At least 80 dead after Congo boat disaster
A government spokesman says at least 80 people are dead in Congo after a boat capsized in the country's west.
Lambert Mende said Thursday rescuers were searching for dozens of missing people, and that there were around 200 passengers on board. Mende said 80 people had been confirmed dead.
Congo is a vast country of jungles and huge rivers in Central Africa with little more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) of paved road. Many people prefer to take boats even if they do not know how to swim.
The boats are often in poor repair and filled beyond capacity, and the industry is not well-regulated.
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The Republic of the Congo (French: République du Congo; Kongo: Repubilika ya Kongo; Lingala: Republiki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, Little Congo, or simply the Congo, is a state in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly known as Zaire), the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.
The region was dominated by Bantu tribes, who built trade links leading into the Congo River basin. The republic is a former French colony.[4] Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo. The People's Republic of the Congo was a Marxist-Leninist single-party state from 1970 to 1991. Multiparty elections have been held since 1992, although a democratically elected government was ousted in a 1997 civil war.
The Kingdom of Swaziland (Umbuso weSwatini), sometimes called Ngwane, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique. The nation, as well as its people, are named after the 19th century king Mswati II. Swaziland is a small country, no more than 200 km north to south and 130 km east to west. The western half is mountainous, descending to a lowveld region to the east. The eastern border with Mozambique and South Africa is dominated by the escarpment of the Lebombo Mountains. The climate is temperate in the west, but may reach 40 degrees in summer in the lowveld. Rainfall occurs mainly in the summer and may reach 2 m in the west. The area that Swaziland now covers has been continuously inhabited since prehistory. Today, the population is primarily ethnic Swazis whose language is siSwati, though English is spoken as a second language. The Swazi people descend from the southern Bantu who migrated from Central Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Anglo Boer war saw Britain make Swaziland a protectorate under its direct control. Swaziland gained independence in 1968. Swaziland is a member of the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Commonwealth of Nations. The head of state is the king, who appoints the prime minister and a small number of representatives for both chambers of parliament. Elections are held every five years to determine the majority of the representatives. A new constitution was adopted in 2005. Swaziland’s economy is dominated by the service industry, manufacturing and agriculture. Some 75% of the population are employed in subsistence farming, and 60% of the population live on less than the equivalent of US$1.25 per day.[3] Swaziland’s main trading partner is South Africa, and its currency is pegged to the South African rand. Swaziland’s economic growth and societal integrity is highly endangered by its disastrous HIV epidemic, to an extent where the United Nations Development Program has written that if it continues unabated, the “longer term existence of Swaziland as a country will be seriously threatened.”[4] The infection rate in the country is unprecedented and the highest in the world at 26.1% of adults[5] and over 50% of adults in their 20s.healers charged for skull-and-bone theft
Police in Swaziland say they have arrested three traditional healers for allegedly desecrating graves to retrieve human skulls and bones for healing rituals.
Police official Wendy Hleta said Thursday the three — who might be described in the West as witchdoctors — claimed a healer from neighboring Mozambique offered to make them "instant millionaires" if they dug up human bones.
Police found a skull on the property of one of the suspects who then identified a remote grave that had been opened.
Hleta said the healers were arrested Thursday and charged with violating grave sites in this tiny mountainous southern African kingdom.
Last month a Swazi court fined two traditional healers for using body parts of protected animals.
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The Kingdom of Swaziland (Umbuso weSwatini), sometimes called Ngwane, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique. The nation, as well as its people, are named after the 19th century king Mswati II.
Swaziland is a small country, no more than 200 km north to south and 130 km east to west. The western half is mountainous, descending to a lowveld region to the east. The eastern border with Mozambique and South Africa is dominated by the escarpment of the Lebombo Mountains. The climate is temperate in the west, but may reach 40 degrees in summer in the lowveld. Rainfall occurs mainly in the summer and may reach 2 m in the west.
The area that Swaziland now covers has been continuously inhabited since prehistory. Today, the population is primarily ethnic Swazis whose language is siSwati, though English is spoken as a second language. The Swazi people descend from the southern Bantu who migrated from Central Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Anglo Boer war saw Britain make Swaziland a protectorate under its direct control. Swaziland gained independence in 1968. Swaziland is a member of the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Commonwealth of Nations. The head of state is the king, who appoints the prime minister and a small number of representatives for both chambers of parliament. Elections are held every five years to determine the majority of the representatives. A new constitution was adopted in 2005.
Swaziland's economy is dominated by the service industry, manufacturing and agriculture. Some 75% of the population are employed in subsistence farming, and 60% of the population live on less than the equivalent of US$1.25 per day.[3] Swaziland's main trading partner is South Africa, and its currency is pegged to the South African rand. Swaziland's economic growth and societal integrity is highly endangered by its disastrous HIV epidemic, to an extent where the United Nations Development Program has written that if it continues unabated, the "longer term existence of Swaziland as a country will be seriously threatened."[4] The infection rate in the country is unprecedented and the highest in the world at 26.1% of adults[5] and over 50% of adults in their 20s.
