Ann McKee, MD, is the recipient of the Henry Wisniewski Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Research from the Alzheimer’s Association for her significant scientific contributions and demonstrated lifelong commitment to progress against Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. She was one of three individuals recognized July 24 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) in Chicago.
Director of Neuropathology for VA Boston Healthcare System and Professor of Neurology and Pathology at BUSM, Dr. McKee is Director of the BU CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) Center and Associate Director of the BU Alzheimer’s Disease Center. She was the first scientist to report a link between motor neuron disease and CTE. Dr. McKee created the “McKee criteria” by defining the criteria on the changes in the brain for the diagnosis of CTE and establishing the novel staging system for the condition.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is named in honor of Henry Wisniewski, MD, PhD, one of the three co-founders of the conference. The award recognizes significant fundamental contributions to Alzheimer’s research, either through a single scientific discovery or a body of work. The Alzheimer’s Association is committed to accelerating the global effort to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease and to recognizing the efforts of researchers who further our understanding about this devastating disease.


I love her blog to begin with but Army Blogger Wife is staring down another deployment and has begun a series of Deployment Questions.
I hope you will check them out and add some feedback. Because going through the comments really is fascinating. Sarah has talked about how deployments are like snowflakes, and ABW is capturing that so well in her posts.
The first one deals with money, two and three are FRG questions, four deals with saying goodbye and number five is optempo and staying in. I'll be looking forward to see what she tackles next . . .


The gathering space of the House of Linguistic Diversity, located at one of the new small living units at Ohio Wesleyan University campus on Rowland Avenue. The university has plans to build four duplex-style SLUs funded by donors.
Audrey Castaneda-Walker found a greater appreciation for functional plumbing, electric and heat when she lived at a couple of Ohio Wesleyan University’s older residential buildings.
She lived in one of OWU’s has seven small living units, or SLUs, with some originally located on Rowland and Oak Hill avenues and West William Street. SLUs not only provide a roof over student’s heads but allows them to live as a family, bonded by a particular interest.
But working utilities was a challenge, said Castaneda-Walker, until she moved to one of the new duplex-style SLUs on Rowland Avenue.
“It’s definitely been a blessing,” she said.
The city approved plans in August 2015 for the construction of four new duplex-style homes to accommodate all seven of the university’s existing SLUs.
Each new SLU can accommodate up to 24 students.
Two of them are now completed housing: the Interfaith House and Sexuality and Gender Equality, and the houses of Peace and Justice and of Linguistic Diversity. The third SLU, expected to open this fall, will house the House of Spiritual Athletes and the Tree House. The Citizens of the World House will remain on Oak Hill Avenue for now.
The new SLUs are the first wave of new student housing in about 50 years, said Thea Smeckens, an OWU residential life coordinator.
All SLUs have student moderators who said the new housing improves communal living as the students are more likely to dine together, while sharing the bathroom is more efficient.
“This was built for students,” said Rachel Scherrer, the moderator of the House of P&J.
The new SLUs arrival comes as OWU released in late December its strategic plan to increase enrollment to 2,020 students by 2020. The university’s enrollment has fluctuated over the decades with the with the low at 1,387 in 1985.
Enrollment is now 1,650, but the campus can accommodate 40 percent more at about 2,400 students.
But several of the SLUs were at or near the end of their viability to home students, said Cole Hatcher, OWU’s director of media and community relations.
“Enrollment aside, in addition to strong academics, today’s prospective students and families have expectations for facilities that we want to ensure we meet. An outside firm came in to survey our housing stock a few years ago to help us decide how to proceed in efforts to enhance our housing,” he said.
All three “SLUplexes” were built with donor funds, with the fourth to be built when donor funding is secured, Hatcher added.
The new SLUs have played a role in the university’s admissions scavenger hunts and admission tours, SLU moderators said. Walker, who’s the moderator of HOLD, said a potential athlete and his mother visited her SLU a couple weeks ago to ask for more information following a campus tour.
“It’s a big aspect of the university,” Walker said.


Education Ministry's initiative sees all of Israel's religious schools conducting a prayer for rainfall. The prayer was broadcast live on Arutz 7.
Following an initiative by the director of the religious school system in the Education Ministry, Dr. Abraham Lifschitz, public religious schools throughout Israel held a special prayer service on Wednesday morning, in which they asked for G-d's help in bringing more rainfall to Israel, which is suffering from a drought for the seventh year in a row.
Arutz Sheva's Hebrew website also joined the effort to bring together schools from all over the country, and presented a live webcast of the main prayer service which was held in Yeshivat Horev in Jerusalem and was headed by Israel's Chief Sephardic Rabbi (Rishon LeTziyon) Shlomo Amar.
Israel National News TV brings you select moments from this special initiative.


Early one morning, almost a century ago, a young woman trespassed on the grounds of a house called Menabilly. The Cornish sea was pink with sunrise, and blackbirds were singing in the hedge; a five-kilometre path unwound between banks of scarlet rhododendrons, and the lawn was wet with dew. Here she stood, gazing at white windows shuttered fast and grey walls concealed behind tapestries of ivy. It was, she said, “like the sleeping beauty of the fairy tale, until someone should come to wake her”. And indeed the house was woken, and has never slept since: the trespasser was Daphne Du Maurier, and the house slumbered on until she began to write Rebecca, with Menabilly rechristened Manderley.
Rebecca begins, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Every novelist since has ground their teeth in envy: here is all the enchantment of a child’s story, with an irresistible melancholy hung about it. The narrator is on a winding path alone, and her way is barred. The dreamer is the second Mrs de Winter (we never know her name), and Manderley has been to her both a heaven and a hell.
Employed as companion to the wealthy vulgarian Mrs van Hopper, she meets Maxim de Winter in a Monte Carlo hotel. He owns the famous Manderley, and is perfectly calibrated to the needs of an ardent virgin: he is sardonic, sophisticated, occasionally morose; he is Mr Rochester at the wheel of a motor car. Reader, she marries him. In due course she is conveyed to Manderley through rhododendrons blooming “slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic” and is greeted by the black-clad housekeeper Mrs Danvers, her “skull’s face, parchment-white, set on a skeleton’s frame”.
Manderley is “a thing of grace and beauty, exquisite and faultless” – but it is haunted by the spectre of Rebecca, the first Mrs de Winter, who drowned out in the bay. Her body may be rotting in the family crypt, but her spirit is vital and seductive: she lives in the inscription on the flyleaf of a book, the perfectly chosen drapes and ornaments, the evening gowns still hanging in her closet. Rebecca, it seems, was beautiful but boyish, brave but gracious, an attentive hostess and a loving wife. How can the second Mrs de Winter, with her thin hair and dispiriting clothes, compete?
This, however, is not a book to be trusted. Du Maurier holds up the gilded mirror in which Manderley is reflected, but first she broke the glass. For Rebecca lives also in Mrs Danvers’s curiously bitter grief and in Maxim’s restless fits of anger; in the boathouse with its mouldering books and furnishings, and in the stuttering terror of the savant Ben, who digs for seashells on the shore. Nor can you trust the innocent narrator. For all her insistence that she is drab, shy, uncertain of herself, we certainly know this: the name we’re never told is “lovely and unusual”, and it becomes her well; she lands herself a wealthy lover in a Monte Carlo hotel; her passions are ignited as much by violence as by ardour. Soon the reader wanders from room to room “a little fearful, a little afraid”, with the “odd, uneasy feeling” that they “might come upon something unawares”.
Rebecca sold in vast numbers, and has never been out of print. In the 80 years since its publication it has inspired prequels, sequels and an opera, with Manderley built and rebuilt for television, film and stage. During the second World War a copy was used by German intelligence as a code book. It is not a novel: it is an institution. Its wild success and superficial resemblance to a love story earned its author the dubious title “romantic novelist”. On her death the New York Times, in tones less obsequious than accusatory, called Du Maurier “the author of Rebecca, and other highly popular Gothic and romantic novels”. But she was certainly no romantic: she declared, with the faintest trace of mischief, “There is no such thing as romantic love. This is a statement of fact, and I defy all those who hold a contrary opinion.” No romantic novelist, then, but certainly a Gothic one. Rebecca is in the grand, disruptive tradition of the Gothic: it is deliciously transgressive, enticing the reader into complicity; it shocks all the more because its menace blows in on Rebecca’s azalea scent; it creates a dwelling place within which every furtive longing of the human heart seems not only possible but permissible – if you can stand the punishment.
I first read Rebecca at perhaps 13, half-drowsing in the back of the family car. Arrested at once by that opening line I said to my mother, “Where is Manderley?” She turned in her seat and said, “Oh, somewhere in Cornwall, I suppose,” with such an air of stating fact that it was years before I realised I could never buy a ticket to the house and gardens – would never see the boathouse, the Happy Valley, the sloping lawns. But it is as real to me as the bricks-and-mortar houses where I have lived. The name arouses in me not the pleasing recollection of a well-loved book but a response rooted in the senses that is indistinguishable from memory.
The boat that Rebecca sailed single-handed in that glittering Cornish bay was called Je Reviens – “I Return”. And so it is for me, and for other readers of this masterful, troubling and wickedly seductive novel: we sigh, close the cover, put the book back on the shelf; but again and again, when the scarlet rhododendrons are in bloom, we return to Manderley.


