Ousted South Korean leader behind bars after arrest on bribery charges

Reuters - Ousted South Korean leader Park Geun-hye was behind bars in the Seoul Detention Centre on Friday after her arrest, on charges including bribery, in a corruption scandal that has brought low some of the country's business and political elite.

In a dramatic fall from power, Park, 65, became South Korea's first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office. She is accused of colluding with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big businesses to contribute funds to foundations that backed her policy initiatives.

She and Choi, who is already in custody and on trial, deny any wrongdoing.

In the early hours of Friday, the Seoul Central District Court approved prosecutors' request for an arrest warrant for Park after she gave about eight hours of testimony.

Park and her lawyers had argued that she should not be arrested because she did not pose a flight risk and would not try to tamper with evidence. But the court disagreed, and said she might try to manipulate evidence.

Just before dawn, Park was driven to prison just outside Seoul in a black sedan, ashen-faced and flanked by two female officers in the back seat, her hair down apparently having removed the hairpins that held her hair in its usual classic chignon style.

Prosecutors now have 20 days to build their case while Park remains in detention.

Park's removal from office capped months of paralysis and turmoil over the corruption scandal that also landed the head of the Samsung Group, South Korea's largest "chaebol", or family-run conglomerate, in detention and on trial.

The political upheaval comes at a time of rising tensions with North Korea over its weapons program and with China, which is angry over South Korea's decision to host a U.S. anti-missile defense system.

Park's impeachment on March 10, which upheld a parliamentary vote in December, effectively left a political vacuum with only an interim president in place before a snap May 9 election.

Liberal opposition politician Moon Jae-in is leading in opinion polls and is expected to win that election.

"The arrest of the former president Park amounts to upholding the people's stern order to build a country where justice and common sense stand firm," Moon's spokesman, Park Kwang-on, said in a statement.

"It is the first step to rebuilding a collapsed Republic of Korea," Park Kwang-on said, using South Korea's official name.

Prosecutors said on Monday Park was accused of soliciting companies for money and infringing upon the freedom of corporate management in her position as president.

She could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes from chaebol bosses, including Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee, in return for favors.

Lee, who denies charges that he provided bribes in return for favors for Samsung, is in detention in the same facility as Park and on trial separately.

After several preliminary hearings, Lee's trial will begin on April 7. (Source)

Completely insane architects are planning to hang a skyscraper from an asteroid

YahooNews.com - Words like “insane,” “crazy,” and “nuts” get thrown around a lot — I use them more than my fair share, if I’m being honest — but a New York design group just revealed plans for a new type of skyscraper that really can’t be described any other way. Their plan is to construct a huge structure on the surface of an asteroid and, believe it or not, that’s probably the most rational part of the proposal.

Clouds Architecture Office is the firm that wants to build the massive skyscraper, which it calls Analemma Tower. The structure, which at this point is completely conceptual and likely completely impossible, would require that an asteroid be captured and brought into near-Earth orbit. With anchor points on the asteroid, the building is designed to — this is the part where things go completely off the rails — hang completely upside down, using the asteroid like a gravitational balloon to hold the structure in place above the Earth’s surface.

The tower would be in eccentric geosynchronous orbit, and would “travel” between hemispheres on a regular daily schedule, and in a figure eight pattern. The architects say the tower would spend much of its time over New York City thanks to its planned trajectory. The building could remain completely disconnected from the surface indefinitely by drawing power from solar panels situated above cloud level. Water would be filtered within the structure in a semi-closed loop, but the tower could also capture its own water while in-flight.

As far as traveling to and from the tower, the concept suggests that people could just parachute down to Earth whenever they needed to leave. As for getting back home, the company doesn’t seem to have nailed down exactly how that will work, but by the time the tower is actually built we’ll probably have teleportation pads, too. (ontinueReading

'No turning back': PM May triggers 'historic' Brexit

Reuters - Prime Minister Theresa May formally began Britain's divorce from the European Union on Wednesday, declaring there was no turning back and ushering in a tortuous exit process that will test the bloc's cohesion and pitch her country into the unknown.

In one of the most significant steps by a British leader since World War Two, May notified EU Council President Donald Tusk in a hand-delivered letter that Britain would quit the club it joined in 1973.

"The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union," May told parliament nine months after Britain shocked investors and world leaders by unexpectedly voting to quit the bloc. "This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back."

The prime minister, an initial opponent of Brexit who won the top job in the political turmoil that followed the referendum vote, now has two years to negotiate the terms of the divorce before it comes into effect in late March 2019.

May, 60, has one of the toughest jobs of any recent British prime minister: holding Britain together in the face of renewed Scottish independence demands, while conducting arduous talks with 27 other EU states on finance, trade, security and other complex issues.

The outcome of the negotiations will shape the future of Britain's $2.6 trillion economy, the world's fifth biggest, and determine whether London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centers.

For the EU, already reeling from successive crises over debt and refugees, the loss of Britain is the biggest blow yet to 60 years of efforts to forge European unity in the wake of two world wars.

Its leaders say they do not want to punish Britain. But with nationalist, anti-EU parties on the rise across Europe, they cannot afford to give London generous terms that might encourage other member states to break away.

Strength in our diversity: Independence movements are a sign of European strength, not discord

WashingtonPost.com: LONDON — It was less than three years ago that Scotland's bid for independence fizzled, with a much-hyped referendum failing by 10 points and Scotland's pro-independence party left embarrassed.

But the drive for self-determination in Scotland is as strong as ever. On Tuesday, the Scottish parliament backed First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's attempt to seek another independence vote. And, much to the dismay of officials in Madrid, Copenhagen, Brussels and other capitals, breakaway attempts in other countries are also alive and well.

To some, this is yet another indication that the European Union is falling apart and unable to keep the divided continent united. But in reality, Europe's powerful independence movements are a sign of European strength, not discord.

The three regions where independence votes are now most likely — Catalonia, Scotland and the Faroe Islands (which is not part of the E.U.) — are doing so in an attempt to assume a more active role on the international stage and in the European Union. All three regions argue that independence would put them in a better position to interact with the union, both economically and politically.

The Faroe Islands, a Danish-controlled autonomous territory in the North Atlantic, announced in February that it will vote on a new constitution next year, most likely paving the way for an independence referendum there.

On the Faroe Islands, pro-E.U. sentiments are mainly driven by economic considerations. Due to its dependency on the E.U. as a trading partner, the Faroe Islands wants to renegotiate relations with the bloc — something its association with the Kingdom of Denmark has so far largely prevented because the Faroe Islands do not handle their foreign affairs themselves.

Farther south, the region of Catalonia, home to Barcelona, has long sought independence from Spain. Its distinct traditions and language, Catalan, have driven such hopes for decades — but there is also a political rationale behind the desire to break away from Spain. Catalonia already has a foreign affairs commissioner, and its citizens are some of the E.U.'s most loyal supporters. As many as 200,000 people recently marched in Barcelona urging the Spanish government to accommodate more refugees and meet the E.U. criteria that are being virtually ignored by almost every member state.

Previous demonstrations in favor of independence deliberately included the word “Europe” in their slogans (“Catalonia, a new state in Europe”) and the current regional leader, Carles Puigdemont, is staunchly pro-European. Puigdemont and his political allies hope that independence from Spain would allow Catalonia, which has more inhabitants than Denmark, to finally influence European affairs without having to take a detour through Madrid.

In the case of Scotland, preserving E.U. membership is also one of the biggest driving forces behind the new independence campaign. Keeping E.U. membership was among the key reasons the Scottish voted against independence in 2014. Ahead of the vote, officials in London had warned that Scotland would also have to leave the E.U. if it decided to leave the United Kingdom.

That argument became void in June last year when Britain decided to leave the E.U., anyway. Scotland, however, voted against leaving the European Union by a margin of 24 percentage points, which political leaders there say proves that a new independence vote is needed.

Of course, things are unlikely to be as easy as pro-independence politicians are saying. The E.U. has said that an independent Scotland would have to apply for admission to the union as a new state, meaning a likely delay of several years. That could complicate the case for a breakaway.

Nor is it certain the E.U. would approve membership. Whereas Britain is leaving the union and would be unlikely to veto an application by Scotland, other countries might be more willing to take such measures. In 2014, Belgium and Spain said they would veto a Scottish membership application in an attempt to prevent other independence movements in Europe from gaining momentum.

