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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/22/2016 3:16:04 PM
Attention

70 dead pilot whales found on Clemente Island, Chile


Handout picture released by Sernapesca on Jul 20, 2016 showing dead whales found in the Chilean Patagonia seashore, near the port of Aysen.
Some 70 dead whales have been found in southern Chile less than a year after more than 330 whales washed up in a remote Patagonian inlet.

The animals are not of the same species discovered in last December's die-off, the biggest single event of its kind known to science, the Chilean fisheries service said.

"They are smaller than those we saw last time," national fisheries director Jose Miguel Burgos said.

Teams will inspect the relatively accessible site in the coming days, focusing on whether humans played a role in the whales' deaths, he added.

The animals died more than two months ago, the authorities said, adding that autopsies will probably still be possible as the cadavers remain intact.

© J. P pacheco ‏






























Source: AFP


(sott.net)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/22/2016 3:23:06 PM
Fish

Thousands of dead fish found at Mosquito Creek, Trinidad

© Trevor Watson
Dead fishes seen floating along the Gulf of Paria coast near Mosquito Creek in La Romaine on Wednesday.
Thousands of dead and dying fish washed ashore in the Gulf of Paria, near Mosquito Creek, yesterday.

And local fishermen are demanding a thorough investigation into what caused the marine life to die.

Residents said dead fish, including mullet and herring, were seen among the rocks and on the coastline on Tuesday night.

But by daybreak yesterday, thousands of fish were seen floating in the waters off the Gulf of Paria.


Fisherman Alvin La Borde said, "I received a call this morning that thousands of dead fish were in the waters off Mosquito Creek. This is nothing new, we have been experiencing this in La Brea and other areas in the south western peninsular for the past three years."

La Borde said samples were taken by the Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) and Environmental Management Authority (EMA) to determine the cause of the fish kill. "But to date we have not been told what is causing this. At one time they said fishermen from Claxton Bay were discarding fish in the water and it was making its way towards La Brea. But whether this is true or not the IMA and EMA are supposed to tell us what the samples proved," he said.

La Borde said fishermen operating in the Gulf of Paria were concerned that the fish were contaminated and questioned whether it safe for consumption.

He said fishermen were calling for an independent investigation into the fish kill.

Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS)

Gary Aboud, president of Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS), said he was not convinced that the dead marine life which washed ashore at Mosquito Creek yesterday were fish that were discarded.

He blamed the fish kill on the 2013 oil spill and the chemicals used by State-owned Petrotrin to mop up the waters off the Gulf of Paria.

Aboud said since the oil spill, dead fish have been washing ashore almost daily.

He said, "We have highlighted that everyday fish continue to wash ashore - sick, dying or dead. We have never had a day which we have not had fish washing up dead."

He said pelican, corbeaux, dolphins and other creatures have been found dead on the beaches in the south western peninsular.

"These kinds of creatures never wash up dead and all of a sudden literally everyday we have a variety of fish. We have found at least 12 dead dolphins in La Brea. Some of the fishermen have claimed and the IMA, without any type of serious investigation, without any samples taken, have claimed the most superficial explanation that fishermen are discarding fish. But we have found pelican birds, that are sick, could hardly stand, fish flapping on the water. These are not fish that are being discarded, these are fish that are being poisoned in one specific geographic area in Trinidad and Tobago," he said.

Aboud said the Corexit, an oil dispersant used in the oil spill response operations, was deadly and called on President Anthony Carmona and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to intervene.

He said the contaminated area should be cordoned off until an investigation was completed.

Aboud said the contaminated fish were being sold to consumers, creating a serious health risk.


(sott.net)


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/22/2016 5:02:39 PM

Zika is found in common Culex mosquitos, signaling a potentially larger risk


Brazilian researchers said Thursday they have found Zika in Culex mosquitoes in the northeastern city of Recife in what could prove to be an important discovery. But they cautioned that more study was needed.

