Russia declares emergency as wildfires kill 34
Russia declared a state of emergency in seven regions on Monday after wildfires killed at least 34 people and left thousands homeless in the worst heatwave since records began 130 years ago.
Fires raging across European Russia have destroyed homes, forests and fields, already scorched for weeks by an unprecedented heatwave.
Drought in some regions of Russia, one of the world's biggest wheat exporters, has sent global prices soaring to 22-month highs and driven thousands of farmers to the brink of bankruptcy.
Officials said firefighting manpower was increased ten fold near a nuclear research center in Sarov, Niznhy Novgorod region, one of the hardest-hit provinces, around 350 kilometers (220 miles) east of Moscow.
Nearly 700 wildfires were burning over 1,210 square kilometers (750 square miles) of land, a spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry told Reuters.
In the capital Moscow, residents wore masks against the choking smog caused by peat fires stoked by the hot weather.
President Dmitry Medvedev declared a state of emergency in the Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir, Ryazan, Mordovia and Mari El regions as well as the province that rings the capital, the Kremlin said in a statement.
The toll rose from 28 dead on Sunday to at least 34 on Monday, an Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman said. He would not give details about the locations or specific cause of death for the new fatalities.
More than 180,000 people were fighting the blazes and 18 aircraft dumped 3,000 tons of water on the fires and threatened areas on Sunday, the ministry said.
Firefighters near Maslovka in the southern Voronezh province, where the temperature on Monday hit 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit), welcomed a respite from high winds that have fanned flames.
FIRE NEARS NUCLEAR FACILITY
Authorities dramatically stepped up firefighting manpower to fight blazes near a nuclear center in Sarov in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the Interfax news agency quoted Emergencies Ministry official Pavel Plat as saying.
The nuclear center, now a research facility, was a top-secret location in Soviet times codenamed Arzamas-16, where the first Soviet atom and hydrogen bombs were designed.
A spokesman for state nuclear agency Rosatom, Sergei Novikov, told Ekho Moskvy radio the center was not currently in danger but said firefighters were on guard in case new blazes broke out on land south of the center.
Thick smoke blanketing the area prevented Emergencies Ministry aircraft from dropping water on the flames. ITAR-TASS news agency reported that at least five civilian flights were canceled at Nizhny Novgorod airport because of the smoke.
Smog returned to the capital after a hiatus over the weekend. The concentration of pollutants, which has caused health concerns, was slightly lower than the absolute summer high recorded last week, an air monitoring expert said.
"The concentration of carbon monoxide and suspended particles surged three to eight times in the morning hours," Alexei Popikov, chief specialist at Mosekomonitoring, a government agency monitoring air pollution, told Reuters.
Pollution rose up to 10 times above the norm on Wednesday, the agency said, the worst this summer but lower than a record high reached during wildfires in 2002.
Russia's heat wave is expected to last through the week at least.
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Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ (
listen); Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation[7][8] (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. Russia shares borders with the following countries (from northwest to southeast): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan (by the Sea of Okhotsk) and the United States (by the Bering Strait).
At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is by far the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of the Earth's land area. Russia is also the ninth most populous nation in the world with 142 million people.[1] It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 9 time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources,[9] and is the world's largest energy superpower.[10][11][12][13][14] It has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.[15]
The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs, who emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD.[16] Founded and ruled by a noble Viking warrior class and their descendants, the first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century and adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988,[17] beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium.[17] Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated and the lands were divided into many small feudal states. The most powerful successor state to Kievan Rus' was Moscow, which served as the main force in the Russian reunification process and independence struggle against the Golden Horde. Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities and came to dominate the cultural and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America.
Russia established worldwide power and influence from the times of the Russian Empire to being the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world's first constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower,[18][19][20] that played a decisive role in the allied victory in World War II.[21][22][23] The Soviet era saw some of the greatest technology achievements of the nation, such as the world's first human spaceflight. The Russian Federation was founded following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Soviet state.[24] Russia has the world's 6th largest economy[25][26] by nominal GDP or the seventh largest by purchasing power parity, with the fifth largest nominal military budget. It is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.[27] Russia is a superpower[28][29][30][31][32][33] and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, the OSCE, and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Food agency probes cloned cow milk claim
Food safety officials are to investigate a claim that milk from the offspring of a cloned cow was on sale for public consumption, they said Monday.
