South African cardiologist, Professor Bongani Mayosi commits suicide after battling depression for two years

The Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town, Professor Bongani Mayosi has died at the age of 51.
The University of Cape Town in s statement about his death said, “It is with great sadness that we‚ the Mayosi family‚ announce the passing of our husband‚ son‚ father‚ brother and uncle‚ Bongani Mayosi who died on the morning of 27 July 2018. In the last two years he has battled with depression and on that day took the desperate decision to end his life."
Mayosi was a cardiology professor who was awarded the county’s highest honour, the Order of Mapungubwe in 2009.
Mayosi was an A-rated National Research Foundation researcher. His research interests included rheumatic fever, tuberculosis pericarditis and cardiomyopathy. Until his death, he was a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a former President of the College of Physicians of South Africa.

Biker Awarded $8.8m After Man Slept With His Wife

A BMX stuntman has been awarded $8.8million in damages from a man who slept with his wife and allegedly destroyed their marriage.

Keith King successfully sued Francisco Huizar III over the 18 month fling with his wife Danielle using a North Carolina law that allows spouses to pursue ‘homewreckers’ for damages.

It stipulates that married individuals can sue a person for ‘criminal conversation’ if they have sex with their spouse and destroy the ‘genuine love and affection’ in a marriage.

The enormous payout is comprised of $2.2million in compensatory damages, as well as triple that in punitive damages, the Herald Sun reported.

He was awarded the sum despite Huizar’s lawyer claiming King was a controlling spouse in an already-troubled marriage when he met her

King is said to have controlled his wife’s access to money, made her watch porn, insisted she keep her hair blonde and that she wear bikinis as well as high heels.

Huizar and Danielle King met at a New York BMX show in August 2015, and began their affair after Keith King left her behind to attend a Colorado show.

Huizar, of San Antonio, Tx., is said to have rented a room closer to the Kings’ home in Durham, NC., that month, and met Danielle at least nine times over the following three months.

Keith King rumbled the affair in August 2015 after checking his wife’s phone bill, and asked Huizar to leave her alone.

But Huizar tagged along to a spa break King gave to his wife as a birthday gift the following February.

King’s attorney Joanne Foil told Durham Superior Court: ‘Guess who the heck tagged along?. Mr. Huizar.

‘He just conveniently popped up. There is no way that this marriage could have humanly been saved with the level of this man’s involvement.’

He is also said to have hired a property close to where the Kings were enjoying a beach vacation together in spring 2016.

Mother Confesses To Children On Death Bed That Their Grandfather Is Their REAL Dad

A ‘wicked’ pensioner has been jailed after admitting incest charges for abusing his own daughter and fathering her three children. 

Ashraf Khan, 81, from Bradford, was jailed for four-and-a-half years yesterday after his victim confessed to their children on her deathbed and they fought for justice for their mother. …

Remarkable pictures of blood moon sighted around the world

Remarkable pictures of blood moon sighted around the world

Here is a selection of remarkable pictures of the blood moon from all around the world.

One of the photos shows the orange-red moon in Thymari, near Athens, Greece.

The full moon, clearly with a red tinge, was also spotted near a lighthouse in the Sivrice village in Canakkale, Turkey.

And stargazers have also now seen the display in Lucerne, Switzerland.

excitement over blood moon

Twitter users all around the world shared their excitement over tonight’s blood moon.

One put out a shout out to see how many people would be ‘searching for a gap in the clouds’.

Photographs of the red moon were posted online from a range of countries including Kenya, Pakistan and Italy.

California fire 'tornado' kills two firefighters, thousands flee

A fast-growing northern California wildfire killed a second firefighter on Friday after high winds drove it into the city of Redding, prompting mass evacuations, destroying 500 structures and threatening thousands of other dwellings and businesses, officials said.

Flames raging in California's scenic Shasta-Trinity area erupted into a firestorm that jumped across the Sacramento River and swept into the western side of Redding, home to about 90,000 people, forcing residents to flee.

Firefighters and police "went into life-safety mode," hustling door to door to usher civilians out of harm's way, said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

Streets in the Western town were all but deserted, with thick, sickly-brown smoke filling the air, and plumes of smoke rising to the west.

Gale-force winds on Thursday night created a fire "tornado" said CalFire Director Ken Pimlott.

"This fire was whipped up into a whirlwind of activity, uprooting trees, moving vehicles, moving parts of roadways," Pimlott told a news briefing.

Such highly erratic, storm-like wildfires have grown commonplace in the state, Pimlott said.

"These are extreme conditions, this is how fires are in California," he said. "We need to take heed and evacuate, evacuate, evacuate."

California has had its worst start to the fire season in a decade, with 289,727 acres burned through Friday morning, according to National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) data.