EPA: 1M gallons of oil may be in Mich. river
Federal officials now estimate that more than 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled into a major river in southern Michigan, and the governor is sharply criticizing clean-up efforts as "wholly inadequate."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the update Wednesday night, shortly after Gov. Jennifer Granholm lambasted attempts to contain the oil flowing down the Kalamazoo River. She warned of a "tragedy of historic proportions" if the oil reaches Lake Michigan, which is still at least 80 miles downstream from where oil has been seen.
Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the EPA and Enbridge Inc., which owns the pipeline that leaked the oil, were "wholly inadequate."
Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge said earlier Wednesday that it had redoubled its efforts to clean up the mess. Chief executive Patrick D. Daniel said the company had made "significant progress," though he had no update on a possible cause, cost or timeframe for the cleanup. The company didn't return messages for comment after Granholm's statements.
The overall work force on the spill Wednesday was likely more than 400 people.
EPA officials said they're ramping up efforts with air and water testing. Local officials said they weren't concerned about municipal water supplies.
Tom Sands, deputy state director for emergency management and homeland security, said during a conference call with Granholm that he had seen oil past a dam at Morrow Lake. The lake is a key point in the river near a Superfund site upstream of Kalamazoo, the largest city in the region.
But his report could not be immediately confirmed. The company's latest update statement Wednesday said oil was about seven miles short of the opening to Morrow Lake. A press conference scheduled for late Wednesday, which was to include company and EPA officials, was canceled for what a company spokesman called scheduling conflicts.
State and company officials previously said they didn't believe the oil would spread past that dam.
"It's going to hit a Superfund site unless somebody like the EPA and the company get very serious about providing significant additional resources," Granholm said.
The spill has killed fish and coated wildlife as it made its way westward about 35 miles downstream past Battle Creek, a city of 52,000 residents about 110 miles west of Detroit.
Both company and EPA officials have said oil is no longer leaking.
Enbridge has been working to clean up the spill since the leak was reported early Monday.
Before the EPA announced its new estimate, Enbridge reiterated its belief that about 819,000 gallons of oil spilled into Talmadge Creek, which flows into the Kalamazoo River. State officials said they were told during a company briefing Tuesday that about 877,000 gallons spilled, but company officials disputed the number.
An 800,000 gallon spill would be enough to fill 1-gallon jugs lined side by side for nearly 70 miles. It also could fill a wall-in football field including the end zones with a 14-foot-high pool of oil.
Granholm has declared a state of disaster for some areas along the river, and President Barack Obama called Granholm to offer federal support.
An oily reflective sheen could be seen in patches along the Kalamazoo, and the affected area still had a strong odor, although not as strong as on Tuesday.
Anil Kulkarni, a mechanical engineering professor at Penn State University, said a quick response was vital to the river's ecology. Snails, frogs, muskrats and even birds eat, live and nest on or near the riverbank.
"The river banks are nearby. It has more potential to inflict damage because of the proximity to land. Anything that comes in contact with oil is going to be affected badly. It prevents the natural life of species, whether it's collecting food or anything else."
Enbridge affiliates have previously been cited for skirting environmental regulations in the Great Lakes region.
Houston-based Enbridge Energy Co. spilled almost 19,000 gallons of crude oil onto Wisconsin's Nemadji River in 2003. Another 189,000 gallons of oil spilled at the company's terminal two miles from Lake Superior, though most was contained.
In 2007, two spills released about 200,000 gallons of crude in northern Wisconsin as Enbridge was expanding a 320-mile pipeline. The company also was accused of violating Wisconsin permits designed to protect water quality during work in and around wetlands, rivers and streams, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said. The violations came during construction of a 321-mile, $2 billion oil pipeline across that state. Enbridge agreed to pay $1.1 million in 2009.
The Michigan 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 river already faced major pollution issues. An 80-mile segment of the river that begins at Morrow Lake and five miles of a tributary, Portage Creek, have unsafe levels of PCBs and were placed on the federal Superfund list of high-priority hazardous waste sites in 1990. The Kalamazoo site also includes four landfills and several defunct paper mills.
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The gallon is a measure of volume approximately equal to four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use. In United States customary units there are the liquid (≈ 3.78 L) and the lesser used dry (≈ 4.4 L) gallons. There is also the imperial gallon (≈ 4.5 L) which is in unofficial use within the United Kingdom and Ireland and is in semi-official use within Canada.[1] The gallon, be it the imperial or U.S. gallon, is sometimes found in other English-speaking countries.
NYC looks to stop spreading bedbug infestations
One of every 15 New Yorkers battled bedbugs last year, officials said Wednesday as they announced a plan to fight the spreading infestation, including a public-awareness campaign and a top entomologist to head the effort.
The bloodsucking pests, which are not known to spread disease but can cause great mental anguish with their persistent and fast-growing infestations, have rapidly multiplied throughout New York and many other U.S. cities in recent years.
Health officials and pest control specialists nationwide report surges in sightings, bites and complaints. The Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever bedbug summit last year.
