs and fortified biscuits.

"In keeping with India's commitment to extend support to the Syrian people, India will be pledging an amount of around Rs 14 crores towards humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria in the conference," the ministry added.

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Space Pictures This Week: Martian Gas, Cloud Trails

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

The sun is more than meets the eye, and researchers should know. They've equipped telescopes on Earth and in space with instruments that view the sun in at least ten different wavelengths of light, some of which are represented in this collage compiled by NASA and released January 22. (See more pictures of the sun.)

By viewing the different wavelengths of light given off by the sun, researchers can monitor its surface and atmosphere, picking up on activity that can create space weather.

If directed towards Earth, that weather can disrupt satellite communications and electronics—and result in spectacular auroras. (Read an article on solar storms in National Geographic magazine.)

The surface of the sun contains material at about 10,000°F (5,700°C), which gives off yellow-green light. Atoms at 11 million°F (6.3 million°C) gives off ultraviolet light, which scientists use to observe solar flares in the sun's corona. There are even instruments that image wavelengths of light highlighting the sun's magnetic field lines.

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 28, 2013

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5 Years Later, What's New on Immigration Reform?

The announcement of a proposal for immigration reform inspired renewed excitement for some involved in the fight Monday, but other players in the debate felt a sense of déjà vu.

Monday afternoon, senators introduced a framework of changes previewed over the weekend, with President Obama and a secret group from the House of Representatives expected soon to follow suit.

The press conference was held by Senators Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio, Michael Bennet and Jeff Flake. Menendez called it "meaningful and comprehensive" immigration reform.

But former Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who worked on this same issue under President George W. Bush in 2007, said this proposal "is a lot like what we did five years ago -- remarkably so."

Martinez said it puts "a little more emphasis" on dealing with legal immigrants who overstay their visas, shifts from framing the policies as reuniting families to rewarding skilled laborers, and the phrase "guest worker" -- which was a point of contention then -- is now absent.

But in terms of things like creating a path to citizenship and requiring an electronic verification system for employers to determine an applicant's legal status, "All of these things are exactly what we did before," Martinez said.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo| Susan Walsh/AP Photo

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To Martinez, this replay is a good thing. He said a "political evolution" and a new appreciation for Hispanic voters created a positive climate for reforms this time around.

But Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform said he is not impressed.

"It's essentially the same legislation that was offered and rejected in 2007," Mehlman told ABC News."It includes nothing for the primary constituency -- namely the American public. It's all based on what the immigrants and particularly the illegal immigrants want and what employers want."

The two plans focused on achieving bipartisan support, molding immigration law to meet the needs of the economy, and the condition that reform would only happen simultaneously with the strengthening of border security.

The difference, according to immigration lawyer Cori Alonso-Yoder of immigrant-focused non-profit Ayuda, is the messaging in this proposal.

"The message is very helpful to people who are used to hearing a not-welcoming tone towards immigrants," Alonso-Yoder said Monday. "I think that's sort of what distinguishes this from efforts that we saw in 2006, 2007 things that I think were more harsh on immigrants."

This time around the plan alludes to racial profiling and human trafficking, two issues Alonso-Yoder said her clients "confront on a daily basis and are dealing with on a daily basis."

Related: 'Dreamers' React to the New Immigration Reform Framework

She said she believes the intent in this legislation is good and that it will have some success -- at least outside of the House of Representatives.

"My concern is just seeing how this will all sort of play out in a system that is already filled with patchwork fixes, and how deep this reform will go, how broad it will sweep," Alonso-Yoder said.

The collapse of President George W. Bush's 2007 immigration bill may be a bad sign for Obama -- who is expected to announce his own plan today -- and others hoping to change the immigration system.

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Bipartisan group of senators to unveil framework for immigration overhaul

A key group of senators from both parties will unveil on Monday the framework of a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, including a pathway to citizenship for more than 11 million illegal immigrants.

