Jidenna: There are millions of Nouras across the world

Jidenna is a Grammy-nominated recording artist and producer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

Noura Hussein's story is a disturbingly familiar one. It affects more than Sudan, more than Africa.
While I may initially be perceived as an outsider because I am not Sudanese, I am not an outsider when it comes to the issue of child brides and child sexual assault.
I was born in the United States, but I spent much of my childhood in Nigeria — another country in which child marriage and sexual assault against young girls is all too common. In the course of my life, I've heard countless stories from my friends, family and partners who have been deeply traumatized by child marriage and sexual assault.
Sadly, child brides and child sexual assault are pandemic. According to the United Nations Population Fund, one in five girls is married or in a union before age 18.
Noura's courageous story has the potential to change the lives of girls around the world who are enduring legalized pedophilia and legalized rape.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 38% of girls are married before they're 18. Right here in my backyard, child marriages persist in the US because about half of the states have no legal minimum age for girls to be married. It's 2018, and 15 million girls become child brides every year. That's one girl every 2 seconds.

SpaceX and Boeing are racing to put a man in space, and they’re both losing

NASA would love to stop having to rely on Russia to send its astronauts into space, but realizing that dream means that someone needs to step up to the plate with a safe, reliable crew transportation system. Right now, both SpaceX and Boeing are working independently to meet that demand, but a new report from the Government Accountability Office reveals that neither of them are as far along as they should be, and that’s not great news to U.S. astronauts.

The two companies — SpaceX with its Dragon capsule and Boeing with its Starliner spacecraft — are both under contract with NASA to develop, build, and launch commercial crew missions to the International Space Station, but assessments of the two companies’ systems reveal shortcomings that will likely delay the deployment of both.

The government report doesn’t mince words regarding how the delays could affect NASA’s science efforts as they relate to work aboard the International Space Station:

Rapper accused of luring fans into credit card scheme

Ashley Bautista aka Young Ash

Prosecutors say a rising rapper with a major social media following used her fame to dupe her own fan base into a credit card scheme.

Ashley Bautista, aka Young Ash, was hauled into Manhattan Supreme Court in cuffs Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to grand larceny.

The flamboyant hip-hop artist was known as a recruiter, who flashed wads of cash in snaps on social media, promising her followers fast money in exchange for their bank account information, according to ADA Alona Katz.

She was indicted with five co-defendants for allegedly using victims’ personal information, forged checks and ATM cards to withdraw cash from bank accounts in a scheme known as “card cracking,” according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

NEWS Teacher accused of kissing boy in class, sending nudes gets fired

Chelsea Hahn

A high school teacher in New Jersey accused of kissing a 17-year-old boy in her classroom — and sending him nude photos and racy text messages — is officially out of a job.

Chelsea Hahn, 25, was fired by the Ewing Board of Education, effective June 30, following her arrest last month on three counts of endangering the welfare of a child through sexual contact as she worked as an English teacher at Ewing High School, the Trentonian reports.

Police said Hahn, of Ewing, “impaired or debauched the morals” of the teen student by using her phone to text him raunchy messages and nude photos of herself, as well as asking him to have sex. Hahn was later suspended by district officials from her $44,000 post and barred from returning to school property.

“The district took such action upon receiving information from the Ewing Township Police and Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office and also as a result of notification from the New Jersey Department of Education that Ms. Hahn was arrested and facing charges for a disqualifying crime or offense,” district officials said in response to the newspaper’s open-records request.

Charles Oakley arrested for allegedly cheating at casino

Another bad turn for Charles Oakley.

The Knicks icon was arrested at a Las Vegas casino on Sunday, TMZ Sports reported, for allegedly trying to cheat while gambling.

Oakley “was suspected of adding to or reducing his wager on a gambling game after the outcome was known,” officials from the Nevada Gaming Board told the website.

Oakley allegedly tried to take back a $100 chip he had bet after realizing he was going to lose. What game Oakley was playing at the time is unknown.

Security at the Cosmopolitan stopped Oakley, with the incident being recorded. After they reviewed the footage, Oakley reportedly was booked at Clark County Detention Center. He would face one to six years in prison if convicted of fraud at a gaming establishment.

“This is an insignificant matter that will be quickly resolved,” a source close to Oakley told us

George Clooney injured in Italian motorbike crash

Hollywood star George Clooney was taken to hospital after suffering minor injuries in a collision involving his motorbike and a car.