Next: Anatomy of an Attack comes to London and Sydney – book your place now!
Last night, US TV station CNBC broadcast a documentary entitled “CodeWars: America’s Cyber Threat”, looking at the threat of cyberwarfare, hacker attacks on critical infrastructure and the risk of technology made in China containing spyware.
Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn was amongst those interviewed, who confirmed that US government networks receive thousands of attempted hacker attacks every day, and confirms that on occasion weapons systems plans and critical information has been lost in the assaults.
The US government isn’t alone in being targeted by attackers of course, we have heard a similar message from British politicians this year, for instance.
But, as Wired magazine points out, Lynn was also asked directly whether the US was involved in the development of the infamous Stuxnet worm.
"The challenges of Stuxnet, as I said, what it shows you is the difficulty of any, any attribution and it's something that we’re still looking at, it's hard to get into any kind of comment on that until we've finished our examination."
"But sir, I’m not asking you if you think another country was involved. I’m asking you if the US was involved. If the Department of Defense was involved."
"And this is not something that we’re going to be able to answer at this point."
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a video clip online of this exchange.
Of course, a refusal to confirm or deny the US’s involvement in the Stuxnet worm isn’t an admission. After all, it’s possible that Lynn simply doesn’t know if the USA was involved – and doesn’t want to be caught on film denying something which later turns out to be true.
Or it’s possible that he’s not authorised to deny the US’s involvement for reasons best known to the higher echelons of US politics.
Or maybe even the USA, were involved in Stuxnet but Lynn realises what a monumental sh*t-storm that would create on the international stage so he thought better than to confirm it on a CNBC documentary.
Whatever the truth, it’s always fun to see a politician squirm when put on the spot regarding their own country’s murky activities on the internet.
You’ll notice that Lord West makes the same point as the US Deputy Defense Secretary, that a key problem is attribution when it comes to internet attacks – proving that someone (or some nation) is behind a cyber attack is very very difficult.
By the way, if you’re wondering why there’s a picture of ABBA’s Anni-Frid Lyngstad alongside Lord West in that video you’ll have to read my original article.
VERY nice article. Still leaves speculation but a raised eyebrow sometimes uncovers the truth.
Should we be surprised that US government is not so clean as it pretend to be? At least, theis guy did not lie on this.
For this article to have any credence, the author would need some experience dealing with severely classified material. Whether the US was involved or not is irrelevant. What I took from the information presented is that the US knows more than will be told or that is what they want us to think. Successful attacks on government sites have not been from governments. They have been from hackers on their own and then passing the info along to governments. If the Russians can mount a DDoS against Estonia, lets say – where did they get the network to do it? They did not make it. The Russian government could ill afford to be caught with their finger in the pot. The US would be stupid to ever admit committing any sort of international crime. Contrary to what the blind guy said, Lynn lied – I like the alteration.
Don’t get me wrong I have used it for a long time now, I just never compared it to any other AVs. Each full scan reunrts either one or no infection at all, but I’m not sure either if CIS-collectively has worked well or it’s just not being detected.
Pretty obvious even to a tabloid newspaper editor tha the amopunt of technological insight into the control circuits themselves is not something your average megacorporation on the block could pull off, its government funded.


Don’s in trouble. Don Jr. Wha?!?
Is KO Tweeting about AJ or DJT?
An interview with Fatherly’s Lauren Vino. Read her article on Chikara.


We all want to stay sharp-witted as we age, which explains the recent proliferation of brain games and puzzles. But newly published research suggests a low-tech way of retaining our mental agility: Learn to play a musical instrument.
According to this research, people who spend many hours in the practice room not only process information unusually efficiently, but they also do a superior job of not letting occasional errors derail them.
In the journal Neuropsychologica, the researchers describe an experiment featuring 36 young adults. They were divided into four groups: Musicians who had accumulated at least 5,000 hours of practice; those who had clocked 2,000 to 5,000 hours; the lightweights (or newcomers to music) who had practiced for 200 to 2,000 hours; and non-musicians.
After answering a series of questions, all the participants took part in two standard cognitive tests: a Stroop task, in which they were asked to respond to words written in the color blue (even if the letters spelled out “red”); and a Simon task, in which they were instructed to respond with their right hand if they saw a red shape, and with their left hand if they saw a blue shape—even if the shapes popped up on the opposite side of the screen.
As they performed these tricky tasks, their brains were continuously monitored via EEG recording.
The results: People with more musical training responded faster than those with little or no training, with no loss in accuracy. “This result suggests that higher levels of musical training might result in more efficient information processing in general,” the researchers write.
In other words, if you hit a wrong note, it’s important to be immediately aware of what you did wrong, but it’s just as important to not hesitate or second-guess yourself. You quickly take stock what happened and move on—a skill the musicians in the study applied to these two tests, and one players can presumably apply to an assortment of everyday challenges.
The researchers caution that they haven’t established “a causal link between musical activity and the effectiveness of frontal brain functions.” They concede it’s possible that people who generally perform well on cognitive tasks might be more likely to take up an instrument.
They also point out that their participants were amateur musicians. Even those who logged the most practice time did not approach the hours put in by a longtime professional.
The fact that practicing was associated with improved cognitive functioning even for these non-professionals suggests music study could be “a realistic intervention method to slow or even prevent age-related decline in frontal brain functioning,” they write.
So if you want to be sharp, start practicing those B sharps.


A looming meeting with the Food and Drug Administration regarding retailer tobacco sales to young people is the latest pressure on Walgreens Boots Alliance to stop sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products altogether.
“Notably, Walgreens is currently the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products, with 22 percent of the stores inspected having illegally sold tobacco products to minors,” the FDA said.
FDA head Scott Gottlieb wants to meet with Walgreens to address "their record of violative tobacco sales to youth.” In a statement Thursday, Gottlieb said said he will be "writing the corporate management of Walgreens and requesting a meeting with them to discuss whether there is a corporate-wide issue related to their stores’ non-compliance."
The FDA’s warning to Walgreens comes as the giant retailer pushes further into the business of healthcare, partnering with health insurers, doctors, urgent care centers and adding lab-testing inside its stores.
“We all share the important responsibility of keeping harmful and addictive tobacco products out of the hands of kids,” Gottlieb said. “Retailers in particular – especially those who position themselves as health-and-wellness-minded businesses – are on the front lines of these efforts and must take that legal obligation seriously."
More broadly, the FDA issue related for now to sales of minors is escalating criticism from shareholders, public health advocates and consumer groups as to whether Walgreens should be selling tobacco at all. At last month’s shareholders meeting, Walgreens reiterated its stance that its tobacco sales are a business decision designed to address “customer choice” and stressed it also offers smoking cessation products and programs.
But Walgreens says it has seen a seen in the last year a "low double digit percentage decrease in tobacco sales as we have taken a number of steps including lowering the visibility of these products in our stores." Meanwhile, Walgreens said Thursday it has had an increase in sales of its smoking cessation products.
Walgreens is evaluating the future of tobacco sales through a pilot in its Gainesville, Florida market where the drugstore chain last year stopped selling cigarettes. The Gainesville market is a laboratory of sorts for Walgreens where the chain is testing myriad concepts for the future of its stores across the U.S.
Walgreens co-chief operating officer Alex Gourlay told shareholders last month that the company is looking at what happens to customers in Gainesville who are used to buying cigarettes and no longer do now that the stores don’t sell them. The study, which began in April, is running 12 to 18 months in Gainesville where Walgreens has 17 stores.
Tom McCaney of Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, which is a part of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. "Walgreens has run out of legitimate justifications for selling tobacco and other nicotine-based products."


LISTEN TO DJ HUSTLE'S HUSTLE NATION VOL. 29 WEEKLY MIX!!
Our own Celebrity Host & DJ, DJ Hustle is on the turntables giving you Hustle Nation 29. DJ Hustle is blending and mixing the hottest new music in hip hop on AllHipHop.com. Listen to DJ Hustle as he is slapping the hits from the streets. Weekly mixes will be posted for your weekly enjoyment. Let DJ Hustle know what you want the hear on Twitter or Instagram. We take music to the next level!!