The detailed, four-page statement of principles will carry the signatures of four Republicans and four Democrats, a bipartisan push that would have been unimaginable just months ago on one of the country’s most emotionally divisive issues.

The document is intended to provide guideposts that would allow legislation to be drafted by the end of March, including a potentially controversial “tough but fair” route to citizenship for those now living in the country illegally.

It would allow undocumented immigrants with otherwise clean criminal records to quickly achieve probationary legal residency after paying a fine and back taxes.

But they could pursue full citizenship — giving them the right to vote and access to government benefits — only after new measures are in place to prevent a future influx of illegal immigrants.

Those would include additional border security, a new program to help employers verify the legal status of their employees and more-stringent checks to prevent immigrants from overstaying visas.

And those undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship would be required to go to the end of the waiting list to get a green card that would allow permanent residency and eventual citizenship, behind those who had already legally applied at the time of the law’s enactment.

The goal is to balance a fervent desire by advocates and many Democrats to allow illegal immigrants to emerge from society’s shadows without fear of deportation with a concern held by many Republicans that doing so would only encourage more illegal immigration.

“We will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited,” the group asserts in its statement of principles.

The framework identifies two groups as deserving of special consideration for a separate and potentially speedier pathway to full citizenship: young people who were brought to the country illegally as minors and agricultural workers whose labor, often at subsistence wages, has long been critical to the nation’s food supply.

Expanding visas

The plan also addresses the need to expand available visas for high-tech workers and promises to make green cards available for those who pursue graduate education in certain fields in the United States.

“We must reduce backlogs in the family and employment visa categories so that future immigrants view our future legal immigration system as the exclusive means for entry into the United States,” the group will declare.

The new proposal marks the most substantive bipartisan step Congress has taken toward new immigration laws since a comprehensive reform bill failed on the floor of the Senate in 2007.

It comes as the White House is gearing up for a renewed push for reform. On Tuesday, President Obama will travel to Las Vegas to urge quick action; he told Hispanic members of Congress at a White House meeting Friday that the issue is his top legislative priority.

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One dead in Cairo clashes as political turmoil escalates

CAIRO: One person was killed in Cairo on Monday as clashes between police and protesters raged into a fifth day, and President Mohamed Morsi scrambled to contain deepening divisions with calls for national dialogue.

The unidentified man was killed by birdshot to the head, a police official told AFP, as demonstrators and police lobbed rocks at each other on a bridge and in an underpass leading to Tahrir Square and tear gas hung heavily in the air.

Morsi late on Sunday sought to crack down on violence which has swept Egypt since Friday in which more than 45 people have died, declaring a month-long state of emergency in the provinces of Port Said, Suez and Ismailiya.

In a televised address he also slapped the three provinces with night-time curfews, while calling the opposition -- which accuses him of betraying the revolution that brought him to power -- to a national dialogue at the presidential palace at 6:00 pm (1600 GMT) Monday.

Specifically included in the invitation for talks are the three leaders of National Salvation Front (NSF) opposition coalition, leading dissident and founder of Al-Dustur party Mohamed ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Mussa and presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi.

The NSF was to meet in the early afternoon to consider a response to Morsi's call, Hussein Gohar of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party told AFP.

In a statement late Sunday, Sabbahi's movement expressed its "refusal to participate amid the continuing bloodshed and continuing crimes by the regime against demonstrators".

It said it believes that "any serious call for dialogue needs real guarantees for success, the most important being that the president offers political solutions and security."

ElBaradei said on Twitter that "if the president does not assume responsibility for the bloody events, does not commit to the formation of a salvation government and a committee to amend the constitution, all dialogue is a waste of time."

The unrest highlights the deep split between Morsi's mainly Islamist allies, and an opposition of leftists, liberals, Christians and deeply religious Muslims calling for freedom and the separation of the state from religion.

It also underscores the long-standing tensions between protesters and a police force long accused of human rights abuses.