Until now, Zika was believed to be carried mainly by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is much less numerous, lives in clean water and is more likely to bite during the day. Aedes aegypti thrives in tropical and subtropical climates — it is found in Southern U.S. states such as Florida, but is absent in large parts of the United States. The virus is also carried by the Aedes albopictus mosquito, which lives in more rural environments.

Culex mosquitoes are much more widespread. They breed in dirty water and bite at night. Public health officials have feared that Culex mosquitoes could be involved in Zika transmission, something that would necessitate new strategies to combat the disease — which is blamed for an outbreak of the birth defect microcephaly. Brazil has confirmed around 1,700 cases of the birth defect, which causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and can cause cognitive and learning difficulties.

“It means that we have a second species of vector involved in transmission. And with this vector having totally different habits from Aedes aegypti, we will have to create new strategies to combat Culex as well,” said Constancia Ayres, a researcher from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a leading government-led research institute in Recife, who led the study.

Researchers from the foundation collected 5,000 mosquitoes from houses in Recife where suspected Zika transmission had taken place. They found 86 percent of these mosquitoes were Culex.

“Culex is a much more abundant species,” Ayres told a news conference in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, where she presented the results.

The researchers analyzed 456 female Culex mosquitoes, which they divided into 80 “pools” or sample groups of between one and 10 mosquitoes each. They found Zika-infected insects in three of these pools.

Ayres said the research proved that Culex can transmit Zika and that it could have played a role in the rapid spread of the disease in Brazil.

“It can transmit Zika. What we need to know now is which species is the most important — if Culex is the primary vector or the secondary vector. We need to do more research,” she said.

Paulo Gadelha, president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, expressed some caution during Thursday’s news conference. He said that a study at the institution in Rio by researcher Ricardo Lourenço-de-Oliveira had so far failed to find Zika in around 750 Culex mosquitoes.

“It could be that mosquitoes circulating in the Northeast [of Brazil] have more interaction,” he said, stressing that more research was needed.

Gadilha said the discovery did not change the low risk of Zika during Brazil’s Olympics, which open in Rio on Aug. 5 during the country’s cooler winter season. “The risk you have of Zika during this period is very, very remote,” he said.


Stephen Higgs, director of Kansas State University's Biosecurity Research Institute, explains the anatomy of a mosquito. (Kansas State University)

Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas said that if researchers have found Zika in Culex mosquitoes only a handful of times, “it’s hard to know what that means; it may not be a finding of great biological significance.” But if they are detecting the virus in Culex mosquitoes in large numbers and on a consistent basis, “That would be a game changer.”

Hotez was skeptical that Culex mosquitoes are going to start spreading Zika in a significant way. “So far, every place we’ve seen Zika has been a place where you have Aedes aegypti mosquitoes,” he said. “There no reason why one would have to speculate that another mosquito vector is involved.”

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/22/2016 5:54:39 PM
‘Heat dome’ set to envelope US with sizzling temperatures

A ‘heat dome’ is sweeping across the US this weekend, bringing prolonged sweltering temperatures, expected to reach 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit above what’s normal for this time of the year.

A ‘heat dome’ occurs when high pressure traps hot air underneath it and usually lasts a number of days. Combined with high humidity, heat indices are forecast to soar - the highest indices are predicted to be felt across the Corn Belt and Midwest, topping 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius).


Many areas are already feeling the burn and public health warnings are in place, including advice from the White House reminding people to check on each other, particularly vulnerable groups, in the extreme heat.


Older people, small children and pets are considered especially susceptible to heat-related illness.

Excessive heat warnings and heat advisories have been issued by the National Weather Service for much of the Plains, Mississippi valley, Midwest and southern states.

The heatwave enveloping the Midwest is compounded by ‘corn sweat’, where the release of moisture from the plant leaves into the air adds to the mugginess.

© weather.gov


The ‘heat dome’ is forecast to move towards the East Coast over the weekend. Temperatures are expected to hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38C) in several states, including parts of Kansas, Texas, South Carolina and Georgia, Sunday.

“This dome formed largely because the jet stream passing over the US-Canada border is preventing cooler air from pushing southward,” meteorologist Mike Musher from the NWS' Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said.