Governor Jerry Brown requested emergency federal assistance to prevent an "imminent catastrophe" as Shasta County tried to find supplies and water for 30,000 evacuated residents and care for horses and cattle rescued from ranches and farms.

CalFire reported 500 structures destroyed by the blaze.

CURTAIN OF SMOKE

The fire had scorched 48,300 acres (19,500 hectares) by Friday and was just 3 percent contained as ground crews, helicopters and airplanes battled the flames for a fifth day.

High temperatures and low humidity were expected for the next seven to ten days, said Pimlott.

"This fire is a long way from done," he said.

The blaze was one of nearly 90 large fires burning nationally, most of them in the West. One of those prompted the closure of much of California's Yosemite National Park.

Wildfires have blackened an estimated 4.15 million acres (1.68 million hectares) in the United States this year. That was well above average for the same period over the past 10 years but down from 5.27 million acres (2.13 million hectares) in the first seven months of 2017, NIFC reported.

The blaze in Redding, about 150 miles (240 km) north of Sacramento, on Thursday killed a bulldozer operator working with fire teams to clear brush around the fire. A member of the Redding Fire Department was also reported killed on Friday. A Redding hospital said it had treated eight people, including three firefighters.

THOUSANDS OF BUILDINGS IMPERILED

Rob Wright, 61, and his wife stayed to fight off flames with a high-powered water hose.

"We were fortunate enough that the wind changed hours ago, and it is pushing the fire back," said Wright on Friday. "We are just waiting it out ... crossing our fingers and hoping for the best."

Video and images posted on social media showed flames engulfing structures, as an orange glow lit up the sky.

A Red Cross employee told local ABC affiliate KRCR-TV some 500 people took shelter in an evacuation center at Shasta College. Motels were filled to capacity and livestock owners were told to take their animals to the town's rodeo ground.

The Carr Fire, the name given to the Redding blaze, was one of three fierce blazes threatening large populated areas.

Cal Fire said the Cranston Fire, about 110 miles (177 km) east of Los Angeles had blackened 12,300 acres and was 16 percent contained. The Ferguson Fire near Yosemite, which has charred 46,675 acres, was 29 percent contained.

A 32-year-old man was charged with setting the Cranston fire, along with eight other blazes, and faces a potential life sentence if convicted of the charges.

Disaster-hit Japan braces for powerful typhoon

- A powerful typhoon hurtled towards Japan Saturday, with western areas recently devastated by floods and landslides in the storm's cross-hairs.

Typhoon Jongdari, packing winds of up to 180 kilometres (110 miles) an hour, is forecast to make landfall on the country's main island on Saturday night or early Sunday, according to Japan's Meteorological Agency.

The storm, currently some 400 kilometres southeast of Tokyo, is expected to barrel towards the western Chugoku region Sunday, where record rainfall earlier this month unleashed flooding and landslides, killing around 220 people.
Authorities are warning of heavy rain, landslides, strong winds and high waves, and urging people to consider early evacuation.

"We want people especially in the downpour-hit regions to pay close attention to evacuation advisories," meteorological agency official Minako Sakurai told reporters.

More than 150 domestic flights have been cancelled so far because of Typhoon Jongdari, news reports said.

The flooding in the Chugoku region was Japan's worst weather-related disaster in decades, and many residents of affected areas are still living in shelters or damaged homes.

"We have not issued evacuation advisories, but we are fully ready 24 hours a day to evacuate residents," Tadahiko Mizushima, an official of Okayama prefecture in Chugoku, told AFP.

"We are paying special attention to the areas where restoration of river banks is under way as it would be the first heavy rain since the disaster."

Officials are particularly cautious after the deadly downpours because many people did not heed evacuation orders and became trapped. Some critics said the orders were issued too late.

Japan is now in typhoon season, and is regularly struck by major storm systems during the summer and autumn

How WhatsApp Helped Mozambique Become Biggest Heroin Export

As many as 40 tonnes of heroin could be passing through Mozambique every year, making it the country's second biggest export, in a trade that is boosted by the use of mobile phone apps, writes Mozambique analyst Joseph Hanlon.

Mozambique is now an important stop for heroin traders who are using circuitous routes for their product to reach Europe from Afghanistan, as tighter enforcement has closed off the more direct paths.

The heroin goes from Afghanistan to Pakistan's south-west coast, and from there it is taken by motorized 20m wooden dhows to close to northern Mozambique's coast.

The dhows anchor offshore and smaller boats take the heroin from the dhow to the beach, where it is collected and moved to warehouses. It is then packed onto small trucks and is driven 3,000 km (1,850 miles) by road to Johannesburg, and from there others ship it to Europe.

