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How a Rare Snowfall Hit Jerusalem, Middle East

An unusual storm brought snow and chaos to the Middle East yesterday (Jan. 10).

The weather system dumped 4-6 inches (10-15 centimeters) of snow on Jerusalem Wednesday night (Jan. 9) and yesterday morning, according to Jason Samenow, chief meteorologist with the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang. The same system was responsible for heavy rain and scattered flooding, before the rain turned to snow, Samenow told OurAmazingPlanet.

This storm system is responsible for at least eight deaths, and the United Nations reported that "millions of people inside Syria and 600,000 refugees outside the country need assistance," according to the Voice of America.

The storm system got its start from warm, moist air rising off the Mediterranean Sea, producing rain as it rose and moved eastward into the Middle East. It intensified as it clashed with the southwestern edge of a huge mass of cold air that extends from Turkey and Eastern Europe all the way to China. In fact, the same mass of cold air was responsible for an extreme cold snap in China earlier this week.

However, once the center of the low pressure system — which spins counterclockwise due to the rotation of the Earth — passed Israel, the northerly winds began to ferry cold air from the north down toward Jerusalem and the eastern Mediterranean. "As winds shifted out of the north, cold air wrapped into the region and allowed the precipitation to turn to snow," Samenow said.

The snowstorm was Jerusalem's worst in 20 years, according to Reuters, shutting down public transportation and closing public offices and schools. Samenow said significant snowstorms aren't unheard of in Israel, and happen about once every seven to eight years. The region gets a small amount of snow almost every year, he said.

Areas of Palestinian got even more snow: The Palestinian meteorological institute said that snow levels in the Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem areas had reached 4-8 inches (10-20 cm) and as much as 1 foot (30 cm) in Hebron, Reuters reported. As much as 3 feet (91 cm) of snow fell on Mount Hermon in northern Israel, according to the Inquisitr. Snow was reported in areas of Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, Samenow noted.

The system now looks likely to move through Kazakhstan, Russian and China, where it will likely drop even more snow, Samenow said.

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DREAM Activist's Family Arrested After Home Raided By ICE

DREAM Activist's Family Arrested After Home Raided By ICE

Erika Andiola, a young undocumented immigrant and activist, may be free from the threat of raids and deportation, but her family is another story.

On Thursday night, Andiola's home in Arizona was raided byImmigrations and Customs Enforcement agents, who knocked on her door then arrested her mother, Maria Arreola, after she opened to check on her visitors. When her older brother refused to provide documentation of his own legal status, he was brought in as well.

"My mother came out of her room without really understanding what was happening, just that there was a really strong knock on the door," Andiola, a co-founder of DRM Action Coalition and nationally prominent supporter of the DREAM Act, told reporters over the phone. "They went ahead and handcuffed her right in front of me and my younger brother, who is 16 years old."

After reaching out to her friends in the activist community to help protest her family's treatment, Andiola recorded a heartbreaking video on YouTube recounting the raid.

Andiola and her younger brother have legal status through the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, an executive order by President Obama last year that halts deportations for immigrants under age 31 who entered the country illegally before age 16. That means Erika's house is divided between family members who enjoy some legal status and those who live under fear of deportation.

It's possible that will change soon. The White House and its allies are preparing an all-out push to pass legislation providing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants of all ages, a group that would likely include Arreola, but in the meantime their status is still a constant burden. Immigrant rights activists, who have long complained that the administration has not done enough to restrain ICE in recent years, say Andiola's harrowing experience is only the latest example of the struggles immigrants face as a result. A record 410,000 people were deported in 2012, and a recent report by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute found that ICE's $18 billion in spending over that same period was more than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined.

"While we get legislative reform, the president can act now," Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, told reporters in a conference call Friday. "He can lead and ensure that Maria Arreola and the tens of thousands of other immigrants who qualify for deferred action now can get it so they don't have to fear the risk of deportation while they wait for immigration reform."

Fortunately for Andiola, her mother and older brother are set to be released. But she's still puzzling out why her mother was targeted in the first place. She told reporters that ICE informed her that Arreola had a prior order for removal stemming from 1998. Last month, her mother was stopped for speeding and fingerprinted by Arizona police when she couldn't produce identification, allowing police -- now empowered by state law to identify illegal immigrants -- to refer her to ICE.