Several African-American leaders say tributes to the Civil War are outdated, but Gov. Abbott says the state's past must not be sanitized or forgotten.
AUSTIN – Rodney Ellis was a 36-year-old state senator in 1991 representing many of the same Houston neighborhoods as Barbara Jordan had served a generation earlier when he first called for the removal of statues and artwork at the Texas Capitol glorifying the Civil War.
The offense Ellis had taken to the monuments to the slaveholders, largely dismissed at the time as an effort to sanitize Texas history, has taken on new life in the wake of the violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, that culminated in the death of a young woman when a man associated with white supremacy drove his car into a crowd of demonstrators.
Several African-American members the Texas Legislature this week have called on state authorities to reopen the discussion about whether several pieces of Civil War-related artwork and iconography that have been part of the Capitol’s fabric and landscape for generations are appropriate in a diverse modern Texas.
“I cannot think of a better time than the present to discuss the removal of all Confederate iconography from the Texas Capitol Complex,” state Rep. Eric Johnson, a Dallas Democrat and an African-American, said in a letter sent late Wednesday to the board responsible for maintaining the Capitol.
Early indications are that Johnson’s request might meet the same fate as the one Ellis’ received in 1990s, and the ones like it that he offered several times during his years in Austin.
The preservation board is chaired by Gov. Greg Abbott, who immediately registered opposition to removing such things from the Capitol as the massive granite monument to Civil War soldiers that is topped with a bronze statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis – who was from Mississippi – and four bronze fighting men.
Abbott said that racism and violence have no place in Texas, but that crating off artwork is not the answer.
Although events in Charlottesville, and the controversial reaction to them by President Donald Trump has refocused attention on the appropriateness of Civil War statues, efforts have been under way for several weeks in places across Texas.
In Dallas, author and historian Michael Phillips began organizing a petition drive in July urging the Dallas City Council to mothball the confederal statues across the city, including in Fair Park and near the city’s convention center.
Phillips, a history professor at Collin College and the author of “White Metropolis,” which chronicles Dallas’ troubled history of race relations, said most of the monuments in Dallas and across the state went up decades after the Civil War as a way to cement African-American’s status as second-class citizens.
Pointing to the violence that erupted in Charlottesville over the monument, Phillips said local and state leaders should embark on an education campaign to explain the history of the monuments – not the glorification of them – as the effort to remove them begins.
In recent months, confederate statutes in New Orleans; Baltimore; and Birmingham, Alabama; have been removed.
But Texas could be a long way from achieving such a consensus.
One lawmaker, state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, this month offered legislation that would have tied the hands of cities that might seek to remove longstanding statues. The bill, which was not acted on, is similar to a law that went on the books this year in Alabama to restrict cities from taking down historical artifacts without state permission.
One of his colleagues, however, sees it differently. Democratic state Rep. Helen Giddings, a grandmother of five, said she struggles to teach those youngsters to take pride in the state and their country with reminders of the racist past still in the public square.
“I don’t believe we ought to be honoring people who fought against this country in defense of slavery,” said Giddings, who is African-American. “I understand people who say we cannot hide our history. And I agree that we must face our history. Slavery is the original sin of our nation’s history.


You'll still be able to sweet-talk your valentine this year with "Be Mine" and "Be Good" printed candy hearts. But you also will be able to tease your lover with new sayings like "You Rock" and "Let's Do Lunch."
The Conversation Hearts, made by the New England Confectionery Co. since 1902, have added 10 messages, including "Love Me Tender," "I Got U Babe" and "Walk On By" as tributes to popular songs of the past and "1-800 Cupid" and "As If" for the '90s crowd. Other messages: "My Way," "Let It Be," "I Wonder."
And the fat-free treats won't wreck anyone's diet. The small hearts have about 3 calories each and the larger hearts have about 6 calories.
Before saying "I do," the dot-com generation can get plenty of wedding do's and don'ts on the Internet. Modern Bride magazine's site, ModernBride.com, has hooked up with Cooking.com to help couples choose cookware and recipes for entertaining guests.
Another wedding resource, www.theknot.com, also serves as a gift registry and guide for this year's estimated 2.4 million U.S. brides and grooms. The site predicts we'll see retro cocktails, Chino-Latino food, marathon toasting sessions and "work-of-art" wedding cakes.


The NFL has fined Indianapolis Colts defensive lineman Denico Autry and Los Angeles Rams cornerback Marcus Peters for separate incidents in last weekend’s divisional playoffs, NFL Network reported Saturday.
Autry was fined $13,369 for his hip-swiveling celebratory dance after sacking Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the third quarter of the Colts’ 31-13 loss, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
Autry, whose performed his celebration directly in front of an official, was also penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Peters was fined $10,026 for unnecessary roughness during the Rams’ 30-22 win against the Dallas Cowboys, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
Peters drew a 15-yard flag after shoving receiver Amari Cooper out of bounds after a fourth-down run by Ezekiel Elliott.


As stated in other CAMERA reports, the Presbyterian Church will be voting on a number of issues related to the Arab-Israeli conflict at its upcoming General Assembly scheduled to take place in early July. In addition to an overture accusing Israel of the crime of apartheid, and another calling on the PC(USA) to rebuke Caterpillar for selling products to Israel, delegates at the assembly will also decide whether or not to endorse a report about the Arab-Israeli conflict written by a partisan Middle East Study Committee established by the denomination’s 2008 General Assembly.
The report, issued in early March, has been criticized by a number of groups, including J Street, which stated, among other things, that the report downplays Israel’s legitimate security concerns. This is remarkable in that many Jews in the U.S. regard J Street as being guilty of the same sin.
When J Street says there’s a problem, there’s a problem.
One of the ugliest parts of the document is a “historical analysis” authored by Frederic Bush and Nahida H. Gordon, two members of the committee. The narrative offered in this historical analysis, ironically titled “A Plea For Justice,” is not an attempt to help the average Presbyterian or the American people understand the conflict, but a one-sided recitation of Israel’s alleged misdeeds that serves to nourish and sustain a pre-existing animus toward the Jewish state amongst anti-Israel activists in the PC(USA) and elsewhere in the U.S.
One example of the manner in which Gordon and Nahida demonize Israel is in their discussion of Israel’s assassination of Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. The authors describe Kanafani as a non-violent writer despite the fact that he was a high-ranking member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and met with the perpetrators of of the Lod Airport Massacre during which Japanese terrorists hired by the PFLP killed 26 people and injured 80 others.
In 1972 he [Kanafani] paid with his life for his membership in George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In pictures published in Beirut newspapers, Kanafani – who was the PFLP spokesman, editor of the organization’s weekly newsletter Al-Hadaf (The Target) and Habash’s right-hand man – is seen photographed in his office with the participants in the massacre carried out by the Japanese Red Army organization at Lod airport in Israel in May 1972.
The author of an article in Haaretz about Kanafani’s literary career included information about Kanafani that the authors of a Presbyterian “historical analysis” did not.
It reveals that Kanafani was a member of the PFLP, an organization responsible for a number of hijackings and terror attacks in the years before Kanafani’s assassination.
It reveals that Kanafani was the right hand man to PFLP’s leader George Habash.
It reveals that Kanafani met with members of the Japanese Red Army who murdered 26 people and injured 80 others in the Lod Airport Massacre in May 1972.
Gordon and Nahida’s deceptive omission of well known and relevant facts about Kanafani’s ties to the PFLP, and their effort to portray Kanafani as a non-violent writer is a sophisticated and devious act of incitement against Israel that should set off alarm bells within the PC(USA). It serves to portray Israel as a nation that would kill a journalist for his writings, not his involvement with a terrorist organization.
Gordon and Nahida were appointed to serve on a committee charged with providing the PC(USA) and by extension, the American people, a comprehensive report about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The historical analysis they have written demonstrates that they were unable to meet the obligations of this charge.


The mining company behind an environmental disaster near Newcastle says plans to clean-up a creek that has been smothered in cement are well advanced.
Work to fix major subsidence from Glencore Xstrata's West Wallsend underground mine went horribly wrong, leaving a 250-metre long cement creek in the Sugarloaf State Conservation Area.
The company says it is finalising remediation plans and will be ready to submit them in the next week or two.
A legal notice to find a solution to the debacle has been extended from later this month to October 1.
Glencore Xstrata's Allyn Hamonet says the clean up will be very labour intensive.
"It won't be a quick job," he said.
"There is a large amount of material, it is difficult terrain and it may be that we have to pick at it and remove it by hand.
"But if that's the way it's got to be done then that's exactly what we'll do.
Mr Hamonet says the plans involve small teams working in sections of the creek at a time, with each section to be approved by authorities before moving on to the next one.
"It's going to be a very difficult process.
"The terrain is terribly hard to access and it looks like it'll have to be an intensive labour job but we're committed to getting the people in there as safely as we can and getting the material removed as quickly and as efficiently as possible."


Better check twice before firing off that email today: You could be sending it to the wrong person, thanks to a Gmail bug that is suggesting email addresses you rarely communicate with, instead of the people you correspond with most often.
This Gmail email address autocomplete bug is killing me. Is Google’s new social strategy to have me email people I don’t remember?
The incipient malevolent human-murdering AI inside GMail just autocompleted an address I've emailed once over one I've emailed 10,000 times.
The problem seems to be widespread — just this morning, Gigaom’s tips email address (news@gigaom.com, send us stories) was inexplicably CC’d on a email thread on which editors of another site were discussing the most embarrassing moments from last night’s Oscars.
Until it gets fixed, you might want to consider turning on the undo send feature in Gmail labs.
This is way too funny. Though, it can’t happen if you double check before sending. I know it’s time consuming (a few seconds), but it’s better to waste 2 seconds and not make a mistake. Didn’t notice this though because i always check everything before sending.
For a free product there are 2 options: Use it without complaining or Move on!
It’s a fair point. However, many companies, including mine actually send Google money to support email services so we do get to complain and feel very smug about it too!
I am personally paying for gmail with my data and browsing habits, which I don’t mind them doing at all; I signed up for that. What I did not sign up for, and something that is not covered in their TOS, was mangled emails.
Some folks at google probably noticed that auto-complete was driving us into ruts of robotic repetition and no further knowledge was being created. If someone else searched for something, that must be what I want to search for too. There, got that answer for you in the cache. Then, maybe someone figured the same thing was happening with our personal communication, and that we should be encouraged to diversify our circles of communication, or we would soon find ourselves trapped in repetitive exchanges with only a handful of auto completions.