Each dhow carries a tonne of heroin, and one arrives every week except during in the monsoon season, which makes about 40 arrivals a year.

Heroin also comes in by container into the country's Nacala and Beira ports where it is hidden among other goods, such as washing machines.

Overall, this means that at least 40 tonnes of heroin pass through through the country each year, according to experts. I estimate that the drug is worth $20m (£15m) per tonne at this point in the trade, making it the country's second most valuable export, after coal.

Mozambique's biggest exports:

Coal - $687m (2016)

Heroin - $600-800m (est)

Electricity - $378m (2016)

Aluminium - $378m (2016)

Gas and oil - $307m (2016)

Source: Mozambique government; Joseph Hanlon

Out of the export's total value, about $100m is estimated to stay in Mozambique as profits, bribes, and payments to members of the governing Frelimo party.

Since 2000 the heroin trade has been carried out by established import businesses, which hide the drugs in legitimate consignments and use their own warehouses, staff and vehicles to facilitate their movement. At ports, workers are told not to scan containers of certain trading companies so the drugs are not discovered.

Political involvement

Senior Frelimo figures have an overview of the business, meaning that there has been no conflict between trading families and little heroin remains in Mozambique.

Police spokesman Inacio Dina said the authorities were investigating these findings. He said the police were doing their best to stop the drugs trade but admitted it was a huge challenge.

"We must understand that the country's geographical location, with a lengthy coastline, and long land borders, opens various scenarios."

On its part, the international community has largely chosen to ignore the heroin transit trade, because it wanted concessions and reforms in others areas, such as an ever larger role for the private sector.

But a second, less structured, arm of the drugs trade has also emerged, borrowing ideas from the "gig" economy, where freelance workers are contacted through mobile phone apps to see if they are available.

This has been facilitated by the improved mobile phone coverage in northern Mozambique, the growth of WhatsApp and its encrypted message system, and increasing corruption in Mozambique.

In the case of Mozambique's heroin trade, a driver or boat owner will receive a WhatsApp message telling them where to pick up and deliver a package of heroin, and how to be paid.

Secret network

No-one knows the identity of the person who sent the message or their location. For those people coordinating the trade, ordering the movement of 20kg (44lb) of heroin is as easy as ordering an Uber taxi, and totally secret.

Two decades ago, corrupt police officers would have accompanied drivers with shipments of heroin on the north-to-south-Mozambique leg of the journey, to ensure they were not stopped at the numerous police checkpoints.

Then as mobile telephone coverage improved, drivers were given a number to call if they were stopped. But the extent of the corruption has changed that and drivers are now given a pile of money to pay bribes at checkpoints. Whatever is left of this money when they arrive in Johannesburg is their pay for the trip.

No heroin is seized in Mozambique, but there are confiscations near the border in South Africa, because authorities there are worried about rising use of heroin in Cape Town and other big cities.

Those seizures show that heroin is often branded and sealed in 1kg packages in Afghanistan, apparently to prevent it from being adulterated along the long travel route. Among the brand names that have come to light are 555, Tokapi and Africa Demand.

In this new world of encrypted messaging apps, a buyer in Europe can place an order for 100kg of 555 with a distributor who may be anywhere.

The distributor puts together enough orders to make up one tonne on a dhow, and arranges collection in Mozambique and delivery to a warehouse, contacting local coordinators using WhatsApp or a similar app. In the warehouse, the tonne is broken up again into the different orders which are sent to Johannesburg.

Indeed, Mozambique's heroin trade looks like the trade in any other commodity - just another product moving through Mozambique and coordinated by multinational organisations.

 

Dom Pérignon Is Undergoing a Changing of the Guard

Like many other legacy brands these days, Dom Pérignon is undergoing a generational shift in leadership. But the roots for this change had been planted long ago.

Vincent Chaperon will take over as the new Chef de Cave, the French term for head winemaker, effective January 1, 2019, picking up the torch from his mentor Richard Geoffroy, who has served as the house’s cellar master for 28 years. The transition has the potential to go down as smoothly as the liquid gold they bottle given that the two have worked side-by-side since 2005.

Geoffroy’s departure coincides with the release of Dom Pérignon’s next vintage, the 2008, which Geoffroy described recently during an interview in New York City as an overcast year, quite similar to the house’s 1996 vintage. 2008, as Geoffroy explained, actually stood out with different weather patterns over the course of a decade, requiring the vintage more time to mature. (Thus, the 2009 was actually released first.)

Vintage champagnes are different from non-vintage champagnes—and your average white and red wines—in a number of ways, including how the grapes are sourced and for how long they are aged. One stipulation is that vintage Champagnes must be aged for at least three years in the bottle to achieve maturation. Vintages also come from grapes sourced during a single year—versus a blend of multiple years—meaning there is less produced, thus why they are typically more expensive.