Apart from such legal and political obstacles, there is also the question whether voters would even want their regions or nations to become fully independent. Recent opinion polls in Catalonia and Scotland do not show a clear majority.

Pro-independence activists, however, say that voters should at least have a chance to decide. They hope that support for separation might rise if the referendum plans themselves are being blocked by national authorities.

The Spanish government has already declared a possible referendum illegal and said it will not recognize the results, but popular support for such a referendum is still on the rise. Meanwhile, in Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May has indicated that another independence vote won't happen anytime soon — which may only stoke the desire for Scotland to go its own way. (Source)

Reefer Madness: Canada to legalize recreational marijuana in 2018, official says

TORONTO -- Canadians should be able to smoke marijuana legally by July 1, 2018, a senior government official said Monday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government will introduce legislation to legalize recreational marijuana the week of April 10th and it should become law by July next year, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to discuss the upcoming legislation.

Trudeau has long promised to legalize recreational pot use and sales. Canada would be the largest developed country to end a nationwide prohibition of recreational marijuana. In the U.S., voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted last year to approve the use of recreational marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Uruguay in South America is the only nation to legalize recreational pot.

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould declined to confirm the dates provided by the official, but said in a statement the government is committed to introducing legislation this spring that would “legalize, strictly regulate, and restrict access to cannabis.”

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould declined to confirm the dates provided by the official, but said in a statement the government is committed to introducing legislation this spring that would “legalize, strictly regulate, and restrict access to cannabis.”

“This will be done in a careful way to keep it out of the hands of children and youth, and to stop criminals from profiting,” the statement said. “In order to meet our commitment to legalize, the legislation will need to pass through the parliamentary process in a timely fashion.”

The Canadian government is expected to follow the advice of a marijuana task force headed by former Liberal Health Minister Anne McLellan as well as the advice of former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister. Blair has been visiting police departments across the country.

Not again!: 16 shot, 1 fatally, at Cincinnati Ohio nightclub

Cincinnati - The man shot and killed at Cincinnati's Cameo nightclub early Sunday morning was named by police during a news conference.

Obryan Spikes, 27, died in the shooting. At least 15 others were shot, and one of those people is in "extremely critical condition," Cincinnati police Chief Eliot Isaac said.

There were several others who were injured, as well.

The shooting was reported just after 1 a.m. at Cameo Night Club on Kellogg Avenue in Cincinnati's East End. Police believe that multiple people fired shots. No arrests have been made.

"The conflict is believed to have begun between specific groups or individuals earlier in the day, escalating and ultimately leading to this tragedy occurring at the nightclub," Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black said.

Some of the victims were taken to area hospitals via ambulance, and others arrived via their own conveyance, police said.

Assistant Police Chief Paul Neudigate said that several of the victims have life-threatening injuries.

“We are in the middle of a very horrific situation that occurred at the nightclub with multiple victims,” Neudigate said. “It’s going to be a long night for our homicide units to investigate.”

Neudigate said that police do not suspect that this was an act of terror.

Neudigate added that hundreds of people were inside of the nightclub at the time of the shooting, and called it a “chaotic crime scene.” Police believe multiple shooters fired shots inside of the nightclub.

“Many of them fled, unfortunately. Many of the witnesses fled, but everyone that we can identify is being interviewed,” he said.

One witness told WLWT News 5 that he heard the club's DJ call for security about 10 minutes before the shooting.

Surveillance cameras were inside the club at the time of the shooting, police said.

Neudigate added that Sunday morning’s shooting was one of the largest shooting cases that he has worked in his 27-plus years with the department.

Of nine victims taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center, police said two people are in critical condition and seven people are stable. Five of the seven stable patients are expected to be released soon.

Two people were treated and released from Bethesda North Hospital, and two more are at Christ Hospital in stable condition. One person was treated and released at Mercy Anderson and another was treated and released at Mercy West.

Cameo nightclub has had several issues in the past, authorities said. The club allows admission to anyone over the age of 18.

“We are aware of it. It has had some challenges in the past,” Neudigate said.

There were two shootings at the nightclub in 2015: one on New Year's Day, when someone was shot in the foot, and another in September, when a shooting victim was found in the parking lot.

Police have not said whether anyone is in custody, and the investigation is ongoing. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is helping Cincinnati police with this investigation. (ontinueReading

Thousands demonstrate in London against leaving the EU ..again

*Thousand

(Reuters) - Thousands of people marched through London on Saturday to protest against Britain leaving the European Union, just four days before Prime Minister Theresa May launches the start of the formal divorce process from the bloc it joined 44 years ago.

The Unite for Europe march was due to end with a rally in Parliament Square, scene of this week's attack by British-born Islam convert Khalid Masood in which four people died.

Marchers observed a minute's silence in memory of the victims at the start of the demonstration.

In bright sunshine, they waved EU flags and banners with slogans like "So what's the Plan" and "Stop Brexit" as they made their way to parliament.

One banner from a marcher in Hastings on the south coast - scene of England's epoch-defining defeat to William, Duke of Normandy - read: "Hastings, in Europe since 1066."

Another simply said "Happy Birthday EU" in a reference to this weekend's 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding, currently being commemorated in Rome.

Joss Dennis was one of three coach loads of protesters who had traveled from Bristol in western England, which voted 62 percent to stay in the EU in last June's referendum compared with the national 52-48 percent vote to leave.

"With such a close vote, I don't see how anyone can call this the will of the people," she told Reuters. "We have so much to lose: environmentally, politically and financially.

"A terrible mistake has been made but the situation is not beyond redemption," she added.

May has been adamant she intends to take Britain out of the EU following the referendum and will formally announce the start of the two-year leaving process on Wednesday.

Cancer Mutations Mostly Due to 'Bad Luck' -- New Data

medscape.com - Again the question asserts itself — are many cancers simply due to "bad luck"?

Two years ago, the media went into a tailspin over a research article in Science that suggested that many cancer types can be chalked up to random mutations, or simply "bad luck."

It led to quite a bit of discussion, as well as many questions regarding the underlying methods and calculations.

The same authors have now published a second study that supports their earlier conclusions.

For the new study, also published in Science, the researchers analyzed genome sequencing and epidemiologic data from 32 cancer types and concluded that DNA replication errors (R) are responsible for about two thirds of the mutations in human cancers.

This is a "complete paradigm shift in how we think of cancer," coauthor Cristian Tomasetti, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, Maryland, said during a press briefing. "The 65% says that the R component is here to stay, and it is a major one."

It suggests that 65% of cancer is due to chance, or "bad luck" – which is the same message that caused such an uproar when it was initially suggested by the first study.

An introduction to the article helps to explain why – "most textbooks attribute cancer-causing mutations to two major sources: inherited and environmental factors." These new studies highlight the prominent role of R mutations in cancer. These mutations arise from a third source: unavoidable errors associated with DNA replication.

At the press briefing, Dr Tomasettie and coauthor Bert Vogelstein, MD, codirector of the Ludwig Center at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, went on to reconcile the two different ways of thinking. They emphasized that their findings are consistent with epidemiologic studies suggesting that about 40% of cancers can be prevented by changes in the environment.

These findings do not negate the importance of factors such as diet, exercise, and smoking, which contribute to cancer development, they said.

"Mutations are unavoidable, and cancers to some extent are unavoidable," Dr Vogelstein told journalists. "It doesn't mean that we should add to that by smoking or exposure to other noxious influences."

However, many people will develop cancers because of these random DNA copying errors, regardless of environmental factors. (ontinueReading

Half Of Canada Says Undocumented Immigrants Should Be Deported

STRENGTH!

- Nearly half of Canadian adults were for having undocumented immigrants deported from their country, while some opposed the way Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was handling their illegal entry, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday March 20.

Forty-six percent Canadians said they disapproved of Trudeau's stance on undocumented immigrants crossing into Canada through the U.S. illegally, while 37 percent supported the prime minister’s decision and 17 percent said to be indifferent. Forty-eight percent said Canada should "send these migrants back to the U.S."

Those who were highly supportive of the deportations were men, older people with higher incomes and adult without college degrees.

"Refugees are much more welcomed when we have gone and selected them ourselves as a country, as opposed to refugees who have chosen us," said Janet Dench, executive director of Canadian Council for Refugees.