Morsi's television address, in which he appeared both flustered and angry, came after a second day of rioting rocked Port Said sparked by death sentences handed down on Saturday against supporters of a local football club Al-Masry over stadium violence last year that killed 74 people.

At least 46 people have lost their lives in the Suez Canal cities in three days, with Port Said the worst hit with 37 fatalities. Hundreds have also been injured in the violence.

On Sunday, as thousands marched in the funeral procession of Port Said residents who died in clashes a day earlier, chanting "Our city is being hit by the interior ministry" and "Down with Brotherhood rule!" bursts of gunfire scattered mourners amid chaotic scenes that brought on more rioting.

Crowds attempted to storm three police stations in the Port Said, while others looted and torched an army social club, security officials said.

Unrest also erupted on Sunday in Suez, another canal city, where protesters surrounded a police station, lobbed Molotov cocktails at security forces and blocked the road leading to the capital, security officials said.

Morsi warned that he was ready to take further measures unless there was an end to the deadly unrest that has swept Egypt since Friday, when protests to mark the second anniversary of the anti-Mubarak revolt turned violent.

A few hundred people took to the streets of Ismailiya just after Morsi's announcement and clashed with police, an AFP correspondent said. A medical source said six people had been injured.

Egypt was under a state of emergency for more than three decades in the wake of the assassination of president Anwar Sadat in 1981 and until May last year, a month before Morsi was elected.

Ending the state of emergency -- which allowed authorities to detain people without charge and try them in emergency security courts -- was a key demand of protesters who toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

- AFP/xq

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Narendra Modi should be BJP's PM candidate, Yashwant Sinha says

NEW DELHI, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Monday endorsed Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the party's prime ministerial candidate in the next general election.

"Wherever I go, the common people and party workers say they want Narendra Modi to be the prime minister candidate from BJP," Yashwant Sinha told reporters here.

"After considering all aspects, I too feel if BJP declares him as the prime minister candidate, it will make a huge difference to the party," he said.

He added that it was his personal view. The BJP has so far maintained silence on the issue.

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Doomed Dolphin Speaks to New York's Vibrant Wildlife

By the time New Yorkers spied a dolphin swimming through the superfund sludge of the Gowanus Canal last Friday, it was too late. The marine mammal didn't even survive long enough for a rescue plan to come together. First sighted on Friday afternoon, the dolphin perished at 6:00 p.m.

The reason the marine mammal died, and why the dolphin swam up the polluted waterway in the first place, is as yet unknown. But the sad story of the wayward creature highlights the strange nature of New York City, the global epitome of urbanity. Hidden within Gotham are native carnivores, marine mammals, and even species that have scarcely been seen before.

Marine mammals are arguably the most high-profile of New York City's wild residents and visitors. The Gowanus Canal dolphin was only the latest to venture within city limits. Just a month ago, a 60-foot-long finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus) became stranded in the Rockaway Inlet of Queens. The emaciated animal died the day after it was discovered.

There seems to be no singular reason explaining why marine mammals such as the Gowanus dolphin and Queens' finback whale wander up the city's rivers or strand on beaches. Each case is unique. But not all the city's marine mammal visitors suffer terrible fates.

In 2006, a hefty manatee (Trichechus spp.) took a long jaunt from its Florida home up the East Coast, including a detour down New York's Hudson River. The sirenian survived the trip, continuing on to Cape Cod before reportedly turning back south to a destination unknown. Hopefully the manatee didn't encounter any great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) on the return journey, a marine predator we know patrols the waters off New York.

Of course, New York City's whales, seals, and occasional manatee can only skirt the city along its shores and canals. You likely won't see a seal caterpillaring its way along Broadway.

Yet the city's interior also hosts a strange accumulation of wildlife, including native animals that are carving out spaces for themselves in the concrete corridors and exotic species that we have introduced to city life.