The disclosure has provoked concern among some farming campaigners, and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is set to investigate a report in Friday's International Herald Tribune newspaper.
But the body which represents Britain's dairy industry insisted that there was no danger.
The newspaper quoted a British dairy farmer, speaking anonymously, saying that he was using milk from a cow bred from a clone as part of his daily production.
The farmer did not want his name to be disclosed because he feared Britons saw cloning as "distasteful" so buyers would stop taking his milk if they knew who he was.
The FSA said in response that it regarded meat and products from cloned animals and their offspring as "novel foods" which need to be authorised before being put on sale.
"The agency has not received any applications relating to cloning and no authorisations have been made," a spokeswoman said.
"The agency will, of course, investigate any reports of unauthorised novel foods entering the food chain."
Peter Stevenson, from campaigners Compassion in World Farming, said he was "extremely concerned" at the report and called for an outright ban on the sale of food from cloned animals and their offspring.
He said: "The Food Standards Agency must act quickly to trace this milk and get it withdrawn from shops. The cloning of farm animals can involve great suffering."
Emma Hockridge of the Soil Association, which campaigns for organic farming, added there were other concerns related to the safety of products from cloned animals and that they could reduce genetic diversity.
But Dairy UK, which represents the industry in Britain, insisted there was no danger.
"Milk and meat from the offspring of clones does not present any food safety risk," it said in a statement.
"The European Food Safety Authority has concluded that there is no difference in food safety between meat and milk from the offspring of cloned animals and products from conventionally bred animals".
Related info :
Food safety[1] is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards. Food can transmit disease from person to person as well as serve as a growth medium for bacteria that can cause food poisoning. Debates on genetic food safety include such issues as impact of genetically modified food on health of further generations and genetic pollution of environment, which can destroy natural biological diversity. In developed countries there are intricate standards for food preparation, whereas in lesser developed countries the main issue is simply the availability of adequate safe water, which is usually a critical item.
Obese mom dies in Romania, 5 months after birth
A 25-year-old Romanian woman who weighed 528 pounds (240 kilograms) when she gave birth to a baby girl more than 5 months ago has died, media reported Monday.
Relatives of Victoria Lacatus said she died of a heart attack Sunday after developing a high fever and breathing problems.
Doctors from Craiova hospital in southern Romania said Lacatus' heart stopped. Hospital manager Florin Petrescu said doctors tried to resuscitate Lacatus for 30 minutes, a task made difficult because of her extreme obesity.
After she gave birth by cesarean section to a 6-pound, 6-ounce (2.9 kilograms) baby girl on Feb. 18, Lacatus gained another 44 pounds (20 kilograms), her sister Cristina Sosoiu told the daily Libertatea. Doctors had told Lacatus to go on a diet, the paper reported.
Her daughter, Anisoara, currently weighs just a little over 9 pounds (4 kilograms), the paper said. She lives with her maternal grandmother. It is not clear why the baby does not live with her father, Costica Lacatus.
Lacatus fell ill with a fever last week and was hospitalized in her home town of Caracal in southern Romania before she was moved to the main regional hospital where she died.
When Lacatus gave birth on Feb. 18, Dr. Daghni Rasasingham, of Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in London said the case was rare, given the mother's weight and height of 5 feet and 3 inches (1.6 meters).
Rasasingham said she would be at risk of clots, diabetes, post-birth bleeding and infection.
Nicolae Cernea, a doctor from the southern city of Craiova — where Lacatus was hospitalized for a month before delivery — said her case was unique in Romania.
In August 2008, a heavier obese woman — 560-pound (255-kilogram) Leanne Salt — gave birth to triplets in Britain.
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Romania (pronounced /roʊˈmeɪniə/ ( listen) roe-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Rumania; Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea.[3] Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south.
Romania emerged as principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia united under prince Alexander John Cuza in 1859 and as the Kingdom of Romania under the Hohenzollern monarchy, it gained recognition of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. In 1918, at the end of the World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly the present day Republic of Moldova and the southern half of Odessa oblast (today in Ukraine)) were occupied by the Soviet Union and Romania became a socialist republic, member of the Warsaw Pact.