In a separate Ipsos poll in January, studies showed 59 percent of Canadians approved of Trudeau’s policies, while 41 percent opposed them.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada,” Trudeau tweeted in January.

Toronto Mayor John Tory also cosigned with Trudeau saying, "We understand that as Canadians we are almost all immigrants and that no one should be excluded on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality," CBS News reported late January.

Also, the poll's findings come as Canada faces a significant increase from undocumented Mexicans, who are leaving the U.S. due to President Donald Trump's stance on immigration. Canadian border authorities detained 444 Mexican nationals between Jan. 1 and March 8, according to the Canada Border Services Agency via Reuters. This year’s influx surpassed the annual totals of 2014 with 399 detainees, 351 for 2015 and 410 for 2016.

As far as security, the poll showed that 41 percent of Canadians said the increased border crossings made Canada less safe, while 46 percent said the influx had no effect on safety.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted in English and French, surveyed 1,001 people 18 years and older.

Kmart, Sears face ‘substantial doubt’ about finances as losses grow

WashingtonPost.com - After years of mounting losses, the parent company of Sears and Kmart says there is “substantial doubt” about its financial viability.

“Our historical operating results indicate substantial doubt exists related to the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Sears Holdings said Tuesday in its annual report.

The biggest question, the company said, is whether it can raise enough cash to stay afloat. It has $4.2 billion in debt, up from $3 billion a year ago.

Sears Holdings is the parent of Kmart and Sears, Roebuck, & Co. It was formed after the March 2005 merger between the two companies, both of which are American retail icons dating back to the late-19th century. The decline of suburban shopping malls and the rise of online retail have dealt a double-whammy to the businesses. In recent years, the parent has shuttered dozens of stores and sold off some of its brands.

Sears Holdings hasn’t turned an annual profit since 2010. Last year, it reported losses of $2.2 billion. Annual revenue, meanwhile, declined 12 percent to $22.1 billion.

Last month, the company said it was planning a “strategic transformation” by trimming $1 billion in annual costs. It also recently announced plans to close an additional 150 Kmart and Sears stores, and sold its Craftsman brand of tools and lawn equipment to Stanley Black & Decker for more than $900 million.

“We believe the actions outlined today will ensure that Sears Holdings becomes a more agile and competitive retailer with a clear path toward profitability,” Edward S. Lampert, the company’s chief executive, said in February.

But six weeks later, the company’s tune has changed.

Sears executives said they are trying to raise cash by financing debt and selling off real estate, but warned that those efforts may not be successful.

“We acknowledge that we continue to face a challenging competitive environment,” the company said. “We cannot predict, with certainty, the outcome of our actions to generate liquidity.”

The warning is another setback for Lampert. His hedge fund, ESL Investments, has provided the company with up to $1 billion in financial support. Nevertheless, Sears Holdings shares have steadily fallen over the last decade under his leadership, contributing to a decline in his net worth from more than $3 billion to just over $2 billion, according to estimates by Forbes magazine.

Shares of Sears plunged nearly 13 percent Wednesday morning after the announcement.

* * * *

Related: What's Killing Sears & KMart?

Here's Why Sears Holdings Finally Admitted the End May Be Near

Is there a link between climate change and diabetes?

(CNN) Scientists have long warned that rising global temperatures may impact public health in a devastating way because climate change is associated with deadly weather events, the spread of infectious diseases and even food shortages.

Now, researchers are looking at whether climate change might be linked to another public health concern: Type 2 diabetes.

Between 1996 and 2009, as outdoor temperatures rose across the United States, so did the prevalence of diabetes, according to a study published in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care on Monday.

"We were surprised though by the magnitude of the effect size," said Lisanne Blauw, a researcher at Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands and lead author of the study.

"We calculated that a 1-degree Celsius rise in environmental temperature could account for more than 100,000 new diabetes cases per year in the USA alone," she said. "Future research into the effects of global warming on our health status is therefore of great importance."

However, this observational study simply reveals an association between climate and diabetes, not a causation. Among the factors known to cause Type 2 diabetes are being overweight or obese and having a family history of the disease.

"I think calorie consumption and weight are probably the biggest by a country mile," said Dr. Adrian Vella, an endocrinologist who has researched Type 2 diabetes at the Mayo Clinic. He was not involved in the new study.

"I think the general message always should be that association studies do not actually imply causation," he said of linking climate change and diabetes.

Currently, about one out of every three Americans will develop Type 2 diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (ontinueReading

Britain's May to launch EU divorce proceedings on March 29

Reuters - Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Britain's divorce proceedings with the European Union on March 29 2017, launching two years of negotiations that will reshape the future of the country and Europe.

May's government said her permanent envoy to the EU had informed European Council President Donald Tusk of the date when Britain intends to invoke Article 50 of its Lisbon Treaty - the mechanism for starting its exit after a referendum last June in which Britons voted by a 52-48 percent margin to leave the bloc.

The EU said it was ready to begin the negotiations and within 48 hours of the trigger on March 29, Tusk will send the other 27 member states his draft negotiating guidelines, which means that talks could start at the earliest in May.

Sterling slipped from a three-week high against the dollar on what Brexit minister David Davis described as a move taking Britain to "the threshold of the most important negotiation for this country for a generation".

May said she would negotiate for "everyone across the United Kingdom and all parts of the UK".

"We're going to be out there, negotiating hard, delivering on what the British people voted for," she told reporters.

The 60-year-old leader hopes to negotiate terms that keep trade, financial and political relations with EU member states as close as possible after Brexit, but also satisfy euroskeptics in her Conservative Party who demand a complete break from an institution they say has stolen British sovereignty.

It will be a difficult and ambitious balancing act. Talks on departing the prosperous club Britain joined in 1973 are likely to be the most complex London has held since World War Two, with other EU leaders saying they will not give May an easy ride.

With nationalism and anti-establishment, anti-immigrant sentiment spreading across Western Europe, the EU leadership in Brussels is anxious to avoid encouraging others in the 28-member bloc to bolt.

At the same time, May faces threats by Scottish nationalists to call a new independence referendum that could splinter the United Kingdom and fears in Northern Ireland that a "hard border" with EU member Ireland will return after Brexit.

May has revealed little of her strategy for securing what she calls "the best possible deal" for the world's fifth largest economy and making Brexit as painless as possible.

Although she succeeded David Cameron as prime minister soon after the June 23 Brexit referendum, she delayed triggering Article 50 to give herself time to work on her strategy for talks that are likely to determine her political legacy. (ontinueReading

California: Waiter fired after asking Latinas for 'proof of residency' at upscale Huntington Beach eatery

STRENGTH!

LATimes - Brenda Carrillo wasn’t sure she’d heard the waiter right.

She and a friend had just been seated and were waiting for two others on the outdoor patio of Saint Marc, an upscale eatery in Huntington Beach, when he posed the question.

“Can I see your proof of residency?” the waiter asked.

Her friend repeated the question in disbelief, Carrillo recalled, and the waiter replied, “I need to make sure you’re from here before I serve you.”

The two women sat in stunned silence. “It was kind of hard to process because we’ve never experienced this,” said Carrillo, 23, who lives in Santa Ana and works for an organization that provides social services to families and youth.

Moments later, Carrillo’s sister, Diana, and another friend joined them and were asked the same question. The four women spoke to the manager, who apologized and offered to re-seat them, but they declined and left.

At first the friends thought the waiter might be joking. “But he didn’t have a smile,” said Diana Carrillo, 24, who works for a mortgage broker company. “There was no indication that he was trying to make a joke or even possibly flirt with us.”

Diana Carrillo said the encounter left all of them shaken. “I’ve never felt so judged in my life…. It sends a chill through your entire body.

Hours later, still seething, Diana decided to post about their encounter on Facebook and Yelp. Within hours, more than a dozen people had responded to her post on Facebook and left negative reviews on Yelp.

After Diana’s posts, restaurant management reached out to her to apologize. Statements on Facebook and Instagram, which have since been deleted, said the waiter had been fired and that “this type of behavior… will not be tolerated.”

In a separate statement sent to The Times, restaurant management said the waiter’s actions were “in no way…representative” of the restaurant’s employees or management. “We have always celebrated being part of the diverse Huntington Beach community, which means valuing all guests and treating every individual with respect,” the statement read.

Kent Bearden, senior director of operations for Saint Marc, said the restaurant had never encountered similar problems with the waiter, who he said was “not a new hire.”