The accident happened in Sardinia where the US actor is filming his latest TV series, Catch-22.

A representative for the actor, 57, said he was treated and released from a hospital in the Sardinian city of Olbia.

"He is recovering at his home and will be fine," the spokesperson continued.

"At 8.15am George Clooney was riding his scooter on the State Road 125 towards Olbia from Puntaldia," said a spokesman for the Italian Carabinieri in a statement.
"A car (a Mercedes E SW) did not respect the right of way and hit him. George Clooney fell and slammed the windshield of the Mercedes.

"The car driver called the 112, the emergency number of Carabinieri, and they sent the Municipal Police, an ambulance and the Fire Dept.

Cristiano Ronaldo: Juventus sign Real Madrid forward for £99.2m

Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has joined Juventus, becoming one of the four most expensive players of all time.

A deal worth 112m euros (£99.2m) has been reached between the two clubs that has seen the Portuguese sign a four-year deal with the Italian champions.

Ronaldo, 33, won four Champions League titles in his nine years at Real.

"The time has come to open a new stage in my life, that's why I asked the club to accept transferring me," he said.

The top two world record transfer fees have been paid out by Paris St-Germain - the £200m they paid Barcelona for Brazil forward Neymar last August, and the fee of around £166m for France forward Kylian Mbappe in July after a successful season on loan with PSG.

Barcelona also paid Liverpool £142m for Brazil midfielder Philippe Coutinho in January. For Juventus, the fee they will pay for Ronaldo is set to eclipse the £75.3m they paid for forward Gonzalo Higuain from Napoli in July 2016.

Thai cave rescue: All 12 boys and soccer coach freed

 The last remaining member of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach have been pulled out of a flooded cave in Thailand, bringing an end to a near three-week ordeal that prompted an international rescue effort that captivated audiences around the world.

The twelfth boy and his coach were the last of the team to be rescued Tuesday, after a complicated three-day operation to extricate the team, who became trapped on June 23 when rising flood water cut them off deep inside the cave.

In the last 18 days, what began as a local search for the missing 13 turned into a complex rescue operation, involving hundreds of experts who flew in from around the world to help.

The parents of the boys have maintained a constant vigil outside the cave since they went missing, praying for their safe return.

PADUPAFRICA joins The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

PADUPAFRICA Registered with the United Nations to be a the CEDAW stakeholders meeting programe july 2018 abuja . The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, is often described as an international bill of rights for women. Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.

The Convention defines discrimination against women as "...any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field."

By accepting the Convention, States commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms.Women now have a Hub were we can report,educate,learn,and network..We are causing the changes that we want to see.

Pad up Africa is a non for profit foundation an arm of chaperone group .. with a core goal of provision of Free Sanitary Pads & educative, informative and communicative materials on menstrual hygiene to adolescent girl.

'They're All Gone:' Car Crash Kills New Jersey Father and 4 Daughters, Leaving Mother Behind

A New Jersey mother was the only member of her family to survive a multi-car crash that occurred in Delaware on Friday and took the lives of her husband and four daughters.

Mary Rose Trinidad, her husband Audie Trinidad, 61 and their daughters — Kaitlyn, 20, Danna, 17, and 13-year-old twins Allison and Melissa —were driving on a Delaware highway in their minivan when a pickup truck going the opposite direction crossed over the median and slammed into their vehicle, ABC News 7 reported.

The family of six were returning home to Teaneck, New Jersey after going on a trip to Ocean City, Maryland according to the New York Post, who spoke with Audie’s brother, Daniel Trinidad.

“I’m trying to keep it together. We don’t know how we will cope once reality sets in. They’re all gone, gone,” he told the outlet.

“They’re a God fearing family. They go to church. My brother texted me a picture of the blue crabs they ate on 4th of July. They’re all gone in the blink of an eye,” he continued, adding that “Their bodies in the morgue are unrecognizable.”

A New Prime Suspect For Depression

It all started with ketamine. To some, vets mainly, it’s a horse tranquilliser. To others, a party drug. To those with severe clinical depression, a potential, literal, life-saver. A dose of ketamine can rapidly dull the symptoms of depression, providing immediate relief for those crippled by the darkest thoughts. And while ketamine does not work for everyone, it seems to work in many people who are untouched by standard anti-depressant drugs.