With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the 1989 Revolution, Romania started a series of political and economic reforms. After a decade of post-revolution economic problems, Romania made economic reforms such as low flat tax rates in 2005 and joined the European Union on January 1, 2007. Romania is now an upper-middle income country with high human development,[4] although within the European Union, Romania's income level remains one of the lowest.
Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population (with 21.5 million people)[5] among the European Union member states. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest (Romanian: Bucureşti [bukuˈreʃtʲ] ( listen)), the 6th largest city in the EU with 1.9 million people. In 2007 the city of Sibiu was chosen as a European Capital of Culture.[6] Romania also joined NATO on March 29, 2004, and is also a member of the Latin Union, of the Francophonie, of the OSCE and of the United Nations, as well as an associate member of the CPLP. Romania is a semi-presidential unitary state.
Pakistan floods kill 1,500
Fears were growing Monday for up to 2.5 million people affected by Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years amid outbreaks of disease after monsoon rains killed up to 1,500 people.
Unprecedented rains triggered floods and landslides, sweeping away thousands of homes and devastating farmland in one of Pakistan's most impoverished regions, already hard hit by years of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence.
Pakistani officials warn that a lack of drinking water is spreading disease, including cholera, and say they are working to medivac people from affected areas such as Swat, the scene last year of an offensive against the Taliban.
The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that up to 2.5 million people across Pakistan have been affected by the heavy flooding.
"In the worst-affected areas, entire villages were washed away without warning by walls of flood water," it said in a statement, noting that thousands of people "have lost everything."
Aid workers and Pakistan's military conducted what relief efforts they could as officials warned that the death toll was rising.
"There are 774 deaths registered with us, but the total number killed in the flood is 1,200 to 1,500," Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of northwest province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told a news conference in Peshawar.
Syed Zahir Ali Shah, health minister for the province, said about 100,000 people, mostly children, were suffering from illness such as gastroenteritis.
A spokesman for the charity World Vision said teams had visited those affected around the main northwestern city of Peshawar, but that those further north had been inaccessible by road.
"They don't have drinking water or food. They said there have been some visible signs of water-borne diseases," Muhammad Ali told AFP, warning that the death toll was likely to rise further as aid workers reached more areas.
At a camp set up by the army for around 640 families in Nowshehra, women and children ran after vehicles bringing food and water, pushing and shouting.
"We are getting patients with trauma, gastroenteritis, skin diseases and dehydration," doctor Shoaib Mohammad told AFP at a small 20-bed mobile clinic.
Fifty-year-old Ajmair Shah went into shock after flood destroyed his home in Nowshehra. He lay motionless in his hospital bed and staring into the air.
"My house was swept away by the flood, nothing is left there. I have lost everything," Shah said and started weeping.
People at the camp said there were no proper latrines or bathrooms and that the only respite from the crushing heat was plastic hand fans. Most of them fled in the clothes they were wearing and many children roamed around naked.
"They throw food at us as if we are animals and not humans," Ilyas Khan, one angry man told AFP, complaining there was no proper system of distribution.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon pledged aid of up to 10 million dollars for those affected by the crisis, saying he was "deeply saddened" by the floods.
The US government announced a 10-million-dollar aid pledge and has rushed helicopters and boats to Pakistan. China has also promised 1.5 million dollars, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Anwer Kazmi, a spokesman for Pakistan's largest charity, the Edhi Foundation, said at least 1,256 people had been killed.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Amir Haider Hoti said the floods were "unprecedented" and warned it could take up to 10 days to assess the overall number of dead and displaced.
Pakistan's meteorological service forecast rains of up to 200 millimetres (eight inches) in the next weeks across the northwest, Pakistani-administered Kashmir, the central province of Punjab and Sindh in the south.
Flood victims have condemned authorities over a sluggish relief, shouting "give us aid sent by foreign countries" and "death to the corrupt government."
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said it had rescued more than 28,000 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by helicopter and boat.
The NDMA said nearly 30,000 homes had been damaged across the country.
In addition to those killed in the northwest, local officials said 53 people died in Pakistani Kashmir, 26 in southwestern province Baluchistan and 49 in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province.
The southern province of Sindh went on red alert, spokesman Mazhar Siddiqui said, fearing that 150,000 people could be displaced by expected floods there.