When Diana Carrillo told her mother about the incident, she said, “My mom lost it.”

“I was angry. I was sad,” Guillermina Carrillo said by phone Saturday. “It’s unacceptable. It’s something that shouldn’t have happened, not anywhere, not to nobody.”

Carrillo, 52, came to the United States from Mexico more than 30 years ago. She’s been a citizen for nearly two decades, juggling two jobs while raising her four daughters alone.

She works as a security guard at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, where she’s been employed for more than 20 years, and has a second job pressing clothing at a manufacturer for an upscale women’s clothing brand. She says she works more than 12 hours a day, six days a week.

“I raised my kids and taught them how to work, how to be a good person…. I’ve been working hard all these years,” the elder Carrillo said, before choking up and excusing herself.

Brenda describes herself and her sister as “light-skinned Latinas” and knows they don’t encounter as much racism as others in their community. “For it to happen to us, it was kind of an eye-opener,” she said. “It just makes me think, when I go to the store, do people think less of me?”

She says she isn’t so worried about herself or her sister, who were born and raised in California.

“I’m more afraid for others in my community, people who are immigrants. If this were to happen to them, I’m sure they would be too afraid to speak out for themselves,” Brenda said.

Meanwhile, Bearden, of Saint Marc, said the restaurant offered to host Brenda Carrillo and her friends as “VIP guests” this weekend and to donate 10% of the weekend’s sales to a nonprofit of their choice. (ontinueReading

Bolivia: Amazon Tsimane People Have the Healthiest Hearts

nbcnews.com - The people with the healthiest hearts in the world live on a tributary of the Amazon River in Bolivia, filling up on starchy food, researchers reported Friday.

The Tsimane people walk, ride bikes or canoe everywhere. Their staple foods are home-grown rice, plantains and corn. If they want meat, they go catch it. And they don't watch television.

An 80-year-old Tsimane has about the same heart and artery health as the average American in his or her 50s, the team reports in the Lancet medical journal.

"The Tsimane, a forager-horticulturalist population of the Bolivian Amazon with few coronary artery disease risk factors, have the lowest reported levels of coronary artery disease of any population recorded to date," the team wrote. They're also presenting their findings to a meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

It's hard to find a Tsimane who has any evidence of clogged arteries at all, Ben Trumble of Arizona State University and colleagues reported.

"Most of the Tsimane are able to live their entire life without developing any coronary atherosclerosis. This has never been seen in any prior research," said Dr. Gregory Thomas of Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, who worked on the study.

The group of about 16,000 people — not really a tribe, Trumble says — live as most of humanity did as we evolved. They have no electricity or running water and catch or raise all their own food.

The researchers studied more than 700 Tsimane volunteers, running scans of their arteries, testing their blood for cholesterol and glucose, measuring blood pressure and looking for evidence of inflammation. They looked specifically for calcium in the blood vessels — a signal that artery-clogging fat has built up and hardened.

These plaques can break off and cause heart attacks and strokes.

Most — 85 percent — had no evidence of calcification at all in their arteries, Trumble said. Those who do have very little.

"Tsimane men had lower coronary artery calcification scores than Japanese women, a population previously regarded as having the lowest coronary artery calcification scores reported for any ethnicity," the team wrote.

It's no surprise that people who eat no processed food and who exercise all day long would have little heart disease. What Trumble's team did was systematically demonstrate it.

These plaques can break off and cause heart attacks and strokes.

Most — 85 percent — had no evidence of calcification at all in their arteries, Trumble said. Those who do have very little.

"Tsimane men had lower coronary artery calcification scores than Japanese women, a population previously regarded as having the lowest coronary artery calcification scores reported for any ethnicity," the team wrote.

It's no surprise that people who eat no processed food and who exercise all day long would have little heart disease. What Trumble's team did was systematically demonstrate it. (ontinueReading

Total Solar Eclipse To Cross US First Time In 99 Years

(TechTimes) - America is set to witness a celestial treat as a full solar eclipse is set to occur on Aug. 21 2017 this year. The range of the eclipse will stretch from Oregon to South Carolina.

The other U.S. states will witness a partial eclipse. On the day, the afore-mentioned regions will feel as if all the lights have been blotted out, as the sun will completely disappear in the middle of the day.

What Is A Solar Eclipse?

A solar eclipse is a phenomenon where the moon passes between the Earth and the sun and blocks the latter's view from the planet. Due to this, the Sun's disc is completely covered by the moon.

This in itself is not a very rare phenomenon, but the full eclipse is only within a 60 to 100 mile radius. As the Earth is mainly covered by oceans, the eclipse almost always occurs over the same.
What Is This Eclipse's Significance?

As reported by The Washington Post, the eclipse has been given the moniker "Great American Eclipse" and rightly so. The last total solar eclipse was witnessed in the U.S. way back in 1918. Americans will mark this date because of its significance.

The sun will be blocked for approximately an hour and a half by the moon. People are already beginning a countdown to the eclipse and have reserved hotel rooms in line with its date.

A prime spot to view the eclipse will be Carbondale, in Illinois. It is a five-hour drive from Chicago and the Southern Illinois University is gearing up for a huge eclipse weekend. It is expecting a multi-thousand gathering.

How Is America Greeting This Phenomenon?

The Adler Planetarium has come up with an exhibit called "Chasing Eclipses. "This exhibit will be open for the public sometime next week and delves into the history of solar eclipses, as well as upcoming celestial events. Visitors can stand in the shadow of the moon, study artifacts used by scientists of yore and build tools for viewing eclipses themselves.

NASA will be live-broadcasting the event and researchers speculate that this may be the most celebrated eclipse ever, garnering the highest number of views.

The next solar eclipse is set to occur in 2024, but Chicago will again witness an eclipse in such close proximity in 2099. (ontinueReading

U.S. authorities charge Russian spies, hackers in huge Yahoo hack

Reuters - The United States on Wednesday March 15 charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers with masterminding the 2014 theft of 500 million Yahoo accounts, the first time the U.S. government has criminally charged Russian spies for cyber offences.

The charges came amid a swirl of controversies relating to alleged Kremlin-backed hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible links between Russian figures and associates of U.S. President Donald Trump. This has given rise to uncertainty about whether Trump is willing to respond forcefully to any action by Moscow in cyberspace and elsewhere.

The 47-count Justice Department indictment included charges of conspiracy, computer fraud and abuse, economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, wire fraud, access device fraud and aggravated identify theft. It painted a picture of the Russian security services working hand-in-hand with cyber criminals, who helped spies further their intelligence goals in exchange for using the same exploits to make money.

"The criminal conduct at issue, carried out and otherwise facilitated by officers from an FSB unit that serves as the FBI’s point of contact in Moscow on cyber crime matters, is beyond the pale,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord said at a press conference announcing the charges.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is the successor to the KGB.

The Kremlin, which denies Russia tried to influence the U.S. election in any way, said on Thursday Moscow had received no official notification of the indictment, but hoped it would.

However, Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, dismissed out of hand the idea that FSB employees could have been involved in the Yahoo hack.

"We have said repeatedly that there can be no discussion of any official involvement of any Russian agency, including the FSB...in any unlawful cyber activities," said Peskov, who has cast U.S. allegations against Russia as part of a political campaign to kill off a U.S.-Russia rapprochement.

Yahoo said when it announced the then-unprecedented breach last September that it believed the attack was state-sponsored, and on Wednesday the company said the indictment "unequivocally shows" that to be the case.

The charges announced Wednesday are not related to the hacking of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have said they were carried out by Russian spy services, including the FSB, to help the campaign of Republican candidate Donald Trump. (ontinueReading

Spiders top the global predator charts

(BBC) - Biologists have calculated that the global population of spiders consumes 400 million to 800 million tonnes of primarily insect prey every year.

Researchers set out to put a value on the ecological importance of the arachnids.

They say their appetite for prey means they consume approximately the same amount as the weight of meat and fish eaten every year by humans.

The findings are published in the journal the Science of Nature.

Dr Martin Nyffeler, the University of Basel scientist who led this study, was inspired by a 1958 book called The World of Spiders, in which a British arachnologist author William Bristowe speculated that the weight of insects killed each year by the British spider population exceeded the combined weight of the British human population.

Since he first considered that, the Swiss arachnologist spent hundreds of hours of recording spider behaviour in the field, and gathering spider ecology studies published around the world.

