Eugene
Eugene's JournalSuspected rhino poacher killed by elephant, eaten by lions in South Africa: authorities
Source: Global News
Suspected rhino poacher killed by elephant, eaten by lions in South Africa: authorities
By Rahul Kalvapalle
National Online Journalist Global News
South African authorities say they have recovered the remains of a suspected rhinoceros poacher who was believed to have been killed by an elephant before his body was devoured by lions.
The victims family say they were informed of his death by fellow members of a poaching gang that entered Kruger National Park in northeastern South Africa on Tuesday, South African National Parks said in a release.
South African authorities say they have recovered the remains of a suspected rhinoceros poacher who was believed to have been killed by an elephant before his body was devoured by lions.
The victims family say they were informed of his death by fellow members of a poaching gang that entered Kruger National Park in northeastern South Africa on Tuesday, South African National Parks said in a release.
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Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/5137424/rhino-poacher-killed-by-elephant-kruger/
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Related: Media Release: Kruger National Park rangers help family closure by recovering remains of a suspected poacher killed by an Elephant (South African National Parks)
Trump is spouting nonsense at a greater rate
Source: CNN
Trump is spouting nonsense at a greater rate
By Michael D'Antonio
Updated 1906 GMT (0306 HKT) April 5, 2019
(CNN) It's not just that President Donald Trump has been spouting nonsense at a greater rate, although he is. What's new is that his false statements are becoming more bizarre. He said this week, for example, that his Bronx-native father was born in Germany. And they are accompanied by other displays of apparent cognitive distress. Among the glaring examples:
Last month, the President of the United States looked at Apple executive Tim Cook, one of the most important business leaders in the world, and called him Tim Apple.
A few days earlier at a conservative conference where he literally hugged a flag, Trump ditched his script and rambled for two mostly incoherent hours. He mixed mockery, profanity and grandiosity in a style more suited to a barstool than a podium decorated with the presidential seal.
In an Oval Office encounter with reporters this week, he repeatedly used the word "oranges" instead of "origins" to demand an investigation into the beginnings of the independent counsel's probe of Russian influence in the 2016 election.
Bizarrely, he told a GOP fundraiser audience that "they say" the sound created by energy-producing windmills "causes cancer."
In any family, a 72-year-old man who spoke this way would be the subject of urgent discussions. Trump's trouble accessing words, summoning long-term memories, and naming a famous man in front of him could indicate mental deterioration. Add the crazy talk about windmills and cancer, coming from the leader of the free world, and you get a situation that ought to alarm everyone.
This situation is complicated by Trump's long and deep record of lying to suit his purpose. For decades, he made excessive claims about his wealth and abilities and the ratings for his reality TV show. Fantastic claims became his self-serving stock in trade. As a politician, Trump transferred this deceptive method into the political landscape -- call it his lie-scape -- and picked up the pace of the falsehoods.
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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/05/opinions/trump-is-spouting-nonsense-at-a-greater-rate-dantonio/index.html
Ben Carson questioned on HUD's lack of LGBTQ nondiscrimination guidance
Source: NBC News
We are all now more stupid than we were when we came in the room today, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said after a heated exchange with the HUD secretary.
April 4, 2019, 12:09 PM EDT
By Eileen Street
WASHINGTON Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said in a hearing Wednesday that a Democratic congressman might not like and probably wouldnt agree with the departments LGBTQ nondiscrimination guidance, if the agency were to provide it.
During the House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said he was very disappointed with HUD's decision not to replace the LGBTQ nondiscrimination guidance that the department removed from its website soon after Carson was appointed by President Donald Trump over two years ago. The guidance, provided in 2009 by the Obama administration, was intended to help HUD housing providers and shelters interpret the agencys rules so as not to discriminate against LGBTQ service recipients.
So, how will these grantees comply with the regs without this guidance, sir? Quigley asked Carson.
Carson responded that the guidance was pretty much obliterated by rules HUD issued in 2012 and 2016. The secretary added that HUD concluded that putting that sub-regulatory guidance" regarding anti-LGBTQ discrimination "actually confused the issue." He said his agency which is responsible for national policy and programs that address Americas housing needs and enforces fair housing laws was trying to simplify things and said the rules still stand and have not been changed.
Quigley, who serves as vice chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, pressed on, saying HUD grantees need guidance to avoid the discrimination and to make clear to them what the rules are. Quigley also stated that HUD missed a deadline by almost six months to review the guidance in question that the agency took down in 2017. Carson responded by saying the agreement had been that the guidelines would be reviewed, not that they would be put back up on HUD's website.
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Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/ben-carson-questioned-hud-s-lack-lgbtq-nondiscrimination-guidance-n990821
Tempers fray in Mexico as new controls frustrate U.S.-bound migrant caravan
Source: Reuters
Tempers fray in Mexico as new controls frustrate U.S.-bound migrant caravan
Jose Cortez
4 MIN READ
MAPASTEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) - Tempers frayed among hundreds of mostly Central American migrants gathered on Wednesday in southern Mexico, delayed as Mexican officials sought to slow down the U.S.-bound flow that President Donald Trump is determined to turn back.
Since last week Trump has repeatedly threatened to close down the U.S.-Mexico border if Mexican officials do not do more to thwart the migrants, potentially harming tens of billions of dollars in trade, but has also praised Mexican efforts following his outbursts.
The Mexican government has vehemently denied changing policy in response to threats, but has appeared to slam the brakes on its practice of awarding so-called humanitarian visas that allow migrants from other countries to pass freely within its borders.
Without such papers, they are vulnerable to harassment and deportation from officials.