Michael Myers makes his return to movie theaters this weekend, and with the fictional serial killer comes one of the most enduring genres of all time.
“Halloween,” the eleventh film in the horror franchise, opened with $7.7 million Thursday night and is expected to bring in roughly $60 million domestically this weekend for Universal. That would make it one of the biggest openings in October’s history and the highest grossing debut for the franchise. Last year’s big screen version of Stephen King’s “It” opened at $123 million, for comparison.
So why does Hollywood keep coming back to “Halloween?” It’s because horror is a unique genre with broad appeal, films that are affordable to make and that are best enjoyed at brick and mortar theaters where other viewers are screaming with you in the dark. Studios benefit from the high return on investment, and theaters get more foot traffic at the box office and at concession stands where they make the highest profit margins. In an age of on-demand streaming from the comfort of a living room, horror films brings people back to the theater.


Congress overwhelmingly passed the $143 billion measure on Friday. The bill extends both a 2 percentage point reduction in the tax that funds Social Security and extends jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. The measure also averts a big cut in the reimbursements doctors get for treating Medicare patients.
But Tuesday's event was not a bill-signing because the bill is not yet in Obama's hands. Not knowing when the legislation will come down from Capitol Hill, the White House decided to go ahead and hold its event now, while the victory is still fresh in people's minds. No major event is planned for the actual bill-signing.
The payroll tax cut was a centerpiece of the jobs plan Obama unveiled last year — and of a re-election strategy that seeks to cast his GOP foes as protectors of the rich out of touch with the worries of working families.
Obama never mentioned that a real driver of the deal Congress approved Friday was the political fallout on Republicans if they didn't give ground. Having endured a debacle in December, when they were seen as holding up the tax cut before caving, Republicans this time went along, and without demanding that the cost be paid for, either.
The White House said the average family would have lost $40 per paycheck had the tax cut not been extended. Throughout the payroll tax debate, the White House encouraged people to write in on social networking sites about how losing that money would affect their lives.
Several members of the public who submitted their thoughts were invited to join Obama at events promoting the tax cuts, including his remarks Tuesday.
"This got done because of you," Obama said. "Because you called, you emailed, you tweeted your representatives and you demanded action. You made it clear that you wanted to see some common sense in Washington."
White House officials have called the payroll tax cut the last "must-do" legislation Obama has to work with Congress on ahead of the November presidential election. Still, Obama made a push Tuesday for several other priorities outlined in his jobs bill and last month's State of the Union address, including legislation to assist small business owners and struggling homeowners.
Obama earlier this month proposed a vast expansion of government assistance to homeowners that would make lower lending rates a possibility for millions of borrowers who have not been able to get out from under burdensome mortgages. The proposal has special resonance in election battlegrounds such as Nevada and Florida that have faced record foreclosures.
Obama wants Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier for more borrowers to refinance their loans, creating a new program through the Federal Housing Administration that would have the government assume the risk for the new mortgages. The proposal faces a difficult path in Congress.
Obama also said he wants Congress to pass the so-called Buffett rule, which seeks to ensure that people making more than $1 million a year pay at least 30 percent of their incomes in taxes.


Thomas Piketty, professor at the Paris School of Economics, isn’t a household name, although that may change with the English-language publication of his magnificent, sweeping meditation on inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Yet his influence runs deep. It has become a commonplace to say that we are living in a second Gilded Age—or, as Piketty likes to put it, a second Belle Époque—defined by the incredible rise of the “one percent.” But it has only become a commonplace thanks to Piketty’s work. In particular, he and a few colleagues (notably Anthony Atkinson at Oxford and Emmanuel Saez at Berkeley) have pioneered statistical techniques that make it possible to track the concentration of income and wealth deep into the past—back to the early twentieth century for America and Britain, and all the way to the late eighteenth century for France.
The result has been a revolution in our understanding of long-term trends in inequality. Before this revolution, most discussions of economic disparity more or less ignored the very rich. Some economists (not to mention politicians) tried to shout down any mention of inequality at all: “Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution,” declared Robert Lucas Jr. of the University of Chicago, the most influential macroeconomist of his generation, in 2004. But even those willing to discuss inequality generally focused on the gap between the poor or the working class and the merely well-off, not the truly rich—on college graduates whose wage gains outpaced those of less-educated workers, or on the comparative good fortune of the top fifth of the population compared with the bottom four fifths, not on the rapidly rising incomes of executives and bankers.
It therefore came as a revelation when Piketty and his colleagues showed that incomes of the now famous “one percent,” and of even narrower groups, are actually the big story in rising inequality. And this discovery came with a second revelation: talk of a second Gilded Age, which might have seemed like hyperbole, was nothing of the kind. In America in particular the share of national income going to the top one percent has followed a great U-shaped arc. Before World War I the one percent received around a fifth of total income in both Britain and the United States. By 1950 that share had been cut by more than half. But since 1980 the one percent has seen its income share surge again—and in the United States it’s back to what it was a century ago.


KALAMAZOO, Mich.—For many students, mathematics isn't an easy subject to master. Teaching mathematics in a country like South Africa, which has 11 official languages, can also be daunting.
Although English is the common mode of instruction in that country, Dr. Jon Davis thinks doing a little more talking about math could lead to better learning outcomes for students. So he is using his six-month-long Fulbright Program Scholarship to delve deeper into how conceptual discourse and code-switching techniques can be tools in promoting student understanding.
An associate professor of mathematics, Davis is one of the six Fulbright Scholars from WMU who are working around the globe this academic year. At WMU, he has been teaching content classes up to the calculus level as well as mathematics education courses for master's and doctoral students and prospective middle school and high school teachers.
What's talk got to do with it?
Davis traveled to South Africa in January to explore ethnomathematics—the study of the relationship between culture and math—and to observe mathematics instruction within South Africa's centralized education system. He is conducting his work at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and secondary schools in townships near Port Elizabeth.
"I'm particularly interested in studying a discursive method known as 'exploratory talk,' the kind of talk where participants engage critically but constructively with each other's ideas," Davis says. "I'm also interested in what linguists call 'code-switching,' which has been encouraged throughout South Africa across a variety of academic subjects because of the multilingual nature of the country's classrooms."
Davis says code-switching involves the use of two or more languages within a speech act.
"You explain a concept in English, then give students time to code-switch between languages to fully understand the subject," he says. "Students have the ability to interact with the material at a deeper level when you give them the time to use their preferred language to process the content before responding in English."
While in South Africa, Davis has been invited to teach classes that concentrate on middle school mathematics content, mathematics literacy and methods of teaching mathematics. He also has been asked to give presentations on his current National Science Foundation grant, which focuses on how middle school math teachers use curriculum materials to teach America's Common Core mathematics standards. In addition, he is exploring opportunities for collaboration with South African researchers and for opening up study abroad options for WMU undergraduates.
"Visiting South African schools enables me to see the U.S. educational system in a new light—to make the familiar strange," Davis says. "That, in turn, will benefit the discipline by reinvigorating my research in school mathematics classrooms."
Some of his activities are having an immediate impact on South African students and teachers. In February, for example, Davis visited the Solomon Mahlangu secondary school in a poor township area outside of Port Elizabeth. He spent a day observing math teachers and delivering motivational speeches on the importance of diligently studying mathematics. He also donated to the school a set of textbook materials developed through WMU's Core-Plus Mathematics Project and TI-Nspire CAS handheld calculators. Davis later returned to the school to train its teachers on how to use the calculators.
"I intend to use my experiences in South Africa to bring a global perspective to our methods courses at WMU and promote study abroad within the mathematics department," he says. "The WMU mathematics department is committed to fostering global competency and cultural awareness among its students. My Fulbright award will be a major step toward this global engagement."
For more 2016-17 Fulbright Scholar news, visit wmich.edu/news/2017/02/38326. WMU students, faculty and staff members who are interested in applying to a Fulbright program may contact Dr. Michelle Metro-Roland, the University's Fulbright Program advisor, at michelle.metro-roland@wmich.edu.


In a rare Saturday matinee, the Predators came out sluggish and the Panthers made them pay in a 7-4 loss that puts them right back on the playoff bubble.
The ageless Jaromir Jagr had no problems getting ready for the afternoon start. The 45-year-old future Hall of Famer put Florida up 1-0 just over 4:00 into the game. Florida then scored four goals in a 4:01 stretch during the second period to take control of the game.
"It was gross," a visibly angry Predators head coach Peter Laviolette said after the game. "We didn't play with any purpose. There was no passion, no effort. The actions that we gave deserved the result we got."
The disastrous stretch started when Pontus Aberg was booked for slashing, one of seven penalties called on Nashville in the period, and Jussi Jokinen cashed in on the Power Play less than 90 seconds later. The Preds briefly responded when Viktor Arvidsson, who recorded his first career hat trick, redirected a Ryan Ellis shot into the net to tie the game 2-2, but Florida took control with a pair of tallies in the next 57 seconds.
The Predators then pulled goaltender Pekka Rinne, who allowed four goals on 16 shots, but backup Juuse Saros didn't fare much better. Just over a minute later, Aleksander Barkov beat Saros to give the Panthers a 5-2 lead.
"We didn't have a good start and ended up chasing the game," Captain Mike Fisher said. "We've got to be better."
The Predators managed just six shots in the game's first 25:00 and spent 26:00 in the penalty box as the result of 10 penalties. The lackluster effort handed the Preds their second straight loss and dropped them to eighth in the Western Conference, just a point ahead of the Flames for a Wild Card spot.
"I want them to wrestle with this when they go home tonight," Laviolette said. "They need to think about tomorrow and what we need to do better."
The good news is Nashville won't have to wait long for a chance to get back on track. The Preds welcome the division rival Stars to Bridgestone Arena Sunday at 5pm.
But there is real concern about the inconsistency that continues to plague this Predators team now 55 games into the season. We keep waiting for them to turn it on and be the team that many predicted to win the Central Division at the start of the season. There have been fleeting moments of that type of play this season, but never a prolonged stretch. After recording points in nine of 11 games, the Preds have now lost three of four.
And in a critical game back at home after a road loss, they just didn't show up Saturday with the exception of Arvidsson, who now leads the team with 18 goals to match his team lead in hustle. If his teammates could all match his effort game in and game out, inconsistency would not be this team's problem.
Instead, this is a team that boasts wins over the Penguins, Blackhawks and Wild, but also has losses to teams like the Coyotes, Red Wings and Devils. A frustrating rollercoaster ride of up and downs that will have the Preds fighting for their playoff lives over the final third of the season.
The talent is there on paper. The Predators have solid goaltending, offensive depth and defensive stars. But until they find consistency in their effort and in their play, the frustrations will continue.