In New York City, the pests have been discovered in theaters, clothing stores, office buildings, housing projects and posh apartments.
The stigma of having bedbugs — whose bites leave itchy red welts — and the elusive nature of the pests make it impossible to fully understand the problem, experts say.
But in 2009, for the first time, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration included a question about bedbugs on its community health survey, and it revealed the finding to The Associated Press on Wednesday: More than 6 percent of New Yorkers who responded said they had battled the pests in the last year.
The figure would equal roughly 400,000 adults in the city, the health department said.
Data previously has been limited to government statistics on complaints and surveys of private pest-control companies, which also have reported nationwide spikes.
The Bloomberg administration fielded 537 complaints about the bugs in fiscal 2004. In fiscal 2009, there were nearly 11,000.
"This is happening globally, and I don't think anybody has figured out exactly why," said Daniel Kass, the city's deputy commissioner for environmental health. "So what we're left with is managing them and keeping them from spreading. They're going to be with us for some time."
Bedbugs are about the size of an apple seed and burrow into many more places than beds. They can slip into floor cracks, wall outlets, picture frames, lamps — any tiny space.
People who have bedbugs often never see them. The most obvious signs are bites, blood on bedsheets and their waste, which looks like black pepper. They are known for being extremely difficult to eradicate and can go a year without feeding.
Bedbugs were nearly dormant for decades, and the recent comeback has experts scratching their heads. Some attribute the resurgence to an increase in global travel and the prohibition of potent pesticides like DDT.
New York convened a government advisory board last year to study the problem and make recommendations.
The report said one major roadblock to stopping the bedbug spread is lack of knowledge about prevention and the patchy and sometimes erroneous information about treatment.
"If you have termites, you know how to deal with it. If you see a rat, you know who to call. This is confusing," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. "The biggest issue is lack of clarity and not having any actual sense of what the next step is and where you go to get that."
Carol Gittens said she discovered bedbugs in her Brooklyn apartment two years ago and estimates she has spent at least $3,000 replacing her things.
"We had to throw everything out — mattresses, clothes," she said.
The apartment was thoroughly cleaned and she thought she had eliminated them. But a neighbor recently reported she has bedbugs, and Gittens said she might have them in her apartment again.
The high cost of throwing out infested belongings and hiring exterminators contributes to bedbugs' spread, officials said. Many people, particularly those with low incomes or in public housing, cannot afford to do what it takes.
Acting on the report's recommendations, New York City said Wednesday it was re-appropriating $500,000 of health department money to begin the first phase of a bedbug battle plan, which is mostly concentrated on information, outreach and the creation of an entomologist-led bedbug team.
Some of the money will go toward creating an online bedbug portal where New Yorkers can find information about avoiding the pests as well as how to treat their homes. The city already has a rat-information portal.
Many people are unaware they have the bugs, officials said, and end up spreading them by carrying them on their clothing or discarding personal items that have the bugs.
Travelers also need to be more vigilant, the city says.
"Everyone has got to get used to the idea that they have got to check for them periodically," Kass said. "People who travel should look at the rooms they're staying in. They should check their clothing. There are good preventive measures."
Experts recommend looking for bugs with a bright flashlight, and using a hot hair dryer to flush them out of hiding places and cracks.
Bedding, linens, curtains, rugs and clothes from infested homes must be washed in hot water. Mattresses, furniture and floors must be vacuumed, and vacuum bags should be immediately disposed in sealed plastic bags. Hiring a certified exterminator to apply pesticides is also recommended.
Officials also said the city would adopt the report's recommendation of working to establish protocol for disposing of infested furniture and other personal items.
The report also suggested more work should be done by agencies that serve lower-income New Yorkers, and public housing infestations should be addressed more quickly. But at a time when the city is cutting services and shrinking its job force to save money, those goals are likely not immediately achievable.
Related info :
Bedbugs (or bed bugs) are small, elusive, parasitic insects of the family Cimicidae. In common use, the term usually refers to one species, Cimex lectularius, that feeds preferentially on human blood; all insects in this family live by feeding exclusively on the blood of warm-blooded animals.[1][2] The name 'bed bug' is derived from the insect's preferred habitat of infesting houses and especially beds or other common areas where people may sleep. Bedbugs, though not strictly nocturnal, are mainly active at night and are capable of feeding unnoticed on their hosts.
Bedbugs have been known by a variety of names including wall louse, mahogany flat, crimson rambler, heavy dragoon, chinche and redcoat.[3]
Largely eradicated as pests in the developed world in the early 1940s, bedbugs have been resurgent since about 1995.
4 killed in plane crash at Alaska military base
Four airmen were killed when a cargo plane crashed during a training run at an Alaska Air Force base, sending a fireball hundreds of feet into the air, military authorities and witnesses said.
Three of the men were in the Alaska Air National Guard and the fourth was on active duty at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Air Force Col. John McMullen said Thursday. Their names have not been released pending notification of relatives.