Dom Pérignon’s vintage bottles serve as the prestige Champagne for Moët & Chandon, one of the world’s largest and most prominent winemakers as well as co-owners of luxury goods conglomerate LVHM.

During his tenure, Geoffroy, a native to the Champagne region, has overseen the production of at least 15 vintages.

Geoffroy also pushed the storied brand, which produced its first vintage in 1921, further into the 21st century with a number of branding and marketing partnerships under a glittery umbrella, dubbed “Drinking Stars.” The program conveniently coincided with the rise in popularity for celebrity chefs, seeing Dom Pérignon launch tasting menus with the likes of Michelin-starred chefs such as Alain Ducasse, Ferran Adrià, and Jean-François Piège.

Chaperon, who moved to Champagne from Bordeaux years ago, has already been with the house for nearly two decades, participating in 13 harvests and declared four vintages. Given how closely Chaperon and Geoffroy have worked together over the years, it’s inevitable that many of the same lessons and principles Geoffroy instilled will be applied by Chaperon as well.

The pair first met in 1999 after Chaperon had then recently graduated from the Montpellier oenology school, subsequently joining Moët & Chandon. Chaperon’s first assignment, which lasted a little over a year, was to manage the supply of natural cork stoppers for the entire Moët-Hennessy group.

“At the time I was really focused on the technical aspects of wine, and I found his request really inspiring, because it took my thinking to another level,” Chaperon says. “It gave me the luxury of dreaming and the energy to excel.”

Chaperon acknowledges that he and Geoffroy have different training and backgrounds, but he insists they share the same values: creating not just meaning, but also depth. Both of them, he continues, also value listening and respecting what the other person is saying.

I intend to continue along the path that Richard has marked out, the path that leads from the land to the champagne lover,” Chaperon says.

Nevertheless, Chaperon acknowledges the need to push the brand further into the next decade for the next generation of oenophiles, keeping customers simultaneously satiated and wanting more.

“We are on a constant quest for perfection,” Chaperon explains. “It’s a lot like art: when you look at a work of art you experience something. Looking at it again—or tasting a wine again—becomes a new experience each time.”

The Legacy Limited Edition bottle will be the first release of Dom Pérignon Vintage 2008, available in the United States on November 1 for $179.99. There will be another bottle release in 2019.

Great Apps You've Probably Never Heard Of

 

A few years ago there was an app called Meerkat with the main purpose to stream live videos just like Periscope. The app received $12 million in start-up funding, but unfortunately never took off mainly because Twitter bought Periscope which later went viral.

The owners of Meerkat app didn't let that discourage them and they immediately started developing a new app called Houseparty. You've probably never heard of it, but the app is now used by millions of people in the US alone.

Naturally, this made us wonder - how many other great apps are we missing out on? So we did the research and we came up with 5 incredibly useful apps we had no idea existed. In this article, we would like to share these apps with you so you could have as much fun as we did using them. So let's begin!

Hear

This app was previously known as H—R. Hear harmonizes the sounds around you to help you  reduce stress and be less distracted. It remixes surrounding sounds with your phones’ built-in microphone and lets you hear them throughout various filters like super hearing, sleep, relax and the list goes on. This makes for great white noise if you need to eliminate sounds around you. Besides that, it is also great for city bike rides or jogging because it lets you listen to music while at the same time providing you with the sounds that are surrounding you.

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

Foldpass 

Foldpass is a creative game where you can write haiku poems with your friends. It doesn’t get more creative than that, simply write a line of haiku and invite your friends to write the next lines. Intrigued? You should be. Once you finish your poem, you can create a cool poster so you can share it online with your friends. Be creative, witty, funny or serious, you choose.

Price: Free

Available on: iOS

PDF Converter Ultimate

This is a business one, but it is surprising how underrated these kinds of apps can be. With PDF Converter Ultimate you can convert PDFs to more than 20 popular file formats and vice versa. The app provides accurate and high-quality conversion results. You can convert documents directly from your device, Gmail or supported cloud services like Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox and the list goes on. So if you are dealing with a lot of PDFs on a regular basis, download this app right away!

Price: Free

Available on: iOS and Android

Facebook's Biggest Problem? A Crisis of Words.

The [executive] either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.”

The quote is from Politics and the English Language and while George Orwell never made Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg his object of scorn—the original reads “writer” in place of “executive”—he would have been right to do so. More than any other company today, Facebook has a freakish inability to use words.