"These 40 years of gathering experience - spending thousands of hours dealing with spider prey capture rates and prey selection - was needed to be able to write this paper on the global annual prey kill of the spiders," he said in an email.

After these four decades of data-gathering, he had enough information to work out how much the eight-legged creatures consumed.

His numbers are enough to haunt any arachnophobe; Dr Nyffeler says the entire population of the world's spiders - weighing 25 million tonnes - hunts and eats between 400 million and 800 million tonnes of insect prey annually.

But these numbers are not meant to terrify anyone, the scientists hope their study will raise awareness of the importance of spiders in the global food web.

"Spiders kill large numbers of herbivorous insects - and by doing so they help to protect the plants from herbivore damage," said Dr Nyffeler.

"They serve as food for thousands of arthropod-eating animals - an estimated 8,000-10,000 specialised insect species and many passerine birds (an estimated 3,000-5,000 species) feed on spiders." (ontinueReading

UKGBNI: Scottish Government to Seek Independence Referendum Over Brexit

nbcnews.com - Scotland's leader announced Monday she will seek another referendum on independence from the U.K. as early as next year in response to Brexit, deepening the turmoil caused by Britain's decision to quit the European Union.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she had encountered a "brick wall of intransigence" in dealings with the British government over the terms for withdrawal from the trading bloc.

She said the Brexit vote meant there had been a "material change in circumstances" since independence was rejected by Scottish voters by 55 percent to 45 percent in 2014.

"The future of the U.K. looks very different today than it did two years ago," she told reporters.

Sturgeon, who heads the pro-independence Scottish National Party, said she will seek the constitutional authority to hold another referendum in late 2018 or early 2019 — by which time the terms of Britain's withdrawal would be known.

It was not immediately clear if the Britain's ruling Conservative party, which is firmly opposed to independence, would veto her bid for a so-called "indyref2."

Sturgeon said Scots should be allowed to choose "whether to follow the U.K. to a hard Brexit, or to become an independent country able to secure a real partnership of equals with the rest of the UK and our own relationship with Europe."

Scotland voted against Brexit in last June's referendum, preferring to remain in the EU. However, the U.K. overall voted to leave by 52 percent to 48 percent.

turgeon said she had sought negotiations with British Prime Minister Theresa May over the details of Brexit but the U.K. government "has not moved even an inch in pursuit of compromise or agreement."

"Membership of the single market was ruled out with no prior consultation with the rest of the UK," she said. "We face a future outside the world's biggest single market."

Sturgeon said there was "warmth" in Europe at the prospect of Scotland being an independent member of the EU — although the mechanism for that prospect also remains unclear. The EU previously stated that an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU, rather than automatically being a member.

Sturgeon's announcement came as May was poised to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, giving official notice of Britain's intention to quit the EU and starting the clock on up to two years of unprecedented negotiations. (ontinueReading
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Related: Nicola Sturgeon hits out at PM saying: I was elected, May was not

Theresa May 'to block Nicola Sturgeon's second independence referendum until after Brexit'

Satair?:Texas men would face fine for masturbating, need rectal exam for Viagra under "proposed" law

*The following contains strong sexual language

DallasNews - If state Rep. Jessica Farrar has her way, men in Texas will pay a $100 fine for "unregulated masturbatory emissions" and undergo a digital rectal exam to get a vasectomy, a colonoscopy or a Viagra prescription.

Farrar's proposed legislation, filed last week, calls on the Department of State Health Services to explain the rules in an illustrated booklet titled "A Man's Right to Know."

Sound familiar? The Houston Democrat's bill is a satirical version of a Texas law passed in 2011 that requires women to have a sonogram and hear a detailed description of the fetus before getting an abortion. Those rules are outlined in a booklet produced by the state called "A Woman's Right to Know."

"A lot of people find the bill funny," Farrar told the Houston Chronicle. "What's not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access health care."

Farrar's bill penalizes masturbatory emissions outside a vagina or a medical facility, describing them as "an act against an unborn child" that fails to preserve "the sanctity of life."

Fines collected under the measure would be funneled to the Department of Family and Protective Services for the care of children.

The lawmaker proposes that the state keep a registry of private hospitals and organizations that counsel men to stay "fully abstinent," offer physicians to supervise masturbation and store semen for future conception.

Men seeking a vasectomy, a colonoscopy or a Viagra prescription would first undergo a "medically unnecessary" digital rectal exam and magnetic resonance imaging of the rectum, per Farrar's bill. After the exam, men would have to wait at least 24 hours before they could get the procedure or the prescription they wanted.

These provisions of the Democrat's bill echo the 2011 Texas law requiring women to take two trips to a clinic to get an abortion. The bill also calls on the state to include medically accurate and objective information in its booklet for men.

The "Woman's Right to Know" pamphlet that Texas women must receive 24 hours before an abortion has been criticized for listing refuted research linking abortion to a higher risk of breast cancer. (ontinueReading

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Further Reading - Why Women DESTROY NATIONS * / CIVILIZATIONS - and other UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS

World Wide Web's inventor warns it's in peril on 28th anniversary

USAToday - Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, now wants to save it.

The computer scientist who wrote the blueprint for what would become the World Wide Web 28 years ago today is alarmed at what has happened to it in the past year.

"Over the past 12 months, I’ve become increasingly worried about three new trends, which I believe we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity," he said in a statement issued from London. He cited compromised personal data; fake news that he says has "spread like wildfire"; and the lack of regulation in political advertising, which he says threatens democracy.

"Even in countries where we believe governments have citizens’ best interests at heart, watching everyone, all the time is simply going too far," he said, in an allusion to WikiLeaks' disclosure of what documents claim is a vast CIA surveillance operation. "It creates a chilling effect on free speech and stops the web from being used as a space to explore important topics, like sensitive health issues, sexuality or religion."

Berners-Lee, 61, who was knighted, founded Web Foundation in 2009 to improve the web as part of a five-year plan.

When Berners-Lee submitted his original proposal for the Web, he imagined it as an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries.

But his faith, and those of privacy advocates and cybersecurity experts, has been badly shaken by a series of high-profile hacks and the dissemination of fake news through the use of data science and armies of bots.

Front and center: The WikiLeaks bombshell. The treasure trove of more than 8,000 pages reads like a John Le Carre spy novel overrun with Edward Snowden-like protagonists. The CIA, with sophisticated hacking tools, has been angling to turn popular consumer devices such as iPhones, Samsung TVs and Android smartphones into surveillance devices, the documents indicate.

Imagine that Big Brother scenario extended to the millions of smart devices such as digital thermostats and fire alarms feeding the Internet of Things ecosystem, and you have a problem that could eviscerate the privacy of billions of people, say security experts.

Berners-Lee is just the latest high-profile technologist to share concerns over what former Cisco Systems executive Monique Morrow calls a fundamental assault on privacy and cybersecurity, with critical infrastructure — banking systems, the grid — hanging in the balance. "How do we use technology responsibly?" she asked at a SXSW talk in Austin Saturday. (ontinueReading

Spring Ahead?: Proof daylight saving time is dumb, dangerous, and costly

FINALLY

BostonGlobe.com - If you hate daylight saving time and the confusion and sleep deprivation it brings, you now have solid data on your side. A wave of new research is bolstering arguments against changing clocks twice a year.

The case for daylight saving time has been shaky for a while. The biannual time change was originally implemented to save energy. Yet dozens of studies around the world have found that changing the clocks has either minuscule or nonexistent effects on energy use. When Indiana finally implemented daylight saving in 2006, residents actually used more electricity.

Daylight saving time isn’t just a benign relic of the 1970s energy crisis. The latest research suggests the time change can be harmful to our health and cost us money. The effects are most disruptive in the spring and fall, right after time changes. Clocks in the US will spring forward this year on Sunday. Most of Europe moves to daylight saving time two weeks later.

The suffering of the spring time change begins with the loss of an hour of sleep. That might not seem like a big deal, but researchers have found it can be dangerous to mess with sleep schedules. Car accidents, strokes, and heart attacks spike in the days after the March time change. It turns out that judges, sleep deprived by daylight saving, impose harsher sentences.

‘Even mild changes to sleep patterns can affect human capital in significant ways,’’ Cornell University researchers Lawrence Jin and Nicolas Ziebarth wrote last year.