Related info :
The name Pakistan means Land of (the) Pure in Urdu and Persian. It was coined in 1934 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan movement activist, who published it in his pamphlet Now or Never.[21] The name is a portmanteau representing the "thirty million Muslims of PAKISTAN, who live in the five Northern Units of British Raj — Punjab, Afghania (now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Kashmir, Sindh and BalochisTAN."[22]
Risk of disease rises amid deadly Pakistan floods
Pakistan dispatched medical teams Monday to the deluged northwest amid fears that cholera could spread after the worst floods in the country's history that have already killed up to 1,200 people, an official said.
The disaster has forced around 2 million to flee their homes. Residents have railed against the government for failing to provide enough emergency assistance nearly a week after extremely heavy monsoon rains triggered raging floodwaters in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province.
Around 250 flood victims blocked a main road in the hard-hit district of Nowshera late Monday, complaining they had receiving little or no assistance, according to an Associated Press Television News cameraman at the scene.
The government says it has deployed thousands of rescue workers who have so far saved an estimated 28,000 people and distributed basic food items. The army has also sent some 30,000 troops and dozens of helicopters, but the scale of the disaster is so vast that many residents said it seems like officials are doing nothing. Thousands more people in the province remain trapped by the floodwaters.
The anger of the flood victims poses a danger to the already struggling government, now competing with Islamist movements to deliver aid in a region with strong Taliban influence.
"We need tents. Just look around," said flood victim Faisal Islam, sitting on the only dry ground he could find in Nowshera district — a highway median — surrounded by hundreds of people in makeshift shelters constructed from dirty sheets and plastic tarps.
Like many other residents of Pakistan's northwest, people camped out by the highway in Kamp Koroona village waded through the water to their damaged houses to salvage their remaining possessions: usually just a few mud-covered plates and chairs.
"This is the only shirt I have. Everything else is buried," said Islam.
The army has given them some cooking oil and sugar, but Islam complained that they needed much more.
Now people in the northwest also face the threat of waterborne disease — which could kill thousands more if health workers cannot deliver enough clean drinking water and treat and isolate any patients in crowded relief camps.
"To avert the looming threat of spread of waterborne diseases, especially cholera, we have dispatched dozens of mobile medical teams in the affected districts," said Sohail Altaf, the top medical official in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa.
Officials have yet to receive concrete reports of cholera cases, but fear of an outbreak is high, said Altaf. Patients with stomach problems from dirty water are being treated in government medical camps, he said.
The Pakistan Red Crescent and International Red Cross said they were distributing aid and evaluating further needs in areas isolated by washed-out bridges and roads.
The flooding crisis is especially dire because so many people lost literally all that they had, said Muhammad Ateeb Siddiqui, the Red Crescent's director of operations.
"We now need to urgently distribute not only food but also the means to cook it," he said. "The distribution of relief is severely constrained by damaged infrastructure, and the widespread contamination of water supplies has the potential to create major health problems."
The agencies said the flooding impact would shift south in the coming days as the waters moved downstream.
The disastrous flooding comes at a time when the weak and unpopular Pakistani government is already struggling to cope with a faltering economy and a brutal war against Taliban militants that has killed thousands of people in the past few years.
The death toll from the disaster has ranged from about 870 provided by the prime minister's office to 1,200 given by Bashir Ahmed Bilour, senior minister in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, who warned that it could go even higher. More than 2 million people have been displaced, he said.
Pakistan's international partners have tried to bolster the government's response by offering millions of dollars in emergency aid.
The United Nations and the United States announced Saturday that they would provide $10 million dollars each in emergency assistance. The U.S. has also provided rescue boats, water filtration units, prefabricated steel bridges and thousands of packaged meals that Pakistani soldiers tossed from helicopters as flood victims scrambled to catch them.
The high-profile U.S. gesture of support comes at a time when the Obama administration is trying to dampen anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and enlist the country's support to turn around the Afghan war.
The U.S. provided similar emergency assistance after Pakistan experienced a catastrophic earthquake in 2005 that killed nearly 80,000 people. The aid briefly increased support for the U.S. in a country where anti-American sentiment is pervasive.
But feelings have since shifted, and only 17 percent of Pakistanis now have a favorable view of the U.S., according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. Conducted in April 2010, the survey has a margin of error of three percentage points.