"We lost four members of our Arctic Warrior family and it's a loss felt across our entire joint installation," McMullen said in a statement, referring to Elmendorf and its adjacent Army base, Fort Richardson.
The C-17 was from the 3rd Wing, based at Elmendorf near downtown Anchorage. The crash happened about 6:14 p.m. Wednesday during a training demonstration for an upcoming weekend air show, Lt. Gen. Dana Atkins said.
Anchorage Fire Dept. Captain Bryan Grella said his crew was just finishing dinner at about 6:30 p.m. at the downtown fire station when something caught his eye.
"It was a big, gray plume of smoke, and I saw a fireball go up in it," he said. The fireball extended about 750 feet in the air, he estimated.
The crash is the second in Anchorage this summer. In June, a child was killed and four others burned when a small plane crashed after taking off from the city's small-airplane airport downtown.
Days after the June plane crash, a small plane landed on a busy highway in Anchorage. There were no injuries.
Gov. Sean Parnell and Sen. Mark Begich issued statements late Wednesday expressing sadness over the crash and sending well-wishes to members of the military.
"Alaskans are very connected to the military, and our thoughts and prayers are with Alaska's Air Force family," Parnell said.
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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.
Police capture drug lieutenant in northern Mexico
A suspected drug cartel lieutenant with a quarter-million-dollar reward on his head was captured in the border state of Chihuahua, where rival gangs are waging a bloody turf war, police said Wednesday.
Rogelio Segovia Hernandez, who reputedly helped lead the La Linea gang that worked for the Juarez cartel, was detained Tuesday in the state capital of Chihuahua.
Federal police in a statement claimed that Segovia Hernandez was in charge of killings, drug distribution, extortion and kidnappings for the cartel in the areas around Ciudad Juarez, which lies across the border from El Paso, Texas, as well as in the city of Chihuahua.
Police allege Segovia Hernandez participated in five killings at a ranch in Chihuahua state in 2008.
There was a 3 million peso ($237,000) reward for his capture.
Police said they seized a pistol, a grenade and envelopes of cocaine from Segovia Hernandez when he was arrested.
The Juarez cartel and La Linea, whose members act as enforcers for the cartel, are fighting the Sonora cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, for control of the lucrative Ciudad Juarez drug-smuggling route.
Also in Ciudad Juarez, police found three decapitated bodies in two different spots.
Chihuahua state prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval says one body was found on a street Wednesday morning. Sandoval says two other decapitated bodies were found hours later along with messages saying the men were members of La Linea and the Aztecas. Both groups are linked to the Juarez drug cartel.
Also Wednesday, authorities said gunmen shot to death a police commander in the border city of Tijuana and wounded his partner.
Baja California prosecutors say in a statement Wednesday that state police commander Antonio Sanchez and another officer where in an unmarked car outside the state police office in Tijuana when assailants drove up and opened fire.
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Mexico, (pronounced i /ˈmɛksɪkoʊ/; Spanish: México [ˈmexiko] (
listen)), officially known as the United Mexican States[8] (Spanish: 
Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico.[9][10] Covering almost 2 million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi),[11] Mexico is the fifth-largest country in the Americas by total area and the 14th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of 111 million,[12] it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Hispanophone country on Earth. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory, which was administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain which would eventually become Mexico as the colony gained independence in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, territorial secession and civil war, including foreign intervention, two empires and two long domestic dictatorships. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI).
As a regional power,[13][14] and since 1994 the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mexico is firmly established as an upper middle-income country,[15] and is considered a newly industrialized country[16][17][18][19] and an emerging power.[20] It has the 13th largest nominal GDP and the 11th largest by purchasing power parity. The economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners, especially the United States,[21][22] as well as tourism, being the world's tenth most visited country with over 21.4 million international arrivals.[23] Mexico boasts a long tradition in the arts, renowned cuisine, and culture, and it ranks fifth in the world and first in the Americas on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites with 29
Mother’s death in NYC fire is ruled a suicide
A single mother who died in a mysterious fire with her four children committed suicide and her teenage son's death was a homicide, the medical examiner ruled Thursday, clearing up questions about whether the boy had been responsible for the deaths.
Leisa Jones died from smoke inhalation in the mysterious blaze at her Staten Island home last week in a case briefly believed to be an accidental fire before it became a homicide investigation.
Firefighters responding early July 22 found the charred bodies of Jones and two daughters, ages 7 and 10, in a front room, and that of her 14-year-old son, C.J., slumped over a bed in a back bedroom. A 2-year-old son pulled out alive died at a hospital of smoke inhalation.
Police said later that day that the throats of the two girls and C.J. had been slashed. They also said a razor had been found under C.J.'s body and that he had a history of playing with fire. It was theorized that he might have killed his family, set the blaze and cut his own throat.
But an initial round of autopsies found that Jones and C.J. both had ingested some type of drug, according to two law enforcement officials.
Also, a badly damaged note with the words "am sorry" that was found in an another room was written by Jones. It remained unclear whether it was a suicide note, but that discovery — combined with the initial drug evidence — led to suspicions she killed her children.