Coyotes (Canis latrans) may be the cleverest of New York City's hidden wildlife. Thanks to camera traps, and the occasional police chase through Lower Manhattan, researchers are keeping track of the wily canids and studying how they are so successfully taking up residence in many of the nation's cities. "Most small, urban parks will likely hold a pair and their offspring at most—coyotes are very territorial," said Cornell University ecologist Paul Curtis.

The secretive carnivorans bring a welcome element to urban neighborhoods—an appetite for rodents—and are experts at cracking open new niches alongside people.

Black bears (Ursus americanus) may be next. The bears have proliferated in northern New Jersey in recent years, and in 2010, a black bear came within three miles of the George Washington Bridge, a major thoroughfare between New Jersey and Manhattan. The bear obviously would have eschewed rush hour traffic and the tolls, but the local population is so bountiful that it's not unreasonable to think some enterprising bear might eventually wander into the big city.

Strangely, you may actually be more likely to run into a crocodylian predator in New York City than a black bear. New Yorkers have a nagging habit of importing—and losing-alligator—like caimans and other reptiles within the city.

In 2010, an 18-inch long caiman took refuge under a parked Datsun in Astoria, Queens. No one knows how the reptile wound up on the street, but given the trend of owners buying cute crocodylians and later dumping them, someone may have abandoned the poor little caiman.

This would hardly be the first time. In 2006, another little caiman was found in the leaf litter behind Brooklyn's Spring Creek Towers, while "Damon the Caiman" swam around a Central Park lake in the summer of 2001. These caimans are only some of the most famous—according to a New York Times report, the Brooklyn-based Animal Care and Control deals with about ten caimans each year.

Many other unusual and exotic animals have romped through New York. Under some of their most notable animal celebrities, the city's Parks and Recreation department lists guinea pigs, boa snakes, and even a tiger that escaped from a circus in 2004 and ran down Jackie Robinson Parkway before his owners were able to get him back.

The Big Apple even contains species that have never been documented before. No, not the ballyhooed "Montauk Monster"—actually a rotted raccoon—but a distinct species of leopard frog. Described early this year, the cryptic amphibian was given away by its unique mating call.

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'Barrier of Bodies' Trapped Nightclub Fire Victims

The bodies of the young college students were found piled up just inside the entrance of the Kiss nightclub, among more than 230 people who died in a cloud of toxic smoke after a blaze enveloped the crowded locale within seconds and set off a panic.

Hours later, the horrific chaos had transformed into a scene of tragic order, with row upon row of polished caskets of the dead lined up in the community gymnasium in the university city of Santa Maria. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors.

As the city in southern Brazil prepared to bury the 233 people killed in the conflagration caused by a band's pyrotechnic display, an early investigation into the tragedy revealed that security guards briefly prevented partygoers from leaving through the sole exit. And the bodies later heaped inside that doorway slowed firefighters trying to get in.

"It was terrible inside — it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another," said police inspector Sandro Meinerz. "We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away."

Survivors and another police inspector, Marcelo Arigony, said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

Brazil Nightclub Fire: Nearly 200 People Killed Watch Video

"It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died," he told The Associated Press.

Later, firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble entering the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance," Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper.

Police inspectors said they think the source of the blaze was a band's small pyrotechnics show. The fire broke out sometime before 3 a.m. Sunday and the fast-moving fire and toxic smoke created by burning foam sound insulation material on the ceiling engulfed the club within seconds.

Authorities said band members who were on the stage when the fire broke out later talked with police and confirmed they used pyrotechnics during their show.

Meinerz, who coordinated the investigation at the nightclub, said one band member died after escaping because he returned inside the burning building to save his accordion. The other band members escaped alive because they were the first to notice the fire.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," she said.

Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns. Many of the dead, about equally split between young men and women, were also found in the club's two bathrooms, where they fled apparently because the blinding smoke caused them to believe the doors were exits.