The U.S. could be hoping to get a similar popularity boost from the emergency flood assistance. But like the earthquake relief effort, the U.S. must compete with aid groups run by Islamist militants who also use assistance to increase their support.
Representatives from a charity allegedly linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group distributed food and offered medical services on Sunday to victims in the town of Charsada.
With suspected ties to al-Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba has been blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed 166 people, and the U.S. military has said the group has stepped up activity in Afghanistan as well.
Pakistani militant groups often rail against government ineffectiveness as a way to build support, a message likely to resonate with many in the northwest who have criticized the official flood response.
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Pakistan (Urdu: پاکِستان) (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪsˈtaːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان), is a country in South Asia. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, and India in the east and China in the far northeast.[6] Tajikistan also lies very close to Pakistan but is separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Thus, it occupies a crossroads position between South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East.[7] The region forming modern Pakistan was at the heart of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and then later was the recipient of Vedic, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, and Sikh cultures. The area has witnessed invasions and/or settlements by the Indo-Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Mongols and the British.[8]
While the Indian independence movement demanded an independent India, the Pakistan Movement (led by Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the All-India Muslim League) sought independent states for the majority Muslim populations of the eastern and western regions of British India as well.[9] The British granted independence and also the creation of one Muslim majority state of Pakistan that comprised the provinces of Sindh, North-West Frontier Province, West Punjab, Balochistan and East Bengal. With the adoption of its constitution in 1956,[10] Pakistan became an Islamic republic.[11] In 1971, a civil war in East Pakistan resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.[12]
Pakistan is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of four provinces and four federal territories including a federal capital territory. Its history has been characterized by periods of military rule, political instability and conflicts with neighboring India. It is the sixth most populous country in the world and has the second largest Muslim population after Indonesia.[13] Pakistan also has the second largest Shia Muslim population.[14] It is the only Muslim-majority state that possesses nuclear weapons[15] and is designated as a major non-NATO ally of the United States.[16] Pakistan is a founding member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference[17] and a member of the United Nations,[18] Commonwealth of Nations,[19] Next Eleven economies and the G20 developing nations.[
Crews gain ground on wildfire north of Los Angeles
Higher humidity and lower temperatures helped firefighters nearly contain a wildfire smoldering Sunday in the high desert north of Los Angeles.
The fire charred nearly 22 square miles of brush in the Antelope Valley. It was 87 percent contained Sunday, and crews hoped to have it fully surrounded by Monday evening, Los Angeles County Inspector Don Kunitomi said.
All roads were reopened at sunrise Sunday.
The fire was believed to have been sparked Thursday afternoon in the Agua Dulce area by someone working on a car wheel.
Four homes and five outbuildings were destroyed.
Los Angeles County Fire crews aided by a pair of water-dropping helicopters quickly knocked down a smoky wildfire that burned Sunday along the north edge of the 101 Freeway in Calabasas. Officials said it charred about 12 acres of heavy brush after being reported around noon. No structures were threatened but traffic in both directions slowed down significantly because of heavy smoke visible from much of the San Fernando Valley.
To the south in rural San Diego County, a wildfire sparked Saturday that has burned about 110 acres of heavy brush near Julian was nearly surrounded.
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Los Angeles (pronounced /lɒs ˈændʒələs/ los-AN-jə-ləs; Spanish: [los ˈaŋxeles], Spanish for "The Angels") is the second largest city in the United States[1], the largest city in the state of California and the western United States, with a population of 3.83 million[2] within its administrative limits on a land area of 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km2). The urban area of Los Angeles extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of over 14.8 million, it is the 14th largest urban area in the world, affording it megacity status. The Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is home to nearly 12.9 million residents[3] while the broader Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside combined statistical area (CSA) contains nearly 17.8 million people. Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most multicultural counties[4] in the United States. The city's inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos" (/ændʒɨˈliːnoʊz/).[5]
Los Angeles was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of the river of Porziuncola).[6] It became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its independence from Spain. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood.