Facebook’s penchant for verbal nonsense is neither new nor particularly unique in a corporate world that loves self-interested spin. But today, that habit is driving a crisis of trust engulfing the Silicon Valley company. The failure of its executives, particularly co-founder Zuckerberg, to speak in plain, candid language during earnings calls and other appearances is a big reason that Facebook can’t escape the moral quagmire that led to an overnight plunge in its lofty stock price.

Want an example of Facebook’s failure with words? Begin with Zuckerberg’s bizarre insistence that he doesn’t run a media company. Facebook has long operated a global broadcast channel with more viewers than any television station on the planet, and has gobbled much of the advertising revenue once enjoyed by traditional media outlets. Yet in testifying before Congress in April, Zuckerberg again would not concede the obvious proposition that Facebook is a media company.

“I consider us to be a technology company,” he told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Many observers interpreted the response as an attempt to shirk responsibility for Facebook’s role as a purveyor of news, video, and other media in the wake of Russian interference in U.S. elections.

Such prevarications are akin to the CEO of a large energy company declaring, when confronted with a massive spill: “We’re not an oil company.” In Facebook’s case, the company pumps its own pollution in the form of fake news, troll armies, and conspiracy theories. At Facebook’s scale, it amounts to a massive sludge of toxic media. If Zuckerberg truly hopes to clean it up, he can start by admitting he’s in the media business.

Another example of what Orwell called “debased language” is Facebook’s invocation of “the community” to justify behavior that is abhorrent and wrong. Most recently, executives muttered about “community standards” in a limp defense of why Facebook allows Holocaust deniers or the noxious conspiracy site InfoWars to flourish on its platform.

Zuckerberg himself has invoked “the community” over and over to explain Facebook’s foot-dragging. But as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci pointed out, Zuckerberg has failed to explain how the 2 billion people who use Facebook can possibly be defined as a community.

I called Facebook to learn more about what “community” means to the company, to little avail. A spokesperson said Facebook develops guidelines “with the community in mind” and on the basis of “safety, equity, and voice.” I asked the spokesperson to explain how a billion people can be “a community” and she simply referred me back to the guidelines.
The exchange underscored why New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo has concluded that Facebook’s stated policies make no sense. “All of this fails a basic test: It’s not even coherent. It is a hodgepodge of declarations and exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions,” Manjoo wrote while describing Zuckerberg’s verbal contortions about Holocaust deniers using the service.

The incoherence is frustrating but, worse, it’s disempowering. When Zuckerberg defends Facebook’s latest outrage in the name of the community, it puts all of us in that community—you and me and the trolls and the hate-mongers and yes, the Holocaust deniers. No decent person wants to be part of such a community. Most see a community as a group of people who share similar values and with whom they choose to identify. To Zuckerberg, the word app

Platforms like Facebook, which exist for the express purpose of ‘creating community,’ turn out to be in the business of exploiting the communities they’ve created for the benefit of those outside (the business community, the strategic communications community, the Moldovan hacker community),”explains writer Carina Chocanoa. “They invite members to ‘participate,’ but not, in the end, to make decisions together; the largest rewards, and the greatest powers, stay private.”

If Zuckerberg wants to cling to the word “community,” he will have to make some hard decisions about who is part of that community and who is not. Such a decision should be informed by law and ethics and philosophy—not a slapdash jumble of words compiled by his public relations team.

In a remarkable farewell letter this month, a longtime Facebook executive, Alex Stamos, made this very point. Using blunt and very understandable language, Stamos attributed the company’s current predicament to thousands of small decisions and called for a change. “We need to be willing to pick sides when there are clear moral or humanitarian issues,” Stamos wrote in the letter, first published by BuzzFeed. (Stamos served as chief information security officer at Facebook.)

That clarity—of words and thoughts and deeds—is what’s needed from Zuckerberg if he wants to lift his company out of the moral muck. One way to start would be for him to jettison what Orwell called “lump[s] of verbal refuse” and speak to Facebook users in clear English.

The White House Banned a CNN Reporter and Even Fox News Is Crying Foul

It’s no secret that President Trump and his administration are not fans of CNN.

But on Wednesday the distaste for the news channel reached new heights when a CNN reporter was barred from an event open to all press in the Rose Garden.

According to reports, after CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins asked about the tapes between Trump and former attorney Michael Cohen and Russian president Putin’s postponed visit to the U.S., she was told by White House communications staff that she would not be welcome to attend a subsequent joint event between Trump and European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

While Collins was for obvious reasons supported by her own network, she received an outpouring of support from others as well, including CNN rival Fox News

Fox News President Jay Wallace said in a statement that the network stands in “strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.” Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier echoed this on his show Special Report, noting that the network is aligned with CNN on “this issue of access.”