When this campaign is over, let's not forget Donald Trump's steady use of anti-Semitic stereotypes and images throughout the campaign—ideas we can expect he'll continue to use when the election is over and he tries to re-invent himself as the leader of a white supremacist nationalist movement and the public face of a new media empire (Trump TV?) with his supporters Roger Ailes (former head of Fox News who has a history of making anti-Semitic comments and was responsible for Fox News' anti-Semitic crusade against the phony "war on Christmas"), Stephen Bannon (head of Breitbart News known for his own anti-Semitic remarks), and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer (the money behind Breitbart News).
Trump's anti-Semitism comes in different shapes and sizes. He verbalizes it, encourages it, enables it, tolerates it, and makes excuses for it. What he doesn't do is condemn it.
Trump's most recent anti-Semitic remarks were in a speech, and a tweet, last week that included this line: "Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors." Trump didn't need to use the word "Jew." The imagery of a global banking cabal will be familiar to anyone who has read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the anti-Semitic forgery that has fueled anti-Jewish violence for over a century. These are well-known anti-Semitic code words. The speech, typical of Trump's paranoid conspiracy theories, was designed to fire up Trump's white nationalist, anti-Semitic base.
Trump's chronic anti-Semitism is often overlooked when reporters and others itemize the long laundry list of the GOP candidate's bigotry and offensive comments, including sexism, racism, and insults directed toward Muslims and the physically disabled. Trump has often retweeted messages from white supremacists and anti-Semites, including the image of Clinton with a Jewish star and $100 bills in the background and the headline "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever."
In response to Trump's repeated claim about the election being rigged, the popular right-wing site Daily Stormer wrote that "People aren't going to quietly go home if the Jews steal this election from us." Other sites supporting Trump have posted similar slurs.
Anti-Semitic comments on social media have skyrocketed, because Trump is bringing these ugly stereotypes, once relegated to the lunatic fringe of the internet, into the mainstream. A new Anti-Defamation League uncovered more than 2.6 million tweets with anti-Semitic comments and images between August 2015 and July 2016, a huge upsurge from the previous year. Many of them identified themselves as Trump supporters or Clinton haters, and many (including death threats) were directed at Jewish journalists who had been critical of Trump.
Trump's comment about Clinton's ties to an international banking conspiracy was not an offhand remark. He has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks, including this comment in a speech during this campaign to the Republican Jewish Coalition (a tiny group): "I know why you're not going to support me. You're not going to support me because I don't want your money ...Look, I'm a negotiator like you folks, we're negotiators."
Trump's frequent references at his rallies and during the debates to Sidney Blumenthal, George Soros and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz—Jewish supporters of Hillary Clinton—is no accident. This is not random name-dropping; these are dog whistles aimed at his racist and anti-Semitic supporters.
He once tweeted: "I promise you that I'm much smarter than Jonathan Leibowitz—I mean Jon Stewart @TheDailyShow. Who, by the way, is totally overrated." While Stewart has often referred to himself as Jewish, only an anti-Semite would refer to Stewart's Jewish-sounding real name in this way.
Earlier this year Trump initially refused to condemn and reject support from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, the well-known racist and anti-Semite.
One of Trump's foreign policy advisers, Joseph Schmitz, is accused of bragging that he pushed out Jewish employees when he was Defense Department inspector general a decade ago. He also made comments denying the magnitude of the Holocaust.
When accused of fostering anti-Semitism, Trump often reminds people that his daughter Ivanka is married to a Jew (Jared Kushner) and converted to Judaism. But even members of Kushner's family have expressed their concern about his excuses for Trump's ugly remarks.
In most presidential election over the past 50 years, about 70-80 percent of Jews typically vote for the Democratic candidate, higher than any demographic group except African Americans. Don't be surprised if this year 85-90% of Jews vote for Hillary Clinton.
The likely uptick in Jewish voting for this year's Democratic candidate is due as much to Jews' overall liberal views on abortion and women's rights, environmental and economic policy, and opposition to Trump's ugly comments about Muslims and others than to their concerns about his repugant anti-Semitism. But Trump's anti-Semitic remarks surely compounded their opposition to the Republican demagogue.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell initially ignored Trump's anti-Hillary Jewish star tweet last July until they were embarrassed into denouncing it. But most Republican leaders have not condemned Trump's persistent anti-Semitism or the upsurge of Jew hatred he has encouraged.
A handful of Jews still support Trump, including Steve Mnuchin, who is a Wall Street banker and hedge fund billionaire as well as Trump's finance chair, and Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner and GOP mega-donor whose newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal endorsed Trump this week. When will they come to their senses?


Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau used to give bodyguards fits because they worried his flamboyant manner and pro-Cuban policies made him a target for "crazies," says his former press secretary.
"When we were in crowds, the Mounties went nuts, wondering whether some crazy would lunge at him or take a shot at him," Patrick Gossage said yesterday.
His comments came after a Star story in which Mike Craft, a self-confessed former "degenerate gambler" and former organized criminal from upstate New York, said he planned to kill Trudeau in the summer of 1974.
Craft said he was attempting to shoot Trudeau at a public appearance in Montreal because of his close association with Cuban President Fidel Castro. Craft said he was working for U.S. mobsters who were upset at Cuba and hoped Castro would come to Trudeau's funeral so they could get a shot at him.
He testified during recent New York state hearings into organized crime and gambling.
Toronto-area author Antonio Nicaso, who has lectured to police intelligence groups on organized crime, said American mobsters like Meyer Lansky hated Castro because he shut down their casinos when he became president in 1959.
Gossage said Trudeau's tight ties with Castro presented heightened security concerns. "He was so offside with U.S. policy on Cuba. He and Castro were on hugging terms."
Gossage said Trudeau was tough to guard because he routinely shrugged off bodyguards and went into crowds alone.
"The Mounties used to go berserk because he'd rush off. He was well-known for losing them or trying to."
Gossage said Trudeau, a judo black belt, felt he was capable of taking care of himself. "He did punch one guy out. ... He was in terrific condition and knew how to defend himself."
"He moved quickly. It was hard to do the `wedge' around him because he moved so quickly. It was a different time. There was no frisking or passing through metal detectors. His rallies were totally open."
Craft said he was called off his assassination bid in September 1974.


Houses near the Xayaburi dam construction site in a photo taken on April 12, 2011.
Villagers relocated to make way for the Xayaburi megadam on the Mekong River in northern Laos have been hit by landslides for the second time in two months after bad weather prevented the authorities from building a retaining wall to protect their homes.
Residents of Houay Hip, a village in Luang Prabang’s Nan district newly built for those displaced by the hydropower dam, said heavy rains last week triggered landslides on a hill on the edge of the village, destroying part of the road and crushing several houses.
The village is home to some 650 residents and hundreds more being moved from near the dam are on their way there this week.
The most recent damage came after landslides in June knocked out utility poles and severed electricity supply to the village, prompting residents to ask local authorities responsible for their resettlement to build a retaining wall against the hill.
Residents said officials told them the wall could not be built until the dry season, but that they were concerned about further damage by future heavy rains and wanted the problem taken care of immediately.
"The village road and a few houses, as well as duck and chicken coops, were damaged by landslides," one resident told RFA’s Lao Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“There is no retaining wall to stop a landslide before it hits the village,” the resident said.
When residents asked for the wall, project officials came to assess the situation and promised to take care of the problem, villagers said.
But later, officials told them the wall could not be built until after the end of the May–October rainy season because construction could damage houses.
“We were told it cannot be built yet because of the rains and has to wait until the dry season," the same resident said.
Houay Hip is currently home to villagers moved there from Pak Nern and Khok Gnai villages since January last year.
Some 250 residents from Houay Deua are being relocated there this week, and a total of 1,000 people from three other villages—Passak, Phonesavanh, and Pak Lern—are scheduled to be moved there later.
According to the Vientiane Times, in total about 2,000 people have been or will soon be relocated to make way for the dam, which is still in the early stages of construction.
Another 1,000 in eight villages are being required to move to higher ground within their communities, the paper reported.
Once completed in 2018, the dam will generate electricity mostly for export to Thailand, forming a key part of landlocked Laos’s plans to become the “battery of Southeast Asia” by selling electricity to its neighbors.
But environmental groups have said Laos is building the dam without enough study of likely socioeconomic impacts and have raised concerns about the management of the resettlement process.