The pills did not cause their deaths. C.J. died from his neck wound and his death was ruled a homicide, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office.
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Suicide (Latin suicidium, from sui caedere, "to kill oneself") is the term used for the deliberate self-destruction by a living being, resulting in their own death. Such actions are typically characterised as being made out of despair, or attributed to some underlying mental disorder which includes depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism and drug abuse.[1] Financial difficulties, interpersonal relationships and other undesirable situations play a significant role.[2]
Over one million people commit suicide every year. The World Health Organization estimates that it is the thirteenth-leading cause of death worldwide.[3] It is a leading cause of death among teenagers and adults under 35.[4][5] There are an estimated 10 to 20 million non-fatal attempted suicides every year worldwide.[6]
Views on suicide have been influenced by broader cultural views on existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life. The Abrahamic religions consider suicide an offense towards God due to religious belief in the sanctity of life. In the West it was often regarded as a serious crime. Conversely, during the samurai era in Japan, seppuku was respected as a means of atonement for failure or as a form of protest. In the 20th century, suicide in the form of self-immolation has been used as a form of protest, and in the form of kamikaze and suicide bombing as a military or terrorist tactic. Sati is a Hindu funeral practice in which the widow would immolate herself on her husband's funeral pyre, either willingly, or under pressure from the family and in-laws.[7]
Medically assisted suicide (euthanasia, or the right to die) is currently a controversial ethical issue involving people who are terminally ill, in extreme pain, or have (perceived or construed) minimal quality of life through injury or illness. Self-sacrifice for others is not always considered suicide, as the goal is not to kill oneself but to save another; however, Émile Durkheim's theory termed such acts "altruistic suicide."[
Survivor of Mont. bear attack says she played dead
A woman who was attacked by a bear in the middle of the night at a busy campground was bitten on her arm and leg before she instinctively played dead so the animal would leave her alone, she said Thursday.
At least one bear rampaged through the campground near Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday, killing a man and injuring Deb Freele of London, Ontario, and another young man.
Appearing on the network morning talk shows from a Wyoming hospital, Freele said she woke up just before the bear bit her arm.
"I screamed, he bit harder, I screamed harder, he continued to bite," she said, adding that she could hear her bones breaking.
Her survival instinct kicked in, and she realized that the screaming wasn't working.
"I told myself, play dead," she said. "I went totally limp. As soon as I went limp, I could feel his jaws get loose and then he let me go."
Freele said the bear was silent.
"This, to me, was just an absolutely freaky thing," she said. "I have to believe that the bear was not normal. It was very quiet, it never made any noise. I felt like it was hunting me."
A frequent camper, Freele said that she was already prepared hours after the attack to go camping again, though she acknowledged that it will take time to recover both physically and emotionally.
She suffered severe lacerations and crushed bones from bites on her arms. The male survivor, thought to be a teenager, suffered puncture wounds on his calf.
The names and ages of the male victims have not been released.
On Thursday morning, it appeared a bear had triggered one of the three traps set near where the man was killed. An Associated Press reporter could hear two bears calling back and forth to one another down in the creek valley while Fish, Wildlife and Parks employees walked around the culvert trap, guns in hand.
FWP Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard declined to comment.
The bear attack was the most brazen in the Yellowstone area since the 1980s, wildlife officials said.
One camper said he heard the screams from two of the attacks early Wednesday.
Don Wilhelm, a wildlife biologist from Texas, thought the first scream was just teenagers, maybe a domestic dispute in the middle of the night. He tried to go back to sleep, stifling thoughts that a beast might be lurking outside his family's tent.
Minutes later, another scream — this one coming from the next campsite over, where a bear had torn through a tent and sunk its teeth into Freele's arm.
"First she said, "No!' Then we heard her say, 'It's a bear! I've been attacked by a bear!'" said Wilhelm's wife, Paige.
By that point, the bear already had ripped into another tent a few campsites away, chomping into the leg of a teenager who had been sleeping with his family. The solo camper who was killed was at the other end of the Soda Butte Campground.
Then, the screams stopped.
After a quick parental back-and-forth over whether to shield their 9- and 12-year-old sons with their bodies or make a break for it, the Wilhelms took advantage of the silence and darted to their SUV.
They drove around the campground, honking their horns and yelling to alert other campers. Along the way, the met with a truck leaving the campground with the teenage victim, who apparently tried in vain to fight off the bear by punching it in the nose.
"It was like a nightmare, couldn't possibly happen," Paige Wilhelm said later.
In 2008 at the same campground, a grizzly bear bit and injured a man sleeping in a tent. A young adult female grizzly was captured in a trap four days later and transported to a bear research center in Washington state.
The latest attack had residents and visitors to this national park satellite community on edge. Many were carrying bear spray, a pepper-based deterrent more commonly seen in Yellowstone's backcountry than on the streets of Cooke City.
"The suspicion among a lot of the residents is that the bear they caught (in 2008) was not the right one," said Gary Vincelette, who has a cabin in nearby Silver Gate.