Often known by its initials, L.A., and nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is a world center of business, international trade, entertainment, culture, media, fashion, science, technology, and education.[7][8] It is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. In 2008, Los Angeles was named the world's eighth most economically powerful city by Forbes.com, third in the U.S. behind New York City and Chicago.[9] The Los Angeles combined statistical area (CSA) has a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $831 billion (as of 2008), making it the third largest economic center in the world, after the Greater Tokyo Area and the New York metropolitan area.[10][11][12] As the home base of Hollywood, it is known as the "Entertainment Capital of the World", leading the world in the creation of motion pictures, television production, video games, and recorded music. The importance of the entertainment business to the city has led many celebrities to call Los Angeles and its surrounding suburbs home. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics.
Los Angeles enjoys a subtropical climate, with an average of 35 days with measurable precipitation annually
Inmate who said he’d kill more linked to 2nd death
A Virginia inmate who warned prosecutors he would kill again if not given the death penalty for strangling his cellmate was involved in the death of another inmate, authorities said.
Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Ron Elkins confirmed late Saturday that Robert Gleason Jr. was "involved" in the death of 26-year-old Aaron Alexander Cooper, though Elkins refused to elaborate. Gleason, who was already serving a life term for murder before killing his cellmate last year, has not been charged in the death.
Cooper died Wednesday in the recreation yard for inmates housed in segregation at the maximum security Red Onion State Prison in southwestern Virginia. Elkins is awaiting a report from the medical examiner on Monday, but he said authorities believe Cooper was strangled.
Authorities are trying to figure out how it could have happened, because each inmate is placed in a separate, small caged-in area for recreation. Elkins said authorities believe Cooper was strangled with a piece of clothing, towel or bed sheet that was somehow reached through the chain link fence that separates the inmates on the recreation yard.
Elkins said he didn't know when charges might be filed against Gleason.
Gleason is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 31 for killing his cellmate at Wallens Ridge State Prison last year. He fired his attorneys and pleaded guilty in May, telling prosecutors he would kill again if they didn't seek the death penalty in his case.
"I murdered that man cold-bloodedly. I planned it, and I'm gonna do it again," the 40-year-old Gleason told The Associated Press. "Someone needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is put me on death row."
Elkins said he may wait until after Gleason is sentenced to determine whether to charge him in Cooper's death. He was set to visit Red Onion Monday morning to review video surveillance of the incident.
"If he gets the death penalty I'm not really sure what we'll do," he said.
Death penalty cases are costly and time-consuming. Gleason has said he would not appeal his case if given the death penalty.
Gleason already was serving life for another murder when he killed 63-year-old Harvey Gray Watson Jr., a man with a history of mental illness who had been placed in Gleason's cell a week earlier.
Gleason said he begged correctional officers to move Watson, who he said sang, screamed profanities and masturbated in the 8-by-10-foot cell they shared for seven days. He said Watson also got inmates to give him cigarettes in exchange for drinking his urine or clabbered milk on the recreation yard.
On the eighth day — May 8, 2009 — correctional officers found Watson bound, gagged, beaten and strangled. His death went unnoticed for 15 hours because correctional officers had not followed proper procedure for inmate head counts at the high-security prison in southwestern Virginia.
Prison employees involved in that case have denied repeated requests for comment from the AP. Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor declined to discuss the situation, but said that two officers were disciplined and two others were fired. One of the fired officers was reinstated upon appeal.
Traylor said the department was investigating Cooper's death. He referred all questions regarding Gleason to the commonwealth's attorney.
Cooper was serving 34 years for crimes including carjacking and robbery.
Related info :
Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with "malice aforethought", and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter). As the loss of a human being inflicts enormous grief upon the individuals close to the victim, as well as the fact that the commission of a murder is highly detrimental to the good order within society, most societies both present and in antiquity have considered it a most serious crime worthy of the harshest of punishment. In the US, a person convicted of murder is typically given a life sentence or even the death penalty for such an act. A person who commits murder is called a murderer ;[1] the term murderess, meaning a woman who murders, has largely fallen into disuse
EPA notes improvements at Michigan oil spill site
A regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency said Sunday that significant improvement had been made at the site of an oil spill in a southern Michigan river, but the agency cautioned that it will take months to complete the cleanup.
Those efforts, along with air and water quality monitoring, continue to increase along the affected stretch of the Kalamazoo River, EPA regional administrator Susan Hedman said during a media briefing in Marshall.