"Although one individual had been previously removed from the country, an initial review of these cases revealed that certain factors outlined in ICE's prosecutorial discretion policy appear to be present and merit an exercise of discretion," ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez told TPM Friday in a statement responding to questions about the Andiola case. "A fuller review of the cases is currently on-going. ICE exercises prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis, considering the totality of the circumstances in an individual case."

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Mexicans protest dog detentions, tests negative

One of the dogs that was caught near the site of four fatal maulings sits inside a cage at a city dog pound in Mexico City, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. Authorities have captured dozens of dogs near the scene of the attacks in the capital's poor Iztapalapa district, but rather than calm residents, photos of the forlorn dogs brought a wave of sympathy for the animals, doubts about their involvement in the killings and debate about government handling of the stray dog problem. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

A litter of puppies that was caught near the site of four fatal maulings sit inside a cage at a city dog pound in Mexico City,Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. Authorities have captured dozens of dogs near the scene of the attacks in the capital's poor Iztapalapa district, but rather than calm residents, photos of the forlorn dogs brought a wave of sympathy for the animals, doubts about their involvement in the killings and debate about government handling of the stray dog problem. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Dozens of protesters chanting "Free the dogs, arrest the criminals!" demonstrated outside Mexico City police headquarters Friday, demanding the release of 57 stray dogsseized over five suspected mauling deaths in recent weeks.

The protesters said the dogs are innocent, and many claimed the victims were probably killed by humans. They acknowledged the famished dogs that live in a hilltop park in an east-side slum where the bodies were found may have bitten the corpses after they were already dead.

"Dog friends, the people are with you!" the protesters chanted, as well as, "The dogs aren't criminals, the police are inept!"

"We are completely certain ... the dogs are innocent," said Nominis de Esparza, an animal activist who has adopted 30 cats.

Autopsies determined that the three women, a teenage boy and a baby found in the park since mid-December died of loss of blood due to bites from multiple dogs.

But those findings have been met with widespread skepticism in a country where drug gangs frequently dump bodies of their victims in public spaces, and prosecutors seldom thoroughly investigate such crimes. The idea has taken hold among many that killers dumped the bodies in the park, hoping that packs of stray dogs would destroy the evidence.

"This was a crime committed by humans, for a settling of accounts or who knows what," said De Esparza, using the Spanish word "ajuste" frequently employed to describe drug gang killings.

Tests on the dogs have so far been inconclusive.

The city prosecutor's office said initial tests on the first 25 strays gave no indication they ate human flesh. An employee of the city prosecutors' office, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said almost no food of any kind was found in the dogs' stomachs, much less human flesh. But he said officials were still awaiting results from tests on the dogs' fur and paws to see if any human DNA was present.

Jose Luis Carranza, of the Citizens Front for Animal Rights, criticized city authorities for ordering round-ups of strays in the aftermath of the killings. Carranza said protesters want the raids stopped because only animal control officers are allowed to seize dogs in Mexico City, and only on specific complaints involving individual animals.

"If the authorities really want to crack down on the overpopulation of dogs, then they should go after the clandestine puppy sellers," Carranza said. "Every day there are people selling dogs on the streets, and the police don't do anything."

The 57 mutts rounded up at the Cerro de la Estrella park, where the attacks occurred, include a few about the size of a Labrador, but many are small or mid-size dogs, including beagle and border-collie mixes. Twenty-three are puppies or very young dogs.

Many look like the discarded pets they are. Residents near the 353-acre (143-hectare) park in the poor Iztapalapa neighborhood say people regularly drop off unwanted pets there, but say the dogs have never caused problems before.

Moises Heiblum, professor of animal behavior at the school of veterinary medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said feral dogs as individuals "probably could not carry out a ferocious attack of this type" and normally avoid human contact.

But the dynamics change when a pack is formed, Heiblum said. "When a group comes together, they are capable of an extremely intense and even fatal attack. That is possible."

Animal control warden Armando Garcia, who was patrolling with an assault rifle this week, said there was no question that strays had formed a pack in at least one part of the park.

"You can tell when there's a pack: There's an alpha dogs and his followers, and they've marked out territory and they challenge you when you enter it, with growls and barking," Garcia said.

On Friday, authorities in Iztapalapa announced that the dogs taken into custody would be put up for adoption. They had earlier promised animal rights groups that the dogs would not be killed.

The dogs will get shots, special baths and medical treatment before being given away.