Last year, another grizzly broke into three cabins in Silver Gate, said Vincelette. That bear was shot and killed by a resident when it returned to the area.
"Three attacks in three years — we haven't ever had anything like that and I've been coming up here since I was a kid," Vincelette said.
About 600 grizzly bears and hundreds of less-aggressive black bears live in the Yellowstone area.
The region is pasted with hundreds of signs warning visitors to keep food out of the bruins' reach. Experts say that bears who eat human food quickly become habituated to people, increasing the danger of an attack.
Yet in the case of the Soda Butte Campground attack, all the victims had put their food into metal food canisters installed at campsite, Sheppard said Wednesday.
"They were doing things right," Sheppard said. "It was random. I have no idea why this bear picked these three tents out of all the tents there."
The 10-acre campground in Gallatin National Forest has 27 sites.
Two other campgrounds were also closed while the attacking bear or bears remained at large.
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Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern Hemisphere and partially in the Southern Hemisphere. Bears are found in the continents of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.
Common characteristics of modern bears include a large body with stocky legs, a long snout, shaggy hair, plantigrade paws with five nonretractile claws, and a short tail. While the polar bear is mostly carnivorous and the giant panda feeds almost entirely on bamboo, the remaining six species are omnivorous, with largely varied diets including both plants and animals.
With the exceptions of courting individuals and mothers with their young, bears are typically solitary animals. They are generally diurnal, but may be active during the night (nocturnal) or twilight (crepuscular), particularly around humans. Bears are aided by an excellent sense of smell, and despite their heavy build and awkward gait, they can run quickly and are adept climbers and swimmers. In autumn some bear species forage large amounts of fermented fruits which affects their behaviour.[1] Bears use shelters such as caves and burrows as their dens, which are occupied by most species during the winter for a long period of sleep similar to hibernation.
Bears have been hunted since prehistoric times for their meat and fur. To this day, they play a prominent role in the arts, mythology, and other cultural aspects of various human societies. In modern times, the bear's existence has been pressured through the encroachment on its habitats and the illegal trade of bears and bear parts, including the Asian bile bear market. The IUCN lists six bear species as vulnerable or endangered, and even least concern species such as the brown bear are at risk of extirpation in certain countries. The poaching and international trade of these most threatened populations is prohibited, but still ongoing.
Feds, farmers create habitats for migrating birds
Water gurgling from a well is flooding Craig Gautreaux's rice and crawfish fields, turning the farm into a wetland for migratory birds whose usual Gulf of Mexico wintering grounds are threatened by the oil spill.
Across eight states, farmers such as Gautreaux are inundating fallow fields to provide an alternative for some of the tens of millions of ducks, geese and shorebirds that are beginning to make their way south on a flyway that stretches as far north as Alaska and Iceland.
"Hopefully, we can help," said Gautreaux, who has dedicated 762 acres about 90 miles inland from the Gulf to the project under a three-year, $132,441 contract that likely will cover his costs but provide little if any profit. "I want to keep the birds around."
Biologists fear the birds will arrive at Gulf barrier islands, shorelines and marshes only to find their nesting sites fouled and their food supply depleted. Government officials hope to have 150,000 acres of manmade wetlands ready by Aug. 15, although they do not know how many birds will use it.
The federal government hasn't funded anything like this $20 million project before, but farmers and scientists are hopeful the program in the five Gulf states and Arkansas, Georgia and Missouri could work. They note that Gulf-bound birds often stop anyway at their farms, where rice and crawfish fields are already flooded for parts of each season.
"There's a sense of urgency here," said Kevin Norton, who heads the U.S. Department of Agriculture's conservation programs in Louisiana. If the oil causes major die-offs, he said, "that will ripple through the populations for years to come."
The program is so popular that Texas and Louisiana exhausted their initial funding within weeks and lobbied for more. Texas has now received nearly $6 million under the program and hopes to have all its contracts funded by Aug. 1.
Yet the scheme isn't likely to be a windfall for the farmers. It's designed to compensate them for pumping and holding the water, which can be expensive, without generating a profit.
The amount farmers are paid will depend on how much land they devote and the steps they take to make it suitable for birds.
Flooding will cost between $43 and $200 per acre, depending on factors such as water value in a particular area and the condition of the land, said Russell Castro, a biologist with the federal conservation service in Temple, Texas. Some farmers will have to build small levees or dikes.
"Anyone who buys a farm and runs it themselves, I guess you don't do it to get rich," said Grantt Guillory, 37, who raises crawfish and soybeans in southern Louisiana's Atchafalaya River watershed. "You get into it because you're somewhat of a steward to the environment. I care about these birds and I'm afraid the oil spill is going to devastate some of these species."
His grant application hasn't been accepted yet, but he's turning about 235 marshy acres into wetlands anyway, keeping the area submerged under six to 10 inches of water for a couple of months longer than usual.
Farmers typically rotate which fields they plant, leaving some fallow each year, and the ones being flooded for the birds are generally those out-of-use plots. In some cases, the extra flooding might take place before planting or after harvest.