"During the summer months, with the jet typically so far north and not much cold air to dig into the United States, it's natural for these large high pressure systems to develop," he said.


Southwestern states already experienced a heat dome last month, with Southern California seeing temperatures rise to 111F. That heatwave also resulted in four heat-related deaths in Arizona and wildfires in some states.


This round of extreme temperatures has already forced some workers in Chicago to walk off the job due to the sweltering conditions. Burger King workers on Chicago's South Side walked out as they struggled to work in the heat with a broken air conditioning system.




(RT)


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
7/23/2016 12:07:05 AM
Video: Austin police body-slam black teacher, tell her blacks have ‘violent tendencies’

A dashboard camera captured an Austin police officer violently arresting Breaion King, a black schoolteacher, on June 15, 2015. Another camera in the interior of a police car documented her conversation with another officer afterward. The footage was released on July 21, 2016.
(Austin Police Department)


Officials in Austin are investigating the violent arrest of a black elementary school teacher who was body-slammed by a white police officer during a traffic stop.

The investigation comes after the emergence of police video footage showing not only the June 2015 arrest but also a scene afterward, when another white officer told the teacher that cops are wary of blacks because of their “violent tendencies” and “intimidating” appearance.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time … it is the black community that is being violent,” the officer tells her. “That’s why a lot of white people are afraid. And I don’t blame them.”

The footage, first reported Thursday by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE, prompted an apology from police.

“My heart was sickened and saddened when I first learned of this incident,” said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, adding that the video was “disturbing.”

“For those that think life is perfect for people of color, I want you to listen to that conversation and tell me we don’t have social issues in this nation,” Acevedo continued. “Issues of bias. Issues of racism. Issues of people being looked at different because of their color.”

The controversy comes as the country remains on edge over issues of race and law enforcement. Footage of fatal police encounters and their aftermaths in Louisiana and Minnesota this month helped revive protests over how law enforcement officer use deadly force, while the deadly shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge have spurred further fears among officers over the threats they face on the job.

The Austin video emerged a day after bystander footage showed Florida police aiming their weapons at an unarmed black man as he lay on the ground with his hands in the air. A North Miami police officer ultimately shot the man in the leg as he tried to help a young man with autism.

Prosecutors told the Statesman they first viewed the video about two weeks ago and will likely present the case to a grand jury.

The video also prompted them to dismiss a resisting arrest charge against the teacher, 26-year-old Breaion King.

King broke down as she talked about the day last summer she was body-slammed by police.

“I’ve become fearful to live my life,” she told the Statesman. “I would rather stay home. I’ve become afraid of the people who are supposed to protect me and take care of me.”

‘Oh my God. Why are you doing this to me?’

Austin police on Thursday screened two videos of the incident on June 15, 2015.

The first video, taken by officer Bryan Richter’s dashboard camera, begins around 12:30 p.m. with the officer parked near a busy Austin street.

King, on her lunch break, passes in her white Nissan Versa — traveling 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, according to Richter. He then pulls out and pursues her, activating his siren.

It’s unclear from the video if King is aware of the officer before she turns left into a parking lot.

As she climbs out of her car, Richter tells her to stop.

“Ma’am, you’re being pulled over right now, so I need you to take a seat back in your car,” he says.

“Are you serious?” King replies.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “I’m not joking. Can I see your driver’s license? You’re being stopped for speeding.”

“But I’m already stopped, so technically can you stop me?” King asks as she removes her license. “‘Cause you didn’t pull me over because I’m parked.”

“Ma’am, you were about to go inside without a wallet, so I know you were only coming here because you know I was coming to pull you over,” Richter responds. “I can absolutely pull you over if you are already stopped, yes. Let me see your driver’s license.”

Richter then asks her to put her feet inside the car so he can close the door.

(“I did this so that if she decided to exit the vehicle again, it would give me some sort of reaction time to her doing so, versus her being half way out of the vehicle with the door open giving her an easy escape,” he wrote in his report, according to the Statesman.)

