Sniper Posts Pic of Child in Crosshairs

JERUSALEM - A photo posted online by an Israeli soldier showing a child in the crosshairs of a rifle scope has created a firestorm on the internet, drawing widespread criticism.

The photo was reportedly posted on Jan. 25 by Mor Ostrovski, 20, a member of an Israeli sniper unit. It shows crosshairs zeroed in on the back of the head of what appears to be a Palestinian boy in a village. The photo has since been taken down and Ostrovski's account has been deactivated.

"There are no other images to suggest that the photographer actually fired at the person in the image in this case," wrote Palestinian activist Ali Abuminah who runs the site Electronic Intifada and drew much of the attention to the photo. "The image is simply tasteless and dehumanizing. It embodies the idea that Palestinian children are targets."

Before the account was taken down, Abuminah posted other photos from Ostrovski's account that showed him in his olive green uniform holding a variety of weapons, including a sniper rifle.

Eytan Buchman, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, told ABC News that Ostrovski told his commander on Saturday that he had not taken the photo himself but that he'd taken it off the internet. No disciplinary action will be taken.

"The picture in question does not coincide with IDF's values or code of ethics," the spokesman added in an e-mailed statement.

The uproar over the photo follows another posted by an Israeli infantryman on Facebook around a week ago. In it, he mocked the four Palestinian prisoners he was guarding by posing bound and blindfolded next to them. He was sentenced to 14 days detention after the brigade's commanders discovered the photo and ordered it taken down.

"Before the investigation began, it was discovered that the soldier was already judged by his commanders," Buchman said in a statement. "Since the documented offense isn't criminal and since the legal procedure conducted by the soldier's commanding officer was found appropriate, a disciplinary action was decided to be sufficient."

The IDF is active on social networking, disseminating statements on Twitter and Facebook and photos on Flickr and Instagram. But individual soldiers using social media have a history of getting the Israeli military into trouble.

In November, the head of the IDF spokesperson's social media unit landed in hot water after he posted a photo on Facebook with mud on his face, captioned "Obama style." In 2010, a reservist named Eden Abergil sparked outrage after posting pictures with blindfolded Palestinian prisoners. She told Israeli Army radio she didn't understood what she did wrong, but the IDF called the photos "shameful behavior."

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Climate contradiction: Less snow, more blizzards

Map shows a simulated prediction in the reduction of future snowfall in the U.S. based on CO2 levels

WASHINGTON (AP) — With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to global warming as the culprit.

Then, when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow in some places earlier this month, some of the same people again blamed global warming.

How can that be? It's been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a brazen contradiction.

But the answer lies in atmospheric physics. A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year. Projections are that that's likely to continue with manmade global warming.

Consider:

— The United States has been walloped by twice as many of the most extreme snowstorms in the past 50 years than in the previous 60 years, according to an upcoming study on extreme weather by leading federal and university climate scientists. This also fits with a dramatic upward trend in extreme winter precipitation — both rain and snow — in the Northeastern U.S. charted by theNational Climatic Data Center.

— Yet the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University says spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has shrunk on average by 1 million square miles in the past 45 years.

— And an upcoming study in the Journal of Climate says computer models predict annual global snowfall to shrink by more than a foot in the next 50 years. The study's author said most people live in parts of the United States that are likely to see annual snowfall drop between 30 percent and 70 percent by the end of the century.

"Shorter snow season, less snow overall, but the occasional knockout punch," Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said. "That's the new world we live in."

Ten climate scientists say the idea of less snow and more blizzards makes sense: A warmer world is likely to decrease the overall amount of snow falling each year and shrink the snow season. But when it is cold enough for a snowstorm to hit, the slightly warmer air is often carrying more moisture, producing potentially historic blizzards.

"Strong snowstorms thrive on the ragged edge of temperature — warm enough for the air to hold lots of moisture, meaning lots of precipitation, but just cold enough for it to fall as snow," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. "Increasingly, it seems that we're on that ragged edge."

Just look at the last few years in the Northeast. Or take Chicago, which until late January had 335 days without more than an inch of snow. Both have been hit with historic storms in recent years.

Scientists won't blame a specific event or even a specific seasonal change on global warming without doing intricate and time-consuming studies. And they say they are just now getting a better picture of the complex intersection of manmade climate change and extreme snowfall.

But when Serreze, Oppenheimer and others look at the last few years of less snow overall, punctuated by big storms, they say this is what they are expecting in the future.

"It fits the pattern that we expect to unfold," Oppenheimer said.

The world is warming so precipitation that would normally fall as snow in the future will probably fall as rain once it gets above the freezing point, said Princeton researcher Sarah Kapnick.

Her study used new computer models to simulate the climate in 60 years to 100 years as carbon dioxide levels soar. She found large reductions in snowfall throughout much of the world, especially parts of Canada and the Andes Mountains. In the United States, her models predict about a 50 percent or more drop in annual snowfall amounts along a giant swath of the nation from Maine to Texas and the Pacific Northwest and California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

This is especially important out West, where large snowcaps are natural reservoirs for a region's water supply, Kapnick said. And already in the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest and in much of California, the amount of snow still around on April 1 has been declining so that it's down about 20 percent compared with 80 years ago, said Philip Mote, who heads a climate change institute at Oregon State University.