The oil flow was stopped and contained in a 25-mile stretch of the river from Marshall westward past Battle Creek. Several hundred workers are on crews along the river devoted to the cleanup.
"Containment is adequate now," said Mark Durno, the EPA's deputy incident commander. "Now it's a matter of recovery and removal of the remainder of the sheen and small patches of oil that remain on the Kalamazoo River."
The EPA estimates it will take weeks to get the oil out of the river and months to clean it off river banks and the flood plain. It could take several months to clean up the marshy area where the spill began near a creek that flows into the Kalamazoo River, the agency said.
Officials with Enbridge Inc., which owns the pipeline, estimated Sunday that the company had recovered slightly more than half the oil that had leaked.
AP
Enbirdge officials said they detected the leak July 26. Investigators are reviewing 911 calls to Marshall area fire departments made the previous evening by residents complaining of a strong gas odor to try and determine if the leak might have begun earlier.
The EPA estimates the spill at more than 1 million gallons of crude, while the Canadian company estimates the total at 820,000 gallons. The leak came from a 30-inch pipeline, which was built in 1969 and carries about 8 million gallons of oil daily from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario.
The cost of the cleanup hasn't been determined. Enbridge is responsible for the cleanup bill, including money that the EPA and other government agencies will spend on its response.
"Our goal is to return the river to the state it was in before this incident," Enbridge CEO Patrick D. Daniel said.
The EPA and other government officials have scheduled a public meeting for residents at Marshall's high school on Monday evening. A similar public hearing will be scheduled for Battle Creek residents later in the week.
The section of the pipeline where the leak occurred could be removed early this week. It's expected to be taken to a National Transportation Safety Board lab for testing to try and determine the cause of the incident.
The EPA on Saturday said it had rejected the Calgary, Alberta-based company's long-range cleanup plan because of "deficiencies in content and technical details." It ordered Enbridge to submit a revised version by Monday. Daniel said the company will modify the plan to meet EPA requirements.
U.S. regulators earlier this year demanded improvements to the pipeline network that includes a segment that ruptured in southern Michigan. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation's regulatory arm, said it had summoned Enbridge Inc. executives in February to discuss problems with the 1,900-mile Lakehead system.
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Michigan (
i /ˈmɪʃɪɡən/) is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is a French adaptation of the Ojibwe word mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake".[1][4]
Michigan is the eighth most populous state in the United States. It has the longest freshwater shoreline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair.[5] In 2005, Michigan ranked third among US states for the number of registered recreational boats, behind California and Florida.[6] Michigan has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds.[7] A person in the state is never more than six miles (10 km) from a natural water source or more than 87.2 miles (140.3 km) from a Great Lakes shoreline.[8] It is the largest state by total area[9] east of the Mississippi River.
Michigan is the only state to consist entirely of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is often dubbed "the mitten" by residents, owing to its shape. When asked where in Michigan one comes from, a resident of the Lower Peninsula may often point to the corresponding part of his or her hand. The Upper Peninsula (often referred to as "The U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km)-wide channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Upper Peninsula is economically important for tourism and natural resources.
3 killed in Alaska cargo plane crash on Denali
Alaska – A big cargo airplane that crashed Sunday in Denali National Park was registered to an Alaskan freight company and had three people onboard who are presumed dead, the National Park Service said.
The Fairchild C-123 was registered to All West Freight Inc. of Delta Junction, Alaska. It crashed into the south-facing slope of Mount Healy within a mile of the park headquarters and about 200 yards north of the only road into the park. The craft went down about 3 p.m. Sunday near the eastern edge of the park, about 180 miles north of Anchorage.
The plane burst into flames on impact and started a wildland fire that was contained at approximately one acre, the park service said.
Park spokeswoman Kris Fister said it was initially difficult to determine the number of fatalities because "the plane pretty much disintegrated."
Names of those killed weren't yet released.
The fire was challenging for crews on the scene, who did not know who owned the plane until several hours after the crash. The first responders arrived within minutes, but the plane was already engulfed in flames, Fister said.
George Clare, of Las Vegas, said he saw the plane flying very low and slowly while he was walking toward the visitor's center near the park entrance. He thought the plane was going to land on a local airstrip, so he proceeded to the visitor's center. Within minutes, people came running in and saying a plane had crashed.