While the solidarity between two adversaries is undoubtedly notable, Trump’s increasing hostility toward the press has increasingly brought the White House press corps together. AsCNN points out, Collins was the pool reporter on Wednesday, meaning that she was representing all of the major TV networks—a role that rotates from network to network each day. By barring the pool reporter, the White House’s action can be seen as an attack on all journalists, not just those perceived to be directly threatening to the administration.

This is not the first time that one network’s marginalization has drawn solidarity from the press corps at large. Under the Obama administration, the Treasury Department was criticized by journalists for attempting to exclude Fox News from a round of interviews. The network’s competitors refused to participate until Fox was permitted to join.

manny-pacquiao challenges floyd mayweather to boxing rematch

Will Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. subject the sports world to another “Fight of the Century?” Pacquiao called out Mayweather on Saturday night during an interview with reporters, challenging the retired boxer to a rematch. Pacquiao and Mayweather in May 2015 fought a much-hyped but ultimately underwhelming bout, which Mayweather won by unanimous decision. Three-plus years later, Pacquiao publicly floated the idea of another mega-fight between boxing legends. “Mayweather? If he decides to go back to boxing then that is the time we are going to call the shots,” Pacquiao said following his knockout win over Lucas Matthysse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “I have the belt, so it’s up to him. If he wants to come back in boxing let’s do a second one.” Mayweather and Pacquiao further enriched themselves in their first fight, with the former making over $220 million and the latter receiving over $100 million

New Charges Confirm That 'Infiltration' Was An Aspect Of Russian 2016 Attack

New charges against a woman who tried to build bridges between the Russian government and American political leaders via the National Rifle Association delivered a breakthrough in understanding one aspect of the attack on the 2016 election: "infiltration."

After months of questions and speculation as to how or whether the NRA connection might have worked, prosecutors have proffered an answer: the Russian woman, Maria Butina, was the intermediary between Russian government officials and Americans, both in the NRA and elsewhere in politics, according to court documents

The government charges that she was acting as a foreign agent without registering. Her attorney called the charges overblown, as NPR's Carrie Johnson reported.

Butina serves or served as the deputy to someone identified in court papers only as a "Russian official," who is probably Alexander Torshin, a now-sanctioned Kremlin official who also cultivated relationships with American political leaders and the NRA over several years

Woman Survives For 7 Days After Plunging Over 250-Foot Cliff In California

An Oregon woman survived for seven days after plunging over a cliff in central California.

Angela Hernandez, 23, suffered a brain hemorrhage and fractured ribs after a violent crash on July 6.

She says she swerved to avoid an animal and plunged to the bottom of a rocky 250-foot cliff.

New Drexel Program Helped Man Lose 140 Pounds 

She managed to get out of her car and swam to a beach where she waited for help.

She says she used a hose from her car’s engine to drink water dripping off rocks.

She was found by some hikers who called for help.

#PADUPAFRICA distributed 1000 sanitary pads and informative materials to female students of #Government secondary school Nyanya Abuja Nigeria.

#PADUPAFRICA distributed 1000 sanitary pads and informative materials  to female students of  #Government secondary school Nyanya Abuja Nigeria. last week, the pad up africa campaign to help young teenagers, it is intrestine to know that Menstruation and menstrual            practices are still clouded by taboos and socio-cultural restrictions resulting in adolescent girls remaining ignorant of the scientific facts and hygienic health practices, which sometimes result into adverse health outcomes like reproductive tract infections .
Teenagers having better knowledge regarding menstrual hygiene and safe practices are less vulnerable to RTI and its consequences. Therefore PADUPAFRICA has focused on distribution of informative materials to , increase knowledge about       menstruation right from childhood may escalate safe practices and may help in mitigating the suffering of millions

Parasite-borne illness spurs McDonald's to pull salads from 3,000 restaurants

McDonald’s halted sales of its salads at 3,000 franchises in the Midwest on Friday, after authorities in Illinois and Iowa reported an outbreak of a parasite-borne illnesslinked to greens served by the fast-food chain.

More than 100 people have fallen ill in the two states since May, and many of them reported having eaten salad items at the chain, according to health authorities in Illinois and Iowa.
Tests of those who have fallen ill revealed the presence of the fecal-borne parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis, which can cause severe diarrhea, cramps and fever, those health departments reported.

McDonald’s said in a statement it has halted sales of salads at the franchises “out of an abundance of caution” until the company can switch to another supplier, which the company did not identify.

In addition to Illinois and Iowa, states affected by the salad ban include Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Kentucky, West Virginia and Missouri, the McDonald’s statement said.

“McDonald’s is committed to the highest standards of food safety and quality control,” the statement said. “We are closely monitoring this situation and cooperating with state and federal public health authorities as they further investigate.”