John Banks took the frail hand of his old foe Penny Bright at her bedside in Auckland Hospital today and held it for a good 15 minutes.
"I haven't met anyone with more fight than you," said Banks, who knew he was in her good books when she telephoned and referred to him simply as "John".
"Whenever you referred to me as John Banks I knew I was in trouble," said the former mayor of Auckland City Council.
On a Wednesday night in 2002, Banks stared down a group of protesters at the Auckland Town Hall and said he was not going to tolerate "boorish and childish behaviour by a small minority of Aucklanders hell-bent on disrupting the council".
He ruled the protesters could not bring placards into the council meeting. That was followed by chaotic scenes with 20 security guards and several police officers dragging protesters outside and making 17 arrests. Bright was in the thick of the action.
Banks accepted Bright's invitation to visit her in hospital today, turning up in a Ralph Lauren puffer jacket carrying a large bunch of red lilies and a friendly smile.
He had barely pulled up a chair and wrapped his right hand into hers when Bright launched into a tirade against the injustices of Auckland Council in pursuing her for not paying rates and trying to sell the Kingsland house she had called home since 1990.
"It's a bit of a dag while I'm busy fighting for my life that I'm fighting to expose Auckland Council for what they have done to me ... there needs to be a full-blown forensic inquiry," said Bright, gravely ill in hospital with a life-threatening diabetic condition, ovarian cancer and a perforated bowel.
This was a cue for Banks to say he knew what it is like to be on the rough end of justice, citing the Court of Appeal finding a "miscarriage of justice" when the appellate judges quashed his conviction for electoral fraud over donations from internet mogul Kim Dotcom.
"We never thought we would catch up here," said Banks, who wanted to know how Bright was feeling - "a bit of discomfort but I'm alive" - and sleeping - "sometimes I get a bit of sleep, sometimes I don't".
"I only keep good memories and I have good memories of you and when you called me John this morning, you made my day," said Banks, who recalled driving along Quay St earlier this year and seeing Bright protesting at the removal of trees for a cycleway in the pouring rain.
Bright was equally warm, "giving credit, where credit's due", but unlike her old foe, who has quietly exited politics, signalling the fight "ain't over".
When Banks left, Bright said Banks was the only mayor she battled who had made the effort to visit her in hospital.
She could not resist a barb at current Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, saying it would be totally hypocritical for him to turn up when he had tried to help sell her house.
Asked if she would take Banks' advice and put things behind, Bright said: "Absolutely not. What has happened to me is scandalous and it can't happen to anybody else. The big issue here is who is holding Auckland Council accountable to the law? It's the Wild West."
"I hope I gave her some comfort," Banks said outside the hospital room where she is being cared for by the hospital staff and Julian, her partner of 13 years.


JOHANNESBURG – When Nelson Mandela's great-granddaughter was killed in a June 2010 car crash, her tragic death cast a shadow over the start of the FIFA World Cup, and kept the former president and Nobel Prize winner away from the opening events.
More than two years later, 13-year-old Zenani Mandela's family is still fighting for justice in a prolonged court case over the fatal accident. But her grandmother Zindzi — Nelson Mandela's daughter — is fronting a new United Nations campaign to highlight the problems of road safety.
"We lose 1,000 children a day in road deaths, and the highest killer of children above the age of 10, worldwide, is road accidents," said Zindzi, sitting in a shaded courtyard at the exclusive private school her granddaughter attended. A plaque on the wall outside what was the young girl's classroom commemorates the teen, who had celebrated her 13th birthday just days before her death.
"What the campaign's all about to say these are deaths that are preventable" she says, adding that road deaths in developing countries, and Africa in particular, should be afforded a greater priority by regional governments.
The UN campaign — with Zindzi Mandela's advocacy — urges education for road users and pedestrians alike. Zindzi also calls for investment to improve roads, pavements, signs and lighting across Africa where urban growth and road use has outstripped many nations' abilities to build appropriate infrastructure.
"If you go to rural areas, to townships, sometimes even around town, you see there's not enough infrastructural support where pedestrians can wait before the cross they road, where taxis can actually pull over before they drop off passengers," said Zindzi.
The UN Decade of Action for Road Safety is launching a distinctive yellow warning triangle lapel badge and branded wristbands to promote their campaign. It aims to get businesses involved at a community level, extending their social programs to include funding for road safety education and equipment, as well as HIV/AIDS awareness initiatives.
The Mandela family has suffered two road traffic deaths. One of Nelson Mandela's sons from his first marriage was killed in a car crash in the 1960s, but it is the more recent death of Zenani — and her close relationship with her famous great-grandfather — that spurred them to become involved in the UN campaign.
"I often share the story of how my father asked her when she was nine years old what she wants for her birthday, and she said 'I want you to come and read to the children in my class.' So he came here," said Zindzi as she looked at photographs of Zenani: in school uniform sporting a huge grin and braces; at a family party with flowers in her hair; kissing Nelson Mandela after a school play.
"It's been hard on all of us because she was like the life of every party, every family gathering, and to this day we still feel her absence. We feel it profoundly."
David Mac Dougall can be reached at www.twitter.com/davidmacAP.


The process of selecting top city officials deserves wide public scrutiny (“Glendale city manager to retire,” July 13).
I fully support the idea put forth by the Armenian National Committee of Glendale (“City manager's selection should be open,” July 29) for the process of finding city leadership that deserves the most comprehensive public evaluation.
A Glendale city manager must have a proven record of significant problem-solving capacity in highly trying circumstances. Though the interests of the Armenian National Committee possibly rests on their concern for the diversity problems that Glendale faces, it is also likely that the demographic problems exemplified by the U.S. Census statistics require a city manager attuned to the needs of all residents.
Glendale is a fragmented city, ethnically and economically. The election results, when evaluated by percentage of immigrants by precinct, show an indubitable divide that is often reflected in its policies and distribution of the city's resources. That is a reality that can't be painted over with weak diversity initiatives like the Unity Fest.
In my opinion, no one has yet to provide, in public, a valid justification for the city's management association. Since anyone who might be considered for promotion to city manager belongs to and benefited financially from the politics of this employee association, he or she is tainted and compromised by their involvement in it.
We need a city manager with wide experience in that role, and with a public record we can assess. Let’s use the eyes of the public, who through the Internet can help in the vetting process.
In the information age, the last thing we need is a closed-door process, or business as usual.
I have lived in Glendale more than 50 years. Here in Glendale, we are lucky to have a great city staff and people guiding and working in this city. Nothing in life is perfect or guaranteed, but we do our best in Glendale.
I feel lucky and good that we have City Atty. Scott Howard and City Manager Jim Starbird. They care about the well-being of Glendale, not personal or financial gains.
We need to continue with a common sense approach and the good ethics in this city. I believe in oral communication at the City Council meetings for citizens to speak what’s on their minds.
Let’s continue to work together. But my own experience with Barry Allen and his crew is so upsetting.
The truth and facts do not count with Allen. To continue to hurt and make up trouble for the city and anyone who contributes to the city gets old and hateful.
Can you imagine Allen and Mike Mohill managing and running our city?
To Starbird and Howard: thank you for all your years of service and caring. It’s been an honor to have you treat the city with care.


Who would invite for dinnertime?
AUSTRALIAN families feel more connected while sharing dinner than any other activity but only a small minority are actually having the dinnertimes they want, new research reveals.
Researchers found 78% of Australians believed dinnertime was greatest family connector of any activity and more than three quarters wanted to make a change.
Time-poor and stressed families are sacrificing the evening sit-down, with only half of Australians eating their weekday dinners at any kind of table.
More than half sat in front of the TV to eat dinner at least once a week.
What's more, almost a third of 18 to 24-year-olds surveyed admitted to eating dinner in bed at least once a week.
WATERCOOLER: How often do you think families should sit down together?
Is it still an important thing to do. Tell us the secrets of your family connections in comments below.
The research gave psychologist Sabina Read hope Australians were willing and wanting to make a change for the better.
"I was immediately struck by the finding that three quarters of Aussies would like to change something about their household dinners, and that many of these changes focus on how we eat not what we eat," she said.
"We are hard wired to connect with each other so it makes sense that many Aussies want more laughter, fewer complaints, everyone being home or less effort involved around preparing and eating dinner.
"Admitting that we aren't content with our behaviour is the first step to changing and often small steps can help us create meaningful changes.
She said making the extra effort to sit down and chat with family over the dinner table could have more run-on effects than just the physical ones.
"Finding ways to make mealtimes more mindful will have a domino effect not only on our physical health, but also our emotional and relational well-being as well," she said.
"It's not food per se that connects us but rather what we do with the people we care about during the times we prep and eat meals."
How often do you sit down for a family meal?
This poll ended on 23 February 2016.
Commissioned for Masterfoods, the Lifting the Lid on Dinnertime report 51% of respondents said they were so distracted at dinner their ability to connect with friends and loved ones was compromised.
Not surprisingly, technology topped the list of most common distractions (36%) followed by arguments with loved ones (28%), work schedules (25%) and busy household lifestyles (22%).
Who would you most like to have dinner with?
Sadly, about 13% of respondents said they were too isolated from friends and family to share a home-cooked meal more often.
It means more than 600,000 Australians are missing out on the important connections forged through interactions over a communal meal.