There were questions about the club's operating license. Police said it was in the process of being renewed, but it was not clear if it was illegal for the business to be open. A single entrance area about the size of five door spaces was used both as an entrance and an exit.

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Senate’s pragmatic ranks depleted by one with Chambliss’s departure

The trio of Southern gentlemen came to the Senate together in 2003, the leading edge of a renegade Republican class set on shaking up the chamber’s staid ways and aggressively promoting the Bush White House’s conservative agenda.

Ten years later, Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) are now establishment dealmakers and elder statesmen — roles that earn them respect in Washington but could lead to tough challenges from fellow Republicans when they run for re-election next year.

On Friday, Chambliss announced that there would be no re-election for him, opting for retirement over another run that was certain to include a heated primary challenge, possibly from several candidates. Chambliss took pains to say that he would have won and instead cited Washington “gridlock” as his reason for retiring.

Regardless, Chambliss’s departure is another blow to the pragmatic wing of the Senate, with a lineup of potential successors all hailing from the staunchly conservative camp of the Georgia GOP.

Chambliss’s successor is likely to contribute to a rightward movement over the past four years that has made the ranks of Senate Republicans more conservative, but also led to repeated political disappointment. A handful of 2010 and 2012 Republican primaries produced nominees who bungled their way to general election defeat, when victory once appeared certain.

What happens with the other two Southerners could go a long way to determining the ideological makeup of the Senate Republican caucus.

Alexander and Graham are both running, raising money and appearing throughout their states. Alexander, a former two-term governor and U.S. education secretary, has the stronger footing for the moment, having locked up the endorsements of his state’s GOP congressional delegation and every prominent Republican state official. Graham has no prominent challenger yet, but Palmetto State Republicans are sizing up the race trying to decide if he’s ripe for a challenge.

That Alexander, Chambliss and Graham have found themselves in this situation, a decade after debuting as rabble rousers who helped return the chamber to GOP control, is the latest demonstration of how much the Republican Party has changed. Its voters more than ever demand a confrontational tone and in-your-face tactics, the sort of behavior that they have shied away from.

“The big change is in terms of strategy and tactics,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, noting that the three incumbents are all fairly conservative in their policy positions. “The war has changed. Republican voters want every fight to be hand-to-hand combat. They don’t want to give any ground.”

Alexander rejected the idea that the trio had “gone Washington” as they each became more powerful. “I know my way around here. We’re each finding our niche, and that’s pretty normal after 10 years,” he said in a recent interview.

Before his Friday announcement, Chambliss had been viewed as the most vulnerable Republican incumbent to a challenge from within. His apostasies to the new Republican posture were numerous in recent years, most prominently being his close partnership with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) in an effort to craft a bipartisan package of tax hikes and entitlement cuts to rein in the federal government’s $16.4 trillion debt.

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Limited edition 4-star Lions team kits launched

SINGAPORE: The Lions' fourth historic ASEAN football title win last December was marked with the production of a 4-star Singapore national team kit.

The Lions wore the kit while celebrating their AFF Suzuki Cup win in Singapore and Bangkok.

Due to overwhelming demand, Nike Singapore has launched a limited edition of the attire.

Ardent supporters queued outside the Nike store at Suntec City on Sunday afternoon for the kits.

Only a hundred were made available, in special collector's box sets.

Fans got a bonus as the AFF Championship-winning captains were also in attendance.

Nazri Nasir, Aide Iskandar and Shahril Ishak, signed autographs and posed for pictures.

- CNA/xq

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Ready to face no-confidence motion if opposition moves it, Karnataka CM Shettar says

BANGALORE/DAVANAGERE: Asserting that his government still enjoyed a majority even after 13 BJP MLAs announced their resignation, Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar said on Sunday he is ready to face a no-confidence motion, if the opposition moves it.

"I have majority. There is no threat to the government. I am ready to face a no-confidence motion if the opposition moves it," he told reporters at Honnali, 60 km away from Davanagere in the presence of excise minister MP Renukacharya, a staunch Yedyurappa loyalist.