Some of the last defenders of daylight saving time have been a cluster of business groups who assume the change helps stimulate consumer spending. That’s not true either, according to recent analysis of 380 million bank and credit-card transactions by the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

The study compared Los Angeles with Phoenix in the 30 days after the March and November time changes. Arizona is a natural test case since it’s one of the two states, along with Hawaii, that doesn’t do daylight saving. In the spring, according to the consumer transaction data, the additional hour of evening daylight in Los Angeles managed to slightly boost card spending per person, compared with that in Phoenix, although by less than 1 percent. That spending uptick is swamped by the negative impact of the November time change, which sees the darkened population of Los Angeles spend 3.5 percent less at local retailers.

Daylight turns out to be a surprisingly large factor in how often workers stop at stores on their way home from their jobs in the evening. ‘‘At the end of the day, it’s either dark or light, and [people are] going to make an impulse decision at that point,’’ Diana Farrell, president and chief executive of the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

One possible explanation for the sharp spending decline, Farrell said, is that the extra hour of darkness could push more people to shop online rather than in-person. The study looked only at transactions via local retailers.

Daylight saving time may threaten our health, hurt local retailers, and otherwise disrupt our lives. But can anything be done about it?

As Hawaii and Arizona show, the US government gives states a choice as to whether to adopt daylight saving time. But states aren’t currently allowed to switch to daylight saving time year-round. Last year, 19 bills were pending in state legislatures around the US to end the biannual time change, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. None passed.

Daylight saving is ‘‘an example of how sticky policy can be,’’ Farrell said.

A bill signed by Governor Charlie Baker in August included a provision establishing a task force to study if Massachusetts should leave Eastern Standard Time behind. The commission would analyze putting the state on Atlantic Standard Time throughout the year, rather than springing forward every March and falling back every November.

And since the beginning of the year, state legislators elsewhere have introduced an 20 bills on the topic, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Eleven bills, including proposals in Texas and California, would put states permanently on standard time; nine of the bills aim to make daylight saving time permanent, many of them by urging lawmakers in Washington to change the rules.

That looks unlikely. In a search of bills pending in the Congress this year and last year, none mention daylight saving. (ontinueReading

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Related: Get it right, people: It's not Daylight Savings Time

California: Could this year be the last for daylight saving time?

End DST, Sign the petition and let Congress know you are fed up with clock changing: https://www.petition2congress.com/6284/end-daylight-savings-time (US)

South Korea: President Park removed unanimously

koreajoongangdaily - Park Geun-hye became the first president in Korean history to be dismissed from office Friday, as the Constitutional Court made a historic ruling upholding the National Assembly’s impeachment of the scandal-plagued leader.

Acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi of the Constitutional Court announced that the verdict to remove Park was reached unanimously among the eight judges currently on the bench.

Park issued no public message on Friday. Stripped of all presidential power, the disgraced leader remained in the Blue House because her private residence in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, was not ready to receive her, according to an aide. Park, the eldest daughter of the late strongman Park Chung Hee, was elected the country’s first woman president in December 2012. She had 11 months left in her term. Park, who didn’t attend any of the hearings in her 92-day-long trial, did not appear for the verdict either. She issued no public statement after the ruling.

While the court rejected the National Assembly’s arguments that Park should be removed for abusing her power to unfairly dismiss certain public servants and to oppress press freedom and for failing to fulfill her duty to protect the lives of citizens when the Sewol ferry sank in 2014, the eight judges agreed that she should be removed for allowing a friend to interfere in state affairs for private gain.

Lee also condemned Park for having repeatedly lied to the public by denying all suspicions involving Choi Seo-won, better known by her original name Choi Soon-sil, and concealing the truth.

“The remarks and behavior of Park regarding the allegations that led to the impeachment reveals that she does not have any will to protect the Constitution to prevent the recurrence of her legal violations,” Lee said. “She betrayed the people’s trust and that is a grave violation from the perspective of protecting the Constitution. Because the negative impacts on the constitutional order of Park’s legal violations are extremely grave, the benefit of protecting the Constitution by dismissing her is overwhelmingly large.”

Lee said Park deserves to be fired for having allowed Choi influence state affairs for private gain and her abuse of presidential power to assist Choi’s various corrupt actions. Lee said the charges were grave enough to remove Park from the presidency.

“The president must exert her powers in respect to the Constitution and laws and her performance of her public duty must be transparently revealed for public evaluation,” Lee said. “But Park completely hid Choi’s intervention in state affairs. Whenever suspicions were raised, she denied and even criticized those raising the questions. Therefore, the checking and monitoring ability of constitutional institutions such as the National Assembly and media failed to function.”

Lee pointed out that Park’s violations took place throughout her term. Park tried to cover up the truth and gagged the concerned people whenever the National Assembly and media raised questions, leading to the prosecution of top officials from the Blue House and administration, Lee said. “Park’s violations of the Constitution and laws infringed upon the principles of representative democracy and the spirit of rule of law,” Lee said.

The court also condemned Park for having repeatedly lied to the public. “In her addresses to the nation, she promised to cooperate with investigations to lay bare the truth, but refused to be questioned by the prosecution and an independent counsel and rejected the Blue House raid attempts,” Lee said.

Since the National Assembly passed a motion to remove her from office on Dec. 9, 2016 for 13 criminal and constitutional violations, the Constitutional Court spent 92 days on perhaps the most politically volatile case in the country’s history.

The court rejected Friday Park’s lawyers’ argument that the legislature’s passage of the impeachment motion was flawed. The judges also rejected their argument that the trial was unlawful because of the vacant seat of Chief Justice Park Han-chul, who retired at the end of January.

In opening remarks, Lee stressed that the judges tried their best for a fair and speedy trial. Lee said the court hoped the extreme split in public opinion over the impeachment will end with the ruling. 

The court also announced supplementary opinions regarding Park’s alleged nonfeasance during the Sewol ferry’s sinking, in which 304 passengers died on April 16, 2014 due to a weak government rescue operation. Although the judges agreed that her nonfeasance during the tragedy could not be used as grounds for dismissal, Judges Kim Yi-su and Lee Jin-sung said Park did fail her constitutional duty to faithfully serve as the president and a public servant. Judge Ahn Chang-ho also gave the opinion that the impeachment trial was not an ideological contest, but a matter of protecting the constitutional order, and dismissal was necessary to end bad political customs. 

The ruling to remove Park from office is final and irreversible. The Constitutional Court earlier said the impeachment trial is a single-trial system, and there will be no appeal or retrial. 

A presidential by-election will take place within 60 days. The campaign will start immediately.

Park’s presidency was terminated immediately after Lee finished reading the verdict. Presidential immunity, which has shielded her from criminal prosecution, also ended.

After a special investigation last year, prosecutors concluded that Park was a co-conspirator in multiple alleged incidents of corruption and abuse of power. An additional investigation by the independent counsel also identified her as a bribery suspect. It remains to be seen if the prosecution will immediately go after her because of the political sensitivity of such an action.

Park became the fifth president in Korean history to leave the presidential office before their term ended. 

Korea’s first four presidents failed to complete terms for various reasons. Syngman Rhee, the first president of the country, resigned in April 1960 after it was revealed that his election victory for the fourth term was rigged. Yun Posun, elected president in August 1960, was forced to step down in 1962 in the aftermath of the May 16, 1961 coup by Park Chung Hee, the father of Park Geun-hye. 

Park Chung Hee’s 18-year- presidency ended with his assassination in 1979. Choi Kyu-hah was elected president in December 1979, but was forced to resign in 1980 as a result of a military coup by Chun Doo Hwan on Dec. 12, 1979. The five-year, single-term presidency began with Roh Tae-woo in 1988. All five presidents elected under the system completed their terms except for Park. (Source)

When Is The World Going To End? Stephen Hawking Predicts Technology And Human Nature ‘May Destroy Us All’

ibtimes.com - It always seems as if Stephen Hawking is telling the world things it does not want to hear. The famed physicist has announced his predictions about climate change, artificial intelligence and the end of the world. Now, a recent Hawking prediction revealed that, put simply, human nature coupled with our accelerated leaps in technological advancements could be the perfect equation to end mankind as we know it.

“Since civilization began, aggression has been useful inasmuch as it has definite survival advantages,” Hawking said during an interview with British news outlet The Times Tuesday. “It is hard-wired into our genes by Darwinian evolution. Now, however, technology has advanced at such a pace that this aggression may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war.”