He said the crash caused a column of smoke a few miles west of the visitor's center.
Alaska Fire Service smokejumpers and Denali wildland firefighters were dousing hot spots to extinguish the fire late Sunday and stayed on the scene overnight. National Transportation Safety Board investigators were to arrive Monday morning.
The crash happened just four days after a military cargo plane crashed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, killing four people onboard.
The victims were Maj. Michael Freyholtz, 34, of Hines, Minn.; Maj. Aaron Malone, 36, of Anchorage; Capt. Jeffrey Hill, 31, of York, Pa., and Master Sgt. Thomas Cicardo, 47, of Anchorage. Cicardo was posthumously promoted to senior master sergeant Friday.
The four airmen were on a training mission Wednesday evening for a weekend air show at the Air Force base, which wrapped up Sunday. The C-17 crashed about a minute after taking off.
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Alaska (i /əˈlæskə/) is the largest state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Approximately half of Alaska's 698,473 residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. As of 2009, Alaska remains the least densely populated state of the U.S.[5]
Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million at about two cents per acre ($4.74/km²). The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.
The name "Alaska" (Аляска) was already introduced in the Russian colonial time, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland" or more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed".[6] It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
1 of 3 Ariz. fugitives caught in Colo. shootout
Arizona authorities pressed forward with their search of the state Monday for two fugitives, as corrections officials looked into whether shoddy security allowed the inmates to cut a hole in a fence and slip away undetected.
One of the three convicted murderers who fled a private prison Friday evening in northwest Arizona was caught Sunday after an early-morning shootout with an officer in western Colorado. Police believe the two who remain at large are still in Arizona.
Early Sunday, a police officer spotted Daniel Renwick, 36, in a brown sport utility vehicle in Rifle, Colo., some 670 miles from the medium-security Arizona State Prison in Golden Valley, said Charles Ryan, director of the Arizona Department of Corrections.
The officer pursued Renwick, gunshots were exchanged, and the convict was eventually taken into custody without anyone being injured, Ryan said.
Renwick had been serving a 22-year sentence for second-degree murder when he and the other two inmates escaped Friday evening by cutting a hole in the prison's perimeter fence. The men then kidnapped two semi-truck drivers at gunpoint and used the big rig to flee, authorities said. Both drivers were later released unharmed in Flagstaff.
Police said the two men who remain at large — Tracy Province, 42, and John McCluskey, 45 — should be considered dangerous. Province was serving a life sentence for murder and robbery, and McCluskey was serving 15 years for second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm.
The men are believed to be traveling with McCluskey's girlfriend, Casslyn Mae Welch, 44, of Mesa, who is suspected of helping in the escape.
"The information from law enforcement suggests they are still in Arizona, and there's an all-points bulletin out for these people," Ryan said.
Authorities are no longer looking for a silver Volkswagen Jetta.
Investigators earlier said that one of the escaped convicts bought the car Saturday in west Phoenix. But early Monday morning, the spokesman for the Arizona Department of Corrections sent out a news release stating that after further investigation, law enforcement was no longer searching for the Jetta. No details were offered.
Authorities urged anyone with information to use caution and call police immediately.
The Department of Corrections will increase security at the prison.
"We have great concerns that there was laxness on the part of security staff at this private prison, but I'm going to allow the investigation to run its course," said Ryan, who plans to meet with prison officials early this week.
Management and Training Corp., the Utah company that runs the private prison, refused to comment.
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Arizona (i /ærɪˈzoʊnə/) is a state of the United States of America located in the southwestern region of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in size by the eight Phoenix metropolitan area cities of Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, Peoria, Surprise and then by Yuma in Yuma County.
Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912 - the 50th anniversary of Arizona's recognition as a territory of the United States.[5] Arizona is noted for its desert climate, exceptionally hot summers, and mild winters, however it also features pine forests and mountain ranges in the northern high country, with cooler weather than in the lower deserts.
Arizona is one of the Four Corners states. It borders New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, touches Colorado, and has a 389-mile (626 km) international border with the states of Sonora and Baja California in Mexico. It is the largest landlocked U.S. state by population. In addition to the Grand Canyon, many other national forests, parks, monuments, and Indian reservations are located in the state.