Jack O’Connell (“Unbroken”) and Lily Collins (“Okja”) will star in “The Cradle” with shooting starting this summer.
Based on Patrick Somerville’s 2009 novel, the movie will follow a young couple, Matt (O’Connell) and Marissa (Collins), as they prepare for their first child. As the last-minute nerves set in, Matt is sent on a mission to find the cradle that Marrissa had as a baby. The journey he subsequently embarks upon changes their family forever.
Somerville, creator of the upcoming Amazon series ‘Maniac,’ co-wrote the screenplay with Hope Dickson Leach (“The Levelling”) who directs. Protagonist Pictures has boarded the project and will launch the script to buyers in Cannes. UTA and CAA will handle North American rights. Gail Mutrux and Tore Schmidt are producing the film for Pretty Pictures (“The Danish Girl”).
“When we read Patrick Somerville’s book ‘The Cradle,’ we immediately fell in love with his exquisitely complex story about family ties which balances the emotional pull of parent-child connections with comically eccentric touches,” said Mutrux.
Dickson Leach’s “The Levelling” was well-received when it launched at Toronto in 2016. It won her a Scottish BAFTA for Best Writer and a nomination for Best Debut Screenwriter at the British Independent Film Awards.
“We were so moved by Hope Dickson Leach’s highly acclaimed and beautifully observed debut feature, ‘The Levelling,’ which immediately placed her as a major new talent,” said Protagonist’s CEO Dave Bishop.


Working for two years, a Chinese woman used bits of fabric and palace embroidery techniques to reproduce the picture Along the River During the Qingming Festival, or Qingming Shanghe Tu, in which went on display in Beijing on Sept. 7.
She required 40 meters of fabric to make the vendors extending all along the great bridge, called the Rainbow Bridge.
The craftswoman Jia Dashuang is a third-generation inheritor of Beijing palace embroidery, a traditional handicraft that originated in the palace and served royal families in the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911).
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), this handicraft was introduced to common people and developed into the present technique, where fabric is mainly stacked, patched and supplemented by embroidery.
In order to capture the original colors of the picture, she had to repeatedly dye the fabric, and at last, she had to color it once again like painting to achieve the desired effect.
In the process of creating the picture, she developed new techniques, such as making pleats that stand out and superimposing materials, endowing the work with new creativity.


A federal judge has ruled that donors to "dark-money" groups — often politically active nonprofits — can no longer remain anonymous, Politico reports.
Why it matters: The ruling invalidates a Federal Election Commission (FEC) statute that allowed such donors to hide their identity and, according to Politico, could have "major implications for campaign finance." With the decision, nonprofits may be forced to reveal those who donate $200 or more towards federal elections.
The details: U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled the existing regulation "fails to uphold the standard Congress intended when it required the disclosure of politically related spending." She explained, "[t]he challenged regulation facilitates such financial 'routing,' blatantly undercuts the congressional goal of fully disclosing the sources of money flowing into federal political campaigns, and thereby suppresses the benefits intended to accrue from disclosure."


Says party is handicapped, going in elections with only their past record to show.
PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) candidate for PK-3, Haroon Bilour, said the turnout on May 11 will be low due to the poor state of security.
Bilour denied Pakistan Peoples Party leader Zulfiqar Afghani’s allegations that the ANP has purchased votes of Christians and other non-Muslims, adding his party believes in democracy and would never use unfair means to win.
Afghani had also alleged the ANP is using government funds and carrying out developmental projects in their constituencies to gain supporters.
“Our past performances are good enough for us to go in the elections”.
He further said the Election Commission of Pakistan should ensure that security is provided for voters so they can cast their ballot without fear.
He also asked the people to use their vote to select loyal and true leaders who would work for the progress and development of the country.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2013.
FIR to be filed on president, army chief, CJ if attacked again.
ANP's Ghulam Ahmed Bilour says he will file FIRs against President, CJP, CEC and the army chief.
Militant threats have caused all parties to be cautious across the province.


High levels of radiation found in creek near drilling wastewater site in western Pa.
A worker breaks apart a brick of solid material left over from treating frack water. The solid material, which may contain radioactive elements, gets disposed of in landfills.
A new study published in the journal of Environmental Science and Technology has found high levels of radiation and salinity in a creek near a drilling wastewater treatment facility in western Pennsylvania.
The Duke University study took numerous samples of water discharged downstream of the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility into Blacklick Creek in the Allegheny River watershed from the summer of 2010 to the fall of 2012. Sediment in the creek contained levels of radium that were 200 times greater than normal or background levels, along with high levels of salts like chloride and bromide in the surface water.
These elements come from a naturally occurring brine that is released along with natural gas during the hydraulic fracturing or fracking process. That radioactive brine, known as “flowback,”is either injected back underground or sent to facilities like Josephine where the wastewater is treated and then deposited into rivers and streams.
Professor Avner Vengosh, one of the study’s lead authors, said the radium and salt levels found in the creek are “problematic” and could lead to bio-accumulation of radiation in bugs and eventually, animals further up the food chain like fish.
Spokeswoman Lisa Kasianowitz said the Department of Environmental Protection is already working to address the concerns raised by the study. In May, Fluid Recovery Services, which owns the Josephine facility, signed an agreement that it would not accept or discharge treated wastewater from unconventional formations like the Marcellus Shale until it has installed technology to remove radiation compounds, metals and salts.
Kasianowitz said in an e-mail that the company already stopped taking the flowback fluid in September 2011. At that time, a number of companies in the Marcellus Shale Coalition agreed to stop sending wastewater to a number of facilities, including Josephine Brine.
“If, in fact, their findings are legitimate, the researchers would be well-served to look into other potential sources of the increased levels reported in the study,” Creighton said.
The Indiana County facility continues to treat flowback water from conventional wells and Professor Vengosh said his study shows evidence it is also treating Marcellus Shale wastewater as recently as this year.
In the fall of 2011, the USGS released a report on radium in Marcellus Shale flowback fluid. The report didn’t address public health issues directly, but concluded that the levels of radiation in Marcellus produced water is far higher than the resulting flowback water in other formations.
Last spring, the state DEP launched a year-long study to examine radioactivity associated with oil and gas development. However, before the study began, a spokesman for the agency said they do not believe the public faces any kind of risk.
The same scientists who conducted this latest research also conducted a controversial 2011 study which found methane levels in wells near hydraulic fracturing sites were 17 times higher. In June, they published another study which analyzed 141 water wells near shale gas sites in northeastern Pennsylvania showing methane levels were six times higher, and ethane levels were 23 times higher. This study was sponsored by the Park Foundation that has supported efforts by anti-drilling groups.
Former DEP Secretary Michael Krancer, who now works as an attorney representing energy companies, attacked the 2011 research as “bogus” and the scientists pushed back, challenging the DEP to share more data.


The number of persons arrested in 2012 decreased 2.0 percent when compared with the number of persons arrested in 2011. The number of juveniles (persons under age 18) arrested in 2012 decreased 10.4 percent from the number of juveniles arrested the previous year.
The number of persons arrested for violent crimes decreased 1.8 percent from 2011 to 2012. The number of juveniles arrested for violent crimes decreased 10.3 percent when compared to juvenile arrests numbers in 2011.
The 2-year trend showed that the number of persons arrested for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in 2012 declined 0.6 percent when compared to 2011 data. The number of juveniles arrested for murder in 2012 decreased 14.4 percent when compared to 2011.
The number of adults arrested for property crimes in 2012 increased 3.4 percent in 2012 when compared to 2011 data. The arrests of juveniles for property crimes decreased 11.6 percent.


Francesco Molinari was one many players who enjoyed the conditions at Augusta National during a birdie barrage in the third round of the Masters.
The Italian shot a bogey-free, 6-under 66 and has a two-shot lead going into Sunday’s final round. He’s at 13-under for the tournament.
Tiger Woods (67) and Tony Finau (64) are tied for second at 11-under and will join Molinari in the final group. Brooks Koepka shot a 69 and is three shots back. Webb Simpson (64) and Ian Poulter (68) are four back.
Woods thrilled the crowds in Augusta with another vintage performance. He’s certainly in the hunt, but has never won a major when trailing going into the final round.
The third-round conditions were nearly perfect with plenty of sunshine, very little wind and forgiving greens thanks to recent rain.
Tee times Sunday were pushed to the morning because of possible severe weather, and players will tee off in threesomes from the No. 1 and No. 10 so all players finish before the expected storms.
Woods briefly claimed a share of the Master lead, only to have Molinari grab it all to himself a few minutes later.
Four-time winner Woods rolled in a 7-foot birdie putt at the 16th, sending roars cascading across Augusta National as he moved to 11-under for the tournament. That was good enough at the time to pull even with Finau and Molinari, the reigning British Open champion.


International Relations and Global Studies senior Gerado Amaya tweets during his World Literature class on January 13, 2013.
Hutchison and graduate student Jenn Shapland confirmed their relationship, which lasted from November 2011 to February 2012, shortly after Shapland wrote about it in October 2017 in a literary journal, the Arkansas International.
Within a month of the article’s publication, UT received two anonymous reports about Shapland’s relationship through the Compliance Services Reporting Hotline bringing it to UT’s attention, prompting an eight-month investigation by the Office for Inclusion and Equity and the Office for Legal Affairs, the University’s investigation summary obtained through an open records request states.
The University completed the investigation this June and found Hutchison was in violation of three University policies: failing to immediately alert his supervisor of a consensual relationship, engaging in an unreported consensual relationship with a student and making comments of a sexual nature to graduate students. However, the investigation did not find Hutchison’s behavior as sexual harassment, according to the investigation summary.
In addition to canceling Hutchison’s two undergraduate courses for the fall, the University has also barred him from supervising graduate students alone for the next two years, and he can’t be considered for promotion to full professor or appointment to any leadership position, according to the investigation summary.
Hutchison must also participate in discussions with associate deans on appropriate relationships and boundaries with students, according to the investigation summary.