“Could you please hurry up?” King says.

“Okay, ma’am, stand up for me,” Richter says, placing King’s license on top of her car and reaching inside after her.

“No, why are you grabbing me?” she shouts. “Oh my God.”

“Stop resisting,” the officer says multiple times as a struggle ensues — barely visible on the video — in the doorway of the car. At one point, the car horn blares as they tussle.

The officer then takes a step back and orders her to “get out of the car,” before calling for backup.

“I’m getting out,” she says. “Let me get out. Do not touch me.”

“Don’t touch me,” she says again as the cop reaches inside and grabs her.

“Get out of the car now,” he says, yanking her out of the vehicle and throwing her to the ground.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” she screams. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Richter then orders her several times to put her hands behind her back.

“Oh my God. Are you serious?” King moans. “Oh my God.”

“I’m about to Tase you,” Richter says.

As he manages to get her hands behind her back, King stands up. Richter then tries to leg sweep, or trip, her. When that doesn’t work, he puts his arm around her neck.

There is a choking sound as the cop lifts the 112-pound woman into the air before slamming her down on the ground.

It appears as if King is partially able to break her fall with a hand and a foot.

The two continue to struggle.

“Put your hands behind your back,” Richter tells her.

“Would you let me get down please?” King says.

The cop then pushes his weight down onto her back.

“Put your hands behind your back,” he shouts.

“That’s what I was doing,” she says. “Are you serious? God.”

“Don’t stand up,” he tells her.

“I’m not trying to stand up,” she answers. “I’m trying to put my hands behind my back.”

“Are you serious,” she asks again as the officer puts her in handcuffs.

“Get up,” he says as he wrenches her up by her arms.

“Ow,” King says.

Another officer then appears on screen.

“Look at him,” King tells the second officer. “He’s treating me like sh––. I didn’t do anything.

“What are you doing?” she asks the officers as they put her up against the hood of Richter’s car and appear to search her. “I need a black police.”

“Walk,” Richter says, leading her off-screen by her arms, which are cuffed and pulled up behind her back at a roughly 90-degree angle.

“Why are my hands so high?” King asks.

“Stop fighting,” Richter can be heard saying.

“Jesus Christ,” he can be heard saying to another officer off-screen. “She has some fight in her. She didn’t agree I could pull her over when she was already parked.”

“So she came out of the car?” the other officer asks.

“Well, I told her to sit back down,” Richter tells his colleague. “And I kept telling her to get back in, close your door. ‘No.’ I said ‘All right, I’m just going to handcuff you and put you in the car. I’m not going to do this.’ And then she starts fighting.”

“You all right?” the other cop asks him. “You hurt? Injured?”

“No, I’m good,” Richter replies as King can be heard moaning.

Shortly afterward, another officer, apparently from a different agency, appears. He says he was on his way to Wendy’s when he saw the altercation.

“Just so you know, there was somebody out walking their dog who kept recording everything,” he tells Richter and the second Austin police officer.

“Did you see what happened?” the second officer asks.

“I just seen her resisting the whole time,” the officer from the other agency says, lifting his arm as if to demonstrate what King did.

“I never hit her,” Richter tells a third Austin police officer off-screen. “I didn’t want to hit her, man. She was fighting pretty good.”

The video ends with Richter joking that one of the other officers “jinxed” him.

‘Violent tendencies’

The second video screened Thursday by Austin police begins roughly 50 minutes after the first one ends, according to time stamps.

It captures a three-minute conversation between King and another white officer, Patrick Spradlin, as he is transporting her in a police cruiser.

“Have you ever done a clean sweep of police where y’all just clear out all of the police system and start over?” she asks, shown in the video with her hands cuffed behind her back as she sits in the rear of the Spradlin’s car.

The officer says he’s heard of it but “fortunately” it’s never happened to him.

“But do you still believe that there is racism out there?” King asks

“Yes, I do,” the officer answers. “But let me ask you this: Do you believe it goes both ways?”