Some farmers might choose to provide several inches of water and mudflats from July through October, an ideal habitat for shorebirds such as sandpipers and dowitchers. Shallow water on moist soils in August and September could attract early migrating waterfowl such as the blue-winged teal.
Deeper water would be needed from October through March for diving ducks, such as redheads and canvasbacks.
About 15 million ducks and geese migrate annually to Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, said Mike Brasher, a biologist with the Gulf Coast Joint Venture, a partnership among government, nonprofits and landowners for bird habitat preservation. When shorebirds are added, he said, the total could reach 50 million.
Their habitat has been diminishing for years because of sinking, erosion, hurricanes and pollution, said John Pitre, a wildlife biologist with the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. The oil spill just makes things worse.
Agencies involved with the new program "had wanted to do something like this before, but never had the funding," Pitre said.
Many birds that spend cold-weather months in the Gulf region had already flown north ahead of the spill, which was triggered by an April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers. But scientists say the danger will be waiting when they return — some as early as this month_ even if the leak has been plugged.
Norton acknowledged that some species might not seek out the alternative habitat — especially those that instinctively return annually to the same places.
However, he said, if they make even a quick stopover in the newly developed habitat before continuing to the Gulf, they may go back after finding their former haunts polluted.
The piping plover, a shorebird on the federal endangered species list, spends winters nibbling tiny invertebrates on sandy Southern beaches and probably won't be attracted to the new habitats at first, said biologist Francie Cuthbert of the University of Minnesota. But if the oil kills off their usual food supply, some might fly inland.
Other birds, such as the common loon of the Great Lakes region, prefer open-water habitat and probably will head directly for the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, said Joe Kaplan, a biologist in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
James Gentz, a rice farmer in Winnie, Texas on the Gulf coast, has signed two contracts for about $84,000 to keep 720 of his 1,200 acres flooded through March 31.
Keeping fields that would normally lie fallow this year flooded through the winter will be time-consuming, but Gentz believes he will turn a profit while helping the birds survive.
"For generations, they've been following a migratory pattern. Hopefully, if they get down south, they'll come back to where we're trying to help them," Gentz said.
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The term farmer usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry or other livestock. Their products might be sold either to a market, in a farmers' market or perhaps directly from a farm. In a subsistence economy, farm products might to some extent be either consumed by the farmer's family or pooled by the community.
More distinct terms are commonly used to denote farmers who raise specific domesticated animals. For example, those who raise grazing livestock such as cattle, sheep, goats, and horses, are known as ranchers (U.S.), graziers (Australia & U.K.), or simply stockmen. Sheep, goat, and cattle farmers might be also be referred to respectively as shepherds, goatherds, and cowherds. The term dairy farmer is applied to those engaged primarily in milk production, whether from cattle, goats, sheep, or other milk producing animals. A poultry farmer is one who concentrates on raising chickens, turkeys, ducks or geese, for either meat, egg, or feather production, or commonly, all three. A person who raises a variety of vegetables for market may be called a truck farmer or market gardener. Dirt farmer is an American colloquial term for a practical farmer, or one who farms his own land.[2]
In the context of developing nations or other pre-industrial cultures, most farmers practice a meager subsistence agriculture—a simple organic farming system employing crop rotation, seed saving, slash and burn or other techniques to maximize efficiency while meeting the needs of the household or community. In developed nations however, a person using such techniques on small patches of land might be called a gardener and be considered a hobbyist. Alternatively, one may be driven into such practices by poverty or, ironically—against the background of large-scale agribusiness--may become an organic farmer growing for discerning consumers in the local food market. Historically, one subsisting in this way may have been known as a peasant.
Farmers harvesting rice in Japan
In developed nations, a farmer (as a profession) is usually defined as someone with an ownership interest in crops or livestock, and who provides land or management in their production. Those who provide only labor are most often called farmhands. Alternatively, growers who manage farmland for an absentee landowner, sharing the harvest (or its profits) are known as sharecroppers or sharefarmers. In the context of agribusiness, a farmer is defined broadly, and thus many individuals not necessarily engaged in full-time farming can nonetheless legally qualify under agricultural policy for various subsidies, incentives, and tax deductions.
Farmers are often members of local, regional or national farmers' unions or agricultural producers' organizations and can exert significant political influence. The Grange movement in the United States was effective in advancing farmers' agendas, especially against railroad and agribusiness interests early in the 20th century . The FNSEA is very politically active in France, especially pertaining to genetically modified food. Agricultural producers, both small and large, are represented globally by the International Federation of Agriculture Producers (IFAP), representing over 600 million farmers through 120 national farmers' unions in 79 countries
Arizona preparing appeal of immigration ruling
Arizona is preparing to ask an appeals court to lift a judge's ruling that put most of the state's immigration law on hold in a key first-round victory for the federal government in a fight that may go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Gov. Jan Brewer called Wednesday's decision by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton "a bump in the road" and vowed to appeal.