Ketamine could then be our best lead in the hunt for depression. For if we search for where ketamine affects the brain, and for how it affects the brain, we will get vital clues to the cause of depression. And so to a long-lasting effective treatment. Two studies just published in Nature used precisely this trick, and spectacularly uncovered not just compelling evidence of the tiny brain region to target, but exactly what goes wrong in it to create depression — that some neurons are, literally, depressed.

The hunt for depression is a tricky case for any neural detective. Your brain has 86 billion neurons. Where to start looking for suspects? Well, let’s think about that for a second. We want somewhere in the brain that can control how you feel things are going — that things are sometimes better than expected, and worth enjoying. And somewhere in the brain that has something to do with serotonin, because the long-standing treatment for clinical depression are “SSRIs”, drugs that make more serotonin available by stopping it from being mopped up.

Enter the lateral habenula. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? But it fits the suspect’s profile. It connects to both serotonin and dopamine releasing neurons. When dopamine neurons burst with activity, that’s a signal we just got something better than expected (serotonin neurons might signal a similar thing). And when the lateral habenula releases a burst of activity, it stops the dopamine and serotonin neurons from bursting. Stops them from telling the brain — hey, that was unexpected.

State of emergency in parts of California as wildfires blaze amid high temperatures

More than 2,000 people have been evacuated near Santa Barbara as the flames destroyed dozens of buildings. Across the West, nearly 60 fires blaze across 13 states.
Temperatures were still hot, winds remained fierce, and terrain was making firefighting tricky across much of Northern California on Sunday.

Straddling the California-Oregon border, the Klamathon Fire grew by almost 40 percent overnight. It's the first California wildfire to kill a civilian since last December.

10 killed, 73 injured after train derails in northwestern Turkey

10 people killed and 73 were injured Sunday after a passenger train derailed in the northwestern Turkish province of Tekirdağ.

The Ministry of Transport said five carriages of the train's six cars, with 362 people on board, traveling from Uzunköprü, Edirne to Istanbul were toppled near Sarılar village of Tekirdağ's Corlu district after "the ground between the culvert and the rail collapsed" due to heavy rain.

Tekirdağ governor Mehmet Ceylan said injured people have been evacuated from the scene of the accident with helicopters.

Over 100 ambulances have been sent to the scene, TRT Haber said, quoting Health Ministry Undersecretary Eyüp Gümüş. The Turkish army said in a statement that it had sent helicopters to the scene.

Ceylan said the train derailed due to adverse weather conditions.

The transport ministry in a statement said officials confirmed that because of heavy rains, the ground beneath the rails subsided away, causing the train to derail.

Turkey Dismisses Over 18,000 Civil Servants for Alleged Terror Links

Turkey issued a decree on Sunday dismissing more than 18,000 personnel over suspected links to Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) and other terror organizations, ahead of this month's expected lifting of a two-year-old state of emergency imposed after an attempted coup in July 2016.

The decree follows President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's victory in June 24 presidential election and comes before he swears his oath on Monday, inaugurating an executive presidency.

The Official Gazette said 18,632 people had been dismissed including 8,998 police officers in the emergency decree over suspected links to terror organizations and groups that "act against national security."

Some 3,077 army soldiers were also dismissed as well as 1,949 air force personnel and 1,126 from the naval forces.

Another 1,052 civil servants from the justice ministry and linked institutions have been fired as well as 649 from the gendarmerie and 192 from the coast guard.

Two-Year-Old in California Dies From Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound

Police in Fresno, California are looking for answers after a toddler somehow managed to get his hands on a gun and shoot himself. The two-year-old was apparently in a bedroom of his home when the tragic accident occurred.

The boy’s parents were not at home at the time, and two family friends were reportedly watching over the toddler. “At the time that this occurred, there were two adults inside the home with the child. Neither of them are the child’s parents,” Fresno Police Department Lt. Rob Beck told local ABC affiliate KFSN. Other reports say the adults in the home were the father’s fiancée and a friend.
The shooting was reported to police shortly before 1 p.m. on Saturday. The toddler was still breathing when officers arrived and was transported to a nearby hospital. Police reported at 6 p.m. that doctors were unable to save him.

One of the things police are investigating is whether the gun the toddler grabbed belongs to the parents or the family friends who were home at the time. “You’re required to, if you have firearms in the home, they need to be locked and out of reach of children,” Beck said.