Don't panic. Hawking did say that not all hope was lost, explaining that he still had faith in humankind to use its resources to its advantage.

“We need to control this inherited instinct by our logic and reason,” he added.

Hawking went on to discuss his life and career — the cosmologist and theoretical physicist celebrated his 75th birthday in January — and what the future could have in store in the face of environmental catastrophe and artificial intelligence.

Last fall, Hawking shocked the world by announcing that he predicted that human life only had about 1,000 years left on Earth — and if that we wanted to maintain the race, we needed to colonize other planets, Live Science reported. The downfall, according to Hawking, would come from factors like nuclear weapons, global warming and even certain genetically engineered viruses.

“We need to be quicker to identify such threats and act before they get out of control. This might mean some form of world government,” Hawking mused during the interview with The Times. But a “world government” could have its own setbacks. Nonetheless, the theoretical physicist and author remained upbeat about the world’s outcome.

“I think the human race will rise to meet these challenges,” he said. (ontinueReading

Poachers killed a beloved white rhino - inside a French zoo

savagery!

chicagotribune.com - For the past decade, poachers have killed rhinoceroses in the wild and in protected reserves around the world at alarming rates, threatening the survival of four of the world's five rhino species.

The poaching is driven by a demand for rhino horns in southeast Asia that has grown nearly insatiable; so much so, experts say, that any living rhino - anywhere in the world - is now at risk of being killed.

Perhaps no rhino death illustrates that threat more forcefully than the killing of Vince, a 4-year-old male white rhino who was slaughtered this week inside his enclosure at a zoo outside Paris. The rhino - discovered by his keeper at the Thoiry Zoological Park on Tuesday - now holds the ominous distinction of likely being the first rhino to be killed by poachers inside a zoo, experts said.

"This is the first time we've heard of it," said Crawford Allen, senior director of TRAFFIC North America, a regional office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). "It's certainly the first time it's happened in Europe.

"It's an incredibly shocking and distressing occurrence," he added. "It's also a game-changer for zoos. They've woken up today and realized their world has changed if they have live rhinos in their collection."

In a statement posted on Facebook, the Thoiry Zoological Park, which is 30 miles west of Paris, said its "entire staff is extremely shocked" by Vince's killing. The animal was born in a zoo in the Netherlands in 2012 and arrived at Thoiry in March 2015, the zoo said.

The zoo pinned the killing on criminals who forced open an outer gate outside the rhinoceros building overnight. The intruders then forced open a second metal door and broke open "an intermediate inner door" that allowed them access to the animal lodges, the zoo said.

Police told Reuters that Vince was shot three times in the head. One of the animal's horns was removed, probably with a chain saw, the zoo said.

"His second horn was only partially cut, which suggests that the criminals were disturbed or that their equipment proved defective," the zoo said. "The other two white rhinoceros living in Thoiry, Gracie aged 37 and Bruno aged 5 years, escaped the massacre and are safe."

"Vince was found this morning by [his] caretaker, who is very attached to the animals she cares for, and is deeply affected," the zoo added. "This odious act was perpetrated despite the presence of five members of the zoological staff living on the spot and surveillance cameras."

Just over a decade ago, a rhino horn was just a rhino horn - an innocuous piece of animal body armor made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up human hair and fingernails. Now a rhino horn is something else entirely for a new generation of wealthy buyers in China and Vietnam: a highly-coveted status symbol and a cancer-curing miracle drug and aphrodisiac whose legend is rooted in pseudoscience.

Depending on the species and the market, experts said, rhino horns are worth more than their weight in gold. Protected wildlife is the fourth largest form of criminal traffic in the world behind drugs, counterfeiting and human trafficking, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Global trade in rhino horn is banned by a U.N. convention, and its sale is illegal in France, according to Reuters, but as little as a kilo of rhino horn was worth about $54,000 on the black market in 2015.

(ontinueReading

# Best!: Switzerland ranked the world's "best" country as U.S. falls in favor

Make America Swiss Again?

The United States isn't the greatest country in the world, according to a new ranking released by U.S. News & World Report. In fact, it's only the seventh best.

Switzerland made its debut on the publication's best countries list — rising all the way to the No. 1 spot.

The publication polled 21,000 people globally on how they would rank 80 countries based on things such as cultural influence, citizenship and quality of life.

Switzerland — which has four regularly spoken languages — was cited with strong scores in quality of life and having an "inclusive society."

"Switzerland is based on free will rather than on conquest: historically the country always grew because new regions wanted to be part of it," Gabrielle Hogan-Brun, a Swiss-born researcher now living in the United Kingdom, told U.S. News.

A low unemployment rate of 3.7% and safe streets were also factored into the Matterhorn-high ranking. The U.S. News report noted the Swiss also love to vote — casting ballots on 13 referendums across four days last year.

But not everything about life in the country of 8.1 million people is as sweet as (culturally appropriated) Swiss chocolate.

The nationalism wave sweeping the rest of the globe hasn't passed over the typically neutral nation.

U.S. News notes that while almost a quarter of the population is foreign born, anti-immigration sentiment has risen in the country over the last 20 years.

Mariel Diez, an Argentinian journalist who moved to the country, said getting a job when you're not Swiss-born is one tough Alp to climb.

"A lot of my friends who came around the time I did, didn't make it all the way through," Diez told U.S. News. "I sent out 100 resumes before I was even invited for an interview, and that was for an internship."

Canada, the United Kingdom Of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, Germany and Japan round out the top five spots.

And even though the old Stars and Stripes dropped three spots (it was No. 4 last year), the report found the United States was still one of the most powerful countries in the world.

Over 70% of those surveyed said the U.S. lost favor because of the messy 2016 election. (ontinueReading

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Polluted environments kill 1.7 million children each year, UN health agency reports

6 March 2017 – Unhealthy environments are responsible for one-quarter of young child deaths, according to two new reports from the United Nations health agency, which reviewed the threats from pollutants such as second-hand smoke, UV radiation, unsafe water and e-waste.

According to the latest information, polluted environments take the lives of 1.7 million children under the age of five.

“A polluted environment is a deadly one – particularly for young children,” said Margaret Chan, Director-General of the UN World Health Organization (WHO). “Their developing organs and immune systems, and smaller bodies and airways, make them especially vulnerable to dirty air and water.”

In one of the two reports, Inheriting a Sustainable World: Atlas on Children's Health and the Environment , WHO announced that many of the common causes of death among children aged between one month and five years of age are preventable with safe water and clear cooking fuels. These include diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia.

The main pollutant is in the air, resulting in 570,000 deaths each year among children under five years old. Air pollution can stunt brain development and reduce lung function and trigger asthma. In the longer-term, exposure to air pollution can increase the child's risk of contracting heart disease, a stroke or cancer.

To counter such exposure, WHO recommends reducing air pollution, improving safe water and sanitation, and protecting pregnant women and building safer environments, among other actions described in Don't pollute my future! The impact of the environment on children's health .

“Investing in the removal of environmental risks to health, such as improving water quality or using cleaner fuels, will result in massive health benefits,” said Maria Neira, WHO Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.

One of the emerging environmental threats to children is electronic and electrical waste, according to the second WHO report. Appliances such as old mobile phones that are improperly recycled “expose children to toxins which can lead to reduced intelligence, attention deficit, lung damage, and cancer,” the UN agency reported.

At the current rate, the amount of such waste is expected to increase by 19 per cent between 2014 and 2018, up to 50 million metric tonnes.

The reports also point out harmful chemicals that work themselves through the food chain – such as fluoride, lead and mercury, as well as the impact that climate change and UV rays have on children's development. (ontinueReading

Canada sees jump in asylum seekers from US - officials

OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — The number of migrants applying for refugee status in Canada after crossing the border from the United States has been rising since the beginning of the year, officials said Thursday.

"Canada has seen an increase in the number of asylum claims in January of this year, compared to the same time last year," the Canada Border Services Agency told a briefing.

From January 1 to February 21, a total of about 4,000 people filed refugee claims, up from 2,500 during the same period last year.

The figure includes border jumpers and those arriving from the United States at  border checkpoints.

Canadian officials were hesitant to point to a trend based on the preliminary data.

"Some claimants have spent relatively little time in the US" before coming to Canada, an official said.