How Does One Measure Steadfastness?
This past weekend Central Baptist Church celebrated its 115th Anniversary. It was a great weekend as we celebrated God's grace upon us and the faithfulness of His people. We had guests who have moved to other churches and the main speaker was our former Pastor, Rev. Bob Zoba who pastored this church from 1986-1990.
We have also honored those among the members who have been here for a long time - 20, 30, 40, 50, and even 60 years. In a time when mobility is the code word for people and for church members, it is highly impressive to see that some people have deep roots in communities and churches.
I have watched new members come and try to find their niche. In a small church, membership means becoming involved, doing something that has to be done, sometimes because there is no one else to do it. It takes a while, sometimes up to five years for the new members to be able to say: "This is my church". Now, as theologians and pastors we know that the church belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, but in the local church, there is a sense that the church belongs to the members.
I was pondering on the members that have been here for these many years. I am sure that at one time or another, they thought to move, they heard of another better church, of another better pastor, or sometimes of a church that was even closer to where they were living. Yet, steadfastly, for over 60 years, 50 years, and 20 years they have been coming to this church. When the weather was the August heat, when the rain was drizzling in April and October, when the roads were icy in January, when most people were staying home in mid-July, they kept coming in. When some of them did not show up, the other members would call because they knew that something major had to happen in order for these people to be absent.
I was thinking of the thousands of volunteer hours that these people have given to the kingdom of God! I was thinking of the thousands of songs that have been sung for the glory of God by these people! I was thinking of the thousand of choir anthems they have rehearsed. I was thinking of the thousands of people they have blessed by teaching Sunday School classes, Junior Worship Services and Vacation Bible School.
Steadfastness is a practical concept. People need to see the example of those who are practicing steadfastness. Many years ago, I preached a sermon entitled, "I will be there, if nothing better comes along!" People came telling me that it has been one of the convicting sermons that I have preached. Steadfastness, keeping promises no matter what the cost, is a rare commodity these days.
On this 115th anniversary day we have honored our brothers and sisters who have demonstrated this steadfastness by serving and honoring the Lord here at Central Baptist Church for such long periods of time.


‘Good fences make good neighbors,’ wrote American poet Robert Frost. But not according to President Donald Trump whose proposed Great Wall is supposed to protect the nation from hordes of rabid, murderous, drug crazed rapists and unwhites from south of the border.
I’m a life-long student of military architecture, with a particular passion for modern fortification, chief among which is France’s own Great Wall, the magnificent and unfairly reviled Maginot Line.
Given the heated debate in America over Trump’s proposed barrier along the Mexican border, it’s worth looking back to the Maginot Line. It was supposed to have been France’s savior after the bloodbath of World War I.
The first large Maginot fort was built in the 1920’s north of Nice to protect the Cote d’Azur from possible Italian attacks. Mussolini was demanding France return the Riviera coast to its former Italian rulers. Work on the principal Line along the German and Luxemburg borders began soon after. Phase one covered 260 miles from near the Rhine to Longuyon, a rail junction south of the Belgian border.
The Line consisted of hundreds of steel and concrete machine gun and anti-tank casemates with interlocking flanking fire. They were surrounded by upright rails designed to halt tanks and dense belts of interwoven barbed wire covered by machine guns. Artillery casemates with 75mm, 81mm and 135mm guns covered the fort’s fronts and sides.
Within and behind the Maginot Line were based an army of specialized fortress troops and hundreds of field artillery guns. The era’s most advanced electronic communications systems meshed the defenses together. The big forts were mostly buried 90 feet underground, proof from any projectiles of the era.
But the problem was that a wall or barrier is only effective so long as there are adequate troops to man it.
In the spring of 1940, France had deployed nearly a third of its field army behind the Maginot Line. But then the Germans staged a brilliant breakthrough north of the Line across the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes forest region. In 1938, a French parliamentarian named Perrier (from the French water family) had toured the Ardennes area and warned the military that it was very vulnerable to a German breakthrough. The generals scoffed at ‘this civilian’ and ignored Perrier’s warning.
War at the Top of the ... Eric Margolis Best Price: $1.45 Buy New $3.57 (as of 09:15 EDT - Details) Sure enough, the German armored and infantry assault came right through this Ardennes weak point near Sedan, forcing a rapid retreat by French and British forces in the region that ended up at Dunkerque.
As outflanked Allied forces pulled back from the frontier, they exposed the northern flank of the Maginot Line. The French high command, fearing their armies around the Line would be encircled, ordered the interval forces to retreat towards the highlands of central France. The Line was thus denuded of its troops and artillery. These units, who were armed and trained for static defense, had to make their way cross country on foot. Most were captured en route by advancing German forces.
In spring 1940 the Line was unfinished with large gaps and open flanks due to budgetary constraints caused by the 1930’s depression. The Germans drove through them, wisely avoiding most of big forts, and attacked the Line from the rear. Ironically, in 1944/45, German troops ended up defending the Maginot Forts from the advancing US Army.
The Line worked as planned, protecting vulnerable areas. But it was never extended to the Channel due to Belgium’s high water table and reluctance to fortify behind the French ally. The Belgians believed their powerful forts near Liege would delay the Germans until the French Army could intervene. They were wrong.
The French public ascribed almost magical powers to the Line. It would keep them invulnerable they believed. Building the fortifications became a national works project during the Depression, rather like the US WPA labor program. But Adolf Hitler vowed he would go around the Line and chop it up. He did.
A Trump wall or barrier will cost far more than believed and be likely unfinished, with large gaps like the Maginot Line. Some better way of blocking the border must be found. If not, we may end up having to wall and garrison the Canadian border as well.


A gorilla family is usually comprised of three to thirty individuals, though in late 2006, Karisoke researchers in the Virungas were monitoring one group that had reached sixty-five individuals. Like Titus’s family, a typical group is led by one silverback — a mature male, so-named for the graying hair on his back — who serves as the family’s protector and main decision-maker. He is usually joined by one subordinate silverback that will help defend the group, several adult females, and a combination of younger males (“blackbacks”), juveniles and infants. Gorillas communicate in a variety of ways, including facial expressions, sounds, postures and gestures. They have been known to make at least 22 distinct sounds to communicate different feelings, from playful chuckling to frightened screams — even belches of contentment. Gorillas are affectionate creatures. In February of 2008, Karisoke researchers discovered that an adult female had been injured in an encounter with a silverback. After the injury, a younger female stayed close by the gorilla’s side, behavior that Veronica Vecellio, featured in The Gorilla King, says is evidence of the young gorilla’s kind personality. When things are calmer, gorillas often greet each other by touching their noses together, and will sometimes even give a reassuring embrace.
The females align themselves with their leader, openly soliciting mating. It is the silverback’s job to keep the group safe from outsiders, but it pays to be in his good graces. In moments of danger, he will beat his chest and intimidate or fight with an attacker while the rest of the family flees to safety. If a conflict erupts within the group, the silverback mediates between fighting family members. The silverback also knows where to find the best food sources throughout the seasons, and he leads the group in their daily travels, up to about half a mile each day. Each evening, mountain gorillas settle to dine on nettles, bamboo, and other plants. An occasional grub or colony of ants spices up the menu. Sometimes, the silverback will start to sing if he finds a particularly lush patch of greenery. As the family gathers round, others may join in the chorus. As night draws near, the adults will make a nest of flattened foliage for sleeping. Then, each morning, the group sets off again for a new home and new food source.
Up in the higher elevations of the Virunga volcanoes, Titus’s family huddles in the cool air.
When the afternoon comes, however, it’s family time. The adults build day nests and leisurely graze and rest together while the youngsters play. Moments like these reveal the tender bonds that form in gorilla families, especially between mothers and children. A newborn gorilla baby will form a very close relationship to its mother — rarely straying more than a few steps from her side for the next three to four years. Baby gorillas learn by imitating, much like human children, though gorilla babies develop more quickly. They can walk at about six months old, and after about a year and a half, a young gorilla can follow its mother on foot for short distances. Before long, the youngster will be exploring, climbing trees, play-fighting, and even walking hand-in-hand through the forest with the group’s other infants.
Internal relations are not always so smooth, however. As Titus’s reign in The Gorilla King shows, an aging silverback will sometimes face a challenge from an aggressive, younger silverback in his own group. The balance of power may shift slowly over time, until the up-and-coming male has convinced the clan that he is the one with the strength to lead. A new silverback leader is likely to kill the infants in the group, so the nursing females will stop lactating and their reproductive cycles will restart. Murdering the young of other males thus makes it possible for the new silverback to sire children of his own.
His violence and posturing may earn him respect, but don’t assume that the silverback is always in control. Females have been known to go behind the leader’s back to mate with other males, confusing them into thinking that the babies might be their own — and earning their protection in case of danger. But overall power, in part, comes from the support of the females in a group. If a leader cannot keep their respect, they will leave. The females also wield some power in the event that a silverback leader dies. If another silverback attempts a takeover but the females don’t approve, they may abandon him and seek another male to take care of them.
High on the Virunga volcanoes is an entire social world that humans still strive to fully understand. A closer look at the lives of the mountain gorillas shows that they are not monsters at all but complex creatures with families, affections, and politics of their own.