The illness caused by infestation with the parasite, called cyclosporiasis, is marked by severe and frequent bouts of diarrhea, cramps, bloating, nausea, fever, and loss of appetite and weight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Illinois health authorities said about a quarter of the 90 cyclosporiasis cases reported since May had a connection to a McDonald’s franchise. Iowa authorities confirmed 15 cases linked to McDonald’s since June. Neither state reported any hospitalizations or deaths.

In addition to Illinois and Iowa, states affected by the salad ban include Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Kentucky, West Virginia and Missouri, the McDonald’s statement said.

“McDonald’s is committed to the highest standards of food safety and quality control,” the statement said. “We are closely monitoring this situation and cooperating with state and federal public health authorities as they further investigate.”

The illness caused by infestation with the parasite, called cyclosporiasis, is marked by severe and frequent bouts of diarrhea, cramps, bloating, nausea, fever, and loss of appetite and weight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Illinois health authorities said about a quarter of the 90 cyclosporiasis cases reported since May had a connection to a McDonald’s franchise. Iowa authorities confirmed 15 cases linked to McDonald’s since June. Neither state reported any hospitalizations or deaths.
The outbreak follows the recall last month of salad trays sold by Del Monte Fresh Produce after 227 people fell ill with cyclosporiasis after eating vegetable-and-dip trays bought in convenience stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan, according to the CDC.

The agency last year reported a sharp increase in cyclosporiasis — more than 1,065 reported cases in 40 states. There were 384 cases reported during a similar period in 2016, compared with 546 in 2015 and 304 in 2014, according to the CDC.

“We are seeing more of these outbreaks popping up,” said Erin DiCaprio, a cooperative extension assistant specialist at the UC Davis’ Department of Food Science and Technology.

The parasites are specific to humans and tend to spread through poorly processed sewage that may find its way into irrigation sources, DiCaprio said. “It’s usually associated with produce that’s from outside the United States,” she said.
There is no routine testing for presence of the parasite in the U.S. produce industry, in part because it has been difficult to develop a test in the laboratory, DiCaprio said. Many physicians also overlook testing ill patients for the parasite, according to the CDC.

The outbreak comes as the produce industry is recovering from a 36-state outbreak of illnesses linked to E. coli bacteria in romaine lettuce, which killed five people and sickened more than 200 others, about half of whom had to be hospitalized, according to the CDC.

The E. coli strain was traced to an irrigation canal in the lettuce growing region around Yuma, Arizona. The outbreak, which began in April, was declared over on June 28.

'Do Not Eat' Kellogg's Honey Smacks Cereal, CDC Warns

Bad news for your breakfast: Kellogg's cereal contaminated with salmonella is still being sold in some stores despite being recalled a month ago, according to a new report from the FDA.

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report warning consumers that Kellogg's Honey Smacks cereal had been linked to a salmonella outbreak across the U.S. According to their investigation, the contaminated cereal has resulted in 100 cases of salmonella infections (30 of which have resulted in hospitalizations) in 33 states so far.

Based on the CDC's findings, Kellogg's voluntarily recalled Honey Smacks on June 14 and shut down the facility responsible. But according to a new report from the Food and Drug Administration, the contaminated cereal is still on shelves a month later. This is totally illegal, as the FDA points out in their warning.

Salmonella causes diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps, according to the CDC. While most cases go away on their own (there are over a 1.2 million reported cases in the U.S. every year, the CDC says), it can be deadly. The CDC estimates 450 people die from salmonella infections every year.

So what does this all mean for your grocery list? The FDA is doing their part to go after retailers who are still selling Honey Smacks. If you see the cereal on shelves, that doesn't mean it's safe or a new, non-contaminated batch. You can report the cereal to your localFDA consumer complaint coordinator. And if you have any boxes of Honey Smacks at home, trash them ASAP. Regardless of when or where you bought your box, the CDC advises throwing it out or taking it back to your grocery store for a refund. (Already had Honey Smacks for breakfast? Read what to do when you've eaten something from a food recall.)

Neutrino From Supermassive Black Hole in Another Galaxy Detected in Antarctica

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, uncountable trillions of neutrinos have passed through your body. These ghostly particles rain down on us from the sun, but also from sources outside our solar system. Just a tiny fraction of neutrinos will run into anything on Earth, but scientists just detected one from outside our galaxy for the first time ever. It came from a supermassive black hole some 3.7 billion light years away, and then it collided with some ice in Antarctica.