Protesters in Phoenix went ahead with plans Thursday for a march to the state Capitol and a sit-in at the office of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The sheriff said if protestors were disruptive, they'd be arrested, and he vowed to go ahead with a crime sweep targeting illegal immigrants.
Paul Senseman, a spokesman for Brewer, said Arizona would ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco later Thursday to lift Bolton's preliminary injunction and to expedite its consideration of the state's appeal.
Bolton indicated the government has a good chance at succeeding in its argument that federal immigration law trumps state law. But the key sponsor of Arizona's law, Republican Rep. Russell Pearce, said the judge was wrong and predicted the state would ultimately win the case.
Opponents of the law said the ruling sends a strong message to other states hoping to replicate the law.
"Surely it's going to make states pause and consider how they're drafting legislation and how it fits in a constitutional framework," Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, told The Associated Press. "The proponents of this went into court saying there was no question that this was constitutional, and now you have a federal judge who's said, 'Hold on, there's major issues with this bill.'"
He added: "So this idea that this is going to be a blueprint for other states is seriously in doubt. The blueprint is constitutionally flawed."
In her temporary injunction, Bolton delayed the most contentious provisions of the law, including a section that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws. She also barred enforcement of parts requiring immigrants to carry their papers and banned illegal immigrants from soliciting employment in public places — a move aimed at day laborers that congregate in large numbers in parking lots across Arizona. The judge also blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants.
"Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked," said Bolton, a Clinton administration appointee who was assigned the seven lawsuits filed against Arizona over the law.
Other provisions that were less contentious were allowed to take effect Thursday, including a section that bars cities in Arizona from disregarding federal immigration laws.
The 11th-hour ruling came just as police were preparing to begin enforcement of a law that has drawn international attention and revived the national immigration debate in a year when Democrats are struggling to hold on to seats in Congress.
The ruling was anxiously awaited in the U.S. and beyond. About 100 protesters in Mexico City who had gathered at the U.S. Embassy broke into applause when they learned of the ruling via a laptop computer. Mariana Rivera, a 36-year-old from Zacatecas, Mexico, who is living in Phoenix on a work permit, said she heard about the ruling on a Spanish-language news program.
"I was waiting to hear because we're all very worried about everything that's happening," said Rivera, who phoned friends and family with the news. "Even those with papers, we don't go out at night at certain times there's so much fear (of police). You can't just sit back and relax."
More demonstrators opposed to the law planned to gather Thursday, with the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the immigrant-rights group Puente saying they would march from the state Capitol.
Lawmakers or candidates in as many as 18 states say they want to push similar measures when their legislative sessions start up again in 2011. Some lawmakers pushing the legislation said they would not be daunted by the ruling and plan to push ahead in response to what they believe is a scourge that needs to be tackled.
Arizona is the nation's epicenter of illegal immigration, with more than 400,000 undocumented residents. The state's border with Mexico is awash with smugglers and drugs that funnel narcotics and immigrants throughout the U.S., and the influx of illegal migrants drains vast sums of money from hospitals, education and other services.
"We're going to have to look and see," said Idaho state Sen. Monty Pearce, a second cousin of Russell Pearce and a supporter of immigration reform in his state. "Nobody had dreamed up, two years ago, the Arizona law, and so everybody is looking for that crack where we can get something done, where we can turn the clock back a little bit and get our country back."
Kris Kobach, the University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who helped write the law and train Arizona police officers in immigration law, conceded the ruling weakens the force of Arizona's efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants. He said it will likely be a year before a federal appeals court decides the case.
"It's a temporary setback," Kobach said. "The bottom line is that every lawyer in Judge Bolton's court knows this is just the first pitch in a very long baseball game."
In the meantime, other states like Utah will likely take up similar laws, possibly redesigned to get around Bolton's objections.
"The ruling ... should not be a reason for Utah to not move forward," said Utah state Rep. Carl Wimmer, a Republican from Herriman City, who said he plans to co-sponsor a bill similar to Arizona's next year and wasn't surprised it was blocked. "For too long the states have cowered in the corner because of one ruling by one federal judge."
The core of the government's case is that federal immigration law trumps state law — an issue known as "pre-emption" in legal circles and one that dates to the founding of America. In her ruling, Bolton pointed out five portions of the law where she believed the federal government would likely succeed on its claims.
The Justice Department argued in court that the law was unconstitutional and that allowing states to push their own measures would lead to a patchwork of immigration laws across the nation and disrupt a carefully balanced approach crafted by Congress.
Arizona argues that the federal government has failed to secure the border, and that it has a right to take matters into its own hands.
For now, the federal government has the upper-hand in the dispute, by virtue of the strength of its arguments and the precedent on the pre-emption issue. The Bush administration successfully used the pre-emption argument to win consumer product cases, and judges in other jurisdictions have looked favorably on the argument in immigration disputes.
"This is clearly a significant victory for the Justice Department and a defeat for the sponsors of this law," said Peter Spiro, a constitutional law professor at Temple University who has studied immigration law extensively. "They will not win on this round of appeals. They'll get a shot after a trial and a final ruling by Judge Bolton."
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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.