“I do,” she says. “But I believe that, I’m not going to lie. I believe that Caucasians have more supremacy than we do, they have more rights.”

“I don’t think that,” Spradlin says.

“A lot more people are a little afraid of black people because of everything, honestly…” King says.

“Let me ask you this,” Spradlin interrupts. “Why are so many people afraid of black people?”

“That’s what I want to figure out, because I’m not a bad black person,” King says.

“I can give you a really good idea, a really good idea why it might be that way,” he says. “Violent tendencies. I want you to think about that.

“I’m not saying anything, I’m not saying it’s true, I’m not saying I agree with it or nothing,” Spradlin says. “But 99 percent of the time, when you hear about stuff like that, it is the black community that is being violent. That’s why a lot of white people are afraid. And I don’t blame them.

“There are some guys I look at,” he continues. “I know it’s my job to deal with them and I know it’s probably going to get ugly and that’s the way it goes, but some of them because of their appearance and whatnot, some of them are very intimidating.”

“But do you ever wonder that you know black people are the majority of the time on the defense because they feel like they are not safe?” King asks.

“By no means am I saying that there is no racism, because I know there is, and everybody knows there is,” Spradlin says.

“But my question is, how do y’all know before you even hire a person that they are not a racist?” King asks.

“Oh, trust me,” Spradlin says. “There is a four-hour psych exam that we’ve got to go through. Four hours of psychological testing we go through prior to being hired. So yeah, there’s a lot to it.”

“So do you think later on they build a certain type of image about certain people after working, and then become racist?” she asks.

“Oh yeah,” he answers. “I’m sure.”

‘Is that the way I want my loved one treated?’

At the news conference Thursday, Chief Acevedo began by alluding to the intense national debate over race and policing.

“This is a journey we are in as a community, as a nation,” he said.

Acevedo, who is Hispanic, then offered an apology to King.

“I’m sorry that on the day you were stopped for going 15 mph, you were … treated in a manner that is not consistent with the expectations of this police chief, of most of the officers of this department, and most importantly, of all of us as human beings,” he said. “Police officers have a sworn duty to try to calm things down, approach incidents, approach people in a manner that enhances the probability that everyone gets to go on with their day, especially over a speeding ticket.”

Breaion King is overcome with emotion as she describes being pulled from her car and thrown to the ground by an Austin police officer during a traffic stop in 2015, during an interview in the office of her attorney, Erica Grigg, in Austin. (Rodolfo Gonzalez/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Department policy requires officers to use the minimum amount of force necessary in dealing with suspects, the Statesman noted. Its policy also states officers “will not express or otherwise manifest any prejudice concerning race, religion, national origin, age, political affiliation, sex or other personal characteristics in the performance of their duties.”

For his use of force, Richter received counseling and training, the lowest level of discipline, according to the newspaper. Spradlin was not punished at all because his comments only came to light a year later during Statesman reporter Tony Plohetski’s investigation.

Acevedo said his hands were tied in terms of further punishment he could dole out: he cannot issue more than a written reprimand since the incident occurred over six months ago.

According to KVUE, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg ordered the charge against King dropped as soon as she saw the video of the teacher being slammed to the ground. King already paid a $165 fine and court costs for speeding.

Lehmberg’s office, with the assistance of the Austin police department’s Special Investigations Unit, is investigating the case. The district attorney’s office said it would likely go before a grand jury, the television station reported.

King told the Statesman that her arrest was bewildering.

“It happened really fast,” she told the newspaper. “I wasn’t given enough time.”

During his news conference, Acevedo lamented that the video had overshadowed the good work done by many of his officers. He also said, however, that the video “speaks for itself” and that any officers not shocked by it needed to “check their hearts.”

“I’ve asked my own people to look at these videos and ask, ‘Am I approaching a 15 mph speeding ticket like that?’ ” he said. ” ‘Is that the way I want my loved one treated?’ ”

Michael E. Miller is a foreign affairs reporter for The Washington Post. He writes for the Morning Mix news blog.
Follow @MikeMillerDC



(The Washington Post)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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