Kapnick says it is snowing about as much as ever in the heart of winter, such as February. But the snow season is getting much shorter, especially in spring and in the northernmost areas, said Rutgers' David Robinson, a co-author of the study on extreme weather that will be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

The Rutgers snow lab says this January saw the sixth-widest snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere; the United States had an above average snow cover for the last few months. But that's a misleading statistic, Robinson said, because even though more ground is covered by snow, it's covered by less snow.

And when those big storms finally hit, there is more than just added moisture in the air; there's extra moisture coming from the warm ocean, Robinson and Oppenheimer said. And the air is full of energy and is unstable, allowing storms to lift yet more moisture up to colder levels. That generates more intense rates of snowfall, Robinson said.

"If you can tap that moisture and you have that fortuitous collision of moist air and below-freezing temperatures, you can pop some big storms," Robinson said.

Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann points to the recent Northeast storm that dumped more than 30 inches in some places. He said it was the result of a perfect set of conditions for such an event: arctic air colliding with unusually warm oceans that produced extra large amounts of moisture and big temperature contrasts, which drive storms. Those all meant more energy, more moisture and thus more snow, he said.

Mindy McCready Suicide: Fans, Friends Share Mixed Reactions

Mindy McCready performing in 2008. (Brad Barket/WireImage)

The morning after she committed suicide, Mindy McCready’s death is still shocking to the world. But it came as little surprise to those who knew her best.

On Monday – just one day after she killed herself with a single gunshot to the face on the porch of her home in Heber Springs, Arkansas – her ex-boyfriend (and the father of her 6-year-old son, Zander), Billy McKnight, revealed in an interview with the “Today” show, “As sad as it is, it didn’t come as a major shock. She’s just been battling demons for so long … I was around her when she attempted suicide twice, so I knew it was in her.”

The country singer, who also shot and killed her dog, had been on a rapid decline ever since the January 13 suicide of her boyfriend, David Wilson, also the father of her 10-month-old son Zayne. Shortly after his death, McCready was accused of killing him in a jealous rage after she caught him cheating – all of which she adamantly denied.

Still, her two sons were removed from her care on February 6, after her father Tim McCready revealed in court documents that she had been in bed for three weeks and was neglecting them. “Sleeps all day,” he wrote. “Drinks all night and is taking Rx drugs. Not bathing or even helping take care of her 2 children.”

After her boys were put in state foster care – where they remain – McCready was ordered to enter a facility for a mental-health and alcohol-abuse evaluation, but was able to undergo outpatient treatment instead. Eleven days later, she was dead.

Once the news of McCready’s suicide became known on Sunday evening, many of her famous fans and friends in country music expressed their condolences on Twitter. “I grew up listening to Mindy McCready…so sad for her family tonight,” wrote Carrie Underwood.LeAnn Rimes, who also tweeted her sorrow, released a statement, as well. "Mindy and I both started our careers around the same time. We worked with a lot of the same people, so we ended up spending lots of time around one another. She was always so kind and very protective of me, like a big sis. My heart is broken that she's gone."

McCready, whose 1996 debut album, Ten Thousand Angels, sold two million copies and peaked at No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Top Country Albums chart, appeared on the third season of VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew Pinsky,” and is now the fifth person from that series to relapse and die.

She’s also the third from her season to die. Last August, former “Real World: Hollywood” participant Joey Kovar was found dead at a friend’s home in Chicago following a cocaine binge. Before that, in March 2011, former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr overdosed on prescription pills in Utah. The other two “Celeb Rehab” alums to pass away are “Grease” actor Jeff Conaway (from prescription pills in May 2011) and Rodney King, who was found drowned in a pool after a night of alleged drinking and marijuana smoking in June 2012.

Mindy McCready, who hit the top of the country charts before personal problems sidetracked her career, died Sunday in Arkansas in an apparent suicide. She was 37. (Feb. 18)

Bob Forrest, Head Counselor on "Celebrity Rehab," shared his feelings on McCready's passing on "omg! Insider" on Monday. Calling her loss, "so devastatingly sad," he explained, "One of the key things is Mindy had two, possibly three or four interwoven problems," including personality disorder and addiction. "If one doesn’t get you the other one does ... They all play together in this perfect storm.”

Although “Celebrity Rehab” has certainly made for some riveting television through its five seasons on air, getting help in front of millions of eyes each week may not be the best solution.

Doug Thorburn, author of Alcoholism Myths and Realities, explains to omg! that Alcoholics Anonymous was created with the “understanding that alcoholism (and most other-drug addiction) causes egomania. They designed their program, the 12 steps, around the idea that the massive alcoholic ego must be deflated for recovery to occur. The first 11 steps are all about this: no practicing egomaniac can admit he is powerless over something; no practicing egomaniac can see the need to pay amends and then to actually become so contrite. This is the reason the program requires anonymity … ‘Celebrity Rehab’ and other shows like it violate this essential prerequisite to recovery; hence, so many relapses and, even, suicides.”

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