The recent wave of migrants originated mostly from East Africa and war-torn nations such as Syria.

Federal police and immigration officials said some appeared to have intended from the start to come to Canada after flying to the United States on a visitor visa.

Others decided to come here only after they were denied asylum south of the border, or because they feared deportation amid the current US crackdown.

"People are afraid of finding themselves in a situation where they might not have access to an equitable system," said Jean-Nicolas Beuze, Canadian representative of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Total refugee claims in Canada have fallen from 44,000 in 2001 to 24,000 last year. An estimated 40-60 percent were successful, according to officials. (ontinueReading
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Related: Dozens caught illegally crossing into Canada from Minnesota-North Dakota border area

CDC Concerned by H7N9 Bird Flu’s Sudden Spread in China

nbcnews.com - A sudden surge in cases of H7N9 bird flu in China is a "cause for concern," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

It's infected 460 people just since October, the CDC said in a report. "It's by far the largest epidemic wave since 2013," said CDC flu expert Dr. Tim Uyeki.

The CDC has been working on a vaccine against H7N9 just in case it's ever needed and is starting work on a second one now because it's started to mutate.

"It's a cause for concern, that's for sure," Uyeki told NBC News. "The surge in numbers of human H7N9 cases in China is definitely a concern."

The CDC issued a travel notice in January, cautioning travelers to China to stay away from live bird markets. Uyeki said travelers do not need to avoid China but they should be aware that poultry can spread the virus.

Since 2013, H7N9 bird flu has infected 1,258 people, the CDC said. So 460 cases in just five months account for a third of all the cases over four years.

Earlier this week the World Health Organization held a meeting on H7N9 and then issued public reassurances, saying the virus did not appear to have changed in a way that would make it more likely to spread to people or to make it more dangerous to people.

Instead, the changes make the virus more dangerous to birds — which could be a good thing.

"These changes make the virus highly pathogenic in birds, meaning that it can cause some severe disease in birds," Dr. Wenqing Zhang, head of WHO's global influenza program, told reporters.

"Previously, H7N9 had only been observed to be 'low pathogenic' in birds, meaning the virus did not cause visible outbreaks of disease in birds," Zhang said.

If an avian influenza virus kills birds, it's bad for poultry farmers but it can give a warning that the virus is spreading. The problem with H7N9 has been that it does not make poultry sick, so it can spread among flocks without people knowing it.

Uyeki is worried that H7N9 has become more widespread in China, spreading silently and infecting more people because it's infecting more birds.

"You could have more cases of human infection even if the risk of poultry-to-human transmission has not changed," he said.

China has been publishing genetic sequences of the H7N9 virus in public databases, but it has not been sharing actual samples of the virus, so it's not possible for U.S. labs to test the virus themselves to see whether it's changed and if so, whether it's more dangerous.

But it's already dangerous. H7N9 is considered a moderate to high pandemic threat, although the CDC and WHO do not think an H7N9 pandemic is about to happen, or even that it is certain to happen. (ontinueReading

Will Brexit Drive Scotland out of the United Kingdom?

newsweek.com - The decision by British voters last June to leave the European Union has thrown that bloc into turmoil. But its implications for Great Britain could be even more profound, portending the dissolution of the United Kingdom.

Prime Minister Theresa May could trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty as early as March 15, starting the two-year timetable for negotiating the terms of the U.K.’s divorce from the E.U.

The prime minister should beware the Ides of March: It seems all but inevitable that Scotland’s government will respond by calling for a second referendum on Scottish independence. The ultimate result could be the reemergence of a sovereign Scotland, more than 300 years after the Acts of Union (1706–1707) united the cross of St. Andrew and the cross of St. George.

When Scots rejected independence by a 55 to 45 percent margin in a September 2014 referendum, most assumed the matter had been put to bed for at least a generation.

The shocking Brexit vote upended that expectation. As Scotland’s sovereigntist-minded first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, observes, Scots who voted for “union” less than three years ago assumed that the (still) United Kingdom would remain in the EU. And in the more recent “Brexit” vote, they overwhelmingly (62 percent) supported the “Remain” camp. Given the dramatically altered landscape, Scots deserve the opportunity to reconsider their ties with the United Kingdom.

As Sturgeon sees it, the Brexit outcome revealed “a wider democratic deficit within the U.K., where decisions about Scotland are too often taken against the wishes of the people who live here.” Her Scottish National Party (SNP) has been cheered by the comments of no less than former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who says Brexit makes the case for Scottish independence much more credible.

In October, the Scottish government published a draft bill that would (if approved by the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood) launch consultations to authorize a second referendum.

Wittingly or not, Prime Minister May has bolstered Scotland’s independence movement by insisting on a “hard exit” from the EU.

Scottish members of the U.K. Parliament in Westminster worry about losing access to the EU’s single market. True, trade between the U.K. and Scotland—worth £49.8 billion ($61 billion) in 2015—is four times the value of Scottish exports to the rest of the EU. But the benefits of the single market are substantial, and many Scots are not willing to risk them in return for greater U.K. restrictions on migration. (ontinueReading

Aw Snap: EU threatens to introduce visas for US travellers

BBC.com - U.S. citizens should be refused visa-free access to the EU in response to American visa rules affecting citizens from five E.U countries, the European Parliament has said.

Citizens of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania are currently denied visa-free access to the US.

The European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution on Thursday.

However, member states would have to approve the move, a process that could take years.

Nevertheless, the resolution, passed by a show of hands, said the new visa rules should come into effect quickly and should remain in place until the US visa requirements were shelved.

Under these rules, "if a third country does not lift its visa requirements within 24 months of being notified of non-reciprocity, the EU Commission must adopt a delegated act... suspending the visa waiver for its nationals for 12 months", the statement said.

It said a notification of non-reciprocity was first received in April 2014 - meaning the Commission should have taken action in April 2016 - but so far it has yet to do so.

Canada also has visa requirements for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, the statement said, but it has announced that these will be shelved in December.

In January, President Donald Trump attempted to introduce a travel ban on people from seven mainly Muslim nations but it was blocked in the courts. He is working on a new executive order. (ontinueReading

"Strong evidence" supports the association between obesity and some major types of cancer

eurekalert.org - Strong evidence supports the association between obesity and some major types of cancer, consisting mainly of those related to digestive organs and hormone-related malignancies, reveals a large review published by The BMJ today.

There could be associations between obesity and other cancers, but substantial uncertainty remains because the quality of evidence is not strong, say the international team of researchers, led by Maria Kyrgiou and Kostas Tsilidis from Imperial College London.

They call for more research because "evidence of the strength of the associations between obesity and cancer may allow finer selection of people at high risk, who could be selected for personalised primary and secondary prevention strategies."

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, and the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled over the past 40 years.

Previously published evidence supports the association between obesity and some cancers, but some may be flawed or biased due to weak study design and conduct.

Therefore, in a bid to determine the quality of evidence and the strength of these associations, the researchers conducted a comprehensive review of studies on obesity and risk of developing cancer.

After a literature search, they identified 204 studies from 49 publications that analysed the obesity measurements, such as body mass index (BMI), weight gain, and waist circumference,and 36 cancers and their subtypes.

Of the 95 studies that included continuous obesity measures, only 13% of associations were supported by strong evidence, meaning the studies had statistically significant results and no suggestion of bias.

Strong associations were found in studies that examined BMI with risk of oesophageal, bone marrow, and colon (in men), rectal (in men), biliary tract system, pancreatic, endometrial (in premenopausal women), and kidney cancers.

Risk of developing cancer for every 5 kg increase in BMI ranged from 9% for colorectal cancer among men, to 56% for biliary tract system cancer.

Risk of postmenopausal breast cancer among women who never used hormone replacement therapy increased by 11% for each 5 kg of weight gain. Risk of endometrial cancer increased by 21% for each 0.1 increase in waist to hip ratio.

Five additional associations were supported by strong evidence when categorical measures of obesity were used. These included weight gain with risk of colorectal cancer and BMI with risk of gallbladder, gastric cardia, and ovarian cancers, and mortality from multiple myeloma.

Other studies were evaluated to have highly suggestive (18%), suggestive (25%), and weak (20%) evidence, and 25% had no evidence of an association.

This analysis involved an umbrella review of studies that used observational data, which is useful for bringing together evidence. However, no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect when analysing observational studies. (ontinueReading