As many as 1,500 men, women and children traveling in a large group or caravan from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Cuba were gathered in the town of Mapastepec in Chiapas state, unable to obtain the temporary visas.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-mexico-caravan/tempers-fray-in-mexico-as-new-controls-frustrate-u-s-bound-migrant-caravan-idUSKCN1RF2U1
Nuclear regulators were unaware of transfer of sensitive technical information to Saudi Arabia
Source: Washington Post
By Steven Mufson April 2 at 7:54 PM
When the Trump administration on seven occasions authorized companies to share sensitive nuclear energy information with Saudi Arabia, it was supposed to consult with several agencies, including the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But NRC Chairman Kristine L. Svinicki testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday that she did not know whether the agency had been consulted, and if so whether it had raised any concerns.
At one point Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) asked four questions in a row about the agencys participation, pausing after each one, and Svinicki and her four fellow commissioners remained silent.
I know you dont have sign-off authority, but none of you at this table know whether the NRC raised any concerns about entering in these 810 authorizations? he asked.
I do not, Svinicki replied.
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The exchange between Van Hollen and Svinicki illustrates growing concern in Congress over the Energy Departments authorization of Part 810 information nonclassified but sensitive details about nuclear energy reactors U.S. companies are trying to sell to Saudi Arabia.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nuclear-regulators-were-unaware-of-transfer-of-sensitive-technical-information-to-saudi-arabia/2019/04/02/2bf7e9ee-5587-11e9-9136-f8e636f1f6df_story.html
The Islamic State's refugees are facing a humanitarian calamity
Source: Washington Post
By Erin Cunningham and Kamiran Sadoun April 2 at 6:45 PM
AL-HOL, Syria A humanitarian crisis is erupting in northeastern Syria as tens of thousands of people who fled intense fighting in last months decisive battle against the Islamic State are flooding into a desperately overcrowded tent camp atop a rocky hill here.
More than 73,000 people, mostly women and children, are now packed into the sprawling al-Hol camp, under the control of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. The camp, which opened in 1991 to host Iraqi refugees from the Persian Gulf War, was originally designed to hold barely half that number.
Amid a sea of white tents, thousands sleep in communal spaces, and children defecate outside. The war wounded are often left untreated. Thousands more are malnourished. There are just three mobile clinics at the camp, and local hospitals are swollen with patients critically wounded in the war. Those with non-life-threatening injuries often are given painkillers or antibiotics and sent on their way.
Last week, 31 people died on the way to the camp or shortly after arriving because of traumatic injuries and malnutrition, according to the International Rescue Committee, bringing the total number of such deaths to 217.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-islamic-states-refugees-are-facing-a-humanitarian-calamity/2019/04/02/e5e1ca42-54aa-11e9-aa83-504f086bf5d6_story.html
Saudi women activists back in court as West watches
Source: Reuters
Saudi women activists back in court as West watches
Stephen Kalin
3 MIN READ
RIYADH (Reuters) - Nearly a dozen prominent Saudi women activists returned to court on Wednesday to face charges related to human rights work and contacts with foreign journalists and diplomats, in a case that has intensified Western criticism of a major Mideast ally.
Three of the women - blogger Eman al-Nafjan, academic Aziza al-Yousef and conservative preacher Ruqayya al-Mohareb - were temporarily released last week on condition they attend future sessions.
They were seen entering the courthouse on Wednesday.
Riyadhs criminal court had been expected to rule on requests for temporary releases for the others, but sources familiar with the proceedings said no decision was announced.
Instead, the public prosecutor replied to the womens defences, the people said without providing details. Few of the charges have been made public in the highly scrutinised case.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-arrests/saudi-women-activists-back-in-court-temporary-release-ruling-expected-idUSKCN1RF0W6
A Previously Unknown Portrait of a Young Harriet Tubman Goes on View
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
I was stunned, says director Lonnie Bunch; historic Emily Howland photo album contains dozens of other abolitionists and leaders who took an active role
By Allison Keyes
smithsonian.com
March 26, 2019
The power exuded by a previously unknown portrait of Harriet Tubman is tangible. The escaped slave, who repeatedly returned to the South risking her life to bring hundreds of enslaved people North to freedom, stares defiantly into the camera. Her eyes are clear, piercing and focused. Her tightly waved hair is pulled back neatly from her face. But it is her expressionfull of her strength, power and sufferingthat stops viewers in their tracks.
Suddenly, there was a picture of Harriet Tubman as a young woman, and as soon as I saw it I was stunned, says a grinning Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture. Hes talking about a portrait of Tubman contained in an 1860s-era photography album belonging to abolitionist Emily Howland.
All of us had only seen images of her at the end of her life. She seemed frail. She seemed bent over, and it was hard to reconcile the images of Moses (one of Tubmans nicknames) leading people to freedom, Bunch explains. But then when you see this picture of her, probably in her early 40s, taken about 1868 or 1869 . . . theres a stylishness about her. And you would have never had me say to somebody Harriet Tubman is stylish.
But Bunch, a historian with expertise in the 19th century, then looked a little deeper at the portrait of this woman Americans think they know so well. Not only did she escape slavery and conduct hundreds of others to freedom along the Underground Railroad, she served as a spy, a nurse and a cook for Union Forces during the Civil War. She also helped free more than 700 African-Americans during an 1863 raid in South Carolina, which earned her another nickname: General Tubman. Bunch says the photograph celebrates all of those facets of Tubmans life.
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Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/previously-unknown-portrait-abolitionist-harriet-tubman-young-woman-goes-view-180971796/
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