Neutrinos are created by radioactive decay in stars, during supernovae, or as matter spirals into a black hole. They have the lowest known mass of any elementary particle, are electrically neutral, and only interact weakly with other matter. That means neutrinos fly right through planets, stars, and even you at nearly the speed of light. Scientists on Earth have managed to devise methods to detect the few neutrinos that do smack into atoms, and the National Science Foundation’s IceCube Neutrino Observatory spotted a very special Neutrino last year.
On Sept. 22, 2017, scientists using the IceCube observatory detected a high-energy neutrino striking the Antarctic ice. It had an energy of 300 trillion electron volts. That’s 45 times more energy than the Large Hadron Collider can produce in a collision. That provided good evidence that the neutrino came from outside our solar system. The team was able to calculate.
The IceCube observatory operates out of the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, so the team had to look at the possible neutrino sources in the sky over that location. Data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope Collaboration pointed to an object known as a blazar. These are active galaxies with supermassive black holes at the center. That also describes quasars, but the difference is a blazar is spewing a jet of particles and radiation in the direction of Earth. Around the time IceCube detected the impact, Fermi noted that the blazar TXS 0506+056 was brighter (in gamma rays) than it had been in more than a decade, and it was in just the right place to match the trajectory of the neutrino.

This is the first time we’ve detected a neutrino from such a distant source. The study of these particles can help unravel the mysteries lurking in the most extreme environments of the universe. Imagine what secrets are hidden in all the neutrinos that passed through your body while reading this.

British authorities investigating the poisoning of two people have found a bottle believed to have contained Novichok, a nerve agent

British authorities investigating the poisoning of two people have found a bottle believed to have contained Novichok, a nerve agent that was also used against a former Russian spy and his daughter, the Metropolitan Police said Friday.

Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old woman who was exposed to the poison, died in a hospital on Sunday. Charlie Rowley, her 45-year-old partner, was said to be in critical condition before he regained consciousness. He is in serious condition but is stable, police said Friday.

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British authorities investigating the poisoning of two people have found a bottle believed to have contained Novichok, a nerve agent that was also used against a former Russian spy and his daughter, the Metropolitan Police said Friday.

Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old woman who was exposed to the poison, died in a hospital on Sunday. Charlie Rowley, her 45-year-old partner, was said to be in critical condition before he regained consciousness. He is in serious condition but is stable, police said Friday.

The small bottle was found during searches of Rowley's house in Amesbury on Wednesday, police said in a statement. It was tested, and scientists confirmed the substance inside was Novichok, a military-grade, Soviet-produced nerve agent that was used in an attack on the ex-spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia. Sturgess and Rowley were hospitalized in late June, authorities have said.

Authorities said they were investigating where the bottle came from, how it turned up in Rowley's house, and whether the substance came from the same batch that poisoned the Skripals, who survived the March attack. They have been released from a hospital, but are in a secret protected location, according to the Associated Press.

"This is clearly a significant and positive development," Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said in a statement. "However, we cannot guarantee that there isn't any more of the substance left and cordons will remain in place for some considerable time."

Investigators have spoken with Rowley and will continue to talk with him to "further establish how he and Dawn came to be contaminated," police said. In a previous statement, police said there was no evidence that Sturgess or Rowley visited any of the sites that were decontaminated after the poisoning of the Skripals

he Skripals were found unconscious on a park bench on March 4 in Salisbury, around 7 miles from Amesbury.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has blamed the Russian government for the attack on the Skripals. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement.

Emerging sex disease 'could be superbug'

A little known sexually transmitted infection could become the next superbug unless people become more vigilant, experts are warning.

Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) often has no symptoms but can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, which can leave some women infertile.

MG can be missed - and if it is not treated correctly, it can develop resistance to antibiotics.

The British Association of Sexual Health and HIV is launching new advice.

Its draft guidelines detail how best to spot and treat MG.

What is MG?
Mycoplasma genitalium is a bacterium that can cause inflammation of the urethra in men, causing discharge from the penis and making it painful to urinate.

In women, it can cause inflammation of the reproductive organs (womb and fallopian tubes) too, causing pain and possibly a fever and some bleeding.

Michael Jackson was 'chemically castrated' by his late dad, claims singer's ex doctor

Michael Jackson was chemically castrated as a child by his recently deceased father Joe Jackson, according to the King of Pop’s former doctor, Conrad Murray.

The former cardiologist added that when Jackson was his patient, the singer told him about the “many sufferings” he experienced “at the hands of his father” as a child.
“The fact that he was chemically castrated to maintain his high-pitched voice is beyond words,” Murray continued, echoing a claim he made in his 2016 book, This Is It! The Secret Lives of Dr. Conrad Murray and Michael Jackson, in which he accused Joe of forcing Michael to get hormone injections at age 12 to cure his acne and prevent his voice from changing.

Joe filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Murray in 2010, but ultimately dropped the case.
In October 2013, Murray was released from jail two years into a four-year sentence after his 2011 conviction. His license to practice medicine was suspended in three states.

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.