Shettar said he would be leaving for Delhi on Sunday to meet newly-elected BJP president Rajnat Singh.

The Shettar government's very survival is at stake after 13 MLAs loyal to Karnataka Janata Party chief and former BJP strongman BS Yeddyurappa announced their decision to quit assembly membership.

Their bid to submit their resignations to speaker KG Bopaiah on January 23 was in vain as he was not in station, an issue over which they cried foul and petitioned governor HR Bhardwaj to whom they submitted copies of resignation letters.

Bhardwaj had stated on Saturday that the Shettar government still enjoyed a majority and as leader of the BJP legislature party, it was left left to him to take action on the issue of resignation by 13 MLAs.

Bopaiah, who is in Madikeri, will return to the city on Monday.

Sources in the KJP said that apart from the 13 MLAs who are ready to quit their assembly membership, eight more are likely to join them.

But BJP leaders are engaged in hectic parleys to prevent them from resigning.

The BJP wants to ensure that the budget session starting from February 4 passess off without any trouble.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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Squatter, Bank of America Battle for $2.5M Mansion

Bank of America is taking a Florida man to court after he attempted to use an antiquated state law to legally take possession of a $2.5 million mansion that is currently owned by the bank.

Andre "Loki" Barbosa has lived in a five-bedroom Boca Raton, Fla., waterside property since July, and police have reportedly been unable to remove him.

The Brazilian national, 23, who reportedly refers to himself as "Loki Boy," cites Florida's "adverse possession" law, in which a party may acquire title from another by openly occupying their land and paying real property tax for at least seven years.

The house is listed as being owned by Bank of America as of July 2012, and that an adverse possession was filed in July. After Bank of America foreclosed on the property last year, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office was notified that Barbosa would be moving in, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The Sun-Sentinel reported that he posted a notice in the front window of the house naming him as a "living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury."
On Facebook, a man named Andre Barbosa calls the property "Templo de Kamisamar."

After Barbosa gained national attention for his brazen attempt, Bank of America filed an injunction on Jan. 23 to evict Barbosa and eight unidentified occupants.

In the civil complaint, Bank of America said Barbosa and other tenants "unlawfully entered the property" and "refused to permit the Plaintiff agents entry, use, and possession of its property." In addition to eviction, Bank of America is asking for $15,000 in damages to be paid to cover attorney's expenses.

Police were called Dec. 26 to the home but did not remove Barbosa, according to the Sentinel. Barbosa reportedly presented authorities with the adverse possession paperwork at the time.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Povery Law Center, says police officers may be disinclined to take action even if they are presented with paperwork that is invalid.

"A police officer walks up to someone who is claiming a house now belongs to him, without any basis at all, is handed a big sheaf of documents, which are incomprehensible," Potok said. "I think very often the officers ultimately feel that they're forced to go back to headquarters and try to figure out what's going on before they can actually toss someone in the slammer."

A neighbor of the Boca property, who asked not be named, told ABCNews.com that he entered the empty home just before Christmas to find four people inside, one of whom said the group is establishing an embassy for their mission, and that families would be moving in and out of the property. Barbosa was also among them.

The neighbor said he believes that Barbosa is a "patsy."

"This young guy is caught up in this thing," the neighbor said. "I think it's going on on a bigger scale."

Barbosa could not be reached for comment.

The neighbor said that although the lights have been turned on at the house, the water has not, adding that this makes it clear it is not a permanent residence. The neighbor also said the form posted in the window is "total gibberish," which indicated that the house is an embassy, and that those who enter must present two forms of identification, and respect the rights of its indigenous people.

"I think it's a group of people that see an opportunity to get some money from the bank," the neighbor said. "If they're going to hold the house ransom, then the bank is going to have to go through an eviction process.

"They're taking advantage of banks, where the right hand doesn't know where the left hand is," the neighbor said. "They can't clap."

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